Around New Eden - Day 10

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

OR-GZQ

Once again I'm in a dead end system, with no one around. Even the planets are just boring. How boring? This boring. Yeh, really.

But I just got an idea for something to add to my blog posts, to show the routes that I've travelled each day. I'll just do a few more jumps around GW, and then I'll sort that out. You might enjoy it...

ZJ-GOU

While I was flying around in this system, looking at - well, not much at all really, except for another boring planet...

Anyway, while I was flying around I was speaking to Giribaldi, another friendly fellow. He was telling me about some kind of drama going on between TEST alliance 'super capital investment fiasco', that you can read about on EveNews24.  I'm not really into such dramas, but I thought I'd share it with the rest of you, 'cause I know some of you just LOVE dramas!

He also cautioned me on scams occurring with transferring ISK to aurum, but seeing as how I've got zero interest in aurum, I told him that's never likely to happen anyway.

Then I fell asleep. And so ended Day 10, with only two new systems visited....


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"Black's Travels" in-game channel

Due to popular demand from some of my fans, I created an in-game channel where they can hang out and talk to me when I'm online. If you want to do the same, please join this channel:

BLACK'S TRAVELS

Maybe I'll see you there?



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Eve Bloggers has a new Community Manager

Back in February 2009 I created the Eve Bloggers Portal (www.evebloggers.com), a single location for the sharing of all the Eve blogs and their posts. I also created the Eve Bloggers Facebook group which, surprisingly, seems to still be active, even though I have gone through phases of forgetting about it over the past couple of years...  Also in early 2009 I created the in-game chat channel 'EVE-BLOGGERS' for Eve bloggers to keep in touch with each other, and I'm happy that it's still quite popular today.

I set them all up to be low maintenance, so that I could have them going in the background without much of my own involvement. The biggest area of maintenance and administration was evebloggers.com, because I've been responsible for adding new blogs to it about once or twice a month, on average.

Over the previous two years, there had been various blogs that had come and gone and were now inactive. I had a listing of over 700 blogs, and I knew that I needed to cull quite a few. I also know I couldn't do this myself due to my own lack of time.  So I decided that I needed to get someone to help me.

Back in March this year, I put out a call to the community to find someone to help me with administration.  Would you believe that out of the hundreds of people that read my blog, only one offered to help? I was a little disappointed with the lack of interest, but not that much - I was excited to have at least one person wanting to help!

Their in-game name is Biore, and he was very friendly and available, and sincerely wanted to help with whatever I needed help with.  So I tasked him with going through over 700 blogs and itemising those that needed to be removed. What would have taken me weeks, took him a few hours. Holy crap! Needless to say, I was impressed.  I then went through his list and started removing the inactive blogs from my list, and managed to get it down to about 500-something blogs, but then got distracted again by Real Life.

Six months later, I contacted Biore again (just the other day) and asked him if he was still interested and available in helping. He was - yay!  So I made him the new 'administration assistant' to the Eve Bloggers Portal.

Over the weekend just gone, I transferred the RSS feeds of all the Eve blogs (641 of them) out of my applicable personal RSS folder in Google Reader (which was driving the feed behind www.evebloggers.com) and transferred it all over into its own Google Reader account, updating the portal accordingly so that the blog updates were coming from the new RSS feed location. I then gave Biore access to that account, along with instructions on how to remove the RSS feeds of inactive blogs.

I will continue to administrate the Portal itself, with the adding of new blogs to the site and the evebloggers RSS feed, and Biore will look after the removal of inactive or irrelevant blogs.

I'm very excited that this move has been made, because I feel that having an enthusiastic assistant like Biore will be a great step forward in the management of these Eve Bloggers features.

Also, after thinking about it and then discussing it with him just yesterday, I felt that it would be a great idea for EVE BLOGGERS to have its own Community Manager, with access to the Facebook page, as well as to the EVE-BLOGGERS channel in-game.  Biore agreed with me, and graciously accepted my offer.

Therefore, please join with me in welcoming Eve Bloggers' new Community Manager, Biore!

Within the space of 48 hours, he has managed to get the list of 641 Eve blogs down to only 234.  As Biore said to me, it's a shame that so many Eve blogs have come and gone, and no longer active. From the 700+ blogs I once had a list of, there's now only 200+.

I'm still encouraged by the regular influx of people wanting their blogs added to the list and shared out via the portal.  You can see the list of blogs as they've been added here, on the Eve Bloggers Latest Blogs page. As you can see, every single month there have been new people joining the list of Eve bloggers.

Please make sure you add yours to the list if you haven't already done so.



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Around New Eden - Highlights of Curse

I decided that I would make a post after I've finished each region and just touch on the highlights of my travels through that region.


Day 1

I started my journey in Curse, in Doril. Sadly, I apparently missed out on the landmark in that system. But you know what? I'll get it when I return. :)

After doing 9 jumps around Curse I finally got my first  brief moment of adrenaline. I jumped into K-QWHE and discovered I was in a bubble around the gate but luckily for me there was no one around. However, that was the only moment of adrenaline on day 1...

By the end of Day 1 I had done 12 systems. I thought that I would do an average of 15 systems a day and would do the entire galaxy in 416 days. Assuming 3 days of game play per week, that would take me 138 weeks, or more than two and a half years. By Day 9, however, I had done an average of 6 systems per day. This would mean it will take me about 866 days, or 288 weeks - five and a half years at my current rate!

I'm enjoying this. :)

Day 2

I undocked from the station in AAM-1A and found someone had undocked with me, trying to ambush me with their Dramiel. I managed to re-dock and prevent their foul deed from succeeding, and eventually I moved on once they got tired of waiting for me.

Landmark in CL-85V: there was an 'Unidentified Cartel Hideout' that I took some photos of.

Over in 8G-MQV I watched some of my corpmates on a warp bubble, hoping to get some photos of them killing some hapless victim. But after half an hour of waiting with no one turning up, I said my farewells to the corp and went on my way.

Landmark in J7A-UR: some 'Derelict Ruins' were in here. Apparently a mystery to anyone that finds them, including me.

Day 3

Nothing much of interest on this day, but I did go through 8 systems.

Day 4

Not much of interest, but did meet another friendly pilot in here - medvedstvo. It was good chatting with him. He inspired me to discover the history of a region as I travel through them.

Day 5

I made a 'station exit' bookmark under an apparently camped station that turned out to be an exceptional idea when I had to undock from it a short time later and they were still there. I managed to get away smoothly.

Took a photo of a carrier.

Day 6

Landmark in ZZ-ZWC: another Unidentified Cartel Hideout. There's a few of them around, it seems. And I thought about all the Jovian technology they apparently have access to, and why they can't use some of it to clean up their hideouts...

Landmark in K-MGJ7: an Abandoned Mining Colony

Day 7

Got some nice photos on this day of planets on fire... Amazing stuff.  Nothing else of interest.

Day 8

Another brief moment of excitement! Jumped into a system and found a warp bubble around me, with a Sabre and Stiletto waiting for me to show myself. I did, but managed to elude them and get away, although they were 700 metres away from decloaking me... Unfortunately, I was too busy making sure I got away from them that I forgot to take a photo.  *sad face*

Took a photo of an Archon carrier.

Finally completed the Curse region and jumped into Great Wildlands.






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Around New Eden - Day 9

Region: Great Wildlands

I moved on from UT-UZB to the next system en route...

BY5-V8

One thing I've noticed since being here in Great Wildlands is that I've not seen any traffic through UT-UZB while I was sitting in their studying the map of the region. And then I moved over to this system, BY5, and there's still no traffic. In fact, I'm beginning to think the place is as dead as this desert planet...

7-1DWY

I really enjoy finding a landmark in a system, and I found a 'Ruined Minmatar Outpost' out here...

"Fighting for a nation still in its infancy, the stoic and indomitable people of the early Minmatar Republic suffered frequent and catastrophic losses at the hands of the much larger Amarr Empire. Countless outposts on the edge of patrolled space fell to the scorching lasers of Amarrian marauders. To this day, these structures remain as silent reminders of freedom’s price."

This outpost had a large gas cloud that seemed to have erupted outwards from behind the station, but now was motionless in the vacuum of space.  According to the memorial quote, this was one of those outposts attacked and destroyed by the Amarr Empire.  While taking some photos of the outpost and an Arch Angels ship, I changed some of the graphics settings so that there was less shade and more light. This meant some of the detail could be seen a lot better.

Just before I left 7-1, I received a message over the comms from one of the locals, Nunuuika Avery, who wished me well on my travels. I thanked him. It's great to meet people who wish me well. Makes a nice change from meeting those that want me dead, with extreme prejudice...

TET3-B

In here I found an 'Abandoned Mining Colony':

"Throughout the history of space flight, countless mining corporations have tried and failed to strike it rich among the stars, fuelled by dreams of lucrative profits and grand adventures. All too often, however, these naïve dreams are met with the cold reality of ambivalent police forces and roving pirates that are all too eager to exploit the lax policing."

While taking the photos, I marvelled at the workmanship that had gone into such a structure. I'm finding that as I'm travelling around and witnessing the after-effects of battles and massacres, I'm left saddened at the losses I'm seeing. I know it's all historical, but we all know these things happen today as well - the efforts and lives of a great many people are taken in battle all over the galaxy.

F-5FDA (Scalding Pass)

I moved into F-5FDA. It's actually in Scalding Pass, but I needed to go through it to continue on in GW. I was about to move on, but then I realised there was another Abandoned Mining Colony in this system, so of course I had to go take some photos...

It was essentially the same as one of the abandoned mining colonies I'd found back in Curse. Some things just don't change, I guess...

9-34L5

I found some Natural Phenomena....

"The depths of space are home to all kinds of cosmic anomalies, from concentrations of electromagnetic disturbance to dense clouds of rare gas. These types of areas are valued for the scientific knowledge they could impart. Though they are often dangerous, these phenomena are also the subject of frequent research expeditions."

You know, while taking photos of the strange rock formation at this location, I discovered that the modification I made to the graphics configuration meant that part of the background would show through the object in the foreground...  How odd.  So I had to change it back again to get some better photos. 

At least now I know what to do to make quick changes to get better photos, depending on what it is I'm taking photos of...

This one looks like the sun shining through the tentacles of some kind of space monster, with a pirate ship observing...

GF-3FL

I was wandering around looking at the planets in this system when another of the locals (hi PinkPanther86!) said hello, and that they were having a read of my blog. We talked for a little bit about whether or not I've been killed yet (I haven't), and they wished me well in my future travels.

I was about to finish up for the day and go off and watch a movie, when my OUCH CEO started chatting with me about some ideas he had.

Look in this space in the near future for some podcasts from yours truly.


See you next time!


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Around New Eden - Day 8

LJ-YSW

All the planets in this system were pretty boring, but I managed to find one that was ok...

G-0Q86

Jumping back into G-0 I discovered a warp bubble around me, with a Sabre and a Stiletto within 13km of me, and 20+ others in local. Busy, and dangerous for me! So I waited a few moments and then moved in a random direction, cloaked up once the gate cloak dissipated, and then changed direction, moving away from the direction it looked like I was headed. The stiletto immediately moved towards me, and managed to get about 2.7km from me before continuing on and away from me. I stopped biting my fingernails, waited until I was outside the bubble and then warped away to a tactical bookmark on another gate - but not before accidentally dropping my cloak. This meant they saw which direction I was headed, so when I arrived, so did they.

This is the reason why making tactical bookmarks is a good idea, because you then go to your bookmarked location 200km from the gate, and watch them wait for you and then jump through, hoping you'll follow, and then jump back, wait for a while, and get tired of waiting and go do something else.

I liked this photo...

While waiting, I went and got a massage, made some calls to friends, and then returned to the console. I was sure they'd gotten bored of waiting for me by now, so I went to the G-R gate to make a bookmark before jumping through.

Except that suddenly local lit up with 'Primary the Archon!', so I went and had a look for it. I found it at one of the stations, but there wasn't anything happening. I took a photo of it and a Dominix, and then returned to bookmarking.

While I was out there bookmarking, I found another beautiful scene, so I had to take a photo of that too...

And then I was wondering. By this time there was about 30 in local, and I wondered why it was so busy out here. So I asked if anyone wanted to be interviewed about the history of this area of the region. But no one was keen, so I had a brief conversation about retards and warp bubbles and then moved on.

G-R4W1

This was an empty system, which was good 'cause it meant there wouldn't be any scouts watching for me to jump back.

There was some nice photo opportunities in this system, with some pretty planets on fire...

After jumping back to G-0 I saw there was now over 40 in local. It was getting busier!  I really needed to move on...  I warped to the KLMT gate bookmark, and saw 4 ships sitting at the gate before jumping through. Looks like I needed to wait a while again....  The Initiative and Darkside sure were busy in here. It was entirely possible there were cloaked scouts on this gate, and they were all waiting for me on the other side... I waited about 10 minutes and then jumped through, happy to find the system empty.  Yay!

But now I was about to move on to the next region, Great Wildlands.

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

UT-UZB

Interestingly, where Curse had a primarily green-yellow backdrop, Great Wildlands is blue.

After wandering UT's planets for a bit, they were all really boring. So I got a good photo of one of the Customs Offices receiving some goods from the planet below.

Now that I was in a new region, I had to work out a plan to visit every system in it, ending up with a departure point leading to Cache. There was a lot of systems in this one, so it was going take me a while...

See you next time!


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Around New Eden - Day 7

G-OQ86

After coming in from an empty KLMT, I was surprised to find 18 others in local. I waved a hello, but no one replied. After having a look I learnt that most of them were from The Initiative alliance and Darkside alliance.  I talked a bit more in local after about 20 minutes and someone told me that they're all still sleeping.  

I also decided that I won't take a photo of just any planet, if there's nothing else of interest in a system. Insteat, I'll go to each of the planets in a system, take photos of them all, but just keep the best one.  Going to each of the planets will also help create a 'safe spot' bookmark in every system.

This particular planet was quite impressive. I could see the fires burning across the lands...

Y-K50G

Another empty system, but oh my... another planet on fire. They look amazing!  

I also found another planet that was almost like it was on fire, but it was blue instead of red.... What's up with that?

K88X-J

So far, it looks like the most interesting planets are the ones that are on fire....

BPK-XK

An empty system with a starbase! I docked and contracted back to their owners the two bodies I'd collected along the way.

CL-1JE

One of the planets here had lightning storms raging throughout the soupy atmosphere. Was very pretty to sit and watch for a few minutes.

J4UD-J

After finishing this system, I headed back through CL-1JE towards the entrance to Great Wildlands, with only two more undiscovered systems in this region to go.... I was getting excited!

But now it was time for bed....  See you next time!


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