I’m having a little debate in my head as to whether or not i should begin to update this blog more often. Whether or not the public cares.

Between the last post and now, I’ve almost gone through enough Drake battlecruisers to hit triple-figures. But the most recent loss was still at a profit! It was like selling the Drake, only more fun. So I’ve come to the conclusion I’m really not made for low-sec just yet. At least not while the corporation is this small.

Hmm. What else. Got a Hulk, sold the Hulk, got another Hulk, sold another Hulk, bought a Raven, sold the Raven. Might just get another Hulk. They’re not so bad really. Could use a hauler though, any takers?

My second in command is jumping from battleship to battleship, by process of elimination working out what works best for him. He’s got a bloody solid armour tank set-up, which i have yet to see actually break. And that still doesn’t take away from his withering firepower, which tears through battleships in scant seconds. I’m just glad the bugger’s on my team!

We decided the corporation could use a Charon, the Caldari Hauler. With our increasingly accelerating ship-construction industry, we need to be able to transport large amounts at one given time. So I’m training for that one, in-between my industrial skills.

My playing has been more passive as of late, just popping on to update skill-queues or checking the mail. I guess without a larger corporation to roll with, it’s just not so fun. (hint: sign up to Ferrozoica Corporation )

That’s me for today, I have a bit of packing to do. Fly safe

EVE News at a glance;

Got my covetor, fun fun.
Soon training for a Hulk.
Many new members.
Recently acquired arch-nemesis: THE BEACON :O
And an overturned space moose is blocking the Nakregde intersection, officials on site

My “soon to be” head of mining decided that his relationship was going to be more important than my corporation.
Well I never

I might start posting again soon, when I have too much time on my hands.

Fly safe!
and avoid the Nakregde traffic build-up.

For a long time anything the corporation did was simply me, so there wasn’t much of a corporate body behind it. As of recent, a few more faces have been frequenting the corp-chat. In Nakregde, a solar system deep in the Kor-Azor cluster, we don’t see too many Caldari, Gallente or Minmatar capsuleers. It is for this reason that I had to train the “Ethnic Relations” skill, which allowed me to recruit members outside my own racial class (Caldari). The majority of my corporation is now made up of Amarrians, the so called “Golden Fleet”.

To say they need work would be an understatement. But – I’m getting them there, slowly. I picked up a lot of rookies, so explaining why an Amarrian frigate shouldn’t have railguns fitted is getting old. Now a lot of them are onto cruisers, and the rest at least destroyers. Some prefer their fast-moving frigates and are fitting them out rather impressively. All things considered, it’s going well.

A lot happened over the past month.
Saved up for a Harbinger for a corpmate to pilot, which got destroyed, along with my Caracal and Cormorant, respectively. Diplomatic issues forced this pilot out of the corporation. I barely avoided a WarDec. I dipped into electronic warfare, inspired by a Caldari pilot I recruited not long ago – Kavisho Kantor, now the General of the Zoican Navy. So I bought myself a Ferox, and trained in the art of the Energy Leech.

I now have a fairly impressive anti-ore-thief setup, tried and tested. It can be switched over very quickly to become a hybrid sniping platform. I always thought the Drake was a better option, and in ways i could be, but the Ferox is highly versatile and incredibly underestimated in my opinion. For its price.

And the mining division’s doing great. Only ca. 35 days until I can fly my covetor, which has been sitting in my hangar for the past month or so. I’m then passing my own retriever onto Tank’Uney, soon-to-be head of mining. I also have another retriever, which i managed to buy on contract for a very reasonable price.

It’s been a fast paced week for Zoica, and things are beginning to settle down into a sort of routine. All of the rookies I recruited have made huge progress, reminding me of how I started. Small.

We all started small. Bullying that asteroid with our basic miners.

I got my corporation involved, since I had recently picked up a number of Amarr rookie miners. I offered my Retriever mining barge to whoever contributed the most ore to the hangar. This was clearly motivation enough, and I got enough minerals to fit the construction needs within a few days.
I jumped over to Kor-Azor Prime and, with minerals and blueprint, warped to an Ishukone corporation station to start the process. It didn’t take long, I woke up to find the shiny new ship sitting there, waiting for me.

Then it arose that I would need months of skill training to be able to pilot the damn thing. I started right away, raising my Mining Barge rank to fit the prerequisites.

I wish I could say “Not long to go now”, but alas it will take at least two more months until I’ll be stripping Nakregde of ore at an accelerated pace. Once this target is reached, though, I’ll work towards a more realistic goal, say a Rokh.

I think I’ll just buy this ship rather than mining until the little hours of the morning, looking at the blueprint’s bill of materials every second Strip Miner cycle. It gives me comfort to know that I’ll have enough time to amass the millions while the skills are training.

Skill training only takes me so long because I’m an Industrialist, CEO, and combat pilot all at once. I’m not cut out for low-sec just yet, so I’ll reign terror in empire space for now.

Covetor should prove fun though. Until then, don’t fly safe, come get blown up near Nakregde, I could use the light-show.

I just HAD to go back into low-sec space. With my shiny new battlecruiser. Which, can I add, wasn’t even fully re-equipped yet.

There will be more. Many more.

Plenty of ‘roid belts to strip bare. But I’ll hold on for the moment, I’m working towards a Charon. That’s priority at the moment.

I’ll let you know when I get it.

G’day.

between all my gaming, whether or not you choose to believe me, I am a real person. No AI could match up to this skill. =)

So I thought I’d take the time out to tell you a little about myself. What I do, why I do it.

I’m Chris Stolze, primarily a gamer, games developer and digital graphic artist in my spare time. I’ve been working with the simpler tools for a while now, animation programs such as Flash Pro 8. It took me a while to grasp basic ActionScript, the programming language used in flash to make an animation interactive – this is essentially what a flash game is; an interactive animation.

Although the ActionScript may have taken me a while, I’ve always been good with the vector graphic tools. Same applies to most graphic tools, be it Fireworks or Photoshop. I generally learn quickly in my own way.

Recently I’ve been working away from the keyboard more. I have countless sketches lying around, concepts or ideas that never made it beyond that stage. As with the recent acquisition of an electric guitar, I’ve been spending my time on a somewhat refreshing variety of activities. Gets confusing at the best of times. But I’ll make sense of it soon enough. I always do.

I’ve come to realise that I am gaming less than I used to. But I haven’t stopped yet. And until I do, that battleground is mine.

Mine.

Regards,

Chris =)

Introducing the Inferno II. A fine example of Caldari persistence, this ship signifies my fighting spirit. Something in me does not wish to settle for mining or industry. In the ever-expanding universe of EVE, space combat is immensely popular. If a capsuleer dares to enter the realms of low-security space, he may soon find himself tackling pirates with a difference; these rats offer a challenge, a thrill… sport. Within minutes comes the bounty, increasingly plentiful as your targets become larger.

Please please please take it from me when I say “do not leave your controls for a second“. This is how I came to lose control of my first battlecruiser, the Inferno. Granted I was in low security space, but it only took one NPC Blood pirate a matter of minutes to finish me off. I’d also like to add that I wouldn’t like comments about my armour and shield rigs, that’s not what this is about. =)

My message is this: Stay present and remain persistent. The rest will fall into place.

Fly safe,

Chris

Preferred Allegiance: KPA

Profession: Counter-Sharpshooter

While the single player campaign offers enough challenge when played properly, a decent online match can’t be topped. There is some satisfaction to scoping in on the mask of an actual player, knowing that you have the element of surprise. Fighting AI gets boring. Even in Crysis, the KPA troops become a little predictable. But pitting your skills against those of other people… and winning? It feels good. And it’s never the same from one match to the next.

If you see me online, don’t hesitate to give me a shout. I’ll shoot anyone once.

Happy gaming,

Chris

Race: Caldari

Bloodline: Deteis

Gender: Male

School: State War Academy

Career: Military

Ancestry: Merchandiser

Specialisation: Special forces

I’ve been playing EVE with this character since 2008.02.23, 17:36. I started out with the free trial account, where play is a little restricted and a time limit is set. Since then, I purchased a subscription for a whole year (the cheapest option), and it has definitely been a worthwhile endeavour. I began life in the Kisogo State War Academy, unable to point the right end of a mining laser at an asteroid. I ran through the lengthy Aura tutorials, but they didn’t prepare me for the vast and expansive universe with which I was faced.

I found out that the best way to get along was to actually communicate with the players around me. Experienced pilots with know-how. Without much further delay, I warped off towards the nearest asteroid belt in the Kisogo system, and began asking questions. It was here that I learned how to fit my first mining laser. I was taught the principles of the “can” (floating cargo container), and how to protect myself from “can flippers” (effectively just pirates with an ore fetish). Looking back, this was my jump-start.

Rather rapidly I found myself moving further afield, striving to find more valuble and concentrated ore deposits so I could make my fortune. Mining was, after all, a very time-consuming career. I soon found myself in Unpas, among the rich mineral fields of that region. It was here that I founded Ferrozoica, the mining and manufacturing corporation, which still operates to this day. Gaining members wasn’t difficult at first- Miners in this system were more than happy to be a part of something social (mining for days does this to anyone).

So the corporation (referred to as “Zoica”) expanded slowly, gaining fresh perspectives with each member. By this stage I was about a month into my game. It was around this time that I met a player by the name of Degara Farat, an encounter that would later launch Zoica into the depths of Amarr territory. We spent the best part of a month flying the systems around our headquarters, prospecting for deposits worth mining. He suggested we move our headquarters to Nakregde – a backwater system packed full of mineral-rich asteroids deep in the Kor-Azorr region.

He has since moved on to another corporation, one which could better use his expertise – Zoica was aimed at rookie pilots yet. We still operate in Nakregde today, you might see us mining the belts in the system if you’re lucky. The equipment I use is far more powerful than the meager ‘Miner I’ with which each and every rookie ship is fitted. I’ve been at the controls of a Retriever for some time now, and I’m aiming high. My mind is firmly set on a Charon, the Caldari variant of a heavy industrial freighter. With a ship like that in my mining fleet, nothing could go wrong.

As it happens, I’m still quite a distance away from that. As if skill-training times weren’t bad enough, the recent destruction of my ‘Inferno I’ (a Drake class battlecruiser) has left me somewhat short on ISK. I will have to make do with the ‘Macharia Victrix’ (Destroyer), a mission-capable ship still worthy of piloting.

Nevertheless, Zoicans do not give up.

I’ll have that ship yet.

Until then, you will see a solitary ship, strip miners aimed with determination at an asteroid packed with Veldspar, floating around the belts of Nakregde.

I’ve been getting requests to put up a post on how to download, install, and activate the Crysis – GOC Modification. This is that post.

To begin, you’ll want the download. I prefer to get my Crysis mods from Crymod – you can find a huge variety of mods and add-ons here. This is a direct download link: GOC/BT. (in the unlikely event of a link-failure, check here)

Remember to save it in a location you can easily access. Once the download is complete, open it up and you should be guided through the installation process. This does all the legwork for you, you don’t need to drag around files or mess around with the Crysis folders.

This shouldn’t take too long either. Once done, load up Crysis. In the initial menu on the left, there is a “Mods” section. Open it up and you should get a list of any mods you’ve installed. If this is the first mod you’ve set up, it should be the only one on the list, and thus already selected. Otherwise, search it out, and select it. From there you simply hit the big “Load mod” button and the game will restart with said mod activated.

It’ll instantly enable the two features of the mod (Bullet time and GOC over-the-shoulder view) in the single player campaign.

…Content may vary during online play. By this, I mean that although it is possible to play online with this mod loaded, you will only be able to play with people who have the same mod active. Normally there are little to no servers online with GOC/BT loaded. Also, the bullet time feature doesn’t slow time online, only the GOC view works.

Effectively, this was designed to improve single-player mode. And what an improvement.

I hope this was what you were all looking for.

Until next time, Happy gaming!

Chris