EVE-Mag.com

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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