The importance of the right corp

Last night i was reminded again what a benifit it is to any player in eve when they join the RIGHT corp...i logged in last night knowing i needed to buy a skill book (still for those poxy t2 lasers..last skill tho) for a few million isk more than i had available at the time, i logged on and within 20 mins was kicked back of due to an emergency patch to repair some POS functions. however on logging back in i was able to more or less find some one to run some lvl 4s with straight away, our illustrious leader reltso..but with him reading this blog from time to time and knowing im always skint, not only does he allow me to run the missions and with him and make some isk myself...he normaly throws a good chunk of isk at me from his bounties as well! it makes you feel like everyone in the corp is looking out for you and helping you to achive. It's not a one way street i will say tho, I would also help any member of the corp in any way i could, either with skill books isk, or just as an extra gun on a rough mission.

the corp i was in before bright star was a nice traing corp but i was obliged to take part in far to many corp ops...most of which were mining, which bores me to tears! however if you didnt attend enough of the corp events you were booted, which i understood and agreed with, the corp have there goals too. however i could'nt commit the time they were asking so i found a more relaxed corp in brightstar tec and have never looked back, i am able to fleet and run missions as and when it suits me ( read when the wife lets me on) and i can take part in corp ops in a similar fasion, of course i will still try to make all the ops but i dont feel i have a gun to my head if i cant make them for any reason. and im hopoing there will soon be a lot more organised corp ops when the move to null takes off.

my advice for anyone looking for a corp or thinking about changing corps is do some research, find out what sort of players are in a corp , what they would expect of you, what you can expect from them? for example a miner shouldnt be joining a pirate corp!!
The best way to ensure things run smoth are dont rush in to a corp, spend a bit of time in the public channel getting to know the members , research any web pages they have, maybe google them see if anyone else had anyhting to say on them, then when your happy join and florish.

Eve blog banter...a first attempt

Ok so i've been meaning to get involved with the blog banter for a while but have always felt a little under qualified to throw in my 2 cents, however the godfather of eve blogging CK, has recently asked a new question, and is giving some nice prizes for the best answer so here is my attempt..

Welcome to this special installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by myself, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to me. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
When you've been roaming New Eden as long as I have, it almost feels like home. That's how familiar it has become over the last 5 years. Not that I have done everything or touched every aspect of this most amazing of virtual world, far from it, but it just feels as though it's always been there. And always will be.
Whether you've logged into the game every day since its launch in 2003, or you've taken one or several sabbaticals from your capsuleer career, you've always come back to New Eden don't you. Why is that?
We know the EVE Online Community is unique in so many ways, and that EVE Online is like no other MMORPG out there. But what makes the game special for you?
What is it that makes this particular virtual world so enticing, so mysterious and so alluring that we keep coming back for more. Why is EVE one of the very few MMOs to see a continuous growth in its subscriber.
To put it simply: Why do you love EVE Online so much?

to answer simply..my love affair with eve started long before eve was even developed..my favorite games growing up were the "elite" games, for those of you too young to rember them or of you misssed out growing up, these were in my opinion the forerunners of eve online, the were completly open sandbox and while the first game limited you to one ship, the second game "frontiers" felt like a very early single player version of Eve.
I was obsessed with these games..then disaster struck and i discovered women and booze and all the other lovely vices this world has to offer and i drifted away from the gaming world that had captured my imagination for so long...fast forward to june 2009 im now married (happily im pleased to say) all my wicked ways have gone (mostly) and im kicking around the house fast becoming bored of the games im playing on my 360, dont get me wrong the 360 is fun but it's games lack the long term appeal im looking for.
I want a game thats a on going hobbie, something i can grow into, so i start searching for an online game, as i figure the best way to keep it fresh is to play aginst real people that grow and adapt with me...the i find adverts for eve ...its described by some as the new "elite" but multiplayer..im interested i read more and the whole consept sounds incredible and it feels like an old dream im only just remembering...I get a 14 day trial....I love it, however the wife is less than impressed id have to subscribe...a 2 months and 3 more trial accounts pass before i win the battle...i have taken all i have learned in those trials and scored a 21 day buddy key...and bought a 60 GTC..
I HAVE 80 DAYS!!!
I create astral dominix, and start my eve charecter proper. I have now been playing about 5 months and have an arrangement with the wife about my subscription...i buy her shoes she buys me eve...seems fair to me. every time i log in i still get the warm feeling that someone took the game i loved of my childhood and remade it in a way i could only have dreamed of, and expanded it beyond what i thought achiveable...the corps..the factions...the fiction...even the bloggers..it all adds up to more than a game, its a lifestyle..i may be a responsable adult now with a 9-5 and a boring job...but im also a capsuleer and leed a life of adventure and excitment..im also a scribe and a blogger..

in summery i play eve because it entertains, but it also enriches my life in ways i cant begin to put in to words..


read more of CK's blog at http://www.crazykinux.com/

Here are some other Banters about this topic:

Mail Lite ~ http://thebeginningsofpiracy.blogspot.com/2010/01/eve-blog-banter-special-edition-why-we.html
Jager Da ~ http://www.jagerda.com/why-i-love-eve/
Minuit Soleil ~ http://minuitsoleil.blogspot.com/2010/01/welcome-to-this-special-installment-of.html
Logan Fyreite ~ http://eveopportunist.blogspot.com/2010/01/oh-opportunity-is-there-anything-so.html
Sered Woollahra ~ http://sered-sl.blogspot.com/2010/01/eve-online-whats-appeal.html
Mithrandir Stormcrow ~ http://thelathspell.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/eve-blog-banter-special-edition-why-we-love-eve-online/

null sec here i come?

its been an odd few days in eve for me a few highs a few lows and some interesting tidbits of information a filtering through..
since i last posted i did quite a bit of mission running with a corp mate of mine who let me tag along on some lvl 4 missions for SOE (thank you sam i owe you), this had three pro's to it, first i now have almost enough loylty points for a sisters probe launcher which sells for about 50 mill!! big bucks to me, second my standings with them is now quite high, almost at lvl 4's on my own, third it netted me a boatload of isk in bounties.
Now picture the sceane im sitting with about 60-70 mill burning a hole in my wallett, thinking what shall i buy...i already have all the T2 mods i need (even if i cant fir them all yet) and its gonna be a long while before i can go higher than a battle cruiser...iknow ill buy a better battle cruiser..so went off and bought a harbinger and fitted it out ( 5x heavy particle beams and faction crystals, 2 T2 cap rechargers a tracking CPU AB, three aromor hardners a 1600mm plate a named armour repper and a emergency damage control) ..awsome i said to myself ..now i have 2 nice battle cruisers...i then toddled up to amaar space to rejoin sam in some lvl 4's, ignoring the warning of "this one can be a bit tricky astral, they use a lot of webs and scramblers" i jumped into the middle of about 8 Battle ships got scrambled and primaryed and watched my new pride and joy go pop. STUPID MISTAKE!!!! sam feeling sorry for me lent me enough to replace the ship and mods but the lesson stuck, i am a lot more careful with lvl 4s now if i even start to get primaryed i back off a bit and let some one that can handle it take the aggro, i am not able to tank lvl 4's yet.

also some interesting news has filtered down that we could be up in null sec in a flashy new alliance within a couple off weeks, its still undecided as to if we keep a foot hold in empire and use jump clones or jump bridges (wich i still dont fully understand) to move between the two or if it will be an all out move to null secm, personally im excited at the prospect of my first taste of pvp and ratting in null, i am however a little nervous about losing my ships... at the moment i have 2 battle cruisers fully fitted 1 cruiser and several frigs dotted about and am thinking about moving all bar 1 BC up to null sec if we go, sticking mainly to frigs and crusers but id like a BC there if i need a little more punch..should be an interesting couple of weeks...

the joys of swine flu..and extra eve time.

well this week has so far been annoying but entertaining, on monday i went to the docs feeling slightly under the weather and was told i have swine flu and to stay indoors alone...the upside was i have lots of time now to play eve...
And eve to has been eventful thus far..i completed my medium laser v training, i was so excited i got myself a few mill together bought the T2 beams i wanted ...only to find i still need to train sodding SMALL lasers to v before i can fir them!!! stupid tertiary requirements!! so another 8 long days training awaits before i can fit the new toy.
I have also joined the Eve bloggers in game channel and met some of the more experienced eve bloggers and have been promoting my own blog(sort of) and the response has generally been very good, ive had several emails from people that are enjoying it and even a chat with wensley of rifter drifter fame! nice guy btw. also after a chat with some of my corp directors i have decided to mention them by name in future, however in times of war , i may change names or places to confuse people that may want to kill me ..hope you all understand. so i now stand proud as a member of bright star technologies, a small corp with good values :)
now back to grinding those standings i guess..

revelations and resolutions

the new year is going ok so far, apart from i small hinderance, im broke, seriously. Im down to about 2 mill and as im just about to complete medium laser v and get my nice T2 beams on im pissed off with money!
The biggest problem is a lack of time and my time not always lining up with my corpmates, which is a good and bad thing, good because i am bevering away increaseing standings so i can get better missions, bad because the pay sucks right now :(, but i digress, i was sitting in corp chat the other night and one of the directors gave me a Plex to go try, he said it paid good bounties and there was normally some decent loot, so off i toddled a little nervous about losing my prophecy to give it a go, i took along 1 other corp mate who wasnt really a combat pilot but still..
I arrived at the jump gate to find a drake sitting out side (wasnt to worried about him) and decided to dive straight in. On warping to the first room the the biggest thing that hit me was the amount of unlooted wrecks laying around, i did consider looting them but that may have triggered aggesion and as i was new to this i decided to play it safe. there was one other cruiser in the room popping frigs about 80k away 2 more jump gates and off in the distance at about 100k were 3 serp cruisers each with 100k bountie, wonderful i thought!!

Then the down side hit me, my prophecy is rigged for DPS (as much as it can be) and armour tanking, but its slow, by the time i got to 30k away the other cruiser in the room had beaten me to them and nabed the kills, only for them to respawn 70k away again!! the game had become who could get to them first, i cilled a few but next time will be taking a cruiser rigged for speed i think.

So thats been basicly what i have been playing with recently, i have also been reading a lot of blogs about hopes and dreams for 2010 in eve, so heres mine...

I hope my wife stops buggging me about playing it to much and i hope i get a lot more time to play, i hope to by the end of the year be proficiant in flying almost all amaar ships, mainly command ships, battle ships and covert ops ships, i hope to have a healthy amount of isk in the bank and a few more ships in the hanger, i hope to be a key member in my corp, maybe FC ing lvl 4s for people, i hope to get in to PVP in a small way and kill some pirates and i hope to go play with the posible new alliance up in null sec a bit more. i also hope to post on her at least twice a week to keep anyone that wants to read it amused..

have fun....

That's better...

Ok so I logged on tonight, started running some missions, when one of the corp directors came on and mentioned he was going up to amaar low second space to scout out joining an alliance linked to cva, so I asked to tag along as an extra gun or tackler, so I jumped in a punisher fitted for speed and made the 26 jumps up to low sec . So far it all seems good but I will keep you posted. The run up was quite easy, a couple of cruisers looked like making a move but I took the normal precautions and was to quick for them.
Have had to log off during talks to keep issues in rl in check but can't wait to get back to find out if we are joining or not.

New year ... Ah crap!

Ok this will be a short entry, the last few days have been pretty mundane, running low level missions to raise standings, ever since the corp got robbed every one is paranoid about new members (me) and so won't fleet me in for missions as a result the only missions I can get are poxy lvl 2 missions which only pay about 1 mill a time! I hope either my standings improve or my corp mates start trusting me soon or its gonna be a real long month!

Have fun! And happy new year!