Posts by Lord Azlan

Well, well well.

Saw Angmar (my hero) online the other day - than Tyrael posts then DA?

Seems like old times again.

Good to see you strong and healthy mate and look forward to seeing you online once in a while.

Az

Have you even started shaving yet mate?

Been kissing anyone recently? You still are the award winning Kisser of the Year?

Nice to read you are still around and healthy - what have you been up to?

Az

X3 Gold - time limited sale £10.19 for both Reunion and Terran Conflict

It is 1st July 19:00 - you have just over 22 hours left on this sale!

Firstly I need to declare that I am not an employee of STEAM and am not getting any commissions blah blah blah.

I don't even know anyone at STEAM and probably never will.

It must be the summer time kicking in though - most people are probably travelling or going to Fiji or something.

Some poor sods like me though might not have any money for a holiday - but maybe we got some time and a little cash on our hands..

The X Universe has quite divided the public in half - great game and great graphics with a very poor user unfriendly interface - some guys in SWAT like BG Gal swear by it though - saying it is a great game.

This deal purchases you both the X3 Reunion and X3 Terran Conflict for just over a tenner.

I had X2 sometime ago and could not get into it due to the poor interface - but apparently it is much better in X3 and the game is deep, real deep, lots of depth.

About the Game
The Sequel to the award winning X²: The Threat introduces a new 3D engine as well as a new story, new ships and a new gameplay to greatly increase the variety in the X-universe. The economy of X³: Reunion is more complex than anything seen in the X-universe before. Factories are being built by NPCs, wars can affect the global economy, NPCs can trade freely and pirates behave far more realistically.

The Technology: Extensive development has gone into the X³ engine, making full use of DirectX 9 technology, to create dramatic visual effects and stunningly realistic starships. Coupled with the massively enhanced A.L. (Artificial Life) system, X³: REUNION presents players with an ever changing, evolving universe; where a player's actions really can shape the future of the universe.

The new X³ 2.0: Bala Gi Research Missions: The X³ 2.0: Bala Gi Research Missions offers a host of new features and missions, allowing the player to delve deeper than ever before into the X universe.

Space just got a whole lot bigger with the addition of two new sectors and the introduction of the gargantuan Player HQ which allows many exciting new features including the ability to build your own ships and even give them customized space paint finishes. In addition to the new M7 battleship, there is an assortment of new weapons and onboard ship devices to use and explore.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/2820/

EVE Online - Planetary Interaction Guide

Certainly one of the more interesting new developments - the recent updates and patches brought the harvesting or mining of planets into the game.

Before this planets were simple stellar objects that you could fly to only - but had no other interest.

The long term aim I think is to try and make as far as possible nearly all commodities in EVE produced and marketed by players. As a trader myself I don't really make anything (unlike an industrialist that can produce ships and equipment or a miner) but I just buy and sell stuff.

However, it is an interesting development - see info and video link below..

Az

Planetary Interaction (PI) is a new feature introduced in the Tyrannis expansion. It allows pod pilots from far and wide to create industrial colonies on just about any planet in the EVE universe. Additionally it is the first step toward the future integration of EVE and DUST 514, allowing pod pilots to hire mercenaries to fight over said planetary installations.
The first phase of PI introduces a set of new commodities, extracted from and processed on planets, that will allow players to replace a number of previously NPC-seeded-only goods on the market. Some commodities can be used immediately, such as Oxygen for POS fuel, while others can be used in new blueprints to create POS and T2 components.

This will provide a new source of income to all interested players, new and old, and even trial players as you need very little to try it out at a low level. Generally you can keep a colony running with a little attention once a day, more often if you want to optimize, or less often if you'd just like to coast along and check on your assets once in a while.

Currently you cannot harm the facilities of other players directly, although you may be able to compete with them over specific deposits. However, when it comes time to pick up items from your colonies, you have to go there in person - at which point the normal rules of engagement apply fully.

Planetary Interaction is a brave new frontier for all to see if you so choose - All These Worlds Are Yours

http://www.eve-ivy.com/wiki/in…tle=Planetary_Interaction

Ok – after the event – let us look back at recent events.

The squad

It is obvious that once a position of strength, the GK position in England is weak and there was no obvious candidate to be the number one keeper – the top English clubs do not have an English keeper starting for them and David James (Calamity James) has often been inconsistent his entire career and he played for Portsmouth last season (they got relegated) and he ended up paying for some of the clubs employees. Ie No one was bothered to pay the England keeper last year to play keeper!

Defence – also no longer a strength – J Terry has lost a lot of pace and after injuries to Rio Ferdinand – the English played Carragher (retired from international football for a number of years), or Upson who played for a very poor West Ham, who were nearly relegated. Maybe Dawson would have been a better choice. Ledley King predictably got injured and could not play at all.

Fabio took a number of injured players to the tournament – too many – he could have gambled on 1-2 but too many players were injured and the risk backfired.

Tactics

Width is important and Fabio should have played a left sided player on the LHS – he did not and England suffered as S Gerrard came in too many times and left A Cole (best player imo) isolated and without any protection. He played Heskey but should have gone with a Crouch/ Rooney combination – or maybe even Crouch/Defoe combo as Rooney was obviously unfit or out of form.

Taking two pacey wingers in Lennon and Wright-Phillips - he did not play them much.

What you lose in holding up the ball from Heskey to Crouch you gain 100 fold in a better goal scoring record.

Motivation

Despite all that – England qualified top of their group playing for Fabio and beat teams of Algeria and USA’s quality.

So – I can’t explain the abject performance from England in all the games and for this I blame the players – some games it looked like they were not even trying – no energy, no pride, no teamwork –

I got hints of unrest in the dressing room, David James being sarcastic about the manager - J Terry suggesting the players need to talk to Fabio

The poor players missing their wives and girlfriends..

25 mins to go and 9 (yes NINE) English players go ahead of the ball for a free kick?

It was quite funny also that the BBC going on about penalties for about 30 mins before the game and the game did not even get to penalties.

Well done Germany - played well in all the games even in that defeat and looking young and positive team.

Az

EVE Online for £1.49 for trial one month.

It is 19:15pm on 27 June 2010 -

For the next 22 hours Steam is providing the one month trail to this game for £1.49

If you wanted to know about this game but were to scared to ask - here is your chance..

About the Game

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer game. Hundreds of thousands of players compete within a single persistent universe for military, economic and political power. Players explore the suns of New Eden, mine and refine resources, drive the economy, and wage war on one another in a richly detailed virtual world set 35,000 years in the future in a stellar cluster far from Earth.

With over 300.000 subscribers worldwide inhabiting the same virtual universe, EVE features a vast player-run economy where your greatest asset is the starship, designed to accommodate your specific needs, skills and ambitions. EVE offers professions ranging from commodities trader to mercenary, industrial entrepreneur to pirate, mining engineer to battle fleet commander or any combination of these and much more. From brokering business deals to waging war, you will have access to a diverse array of sophisticated tools and interfaces to forge your own destiny in EVE. Learn more at www.eveonline.com/tyrannis

Play on one server - EVE Online is a leader in online gaming technology, hosting hundreds of thousands of players in the same persistent universe. Play with over 50.000 players at the same time on one server!
Play for FREE – You can buy game time with in-game money you earn while playing.
Liberating advancement - Never "grind" for a skill again. Because the EVE universe is persistent, your skills increase even while you're offline.

PvP (Player vs. Player) based on strategy, not levels - Tactics have value in EVE Online. Experience and treachery will often beat top-of-the-line modifications and fancy ships.
Free EVE Online expansions - You will never be charged for an EVE expansion - as the EVE universe grows, so do the benefits of your subscription.

Here is the link

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8500/

If you try the game and think you want to maybe give it a longer go than one month - contact me in game or in SWAT

Az

Not sure how long this will be available - but you can purchase this game online from STEAM for £2.03 pence.

For those that don't know - STEAM allows you to download the game as a digital download and then you can play.

For those people (like me) who wanted to try this before but were put off by the full asking price - you don't have to wait any longer.

Darkstar One offers a fantastic amount of freedom of choice. The story-based missions gradually lead you deeper into the galaxy to new races, new technologies and ever stronger opponents. Explore a vast array of solar systems in search of hidden artifacts of ancient races, essential objects for upgrading your ship--the Darkstar One.

In addition to artifacts, acquire credits to purchase better equipment, such as weapons and shields. Earn credits in a myriad of ways: by taking on assignments, bounty hunting, piracy, smuggling, trading, escorting, transporting, rewards and more.

A vast, simulated universe with many unique races, space ships and battle tactics.
Elaborate story, related by more than fifty minutes of video sequences.

Configure and upgrade your ship, Darkstar One, any way you choose--build a fast attack ship with many light weapons or a near-invincible cruiser with heavy weaponry.

Over two hundred different weapons, shields and equipment items.

Rockets, torpedoes and mines feature special tactical uses: mines can fire at opponents or distract approaching missiles.

The "Spell Weapon": a special weapon with a powerful effect similar to certain spells in role-playing games. This weapon becomes increasingly versatile throughout the game and greatly increases tactical options.

Acquire weapons from other races - Mount distinctive weapons from other races on "Darkstar One," each featuring unique functions that require different battle tactics.

Embark on special missions - explore canyons or even underground on unknown worlds.
Freedom of choice - earn credits in many ways: fighting, piracy, assignments, smuggling, trading, escorting, transporting, rewards, and more.

Play as the "good" or the "bad" guy and take advantage of political disputes.

Az

Although I respect Huor uber - not sure what he was drinking when he posted his chart - predicting that not only would England defeat the Germans - but Argentina too?

Here is an interesting piece on the BBC website from a guy called David Bond comparing both English and German approaches to managing their national football..

Sunday's classic contest between England and Germany is not only a battle to decide who reaches the quarter-finals of this World Cup. The game in Bloemfontein also presents an opportunity to assess the ideological and cultural differences between these two great footballing rivals.

Ever since England's heartbreaking semi-final defeat by West Germany in Italy in 1990, English football has undergone a commercial revolution which has made the Premier League the richest in the world.

On the plus side, that financial success, created by the breakaway of the Premier League in 1992, has helped finance a vast improvement in the nation's stadiums, more entertaining football and allowed English clubs to become the most consistently successful in the Champions League over the last decade.

This has been thanks, in no small part, to relaxed ownership regulations that allowed new billionaire owners to buy clubs and then splash out eye-watering sums to pay foreign stars massive salaries.

But, at the same time, the English national team has gone backwards. Despite the Football Association enjoying its own substantial growth in revenues on the back of the game's television rights boom, it seems money has had a negative impact on the health of the English team.

The Germans, on the other hand, have gone from strength to strength. Although they have not won the World Cup since 1990, their rich tournament pedigree speaks volumes. They also won the 2008 Under-19 European Championships and the 2010 Under- 21 European Championships, although it is worth adding that England's Under-17 team have just won the European title.

The Bundesliga is still one of the wealthiest leagues in Europe, but it makes £500m a year less than the Premier League. Despite that, it invests £20m more in its youth academy system and its 18 clubs in 2009 made an operating profit of £146m - £66m more than the combined operating profits of the 20 Premier League clubs.

The Bundesliga's approach to financial regulation and ownership is much stricter than its English rival. While the Premier League is only now tightening its rules in the wake of Portsmouth's financial collapse, German clubs operate on the 50+1 principle - no single person or entity can own more than 49% as 51% of each club must be owned by its members.

Also, while debt levels have exploded in the English game with a combination of bank debt and so-called 'soft loans' from owners and directors contributing to a staggering total of £3.3bn according to Deloitte, German clubs owe just £30m. It must be stated here that most German clubs do not own their grounds and therefore do not have assets to borrow against (and some clubs would like these tough rules relaxed) but the difference in debt levels is striking.

The key word is sustainability and while the Premier League is just starting to understand why this is important, English football is many years behind Germany.

All very interesting, but why should the German model have any bearing on the strength of the German national team?

Answer: Because it demonstrates that the Deutscher Fussball Bund (DFB) has a far firmer control of the way the game is run than England's own FA, which long ago ceded financial control of the game to the Premier League.

A far healthier balance of power exists between the Bundesliga and the DFB, allowing them to put the wider interests of the game first - and ultimately every four years that means the German World Cup squad.

For example, German clubs must pick 12 home-grown players in their matchday squads, whereas the Premier League conforms to Uefa's rule of eight out of a 25-man squad - and even then that can mean including foreign nationals as long as they have trained for three years at a Premier League club's academy.

The German academy system educates 5,000 players between the age of 12 and 18. As a consequence, the number of German under-23-year-olds playing regularly in the Bundesliga is 15% - up from 6% a decade ago.

This is reflected in the youthful make-up of the German team here in South Africa. This is the youngest team (average age 25) they have sent to a World Cup since 1934. England by way of contrast have sent their oldest in history (28).

I asked Wolfgang Niersbach, the general secretary of the DFB, why it was that the Germany was so consistent at major tournaments.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say the German national team always comes first because during the club season the Bundesliga must come first," he said. "But what I would say is the relationship between the DFB and the League is very close and we work together. Sure, there are discussions, but in the end we always make sure the right decisions are made for the German team."

This includes a winter break - something former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson fought for during his time in charge but which was ultimately rejected due to the crammed domestic season in England. German legend Franz Beckenbauer suggested on Thursday that the lack of the break was one of the reasons why England looked "burned out" here.

Many of these structural and ideological differences may count for nothing once the two teams take to the pitch on Sunday afternoon. But should Germany triumph, they will undoubtedly form part of the inquest which follows.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dav…ch_pedigree_casts_la.html

I say we do an England (plus the rest of the World) V Germans kick about in Arena on Sunday or Saturday before the game.

Someone rich can give out some prizes for most goals scored (most kills) and best defender (least killed)

Maybe some 1v1 penalty shoot outs

And then Germany wins as usual.

The only Englishman I can remember off hand now are Gal, Slayer, Saxon, Angmar, Son of Angmar mmmm - who else?

And the Germans - well - there are thousands of them all over the SWAT community.

A chat room to discuss tactics and in game action would be a laugh - but I suspect most people to be too drunk to type or in the pub anyway.

Come on England!! For Queen and Country and for St George!

Az

Mighty English Lions vanquish Slovenia in a completely one sided match which could have been 10-0 to England.

C'mon Eng ger land - Three Lions on a Shirt - It's coming home!

We gave the world the game of football - and we gonna win it again -

Jules Rimet trophy gleaming in the African sunlight - held aloft by the mighty lion Steven Gerrard - nothing can stop us now - we gonna win it again - we have the best team and the best players - English Lions - invincible

C mon - who is next - c mon stand up and challenge us

Oh crap - its the Germans!

%$&^%&*(^*(&_(*&~@~@{P#'#'#' ##''@@@@&^%&*% (lots of swear words)

Maybe next time then - we can win it in 2014!

Rooney said "Bring on the Germans!"

Beckenbaur said English football "Kick and rush!"

LOL -

I hope it is a good game on Sunday

Respect to the journalist and to Huor - fantastic piece - well done - thumbs up!

Very interesting and the simple honesty here seems to come through very easily.

Az

So far trying to watch all the games - hey the WC is every four years only - but my bosses at work are closing down the BBC and ITV websites.

Anyway - quite like some of the Asian teams football - seems exciting and direct. Thought Italy had lots of potential - they know how to win and are very direct and ruthless.

England - hugh sigh - are a disgrace. Emile Heskey should not play and P Crouch should - what we lose in "Holding up play" by 10% factor we gain "Scoring gaols" by 10000000000000000% factor.

But England are so crap - some of the commentators make me laugh cussing off other teams that play better than England.

I have Germany down in the office sweep stakes - can someone let me have some good German phrases about football please?

Az

The answer to your last question is “absolutely”

There is a large number of non pvp players in the community – a lot of them like trading, some like smuggling and some like exploring.

There is a number of players that are learning how to pvp as well.

Reading all the posts here – it seems the main thing is that you did not have control over this situation – and something like that takes getting used to if you have not experienced it before.

In CF – you will find a great bunch of people – and you have noticed that the mercs involved even helped you out a bit afterwards which is saying a lot.

Remember – space is not safe and always keep an eye on local –

If you ever see a merc in the same system as you – always consider you maybe their target.

Also – it is quite fun to be chased.

And there is a number of people here (non pvp ers) who have built a huge reputation as being diabolically difficult to assassinate.

Best wishes.

I am actually going through Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic for the first time as my current game.

Usually I don't like the party management type RPGs such as this one or Baldur's Gate and prefer FPS RPG like Oblivion/ Bioshock.

So far so good though - I am enjoying the Star Wars experience and OP is right in one way - it does feel a bit cinematic and huge in its story.

I don't like the bits where "Companion X looks troubled - you should speak to them" happen - they seem a bit artificial but I suppose they will further the storyline.

Also - it has taken me a long time to get a grip of the inventory management - lots of things are not explained how they work and what they do - and also the combat seems to be more complex (in a good way) that I thought at the beginning.

At the moment - just got my ass kicked big time by some Sand Raiders in the desert - considering I had a couple of Jedi in my party - but I overcome that.

Another good part is that longevity is enhanced if you want to play both Dark Side and Light Side stories.

I also like the way how good or how evil you are as a Jedi can affect how poerful your Jedi powers can be - that is good innovation.

Thumbs Up!

New EVE content Tyrannis is being employed today - see link below or scroll down for the text.

Main things to note are the beginnings of planetary interaction - interesting to see how that develops in the future. Lots of further updates to the user interface that I welcome - things like the in game browser have come on leaps and bounds since I first played EVE and also the Jukebox is getting a bit better.

The unique ships is a fascinating idea and as far as I know only been given out to the annual alliance pvp tournament winners - I wonder if I own mod creator would consider releasing a unique ship to some one in SWAT who has given years of good service to the community?

http://www.eveonline.com/updat…hnotes.asp?patchlogID=205

Patch notes for EVE Online: Tyrannis, released Wednesday 26 May 2010.

FEATURES

Planetary Interaction

The planets of EVE and their resources are now yours to use. There are a small number of exclusions, such as major hub systems, shattered planets, and sites of historical significance.
Planetary Infrastructure can be built using Command Centers, Extractors, Processors, Storage Facilities and Spaceports. These are all connected using Links.
Planetary commodities and products can be imported to and exported from a planet using the Customs office, connected to all spaceports built on a planet.
See CCP Soundwave’s dev blog Impossible is our Middle Name for more information on Planetary Interaction.
EVE Gate

EVE Gate is the web portal into the EVE universe and is designed to ease communication and organization for the EVE community.
Send and receive EVE Mail, create, invite and accept events with the new Calendar system, manage your Contacts, browse through character, corp and alliance profiles and receive broadcast updates from your friends and corpmates.
The standings system has been revamped so now you can use that in conjunction with the privacy settings to determine who will be able to view your full profile, contact list and broadcast messages, currently only pilots set to standing 5.1 and over will be able to see that information
You can easily set your privacy in the profile settings in EVE Gate so nobody can view more information on your character than is displayed in the “Show Info” window in the game.
See CCP Priya’s dev blog EVE Gate: For those moments when your boss isn’t looking for more information on EVE Gate.
AlienFx Light Effects

AlienFX-compatible Alienware computers and keyboards pair light effects with in-game events:
Low shield, armor and hull warnings
Cap recharge at 70% when in jump drive-capable ship
Full cargo hold when mining
Autopilot destination/waypoint reached
Warp scrambled
Low capacitor
Calendar

New in-game calendar is now introduced with the following features:
In EVE Gate and in client
Personal Events
Corp/Alliance Events
CCP Events
Month View
Individual days, when expanded, will provide more details.
New Image Service

A new service delivers character portraits, corporation and alliance logos to EVE Gate, the EVE client and community Web sites.
Ships

Two new Alliance Tournament VIII ships have been added as prizes for the next tournament’s winners: the Adrestia heavy assault ship and the Utu assault ship. These unique ships will not be seeded on the market and will only be made available to the winners of Alliance Tournament VIII.
Skills

The skill "Command Center Upgrades" has been seeded on the market. It will allow players to build more complex command centers.
The skill "Interplanetary Consolidation" has been seeded on the market. It will allow players to manage up to 6 colonies on as many planets.
Three new skills have been added for planet scanning:
“Remote Sensing” allows a player to scan planets remotely, each skill level increases the distance at which it’s possible to scan.
“Planetology” increases the accuracy when scanning planets for resources. This is visible in the number of gradient bands displayed on the planet surface when scanning for a resource.
“Advanced Planetology” further increases the accuracy when scanning planets for resources.
Starbases, Outposts and Stations

Orbital Customs Offices have been introduced with Planetary Interaction.
Rocket Containers have been introduced with Planetary Interaction.
Exploration & Deadspace

Several new “mystery” dungeons have been added.
Character Creation and New Player Experience

A Planetary Interaction tutorial has been created for the New Player Experience.
CHANGES

Need for Speed

Made various improvements to the EVE server software and corified more of its components along the way.
World Shaping

The type of 38,213 planets has been changed, resulting in a more realistic universe as well as a balanced distribution of resources for Planetary Interaction.
The radius of around 140 planets has been changed which, in turn, affects the warp-in point.
Deep space safe spots have been removed. For more info, see the dev blog by CCP Greyscale.
Ships

The Scorpion battleship has undergone a major transformation and now more closely resembles its namesake. For more info, see CCP Salvo’s dev blog on the Scorpion redesign.
The Corporation Hangar window for a ship which is not the current ship will be closed when docking or undocking
The Mining Foreman Gang Link bonus for the Rorqual has been increased to 10% per level instead of 5%. This bonus is only applied when the Rorqual is in deployment mode.
When closing the client while in warp, the ship will now finish warping to its destination and then perform an emergency warp-off from there.
Weapons & Ammunition

The “Radio XL” crystal description no longer mentions depletion since it doesn't deplete.
Player Owned Structures, Outposts and Stations

Players are now able to set standings to entities as long as they are in the Corporation or Alliance Contact list.
There is an option in the Station Management window to use either the Corporation's standings or the Alliance's standing for applying station service fees.
There is an option in the POS Management window to use either the Corporation's standings or the Alliance's standings when determining sentry aggression.
It is no longer possible to access Mobile Laboratories while the control tower is onlining. Only when it is online.
NPCs

Several changes have been made to the loot drops of various NPCs, most notably Rogue Drones. For more info, see The Circle of Life dev blog by CCP Chronotis.
The loot drops from Rogue Drone NPC battleships have had their composition altered, their volume significantly decreased, and their value slightly decreased.
Agents & Missions

Several missions have been changed so that they no longer use commodities for cargo that are also used in Planetary Interaction.
Basic Courier Missions have been changed so that cargo size and travel distance is consistent between factions and agent levels.
"Serpentis Drug Outlet 1/10" will now require the gate key to enter the final room.
Most Station Ruins structures have been resized and many dungeons received some minor adjustments.
“Keeping Crime in Check” mission has been re-balanced and now requires 3 bronze tags instead of 10.
The distribution of the missions “Avenge a Fallen Comrade”, “Break Their Will” and “Retribution” was adjusted.
The mission “The Search Party (2 of 2)” is now working as intended.
"Starting Simple" text has been corrected for the post-Apocrypha UI.
"Attack the Angel Hideout" objective text has been restored.
Exploration & Deadspace

“Mordu's Folly (2 of 2)” acceleration gate no longer allows supercarriers.
Sites and landmarks previously located near planets have been changed to static sites and moved away from planets. See CCP Bettik’s dev blog Those That Came Before Us for more info.
Some minor cosmetic edits were made to wormhole exploration sites.
Several minor spelling and punctuation errors have been fixed. The grammar gods have been appeased.
Descriptions for Planetary Interaction commodities and facilities have been added.
Missile and crystal descriptions are now updated for logic, clarity, and consistency.
Science and Industry

The waste factor for all Tech III blueprint copies has been changed to 0. This is a non-functional change.
Low sec and some null sec asteroids have higher amounts of low end minerals such as Tritanium, Pyerite or Mexallon. For more info, see The Circle of Life dev blog by CCP Chronotis.
Market & Contracts

The Journal now shows up to 100 contracts.
Corporation & Alliance

The message displayed when a corporation leaves an alliance with an active war declaration now has clearer wording.
The Standings tab has been moved to the top level and visible by all corporation members. Corporation Contacts is found under this tab.
The “Like and Dislike” tabs are removed as their function is replaced with the Corporation Contacts list.
The Corporation Contacts list is now limited to 2600 entries.
Only CEOs and Directors can add, edit, and remove Corporation Contacts.
The Relationships tab for Alliances has been replaced with Alliance Contacts. This will be visible by all members
Entities labeled "non-aggression pact" are moved to Excellent (+5) standing.
Entities labeled "friend" are moved to Good (+10) standing.
Entities labeled "competitor” are moved to Bad (-5) standing.
Entities labeled "enemy" are moved to Terrible (-10) standing.
The Alliance Contacts list is limited to 2600 entries.
Only the CEO and Directors of the executor corporation can add, edit, and remove Alliance Contacts.
Graphics

Suns have been given an overhaul and are now large spheres with solar flares.
Surfaces are now projected onto planets. This allows for surface scanning in the Planetary Interaction User Interface (PIUI).
Planetary Interaction Pins have been created which represent the structures built on a planet’s surface.
User Interface

The Buddy List is now called “Contacts.” There is a limit of 300 contacts.
The Blocked tab has been removed. The Blocked list is now found under the Contacts tab.
The Corp member tab has been moved to the Corporation Window.
The standing system for personal standings uses 5 levels of relationships (Excellent +10, Good +5, Neutral 0, Bad -5, and Horrible -10) instead of the integer slider.
Players are able to set standing to other players, player corporations, player alliance, NPC corporations, and NPC factions. This requires that the player is also added to your contact list.
When adding or editing another player as a contact, it is possible to send them a notification, with or without a personalized note, saying that you added them as a contact and at what standing level.
When caps lock is activated pressing SHIFT no longer cancels it
The new default value for Fleet Broadcasts is now “Everyone”.
It is no longer possible to assign CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, ESC or RETURN as shortcut keys.
It is now possible to assign numpad keys as shortcuts.
Loyalty Store purchases are now displayed in the wallet journal as "Payment to LP Store" instead of "Payment to Agent".
A new cursor has been created which better indicates links, menus, and other interface items
The widescreen option under Display & Graphics in the ESC window has been permanently removed. This change is necessary to fix several issues with the new cameras.
The following chat channels have been recreated. As a result, MOTDs and accesses will be cleared. If you were in one of the below channels prior to Tyrannis' deployment, you will receive a message stating that the channel does not exist. You will need to manually rejoin the channel. The affected channels are: Languages\Estonian, Languages\Faroese, Languages\Belarussian, Languages\Hebrew, Languages\Czech/Slovak, Languages\Turkish, Languages\Croatian, Languages\Romanian, Languages\Greek, Languages\Lithuanian, Languages\Filipino, Languages\Vietnamese, Languages\Bulgarian, Languages\Serbian, Languages\Afrikaans, Other\EveTV, Other\SIRadio
EVE Voice, Mail & Chat

The folder for Contacts is added to the Notifications tab. This is where notifications will be sent when a player is added as a contact or standing level is changed.
The Mail address book has been replaced with the Contacts list.
Miscellaneous

"Close tab" menu option has been removed from the right click menu of the final tab in the browser.
The non-functional "trash it" option is no longer present for items in containers in Corporate Hangars.
The much-loved and informative "Traffic Advisory" messages have disappeared from EVE, forever.
Ship insurance will now revalue itself periodically based on a trimmed mean of the ship's manufacturing materials global market weighted average prices. For more info, see The Circle of Life dev blog by CCP Chronotis.
A new method of drawing lines enables routes and links to be displayed in the PIUI.
Line animation in the PIUI indicates activity on routes and links.
Camera hooks for Planetary Interaction have been added. Players will notice this when the camera zooms in on their Planetary Command Pins in the PIUI.
New dustfields have been added.
API support for the new Contacts system has been added.
Volume of ambient sound in stations will decrease after 90 and 180 seconds to make idling in stations less noisy.
FIXES

Ships

The hitpoints of your ship will no longer briefly appear to be 0 when moving fittable items to or from your cargo hold.
Tech 3 subsystems now give bonuses correctly when boarding from a ship maintenance array.
The description of the Heretic now states the correct missile velocity bonus.
Armor and structure hitpoints will no longer go negative.
Fixed an issue where partial repairs appeared to be overcharging the player.
Fixed incorrect lighting on back side of Zephyr’s sails, which could cause them to appear black at times.
Tournament ships no longer use redundant shaders. Fresnel shader on the alpha areas in all LOD levels of the two Tournament VII ships have been replaced with the correct Single.fx shader.
The Apocalypse Imperial Issue did not have turret locators on its model, which indicate where turrets should be placed. This has now been fixed.
The Dominix lacked turret and booster locators on its model, thus turrets and thruster animations were not visible. Locators have been added to fix these problems.
No explosion was visible when blowing up a supercarrier. An explosion effect has been added.
Freighters now have correct racial propulsion types.
A Rorqual’s assembly lines can now draw from and produce to its own corporate hangars.
The Drake and Hurricane now correctly state "per level" in the description of their bonuses.
Ships utilizing the Ship Maintenance Bay will no longer be able to launch housed vessels while in warp.
Modules

Fixed a problem where dragging charges onto the fitting screen only distributed enough charge for one weapon.
There is no longer an error when dragging modules from the fitting window to the cargo hold.
Equipping saved fittings no longer fails if changes affect a module that has a script loaded.
Module activation error messages will no longer contain techno-babble text strings.
The passive shield recharge rate for Shield Flux Coils is now calculated correctly when previewing them in the fitting screen.
The reference to “motherships” has been removed from the description of Clone Vat Bay I.
Capital logistic modules now receive a consistent activation cost reduction skill bonus.
Weapons & Ammunition

Falloff range will now display with decimal places in the show info window.
The right click contextual menu has been removed from launched missiles.
Flameburst light missile explosion effects no longer display on the user’s own ship.
Drones

Ship and skill bonuses are now always applied to drones correctly on scooping them.
It is no longer possible to give Assist or Guard orders to a fleet member who is not in the same system.
Ungrouped drones of mixed types will now launch together.
The description of Fighter Bombers and their respective skillbooks has been adjusted to reflect that they are manned crafts and not drones.
Having the Drones skill to level 1 is now a prerequisite for using a Civilian Hobgoblin drone.
A typo in the error message when trying to launch drones in Triage Mode has been fixed.
Skills

Saving a neural remap which was started in another system will no longer fail.
Corrected the requirements for the Standard and Improved Mercoxit Specialist certifications.
Starbases, Outposts and Stations

There is no longer an exception being thrown on linking structures.
0.4 solar systems no longer require charters for Starbases.
Fixed an issue that caused the Starbase Silo bonus to not apply.
Notifications about damaged sovereignty structures are now shown correctly, even if the attacker is unknown.
Notifications about attacked sovereignty structures are now shown correctly when the attacker is not part of an alliance.
A notification message is now displayed, when trying to drag an item, which is not an infrastructure upgrade, into the Infrastructure Hub
Several minor problems with sovereignty structures were fixed.
Offlining a Sovereignty Blockade Unit from an invulnerable state will now make it vulnerable to attack.
Territorial Claim Units can now be repackaged.
The management window of the Infrastructure Hub will now close when warping away.
A more appropriate message is shown when attempting to change the state of sovereignty structures without the proper roles.
A newly created shader gives Silos an animation after onlining.
A station model which created undock problems has been altered. Ships will no longer bounce around while undocking.
Minmatar stations will now have ambient sounds.
Caldari Navy station interior lighting has been improved.
Station eggs: It's no longer possible to set a password longer than 16 characters.
Starbase shields will now recharge to 100% in the correct time.
There is now an error message if you try and save a blank station name.
A Starbase in high-sec which is set to shoot back on aggression will now shoot back if shot at by a member of the owning corp. This is now in line with low-sec and 0.0 space behavior.
Character Creation and New Player Experience

Page 2 of "Your Advancement" now gives the correct instructions for opening the ship's cargo hold.
Fixed a typo in "Letter of Recommendation”.
The "you need a ship" message when trying to undock with no ship is now significantly more helpful.
When choosing a blank character slot, players will be “Entering character creation" instead of "Entering character selection".
Using the "Enter" key no longer moves a player to the next page of the tutorial before meeting the prerequisites.
The play, pause and volume icons are now correctly aligned under the racial videos.
NPCs

NPCs will now drop the correct size of afterburners.
Duplicate operations have been removed from station names, much to the relief of dismayed students attending the School of Applied Knowledge School.
Agents & Missions

The load balancing mechanism for missions in Dominion incorrectly prioritized high-load systems over low-load systems when selecting the location for mission objectives. Agents now prefer to send players to less loaded systems.
Agents no longer offer another mission after standings have dropped below the minimum.
The agent message window for Sister Alitura now displays Effective Standing and Division.
It was possible for storyline agents to present you with a hostile response even though they offered a mission. This has been corrected.
The mission “The Search Party (2 of 2)” is now working as intended.
“Are You Receiving? (2 of 3)” now has mission objective text.
Exploration & Deadspace

Fixed an issue that caused the recovery of multiple probes when clicking one and recovering another.
The site “Contested Amarr Mire Keep” has been re-named in the overview to “Contested Amarr Crimson Keep”.
Changed icon on the message pop-up for “Ruined Sansha Crystal Quarry”.
Exploration site “Decayed Angel Mining Station” now has the correct pop-up text.
Exploration site “Large Hemorphite, Jaspet and Kernite Deposit” now has the correct asteroid types.
Exploration site “Small Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet Deposit” no longer prints a debug message in local.
Exploration site “Sansha Forlorn Den” now correctly displays the Sansha logo.
Cartel Research Outpost in the escalating path site Angel Owned Station now correctly drops a Cynabal BPC instead of a packaged Cynabal.
Some immersion breaking object names were fixed.
Science & Industry

The skill requirements on faction Cruise Missile Launcher blueprints have been changed to not require the Cruise Missile skill.
Olbra I – Pator Tech School's industrial manufacturing line has been fixed.
Jobs cannot be created using blueprints belonging to other corporation members unless in the corporation hangar.
It is no longer possible to start a manufacturing job without having the required quantity of RAM.
When the Science & Industry window is open and a job completes, the progress bar no longer hangs when clicking "Deliver".
No cancel option will be given for jobs already delivered.
Various BPOs had their volume increased from 0.0m3 to 0.01 m3.
Market & Contracts

"Ghost" Freeform Contracts have been removed
Contracts: “Use Base Price” confirmation window is only suppressed if you say “yes”.
Corporation & Alliance

It is no longer possible to submit the same bulletin multiple times by spam-clicking the "submit" button.
The notification sent upon a corporation leaving faction warfare is now correct.
Alliance / Corporate standing changes no longer require a re-log to view.
Issue with Corporate wallets unable to receive cash has been fixed.
Corporate applications of CEO characters are no longer processed.
The corporation wallet transaction search has been expanded to search for additional groupings, instead of just seeing the most recent transactions.
Multiple characters in same corporation trying to rent an office in the same station now result in 1 bill and 1 office only.
When giving away shares, the Corporation Politics tab will be removed and no longer closes the whole corporation window.
Declaring support for a chosen executor now updates the alliance window correctly.
Trying to create a corporation in space now gives the correct warning.
Corporation "our adverts" is no longer accessible without proper roles.
Double spaces are no longer allowed in corporate names.
After receiving shares, it is no longer necessary to re-log to see the Politics tab.
Corporation window does not become blank on switching tabs if the player saves changes after granting roles to a member who is not willing to take roles.
The "Per Page" settings are now applied in the Role Management window.
Changing the Per Page setting on the Role Management tab takes effect no matter which page is being viewed.
When creating a Decoration, the reset button is only visible if information has been entered.
Graphics

Players using monitors that supported resolutions wider than 16:9 reported difficulty with using the scanner. Map distortion on displays using wider than 16:9 aspect ratio is now fixed, with increased maximum zoom distance on the system map.
Fixed an issue where Fullscreen options remained selected while in Windowed mode.
Camera bobbing when looking at large objects at extreme zoom-in levels has been made less noticeable.
The sun will no longer be visible through a ship model when the "sun is occluded by ships" option is selected.
All gas giants now use the same height map, resulting in uniform appearance.
Interval default issue which caused jagged FPS in windowed mode under Windows XP has been resolved.
An issue where random colors flickered on screen at client startup has been resolved. Rainbows do not belong in EVE.
Texture improvements ensure that lava planets no longer lose their red hue when changing shader quality.
Temperate planets will now have a similar appearance between high and low shader quality settings.
User Interface

The Username/Password Field will no longer appear to have focus when the application does not. Accidentally typing your password into IRC by mistake is now a thing of the past.
Text will no longer overlap in the Insurance Quotes window.
Fixed a problem where it was not possible to create (except for http://) links in the notepad.
The "search" button will no longer appear when creating http links.
Spam clicking the "Quit corporation" button will no longer open multiple instances of the "Quit corporation" window.
Error checking for creating new keyboard shortcuts now works properly with better error messages.
Jukebox no longer restores itself from being minimized on docking or undocking.
Importing Overview settings will now retain their filters correctly.
It is now possible to right click links which contain non-ascii characters.
Changing the size of the MOTD font in player-created chat channels will work correctly now and not throw an error.
It is no longer possible to have two "Create Alliance" windows open at the same time.
Clicking multiple times on the "Submit" button in the Add/Edit Bulletin window will submit the bulletin only once.
In certain conditions the text in corporate adverts overlapped with the boundary line, this has now been fixed.
The text in windows with nested tables (like mission briefings) is no longer duplicated if the graphics settings are changed with that window open.
A spelling mistake that appeared when trying to anchor or online a TCU without being part of an alliance has been corrected.
When moving the map by clicking and holding the right mouse button, the context menu no longer appears when releasing the mouse button.
A minor typographic error in the notification received when trying to overload a module without the required skill level has been corrected.
A spelling mistake in the type name of the Alliance Maintenance Bill has been corrected.
Broadcast messages received while the broadcast window was minimized will now be correctly displayed when restoring or maximizing the window.
The legend for the "Systems I've Visited" option in the star map has been corrected to show the right colors.
The wallet reference type "Agent Mission Reward Corporation Tax" now works as intended.
It was possible to select multiple items on the “Import overview settings” dialog window but only the last entry would be used. You can now only select one item.
All cargo holds are now closed when attempting to clone-jump.
When repairing a damaged ship, the "Pick New Item" button no longer is hidden.
The “Terminate Character” dialog is now hidden when entering the game.
You are now notified if you try to recycle the ship you are currently in.
Players will now get a confirmation dialog when destroying single probes from the Scanner window.
The “Character selected failed” info window no longer overlaps the ESC menu.
Drag and drop fitting of a rig no longer gives 2 confirmation dialogs.
All right click menus now close when docking.
Error messages given when trying to reprocess less than the minimum quantity have been corrected.
Exiting dialog "Overview profile already exists" now gives you chance to enter a new profile name.
Players can no longer attempt to self-destruct when docking.
Trying to export an Overview without a filename now gives the correct information message.
It is now possible to scoop containers with illegal goods even after suppressing the warning message.
Long Corporation Titles no longer block information, but are now truncated in the Character Information window.
Retired agents can now be removed from your “People & Places” window.
The “Abandon Drone” confirmation dialog box is only suppressed if you choose “Yes”.
Previously billing notifications would not include separators. For example it used to display as “you owe 17490352784”, it will now display this “you owe 17.490.352.784”.
The option to un-rent an Orca’s corporate hangar is no longer present.
The message shown when redeeming PLEX now correctly states the destination station
The Asset window no longer becomes blank when undocking.
“Show Info” used on multiple characters at the same time will now properly display Medals.
Trying to open more than 5 tabs in the Overview will give a warning.
If a bio is empty it now displays "Here you can type in your biography".
The Insurance window will now always display ship names.
Duplicate Hangar and Divisions have been removed from the Rorqual Science & Industry window.
The color tag and background is now applied to agents in space.
The Show Info window for Tech II blueprints no longer applies waste-factor to extra materials, and now shows the actual requirements.
The message when you do not have any assets at a station is no longer slightly cut off when rendered in the default window size.
The expanding/collapsing functionality of the Scanner has been removed.
When re-selecting Export or Import from the Overview - the previously minimized window is brought back up.
Wormhole jumps into Empire systems are counted as visits in the map statistics.
Fixed several issues where the "Do not ask me again" check box was not suppressing the warning message.
Players are now able to filter Fleet Adverts by corporation and alliance.
Removed the option to Redeem Items on deleted characters.
When searching items under transaction tab, clicking load button and pressing enter will display the same message if there are no results.
When trashing multiple items, the item will display in the standard format in the confirmation window.
It is now possible to enter search terms and select results as clickable links in the “Generate Link Window”.
Scrolling in the shortcuts list in the ESC menu now functions correctly.
Clicking "Your Petitions" in the ESC menu now opens the Your Petitions window correctly.
When the Fitting Management window is stacked, clicking "Cancel" now correctly closes the window.
Your wallet balance now correctly updates after cancelling a Buy Order.
When closing out the message box for exporting or importing a file, it will now cancel the operation.
Item descriptions and messages have been cleaned up. Double/triple/trailing spaces and wrong/missing/surplus punctuation are hereby banned, by order of the Most Renowned Committee of EVE Text Type People. (Special thanks to CCP Greyscale.)
Faction logo is no longer distorted on factional warfare Capture Timer.
“Minimize active window” shortcut has been fixed, it now works on merged windows like it used to before it was broken.
There were a few windows that had problems with being merged with other windows. They have been instructed to HTFU, and just do it.
Scrolling quickly through long lists like in the “About EVE” tab will no longer break the list.
The Loyalty Point Store UI can now be resized on the sides as well as the corners.
The red and green online/offline icons for buddies were slightly odd, we fixed them.The “Remove selected” button in Mailing List Management now notifies the user if nothing was actually selected.
Welcome Pages have been made two pixels wider. They were too narrow to fully cover the windows since their borders were made smaller.
It is no longer possible to select multiple entries in a combo box. The world is truly a better place now.
It is now possible to navigate and manipulate the Mail Label Management UI without a mouse.
Keyboard shortcuts will now work regardless of the window currently in focus.
EVE Voice, Mail & Chat

When the owner kicks a member from a mailing list, the list is updated and doesn't show the kicked member on the list.
There is now an alert if you try to send more than 5 mails within 1 minute. Spammers despair.
Notifications for a Corporation Tax change are only counted once in the unread mail counter.
The font size of the Message of the Day in a player-created chat channel does not affect the "by " after the messag
Notifications are now sorted correctly by date.
Players can now manage multiple mailing lists simultaneously.
Some EVE Voice-related error messages have been changed to be more informative and easy to understand.
Changes were made to the way Mail and Notification settings are stored. Users will have to reset them so they are no longer bugged.
CONCORD and Kill Mails

Corp mate dueling will no longer reset the GCC. Characters in non-player corps will still receive a GCC.
If a character is not in an alliance, copying and pasting the kill information now states alliance as “Unknown”.
Mac

Version info for eveonline.app has been updated. It previously listed “Apocrypha” and “2009” but now correctly indicates “Tyrannis” and “2010”.
An issue with probe move boxes disappearing has been fixed.
Mouse cursors no longer get stuck to window edges when resizing.
A glitch in the warp tunnel effect seen with high graphics settings has been fixed.
Download speed of updates will no longer be unnecessarily constrained by the EVE client architecture.
A crash reporter has been integrated into the client, allowing users to send debug information should a crash occur.
Localized Clients

The official Russian Help channel was not being displayed in the list of chat channels when running a Russian or German client. This has been corrected.
When composing a mail in the Russian client, the 'To' button is now properly sized and doesn't overlap the text-field next to it.
The ESC menu will only allow the option to select a language that EVE is localized for.
Miscellaneous

The browser now correctly opens links from tutorials when minimized.
Fixed a typo in the "Nanite Operations" skill.
Fixed a typo in the self-destruct message.
Fixed a typo when sending broadcasts.
Fixed a typo when joining a corp through the Show Info window.
Fixed a typo in the Character Sheet when displaying the bonus to training time.
Fixed a typo in the Redeem Items window.
The icons for the Strategic Cruiser skills have been corrected in the static data dump.
Players joining a fleet after a titan jump bridge is created are now able to use the bridge. This is also valid for other jump beacons.
The Standings transaction log entry on conquering FW sites was showing a placeholder instead of the actual reason. This has been fixed.
A typo in the Khanid Kingdom information has been corrected.
Sovereignty structure images are now available in the data dump.
Grammar has been corrected in the Amarr Navy description.
Audio cards no longer need SSE support.
The in-game browser handles invalid URLs better.
Jukebox can now handle capitalized file types.
Jukebox now allows removal of the currently playing song from the playlist.
Jukebox is more discerning when adding mp3 files to playlists
Jukebox user interface is now harder to trick with empty playlists and removed tracks.
Jukebox has been extensively iterated upon based on feedback and bug reports.
The new in-game browser handles Trusted Sites better.
Some of the audio crackling issues have been identified and exterminated.
A ship explosion audio effect is only played once instead of thrice.
Several minor spelling and punctuation errors have been fixed.
Fixed a problem with ship losses not always being logged properly and kill mails not always being sent.
Fixed a problem where it was not possible to open wrecks by double clicking when in a large ship.
Fixed warp behavior when warping with bubbles on grid.
CacheTimers for character wallet journal API should now be consistent.
Wallet Journal should now support bigint refIDs
MailMessages API toListIDs has been renamed to toListID as it can only contain one ID.
Calendar and Contact API calls added (see Devblog from CCP Stillman for details).
StandingOwnerID added to starbase details API call (see Devblog)
Outpost listing API created for player corporation along with Outpost Service Details API (see Devblog)
EXPLOITS

Several exploit issues have been fixed making EVE a better world to live in for us all.

Apart from Brazil winning in Sweden in 1958, and maybe 1 or 2 other odd occassions - usually a team from that continent wins the World Cup.

It would be nice to see an African team do well - but I doubt it - I do predict one of them does very well.

Year Host Country Winner Score
1930 Uruguay Uruguay Uruguay 4-2 Argentina
1934 Italy Italy Italy 2-1 Czechoslovakia
1938 France Italy Italy 4-2 Hungary
1942 not held
1946 not held
1950 Brazil Uruguay Uruguay 2-1 Brazil
1954 Switzerland Germany Germany 3-2 Hungary
1958 Sweden Brazil Brazil 5-2 Sweden
1962 Chile Brazil Brazil 3-1 Czechoslovakia
1966 England England England 4-2 Germany
1970 Mexico Brazil Brazil 4-1 Italy
1974 Germany Germany Germany 2-1 Holland
1978 Argentina Argentina Argentina 3-1 Holland
1982 Spain Italy Italy 3-1 Germany
1986 Mexico Argentina Argentina 3-2 Germany
1990 Italy Germany Germany 1-0 Argentina
1994 US Brazil Brazil 3-2 Italy
1998 France France France 3-0 Brazil
2002 Japan / S. Korea Brazil Brazil 2-0 Germany
2006 Germany Italy Italy 1-1 (5-3) France

Personally I think Brazil or Argentina but maybe Spain are still not peaking yet and have more to give -

Where are you Tito?

And I hate this bit - but I also predict the Germans will get further than old Eng Ger Land!! C'mon you lions!

I still have a bunch of vinyl albums - loads of cassetts and also lots of CDs.

But - there is something to be said for having your entire music collection on a little memory stick.

MP3 have become so usefull as their relative size is so small comapared to other formats - I wonder are there anyone here that can hear the actual differenece between that and lossless formats?

Would be interesting to see how the future of digital music develops..

I still have a bunch of vinyl albums - loads of cassetts and also lots of CDs.

But - there is something to be said for having your entire music collection on a little memory stick.

MP3 have become so usefull as their relative size is so small comapared to other formats - I wonder are there anyone here that can hear the actual differenece between that and lossless formats?

Would be interesting to see how the future of digital music develops..

iTunes

Today I want to talk about iTunes –

Before we start though – I want to take you back to the late 70s and early 80s where disco and electronic music was at its peak and those good old boys and girls in the Bollywood film industry decided to – cough – “borrow” some of the western hits for their films.There are Bollywood versions of Jeff Waynes “War of the Worlds” and even “Video killed the Radio Star” by Buggles – and many more – wow!

Imagine a young and handsome (and slim) future reporter and owner of the Daed Tea Trading Company shaking his thing and jiving to hip pop music – tra la la – yeah baby!

Ok – so roll on to 2010 and some fat old geezer is reminiscing over the good old days (me) and thinks to himself – can I recapture my youth?So – my question – related to iTunes and its store –

Is there anywhere else in this world why someone like me can find those songs going back to the 70s that I could not even name – or even state the singer?Well I found them on iTunes and within seconds was hearing them again after nearly 30 years.

So iTunes is great – for its massive huge library of music – where else could I find and safely download some obscure tunes from a country half a world away from 30 years ago?

Apparently Apple owns a gigantic proportion of the online music download market (legal).So – what about DRM, MP4 and AAC tracks that can’t be converted and played on normal MP3 players?

What about the recent legislation in the UK by a dying government on its last legs passing a new Bill that can force ISPs to reduce or cut off any customers that download files from file sharing websites?

Why is it that when you purchase some music you sort of only rent it out to play on that medium only and transferring it to another medium is illegal?

Any thoughts about iTunes and digital music?

NB I do not have a iPoD, iPhone or any of its iterations and have never even touched one!

I agree with the uncle at the top.

Custodian with the minefield was interesting and X303 was unusual with all the gates - but going to Earth was like "Hang on - what is this?" and going through the rift was my first "This is f amazing" moment where you would have heard a loud whooping of delight and astonishment - if everyone else in the house were not already asleep.