Friday 20 April 2012

Naglfari - boat of the dead.


In Norse mythology, Naglfar or Naglfari (Old Norse "nail ship") is a boat made 
entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead

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Six months ago I wouldn't have even thought about owning a dreadnought or let alone even use one in actual combat.

With [-KBG-] having firmly settled into Shadow Cartel my views on that changed, from a mainly solo and small gang pvp'er with a hate for anything bigger than Battlecruisers I now own an entire fleet of T1, T2 and faction Battleships, two Dreads and a Thanatos. Funny how desires change.

Naglfari I named her on delivery. Certainly the most interesting looking Dread out of the 4 races. It's split weapon system certainly not making it the most desirable.



Eager to take her out and fire a few rounds Naglfari spend a further 2 weeks without appropriate shield modules. Poco bashing and even a Nyx kill under her belt she got worn in and suited me better by the day. Better modules and improving skills slowly pulling her from worst scoring Dread in the alliance to one of the competitors for top spot.


Last week in a scrap with Ares Protectiva she showed her worth, firing round after round into many vessels of the opposing party, scoring high in the damage points across the board. A great fight, safely lit in, superior tactics and preparation leading to a victorious battle and then safely slipping out, like ninja's with sledgehammers.

For a sweet vid of that fight check out this one made by a fleet member;


A different op was organized yesterday; a hot-drop on some poor super somewhere. Mainly Dreads where wanted to ensure a quick in/out, but there a side note, the response fleet may cause for some of us not getting out.

Naglfari on a one-way trip? No way, she is special, sacred...right?

Instead I jumped into my newly acquired Phobos and intended to provide critical infini-pointage instead. The op got cancelled last minute and we sulked our way home.

News arrived of a Raiden fleet lighting a cyno and dropping triage in Old Man Star and we quickly set off to intercept them. Moros pilots where to remain available the rest shipped into Battleships and raced off.

Battle was forced upon us sooner than intended by a pilot coming from a different direction getting caught in his Vindicator and another prematurely lighting his cyno.

Battle raged, Aeschee was set alight. Raiden lit cyno's of their own, bringing in their own triage. A momentary deadlock where neither side could break the others armour-reps needed escalating...

... so we did.

Several giant balls of red, electric smoke lit up the field. From it emerged the bubbly hulls of doom; the Shadow Cartel Moros fleet. Dual targets being called; sub-cap and cap- targets with even more red clouds filling up our overviews. Raidens first response team arrived in the form of an Aeon and a Nyx, supported by 2 more carriers.

With excellent repping by our triage-pilots the battle seemed to go in slow-motion, plenty of time to follow orders and watch the battlefield increase in size, despite several explosions.

'Aeon going down! Heat on the Aeon! Secondary Nyx! subcaps get that carrier’

Moros or not; our entire Dread-fleet was out on the field. A surprised Raiden desperately tried to save their supers and the tide of the battle lay in the balance. On both sides capital ships burst out into bright blue balls before fading forever. The Aeon was downed and the Nyx was sure to be second and with it in low armour victory felt like ours already, regardless of us losing our entire fleet.

'More supers!' the warning was pointless, we could all see it. One, two, four, eight...

For Yaseman it was too late, his Nyx buckled inwards before breaking and expelling it's insides. An unspoken feeling of pure win for all in our gang.

'Siege red, siege red, cap up!' the command followed as even more supers now entered the field. More than 200 fighter bombers now flooded out from their hangars and insta-popped several friendly Dreadnoughts. Raiden now fielded more super-carriers than we had Dreads.

Lacking Heavy Interdictors to pin down our capitals, our self-capping dreads managed to time their jump-drives to near perfection and as by pure magic managed to save themselves from certain doom.

Check out this video made by one of the guys in fleet;


From 25 dreads fielded, one managed to self-destruct, 11 never made it out. And what a glorious way to lose them. The most accurate battle report can be found on EVEkill here.

Some of us fielded multiple dreads and saved them, some fielded multiple and lost them all.

Still sweaty-palmed I docked up my heavily damaged nuet Phoon a few hours later. Browsing through my ships I stopped to look at her... Naglfari.

I looked at her in disgust. The boat of the death shouldn't have been here. It should have been a smouldering wreck back in Aeschee. It should have died a glorious death there, a chance like that will not come around again...



Saturday 14 April 2012

Lego Rifter!


Lets give this chap our support and lets help push him over 10.000 votes! Head on over to this site , clickyclick support and register =>10.000 votes and this will actualy become a Lego product. I do hope they make some rust coloured bricks to make it more authentic....

Friday 13 April 2012

BB35, no such thing as bad publicity...is there?


Now approaching its tenth year, the EVE Online player community has matured into an intricate and multi-faceted society viewed with envy by other game developers, but is frequently regarded with suspicion by the wider gaming community.

Is this perception deserved? Should "The Nation of EVE" be concerned by its public identity and if so how might that be improved? What influence will the integration of the DUST 514 community have on this culture in the future?

[Unrelated and random bonus question sponsored by EVE News 24: What single button would you recommend be included on an EVE-specific keyboard?]

Other Blog Banters

There are not many other games that have been around as long as EVE Online has and with its steady development and unique attributes it looks to still have a long life ahead of itself. Not only by retaining a lot of the current player base but also through the appeal for new players this game continues its growth year upon year.

Developments in the new-player-experience-area have made the game vastly more accessible compared to several years back, an important improvement that has also increased the new player retention. The vast number of play styles available and the increasing number of different new aspects to the game, hand in hand with improving graphic content keep even the more experienced gamers tied in.

The steep learning curve is indeed a scary prospect, but its unique composition is part of the addictive nature of the game and surely part of its success.

And finally there is the community in its many forms that contribute to the growth and upkeep of the game as a whole. Bloggers, artists, youtubers, streamers, and so on ... For no other game are there so many player made fan-sites, support networks, guides and genuinely amazing applications and website than for EVE online.

There is a lot of good stuff out there promoting EVE, positive stuff, things that make our virtual universe look amazing and wonderful, produced by either CCP themselves or by fans. On the flipside there is also the ‘negative’ and ’bad’ stuff that comes out and get a lot, if not the most attention. I hyphenate ‘negative’ and ‘bad’ as this is merely a point of view or one’s opinion, not mine. It’s virtual news and drama; ganking and robbery, thievery of entire alliance funds, rigged political events, piracy, tears…

All of these things just point out the enormous freedom we have within the game, the power and the effect we have on others. A real life, financially measurable effect, our actions do mean something; our choices do make a difference. The butterfly effect...EVE is real…

Imagine that power within the safety of a pixelated environment, there is no such thing as bad publicity…

The launch of Dust will only help propel EVE onto an even bigger stage. As far as I can tell the game looks stunning and certainly will be one of the best RPG’s available for a few years to come. The interactivity between two gaming communities will only grow bigger and stronger as the two games get intertwined more in the future. If both games end up having the effect on each other as intended more friends will make friends and enemies will make more enemies. There will be even more stuff to force peoples collaboration and in the same breath there will be more stuff for people to betray each other over.

I shall be spectating and participating…

What button would I like to see on my ‘EVE-Keyboard’? … a button that transforms my PC into a PlayStation3 of course.

Thursday 12 April 2012

O yes... the she-devil is back!


So head on over to this here thread and get busy and involved. Hulkageddon is on our doorstep yet again and boy is she gonna be a big one!

In the name of my third party I have donated 1 billion isk for Helicity's good cause. Lets make some splosions and tears!

Friday 6 April 2012

Old news, cool videos

Yes I know this is old news but these video's deserve a little attention, this is the reason I want to play eve, the trailers are just so godamn sexy! Just one thing CCP; y u no like dust on pc?