Making a podcast is a hard job, this is how it should be done. Everybody else is wrong. Monday morning, Show will be recorded on Saturday. Me and the Hemlock bloke throw ideas at each other for the next few days. Thursday night production meeting in the pub. Podcast to be recorded in 2 days. Panic sets in as we realise that we have no content. All my ideas are shot down as we're not an Eve podcast apparently, all of Van Hemlocks ideas are shot down because we're not radio 4 and Melvin Bragg turned us down. Friday. Pretending that the...

CCP have dated Empyrean Age, and it's June 10th. Time to dig out that old corp of mine and sign up my alt. I'd sort of assumed it'd be later this summer, but I'm not complaining.

Last time I covered the fact that we’re getting people apply to our corp who seem to think that factional warfare is something other than what it is. This time I’m going to say what I think it is. I’m sure people will disagree with me, so let me state that this is my opinion. I’ve been playing since launch and seen how the game develops, and it’s that experience that drives my opinion. Here’s the quoteworthy summary of the piece: Factional Warfare is a device for taking my empire corp members and sending them into 0.0 corps earlier and more...

Factional warfare is coming, and it's got everybody talking. In reality it doesn't effect what my corp does at all, and since I'll not be signing us up to take part my members will have to leave the corp in order to join in. I've mentioned before that I think that'll not be too bad for us numbers wise but it was mentioned by my crack recruitment team that a lot of the applicants we're getting are expecting or wanting to join in. They're in for a disappointment, probably no industrial corporation should hamstring themselves by signing up. We can't...

Ah, a cryptic title for a post where I point out that although Battlestar Gallactica wasn't on TV in the US on Friday that episode is on Sky in the UK tonight at 9pm. It's not unusual for us to overtake Sci-Fi channel shows being shown in the US so it's nothing special beyond but with the fuss from America over skipping a week (at a rather interesting plot moment too, hence the title) it's probably worth reminding people in the UK that they can watch in case anybody is making an assumption.

Hey Mac people. Yes, the rest of you can go home. This is for us only. Delicious Library 2. I should really go to bed, but between that and catching up with Penn (I miss his radio show still) I just can't seep. I'm sure the insomnia has nothing to do with it. That's just a coincidence. Edit: The release is now up for download/buying at Delicious Monster

Episode 7 of the VanHemlock is now live over at Virginworlds. In it you will get a fascinating insight into what we think about MMOs on Consoles, Age of Conan and it's 250hours of gameplay to get to max level and what Eurovision is really all about.

Metal Gear Solid is known for it's plot, you're always going to be in cutscene-tastic land when you play a new one. Well the new game is coming out very soon and some details have started to drop about some of the more interesting features. First up is the 4.6GB mandatory install. I guess we all have to live with those nowadays, even if it does mean that very soon you'll not be able to just drop and and play an older game without micro-managing your disk space on your PS3 because the hard disks are so small and you're...

This year should see the introduction of the first serious MMOs on the next gen consoles. Final Fantasy and Fantasy Star Online on the 360 don't really count as serious; they're far too niche and never really grabbed a decent number of people for the platform (360, not the ones they're popular on). Now with The Agency, All Points Bulletin and (when they decide to start coding it) Age of Conan on the horizon the dawn of a new age is upon us. Or is it? I have my doubts, and I think it’s because we’re wrong as MMO players. As...

For the record, and anybody on the internet searching for this, if you want an Aggregate device consisting of your two USB microphones to be available (and even show up) for recording in Logic Pro 8 then you need to include an output into the aggregate setup, which I assume it's something to do with allowing monitoring. Garageband and Soundtrack Pro don't have this problem. All is well in the world now, I can avoid a messy step of podcast production now and stay in nice Pro app land all the way.

Yes, it's true. We sold out to the man. Luckily the man in this case is Brent and we're now a member of the Virginworlds Collective. We'll try not to bring the tone down too much.

I'm sure most Eve players have noticed the increase in plot news that CCP have been thowing at us recently, most of it about failing peace and upcoming war. If not you can check it out over at the News Page. The latest one at the time of writing is about an attack on an economic summit, and comes with a video teaser for the expansion. Now that has something of the Babylon 5 about it don't you think? Way, way back in the day I was always in favour of the game having an advancing plot, but that idea...

Episode 6 of the Van Hemlock Podcast is now available for download here or subscribe to the RSS here. There's news, some stuff about Planetside and we go off on one about music after a post on World IV. I'm not sure what my choices for incidental music mean, but I'm sure it makes a statement about my subconscious.

Here I am sitting playing GTA IV quite happily and somebody goes and parks a Ferari outside my house. Do you think they'll let me podcast from prison? No? Oh well, scratch that plan then, he can keep his car.

Is it just me or was that episode of Doctor Who a set up for a spin off?

I have a mass of audio to edit from this morning that will be a podcast, but it's a gorgeous summer day in the UK and beer in the garden is far more attractive. And it's only May... Late night for me tonight then!

Today marks the fifth anniversary of me starting to play Eve. I'm not been entirely faithful over the years, but it keeps dragging me back. It's scary how different the game is from when it launched. Back then I ran off to 0.0 because it was safer than Empire as M0o explored the limits of the game's rules (and how modules stacked). That was what really started Eve on it's way I think, although I pretty much hated them at the time. It probably signaled the change between CCPs game and us playing the game how we wanted and...

Here's a blast from the past for you. Evecast, podcast of old, has returned from the grave for season 2 and can be found here. You can never have too many Eve podcasts.

The Haze demo finally finished downloading (I think I should change ISPs) and I've played it. I shall not be buying that game, it isn't very good. That is all.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/05/mass-effect-pc.html So... Mass Effect on the PC is going to have SecuROM like Bioshock had: 3 installs before you have to phone up. OK, nasty but nothing beyond what you have with installing Windows. PCs are evil right? Now how can that possibly be made worse? Oh, I see. Every 5 to 10 days it dials home to check that you've still not pirated it and if this doesn't work it's going to shut you down. If you don't play the game for 10 days and then try to play with no internet connection, you know if your laptop isn't...

Please be warned, this may not be a 100% positive review of GTA IV. War crimes? Ethnic Cleansing? Suspicious deaths of leaders during their trial? Michael Palin shows that show it to be a country of very normal people who just want to move on? (which, by a conspiracy theory friendly coincident was restarted on BBC 2 tonight) Serbia is a country that has had  a lot of bad publicity in the 90s, and now in the whatever-we're-meant-to-call-thems we're looking at again, the latest view being presented by GTA IV, the game where the hero is the product of the war...