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CrazyKinux ends his EVE Blog Pack
If you're an EVE player, you've probably heard of David "CrazyKinux" Perry at some point. Affectionately known as CK for short, CrazyKinux has been instrumental in the development and growth of EVE Online's dedicated blogging and podcasting community. He helped either create or promote the largest parts of that community's online presence, from the Tweet Fleet to the EVE Blog Pack to EVE Blog Banter to several podcast hosting duties and more. But sadly, CK has recently announced his retirement from his blog and presence in the EVE community. According to his final blog post, CK has been hired as the director of development for indie game studio Behaviour Interactive. He says he now will have the time to "play the darn game and read your blogs!" If you're interested in following post-blog CK, his new Twitter is @SocialDave. Best of luck, CK!
CrazyKinux looking for new pilots to join the pack
No, our old friend CrazyKinux isn't looking for new people to join his corporation. Currently, he's in the middle of overhauling the EVE Blog Pack rolls and is looking for some fresh new EVE Online bloggers to join in. While the blog pack has become a serious force in terms of independent EVE Online community voices, some have fallen silent while others have entered the space. To keep the quality up, he's decided to overhaul the pack to make sure there's lots of top-notch content.If you think you've got what it takes to hang with the Blog Pack, then head on over to CrazyKinux's Musing and drop in a comment with your URL and a note on why you think your site should be allowed to join. CK will look through all entries received by September 1st and make a decision. Also - if you're a pilot who just likes lots of new blogs to read, you should pop by and check out all the great sites already linked in the comments. We think CK's got his work cut out for him with all the great EVE content we've seen out there!
EVE Community Spotlight: CrazyKinux page two
The EVE blogging community you've brought together is made up of players of all types: industrialists, pirates, militia fighters, even drug dealers. Somehow they all seem to get along. Looking at the EVE forums, people tend to clash all the time. Why isn't this the case with the EVE Blog Pack? I remember watching a TED video of Seth Godin on Tribes, and something he said struck me: people want one thing, they want to be missed. On the EVE forums, one way to do that, one way to get a response is to provoke. On forums that works, and is why we've got trolls. On the EVE Blog Pack that's different. We know a bit more about each other, we're trying to have discussions on what drives our gaming passion: EVE. Getting along is a necessary requirement, otherwise people won't come back to your blog, read and comment. Which is actually one of the requirements of the Pack, to participate in the discussions. Unless you want to be ignored, you'll respect everyone's opinion.
EVE Community Spotlight: CrazyKinux
CrazyKinux is one of the standout players in EVE Online who has contributed to the game in significant ways. He's known as Treenara Mazouk in New Eden, but most players simply call him 'CrazyKinux'. His site, CrazyKinux's Musing, is a popular destination for players curious about EVE Online or looking for info about how to get started, as well as a hub of activity for the EVE player community.Beyond the four years and counting he's been a vocal member of the player community, CrazyKinux has provided commentary on EVE through The Drone Bay podcast and later on MicroWarpCast. The writers at Massively had the good fortune to work with CrazyKinux in the past, with his Have Clone, Will Travel column, but he's since gone on to have a bigger impact on the game. CrazyKinux turned his attention to the EVE community itself, where much of the out-of-game interaction between players had been on forums or on player blogs that often existed in their own microcosm. He linked them together into a cohesive community and the momentum has resulted in hundreds of EVE players writing about their experiences in New Eden, and the most active bloggers participate in regular, intelligent discussions about the game in "EVE Blog Banters". CrazyKinux is one busy man, but Massively recently caught up with him to discuss the community of EVE players he's helped bring together and what it is about the game and its playerbase that motivated him to make this happen.
EVE Online article on piloting savvy a condensed gem of a resource
We read a lot of what EVE Online players have to say about the game, whether it's on the growing number of blogs out there, in the official forums, or at Scrapheap Challenge. In fact we've noted an ever-increasing amount of excellent content out there, particularly among the EVE Blog Pack that's either informative or entertaining, and often both. The only downside, if there even is one, is that we don't get the chance to highlight as much of what people are doing out there quite as much as we'd like. Now and again though, we come across something that we feel really stands out and truly deserves a mention. This is the case with "Piloting Savviness", one condensed gem of a post by 00sage00 on his blog Yarrbear Tales. 00sage00's article is chock full of tips on how to improve your effectiveness as a pilot, ranging from pointers on knowing your ship and its limitations to gaining an an awareness of your opposition, as well as your surroundings. If you're an EVE Online player getting into PvP, "Piloting Savviness" is a must-read.
Massively looks at Capsuleer 2.0, an iPhone app for EVE Online
The newest generation of smartphones has begun to deliver on the ideal of having continual access to your data on the go with persistent web connections. As such, the iPhone is becoming ubiquitous, helped no doubt by its ease of use and the ever-growing number of apps available to users. In the relatively short time the iPhone has existed, it's already begun to have an impact on the gaming world. Given how stat-centric massively multiplayer online titles are, it was inevitable that there would be some steps made towards a marriage between the iPhone and our games; some developers are creating iPhone apps that extend certain aspects of MMOs beyond the game client.This can be especially useful with a game like EVE Online, where players typically have a number of things going on, even while they're not logged in to play. While the EVE iPhone apps don't act as game clients, players can, for instance, check in on the skill progression of their characters, check their wallet balances as market transactions and contract sales take place while away from the client, and in general keep tabs on their virtual involvements in New Eden. Capsuleer 2.0 is one such iPhone and iPod touch app for EVE Online that aims to be a portal into New Eden for whenever players are away from their computers and on the go; in some respects, it's a persistent real-world analog to EVE's in-game Neocom used to keep tabs on your characters. Capsuleer 2.0 was approved by Apple just this week, so Massively caught up with its two creators to find out more about what they've been up to. Marcus Dickinson is known in EVE as Roc Wieler and is likely a familiar name to many players from his Roc's Ramblings blog. The other half of the Capsuleer duo is Chris Whiteford (PyjamaSam in EVE Online), and they were both kind enough to take some time out to speak with us about their work on Capsuleer as well as their plans for its future. Read on for Massively's Capsuleer interview and our impressions of the app in a brief visual tour.%Gallery-49697%
Massively nominated for E-ON Magazine 2009 Editor's Choice Award
Voting in the 2009 E-ON Magazine Awards kicked off earlier this week, announced both in the current issue of E-ON, the official magazine of EVE Online, and on the game's website. The E-ON awards are a big deal in EVE, as they're a way of honoring standout players, in-game corporations, and alliances for their contributions to the game over the course of the previous year. It's also a chance for EVE's playerbase to look at the list of nominees and inevitably exclaim, "Who the hell is that?" when seeing an unfamiliar name among them. (This is perhaps a testament to how much is going on in relation to EVE's setting of New Eden, both in-game and out.)We certainly hope no one does this when they see Massively listed in a new category established this year -- the E-ON Editor's Choice Award. The Editor's Choice Award nominees were handpicked by the E-ON team to highlight contributions to the game that might have been overlooked otherwise, or simply wouldn't fit into the other established voting categories.
New blogging community forms around Warhammer Online
When gamers passionate about their MMO of choice form a close-knit community of bloggers, it provides a collective window into the game that readers wouldn't be able to get from the major sites alone. A prime example of this is the very active EVE Online blogging community brought together by our friend CrazyKinux, where EVE's players contribute opinions, tips, even tutorials on a daily basis. Given how successful this has been with EVE Online, why can't MMO gamers rally around another title? It's possible that the next blogging community focused on a single MMO title will be based around Warhammer Online. The WAR-centric blog "Wizards & Wenches" has put out a call to the game's player base in WAR: Age of Blogging. They're declaring January '09 to be the WAR: Age of Blogging month, and encourage any Warhammer Online players with something to say to jump in and start writing, even first-time bloggers. (For those who are relatively new to blogging, there's some support to be found at Blog Warhammer where they can help you get set up with a blogging platform like WordPress or Blogger.)Massively wishes the new Warhammer Online bloggers the best of luck, and we'd love to see the player community build something that turns out as well as The EVE Blog Pack. If the prospect of joining the ranks of the WAR bloggers has caught your interest, be sure to see the announcement post over at Wizards & Wenches for more info on how you can get involved. WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
EVE 'Blog Banter' discusses Walking in Stations expansion
While the official EVE Online forums have always been very active, there are other options out there. For those who like how busy the official forums are, but not the rules that govern it, there's Scrapheap Challenge. SH-C is a forum which is chiefly dedicated to discussing EVE Online, but not moderated by CCP Games themselves. Recent months, however, have seen a large number of EVE players striking out on their own, with their own blogs that focus on a particular aspect of the game linked to that blogger's playstyle. Industry, finance, piracy, 0.0 alliance warfare, and now even boosters (drugs) are being written about on a daily basis.While over 100 of these blogs are out there, the more prolific among them have joined under the banner of CrazyKinux's Blog Pack. By all accounts, it's been a successful community effort by EVE players, and now CrazyKinux is adding another dimension to the Blog Pack: conversation topics that are collectively tackled by the various bloggers, called "Blog Banter." The first Blog Banter got underway this past week, and the first issue up for discussion has been a timely one: EVE's Walking in Stations expansion, formerly known as Ambulation, which Fanfest attendees will get to try out firsthand in just a few more days. The question itself was proposed by PsycheDiver, who asked, "Ambulation: What are your hopes for your avatar and new functionality of stations?"
CCP Games highlights community efforts of EVE bloggers
It's been pretty eventful lately in terms of EVE Online news. As a recap: the Quantum Rise expansion was announced, new features are on the way, the backstory was advanced through a new video, controversy and even outright rage ensued over disabling ghost training, a Quarterly Economic Newsletter was released, and there have been concerns over the future of EVE given Iceland's economic woes. While some of these news items are mentioned in the latest EVE Online newsletter (aside from the ghost training fiasco), CCP Games has also given some attention to the EVE community itself, something Massively has been been taking note of as well. It seems our friend and EVE community puppetmaster David Perry (aka CrazyKinux) has just gotten the nod from CCP for his latest effort.
