Category: Gaming

[EQII] Where do you Start? The Beginning.

Returning to a game you’ve been away from for some time is never an easy feat. You have to make some tough decisions, do you re-visit your old characters that you love but you have no idea how to play / where to go, or do you start fresh so that you can try to re-learn the game (and your class). I opted for a combination of the two.

I started off re-visiting my higher level characters. Right now I have a handful of level 120 characters, and an unused boost for 130. The rest all sit at level 100, except for a brand new Ratonga Coercer, who was created so that I could get a feel for things again. Most of my characters sit on the Antonia Bayle server, but that has grown quiet over the years, and so this time around I created on the more populated Maj’Dul. There were some events taking place and chat was lively as people were trying to figure out timers and zones to head to. I wasn’t quite ready for that, yet. Soon though.

I’m not really a fan of the ‘starting over’ method, but you’re not given a lot of choices. Games (IMO) do a very bad job of welcoming back the average returning player. In most cases you log in and you’re given zero indication as to what you were working on 10 years ago, and you have no idea where to go to progress – or if you even want to progress. A lot of update notes that you’ve never seen have probably crossed the paths of most players, and you’ll be expected to stumble your way along until eventually, finally, if you stick with it – you’ll catch up.

So where does that leave me? A level 2 coercer, who at least knows where to go and what to do – and a few level 120 characters who have no idea what is going on. In the end, I settled for some crafting.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

[EVE Online] Detroid Drifters & The Rattlesnake Rodeo

Filed by E

Every year Signal Cartel does something I can only describe as science-nerd Christmas: The Jove Observatory Survey.

We scatter across New Eden like hyperactive data analysts, poking our noses into every region to check whether a system has a Jove Observatory, and—if it does—how many unidentified wormholes it’s cooked up this year. It’s equal parts research, tradition, and “what if we poked the Drifters again for fun?”

This year, I volunteered to wander through Detroid. Detroid! Home of:

  • not much,
  • even less,
  • and Drifters who regard privacy as a myth.

I hopped system to system in my trusty Helios, scribbling notes like an excitable intern:

  • Jove tower present? ✔️ / ✖️
  • Unidentified wormholes? 0 / 1 / ★PANIC★
  • Any Drifters glaring at me? Always ✔️

Detroid was calm in that eerie “someone turned the danger knob to mute but forgot to tell the fauna” sort of way. Since I was already in the neighborhood, I figured I’d nip across the border into Insmother—because explorers make bad choices with confidence.

The moment I landed in system, d-scan lit up with exactly two things:
A Rattlesnake.
And someone clearly very bored.

They saw me. I saw the gate. We all saw the general vibe, which was: “E is about to get chased like a cartoon coyote.”

Sure enough, the pilot landed on grid with that “howdy stranger” energy. I’m in a Helios—fast, slippery, about as dangerous as a paper airplane. They were in a Rattlesnake—chunky, expensive, bristling with enough drone damage to turn me into abstract art.

I hit the afterburner. They hit everything else. And suddenly I was threading celestial pings and safe spots like some discount space-ninja.

Another hunter appeared—because apparently Insmother was running a two-for-one explorer special today. I decided, very rationally:
Nope.

I made one last safe, bounced cleanly, de-cloaked, and did the single bravest thing an explorer can do in nullsec:

I logged off.

Gracefully.
Peacefully.
Like a possum playing dead.

I’ll return when the local wildlife has wandered off or gotten distracted by a wormhole.

Jove Observatories: catalogued.
Unidentified wormholes: noted.
Insmother: rude.
E: alive, somehow.

Fly clever, fly curious, and when in doubt… just turn the ship off and hope for the best.

o7

[Wurm Online] The Finders Keepers Series

You might have missed it, but I’ve been posting a Wurm Online series over on YouTube called Finders Keepers. I created a new character named Fynder over on the Cadence server (Northern Islands) and the premises of the series is that we start completely from scratch – including giving up all of our gear / tools that we start with, and we can only use items that we actually find. No crafting.

In episode one I wander around doing a bit of foraging and botanizing, and trying to find my way out of the populated areas so that I can potentially stumble into some salvage. We find a shaft, some cotton, and 5 whole copper. One of the ‘rules’ of this challenge is that we CAN use merchants, but we can’t do direct trades with other players. We can also only spend what we find. No premium, no deed – unless it’s paid for with coins that we find. Assembling items with found bits is OK, but crafting them from scratch, not OK. The goal is to live light, and not carry around too much. So we started with zero gear, zero tools, and where are we now after the second episode?

In episode 2 we stumbled into a really nice bit of items that were decaying from a fallen deed. We found a shield, a sword, and some tools. Still missing armor, and we don’t have a pickaxe (pretty high up on my list in case we get stuck some place and need to mine our way out). We also have no rope, so no way to lead animals. We have no tent, but for now we are still protected by the beginner buff and our aggro range is reduced.

We also stumbled into a whole silver piece as far as coins go! Botanizing has really been paying off. I spent some time looking for a merchant to potentially spend this silver, without luck. I’d really like a compass. We have no maps available to us, and I’m pretty sure we’ve been walking in circles.

If you’re interested in watching these episodes (and the rest of them) you can find them over on YouTube. Production quality is low, but I’m still learning, so just hang tight as I deal with sound issues and all of the rest. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Episode 1

Episode 2

[Warcraft] Gold Making – Week 47 (2025)

Sales in World of Warcraft continue to be a bit slow, and I imagine Remix is still taking up a lot of time – but they’re not too bad. This week profit was just over 4 million for the week, with most of that coming from transmog. I did sell some of the NLA shirts that I’ve had stashed away for some time, and some primal illusion recipes (crafters are gearing up for housing, and why not grab those missing recipes while you’re at it).

I decided to load up my bnet (the cap is $450 CAD in my currency) and I stuck a year of game time on my main account. I currently have three active accounts (two I play, one for AH only) but I might let one of those lapse in the future as I don’t tend to multibox all that much any more (it’s an easy way to get mass reported by players, even if you’re playing within Blizzard’s rules). I also gifted a few things to friends even though I used an abundance of caution since I JUST got my account back, hopefully everyone enjoys the early Christmas presents. This did put me at 80 million liquid when I had been hoping to reach 100 million by the time that Midnight releases, we’ll see if I can still reach that goal. I’m not too concerned if I don’t, 80 million gold is still a pretty respectable amount for someone like me.

I’m expecting the market to really explode in one way or another once housing releases on December 2nd. There’s so many crafted items, and I think we’ll see an influx of people returning to professions. I’m getting ready in my own way, but I already have 4 horde crafters & 4 alliance crafters which covers all professions, so I am hoping to avoid the mad rush of people who waited until the last second. I guess we’ll see! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

[EVE Online] Just Another Day in the Wormhole Commute

Filed by E

Some people wake up, stretch, make coffee, and start their day.

I wake up, stretch, make coffee, and immediately inhale a cloud of compressed fullerite because I’ve been huffing gas in a wormhole since dawn.

The C50 cloud I found wasn’t the richest thing in Anoikis, but it was quiet, unoccupied, and no one tried to decloak me with a polarized Loki, so by wormhole standards it was practically a spa day. After my Venture’s hold was full and my nerves were only medium-jangled, I scanned down a highsec connection and slipped through.

And surprise — I landed just nine jumps from Amarr.
A miracle. A blessing. A trap?
Hard to say.

I docked in the first NPC station I could find and dumped my haul into a neat little bin, then contracted it to my close friend — let’s call her IR, professional space-trucker and part-time sanity-preserver. IR was on the other side of the universe doing whatever haulers do (which as far as I can tell involves 90% boredom, 5% paperwork, and 5% screaming while burning an MWD through bubbles).

IR responded to my contract with:
“On it.”

No hesitation.
No questions.
Just the resigned energy of someone who has accepted that their explorer-friend lives in the abyss and occasionally needs extraction.

She sprinted across nullsec and lowsec like a madperson, dodged the usual array of local lunatics, and made it to Amarr — only to discover that her previous Occator had… mysteriously vanished. (Her words. Not mine.)

So she bought a new Occator, on the spot.
As one does, apparently.

While she fitted it, I poked around the trade hub and watched the ever-present swarm of gankers circling like vultures with blasters. The usual crowd: Tornado pilots pretending they’re subtle, Catalyst pilots pretending they can count to 15, and one guy who kept broadcasting “GIANT MINING FLEET IN KAMIO, GO GO GO” for no reason I could discern.

Just Amarr things.

Eventually IR undocked in her shiny new hauler, threaded the gauntlet of suicide Catalysts, managed not to explode, picked up my gas, and whisked it off to be sold for a tidy sum. I, meanwhile, dove back into the wormhole where the local Sleeper population was still mad at me for existing.

Just a typical day when you live in j-space:

  • Huff gas ✔️
  • Find exit ✔️
  • Dump loot on hauler ✔️
  • Watch hauler perform heroics ✔️
  • Avoid the Amarr gank circus ✔️
  • Return to the void ✔️

Sometimes I wonder why people live anywhere else.

Fly sneaky, fly safe-ish, and tip your haulers.
o7