The Blog is moving to a new site!

It's finally happened! I've gotten the website up over at www.thecoffeerocks.com.
There will be some subtle changes to the site as I move forward, but the format I've moved to will allow those changes to be (hopefully) seamless.

You'll also notice that the format hints to different sections such as Articles and Guides, and has plenty of room for potential future content sections. This is not an accident, and I happily invite anyone who would like to contribute content of any kind to do so. Send me an EVEmail, or a mail to thecoffeerocks@gmail.com and we'll get it done.

Thanks!

My CSM9 Picks

Fourteen is a hell of a lot to pick and I must have switched my list around ten times. Personally, I think there are some incredibly interesting candidates for CSM this time and choosing my top 6 was tough - let alone 14! I should have stopped at 9 but was determined to do them all.

Also, GO VOTE NOW!

Brave Voices

It's tough to take a stance on a sensitive issue. I knew the moment I said a single word that I'd come under a wee bit of fire. I knew that if I was going to open the door, I'd have to be prepared to defend my position with friends and foes alike. For instance, I like Funky Bacon and follow him on Twitter. That said, he and I heavily traded blows on the topic of Erotica 1. Trust me, I cringed every time I argued with someone on this because I absolutely understood where they were coming from (well, except the trolls).

The Airlock

In case you've been in a hole all day, there's been a bit of an uproar because of current CSM member Ripard Teg's blog post concerning the current culture in the EVE online community. Ripard uses an example - and a prime pick, I might add - to argue his case that we're sorely in need of a change. To rein in the 'evil' perception of the game. The example he used is none other than one of Erotica1's "Bonus Room" soundcloud postings where he and his friends mentally torture another player. Go read the blog, and listen to the recording. I'll wait. I'll go make a sandwich... you'll be at least 2 hours to finish listening to it.

Staying Classy and Being BRAVE

This is a straight follow-up post from my previous one. I had mentioned putting an alt in BNI last fall and subsequently my entire corp re-rolled to join them. So, why did we decide to join them instead of simply getting rich off flipping goods into their market? Well, because, ultimately these folks shocked us. By being classy.

Even their propaganda seemed oddly free of cursing...

From the moment my "extra" alt (a 15 million SP character at the time) got set up in Barleguet and now had a BNI ticker attached to him, it was non stop fun. The Defense Fleet was up almost 24 hours a day with constant threats of small gangs in the home systems. Roams of every kind - from mining ops to null roams to wormhole dives to large warfare - were constantly up. The market in the HQ was amazingly stable and active for such a deep Lowsec pocket. Hundreds of Alliance-only contracts were always available, providing everything from cheap tacklers to doctrine Battle Cruisers. But, most importantly, the culture shock was what sold me. Brave Collective wasn't an alliance that "stayed classy" on the surface for propaganda reasons or simply paid lip service to the phrase. It truly stayed classy in all aspects of the alliance culture.

Classiness is catching on everywhere, btw.

Let me give you an example of what I mean when I say "classy". With a constant stream of players joining, it was common in their comms for someone to drop a bigoted stereotype. You know the kind I mean. The kind of crude attempt at humor that many of us attribute to the comms in Sov Power Blocs or any other large Alliance in EVE. Phrases such as "I'm broke - I'm gonna go j*wing with my Buzzard."; "I just popped this n**ger"; and any number of other more ugly sayings, gifs, and the such. But in Brave, the moment this type of language is uttered it is quickly stomped out. 

Now, let me stop you here and explain something: I was raised in rural Illinois. Cornfield and cow country. After growing up with a red neck among country folk, I'm numb to most stereotyping. I don't agree with it and I find it to be embedded in ignorance. But, I also understand that it's deeply rooted in our history to the point where a person may not believe in the stereotype itself, but doesn't grasp why it is not culturally acceptable to make jokes or ironically use the sensitive terms in a crude fashion. Usually, the person doesn't quite understand the power these words have to anyone who is affected by them, or they are so used to having them in their vocabulary that the deep meaning of the word is completely missing in their mind. Trust me, I get that. And, as someone who took literally years of training to stop using the word 'gay' to mean 'not right' (thanks to my gay childhood friend Aaron for smacking me every time he heard me say it), I am a little sympathetic when someone gets flamed hard for doing what I used to do. Hatred begets hatred and rarely will it correct the problem.

Yah, sort of what I meant, Yoda. 

The first time I can remember hearing it happen in Brave comms was when a player was rambling a story along and said "...and we were just about to kill him when the f*g entered warp". And let me tell you, the moment that word was uttered, comms erupted with exasperated WHOA!'s and HEY!'s. I held my breath to see what would happen as that poor guy has just obviously committed a big no-no. Would they kick the poor bastard? Ream his ass? Mock him?

One voice (with priority speaker to stomp on everyone's transmission) calmly, but authoritatively, said "Hey bud, just a friendly reminder to keep it classy on comms. We don't use that language, okay?" Wait.... what? That's it? He's going to treat this player with polite style and grace? But... this is EVE, right?! How is the guy going to respond I wonder? I held my breath for what seemed an eternity, but was probably two seconds when the player responded with an embarrassed tone "Sorry Lychton, it slipped. My bad." 

Wait... That was the alliance leader who spoke up? THE ALLIANCE LEADER TOOK THE TIME TO ADDRESS THIS GUY ABOUT THIS AND EVERYONE WAS POLITE AND... AND.... WHAT'S GOING ON WHERE AM I?!?

I mean, this is EVE online we're talking about, after all. Do you know how many times I've hit D-scan in highsec to see a fleet of Hulks all named "Jew Miner"? Or had someone go completely off on another person in Local for really dumb reasons? Or seen a character name that has a name like "Jew Hunter?" Or had chat shitted up with the "girls don't play games" debate? Or found a container on a gate that says "Hang all Ni***rs?" Or had your fleet channel spammed with porn? Or been on various fleet comms to hear someone screaming "Kill that fucking sp*c!?" You don't like it, but you need this particular fleet to accomplish this particular goal, and stopping to ask the FC to not use that language will not go over well. You grit your teeth and bear it. You report the container or the player, but nothing ever seems to get done. It's rampant. It's accepted. It has become the culture we must slog through in order to play.

So, imagine yourself as me, an EVE player sitting in a new Mumble and hearing that exchange of words between Lychton and the Brave member. Now, imagine that you start seeing it everywhere within this alliance. No one names their ships with ugly words. No one even posts their killmails in local to taunt the person they just blew up. There is no taunting at all. You're told to flood local with "GF" or "7o" instead. If the enemy posts your lossmail, trump it by taking your most embarrassing lossmail and put it in local right below the other. A very classy way of telling the enemy "I'm having fun with this. I have the control. What else you got?" You are expected to have fun, but treat everyone you encounter with respect.

Highsec mining isn't a cause for rambling hatred. No, it's an entirely active fleet in this alliance. They have entire divisions of chat channels, alt corps, and guides for doing nothing but training newbies in aspects of PvP, PvE, Industry, PI... my god, they even give away free skill books and ships through the Brave Dojo channel!  Centered around the newbie, the entire alliance was there to encourage each other to "maximize their fun-per-hour", no matter what their play style was.

Jesus! Someone even made a graphic celebrating these guys!

Maybe this doesn't appeal to you dear reader, but by God, I felt like I had found the home I was trying to build within my own corp. It wasn't long before I was convinced that this was for real - Brave had grown up and found a way to keep this culture true to style across the entire alliance. I called for a corp meeting, reported what I found there in Brave, we took a vote, and the rest was history. Thrall Nation was formed and we rolled into Brave Collective. 

You know you wanna.

Back! Sort of!

Wow, it's been a wee bit longer since I've written a post than I actually thought. Time has a way of slipping away from you, I suppose. I think about this blog often, but mostly it's in relation to the reasons I haven't updated it. What I mean is, instead of thinking "Oh, I need to write a post", I mean "I really need to write THAT post on WHY I'm not updating it." Well, this is that post.

First though, I'll do a quick capture on what's happened since I last wrote a post. Let's see, there's the Somer Blink scandal, Rubicon launch, the Halloween War and the battle of B-R5RB, PLEX for Good (I did manage a quick post for that), changes to the scanner and warp speeds, ship re-balances, and, well, too many other things to even begin to catch up on. Instead, I'll focus on the BIG one that effects my little world the most.

Starting back in December 2013 my corp at the time (an Industrial, Markets, & Small Gang PVP-minded corp) was re-rolled into Thrall Nation (.THN.). Thrall Nation was created for one purpose: to join the alliance of the Brave Collective (link to latest Alliance interview), home of Brave Newbies Inc. (BNI).

Thrall Nation [.THN.] was born.

Naturally, most of you have me figured out well enough to know that this was not a snap decision because, well, Coffee doesn't make snap decisions. I prefer "the long play" on big plans and I always weigh the situations before us as best as I can. To that end, I stuck an alt into BNI early last fall. My intent was to spy, but only in the most positive of ways. At the very least I would gather intel that would be mutually beneficial to both parties: market and trade data on what we could leverage during BNI staging, ops, and deployments for Thrall member profit. Of course, at the very best was what ended up happening: If the BNI culture was as good as what I'd heard, we might just say "Hell with this, let's just join with them".

7o indeed, good sir.

It really was as good as you've heard. But, I digress, that story deserves a post of its own.

So, with all that fun stuff going on, why haven't I kept up on the blogging? Well, partially the move to BRAVE is to blame. As CEO, it's very important to me to be an active leader. With the Corp's move and reorganization, combined with BRAVE's Winter War in Syndicate and the subsequent Burn Catch campaign we are currently in, I typically use up any free time in the game itself. Of course, I'm still attending college (last semester for the AA) and working part time. Plus, you know, the wife wants some time too. I manage to pencil her in every other Tuesday.

But there's a bigger reason than all that. Since last fall, I've known I wanted to move this blog to its own website and expand upon it, so I held off on new blogs and spent that time working on it. Nothing too fancy, but a site where I can also provide informational pieces, guides, and other snippets of information for the player base. There's already fantastic EVE websites and informative blogs out there that I use such as The Mittani, EVE News 24, EVE University, Jester's Trek, and many more. But they can't cover everything in a game as complex as EVE. I don't plan on covering everything, either, but I did plan on posting what's important to me from the get go. After I was settled in and comfortable with the site, I planned on expanding in areas I feel are worth my time or interest. Notice I'm using past tense here when I speak of my plans? Yah, about that.

Soon....

A long, long time ago when I was about 14 (around the summer of 1995 if memory serves me), I taught myself HTML and Javascript using our household computer. I used that knowledge to build a couple of Geocities sites and eventually my own website, and even garnered a little advertising revenue at the time. My mother thought I would be the next big computer genius and told me to keep at it. Moms are funny that way. Fast forward 19 years, and here I am trying to hammer out a website using HTML and Javascript because, well, that's where my learning stopped. Listen to your parents, kids, their advice will save you headaches later in life.

Those of you that know a thing or two about website development are currently shaking your head saying "You poor dumb bastard". It's true - both on the 'poor' and 'dumb' parts. For those that don't know, computer languages and website development have, well, evolved just a little in 19 freaking years time. I figured I could teach myself what I needed to know just like I did all those years ago. That last sentence has those same web devs now laughing their asses off, but I really thought I could. And, for a brief moment there, I did. I learned CSS! MY GOD, CSS IS BLESSED MAGIC SENT FROM UP HIGH!! Good job Coffee - you are now in 1996, you moron.

After learning CSS and playing with it, I moved on. For a couple of months I tried to figure out what these newfangled "databases" were, and this futuristic "PHP" and whatnots, and this "Python" or snake or cobra-kai or whatever the hell these darned kids call it these days. Yah.... it was like smacking face first into a big freaking brick wall. Damnit, I better call Mom and admit she was right about one thing - I should have stuck with it back then. I hate calling her to tell her she was right about something. It keeps happening the older I get, too.

I finally called a buddy of mine that owns his own web dev company and got his honest advice. He knows me well enough to know that a) I don't ask for anything for free, so I wasn't calling to ask him that and b) I have no money to pay for someone to do it for me, so this phone call wasn't that either. After discussing particulars, he pinged me pretty quick on some other stuff and left me with some solid advice on how to proceed. He's confident I can get it done with what he told me. I wish I had his confidence in me, but I'm too stubborn to quit now. So, in the mean time I'm going to keep the occasional post here while working on the site. I promise you - it will be done, AS BOB AS MY WITNESS IT WILL BE DONE!

Sigh. Time to get back at it.

PLEX For Good: Philippines Typhoon Relief

I know I haven't done a blog for a while. I promise, real life is easing up a little and I'll be getting back to it shortly! Even though my time is limited and it is currently 3 am in the morning where I am, I wanted to take the time to spotlight something very important. Namely, the current CCP PLEX For Good campaign.

On November 8th, 2013, the Philippines were struck by Typhoon Haihan leaving a swath of destruction that has rattled entire communities and destroyed many lives. In true EVE Player fashion, many of us took our fingers off the autocannon trigger long enough to ask CCP to do another PFG for those in need. CCP responded to the outpour by pledging $15 to the Red Cross's efforts in the Philipines for every PLEX donated.

To donate, contract one or more PLEX to the "CCP PLEX for GOOD" character on a 14-day item exchange contract. The contract will be accepted within a 24-hr period. Take the time to make sure you are contracting it to the correct toon - If you find anyone attempting to scam this effort, REPORT THEM.

(c) CCP Games

If helping others by chipping in fake internet money (i.e., ISK) isn't enough of an incentive to help your fellow men and women in dire need, CCP is giving something back to every player that donates: two limited edition Sisters of EVE Food Relief "Humanitarian T-shirt YC-115" t-shirts (one for each gender) that your characters can proudly wear. CCP Bro will also be announcing on November 27th "a surprise that will hopefully make this the most successful PLEX for GOOD drive to date". The tinfoil hattery has already begun, and speculation is that it is another gift for those that donate or perhaps a drawing for a special edition ship.

Regardless, I hope you'll take the time to donate. I will be logging in sometime today and hopefully making my way to Amarr to donate one of my PLEX - hope to see you there doing the same!

EVE Online - A Widow's Perspective

This article has moved to the new website over at 

The Coffee Rocks. 

Click here to be taken directly to the story: EVE Online - A Widow's Perspective
or, continue reading the original post below!
----------------------------

Football widow [foot-bawl wid-oh] noun. A woman who must cope with the temporary death of her relationship during football season.

EVE widow [eev wid-oh] noun. Similar to “football widow”; however, this woman is less fortunate since her widowhood is not restricted to just the fall season – she must learn to cope year-round.

Hello. My name is Stephanie, and I have been an EVE widow for 2 years. But it wasn't always this way. You see, Coffee and I have been together for 10 years, married for 7 of those. And over the past decade there have been several mistresses: First it was Halo, then along came World of Warcraft. And yes, there were even others before he found EVE (here’s looking at you Elder Scrolls and Left for Dead).

Sure, one could argue that I should have been well aware of what I was getting in to; but there really was no adequate amount of groundwork that could prepare me for what was to come.

Here is a typical conversation that takes place when I get home from work:

Coffee: Hi Honey! How was your day?

Me: Oh, it was good – same old, same old.

…

Coffee: Guess what happened today?

(In my head: You cleaned the house? You started dinner already? You bought me something shiny?)

Me: What happened today?

Coffee: When I logged on to EVE …

(In my head: Should have known.)

Now I’m not saying my husband trying to spend every spare moment on EVE is a bad thing, although it took me a while to get to the level of understanding I am at today. I’ll admit, at first I loathed his role-playing games. I mean, we have a lot of things to get done and that honey-do list ain't gonna do itself. I guess the best way to put it would be to say that I went through my own sort of grieving process. For those who aren't familiar, there are seven distinct stages in the grieving process.

Stage 1: Shock or Disbelief

OMG. What have I done?! Did I really marry one of those, those gamers?!

Stage 2: Denial

Addicted? No, no it’s nothing like that. My husband’s not addicted to video games.

Stage 3: Bargaining

Maybe if I find a bunch of things for us to do, then he won’t think about his game so much.

Stage 4: Guilt

I shouldn't give him so much crap for all that time he spends on his game; after all, it’s his outlet, his way to let loose.

Stage 5: Anger

OK, I think he’s “let loose” enough … The trash isn't going to take itself out. The bird poop isn't going to wash itself off my car. The lawn isn't going to stop growing at exactly 1.5 inches in height.

Stage 6: Depression

My husband loves his game more than he loves me.

Stage 7: Acceptance and Hope

You know what? To each his own. It’s good that we have our own hobbies that keep us true to ourselves.

We all “grieve” in our own way. The important thing is to remember that this is a very natural process and we must work through it until that moment comes. That moment where you say, “Maybe this gaming thing isn't so bad.”

I mean, if you really think about it, it’s kind of like dropping your kid off at the sitter and you can get the things done that you want to get done without interruptions. It gives me my much needed “me time”, where I can read, do some cleaning, browse my Facebook. Heck, I even started my own blog!

And sure, there are the incessant ramblings about so-and-so getting scammed and insert-name-here pulling a total dick move. Usually these conversations – after careening on about three sub-tangents – end with me holding up one hand and asking where the heck we’re going with this story.

But there are also moments like this one from my husband’s Facebook status update circa October 23, 2012:

“Happy Birthday to my favorite person, loving wife, and all around best woman on the planet!”

Stephanie: Awww, babe! You make it sound like I hacked your account.;) (For all you readers out there, I did not). Love you!

Ryan: If you want a true test of his love: make him rename one of his best EVE spaceships after you.

Stephanie: He named a character in EVE after me, I'm the head of a corporation ... and apparently now I'm getting a ship for my birthday.

Ryan: ;) He really, really, really loves you then ...

Stephanie: Indeed.

If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

I suppose I should thank my lucky stars he’s not sitting around playing Angry Birds or Candy Crush. I like the concept of EVE. It’s about the rise and fall of industry. It’s about carefully calculated warfare. It’s about star systems and spaceships. It’s political. It’s scientific. It’s so many things that other games just aren't.

And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like walking into the house and, for a split second, wondering why there is a deep German voice coming from your office. Then, oh yeah, TeamSpeak.

I think that’s one of the aspects I find most fascinating about the whole gaming experience. Not the deep German voices – but the fact that players around the globe can connect and coordinate their efforts to accomplish missions. I’m pretty sure that, with the exception of Antarctica, my husband has gotten to know people on every continent. How cool is that?

Sure, there are the days I worry that my husband has somehow developed Tourette's. Nothing like sitting in the dining room when all of a sudden a burst of colorful language comes barreling from within the other room. 

And there used to be a time when, if dinner was ready, I would wait for my husband to “get to a stopping point” so we could sit down and eat together. Not anymore. If dinner’s ready and he’s too wrapped up in his game, well, sorry buddy, but I’m starting without you. I will not eat my dinner cold.

And let’s not forget all those times when I think I’m having a conversation with my husband. You know, after talking for a minute or so and pause only to be greeted by silence. And only after deepening the intensity of my stare so much that my husband can literally feel my vision boring into his head does he respond with a simple, “What?” Doh! Have you heard anything I've said?!

But that’s part of the give-and-take of it all. It’s the ability to let one another be free to do the things they love. It’s about finding humor in sometimes frustrating circumstances. It’s about finding balance.

Because when it boils down to it, one fact remains: The Coffee really does Rock.

Thank you to my wonderful wife, Stephanie, for surprising me with this guest submission. She writes her own blog, titled "Mr Jackson and Me", about living large (on a tiny budget). You can also follow her on Twitter @symcatee

I love you, hunny! P.S., I'll get the dishes done tomorrow, the bat-phone is ringing...

Villains and Angels in EVE Online

My last post was about one of the more infamous aspects of playing EVE Online - scamming. Always controversial for the community that is EVE, scamming is seen as a form of game play by CCP and is protected as such - as long as the scammer does not violate the TOS, of course. It doesn't take very long to look through EVE Online's Forums to find some great stories, rage, and calls to ban scamming, which just goes to show how many out there are utilizing this form of game play as a means to farm ISK. I have always been very vocal that I do not care for scamming (I believe that it is a quick way to scare off new players as they are the easiest victims to prey on, often unknowingly to the scammer), and I go so far as to ban my Corp members in participating in scamming in any form. That said, I actually agree with CCP that it should be allowed. I may not personally condone it and do not want that behavior associated with myself, but I also do not have sympathy for anyone who does not have the sense to beware a deal too good to be true. Sorry, but it's true - if you're gonna be stupid, you better be strong.

But being a scammer is just one art of villainy in EVE Online. The Mittani has probably been called every sour name in the book, from Mob Boss to whiny scumbag. Likewise, you have Cannibal Kane - a self-described "terrorist" preying on anyone and everything that tickles his fancy with brutal, artistic efficiency. There are Psychotic Monk and the Belligerent Undesirables, whose sole mission is to fill their corp's hangers with ALL the tears, who constantly wardec industrial corps, gank anything that comes across their guns, and are some of the best Awoxers in the game. You also have CODE., the mini-empire of James315 whom solely harass and kill Highsec miners. You have Burn Jita, Hulkageddon, and Ice Interdiction, oh my! EVE truly seems to be a scary place, after all.

To the casual observer or the pessimistic player, EVE Online seems to be a universe where the most evil, chaotic players triumphantly rule over the passive, the weak, the stupid, and/or the peaceful. I am here to tell you that - in EVE as in real life - it simply isn't true.

You are quick to say "But Coffee, you JUST posted a blog about how a poor player was scammed out of his ISK and nothing was done!". Well, dear reader, that simply isn't true either. As far as I know, the scammer was never punished and CCP has not given their thoughts on an external website scamming ISK. That said, however, angels exist in this game that will swoop in and bestow blessings upon the unfortunate. I was contacted a few short days after linking that blog piece on the EVE Forums by player Reileen Kawahara who donated the entire 150,000,000 ISK loss to the victim. I spoke in length with Reileen, and have added them to my growing list of  "good people in EVE". In that one conversation, I got the feeling that Reileen and I seem to have the same outlook on gaming styles, especially when it comes to looking out for other players that need a hand.

But Reileen is just one person compared to the legions of evil, slimy baddies, right? Look, I can seriously spend the next year writing blog after blog about all the acts of charity in EVE Online that would completely dwarf the stories of acts of evil. If you look around, you'll find some amazing things that people invest loads of time, money and hard earned ISK just to benefit other EVE players. Here's just a few examples:

Sindel's Angel Project
Vaerah Vahrokha's ISK-to-Charity relief fund initiative
PLEX for GOOD
Mourning Vile Rat and donating to his family
Players giving loads of gifts away (way, way too many to link)
Chribba Fucking Veldspar (you heard bells tinging when you read his name, didn't you?)

Hell, even the so-called "villains" in EVE can't help themselves from helping their fellow EVE players from time to time. Notorious scammer Erotica1 was my first introduction to what having a "spy" in your corp meant in EVE Online. Despite losing my very first ship and pod to his alt (in my first month of playing while in an industrial corp, if I remember right), he took the time to pull me aside and explain what went wrong for me. We talked for a little while about his scamming conquests, my horrible ship fitting and some tips on the game in general. He then contracted my drops back to me and then my wallet flashed - 100 million ISK! "That should help you get started in EVE o7," he said, then flew off to find more victims.

Obviously if I advocate this type of behavior I better be walking-the-walk, right? Well, if you know me, you know I do. Since setting up Thrall Industrial, I've given away Navy Apocs and PLEX to corpies as Christmas presents (using ISK earned through speculation - I'm not rich by any means). Thrall's Director of Industry found his way into my corp after he lost his first mining barge in Lowsec. Seeing he was a newer player, I talked with him and gave him one of Thrall's loaner barges to replace his loss. Shortly after that, he asked to join and since then has been very active with us. I try to make sure that everyone's play style is respected, and work hard to see that we always have free ship hulls for members so they don't worry so much about losing their own in PvP. I've donated to Alexia Morgan's Touring New Eden corporation. I give away my ISK, my skillbooks, and my time to newbros, enemies and corpies alike.

And if you sit back and really think about it you'll realize I'm not the only one out there doing it, am I? Don't let the stories of the harsh edge of EVE online blind you to the random acts of kindness occurring every moment of the day, everywhere in this game.

Website Scams EVE Player

A couple of months back a player asked for my advice. While he was in the Amarr trading hub he noticed a player advertising an external website that offers ships for purchase (for ISK of course). He asked if I knew anything about the website and I admitted that I had never heard of it, but to obviously be wary of anything posted in Local chat in the trade hubs. For those who have heard of the website (or saw the article’s title), you already know where this story is going.

Before you get excited about decent pricing and free delivery, you should probably read on.

The player linked the website to me and we both looked for information on it. The website is EVE-Bazaar.com. A quick Google search did not reveal any obvious scam reports, nor did my inquiry with a few other friends online (they had not heard of it either). The website offers ships ranging from Battleships to Titans, Jump Freighters to Orcas, and even offers PLEX. I looked over the sell prices of the ships and compared it to my market data (Note: Data was at the time of this conversation; data may have changed since then). I remarked to the player that although the sell prices on the website were currently below the average sell prices on the markets, they were still well above the break-even points if they were being constructed using purchased minerals. Ultimately, I told the player that it was an interesting concept for an EVE-related website, but it was odd that it was all that the website seemed to do. Although it’s a different way to move your industrial alliance’s constructed goods, the cost of maintaining a website and domain name would be better served just buying straight PLEX with the same money. That statement does not even include the amount of time it can take a semi-amateur to set up and maintain the HTML and JavaScript that the site runs on, and updating it every time your back stock changes.

I eventually shrugged my shoulders and told the player that I had no idea if it was safe or not, but asked him to contact me with the results if he tried it out. A few weeks ago, he did – and the news was not good.

He had invested around 150,000,000 ISK to try it out – not a bank breaking amount, but definitely enough to hurt for a player of his character age and skill. I interviewed him via TeamSpeak and he had the following to report:

“I received an email from them informing me that I had been scammed and I would never see the ISK again. Instead, they made me an offer: for every player I helped scam, they would give me 50% of whatever they ‘earned’ from the new victim.”

Never trust a website that will "let" you "buy" a Wyvern, but not a Revenant.

The writer of the email eluded that there were more than one person in on this website scam, as he told this player that if he recruited enough people, “they would invite him to join their Corporation” and teach him their dirtiest secrets. “They tried to tempt me, but I wasn't having any part of it. I hate scammers,” the player said. The identity of the corporation or its members was never disclosed, with the exception of the in-game ISK character named "EVE-BAZAAR DOTCOM" who is in an NPC corp.

I informed the player that this was an old tactic to scam the player further. Once they have a sizable amount from you, they convince you to act as bait in order to bring in more prey. This pyramid type scheme allows the scammers to sit back and let their victims do their fishing for them, all on the promise that they’ll see riches in the end. The scammers may even give their fishermen a little bit of ISK here and there at first to tempt them to continue to work at it, but in the end they leave their victims to starve while they count their piles of ISK.

So is this tactic legitimate in the eyes of CCP’s terms of service? While scamming is frowned upon, it is absolutely condoned within the contents of the game (in certain conditions). However, since this is an external website outside of CCP’s domain, do the administrators behind this scheme violate any TOS rules? The website does not have any advertisements, money donation tabs, or ability for RMT on the site. Technically the website, although external, is only scamming ISK using the promise of in-game items. This may fall into the definition of condoned scamming.

CCP seems to be considering it themselves. The player, also unsure if the website is operating within the TOS, took the time to report the details of the crime to EVE’s customer service and they responded that they would be “investigating the matter further”. The player requested that either his ISK, or the ship, be returned from the scammer and he would be satisfied. At the time of this article’s writing, no response has been made to the player from CCP.

I also took the time to email both contact emails on EVE Bazaar and included the following message:

The author's past experience in regulations and compliance made it incredibly difficult to keep this email less than 5 pages long.

At the time of this writing EVE Bazaar has not responded to the email. However, while researching this story I was able to find an old forum post I missed the first time around. The forum post is a typical scam report with a very interesting post by a notorious scammer near the end of it. Here’s an image of that particular post to close out this story with:

This image speaks volumes about who might just be behind the website.

For those interested in donating ISK to help the victim refund his loss, you can send it to Coffee Rocks and I will see that he receives it. At this time, I have promised not to make his character name public.

The PI Alt: Often Overlooked and Very Valuable

On Twitter, @dettol_eve asked #tweetfleet what the perfect skill plan is for a Planetary Interaction (PI)Alt. I, in my inebriated state, basically said, “I GOT THIS!” Aaaand, here I am. I apologize to Dettol for taking a few days to get this up but I hadn't planned a PI Alt write up until my response to his tweet.

I am laying the skill plan out first so you can skip my rambling located later in this post. This skill plan may include starter skills that your character may be born with, but are still listed as a matter of prudence. Below that section you will find my explanations regarding PI and the skill plan.

The PI Alt Skill Plan (no remaps):

Spaceship Command III (for the Industrial ship)

(Racial) Industrial III

Science III

Remote Sensing I

Command Center Upgrades I

Interplanetary Consolidation I

(From here you can set up your first planet with these skills trained, and begin to understand how the PI system works while waiting for the rest of your training queues to finish – or you can just wait until the training is completed.)

Command Center Upgrades IV

Interplanetary Consolidation IV

Remote Sensing III

Science IV (for Planetology)

Planetology III

(If you are training your main, or a PI-only alt that you don’t want to waste too much time training, you can stop here and have an effective and very profitable toon. However, I would still highly recommend doing the next set of skills as you will see a large difference in the ease of use of your new PI character, and larger profits.)

Continued Training for an Advanced PI Character

Interplanetary Consolidation V

Command Center Upgrades V

Planetology IV

Advanced Planetology III

Other Recommended Basic Skills

Mechanics I

Hull Upgrades III

Engineering III

Shield Management III

Shield Upgrades IV

Navigation II

Warp Drive Operation IV

Evasive Maneuvering III

Afterburner II

Retail III*

Broker Relations III*

* Train if you plan on having your alt sell the goods instead of trading them to your main/market alt.

The Rambling

Planetary Interaction is one of my favorite subjects. This is why I felt the need to respond to my fellow player with promises of advice as I feel that too few players engage PI as a means of income as much as they should. I understand why many don’t – if you are a High-seccer, the high tax rate may appear to negate any potential profit (a 10% tax makes some PI products to be left with slim of margins, however, there are still many products that are very, very worth the tax rate). If you are a Null-seccer in unsafe territories, the constant threat of a gank or the constant destruction of POCOs (Player Owned Customs Office) makes it seem to be too troublesome.

However, if you fall into the rare category of the “lucky three”, you are foolish not to conduct PI as a means of semi-passive income. What are the “lucky three”? Well, they are: 1) The member of a Corporation/Alliance who has control of a region of Lowsec or Nullsec where the Corp’s POCOs are controlled at a low tax rate (generally 5% or less); 2) a Wormholer with the same as #1, but generally enjoy 1%-3% or even 0% tax; or, 3) a player who is enjoying low tax rates, covertly, by using another corporation’s low-tax POCOs. Let me stress this – if you can get access to a Lowsec, Nullsec or Wormhole with 5% or lower tax rate, you have no excuse not to be doing PI. A person can easily buy a PLEX each month with their PI side business, alone.

So, how can you enjoy the status in the realm of the “lucky three”? Well, outside of joining Coffee’s Thrall Industrial who loves shooting other POCO’s and setting up 0% tax POCOs for their fellow Alliance members and 2% for Blues (*cough*shamelessplug*cough*), you can find and exploit a low tax POCO of your own. But to really make big ISK doing this, your main, a trained alt, or (ideally) a combination of your main and several alts, need to have the preceding skills trained.

For the first set I’ve listed them in order of importance. The reason you need the Industrial trained is that the Command Centers you must purchase from the market are 1000m3 each and the PI goods you will be taking off the planet stack up quickly, making the need for a hauler important for each PI character. Remote Sensing will need to be trained next as you won’t know where the resources are on the planet without it. Interplanetary Consolidation (IC) expands how many planets you can conduct PI from (IC IV lets you run 5 planets), and Command Center Upgrades gives you more valuable CPU in order to set up more structures. It is worth mentioning at this point that once a Command Center is established on your planet you can manage the colony from anywhere in the game (even docked).

Planetology and Advanced Planetology are often overlooked but are valuable to your success. These skills affect the margin of error there is between the projected resource per cycle in a location, and how much the extractor actually brings in. Without these skills trained, you will find that your installed jobs will typically pull in a very different amount of resources than projected. Remote Sensing skill also reduces any additional error based on your range to the planet (yes, this matters, too, but not as much in my experience). NOTE: Planetology and Advanced Planetology do not increase the resources in an area. They only reduce the margin of error in the reporting of what is actually there when moving the extractor heads around.

I also do recommend you train the alt to use Expanded Cargohold II’s in the low slots, if nothing else. The PI goods you will be picking up on 5 different planets will fill your hold quickly.

For a more detailed and well-done guide on HOW to utilize your new PI Alt, and PI in general, I recommend EVE University’s Planetary Interaction Guide.

One last thought since this post focuses more on alts than a main character: have you thought of making use of this alt in other ways? The skills above will take anywhere from 1-3 weeks of training time. If you are using the new PLEX system to train an alt on the same account, you do not want to waste that other training time. Why not also train this toon to also use a Cyno? Or maybe a Protoype Cloaking Device I? Just my 2 cents as I close this out.

Good luck, and feel free to bug me anytime you want advice (or to argue that my own is rubbish).

o7

Coffee Rocks

Be gentle. It's my first time...

Well, I've gone and done it. I have been asked many times to get a blog going, and like a grumpy old man, I've fought many of you off by brandishing my cane screaming "I won't, ya hear, I WON'T!". The truth is I didn't want to go through the trouble of launching and updating a blog only to watch as the people who've twisted my arm never visited or read it (yep, told ya, I'm grumpy). But that isn't fair to the few of you who genuinely wanted me to share my thoughts on gaming, in particular EVE Online, in a format that would allow you to listen to my rants at your leisure. For you kind hearted readers, old or new, here you are.

But what to write? In my own head, I'm 300 pages into a blog site already and it feels weird to me to be actually picking my starting point. I've decided that it would be best to address just what you can expect from good ol' Coffee Rocks:

1. Gudfite
Gudfite is a web comic I started for fun. Like many people, I often see the players in the massive world of EVE Online in a comical light inside my own head. And in my head a comic strip is born as the events unfold. However, I have the artistic skills of an amputee monkey so I choose to manipulate screenshots in order to tell my story. As I get better using the software, you will see the comic evolve. As of now, I will post Gudfite about once a week. If anyone is actually interested in seeing more of it, I may dedicate more time to it and ramp up its frequency.

2. EVE News
There are already enough bloggers and news sites out there handling EVE's events so I have no intent of being solely on the news. However, often I find myself debating others' viewpoints, propaganda, or mathematics, or have watched as a truly fun story has gone unreported. For that reason, I will occasionally post quick articles and op-ed pieces.

3. Guides
Just like the news, there are plenty of guides to help EVE players out. However, they are constantly aging as the game's mechanics and play style changes with each expansion. I find myself constantly coaching allies and corp members on changes, so it only makes sense to extend that into a post that everyone can see.

4. Everything else
Yes, I love EVE Online. I'm sure I'll blog all the reasons why at some point (we call that foreshadowing here in the writing biz). That said however, I love EVE because I love so many other things that influence it - space, tech, politics, science, people, economics, gaming - all the different components that make a myriad of awesomeness that is EVE. That said, you can expect that I will occasionally talk about things that are not about EVE but I think you'd still find interesting being posted here.

So there you are. I will do my best to keep readers with plenty to read, but don't go crazy when I jump all the time from news to the comic to a guide to talking about WoW (oh gods no, maybe not that one). I hope you are as excited as I truly am because I'm looking forward to where this will lead us.

Thank you,
o7 Coffee Rocks