Articulated Sky

Just under a week ago, I mentioned that I would be posting a header I created for the new gaming based blogging site, GameScribe, which is currently in closed beta. Turns out I was wrong about it being just EVE Online based, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.

In case word hasn’t reached your ears yet, GameScribe is a new project started by the EVE player you may know as Serious Sally or Malnor Zerchan (or maybe just Anthony). At the risk of greatly stuffing up a description of GameScribe, here’s a short description from Anthony’s GameScribe blog.

Well, what is GameScribe you might ask? Think of it as Wordpress.com for Gamers. The idea is that I will provide gamers with blog themes and plugins that help them really have real gamer blogs… Not cookie cutter blog templates that anyone can make a blog in, but game specific templates. This theme, for example is one of the themes I’ve put together for EVE Online players. But I have also made some for WOW, and Jumpgate Evolution. Even more are coming (Black Prophecy, SWTOR, STO, SGW, the list goes on).

Anyway, long story short, Anthony came to me earlier last week asking me whether I wanted to be a part of the GameScribe design team. Of course I accepted and he got me working right away on a header for an upcoming theme he would be creating. That header (which I am actually quite proud of), you can see below. It was created almost entirely from scratch, the only thing that I did not create was the Astartes, they came from two different screenshots.

Click image to see full size

As part of the Gamescribe design team, I’ve managed to get hold of a few invites (three to be exact) to give away in my next contest. And luckily for you guys, you only have to wait around five seconds for the new contest!

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Wasn’t that a quick five seconds?

This time around, your task is to write a piece of fan fiction on a given theme. The rules, along with the theme are as follows;

Rules:

• Your fan fiction entry must be based around the theme, “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way”. Apart from including that theme into your story, you have complete and total freedom.
• There is no upper or lower limit on words.
• As of this posting, you have two weeks (16th May) to write and post your best EVE Online Fan Fiction!
• As I expect these fan fictions to be quite long (at least the size of an average blog post), you must post them on your blog and link back to this post. If you do not have a blog (all the more reason to enter this contest!), you must email the story to me using the contest entry form below.
  

cforms contact form by delicious:days

So, what will you get if you enter this contest and win?

First Prize: A Gamescribe invite + 50 million ISK
Second Prize: A GameScribe invite + 25 million ISK
Third Prize: A GameScribe invite + 10 million ISK

You know what to do, get those entries posted!

Firstly, I want to apologise for not posting for almost two weeks. Those of you that follow me on Twitter will know that I’ve been extremely busy trying to get into a graphic design course at a college in my area (well, as much as a 40 minute bus ride away is my area). That, coupled with seeing my girlfriend every Wednesday and every weekend (not that I’m complaining, of course), means that I’ve had no time at all for EVE over the last week and a half. But now that I’ve been offered a place in the course, there’s no more rushing around so I’m nowhere near as busy anymore. And we all now what that means… more EVE play time!

So, onto my current EVE activities. After moving from Paye to Warouh (which was my new corporation’s HQ), we’ve moved yet again from Warouh to a new location that I’m not sure I’m able to disclose. I’ll have to check with my corp leaders as we were under instructions not to tell anyone where we moved to, I’m not even sure why. All I’m going to say is that going from an elegant, golden Amarr station, to a station that looks like brown box with tubes coming out of it is quite disappointing. Although, that said, it is a rather impressive box.

Apart from that nothing much has been going on. I haven’t yet had the chance to get the new EVE Online: Empyrean Age book, but I’m really tempted to get it. I should really finish World War Z first though, which by the way is a great book if you’re into zombies and the like. The problem with me and books is that I can only read one at a time, and I usually forget completely about the previous one.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted some EVE screenshots. I think I’m becoming (or have already become) a screenshot junkie. The first thing I thought when entering my new home system was, “My Myrmidon looks great in this system’s lighting!”

It’s getting late. So time for me to get into my nice, comfy bed.
Fly safe, boys and girls.

After only just under a week of being away from EVE, I’m back. And it’s all thanks to Jon from the VanHemlock podcast. While I was rocking out to some Rage Against the Machine on Guitar Hero III, a message popped up on Xbox Live from someone called Senyek (Jon) offering me a 100 day EVE time card. Of course I graciously accepted and input the code Jon sent afterwards. So, for the next 100 days (at the very least) you’ve got more EVE related posts to look forward to. As opposed to the very minimum amount I would have been posting after I cancelled my account.

In other MMO news, I’ve recently been getting urges to start playing World of Warcraft again after three or so years of having EVE as my only MMO. To somewhat stop my urges for the time being and see if I really wanted to play WoW again, I downloaded the trial version earlier today. And I’m happy to say, i found it incredibly boring. Although, there’s a small part of me that wants to play with my old character to see if it’s as boring with my old spells/items/etc. But unfortunately, I don’t have the money; and even if I did EVE would take priority.

I seem to be in a bit of an MMO frenzy. The moment I was forced to cancel my EVE subscription, I had slight urges to try a whole host of other MMO’s. Age of Conan, for example, I am quite interested in playing but unfortunately they don’t seem to have a trial available and I don’t really feel like forking out around £25 just to try out a game I may not like. I guess that only serves to highlight the need for MMO developers to make a trial version available. Although, that said, AoC is the only one I know of that doesn’t have the ability to make a trial account. Let me know if there are any more, I’m curious as to how many MMO’s don’t make trial versions available.

And finally, once again big thanks to Jon from the VanHemlock podcast for giving me the 100 day EVE time card.

So, that’s all for today. Wow I said MMO a lot, didn’t I? Fly safe, people.

There’s been nothing new going on in my little area of EVE lately (mainly because I haven’t had the time to log on for any significant amount of time) so this post is mainly a short update on my online and gaming life.

I recently managed to get a (slightly) early copy of the trial version of the Spore Creature Creator and I’ve been spending a lot of my time creating weird and wonderful creatures. Some of which you can see below.

To kind of balance out me torrenting the leaked version, I pre-ordered the full version of the Spore Creature Creator while µTorrent was going to work. My other reasons behind this (of course, there had to be more) were that the trial version only features 25% of the creature parts, while the full version features all 200+ unique parts and saves £4.99 off the retail price of the full game if ordered from the EA website.

Onto a less gaming-centred topic, I recently started a photo blog for my random photos. So, if you’re interested in seeing some of my best (in my opinion) photos, head over to my personal photo blog and subscribe to the RSS feed if you’re that way inclined.

Last night, I finally managed to join a new corporation. I’m now a member of the Skies Tis Moiras Corporation, who have just recently become a member of the Xenotech Celestial Coalition.

Anyway, while transporting a couple ships to my new home-system (Warouh), I came across a huge amount of CONCORD ships flying around the Kaaputanen stargate in Niarja. I’d never seen so many ships in one place, let alone CONCORD ones. There must have been at least 60 of them, just sitting there doing whatever it was they were doing. There must have been a hell of a fight there for that many to turn up, the most I’d seen turn up at one time was about 10.

On a side note, I’ve been reading some of the news on the EVE site and it seems that tensions between the four empires are getting worse. Recently the Gallente Federation Navy and the Minmatar Republic Fleet begun a joint military exercise in Metropolis. Even though the Federation Senate and the Republic Parliament delayed the military exercise by a few days, they still went ahead. Much to the aggravation of the Caldari State and the Amarr Empire.

A spokesman for the Caldari Navy said “It’s bad enough that they feel the need to rattle sabres. It’s alarming that they have the audacity to do it on the border of the State, but most of all, it’s disgusting that they feel they are able to conduct this exercise so soon after the atrocity at Malkalen.”

Personally, I can’t wait to see how this plays out while we’re waiting for the Empyrean Age release.

Fly Safe.