The 50 Pound Cat's MMO Adventures

Got another cat pic!

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 19:36:17 PDT

Oh my gosh, I just realized I didn't take a note on who's cat this is! If you sent me this picture please comment so I can credit you.

I know.. you really can't read the sign but it says, "Hi Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat!"

I even offered the gentleman 10m for this picture, but they refused saying they had plenty of money.
Thanks for the cat pic!

Gambling in EVE Online

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:06:00 PDT

Don't do it. Just don't! If you do... prepare to lose.

Gambling in EVE Online is just like gambling in real-life. It is fun, addicting, but ultimately it can end with you feeling cheated and miserable.

I never thought I would get into gambling in EVE. In this game you always are aware of scams and you keep a sharp eye out for them. Obviously, a non-official gambling website raises the scam-detectors.

So how does gambling in EVE work? Well, there is no official gambling services in the game (unless you count investing in the market as gambling, it is, and the many other risky activities in EVE). This is actually something I would love to see. I had great hopes that the "Walking in Stations" feature would include some form of in-game casino. Well, Walking in Stations didn't happen and neither did in-game casino's, but there is an alternative created by the playerbase. This alternative is the EVE Online gambling website. It works by keeping track of your character and it's balance on the website. For example, to gamble on Evealopalous you register your character and then send "x" amount of ISK to the "Evealopalous" corporation. This ISK will appear under your characters balance on the website and you can then gamble with it. Almost all EVE gambling websites work this way.

So, I've always wanted to gamble in EVE and without an official outlet I decided to try one of these website.

The first I tried was Evealopalous. Evealopalous features many games, but the most popular are the raffles and the "Grid". Raffles are just like they sound, you pay 10k ISK per raffle ticket and try to win valuable prizes. I got really burnt on these, I would buy anywhere from 30% of the raffle tickets to 80% of them. I never won.

I did however win on "The Grid". The Grid is kind of like minesweeper for ISK. You pay 2m per click and you have the potential to win clicks on other more expensive Grids or ISK prizes. This was where I won big. I won a "Grid piece" for 2m which lets me get a free click on the next higher tier of Grid (10m per click). Luckily, I won a click onto the next tier of grid with THAT free click.... finally, I won a prize, and it turned out to be 220m ISK! I was really happy about this, as it made up for much of what I lost with those damn raffles.

As you can see, I lost 218m ISK on those damn raffles. I took my 220m from the Grid and ran. Still, it was an interesting experience.

The other gambling website I tried was evetools.org. Evetools features scratchers and a slotmachine.
The slots where fun but unfortunately didn't pay out often enough, it was pretty easy to lose 80m and so I did!

Well, that's all for now. Fly safe and especially, GOOD LUCK!

OMG I won a Plex

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 09:54:26 PDT

Haha, wooot! So, a chat channel that I frequent called "Radio Free Jita" (all the Jita, none of the spam) hosted a trivia contest, grand prize a PLEX, and guess who won?

It was a very exciting contest. First, I got a question 1/2 right and so the hosts gave me .5 points. (Oh I should explain, the contest was to see who could answer the most trivia questions correctly first in the span of 20 questions). Right then I had a feeling that the .5 points would be what makes the difference in a win or a loss... then I got another question correctly. Finally with 1 question remaining there where 4 potential winners! It all came down to the line! And... I got it correct. :) The question was, "What 3 countries does the US import the majority of its oil from?"

Here is my beautiful PLEX!

And the person who sponsored the contest. Thank you Ogeko!

It was a lot of fun and I think I will have to give back and host a trivia of my own.

Vaccuming asteroids

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:21:57 PDT

The universe sure is a messy place, and someone needs to scoop up all those asteroids! Nothing much to report today, just a relaxing day mining with a little trading on the side. Hope everyone is having fun out there. :)

How long would it take me to train all the skills in the game?

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:29:12 PDT

Two blogs in a month! I'm on a role! Seriously, I think I will start updating again and sharing with you my adventures in the wonderful universe of EVE online. I am not really the most exciting player, just a simple trader, but there are always things worth blogging about! (Especially if you are interested in my trading exploits)

Anyways, onto the content! I payed 7m ISK to Jita Poet for this nice little poem:

Welcome to my awesome blog of cats and MMOs,
Feel free to look around, the name's Cow Nose.
I go here to post all my adventures in EVE,
As well as any other games you'd like to see!
-Jita Poet

Great poem Jita Poe, well worth the ISK.

So, I was curious, how long would it take me to train every skill in EVE Online? (Note: this is for my character to train all the skills I'm missing, not a new character) The answer: 19.8 years! It would take 1368 skills, 7,132 days 5 hours and 23 minutes, and a whopping 23 billion worth of skillbooks.

Of course by the time 19.8 years passes I have a feeling there would be a few new skills by then. It's going to take me a long time to win this game!

When you are bored in Jita...

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:53:05 PDT

You do things like pay 20 million ISK for pictures of peoples cats.

Money well spent!

[edit] Got another one!

Soo cute! ^_^

What I've Been Up To In EVE Online

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:19:28 PDT

Is it still called EVE Online? I mean, with the Online, part. You know, I really don't think it is anymore, I think they dropped it and the game is just called EVE now. Suits me just fine! Anyways, I would like to share with you what I've been up to in the grand universe of EVE Online! (I'm still going to call it that, that's how I learned it.)

Of course, as always, I've been mining a bit. OK I've been mining a lot. :) Which I really probably shouldn't even say due to the permanent Hulkageddon, but I'm not going to talk about that! The ISK has been the same as it always was, from what I remember, slow but steady. I actually have hopes of paying for my sub with ISK this time around using EVE's plex system. Yes I am a bit frugal, but also, the whole plex system is giving me a nice motivation to log on and make that ISK! More plex, means longer sub, longer sub means more skills and more gameplay options in the grand universe of EVE online.

I have been up to more then just mining, another one of the reasons why I'm having a blast this time around. When I resubbed to EVE I was informed that I had a number of skill points saved up that I could put anywhere I wanted! This is rather unusual as EVE skills train over time. The reason I got these extra skill points, I'm sure this is not news to you current EVE players reading this, is because they decided to remove the "Learning" skills in the game, which previously sped up a pilots skill training time. Anyways, back to my original story and the screenshot, I sunk all the skills points (some 5 million) I had to spend into laser skills and Amarr ship skills!

So, I decided to ditch the boring old Gallente ships I had been piloting and try something totally new. I'm glad I did because the Amarr ships are absolutely beautiful. Plus, they really kick ass! I've gotten further in EVE's PvE mission-running then previously, all the way to Level 3 missions. The ship I've been flying in these mission is the Harbinger you see above. She really does a lot of damage but she definitely needs to be watched. There have been some missions where I just scraped by. One major reason why I'm running these missions is to gain faction standing with the NPCs who own the station where I refine my minerals at. Even though mission running is time consuming, I know reducing that tax on my refining to 0% will really pay off in the long run. Assuming I stay in the same system that is! I like where I've been hiding at though and I don't plan on moving anytime soon. I would even like to start stocking the stations around my space and learn how to haul.

Safe flying wherever you may find yourself.

Greetings EVE Players!

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:10:56 PDT

Greetings EVE players, and a big hello to anyone else reading this blog. A few days ago playing EVE another pilot commented on my blog. I then realized that I had placed an advertisement for the blog in my profile. EVE players, being a clicky lot, are likely to end up here having clicked on that link in my profile.

Realizing this, its perhaps inspired me to at least think about blogging again. Now, I haven't made a decision, but I would like to get the opinion of anyone who is reading this blog. Should I start up again? Would you like to read about what I've been up to in EVE and adventures I've had? Thank you very much.

PS: I would enjoy blogging again. I'm not looking for replies like, "do what makes you happy," or that sort of thing.

Maybe a GM pulled the plug because we won?

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 22:40:18 PST

Hello everyone! Sorry for the long delay between posts. But hey, here I am and some blog is better then no blog. I think I have said this a few times before, but I will try to be a little more active in the near future.

Let me explain the story behind the picture above. My clan and I besieged a city, here we all are gearing up and getting ready for the big fight.

Long story short... we won the siege!

Then... servers crashed... and rolled back... looks like we didn't win the siege after all.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and we will try again! I promise, I will keep in touch, Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat signing off.

Fun In The Alfar Lands

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:30:36 PDT

Ahh.... just another day in wonderfully Agon, and a nice little bit of hate on good old Cthulhu. ;)

First however I would like to tell you about poor Mk. I was marking a runestone, when he decided to stormblast up to my location above the bank in Shoal. It was then that his explosion caught me with it's blast as he tried to get up the last few feet. Needless to say, the Alfar guard towers made short work of him. Poor guy. Oh well1 That's what he gets for messing with me, hehe.

I got this after declaring war on The Industry.

Hey and look! A crafter from The Industry! I love crafters!

Moving Around In Agon

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:25:09 PDT

I've headed down from Alfar lands to a small Chaos City on an Island called Jhali. I love exploring in DarkFall. I have been to Jhali before, but I've never fully explored the islands south of it. There appears to be some decent spawns for new and veteran players.

Oh, one very interesting thing about Jhali is the fact that it is very very close to the Sea Towers. I believe that during the Sea Towers, the town of Jhali then becomes alive with PvPers. I expect one could hang out here and eventually get good loot from the towers.

A brief return to WAR and thoughts on EVE

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 11:57:00 PDT

So, in my little break from darkfall I have decided to give warhammer online a try again. Right now war is giving ten free days to returning players, although their free trial goes to at least level eleven and I did not get that far in my ten days so really I could have done the endless trial FYI if your interested in trying the game out yourself.

Anyways, warhammer is very fun and colorful with interesting classes, but I quickly burnt out. I think I burnt out because the game is a traditional diku mmo with a heavy emphasis on pvp and rvr. I think I just don't have it in me to play those kinds of traditional leveling class-based mmo's after playing darkfall for so long. It's just so easy to become bored hitting the same old buttons and being restricted to your pre-defined role.

I also thought about returning to EVE but you know, I already know even before re-installing the game (actually I did reinstall the game lol but I never logged in) that I will become instantly bored upon really playing the game. Eve is a great game, but it just takes too damn long to do anything!
In the end, I will be returning to darkfall shortly. There is just no other game on the market right now that comes anywhere close to the unique and awesome fun that is darkfall. And, who cares if it's taking the devs awhile to update the game? It's obvious av is just a noob at the mmo buisness especially regarding things such as hype and there is no reason not to enjoy their game in its current state.

Taking a break from good old Darkfall

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:57:06 PDT

Alright, well, I suppose it was fated to happen someday. I can proudly say that I have stuck with darkfall longer than I have many other mmo's. This is a testament to how fun, addicting, and engaging the darkfall experience is. But, everyone burns out eventually. It's not even the grind exactly, I actually have had a fairly powerful character for a while now, it's just that I feel like I have been there and seen and experienced much of what darkfall has to offer.

It's time to explore a new land! (And maybe revitalize this blog a little more).

First off, let me say that I am a complete sucker for new things and the next mmo does have some of my interest.

The game is called Final Fantasy XIV, a name I'm sure your familiar with. It is a very PvE focused game, in fact it has no PvP whatsoever. This is such a big change over DarkFall that I'm honestly not sure if I'll be able to adjust.

Final Fantasy has a number of positive aspects and I'm sure it will be a success. I do not think that the game will be hugely popular.

The reason for this has to do with the controls and the style of the game. FF14 just does not have a smooth and familiar enough control scheme to be a success on the PC. I'm sure the game will fare far better on the PS3.

If they are able to implement a better control scheme then I'm sure the game will prove to be a commercial success. It sounds silly honestly saying that a control scheme will make or break this game for me. I mean, if it's a constant struggle to read quests and talk to npc's then that means there is a problem.

This is the year 2010 after all. Like many I am flabbergasted as to how squareenix chose to release the game into open beta like this. It is also looking like a hardware mouse will not be at launch, unless they chose to release it AT launch, which again, would make no sense to me.

Long story short, FFXIV is not for me and it doesn't look like I will be playing it! The game doesn't have pvp anyways.

A New Hat is Discovered, and Scenery

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:29:33 PDT

Check out this new hat I found! Very cool. I will definitely want to get more of these for my PvP adventures. Nothing better then killing someone wearing a cool and unique hat accessory! (too bad I can't wear this over my armor!) As unrealistic as it would be, I do wish Darkfall would let you customize the look of your character more without sacrificing the benefit of the heavy armor.

Near where I found that hat, I found this awesome looking hole in the ground! You really have to see it in action to appreciate how cool this place is, but take my word for it, it's very cool. Thank you for reading this small update, and I promise more are coming.

Assorted DarkFall Scenery

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:46:00 PDT

This is one of the wolf cities. I like the look of that temple, or whatever it is!

This dragon must have been here a long time to turn to stone... the best thing about this dragon, is that his eyes are made if iron! Very cool.

Chaos chests indeed to spawn everywhere.

One of our scarabs in action.

How many mounts are in this picture?

Thank's for reading everyone! More blogs to come!

The Ship Event

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Sun, 30 May 2010 08:45:48 PDT

Remember the ship event a few weeks ago? It was an event where the developers spawned boats at ports and along the coast all around Agon. I believe the idea was that there would be some race vs race ship warfare, but I'm not sure how well it turned out, because I never got on one of the damn things.

Our boat arrived outside shoal to pick us up. A GM had been waiting there giving out repair shards and black powder for the adventure ahead. "Great!" I think to myself, "Time to go sail and fight some other ships!" This will be my first real ship-on-ship warfare so I'm very excited.

But... when I go to get on to the ship, it's full of enemies! What the hell? Our alfar ship is already chocked full to the brim with PKs from other races? Obviously, none of us are able to get on the damn boat and many die trying to. Our Alfar forces were actually very weak and small, there was no way we could capture this boat from the people already in it.

Thank's for the great communication on what we were facing GMs! Why bother even giving us the repair shards and powder? To supply the people already on the boat I suppose...

But, I don't mean to gripe too much, I actually had a lot of fun. I had two water breathing rings already, I was prepared for any eventuality. So I just sunk to the bottom of the water and started shooting arrows at people.

The boat-dwellers were actually very smart, and few of them got into the water to fight, so I didn't actually manage to kill anyone, I was only able to hit one persona couple times.

However... there were corpses EVERYWHERE! And so my friends and I went to town, looting everything we could.

All-in-all I got a battlehorn and multiple full gear bags, and I of course, did not die myself. So it was a very satisfying and fun event. I look forward to the next! People will always complain about these things, but I think they should be doing events like this on a weekly basis.

Rocking the Full Plate

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:45:39 PDT

Hello everyone, I wanted to share these two pictures of me riding around the Alfar lands rockin' the full plate!

I love this helmet!

Cow Nose Video's presents: Taunt 4!

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:34:28 PDT

I have another great little video for you guys. It's not to long, and like all my other videos, it just shows a little slice of life in Darkfall. I really like this one, I hope you do to! As always, please click the link below to view the video in it's HD glory.

Click here to check out the video "Taunt 4" in HD!

Misc. Sacrifices

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:34:57 PDT

Village Capturing in Darkfall

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:30:00 PST

One way for clans to make gold in Darkfall is to capture villages. Villages are where people can have their own player-owned home. There is a limited number of these available across the entire server so they are very expensive and highly coveted. The reward for capturing a village is only around 2,000 gold. Really, not much in the big picture of things. It's for this reason that very rarely will you run into another person when trying to capture a village and so usually they aren't the PvP hotspots I think AV originally intended them to be.

Here we are coming up to the village now.

Here is the control point. All we need to do is destroy it, and the village will be under the control of Cthulhu! Siege hammers and battlespikes are used for destroying buildings and control points like this. So, we equip our siege hammers and go to work...

And there we are! Not too bad for about an hour's work, and the gold in the clan bank will be nice.

Exploring Agon

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:29:01 PST

Hello, and good day everyone! Today's blog is just going to be some screens of my explorations around Agon. Agon is a huge world and there is plenty to see and explore! Exploration is all the more exciting in Darkfall because you never know who might try to kill you!

This first image is a simple one. Just training my magic skills on some skeletons in the Alfar lands.

After skeleton hunting, I go and relax under a giant mushroom.

Next, now this is much further away, I make it east to Hammerdale. Hammerdale is controlled by NEW and is a neutral city, a decent place to re-gear and stock up if you are in the area. NEW is a Darkfall clan that welcomes all new members so that they can be taught the inner-workings of DF and PvP.

I ran into this wolf guy while in Hammerdale, scary!

And finally, I wanted to share this picture of a lighthouse.

Alignment Grinding In Darkfall

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:08:00 PST

Kind of a fun little video showing the deep inner world of alignment grinding in Darkfall.

Remember, click here to see the HD version!

Another Great Newb Story!

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:00:02 PST

I honestly like newbies and they do the darnedest things. This particular recruit of mine has done some particularly funny things, but he is full of inspiration and definitely makes the game more interesting.

Oh boy... maybe, this was a good thing? Somehow? Haha, either way, I love it and it is a fantastic story in my opinion. Epic!

Darkfall milestones: Herbing, Mining, AND Lumberjacking at 100!

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:18:50 PST

Yup, not too much to say here, but I hit 100 Mining and 100 Herb Gathering (and lumberjacking, I just forgot to take the screen) in Darkfall! Go me! These are the first skills I have managed to get to 100 in Darkfall.

1337

noreply@blogger.com (Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:59:00 PST

Hehe, worth a screenshot and a post.