Because of the way the current blog theme is designed, there is an issue with page/sub-page functionality. So, for the sake of my own sanity, rather than have CrazyKinux.com’s EVE-Online Blog Pack listed here as a sub-page of the EVE Links page, I’m going to put it in the form of a post permalinked from the EVE Links page. When CK makes a change to the official blog pack, I’ll update this post. Here is the current EVE-Online Blog Pack as presented by CrazyKinux at CrazyKinux’s Musing:

Popularity: 8% [?]

So, being a gamer that believes mightily in community and one that has little else to do with his free time, I volunteered to host and run a website for the PotBS society I joined, Nine Winds. They’re a great bunch of folks and the website they’d had previously hadn’t seen a lot of use or attention. However, having run my own corporation in EVE-O (fairly successful, compared to MOST corporations) with a forum that got well over 5k posts in a couple of hundred threads, I felt confident that 9W could benefit from a forum as well – people need something to do while they’re at work after all! And since the shared-hosting account my eve-dfias.com and insurmountablelogic.com are hosted on has unlimited sub-domains, it would be simple for me to add ninewinds.eve-dfias.com and get it going.

Since then, the society has grown and changed slightly, and the forum has grown with it. So much so, in fact, that the hybrid forum software I’d been using had outlived its usefulness and needed to be upgraded. Unfortunately, there are no working converter scripts to easily convert the database info from the old format to the new format, so in order to preserve important threads, the would have to be manually copied and converted.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Of the writing world, that is? Maybe, maybe not.

In the last few weeks, I’ve spent less and less time playing PotBS and more and more time looking for community resources and how I might be able to improve them. Of course, much as I’d like to say I’m just an all-around nice guy (I am!), I have my own motivations for this. MMORPG.com has been looking for what they call “Game Correspondents” for several MMO games that nobody else is spending a great deal of time on. These Game Correspondents aren’t employees so much as freelance writers; game enthusiasts with a passion for writing and who are willing to take the time to deliver relevant articles for the MMO gaming community at large. They are not paid by check, but they are compensated in the form of having an account subscription for the game they write about paid for by MMORPG.com. They already had one for EVE, but not for PotBS – until now.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I love it how so many people in the MMO gaming community seem to think that they know the magic solution that every game should have in its design to make it the omgbestestevar game on the internet.

Sure, we all have our preferences. Each of us likes some aspects of every game and dislikes others; each of us has our opinions (for example, I’m not thrilled about the Skirmish system and I believe it will have detrimental effects on existing PvP in Pirates of the Burning Sea). But, the next time you should find yourself getting ready to say something about how stupid the developers of [insert game title here] are for doing or not doing [insert change implementation here], ask yourself this question:

Where is the MMO that YOU developed, got published and are supporting with personal investments bolstered by contributions from other investors and subscription fees. Don’t have one? Okay, well how about the one you have in BETA? No? Oh…

Popularity: 4% [?]

With the birth of the new Defiant server, the end of the Invincible server, and the opening of server transfers coinciding with said server actions, Antigua has seen an influx of new blood from multiple servers which has led to Nine Winds growing to the point where our leader, Haven Iomane, saw fit to promote two of our most helpful captains to the Leader rank.

Meanwhile, I’ve been experimenting more in-depth with a Privateer and Freetrader in the French nation on the Blackbeard server. Nothing exciting there, and I haven’t been playing Stephen MacKenna to engage in any fun piratical acts.

In other news, I’m kind of ‘in the air’ as to how I feel about tonight’s Series Finale of FX’s “The Shield.” I was really, really hoping that Mackie would’ve found some way to get Ronnie out of the gutter without screwing himself over. I did expect Shane to eat his gun, but I didn’t expect him to kill his wife, son and unborn daughter…

Popularity: 2% [?]