EVE-Mag.com

Feeding the Addiction

Published on 24. Nov, 2008 ... written by Silene Derbhan.

by Silene Derbhan …

Starry nights

A constant buzz strangely fills your dreams of empty space. As your mind quickly adjusts by warping to an asteroid belt, you begin mining and the regular sound of lasers calms you in your sleep. But an angry hand pushes your back with growing violence, and you finally have to open half an eye. And groan.

“Whaaat …”
“Shut your fucking alarm clock down or I’ll break the thing on your face …”

Now you are awake. It’s 3.07 am, and your alarm clock is buzzing and trembling beside your bed. It’s time to change your skill training. A quick log in, Energy Grid Update Level 5, log out, and you’re back to bed and dreams of a majestic Kronos warping to unknown worlds.

The last Blood Raider is not dead, but you’ve almost cleared the entire pocket. The ship suddenly shakes as if the Overdrive Injector wanted to burst out of the hull. You’re still far away from critical damage, yet it seems you’ve completely lost control of the ship. Huh? Frack, the angry hand again.

“You’re gonna be late for work! How about you quite waking up in the middle of the night?”

Rightly so. When I’ve maxed out all my skills. 11163 days to go. I keep that thought to myself and realize I am already quite late. I won’t have the time to log in for a quick ratting this morning. Can someone remind me why I have to work?

“To pay for your fucking alts, moron.”

Oops, I must have said that out loud. A few minutes later I open the door of the apartment, and stare painfully at the black screen on my desk, unable to find the strength in me for a long day without my beloved ships. I have a new MWD whose production should be finished in three hours. I’m sure my HAC will rock with this one. Ouch, ok, going now.

The office is already filled with the same old faces and their hypocrite smiles. I wish I had this Dual Pulse Laser II somewhere near to clear the atmosphere. I sit bitterly at my desk and activate my trusty Damage Control Briefcase full of goods. It’s time for EVE offline.

Angry skies

For the unfortunate majority of us, there is an obligation to have some kind of daily job, which will turn us away from EVE for at least eight hours a day. And it can be daunting to see all those moments spent on a crappy computer when Tranquility is just a few servers away… So you gotta make theses hours count, especially if you have a job than doesn’t require too much of your time or attention. And what better way to optimize your time than preparing your next mission during your lunch hour? Or maybe while waiting for your next customer to call?

Here begins my quest for EVE offline.

And a quest it is, since the obstacles and traps are many. If you are working in an American company, you must navigate the minefield of filters that restricts the websites you can access. I know that my company considers games to be as problematic as porn, blogs, forums and alcohol. And unless you are working in the IT department of your company, you probably don’t have the administrator’s rights that would allow you to install, say, Evemon. Of course, if your employer is a bit lenient on firewalls and such, you may be able to access EVE-O forums and give plenty of occasions for Ecaf to get pissed off. But not in my workplace. Still, you can find some very useful tools and websites to feed your daily need of EVE at work. Here is my selection of things you can carry around on your USB key or check on internet, to stay in contact with EVE at all times.

EVE on the web

For whatever stupid reason, most filters need their targeted tags to appear in the title of the website you want to visit, or at least be present as a keyword on the website. Fortunately for us, it leaves a few very good websites accessible, since they lead the filter to believe they are talking about serious stuff:

EVE Mag: Stay away from that crap. Seriously. Big bunch of assholes and … ouch, there goes my Harbinger, thank you Smak. You friggin’ paid for it dude!

EVE Tribune: The grandfather of EVE-related sites, EVE Tribune is an invaluable source of information. Run by a gang of ranting bitter writers, it offers some of the most comprehensive, knowledgeable and well written articles on the internet. You should not believe everything they say, but you’d be well advised to remember it. From ship reviews to never-ending rants on each and every patch, there’s a lot of great stuff lying around for your reading pleasure.

EVE Network News: The page is a pain to open with a bad connection and IE6, but you will find lots of things here. The main page links to almost every major site/podcast about EVE, so you may find some which can be opened from your workstation. As the name implies, the site is more news-oriented, so it complements well EVE-Mag and EVE Tribune.

EVE Training Monitor: It’s been a few years now that Google stole my life, literally. Everything that happens to me is there, from gmail and the web albums to the igoogle page I cannot live without, you could know who I am just by accessing my Google account. And my most loved gadget of this igoogle page is Eve training monitor, a simple app which displays your name, your wallet’s content, the skill you are training and its ETA, with a nice countdown. If you are really bored, just lose yourself in the hypnotic bliss of the countdown.

EVE Commander: You can’t really get much closer to perfection. Basically, EVE Commander is a website that uses your API to display everything there is to know about your character. In fact, it goes much deeper than that. First of all, EC shows your wallet history, and the options here are so clever that it is almost a statistical tool to analyze how you earn your money, what your are doing with it, and how it could be improved. It also registers all of your assets, by station or by type, with the major problem of sorting the assets by alphabetical order and not really by type. It is perhaps working for most of the users, but I find it highly counter-productive if you want to have an overview of your possessions and don’t know by heart the name of every named mod in your hangar. The next options are incredibly useful for industry players, since they keep track of your production lines, market orders and even the price of items on the market (after a very simple configuration).

The awesomeness keeps going with the ship section in which you can see every ship you own and their current fittings. Then comes the character section, a very clear overview of your stats and perks. The skill part is in itself a small Evemon. Not only do you see the skills you have and their level, but you can click on any skill and see the time it would take you to get it to any level. In itself, it is a mini database updated with your own characteristics. It won’t replace Evemon for the planning part, but still is a very useful tool.

EVE-To-Go:

There are a few items to keep EVE in your bag at all times. From books to small apps or files which can easily be put on an usb key and provide hours of entertainment. Yes, hours.

EVE Fitting Tool: I don’t have to explain what it does, do I? The nice thing about this little application is that it is just an exe file. No install needed! And if you are a clever capsuleer, you should never undock before checking your setup in EFT. It works especially well with EVE Commander, since you can keep an eye on what you really own, what should be bought, and how much time until a needed skill is learned on EC, while adjusting your setup in EFT.

EVE Master Data Sheet: I have a very conflicted love story with EMD. She becoming too old to fuel the desire in me, but still have this experience only real women can pretend to. In short, EMD is the ultimate geek wet dream. An excel file loaded with cross referenced tables, multiple tabs and impossibly complex XML data management. Unfortunately, the file has not been updated since December 2007, and some things are either missing or inaccurate. But it still is one the best tools in the galaxy. You can use it as a planner, a reference database for skills and ships, and statistical tool on your character’s progression, a mining forecast tool… This is an incredible effort in compiling every area in which your skill training may have an impact. Just type a different level in any skill, and you will see the impact on the whole chain. Very imposing at first glance, but well worth the effort.

EVE Chronicles: If you have a few free hours, EVE chronicles, novellas and background explanations are a good read for any player. And you can find them all in a single free pdf file on the official site!

EON: The official EVE magazine is a gorgeous piece of glossy paper and most of the articles should please you if you are interested in the game. In my opinion, the content varies between mildly interesting to very good, from pieces of fiction to ship reviews, it covers pretty much all aspects of EVE online.

EVE Official Soundtrack: This soundtrack is a mystery to me. Where you have almost 50 tracks in game, a lot of these being stunningly beautiful space ambient themes, the poor CD only packs thirteen tracks. And some of them are really not the best music written for the game. Anyway, it still delivers the specific “space mood” we all love, and can be a good way to isolate you from the annoyance of phones ringing and keyboards being hit all around.

This is a very personal list, and you may find stuff out there that I either missed or was not able to access. The most undisciplined among you in possession of a portable video device could even encode the myriad of EVE videos available to watch them when work is getting too slow. But remember : you need this job to keep playing!

20.00hrs EVE-time … I love this Quantum Rise welcome page. Life begins.

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Investment Opportunities: Dynasty Banking Review

Published on 22. Nov, 2008 ... written by Securitas Protector.

by Erik Jensen … Many of you out there may be wondering if there is a passive, relatively safe way to grow your ISK. IPO’s, shares, research agents, blueprint research and copying, or other investments are all common ways to do this, but is there a better way? To tell the truth, I’m not sure, because I’ve never really tried these methods. In a previous article on EVE-Mag.com, an interview with Manalapan, chairmain of Dynasty Banking, was conducted by Leon Angeal, giving readers some basic information about the bank. Wanting a way to passively grow my ISK, I decided to try the bank out. I had had a previous experience with EBANK that left me a bit skeptical of EVE banks in general, and I was a bit worried about the safety of my ISK, but I opened up my browser and overcame my paranoia of an intricate scam.

Immediately, the sleek and efficient website design impressed me, and not 2 hours later (they run a script every 2 hours), I had 10 million ISK sitting in a standard bank account, accruing interest every day. Depositing ISK is as easy as giving money to Manalapan, and in less than 2 hours, it’s sitting in your account. If you’re willing to restrict yourself to one withdrawal per month, you can put your ISK into a “Limited” account, and if you’re trying to passively get more ISK, this shouldn’t be much of a restriction at all.

One of the most impressive parts of the experience, however, is the ability to make CD’s, or Certificates of Deposits. Basically, this involves putting your ISK away for several months at a time (2-4 months) in exchange for a greatly heightened interest rate. In fact, the 4 month CD gives almost twice the interest of a Limited account, at 10% per month, compounded daily. You can cancel a CD and have your ISK returned, but you will lose any and all interest that you have accumulated.

Next up on our list is security. Will you be guaranteed your money? Is it as safe as EBANK? What if it’s a scam? The answer to the first is no, of course not; nothing is guaranteed in EVE. If it makes you feel better, though, Dynasty Banking has 115 billion ISK in its possession at the time of this writing, up from the 70-some billion that it had when I joined just a few weeks ago, and is endorsed by EBANK. The answer to the second question is more complicated, but a simple answer is that nobody really knows yet because it hasn’t been operating nearly as long. Thirdly, once again, no one can tell you if it is a very elaborate scam, ever. There’s always a small chance that you will lose each and every ISK that you put into any venture. One must remember, however: No Risk, No Reward.

Overall, the banking process is very streamlined and pleasant, and the interest alone can pay for ships if you have enough in there. The CD’s give almost as much as any investment opportunity available on the market at any time, and they’re VERY easy to obtain. Just a few clicks and you’re growing your ISK by 10% a month (a bit more because of compound interest.) In conclusion, my experience with Dynasty Banking has been very pleasant and I look forward to a long, mutually profitable relationship. I’m proud to say that they are now in the possession of over 61 million of my own ISK, which is growing all the time.

My Ratings:

Website design – 95%
Simple but easy to use, the website keeps track of latest interest payments, statistics for your account and the bank as a whole, options to manage CD’s, all in a nice looking package.

Service – 100%
As of yet, I have not had a single disruption with my ISK and depositing and withdrawing is as easy as anything.

Security – 91%
Perhaps Dynasty’s weakest area, a feeling of total security about your ISK is impossible with any investment, but due to Dynasty’s young age, this heightens suspicion a bit. Apart from this young age, however, there have been no doubts in my mind that my investment is secure. As time goes on, I’m sure that the general community will feel safer with Dynasty, if they don’t already.

Overall – 96%
Dynasty is a vibrant new bank that seems ready to prove itself in the world with near unheard-of rates and excellent service, all in a nicely, easy on the eyes package. Go for it.

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Review: The LP Store Database

Published on 11. Nov, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

by Sam Guss …

Address: http://www.ellatha.com/eve/LP_Stores.asp

This site is one of my “go-to” sites to gather information. Especially when it comes to which NPC corporations carry what in their Loyalty Point Store. While most players will recognize certain NPC corporations as being a “one stop, all” type of LP rewards, some players like the feel of working for lesser known NPC corporations. It also comes in handy in low and null-sec systems, where a lot of these lesser known corporations have agents.

Navigation: 5 out of 5

I like the navigation used at this site. When you first come to the website, in the middle on the left is a list of all the various factions you can do business with. This includes the pirate factions as well. From there, it will break down into specific NPC corporations and agencies you can gain loyalty points from. At this point you are left with pages of what loyalty rewards you can buy.

Information: 3 out of 5

The database is HUGE and while I can not verify how accurate the information is on every single NPC corporation, I have yet to be surprised, disappointed or found bad information on the corporations I have worked for.

In addition to the LP store database, other information is also available including ships, videos, etc. While in my opinion, the LP database is where this site shines and is the most useful, there is still other information available from here.

Where this site loses points is in the fact that there is no “hover” info or even link to the various items. This means, while you can find out what a corporation has, to find out what this hardwire or that hardwire is, you will need to find that information elsewhere.

Style: 2 out of 5

Believe it or not, I really do like this site – but it is rather boring to look at in terms of style. It is a database site however, which prevents anything to flashy. With hover info or links to individual items, I think this site would shine even brighter and indeed would even out the style of the site more. This is an information only site, versus a reading site as it were.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5

Despite some of its flaws, the information is very useful and again one of my favorite “go-to” websites about Eve. I strongly recommend using this site to help research the corporations in the region(s) that you intend to fly in.

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Empyrean Age, the Novel: A Review

Published on 14. Sep, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

by Sam Guss …

Last month I attended GenCon, the best four days in gaming convention in Indianapolis. While I was there, I stopped by the CCP booth on a couple of occasions and on one of those, bought my copy of Eve: Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales. He was even nice enough to sign it for me.

Now, I am an avid reader anyway, especially in the speculative fiction genre (which includes but not limited to science fiction, fantasy, apocalypse, horror and related genres) so getting my hands on a copy of this book was important to me for a variety of reasons; not the least of which being a fan of Eve. Books tied to games though, I have to admit usually fall pretty short of my attention span and in many cases expectations as a reader. I am happy to say, not so with this book.

As you know, the Empyrean Age in Eve brought us Faction Warfare, which to sum up in a sentence is universe-wide conflict between the four main races of Eve: the Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente and the Ammar. In news on the Eve site and in-game we’ve followed events for months before, during and after the Empyrean Age expansion and even caught glimpses of it in the Eve TV commercials and Empyrean Age trailers. They hinted at troubles and events that shook the various races and in the end brought upon all this great conflict we are enjoying now in-game.

The book, is the first of a trilogy planned and captures a snapshot of time in New Eden when things come to a head in the various governments of Eve and lead everyone into conflict: Caldari vs. Gallante; Minmatar vs. Ammar. It follows some key players in these conflicts from each of the races standpoints and various other characters that play a part in it as well. For the first time, in this book you will see the how and why of Alexander’s collision into the station; the birth of the doomsday device; the riots in Caldari space; the Thukker and Republic involvement about threatening the CONCORD station. Each of these are just snapshots you have seen in the game, come to life with Tony’s prose and story telling.

No doubt about it either, Tony is a great story teller who keeps the reader enthralled as you turn the pages, jumping effortlessly from character to character spanning hundreds of systems – much as you do while jump cloning in the game. The hard part about a book based on a game is finding the balance that keeps game mechanics “real” to the gamer and storyline for every reader – both gamer and non-gamer. Tony excels at this and as a fan of Eve the game, felt right at home with the mechanics in the book, the explanations of “how” and “why” something worked the way they did. Meanwhile as a reader, I appreciated that the mechanics didn’t get in the way of the story and I am fairly positive that even without my knowledge of the game, I would have had no trouble following along with the story.

The book also did another thing for me in a wondrous way: it brought home my place in the Eve universe as a capsular and the dangers that abound in our universe, both seen and unseen. Thanks to Tony for bringing such a great work of fiction to us and other readers. If, you haven’t picked up his book, be sure to stop by the Eve online store and order your copy today. It truly is a great read and I would recommend it to not just fans of Eve, but fans of science fiction in general as well.

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Review: Eve-Tribune.com

Published on 30. Jul, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

by Sam Guss

Address: http://www.eve-tribune.com

In some circles writing a review about another publication would be taboo. Then again, I like breaking taboo. The Eve Tribune is another Eve online publication, and a fine one at that. I liken Eve-Mag here as a newly made house, complete with boards covering the structure, the walls up, floors covered, ceilings in place, etc. Eve Tribune, a weekly newsletter is the paint, rugs, furnishings, pictures on the walls, ect. It’s not just cosmetic though, they also provide the wiring and plumbing inside the walls that you typically don’t see. Together, you have a fully live-in ready house of your own.

Eve Tribune is in it’s third year, and publishes a weekly newsletter that covers news events in the Eve universe, happenings in 0.0 space alliances, great events and even some how-to on various aspects of the game. It is estimated that 10,000 players read Eve Tribune on a weekly average.*

Navigation: 4 out of 5
Navigation is simple. The page loads with the current issue and all articles plainly visible in that issue. In the upper left hand corner clearly marked are page numbers, which in turn leads you through all of the articles. In addition there is an extensive archive list to the left, which will take to you to earlier editions.

Information: 5 out 5
First off, a disclaimer. If, you are offended by graphic language, don’t bother reading Eve Tribune. If, however you are, then you are missing on what is some of the best writing this side of our own Eve-Mag writers you will encounter in Eve. The information that I have found by reading the last few issues taught me what is going on with such happenings in Eve as the BoB offensive, what’s what with faction warfare. The articles are biased from the point of view of the writers – indeed the opinions are varied and strong but most importantly honest and forthright. It is this level of involvement that actually leads to deeper immersion into the game itself IMO. It is also invaluable information on what is going on behind the scenes of some of the news you read when you log into Eve or may be hearing about in local or your own Corps chat window.

Style: 4 out 5
Eve Tribune is all about the quality of it’s articles which are just that – quality works. There is now glamour, nor amazing screen shots, or flash movies, etc. Just the facts. This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Personally I found simply printing off the issues from page 1 to whatever page it ends on works best for me. Your mileage may vary.

Overall: 5out of 5
As a Eve-Mag reader and writer, of course I recommend our site heavily. As a player, I recommend both Eve-Mag and Eve Tribune – because IMO they compliment each other and both are weekly reading assignments.

* – Source, Eve-history.net

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Review: EVE-Careers.com

Published on 11. Jul, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

Considering my emphasis in a couple of my articles on making sure you find yourself a good Corporation or Pirate Clan, Eve-Careers ties into this theme for those who may not have real-life contacts with other Eve players, or for those who with their friends are looking for a new home.

The website is all about bringing pilots and Corporations together without having to fly all around Eve in order to find this same information out. The site does use API keys to keep everything updated – though it appears at the time of this review to be disabled while the site administrator works out some kinks in the system. Because of this I would definitely follow through on anything you find here by contacting the pilots or Corporations directly; something that should be done anyway before you blindly recruit or decide on a new home.

While the site does offer Forums and some information pages on how to fully use the site, the main two features of this website is the Corporations side, which lists several hundred Corporations and Pirate Clans and a Pilot side which currently lists 5 pilots actively looking for a new home at the time of this review. This gives me the sense that Corporations are definitely in more need of pilots currently rather than the other way around. The site lists that it has 2,247 pilots and 911 corporations trying to seek each other out, however not all of them are actively looking at the time of this review. It appears that there is a 2-week activity clause in order to stay listed (least for pilots).

Navigation: 5 out of 5
Navigation is simple enough, the links are at the top of every page for the main areas of the website and the information appears in the middle of the page. I like how they made everything searchable and allow you complete control on what you are looking for. For example on the Corporations side you can choose what matters to you in a Corporation in a simple “Yes, No or Doesn’t Matter” setting. These settings are: PvP, Mining, Missions, Production, Empire, 0.0, Pirating, and Fleet. The results then tally in the main window for you.

Information: 4 out of 5
With the understanding that some of this information may or may not be out of date, each corporation has a page that tells you about the Corporation and many have external links for you to check out their own websites or job listings. On the pilot side it brings up a pilot page where they can be contacted (if you are logged in – which means registration required) and tells you about them.

Style: 2 out of 5
Perhaps I am a little picky, as I’ve said it again in other reviews: With Eve being such a fantastic graphic game, it’s community and fan sites should reflect that. In this case, I don’t think that a major graphics job would work for what this site does. However, it doesn’t mean there shouldn’t still be some style. Since this website is like the help-wanted section of a newspaper, then the style should reflect that though perhaps in a more futuristic sense.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5
This site is a great resource for the Eve community. Whether you are a new pilot looking for your first job, or a Corporation looking to recruit, this should definitely be your first stop.

Once the website is back to full operation by working with API keys, this site should be rated 4 out of 5, since right now it is hard to determine whether all of the information is up to date or not.

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Review: 2D EVE Maps by Ombey

Published on 09. Jul, 2008 ... written by Sludge McBain.

Simple Ideas
The wheel, sliced bread, Amazon.com and Ombey’s 2d EVE maps. What do all these have in common? Simple ideas that changed the world, they have all taken a task and simplified it so that now, everyone uses it. Travel as we know it would not be possible without the wheel. Bread, what do you prefer a hunk or a slice? Mail order from the internet, who you gonna call? Struggling to comprehend the EVE universe and get your bearings, there is only one answer…

2D or not 2D?
Three dimensions have their place, and in EVE it is the same. If you have time to wrangle with the in game universe map it is a very powerful tool. The in game map is a fully comprehensive three dimensional tool to navigate through the EVE universe but what if you just want to figure out your location, or a new star systems surroundings and facilities?

The beauty of Ombey’s 2D maps is, it literally lays out in front of you all the information you would require. Not only is it clear what you are looking at, it also demystifies the EVE universe. It transforms twisting, branching star constellations into understandable, interconnected locations for you to traverse in your ongoing space odyssey.

It is evident just by looking at the legend on the opening pages of Ombey’s maps that he has put in an awful lot of work. Handiwork of this calibre does not materialise on its own, time and effort have been expended in great quantities to produce a document of this standard and detail. It is the consistency throughout the whole endeavour that is testament to the results displayed in this venture. Basically, you know that you will be able to comprehend each of the thousands of descriptions and diagrams on any of the pages, even though your initial impression might be overwhelming, it doesn’t take long to appreciate Ombey’s 2D maps.

Maps for all
When reviewing an EVE website or application I always try and keep in mind the target audience, each item usually has a specific occupation or service that it aims for, either traders, PvP’ers or some other such field of New Eden inhabitants. Ombey’s 2D maps does not cater to individual sectors, it caters for all. Space is vast, space is massive, space is incomprehensible… well it is for us mere mortals but not for Ombey. I don’t need to tell you to use this amazing service, look at it, you won’t look back.

Linkage: www.ombeve.co.uk

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Review: Eve-Help

Published on 02. Jul, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

I stumbled across Eve Help just a couple of days ago and immediately book marked it. This site gathers guides and articles or the links to them in one convenient location. It’s definitely of use for the Eve player, whether a rookie pilot or experienced flyer.

It appears to be updated regularly and currently has 48 guides/articles or the links to them in 6 categories: PvE, PvP, Science & Industry, Trading, Ship Setups, and Miscellaneous. It also has a handy Glossary. Doesn’t appear to be as complete as others I’ve seen, but neither is it so large that it would be hopeless to learn every last abbreviation within a reasonable amount of time. For a rookie, it’s just right.

Navigation: 5 out of 5
This site uses the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) formula that I appreciate, with a menu to the left and links to articles/guides in the middle. With simple backgrounds and effects, the site looks more technical than it is, relying on dark backgrounds and cyan link colors to give it this technical “feel”.

The menu gives you only a few choices, which is basically “what do you need to know?” – is it bout PvE? Ship Setups? Trading? Each section of the site has several options for various guides and links. The Trading option for example gives you two more options, one to each: Beginner Information or Formulae with one article in each. The PvE option has four options: Ratting with 2 articles; Basic Knowledge with 4 articles; Missions with 1 article; and Misc. PvE guides with 1 article.

Information: 5 out of 5
There is a wealth of information here to both rookie and experienced players of Eve. I’ve only made it through a handful of guides and articles so far, but the site does seem to cater to the “best of the best” versus just any old guide. Now, I will be the first to admit that is based on what little exposure to the site I have so far, but every guide or article was very comprehensive and complete.

The site started out as a Word document for a player to gather links to everything about Eve and eventually grew into the website it is today. The current project of the site is to gather various ship setups from other players willing to submit their setups from EFT (Eve Fitting Tool). To this end and at time of writing, they have gathered 23 ship builds.

Style: 3 out of 5
While I like the KISS formula, there are just so many ways to spiff up a site and still keep that formula alive. While the use of color is great and gives an “old-age technical” feel to the site, it still lacks the punch to make this a stylish site. I’ve written it before, and will do so again: with Eve being such a fantastic graphically alluring game, then it’s fan sites and community sites should be as well, IMO.

Despite this though, it is still an engaging site with a lot of information and from this rookie I will say a big “THANK YOU” to the website’s administrator.

Overall: 4 out of 5
With all of the information available to you from this one location, I would place it as a must have bookmark for any Eve player’s web browser. I would further say if you were only going to allow yourself a limited number of websites dedicated to Eve to be book marked, this should be one of them.

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Review: EveOnlineShips.com

Published on 29. Jun, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss.

Eve Online Ships, is a straight forward ship visual identification site. It has screenshots of just about every ship in Eve, both player and NPC. Very little is written other than short blurbs on the races and factions. This site is all about the screenshots of the various ships in Eve. From the lowly shuttle all the way up to the Rorqual and other Capital Ships. It even includes Drones and Fighters. At the time of this writing I have not been able to find any screen shots of Unique ships however.

Each ships has four screen shots that show off them from various angles. Now, for the experienced Eve pilot, who has seen them all, then this site probably won’t offer them much. For newbies though, like myself, this site offers a grand view of all the ships in Eve that we won’t or don’t get to see, especially in high security systems. The screenshots are amazing though and offer a lot of eye-candy.

Navigation: 5 out of 5
Navigation on a website is very important to me, as like many web surfers, if I can’t get to the information quickly and easily, then chances are I won’t stay around to see what information is there.

At Eve Online Ships, navigation is simple and redundant so you can’t miss anything. A menu to the left, and graphic menu in the center allows you to choose a race, faction or NPC, ORE, etc. and further in breaks it down in more graphic buttons for ship type and then lastly the gallery for that ship type.

Information: 4 out of 5
Granted, you’re not getting much information past visual screen shots of the ships and I haven’t found any Unique ships here (which would of bumped this rating to a five), but what they do have is as far as I can see complete and thus the high rating for a gallery site.

Style: 2 out of 5
There’s truth in the old adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and this site does manage that very effectively. However, with Eve being such a graphically intense game, there should be more pizzazz in fan and support sites dedicated to Eve. With a little overhauling, it could still keep it’s KISS formula but with a little extra eye-candy. This site yells for it, considering the great screen shots included in it.

Overall: 4 out of 5
Overall this site is great at what it is intended for: showcasing the ships of Eve and is a site I often refer to, so that I get used to what ships of different races look like and for the “cool” factor of what I may like to pilot one day.

Address: http://www.eveonlineships.com

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Review: EVEAuction.com

Published on 24. Jun, 2008 ... written by Sludge McBain.

EVEAuction.com-Character Skills Listing Site …

EVEAuction *Beta*
If you want to sell your character on the official forums you need to be able to show people the goods, in essence what skills you have, this is where EVEAuction comes in.

Currently EVEAuction is in Beta and certain areas are restricted, obviously under construction. Even though this site is in Beta, it is one of the slickest, smoothest, most refined sites I have seen. The user interface is uncomplicated and intuitive to operate. The logical steps to choose searching criteria are the same as the in game market searches so you shouldn’t get lost looking for specific character abilities.

As soon as you have selected your character traits, the results are displayed below in a list for you to consult and select to display a full character information page. The character information page clearly displays all relevant character data for your perusal with a link to the character auction on the official Eve-Online forums. The skills display on this page is very fluid and gracefully extends and retracts the applicable selected skill with an easily readable display showing skills and skill level.

Listing with EVEAuction *Beta*
Listing your character for sale using the EVEAuction steps could not be simpler, a lot of thought has gone into this procedure to make it work as effortlessly as it does. EVEAuction has taken all the hard work out of listing a character, there is no reason why anyone would not want to use this website to list their characters for sale.

End of Auction
I can only criticise one aspect of this website and that is my initial reaction to this website was: Is it an unofficial character sale site? As soon as I read the FAQ’s it is obvious it is to be used in conjunction with the official sales forums on EVE-Online but first impressions and all that.

In summary, if you want to list a character on the EVE-Online forums, use EVEAuction.com, it really is that simple.

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