Wednesday, November 14, 2012

You can follow Alexia Morgan now instead of me

I'm no longer doing the journey around the galaxy, but my sister, Alexia Morgan, has agreed to take it up on my behalf.  You can follow her new blog here:

Touring New Eden

I think she's doing a much better job at it than I ever was, so if you enjoyed what I was doing, make sure you follow her to enjoy what she's doing instead!

This blog is going on hiatus as I take a break. Alexia will be your focus from now on.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Around New Eden - Day 21

Region: Great Wildlands




I'm still in R-ESG0, but I got this lovely photo of a nice blue planet...


You can probably tell the system was empty at the time, allowing me the luxury of decloaking.

Can you see me waving from the window?

Anyway, while it was nice and quiet I took the opportunity to jump to the next system after making necessary gate bookmarks.




Do you like the new titling I'm using for each system I'm passing through? I got the idea yesterday, and have been playing around with it a little. I think I'm going to have to make the post backgrounds black though, so that they fit in better.

What do you think of it?

When I go to a new system I like exploring the different planets looking for a nice photo opportunity. When I find one, I stop exploring that system, make some bookmarks, and then move on to the next system.

Here's the photo that stopped me from continuing to explore in this system...


Moving right along....

Of course, when I jump into a new system, I look for interesting celestial objects in the overview, but if there's none around, then I move on to the planets.



Can anyone tell me why the red planets are the most photogenic? I love them...

See you tomorrow!

Monday, October 22, 2012

Is it possible?

As I travel the galaxy, one system at a time, I've been thinking about something.

I've been wondering if it's possible to travel the entire galaxy without dying, or even losing a ship.

What do you think?

One of my strengths is avoiding ambushes and gate camps. In fact, I'd say I'm a bit of a master at it, and I've had the experiences to prove it. (It's also why I started OUCH back in 2009, because I was so good at nullsec / lowsec travel and avoiding combat that I ended up teaching others how to do the same.)

But wouldn't that be exciting? Travelling the galaxy, going through over 60 regions and over 5,000 systems, and avoiding death the entire way?

That might be something to write about...

I might write another 'tips' article soon, on how to travel safely. I'm sure I've written about it before, if not here, then maybe in OUCH's original training material, but I'll do it again anyway. There's always someone new that'll find value in it.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Around New Eden - Day 20

Region: Great Wildlands

I was sitting in N-DQ0D all day today, waiting for the 20 or so pilots to go somewhere else. Eventually they did, probably a couple hours before downtime, and I continued on my way.

P1T-LP

Since it was completely empty in here, and I hadn't seen any for quite a while, I decided to take out some aggression on one of the battleship rats in here, to continue my quest to slowly reduce my security status.


You can see me just to the bottom right there, in the background, engaging in a vicious shootout with the rat. I'd already taken out its support ships, a bunch of frigates, and it was desperately fighting for its life.

But it lost.  *chuckle*

I checked the loot in the wreckage, and then remembered why I shouldn't even waste my time.

I moved on to the next system...


R-ESG0


Since downtime was coming, I decided to camp here in R-ESG0 for the night. But first I made a gate bookmark before logging out. Here's a photo of me making another gate bookmark.


Well, you can't actually see me, 'cause I'm cloaked. Have you ever seen a Tech 3 cruiser making gate bookmarks in nullsec space? Hell no, because they're always cloaked!

Well, maybe not always... but if you do see one, good luck killing it. The idiot probably deserves it!

Anyway, see you next time.

Using Disqus for comments

I've just integrated Disqus into this blog as the comment tool. It'll allow a lot more options for commenting, including authorised sign-ins from other social media sites like Facebook and G+, for those that care.

If you notice that your comments are missing from past posts, don't worry - Disqus is importing all pasts comments, but it'll take up to 24 hours.

Please enjoy  :)

Eve blogger and player profiles

A long time ago I used to do a very popular feature where I would interview other Eve bloggers or players and publish it on this blog.

I'm going to start doing that again.

More information coming soon.

Updates on the Eve Online forum

I used to have a presence on the Eve Online forums where I'd document my travels for all those who were interested, but who didn't want to follow this blog. I've just set it up again so I can continue doing this for the Eve forum users.

Eve Online Forum - My Eve - Exploring the Galaxy

I think you can subscribe to it if you want to, so that you can get notifications of updates there. There will be different updates there than what you'll see on this blog.

Black Claw is back on Twitter

You can follow me here.

twitter.com/Black_Claw

Say hi and let me know you're out there.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Around New Eden - Day 19

Region: Great Wildlands

The last 'day' that I spent travelling and documenting my explorations around New Eden was back in November, 2011. Gee, it's been a while.

So I've spent some time today to re-familiarise myself with my travels so far. I've marked off the visited systems on some region maps, and I've printed out my planned path around New Eden.

I've even made sure that I continue where I left off.

N-DQ0D

Average system, a reasonably amount of activity (there were a few people travelling through at most times).


And now I'm going to go get some sleep.

It's nice to be back on the exploration trail! See you next time.

Roll call for active Eve Bloggers

Back in the prime of www.evebloggers.com, I had a list of over 600 blogs. I'm wondering how many active Eve bloggers there are right now.

I'm curious to know. If you're an active Eve blogger, please just say hi and include a link to your blog. I'd love to check it out.

I'm also considering how I can be of assistance to the Eve blogging community again, since it was such a large part of my activities in the past. I think it'd be pretty cool to make it part of my activities again.

What does the community need? How can I help?

Please comment below.

ROLL CALL
  1. Raven Hyperbolic
  2. A Missioneer in Eve
  3. Art of War Alliance
  4. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
  5. Eveoganda
  6. Through Newb Eyes
  7. Interstellar Privateer
  8. Sovereignty Wars
  9. Living A Lie
  10. Eve Opportunist
  11. Foo's Eve Musings
  12. Poetic Discourse
  13.  


Oh, it's Black Claw again

Since my last post back in April I've had a lot of things happen in my life. I got back into Eve back then but then, but quickly got back out again. It just wasn't the right time for me to come back and hang around.

I'm coming back again now. Will it be the right time this time, or will I again come and go quicker than you can say "Hey, where's Black Claw gone?"

I don't know. All I can do is give it a try again and see if I hang around for longer than a day.

The exploration of the galaxy will continue.

So what's changed in New Eden since I was last here?

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Where did Black Claw go?

Back in January I wrote about how I was 'untethering' from all these things in my life, clearing out 'stuff' and making things simple again. I wanted to try new things and felt that Eve was, in some way, preventing me from doing them by taking up my time. I handed over OUCH to my senior staff. I quit OUCH and moved on, back into my old corp Scorpion's Sting. I gave up www.evebloggers.com to someone else.

It felt great to let go of everything!

I stopped playing. I did the other things and certainly enjoyed them, but recently I've been feeling a pull to get back into Eve. I'd been playing it since the beginning of 2006, and I think there's traces of Eve in my blood or something. It flows within me, and it calls to me. It calls!

After four or five months without it, I'm feeling like it's a good thing to get back into it. It was slowly rising in me over the past couple of weeks, and my post 11 days ago was a somewhat cryptic message about these feelings stirring within me. "My blood is moving. It's like.... I'm coming back to life or something." And I felt that Eve was calling me, like a flame and I was the moth. "Is there a light? Surely there's gotta be a light."

But I wasn't entirely sure at the time I wrote that. I just wanted to write it, and see how I felt about it. But since writing it, the urge to come back has grown.

Today I actually became active again. I created a new thread on the Eve forums, and I reactivated my G+ page.

Honestly? I think I needed the break, but now I'm back. And it feels good to be back into it.

It's nice to have no responsibilities and no 'administration'. It's nice to feel all fresh about it again. I went through my eve mail and deleted close to 100 pages of mail - all of it, gone. I didn't read any of it, and I kept nothing. Everything that I've done before no longer applies. It's a new start.

I'll be continuing my travels, documenting every single system in the entire galaxy, and I look forward to seeing some of you around New Eden. Some of you I'll be dodging! But I'll enjoy all of it.

The adventure continues

I've gone through some recuperation for being in stasis for so long. It did some damage to my eyes, apparently, but they're all better now.

I forgot how to use some of the ship controls. Would you believe that? But after a few minutes I was able to get back into it all.

I've spent some time today getting things back in order. I've been re-working my page on Google+ and becoming sociable again on it. I've also started a new thread on the Eve Forums because someone had locked my old thread. Maybe it was because I hadn't updated it in a few months, I don't know.

I also checked out the map and past blog posts to work out where the hell I was, where I'd been, and where I'm going.

The adventure continues!

I'm going to be hanging out in my in-game channel when I'm online: Black's Travels

It would be great if you could join me there and say hi.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Am I alive?

Something's moving. I can feel it stirring.

What's going on?

My blood is moving. It's like... I'm coming back to life or something.

Darkness. That's all I can see.

Is there a light? Surely there's gotta be a light.

Where am I? Wait... Who am I?

Oh... I remember. Black Claw. That's what they called me.

What happened? Why can't I see?

Friday, January 06, 2012

So long, and thanks for all the fish

For quite a few years now I've been playing Eve. I think I'm coming up on my 6th anniversary...  I've been actively blogging for pretty much all that time - excluding a few months where I played WoW, and then another few months when I was playing LOTRO... oh, and just recently while playing Skyrim....

Anyway, the recent break with Skyrim was a symptom of something else that's going on in my life. I'm 'untethering' from a lot of things that are not providing me with any value or helping me grow personally and professionally. This included 'stuff' and 'activities'.  I was getting rid of all the crap in the garage that I hadn't looked at in years. I was throwing out old books that were no longer relevant since I have Kindle on the iPad. I was disconnecting from people that were frustrating me. I was avoiding those activities that were just tedious, and slowly disconnecting from them too.

One day after Xmas I woke up and realised that Eve Online was tedious. I was playing it because I'd 'always been playing it'. It was part of my life in a 'coming home from work and relaxing in front of Eve' kind of way. You know, like most people relax with TV or a newspaper.  Except it was still 'work'. I still had to 'do stuff'.  I realised it was no longer enjoyable or bringing me value.

On top of this change for me was the dissatisfaction with how CCP managed their staff. Once the people that I valued were fired, my free 'media accounts' were reverted to paid accounts and I had to start paying for my time again, even though I had fan sites that (once) allowed me free access. I contacted CCP and they apologised for the error, advising this 'is now fixed'. Except it wasn't. They were polite and helpful when I followed it up, saying it was fixed. Except it still wasn't. Then they didn't reply to my queries, and a petition I raised about it was closed without resolution. And I'm still now paying for accounts that are supposed to be free because I run fan sites.

So I'm over it. Not just because of that, but because it's just another element of changes in the priorities within my life.

Eve Bloggers is shutting down

Also, as a result of these changes, and the newfound lack of appreciation from CCP, I'm closing the Eve Bloggers Portal.  That's right, www.evebloggers.com is shutting down.

The domain fees are due for renewal at the beginning of February, and I'm not going to renew it. As the most extensive listing of all of Eve's blogs for the past 3 years, it's always been the most under-appreciated and ignored. And I'm over that too.

What's happening with Black Claw?

I'll continue Black Claw's account and have the character as my occasional 'I might log in and have another few jumps around the galaxy this month' type of game, continuing to record my progress in this blog.

I have no illusions that this is a long-term certainty. I might just give it all up completely over the next few months.

It's been fun.  :)