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Eve Online

Stone’s Wishing Well that was

Date: January 3, 2012  Author: Ross Stone Leave a comment

A few months ago I had made a blog post here that talked about how I nearly got an Outpost named after me and a Nyx Supercarrier in Eve Online only for both to fall through and not happen.

All of that however is out of date and old news because as of today its now safe to say that both of those things have been achieved! Stone’s Wishing Well exists and anyone can fly to Y-MPWL and see it. While the Nyx also now exists albeit on a character and location that will remain undisclosed. Continue Reading

Voice of VOLT 19

Date: September 9, 2011  Author: Ross Stone Leave a comment

Its 10 days late, but I am proud to have finished The Volition Cult [VOLT] alliances first new public newsletter with all of our Eve Online related content and propaganda. Its not ridiculously long either, at a mere eight pages.

As usual, thanks to Luth Curmal for content, our unnamed fleet commanders for battlereports, unnamed players who took videos and screenshots of those battles and Gareth Barkwell for proof reading. Continue Reading

We’re Back! Why I am busy

Date: August 15, 2011  Author: Ross Stone 4 Comments

Straight to the main point… The Volition Cult [VOLT] alliance is being reformed. With the Volition Cult corporation returning to our roots, with some old friends and corporations that also want to return to the style of game play we enjoy most. Continue Reading

Leading an internet community

Date: August 8, 2011  Author: Ross Stone 4 Comments

Having now seen how large alliances run things from both the perspective of the top of the chain of command and the bottom, I wanted to share my thoughts and ask why people in leadership make the same mistakes and lose focus of who they serve? Continue Reading

Stone’s Wishing Well that wasn’t

Date: August 1, 2011  Author: Ross Stone 1 Comment

This is the story of how I nearly got a outpost in Eve Online named after me and nearly acquired my own Nyx Supercarrier only to have both things cancelled due to a player called Zagdul.

During June we left Mostly Harmless as Volition Cult was fed up of the poor leadership and lack of understand for the members on the front line. Sitting in a POS for hours waiting for nothing to happen for whatever reason is not fun and as our members play the game to have fun, an alliance can’t ask us to keep doing something not fun without allowing us to have fun from time to time to make the whole thing worth while. Continue Reading

Liverpool Meetup and Google+

Date: July 12, 2011  Author: Ross Stone Leave a comment

Last weekend I traveled to Liverpool to meet a load of people from Volition Cult [.VC.] corporation in Eve Online for one of our fairly regular meetup events. Usual stuff happened, but it was very well planned and we got to do loads of socialising as well as having time to see some sites in Liverpool. Continue Reading

Latest YouTube videos

Date: June 17, 2011  Author: Ross Stone Leave a comment

Over the past few weeks I have slowly been getting back into video editing as I just reinstalled Adobe Premier on to my computer and cleared the hard drive to make room for more source video files. Below are details of a couple of videos posted on YouTube. Continue Reading

Minecraft server projects

Date: February 28, 2011  Author: Ross Stone Leave a comment

Over the past few months I have been running a Minecraft multiplayer server for various friends, mostly from Eve Online. Recently a load of new players brought the game and joined and after just a few weeks many new projects appeared.

Those projects are below along with there annotations. If I have many any errors on who constructed what, let me know.

Losing time to Minecraft

Date: November 6, 2010  Author: Ross Stone 1 Comment

Over the past few weeks I have been pretty distracted by a new game called Minecraft. Still in development so it has its bugs, but for 10 euros its good value for money considering how much time I have enjoyed it.

Within the game you basically have this massive randomly generated world that has no boundary’s and allows you to mine resources and build whatever you can imagine. Sounds good, but you also have some great “redstone” mechanics to makes things complicated too.

Various objects you can craft can generate or receive power via redstone and this allows you to create anything from simple switches to open doors to computational machines capable of performing mathematics.

We run a private multiplayer server where a few of us from the Volition Cult community create things on a single world, below are some of the things we have created so far. (Click images for descriptions.)

I have to get back to playing Eve tomorrow though as I have neglected her. But its hard as I just don’t have the time to play all the games I need to play. With the new World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion coming soon, new Assassins Creed and Call of Duty games due really soon its really tough to keep up with everything.

Even with these problems, its still been a great weekend as I got to enjoy more Krusty Kreme donuts. One of my work colleague from our London office came to Bath. Normally this is bad as they tend to bring me work to do, but this time I was bribed with Krusty Kreme donuts! Technically as I get paid to manage IT, that includes helping users anyway but sugar brides work too.

I have noticed that some of my colleagues in Bath have started to learn that if they offer to make me hot chocolate, I prioritise there requests over others… I fall for that “trap” every time it seems.

Anyway… Merlin has finally appeared on iPlayer so that’s all for now.

/me is afk.

Academy videos

Date: October 20, 2010  Author: Ross Stone 1 Comment

Since getting back from the Denmark meet up to celebrate The Volition Cult alliances four year anniversary, my new computer ordered from Scan was delivered. Those guys are busy as there was a 45 day wait. Worth it though, as the new 3XS machine is very nice. The old 3XS machine has been sold, the spare computer is also gone, as is my old mobile so I have deleted the “For Sale” section of the website.

Using this new computer, I have started working on creating a digital version of the Volition Cult Academy, which focuses on training or supporting new players to Eve Online, helping people better understand the theory and mechanics of the game in relation to player vs player game play. Example below.

I am actually really enjoying creating these videos and its quite rewarding seeing the feedback and comments of people actually finding this sort of thing useful. I have done quite a few so far…

101 – Introduction to the Volition Cult Academy
102 – User Interface including Overview Settings Part 1
102 – User Interface including Overview Settings Part 2
103 – Attributes, Skills and Clones – Part 1
103 – Attributes, Skills and Clones – Part 2
104 – Introduction to Ship Classes - Part 1
104 – Introduction to Ship Classes – Part 2
104 – Introduction to Ship Classes - Part 3
105 – Basic Ship Fittings – Part 1
105 – Basic Ship Fittings – Part 2
106 – Tanking

Currently to cover everything I would like to cover, I would estimate that in the end that you can expect to see around 60 videos, around 14 hours of content as I have plans to continue onto more advanced topics in the future. So if you want to be notified of when I add new videos, the easiest way is to probably subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Members of Volition Cult can also take a number of exams I have created that if passed, get you rewarded with in game medals. Its all very geeky! You require 100% to pass, and most of the questions are free text so its tough. To date, I have marked around 50 submissions, with a 94% pass rate so the academy is doing well. Its worth mentioning that Eve Online is a complicated game.

One unrelated final thing I wanted to mention briefly was that I will start using Picasa Web Albums as a online backup tool. So photos of the Denmark meet up will eventually be posted up there with everything else. Some will be public, some will be private, but for $5 a year for 20 GB of storage, its not a bad place to store a backup really.