Already Turning the Tide is my longest story ever with 8890 words and four parts so far. Actually, it could be more than six parts. Now that I have re-read everything from the beginning, I find that the individual parts are too long. You can just stand reading text on a screen for so long. Usually I tried keeping one part of a story at 2-3 pages A4 (that's a bit taller than letter format for the transatlantic readers). Some of the parts in this story reach four pages.
And it's still not finished. Well, it is in my head, but you will have to wait a bit until I find the time to write it down, and wonder: Will the people of Awakened Industries run out of crafty traps to deplete the enemy forces? Will they manage to break the siege of their station and avoid the decimation of their crew? Will they give up Sylera after all to save the rest?
Well, you'll see. I should be finished with it before this week ends.
Oh, and before anyone says it's not possible. I tried out the move Sandrielle does in the beginning of this chapter. Not with live subjects, mind you, and not with a real weapon either. Also I am not quite as fast as she is, but I can tell you, the whole sequence of movements works ... I've done my research ;)
28 Feb 2012
22 Feb 2012
OOC Entry 14 - I finally have it
In my most recent OOC post I mentioned how dreams provide me with inspiration. Well, my wish to dream how I am supposed to end the story did not quite come true, but almost. On a morning, when I somewhat woke up but knew I had some time left, I directed my half-sleeping mind down the path that story took so far and let it out to play in it's semi-lucid state. Finally, I came up with an ending.
It will have a nice scene with Keram in it. I neglected him too much recently, so I wanted him to get his moment on stage. As you might have guessed from the cliffhanger of the last part, it will feature Sandrielle at her best (or is that at her worst). By the end of it, all the Awakened Industries capsuleers will have had their moment, but it will take it's toll.
Regarding RL: I recently watched the second Sherlock Holmes movie with my significant other. He just had to see it because Sherlock Holmes is his childhood hero, and I went along because I liked the first one. I also liked this one, but why did Irene Adler have to die <sob> The gypsy woman was a good female character, though, and I liked the fact that there was no stupid Hollywood love-story.
P.S. I hope I didn't spoil the movie for anyone by mentioning that Irene Adler dies. Then again, it happens in the first ten minutes of the movie, so it's not a big spoiler, mind you.
P.P.S. Those movies (and my man) made me want to read Sherlock Holmes stories now. I wonder what sort of inspirations I could get from the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (great name BTW)
It will have a nice scene with Keram in it. I neglected him too much recently, so I wanted him to get his moment on stage. As you might have guessed from the cliffhanger of the last part, it will feature Sandrielle at her best (or is that at her worst). By the end of it, all the Awakened Industries capsuleers will have had their moment, but it will take it's toll.
Regarding RL: I recently watched the second Sherlock Holmes movie with my significant other. He just had to see it because Sherlock Holmes is his childhood hero, and I went along because I liked the first one. I also liked this one, but why did Irene Adler have to die <sob> The gypsy woman was a good female character, though, and I liked the fact that there was no stupid Hollywood love-story.
P.S. I hope I didn't spoil the movie for anyone by mentioning that Irene Adler dies. Then again, it happens in the first ten minutes of the movie, so it's not a big spoiler, mind you.
P.P.S. Those movies (and my man) made me want to read Sherlock Holmes stories now. I wonder what sort of inspirations I could get from the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (great name BTW)
19 Feb 2012
Blog Banter 33 - That Universe is Mine?
So, a new Blog Banter came up. The assignment this time is:
"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."
At first I didn't really feel like writing about that, but after reading a few pieces I got inspired.
So, I am not playing that long, but the NPE has changed significantly in some ways. It is still lacking in others, though. The RP immersion entry points have been improved, mostly by changing the website. It now features lots of shiny content to introduce you to the game, albeit that I do not quite understand what the star map is doing there. It mostly distracts and confuses, and that's coming from someone who actually knows what all the data you get to see there means.
The tutorials have been streamlined and - despite some teething problems - are a bit better than they used to be. Space and everything in it looks fabulous, so it is actually great fun to just fly around and look at things (I did that a lot back when I started, and again after Crucible came out)
What bugs me about the way things are set up now, is the lack of hands-on information on gameplay, and the aspects of EVE that are not RP related. I am an RTFM sort of person, i.e. I like to gather as much information on a subject as I can before I start something. So when I started playing EVE, I did my research, and I found a lot of helpful guides written by players that were directly linked from the main page's articles. Now you first have to find out that you need to open the 'EVE Websites' menu and go to the EVElopedia.
Reading guides on pirating and griefing, which I found after two or three links down the line, were what saved me from getting scammed, canflipped, suicide ganked or otherwise victimized in the first weeks of playing. A new player these days will probably not find that crucial information just as easily.
One other thing that I remember from my starting days was, that I gained a lot of very valuable experience from doing the Sisters of Eve arc. Back then I started as Gallente, so Arnon was not far away. For Caldari it is also not a particularly long trip. If you start as Amarr or Minmatar it's a different piece of cake. If I may propose something simple, I'd say put a Sisters of Eve agent somewhere close to all the starter systems, not just Sister Alitura in Arnon.
I was really paranoid back then, so I accepted no help from anyone and rejected all offers by corporations to join them for about a month. Also I am the sort of person who does not like being in a position where I can't take care of myself independently, so I learned through tedious trial-and-error rather than fluttering my lashes at someone and say "Pretty please, help me with this mission." I loved being nice to others though, because I felt there wasn't enough of that to go around in the game.
My first big eye opener came, when I found out that some skillbooks are really cheap in Lisbaetanne and I started shipping them to Oursulaert. Some pirate eventually caught me, and when he convoed me he went from offering ransom to telling me a lot about lowsec and what I should pay attention to. Later we went ratting in some belt and I got to be the "clueless noob bait" drawing victims for him. He even gave me a share from the loot.
There were nice people in EVE in places you wouldn't expect.
So where was I going with all this?
There is a wide gap between what EVE looks like, and what actually goes on in the game. That gap has - in my opinion - become even wider due to the restructuring of the website, the great visual content and the nicer tutorials. I would like CCP to put links to Evelopedia guides back in the text of the main page and provide more entry points to the SoE arc, because it has more learning experiences than level 1 missions.
Maybe people would also get inspired by links to approved fan-sites which have further informative content available. The community around EVE is very rich, and I would venture to say, that CCP would benefit from referring to it. The right choices will have to be made, though. I can see how many people will be put off by the extremely low-brow trolling and macho posturing that is prevalent on many sites, but there are many examples of good contributors new players could benefit from greatly.
Also, I really like the idea about offering more pointers to the in-game community (i.e. newbie friendly corps) as proposed by this author
Edit: After reading this post I have to say I changed my opinion. Facilitating new players to form their own corporations and do stuff together is much more empowering.
In the end, I do think it takes a certain kind of individual to make that universe your own if you are not directly ending up in a big alliance by extension of your account with one online cesspool or other.
"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."
At first I didn't really feel like writing about that, but after reading a few pieces I got inspired.
So, I am not playing that long, but the NPE has changed significantly in some ways. It is still lacking in others, though. The RP immersion entry points have been improved, mostly by changing the website. It now features lots of shiny content to introduce you to the game, albeit that I do not quite understand what the star map is doing there. It mostly distracts and confuses, and that's coming from someone who actually knows what all the data you get to see there means.
The tutorials have been streamlined and - despite some teething problems - are a bit better than they used to be. Space and everything in it looks fabulous, so it is actually great fun to just fly around and look at things (I did that a lot back when I started, and again after Crucible came out)
What bugs me about the way things are set up now, is the lack of hands-on information on gameplay, and the aspects of EVE that are not RP related. I am an RTFM sort of person, i.e. I like to gather as much information on a subject as I can before I start something. So when I started playing EVE, I did my research, and I found a lot of helpful guides written by players that were directly linked from the main page's articles. Now you first have to find out that you need to open the 'EVE Websites' menu and go to the EVElopedia.
Reading guides on pirating and griefing, which I found after two or three links down the line, were what saved me from getting scammed, canflipped, suicide ganked or otherwise victimized in the first weeks of playing. A new player these days will probably not find that crucial information just as easily.
One other thing that I remember from my starting days was, that I gained a lot of very valuable experience from doing the Sisters of Eve arc. Back then I started as Gallente, so Arnon was not far away. For Caldari it is also not a particularly long trip. If you start as Amarr or Minmatar it's a different piece of cake. If I may propose something simple, I'd say put a Sisters of Eve agent somewhere close to all the starter systems, not just Sister Alitura in Arnon.
I was really paranoid back then, so I accepted no help from anyone and rejected all offers by corporations to join them for about a month. Also I am the sort of person who does not like being in a position where I can't take care of myself independently, so I learned through tedious trial-and-error rather than fluttering my lashes at someone and say "Pretty please, help me with this mission." I loved being nice to others though, because I felt there wasn't enough of that to go around in the game.
My first big eye opener came, when I found out that some skillbooks are really cheap in Lisbaetanne and I started shipping them to Oursulaert. Some pirate eventually caught me, and when he convoed me he went from offering ransom to telling me a lot about lowsec and what I should pay attention to. Later we went ratting in some belt and I got to be the "clueless noob bait" drawing victims for him. He even gave me a share from the loot.
There were nice people in EVE in places you wouldn't expect.
So where was I going with all this?
There is a wide gap between what EVE looks like, and what actually goes on in the game. That gap has - in my opinion - become even wider due to the restructuring of the website, the great visual content and the nicer tutorials. I would like CCP to put links to Evelopedia guides back in the text of the main page and provide more entry points to the SoE arc, because it has more learning experiences than level 1 missions.
Maybe people would also get inspired by links to approved fan-sites which have further informative content available. The community around EVE is very rich, and I would venture to say, that CCP would benefit from referring to it. The right choices will have to be made, though. I can see how many people will be put off by the extremely low-brow trolling and macho posturing that is prevalent on many sites, but there are many examples of good contributors new players could benefit from greatly.
Edit: After reading this post I have to say I changed my opinion. Facilitating new players to form their own corporations and do stuff together is much more empowering.
In the end, I do think it takes a certain kind of individual to make that universe your own if you are not directly ending up in a big alliance by extension of your account with one online cesspool or other.
OOC Entry 13 - Dreams of EVE
Just two days ago, a corp-mate of mine told me that he had a dream inspired by my most recent story. I take that as a big compliment. I find myself in New Eden (or wormhole space) quite often in my dreams. Sometimes I dream things about the people I fly with, sometimes a strange real-life version of them. In one really strange inverted-reality story, I actually dreamt that some of our in-game selves had set up a kind of simulator where you could impersonate people on ancient Earth, and I ended up "playing" my RL self (I looked much prettier though, like an idealized version of myself). I just love dreams, it never ceases to amaze me what my sleeping mind comes up with. So far I haven't had any dreams about my own stories, but I did put things from my dreams into them. Not quite complete plots, but impressions and the way things feel.
Now if only I could dream something that would tell me how that last story is supposed to end. I was going to do something very clever with it, but now I am not quite sure how - if at all - my group of protagonists are supposed to make it through this one.
Now if only I could dream something that would tell me how that last story is supposed to end. I was going to do something very clever with it, but now I am not quite sure how - if at all - my group of protagonists are supposed to make it through this one.
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