Max Torps's blog

I'm just putting the finishing touches to the next version of the Eve Online Instant Messenger.

It was fairly easy to do but I also wanted to make it a bit less clunky looking and unfortunately that's the bit I have difficulty with. I must have a bad eye for design or something!

Anyway, at some point this week you can look forward to version 1.0.1.01 which introduces the choice between entering a Corporation only chat room or a new Alliance chat room.  read the rest of this post»

“Tyrannis will see some new industrial and planetary interaction opportunities like we’ve never seen before in New Eden. It’s a step in linking EVE Online and DUST514 as well. So I need you to write what you believe are the short and/or long term consequences of this development, in terms of the new industrial capacity in presents to players, in terms of the opportunities for pirates, for industrialist, for sovereignty, etc. Surprise us!” – CK

The Pilot awoke to alarms assaulting him in his pod. Damn, another plant under attack, this has to stop.  read the rest of this post»

Continuing the rant I started last week about my mate not playing Eve, I've played with a few fits in this ongoing effort to get him into the action.

I suppose one of the most commonly used phrases a newbie hears when taking part in a fleet is that “they can be the tackler”. I have no problem with that at all. It's fair to say that most people start out in that role in PvP fleet operations and it has a number of distinct benefits:

Low skill point requirement
Cheap reimbursement
Great experience into fleet ops
A position of relative importance in the fleets success  read the rest of this post»

I've been trying to convince a friend of mine to play this game for years now. He's as stubborn as a mule over it and now I am of the opinion he is just saying no for the sake of it.

His main arguments seem to centre over how many skill points other players have, how puny his character will be and all of those whiny little arguments that are based on fallacy. I also suspect he's terrified that the game presents him with choice rather than leading him by the hand to some sort of end game.

Let's get some major differences out into the open first. You do not have a real avatar. You may soon, but not yet. Your ship is just a tool to get a job done. It will be lost, don't ever get attached to it. It's not “you”. Your pod is “you”. In fact, truth be told, your account is "you". There is no end game.

Learning skills provides a character with unprecedented choice of abilities. Having a lot of skill points does not make you uber, only YOU can be uber with your gaming skills. Skill points in game just give you a variety of choices, conversely not having skills in game just narrow your choices.

In other words, you can have 6 million skill points in frigates and associated engineering/mechanic/gunnery skills and be the most uberest frigate pilot out there while a character with 60 million skill points might sound scary but they could all be in industrial categories for all you know.

Let's take a quick look at the most common argument, the whiny "I can't be uber when I start playing" argument.  read the rest of this post»

As a supplement to the Ultimate Guide to Hauling I am pleased to publish this partner document, hopefully you will find some of it useful.

So now you can recognise a good or a bad courier contract. What next?

Well, it all depends on where you will be flying and the types of risk involved. Not all ships will be covered here and also bear in mind that you don't have to haul in ship type dedicated to hauling, valuable small items can sometimes be best transported using Interceptors etc.

------------  read the rest of this post»

It's quite a title is it not? Let me qualify it by stating that it simply covers generalisations as Eve is such a fluid game with ebbs and flows in player activity caused by market and corporate forces acted upon by multitudes of single players it cannot have finite, permanent guides.

This is for people like you. People who have stuck through the preamble of this blog and have an interest in those elusive ways of making cash while having fun.  read the rest of this post»

If you are as curious as I was as to what the contents were to EON #18 then look no further!

One of the featured articles is called PAST FORWARD which deals a lot with sovereignty and also upcoming expansions. Here is an excerpt from their press release:

EDIT: Work now completed - server back in service.
Apologies for any inconvenience.

---disregard below---
The default chat server will be unavailable 31/12/090 9:00 - 02/01/10 09:00hrs Eve time.

Greetings all.

I am blown away by the number of downloads of Eve Instant Messenger so far! It has just exceeded 500 downloads and the number of test rooms on the default server number in the low twenties. So based on that I think the general uptake or experimentation with Eve IM is quite high at this early stage. Thank you.  read the rest of this post»

Hi all.

As promised, a gift to the community.

Eve Instant Messenger is a Jabber instant messenger client that uses the Eve Online API to authenticate chat room participants. This ensures communication between all members without the need to use a multitude of IM services. It also provides a function where alerts can be broadcast to all chat room participants to act as a "Call to Arms". Eve IM can be opened or minimised to system tray.

You can download the Windows Installer here:
Eve IM Download Page  read the rest of this post»