Drifting through Life in Hi-Sec Space

Its been a while, but I’m very much out there in space. Though can seem like lots to talk about, it can sometime be hard to find a reason to even talk about it or stop long enough to reflect and also talk about some aspect of life in high sec space or the feeling of it. Sometime time seem to pass slowly in space maybe because it’s so vast a universe and places in between so distant. Yet in 30 days it will be almost 1 year as a capsuleer for Ametius in space and just slowly cruising by 16.2 million skill points. Hard to believe that much training and time have flown by. However for much of the last two to three months seem like just been drifting through life in high sec space.

I’ve been wondering a bit why I’ve been feeling that way from time to time and not quite sure why. But I guess it began some maybe four or five months back maybe when I was more active and busy at life mostly as a Trader and part-time Industrialist and Researcher. Trading is my main activity and spent a lot of time growing a business trade network across various regions of space in Eden and was having a great time working at it. Some people station trade all day long in some the main market hubs. I actually enjoyed visiting various regions of space, finding a need in a region or my region, moving trade items across regions in the process and filling that need. Helping grease the economic engine of EVE in my little way. And for that profits at almost the end of the year edged right at 4.77 Billion almost all from Trading activities and some small amount from manufacturing activities. Profits was really good for all the billions of miles traveled all over regions of space making that profit. But it was work.

Managing over 300+ trade orders daily I was a bit burned out  and needed a change of pace. I remember talking about that sometime back how I had managed to max out my trader at the Tycoon skill level. All active trade slots he had and on my main character was filled. And everyday I would manage and reinvest profits into more materials and move it across I believe at the time was 8 regions daily as needed. As fun as it was, and as much as I learned doing that I was tired and a bit burned out. I needed to also reduce my trade load to something more manageable, whatever that was I was unsure. I decided I was going to let all the trade sell orders figure themselves out naturally over time on the market. So for much of the month of december I just left all my trades on the market and took a break from daily life in Eden. I went and did other things non capsuleer and space related to free my mind of it mostly and just have a break only maintaining my training matrix. I just went and played in other reality universe for a mini break.

After about a month and returning to life as a capsuleer in space I slowly restarted to again actively manage my trades and slowly make progress managing regional activity. My total trade sell orders were down by about half slowly selling off over that period of time which was great. Yet for the month to follow I didn’t add anything new to my trade business and neither did I replenish anything in any region/station that sold out. Nothing was added to trade. Only thing I did was make sure my sell orders were competitive and up to update all my market sell orders.

The rest of life in space outside of trade activities just progressed as normal spending time in region doing some manufacturing activities, some light mining for manufacturing, R & D activities with blueprints ME/PE research, contract research and a mission or two from my agent if I could get that far to think about it. Time passed by, trade orders continued to sell off which continued to reduced my trade orders and profits increased but rose much slowly than before. However I just kept doing other things as usual mostly which was also fun in different ways.

Life was just much slower checking on things once a day and visiting regions ever few days or so yet never adding anything new. Profits rose but just more slowly and I guess was just ok with that. Yet just kept working other things such as Planetary Interaction trying to tune my high sec planetary setups and making P1-P4 items though mostly P4 for manufacturing other items. R & D efforts continued researching blueprints in high sec with a lot of efforts to try to schedule and anticipate use of facility. Some invention efforts as well followed. Continued doing some light mining and manufacturing efforts as well to make use of all the various researched blueprints as assets in my hanger. And every now and then run a lvl 4 mission when i felt like it. And as such life just continued to progress at what seemed a slower pace.

In all that period of time corporate wardec’s came and past and training continued non stop. Was finally able to finish Amarr Frigate 5, having also completed Caldari Frigate 5 sometime back. This mean I can now fly both Amarr and Cladari covert ops and Stealth Bombers which occupy my hanger. I spent some time filling in holes in training in various combat skills and learning some missile skills as well as finally learning Torpedo skills for my Stealth Bombers. Eventually was also able to train Assault Ships 3 and then Battleship up to lvl 4 as well recently. At some point still need to shift back to completing some R & D science skills for research as am still lacking some skills to be able to do Inventions in some areas. Still have to fill in gaps in some my trade skills that I had yet to get back around to for Ametius that i’m only just getting back around to. So much it seem to need to learn and not seem like enough time to learn it all to be effective to various degree. For my trader Alothos he was able to complete Transport ship 4, ORE Industrial 1-4, Astrometrics 4, various amounts of missile and torpedo skills. Also fly a fully functional covert ops Caldari Frigate and now filling in some core ship skills.

And so time has just seem to drift on by and much of it has seem like a blur reflecting on things. In many ways the change of pace has been less exciting but i needed a change of pace for a while and sometime a exit from New Eden to see and do other things in moderation to prevent my own internal burnout in space. Trading profits has slowed and that has been a concern along with daily fierce market competition. I’ve spent some amount of time in the slow lane away from the daily zipping across space and regional markets to doing more manufacturing, R & D and other things also profitable. It feels allot less profitable doing bare manufacturing than the high stakes life trading that comes with risking millions, hundreds of millions and billions of ISK to make more ISK.

So when I reflect back on the time gone by in space, I needed a change of pace for a time.  Yet because of it I also felt like i’ve just been drifting through space somehow on the cosmic wind doing other things. And for many days/weeks it just hasn’t felt that exciting to sit at the space deck and write about it. Many days it just felt better to lay out on the space couch and take a long nap with career on autopilot.

Slow days

Not allot seem to be happening these days and the things that do seem to be happening slowly. Just nothing all too exciting.

Mostly been busy just manufacturing a lot of P4 components from PI to manufacture some labs. So manufacturing several items for market. PI prices these days and in my region just seem somewhat depressing with the market also seem to be flooded with PI goods and elsewhere. Much more players seem to be in the market these days in systems everywhere across the region dumping goods on the market cheap and killing any market price stability. I’ve gotten used to dealing with the changes to PI weeks back, so just used to living and dealing with it at this point.

Most stuff in high sec empire space just seem to be happening day-to-day as normal, training, manufacturing, trading and just nothing all to exciting seem to be happening. Slow days for the moment.

Images from Rifting & Telara

There is some cool things to do in RIFT, but one the coolest things of all is being first to arrive upon a rift Planar Tear and using your Planar Lure ability to rip it open and create some chaos and more for everyone around, close by or zone wide.

Random Guardian invasion at Granite Falls in Stonefield often a hotbed of Guardian invasion activity in trying to assault the town/npc and wardstones there. Always fun to fight them.

Repelling rift invasion forces across the landscape and taking the fight all the way back to the rift itself in a public raid group assault.

When a massive raid gets going these things can get heart pumping exciting and fun like a heart of ants out for the kill even if a invasion boss is in the way. Just jump in and go enjoy the fun.

Sometimes your just there at the the NPC area chilling for a few minutes, vendoring stuff, picking up quests or just to get a break…… so you think! No place is safe in RIFT except maybe going afk half way up a mountain clearly not in direct path of any invasion action. But hanging out at a NPC hub you can sure see allot of Invasion action constantly along with the NPC’s that all fight back with full vengeance protecting their precious Wardstone from Invaders. I would too those things give some nice buffs. For sure the action scene is far from boring!

A full public rift raid on way to meet the final objective of a rift event the rift boss. Which encountered a another Invasion force and the Guardian faction and somehow ended up turning into a full all out assault on the invasion and each other. That caused one hell of a massive pvp chaos that was just to much fun.

The dynamic action of RIFT really puts a whole new spin on the experience one gets from just the PVE world as it is. In that something is happening in that zone all the time or about to happen and you never quite know when it will be about to happen until you feel the earth tremble, shakes or means.

You can believe whatever you want about RIFT, but the damn game is exciting! And probably more fun if your also playing with some good friends as well.

Busy Rifting, RIFT official launch today

RIFT officially launches it MMO game today and with it the newest and one the most polished new MMO game I can remember hearing of as well as having played in a long time. However I’ve have been playing in the Head Start launch for about a week now and so far have made it tolvl 28 on my Tank. Having a blast of a time leveling, questing, dungeon, rifting and exploring. Its been a while since I’ve had so much fun playing a new game.

RIFT as many have mentioned don’t really add that much new, mostly borrowing some the best feature and concepts from allot of other MMO’s and adding its own game lore and twist on things with their own MMO. And so far I really have enjoyed the story of the game even though I really never usually get all that caught up in geeky lore conversation of things. I’ve just been enjoying the game world for what it is as designed and the world in which my character exists. 

So I’ve been playing on the Faeblight server a PVE-RP server with a few other bloggers all playing with the great friendly folks from Multiplying.net. I can’t say i really know everyone well in our fairly new guild Circle of Trust except mostly the few friendly bloggers. But so far everyone been great, helpful, friendly, respectful, funny and welcoming. And that’s rather nice to have a great bunch of folks to journey in a new game with. And so far I’ve just been having a great time. 

I’m playing a tank named none other than well “Ardentdefender“. For obvious reasons if you been reading my blog for a while i do enjoy playing the role. I do like to melee and hear stuff slam into my shield and because I’m also good at it as well a role I truly enjoy playing and trying to master. Always have! Anyway I started my primary souls as a Warrior for tanking as a Paladin. I eventually also picked up the soul for Warlord for some the complementing defensive abilities and some the great group buffs it provides in a group. Then also picked up the Void Knight soul to add great anti-caster defensive as well as offensive abilities. I had played back in RIFT Beta all the souls I picked up so it was what I went with for my primary first soul build. Overall I think with all the abilities it fits well for a build all the way to the end. Back in RIFT Beta I primarily played as a Paladin/Reaver/Void Knight and really enjoyed the dots and aoe theReaver provided and with all its aoe abilities while being a defensive soul. 

Playing thru as a Paladin/Warlord/Void Knight though stronger in build defensively felt more mechanical in play and felt more like work to me and allot less fun to me and in my style of play. I played that thru all the way to lvl 20 at least because I really wanted to grow into and get the feel of play style from my own personal experience. I feel its a great soul to have tanking a boss. But it felt less fun leveling, questing generally all while still playing with fairly good tanking souls. So at lvl 20 I bought another “role” or more like a second spec from the trainer which wasn’t too expensive. A character can have up to 4 roles with various souls combination which gives a person a whole lot of flexibility of play all in playing just one class. Buying a 3rd role will cost you quite a bit more and a 4th much more expensive. 

I completed the Reaver quest and the others to pick up the other souls and then made a 2nd role as a Paladin/Reaver/Void Knight for optional play style while still being able to tank on demand fairly well. So currently have both tanking roles to play with and test and at least learn to master the play styles that also fits my style of play. So for the most part I’ve normally been playing not my main role but as my second role which for me is also allot more fun to me to play. I’m not sure what I’ll make as my 3rd role build but I imagine i probably make a dps warrior of some sort for flexibility in a group. 

RIFT does get allot more fun the more you level and going into new zones. Starting out in the starter areas can seem unimpressive and is probably the most underwhelming part of the game experience getting thru lvl 1-6 at least. However in my experience it really don’t take you that long to get thru those levels or the very initial starter zone. I tend to call it more the initial tutorial zone. Because to me in my opinion the real starter zone starts for Defiance starts when you get to Freemarch which is around lvl 6 or so and it don’t take you long to even get there. At around lvl 8-10 the game starts to ramp up in fun as you encounter Rifts and Invasions. 

The game does get progressively more fun the higher level you get to. Zones are quite huge and quests are plenty if not many. You can quest or do rifts to level up or a mix of both. Questing got you down, hey drop questing and go fight back a Major Invasion when one spawns. Try and beat back some Invasions when your just hanging out in a quest area for a little while and a invasion mobs come rolling thru. You just never know when a Invasion is gonna come rolling you way which all of a sudden can change your game play suddenly. Many times i’ve just been at a NPC area picking up a quest or vendoring stuff and a invasion force incoming. Easy to quit doing that and get into action. 

For most of my lvl 20′s which have been spend mostly all in Stonefield zone so far and currently at lvl 28, I’ve just been rifting as much as questing. I’ve been enjoying the story and lore of the game and doing quests and dungeons. However no matter where I’m heading in the zone I always take the time if any rifts or invasion cross my path to get in on the action and fight the fight. You can get allot of XP just doing rifts. Needless to say I’ve spend several levels doing nothing but beating back rifts when many are spawned, fighting invasion forces, beating back footholds, tearing open a partial rift and have me my own rift to fight back. 

That’s allot of fun. Especially when your in a area and a rift tear appear and your the only one seemingly around. What do you do? For me I decide to go have some fun and tear the rift open with my Planar Lure ability and have me a rift with mobs to fight back. 

Sometime I’ve been there alone fighting the rift and it spawns a invasion force before its sealed and that invasion force runs off immediately to wreck havoc across the zone area or heading to aNPC area. Sometime and often someone jumps in on the public grouping and helps out for the fun. But if you do seal the rifts you get allot of nice stuff, gear drops, artifacts, consumable stuff and lots of planarite shards and some rare ones for the effort which all adds up. All the shards adds up to being able to purchase some very nice gear from the planar vendors. That has allowed me to purchase at least 2 Epic pieces, several blue gear just from doing allot of rifting so far which were way better than quest gear. 

Biggest issue I’ve had so far in game is tanking allot of rifts and invasion bosses with a group and no one in group can heal or wants to heal the tank or just no healer around to do so. That has lead to many a times I have died tanking various rifts and invasion forces in a group where no one is around to heal whoever is primarily tanking the invasion forces. That has lead to many a visit to the NPC healer to restore soul vitality which drops 10% on every death which makes you ineffective if it gets to 0. As a result so far would have to say my biggest gold sink is at the NPC healer paying to restore lost vitality which can add up allot if you visit often. 

As for profession you get a choice of three professions. I decided not to craft anything or spend any time at it but instead do all gathering with Mining, Foraging and Butchering. That fits my style for being a bit the explorer type and usually roaming all over chasing rifts and gathering stuff that I come across in the process. And so far I’m enjoying doing just that. 

So far its just been a fun time leveling up and getting in on the action of questing, rifting, dungeons, exploring for artifacts which leads to fighting invasion forces and footholds wherever I’ve found them. Artifact finding is a whole mini-game of exploration all of its own and a whole lot of fun. But so far the RIFT has just been running smoothly, rather bug free as I haven’t encountered any and rather allot of fun. Only real issue is the daily choke on the server queue that happen at peak login time but that issue has being getting better daily as Trion have added more servers and as the server loads get balanced. So far Trion seem to be working relatively hard and doing a rather impressive job in having a smooth running game, even if they didn’t add anything all that new with a new MMO.