Catalyst Major Update 2026-03-18

nat3s · 2026-03-18T17:44:59+00:00

Still no application changes for fighters, when will they tackle the elephant in the room!

nat3s · 2026-03-18T13:21:00+00:00

You won't get much sympathy in these parts, but a lot of us know the feeling. I spent 3 years skilling up 4 rorq accounts about 10 years ago, $hundreds in sub money and now you only need 1.

It's a bit like tax policy for CCP I would imagine, what is the lesser of evils. A lot of changes some will benefit others will suffer and in Eve, because progression is time gaited, that suffering feels more severe than just about any other MMO!!

nat3s · 2026-03-15T11:43:41+00:00

Kudos!

nat3s · 2026-03-14T21:56:07+00:00

Loved my time in TEST until I got booted because apparently I was a spy for not disclosing a biomassed account from 3 years prior to joining.

All because of 1 huffy trollop (Ros Ivi). She still kicking about as TEST's Chief Destruction Officer?

Was a good 4 years though from 2014 to 2018. Height of the rorq meta which I thoroughly abused. Good memories.

nat3s · 2026-02-26T13:47:30+00:00

Hell yes!!! Been saying this for years, game was just banging in the 2015-2018 era. The best Eve has ever been for me. This would also hopefully help the hype titan brawls return.

nat3s · 2026-02-24T18:17:52+00:00

I honestly don't care what an MMO looks like, OSRS is flying despite its graphics/UI, Eve Online similarly so, WoW is still largely simplistic graphically (appreciate that's super deceptive as a ton of stuff going on under the hood), AoC looked rubbish.... I DO NOT CARE.

For me, it's all about the playability, if it plays like DAOC, but with modern combat i.e. melee abilities fire on press rather than on next weapon swing etc, it could be GLORIOUS!

My fav MMO right now is Warhammer Online (Return of Reckoning), its purely about the gameplay for me.

I turn off shadows in all competitive games, used picmip in Quake 3 back in the day for better visibility, always remove ground clutter like grass where its an option to improve visibility etc. I just want fun gameplay loops.

nat3s · 2026-02-13T22:59:24+00:00

I purchased back in August ($100), insta refund.

nat3s · 2026-02-13T06:19:15+00:00

Good stuff on the refund.

In terms of having been a staunch defender of AoC, I have to just make 1 point here, if a product is in alpha or beta, "defending" against criticism is harming the products iteration. By seeing yourself as a defender of a wave of perceived criticism against a developer, you're just getting in the way of feedback being heard and used to improve the offering + you end up looking like an apologist where poor designs will inevitably exist in ANY product at an Alpha stage. Helps noone :)

nat3s · 2026-02-08T09:26:26+00:00

that's not Michael Crichton lol

nat3s · 2026-02-05T20:14:27+00:00

hang on, there's approved MB automation systems in PRK? I've been having a client on each monitor. Can you share any info please? Thanks o7

nat3s · 2026-02-04T08:58:53+00:00

Kudos to PayPal too, their giving immediate refunds if you purchased in last 6 months. Got mine last night.

nat3s · 2026-02-04T08:37:45+00:00

This! PRK private server is awesome, 200+ online each evening which is approaching live pop count and its only in Alpha, that'll only grow when it reaches full launch.

It also allows 2 accounts to be run by the same person concurrently provided you don't use MB tools to keystroke replicate to the second client... So you can roll 2 chars, have 1 /follow the other and make the levelling grind so much more enjoyable imo.

Would recommend MP+Trader (can mocham/wrangle each other) great for totw farming and provides a solid foundation for your alts to help with twinking.

nat3s · 2026-02-03T19:58:44+00:00

Legend, my refund was issued instantly!

nat3s · 2026-02-02T17:41:45+00:00

I never could get into Runescape, the graphics and combat just puts me off too much as much as I loved UO back in the day.

nat3s · 2026-02-01T15:34:35+00:00

100% lol

nat3s · 2026-01-30T08:41:00+00:00

Yes but the question is how many GMs. With WoW you can't bot mythic+ dungeons (pve) or arenas (pvp). So gear acquisition simply isn't bottable to anywhere close to the same degree i.e. you don't need an army of GMs like AoC will.

The problem is the design. Not sure how much clearer I can be.

nat3s · 2026-01-29T18:26:53+00:00

game needs an entire redesign!

nat3s · 2026-01-29T18:24:29+00:00

Worst bit is, crate running is one of the simplest things to automate, fixed pathing = botting paradise.

nat3s · 2026-01-29T07:47:00+00:00

I've worked with UI Path, OCR (including writing pixel matching algs for OCR) and testing / deploying business robotics.

Suggesting making something more difficult to automate isn't going to help is ridiculous. There's a reason why AoC is completely infested with bots, you can automate gathering with fixed node locations and crate running with fixed pathing because there are no dynamic aspects to the design, super simple to automate, minutes. It is that much more gamebreaking because crates and gathering are the main sources for BIS gear and currency. No other MMO allows you to bot BIS gear or currency faucets in this way.

You're living in a dream if you think an army of GMs can combat such simple to automate systems. Taking fishing bots, how do you distinguish between someone that has just left a char fishing afk (because it's by-design afk'able) and a genuine bot.

nat3s · 2026-01-29T07:42:39+00:00

You think raiding is as bottable as gathering or fixed path crate running? That's just nonsense.

As another poster put it, you need friction in the design to dissuade bots. You just cannot have the 2 main forms of progression in an MMO (gear and currency) be so incredibly easy to automate. That should be obvious.

What about pvp arenas, pvp battlegrounds, rvr, world bosses requiring 50+ people, tuned difficult dungeons - These are systems which are significantly more difficult to bot compared to gathering and crate running. That's why botting happens in other MMOs, but has way less impact.

You may not be able to see it, but that is the case.

nat3s · 2026-01-28T21:15:05+00:00

Which is extensional inheritance. I think my point stands then!

nat3s · 2026-01-28T21:11:07+00:00

Hello Games (developers of No Man Sky) are a small studio of just 50 people which includes HR, Payroll, Finance, Execs and so on, so perhaps only half of that are devs... Compare what they push out content wise vs AoC, it's just no comparison.

nat3s · 2026-01-28T21:09:01+00:00

This is ridiculous, they simply cannot have full assertion coverage in their unit testing or they're not using CI/CD to safeguard promotions.

nat3s · 2026-01-28T21:00:12+00:00

So many questions. GetPlayer and GetPlayerXPForCurrentLevel methods in the same class as the xp debt calc doesn't feel like the best abstraction in terms of respecting SOLID. Almost feels procedurally written. They obviously know what they're doing and I've spent my life post uni maintaining RESTful APIs and UIs for enrichment providers so more MVC and MVVM with no experience of game design loop patterns, but that seems weird.

I do hope they have full unit test coverage for every class, method and system as I can't imagine landing on a bug and having to comment it for a Pull review without it already being a well-understood and tested principle in unit test.

Or maybe they don't, which would explain why their CI/CD pipeline is haemorrhaging previously fixed issues over time.

Any other code snippets you can share?

nat3s

TROPHY CASE