Whirly: good to go

I grew my nest egg from 300k to 1,500k ISK. That’s a lot of mining, but I don’t mind. It doesn’t take much attention. I can read, or whatever, at the same time.

I was thrilled to actually run into somebody in the in-game monkly-business chat channel. We didn’t talk much other than his strong suggestion I purchase insurance for my ship. Well yeah, but my ship costs 4 million, without fittings, and the insurance for that is hundreds of thousands of ISP. Insurance is for only 3 months by-the-way.

My insurance is working 0.7 space. That’s very secure other than NPC pirates, called “rats.” I can handle them easily. I’ve even tried mining in 0.6 space without trouble.

Still, I’m trying to play it safe until I have enough cash to replace my ship. It would take much longer to make 4 mill’ with my old frigate. I love my Vextor; its gold skin shines in the sunlight.

Reactivating my EVE account was easy enough. I tried and failed at downloading a patch for half an hour before I read the fine print concerning an alternative method.

I found my Vextor Cruiser right where I left it, all decked out for mining. I have, and can deploy, 5 combat drones for protection. I haven’t figured out what drones are better for what so I’ve collected a selection. They have been successful against everything I’ve ran into so far.

It took me a while to remember how to work the interface well enough to get back into business. I only have 300k ISK so making cash is my first goal. I’m working in 0.7 secure-space until I can afford to replace my Vextor if it gets destroyed.

EVE is an open ended game - there is no set progress path. I don’t really know all the possibilities. Maybe that’s what the game is all about, finding what you can do.

I did not know flying took so much mana. It’s not mana, I don‘t know the real name. I dinged level 14 last night and on my first official flight realized I was running out of mana and needed to make an emergency landing. I had some trouble finding a roof top that didn’t have groups of mobs looking to kill me, I made it. When not pressured, I realized I could have switched to hover which takes much less mana, or I still have a holiday jet pack that uses none. You get one enhancement slot with each skill, but you can add more. I put a flight-speed enhancement into the one slot but I’ll try to add a reduce-mana eventually.

Every single time I play my Defender I think about quitting. I’m just not up to the pressure. I was just trying to get 14 and flight intending to park and do something else. I let myself be drawn into another group, after dinging, that took another hour. It was a huge group and the mission had a heck of a lot of mobs. I was the only Defender but there was a Controller who had a good AE heal. We did very well, but I still was thinking about quitting.

Most people play Blasters followed by Scrappers, Tanks are next with Controllers and Defenders tied for last. There are two other classes that open once you reach 50, I believe, that not many people are playing.

Defenders seem to be hot commodities. It’s possible most of the Defenders are working small private teams because I usually get an invite soon after turning on my looking for team flag. In a mission there are only two things which will get you kudos, good pull and good healing. But, the next battle can be a complete wipe because of things the Defender has no control of, bad pulls, too many mobs, the team fighting too far apart. Then it’s all, “we need more Defenders.” I can’t take this pressure.

I upgraded my enhancements, as best I could, at the merchant. Enhancements are used to improve the performance of your skills. For instance, you can increase your healing spell or reduce it’s recycle time. I also purchased some Awakens, used to rise from the dead, just in case.

I had a mission in the Hollows that was getting a little old. After turning on my LFT flag I thought I’d check it out. The mobs were level 11 while I am 13, it was too easy. Even when I pulled 6 of them, there was no risk. After I’d taken out all the guys and confiscated all the weapons I found that it was a two part mission. I had to do the same thing in another building. I made a bubble and a half of experience and eliminated what little exp debt I had from last night.

I accepted a team invite and joined 5 others in a mission that was too hard for us. Three times I mentioned staying together, twice politely. It didn’t help. Always 2 distant groups, sometimes 3, I just did the best I could. We eventually finished the mission, to my surprise.

After the group broke up, 3 of us joined with 2 new guys for another mission. Even with a complete newbie, who didn’t know what afk ment, this was the best team I’ve played with in days. I wanted to give them all a hug, but settled on, “Thank you.”

I’m half way through level 13.

CoH continues to be both incredibly frustrating and addicting at the same time. I can’t remember a game where I cursed under my breath this often or required this level of focused attention. It reflects poorly on the healer when a teammate dies no matter how badly that teammate plays. It doesn’t matter that a player charges off and dies when the leader has just requested that, “everybody stay together.” The healer feels the loss.

I’m trying to get level 14 before they take away the holiday jet packs. I don’t know when that is. Once you’ve been a flying hero you never want to go back. I dinged level 13 last night so it won’t be long.

Both Mike and Mark are away now, so it’s just me trying to entertain myself. I hope they return soon. This CoH is going to drive me crazy.

My Defender made it to level 10. I chose Teleport Friend as my next skill. If somebody dies and rez is still recharging, and the team moves on, you can teleport the corpse to you for the rez when it’s ready. You can also TP folks to you when they are still alive.

I was in a couple of teams, mostly good with one odd experience. I’d been in a team for an hour or so, we’d done a bunch of missions, they call them “mish,” when a Tank was added. We were standing outside the mish when he showed up. He said, “I’m all about kicking ass.” I responded, “You’ve got a big one so that should work out.” I guess he’s sensitive about his ass because he took exception. I responded badly and he was nice enough to share that he didn’t like me. I moved on to a team that seemed to like me well enough.

I messed up my new Defender build. You get the opportunity for a new skill every two levels. I intended to solo till level 6 so I focused on skills that enhanced my soloing with the expectation of getting heal-others at 6. I messed up and got resurrection at 6. Rez is a great spell, but I needed heal-others to make me an effective group healer. Rez is useless to me at 6.

It’s all good now, but I had to solo to level 8 when I had another chance to get heal-others. I’m going to be extra careful from here on. Wonder what I should select at 10?

WoW:
We took a trip back into Wailing Caverns. Things were completely different from just a few days ago. Mark’s Hunter had turned 24 and my Warlock dinged 24 while we were there. We were able to cut through all the things that gave us trouble before. I’m starting to believe that level is king in WoW.

Our brick wall this time was a named, Druid, plant-guy combo with a sludge thing add. Those Druid 20 second sleeps just kicked our butt again.

CoH:
I played the 13 Controller as planned and got invited into a big group. It was good fun, I even got an invite into a Super Group, that’s what they call guilds. I’m just not happy with the Controller build though.

I started over with a new Defender. I’m using a bow this time, it’s very quiet and effective. I don’t plan to screw up and not choose flying again. It’s a good thing.

Beta:
I’ve been invited into a beta program, I’m downloading the client now. I’ve signed an NDA so I can’t say anything. For instance, if it was about war cars, I couldn’t say. Or maybe I could, I didn’t read the darn NDA. Oops, the download is done, got to go.

I’ve always enjoyed playing healer for a good group. I had the opportunity last night. My level 8 Defender joined a non-healing Defender and we added more through out the evening. It was so much fun I played for an hour longer than planed. Everybody worked together and I kept them alive. A good healer’s work is often unnoticed, but the self satisfaction that the group succeeded is enough.

Healing in CoH is a little different. I have no direct self-heal in battle. I do have an AE heal that heals everyone in range including me. You can’t select group members with keyboard, you must click on their bar. It was a two handed affair with one hand on the keyboard healing and the other on mouse selecting target. To move I had to change my healing or clicking hand. I understand you can bind key functions, but I’ve yet to explore that.

My healing Defender has one major defect. My damage output is mental in nature, “Physic Scream” I believe it’s called. It makes a terrible noise that is annoying. I can’t imagine playing for months with the sound of that scream.

I have a level 13 Controller than can heal. He also has crowd control, very group friendly. I’ll probably be switching to him. He has a defect though. I chose Teleport as my travel method. You select teleport, click in space and off you go. If you don’t teleport again in 3 seconds you fall. I had to waste a training on Hover to avoid the fall. It takes a large quantity of energy, mana, what ever they call it, as well.

BTW: It’s Team not Group in CoH.

When CoH was new and shiny you had to climb over the other heroes to find a free bad guy. Things sure have changed.

Maybe everybody is playing high end content. Perhaps they are playing WoW like the other 5 million subscribers. Where ever they are they aren’t patrolling the newbie-streets of Paragon City.

That’s a good thing if you are working small groups in the street, but is quite a handicap if you need help with bigger groups. My next mission is in a sewer where the groups are too big for a solo healer.

I can hang around waiting for someone to show up or actively recruit and make my own group. I’m ignoring the problem hoping it resolves itself.