2024

Learning (Still) (Always)

Things have already fallen into a bit of a routine when it comes to EVE. I’ve got my PI to do first thing when I log in, then I’ve got industry jobs to check in on, then I try to complete the dailies (usually just kill missions). From there my schedule is wide open.

My corporation was no longer active, so I decided to apply to a new one. I had been watching YouTube videos to try to get back into things and see what changes had happened when by chance a friend mentioned their corporation and it was run by the s

ame YouTuber that I had already been watching. I have very little experience with corporations in Eve, I tried to join one many years ago and I instantly decided it was not a fit for this casual care bear. Hopefully I have better luck this time around.

Speaking of little experience – I got killed yesterday in 0.5 space! I’ve been playing off and on since 2009 and I’ve lost 4 ships (and been podded twice). The Tristan was my first loss, then a hulk, a tengu, and yesterday an Iteron Mark V. I know Eve is never ‘safe’ but in 2020 I had zero issues running from my home to Jita – that is no longer the case. There’s a single 0.5 bottleneck on my way to Jita that is pretty well camped these days, and I absolutely wasn’t expecting it (although I should have been) and took zero precautions. I was carrying too many high value things, in an obvious ship, and while I was not on autopilot, I also wasn’t nearly as safe as I could have been – that’s all on me.

Thankfully the Iteron Mark V isn’t exactly an expensive ship, I craft them myself, and I have more in the hangar. I did end up losing the products I was trying to sell in Jita, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t exactly a lot of ISK (maybe 200 million). There are lots of different ways to be ‘safer’ as you move products across space, or you can hire a company to do it for you, and you typically mark the value of your belongings to 120% so that if they lose it, you get reimbursed for more than you were expecting anyway. You do (of course) have to pay for that service (it’s run by players) but it’s either that or find a different way to get your items to market, or make it an ultra-safe trip.

As always, the rule of thumb in Eve is don’t fly things you can’t afford to lose. I’ve always personally felt safer in WH space than I ever did in lowsec and that looks like it still holds true for now.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Returning to Eve Online (4 years later)

The last time I wrote about Eve Online was back in 2020, so I assume that was the last time I was playing it, too. A LOT has changed in four years – but the basics were still familiar as I dove head first into the game. First of all, there’s (yet another) new / returning player experience by means of the AIR Career Program. This is great for old and new players, and it’s meant to give you a little more direction in what you want to do. You basically complete tasks like you would in a regular quest journal, and you get rewarded for it. I had a task to complete a mining mission, and you get to pick any that you have access to, so I didn’t have to complete L1 missions when L4 were available. I like this method, instead of being forced to do lower level content. Of course now they want me to complete 5 mining missions, and so on. After running a few of those, I swapped over to the Epic Arc Agent I had been working for in the past. This is the SOE (Sisters of Eve) quest chain that I never really completed. Doing these missions also check some points off in the AIR Career Program, which is nice. Daily log in rewards were a thing when I played last, but now there are also daily goals, like killing 25 NPC, etc.

Even though I’ve been away for a fair amount of time, it didn’t take long at all to reacquaint myself with my ships and my tasks. I set my scanners running again for PI, insured my most-used ships, and defeated some bad guys with the Tengu. I’m not exactly sure what goals I want to work towards, but it feels nice to be playing again (I know, I say this every time I return). For now I have no expectations, and I’m content to just fumble my way through while lurking in the Rookie Help channel. If you happen to be playing Eve, feel free to say hello! My in-game character name is Ellithia.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Making Gold with the 10th Anniversary Hearthstone Event

By now people have figured out you can actually sell the Hearthstone toy – and it is selling (screenshot is from the WoW Econ Discord).

The achievement you get from the event is account wide, so you can’t obtain that again – but to get multiple toys, just log in to your WoW accounts (if you have more than one) BEFORE you complete the achievement, and every character that is online will receive it.

** IMPORTANT** This COULD be changed in the future, it’s probably meant to be BoP – so be aware of that fact.

Save them until after the event and they become more rare, or sell them off before any changes happen, that’s up to you.

Happy gold making!

Weekly Wrap Up [Mar3-Mar9]

The TSM ledger is acting a bit oddly ever since leap year happened, so this post is a bit late while I manipulated the display. In any case, the past week was pretty much on par for what I would typically earn in a week – but sales were WAY lower than usual (the number of sales). A lot of high ticket items sold, and I didn’t even break 300 – normally that number is around 1,000.

This week was another winner for transmog, I imagine the collectors are in full force until we get that 10.2.6 patch and some new content. I know the Hearthstone 10th anniversary event is running right now, but I’ve been staying away while the bugs are fixed on NA retail.

I did also have a few pet sales, but these were all under 150,000g in value, my biggest sale for the week was the “Domed Buckler” which went for over a million gold! It’s great when those sporadic transmog items sell. I didn’t see many crafted transmog sales, but I had a handful of lower value ones, and I decided to skip restocking this week. Instead I did some comp stomp across all of my characters and I worked on collecting knowledge on a few slacker crafters that I had. Plus of course I partook in my very first RP event over on Moonguard, which was a LOT of fun. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Turning Good Habits into Gold

This year marks the 6th year that I’ve had a solid focus on making gold in World of Warcraft. I’ve gone from cautiously working towards my Brutosaur mount (which I did get in time) to now having over 100,000,000 gold strewn across various characters and servers. If there was only one piece of advice I could give to people who are interested in making gold, it would be the following:

Make good habits.

This covers a broad range of ‘things’ that you would ideally ‘do’ – but that’s what it comes down to. I would focus on things you actually enjoy doing in game, and then turning those things into habits that you can profit from. Here are a few examples:

  • I have 24 characters set up at the moment to do tables in SL. These are characters who don’t do anything else, there’s no travel time, they’re just parked at the tables. If I need anima, I use my main and then ship it to whatever alt needs it. I do have 50 level 70 characters, so I could expand this much further if I wanted, but 24 is a nice neat number (it’s two servers worth, minus Dracthyr). I’ve had this going for two years now, and I earn a LOT of pet charms.
  • I do everything crafting related on 8 characters. You could use 4, but I have both horde / alliance crafters (4 on a high population server, and 4 on a low population server). When they were working on knowledge, I’d focus on one character each day, and do all of their crafting quests. I would also do the weekly world quest on them, and now I do superbloom. That means I now have 8 characters with max DF factions just by slowly completing things over time. I didn’t grind, which meant I didn’t burn out. I complete a LOT of crafting orders on my high population server (which is where I spend most of my time), and I don’t fuss too hard about the alliance team (they’re mostly there to collect alliance specific recipes). I restock crafted goods once a week, using SimCraft & TSM.
  • I do all of the pet battle quests on 4 characters once a week. This isn’t ideal, but I love pet battles, and that means I’m slowly chipping away at achievements, family familiar, and other goals. I only do this one day a week so that I don’t get completely burnt out. I’m still making progress.
  • I do all of my dungeon / raid runs on one day a week, with however many characters I’m feeling at the time. I usually multibox these, and I just take a day to knock it out. Over time, the items I earn (gold, recipes, pets, etc) add up, and while it doesn’t LOOK like a lot, initially, over time it builds.
  • If there’s a legion trainer up I’ll typically spend one day a week grinding out alts / leveling pets. I have hundreds of pets at any given time to work towards 25. I’ve gotten every single one of my alts to 70 with this method. It’s NOT ideal, but because I’m so consistent with it (I LOVE pet battles) I’ve got a nice army of characters now.
  • I don’t bother with things I don’t enjoy. I do not like to gather and harvest, so I don’t do it. The only time I’ve done it in the last 5 years was to get some achievements for professions, and I still don’t have legion mining finished yet, that’s how much I hate gathering. Doing things I do not enjoy is a sure way for me to avoid the game and NOT make any gold.

Find what you like to do in game, make it into a habit, and grow your gold from it. Figuring out what you enjoy doing is going to be the hardest part. If sticking with it is difficult then you may need to reassess. That doesn’t mean you can’t take breaks! I take them all of the time, especially during lulls in content – but I always find my way back.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Nomadic Gamer