Rants from New Eden

Blog Banter 31: Attemting the impossible

2011-12-20T09:00:00.000+01:00

So, this year's last Blog Banter, issued by Seismic Stan at Freebooted, blogger chevalier and PvP duel extraordinaire is effectively about a very challenging topic:

As any games journalist would probably tell you, a true and complete review of a Massively Multiplayer Online game is impossible. MMOs are vast, forever evolving entities with too much content for a single reviewer to produce a fair and accurate review. However, a collection of dedicated bloggers and EVE players (past and present) with a wide range of experience in various aspects of the game might be able to pull it off.

This special 'End of Year' Blog Banter edition aims to be a crowd-sourced game review. Using your gaming knowledge and experience, join the community in writing a fair and qualified review of EVE Online: Crucible. This can be presented in any manner of your choosing, but will ideally include some kind of scoring system.

With each Blog Banter participant reviewing the areas of EVE Online in which they specialise, the result should be a Metacritic-esque and accurate review by the people who know best.

So, yeah, I'm definitely going to write objectively, with a scorecard about the game I love... Or at least I'll try. Most of us read a lot of game reviews, so establishing a scorecard might be easy, but to accurately describe a game, I have a different idea than the conventional reviews use. The success of a game depends on the customers and how vividly they approach the product. MMO's could not be reviewed witht he conventional criteria, because those are usually largely irrelevant in the context. What we will do is to establish a - what I, as a somewhat experienced MMO player - thinks is a good indicator of how people should look at MMOs before they decide. The aspects will be:

Atmosphere - How you feel ingame is a very distinct factor in MMOs. Basically, if the atmosphere of the game is bad, if it can't immerse you, it can't surround you, you'll probably stop playing within a month.
Presentation - This category accounts for the graphics, sound, and usability of the game. A game that has a good presentation will have informative, easy-going interface, well thought-out graphical and audio styles and effects.
Scale - Some games are tuned towards small groups of people, sometimes even limiting how many players can interact in a give activity (for example, Guild Wars). Some are geared towards more people, featuring epic battles and such. This indicator shows how well the game incorporates this. A low score indicates that the game universe does not align well towards the intended goupsize.
Entry Barriers - In many MMOs, there are a set of requirements you need to comply in order to access content. It is sometimes hard and sometimes easy. A good MMO has appropriate entry barriers for each level of content, be it mechanical, social or mental.
Longevity - An MMO is a peristent world, so you expect long hours of gameplay from it. Longevity also tries to condense the amount of time it takes to get bored with most content.
Synergy - The relationship between the players and the developers must be a constant loop of comunication and feedback, lest the game will become outdated and irrelevant, or worse, deserted.
Community - The people playing a game adds to the game very much, but an immature or exclusionary community can detract from its attractiveness significantly.

Armed with these seven points, I'll try and give a thorough (and hopefully objective) review of the game EVE Online. The raings will represent how satisfied I am with the aspects. 0% represents a non-existent feature, or a 'would be better if you didn't even try' scenario, 50% means acceptable performance, while 100% signals perfection, (and thus, never achieveable).

1. Atmosphere

EVE Online is a sandbox-type game. In essence it presents you with choices and the tools to carry out your decisions. It does have a lot of scripted content, but it's usualy revolving around what players do with it. In this sense, EVE can be very immersive. The prospect of being a capsuleer is evidently shown by the game mechanics. How do you punish someone who does not die, does not feel pain and is free of any regulations? The only way to punish someone therefore is through their ingame wallet. Some people see their assets as achievements, but that mentality quickly fades as you learn from interactions with other players. This is, in fact, one of the most attractive features of the game. Player interaction is inevitable, final, and consequential. Whether you are shooting at someone, join their corporation, or by simply selling loot to them and buying stuff off the market - you are bound to interact with people. Once you come to understand that, it is really a thrillride, meaning new friends and enemies. You know you're either going to ruin someone's day or make it - or both.

On the bad side, the game at the beginning does little to convey this to the new player. How many times did people joining on their own end up running missions on mining alone? How many times did they get irritated by the small glitches to leave after their trial?

EVE takes understanding and honest will to get into, but those who do, are rewaarded with a great experience. This yields Atmosphere a fair 70% rating.

2. Presentation

EVE has astonishing graphics. It always has been a very pretty and beliavable game, but with the Crucible expansion, there simply are very few games that could stand up to it, especially when we're talking space flight. Though your first steps are hindered with a clunky, wall-of-texty UI that was built on outdated principles, you are really feeling yourself at the controls of a powerful starship... Or a financial empire... Or a space colony... The things to do are available to you with a whole lot of information, and the sounds are amazing. Wait, EVE has sound? Well, it does! And they go well with the game. The environmental effects that accurately convey the forces that are at work, Aura's human but emotionless voice - they all come together in a nice unity that helps you enjoy the game.

Though I already mentioned the UI problem, there is more to it. Namely, there are only so much things a screen can tell you, and it would be very hard to find a slick, simple graphical representation of the things that are displayed as text. This means I'll have to rate Presentation to a whopping 80%.

3. Scale

Scale is one of the trickiest of categories when it comes to EVE. There are many levels of engagement one can think of. The sandbox nature of the game allows for very varied and diverse scaling in all professions. The good thing is, rewards ususally scales with effort, and usually appropriately. What the game has an inherent difficulty handling is that there are situations where the meeting of different scales in the same area is not desirable.

EVE has a long way to go to cater for the needs of all type of playstyles, but it'll eventially get there. I still would still highlight Scale as the strength of EVE, granting it 90%

4. Entry Barriers

In all games, there are points where you are interested in something, but it seems too much fuss before you can get into and enjoy it. In EVE, overcoming these barriers is part of the fun, and is very muc incorporated into the game experience. Who of you didn't feel good when you discovered something new? When you realized that you know things that other don't? That's the gratification coming from overcoming barriers right there. However, looking back at my EVE career, I can sadly honestly say that there are much room for improvement. The most obvious barrier on everything is read, read, read. Then there are skill trainings, which sometimes feel tedious, and are in some cases relied on to keep people from abusing game mechanics. This is a poor choice, and makes the game feel uncomfortable at times. Then there is the mental barrier. Yes, EVE very much has them. I'm talking about PvP and related stuff. Is it obvious for a newbire how easy it is ti get into? Hell,no.

So, accounting for everything I have to concede that Entry Barriers are manageable and sometimes fun, but poorly utilized throughout the game, in numbers, this is 50%.

5. Longevity

There is only so much a game can include. There are a lot of limits, posed by hardware, software, and game design. In all that, EVE struggles to give you the most enjoyable content in most compact form. I mean, the client's size is respectably low compared to the plethora of features it bears, from the hundreds of ship models to the thousands of different graphical assets. In short, there's a lot to get bored of. This, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, is one way to go. The other, is make the conent repeatable, and by that, I obviously don't mean repetitive. What I mean is that you can use the same thing over and over, without getting bored. The third way to achieve longevity is to allow people to do other things parallel while the game is doing whatever you want it to do.

Guess, what? You name it, EVE has it. Problem is, you can't have your cake and eat it too. See, the content that is repeatable usually is so because it never is the same, meaning that it requires constant attention. The content that is semi-passive will get your brain oozing out of your nose soon if you don't do other things next to it. That is a paradox weakpoint here that devs constantly try and fail to address in the gaming world. So, what rating would I give for the Longevity of the game? 90%.

6. Synergy

There is a big challenge that MMOs must live up to: their players. Yes, the whiny, bitchy, impossible to please players, every dev's nightmare. However, some games are justr better at it. Some games have devs that are vigilant and always look for new ways to improve the experience. And, some players offer ideas to do just this. Synergy is the measure of how this comes together. Are the devs in touch with the gamers? Are they incorporating what they learn from the players? Are the players encouraged and empowered to help with the game development? Are they shown of the changes and allowed to feed back in due time?

If this review was created a few months back, the answers would probably be very different. CCP, the developer of EVE had, in the early years of development been focused on Synergy. They watched the players closely and provided. This old core value is now being rediscovered, as the Crucible expansion's improvements show. This is the reason, why I, in this case can honestly answer yes, yes, YES, hell, YEAH!

I'm going to give full credit to the staff that can pull this out, but I am, as the majority of the vocal players, actually very pleased about the direction this is heading, netting a rating of 95% for Synergy.

7. Community

MMOs by their nature support a very large number of people, who, if they are not satisfied, simply leave for greener pastures... Or do they? Well, if you love a game so much that you get not only pissed but outright enraged when you see it ruined, that must mea something, no? The players of EVE, the comunity if you like, just saved the game from the inevitable plunge in the pursuit of money. The fact that they'll make more money by stopping to crave it is hilarious. But I digress.

When you look at a game's community, you try and find traces of people bonding on some level over the game. When you look at the EVE players, you see not only communities, but in some cases a network of communities - a society developing over it.

Also, as a new player entering a frightening and challenging new univers, you always look for other people that might help you get started. You'd think the nasty players of EVE would be bad at this, but actually if you have more intelligence than a mildly educated crocodile, you'll be amazed at the sheer number of player orgnaizations that do just that - help newbies get a grip, and hook them on.

Granted, there are playerss who enjoy killing the innocnet fun of newbies, but losing your pod virginity is a cruicial step in EVE anyways. All things considered, the Community related to EVE gets 90%.

The Verdict

I could go on an pull an average of the numbers and be done with it, but what kind of ranter would I be if I did that?

So, we have a ourselves and MMO that struggles to let you in, with its many challenges, like skill training, bad UI, and so on. But, if you overcome those problems by reading, reading, and reading, you can actually start having fun. At that point it does fuel that I'm better than you feeling which many gamers look for. You're ejected into an... enthralling universe, which can quickly become your new hobby you spend time and occasionally money on, the kind that you aregue about with the wife because she wanted to buy a new pair of shoes instead. Then when you realize that playing a Massively Multiplayer Online game means interacting with other people, you get ever more hooked and suddenly shooting white boxes while trying to understand what the Fleet Commander yells at you seems much more fun than the candelight dinner on your anniversary. The devs are these spooky nordic guys who watch your every move, and you log in to your game suddenly finding a news item about the mass testing of how they'll ruin your endgame because that's just how CCP rolls. Yes, this is EVE, the second job you are charged for...

If I must summarize EVE in one word, what would it be? I'll probably go with internetspaceshipnerdgasm.

Cliffs and Hangers

2011-12-13T08:58:00.003+01:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry #31

Time and time again something pops up in EVE talk that has everybody perplexed: the 'learning cliff' of EVE. Yes, while other games have learning curves, EVE has a learning cliff. I don't really know the origins of this phrase but it aligns well to the natue of EVE. Today, we'll go on and dissect this one phenomena, and probably gain an understanding of what's behind this funny yet important phrase.

First off, what is a learning curve? It could well be represented by a graph, where one axis would be the knowledge of given game, while the other would be the time spent playing, so that the more you play, the more you know about the game. The steeper this curve is, the harder it is for a new player to learn the basics and start enjoying the game. However, in this regard, EVE is unique.

"The UI: just another player filter"

Some might argue that the EVE UI is logical and informative (I know I will in a short time), but let's face it - it is not your average game UI. The thing is, it is not a game UI at all. What you see when you log in is much more like a desktop of a specialised operating system, than a game UI. I don't know what others think, but if you look at it this way, it starts to make sense. There are a miriad of things to do in New Eden, would a conventional game interface serve the user well? Probably not. There are so many things you need to know at once.

The most game-like element is the ship HUD - which has to be all-at-a-glance, and it is. It may have a few shortcomings, but it generally speaking serves well. Then there is the character sheet, which in essence is nothing special - a sheet that displays categorized data on your character. But the other elements? Well, they are part of a toolset more likely. This is the reason why 'EVE feels like you're working with spreadsheets', because that is essentially what you do. There is only so much information graphical enhancements can convey without being overcrowded. Text and tables however, they are slower but much easier to keep clean. I bet this is the reason why the overview looks like the way it does, for example.

Looking more closely, I'd say that the first ledge of the learning cliff of EVE is the UI complexity. In essence, when a new player logs in, she is presented with the plethora of options at once. This results in something I call the Cockpit Syndrome. You get confused due to the sheer amount of information you are presented and you semi-conciously push away the source. This is not so much a learning challenge than one to overcome ones instinct and keep playing. Some (many) new players are lost this way. Is it a bad thing? I'm not really sure. I have already expressed my opinion on this.

Choices, choices, choices... and RTFM

So our intrepid new player succesfully overcame the Cockpit Syndrome and starts fiddling witht he game. She tries out a variety of things through the tutorials, settling in one or two professions, loosely defined by the skills she keeps in the queue... Wait what? Yeah, there are thousands of skills, from the obvious Rapid Firing to the not-so-intuitive Frequency Modulation. Once she successfully climbed up on the UI ledge, the first lesson our newbie learns is to always read and read and read - because there are a lot of things to know, and reading is the easy way of learning it. The hard way often involves ships blowing up and/or wallets emptying.

This part is really the worst ledge of the learning cliff. It looks as if you are almost there - then it moves away. Not everybody likes this. Most people, in fact, don't enjoy learning for knowing's sake. Yes, you read it right, and you should now think a bit about it.

Still, this aspect is the best part of being a newbie. There is always something cool you didn't know, something to explore and be amused at. Many bitter old veterans crave this feeling of 'shiny everywhere', but of course, nostalgia's never going to be the same. Still, the choices you make as a newbie will affect the entire EVe career - not in the traditional, class-gear-skill sense, like other RPGs, but more likely in an emotional sense. I, for example still enjoy missioning (thogh of course get bored of it after a few missions) and the reason is simple - we did them together and had much fun as newbies in our corp.

Regardless, if you want to enjoy the game you'll likely be wnring to concentrate on something, especially because skill training is the key of unlocking the awesome features EVE offers. But what to train, for example, if you want to fly a Raven battleship? Surprise, surprise, it has all the certificates in the Show Info window. How do you know that? Because you read, read, and read about the things you are interested in. What? You don't want to read? You'll have to learn to want to read because if you jump into that Raven without the relevant certificates, you'll most likely lose your ship, learning the hard way that you skills are inadequate. So, there goes simple, jump-in-do-it activities for you.

Complexity for... complexitys sake?

To those brave people treading the learning cliff of EVE, how many times did you wonder, shouldn't this be simpler? Shouldn't this be a one click activity? Well, you may be right. Given the sheer volume of content EVE provides, it is not hard to meet suboptimal choices and implementations. On top of that, there are things that are just too complicated... Or are they?

The key word is entertainment - since EVE Online ultimately is a game and the goal is to entertain you. The how is what is constrainted only by the player herself. Are you entertained by the fact that you have to learn a whole lot of things to have a good understanding? I know I am, even if some of those things seem illogical at first. Usually when you know more about them, you'll see why is it that way.

Complexity is not a bad thing. It drives your mind to face a challenge, and gives you the satisfaction of understanding. Never in other games feel you so good about knowing than in EVE's darkest corners. It is a game from another era, the era of thinker-gamers, when computer games were the privilege of educated people. The basic paradigms of EVE build on the the intelligence of the user, and I for one would hate to see the learning cliff entirely lost. Maybe have a few ladders to the most important ledges, but still.

There is owever a phenomenon that must be separated from the 'cliffs'. That some things are complex is a good thing. But there are a lot of little things - in the UI, the process of how activities work, that cause frustration by being too complex, even tedious. I'll dub these the 'hangers'. Those things that make you want to kill ('hang') yourself. So, if you are a vocal and caring player, you should stop complaining about entertaining complexity (even if its something you don't like - others still might) and start pointing out the hangers. They'll probably get around to solve them.

Sessym out.

To boldly go where thousands have gone before...

2011-11-28T10:06:00.001+01:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry #30

Since the review for the Blog Banter 30 is out, I thought I owe an expansion to my banter post... Since, guess what, Bold Pilot Log entries are hitting 30 as well! So, Stan probably has got a take on the original concept, or if not he thought it was fitting into the profile of ORE and aptly named the mothership concept "Athena", which in his honor, I'll use as the name of the Gallente Mothership.

So, we have ourselves a ship that's capable of serving as a core for a deep space operation, such as Freebooting Freelancer Inc. Unauthorized Bounty and Resource Extraction, Manufacturing and Research Company. The idea here is to help small entities that probably wouldn't have the numbers to get a hold in wild space. They're only a few people a corp, with possibly less than ten active members, who usually are online for a limited time. They think the life in null or wormholes is really fun, but the POS is too permanent for their liking. Setting up a tower is too tedious if you have to be constantly on the move. Sou our wily space nomads get themselves a Mothership, the type of ship that'll serve them as their makeshift home, and will allow them quick movement if the ground gets too hot for their liking. All they have to do to move the whole base around is have it unanchor (come out of deployment mode), and jump the whole fleet at once (if they are on grid, and unless they are in combat) to a system far, far away...

Development of the Mothership concept

But guess what... It wasn't ORE's idea in the first place! In fact, the Minmatar people, especially the Thukkers always had a taste for a nomad lifeform... The problem was, they couldn't afford to run stations or towers in the far reaches of space, so what they did was is to re-purpose an existing capital ship design to suit their needs. Now they had everything they needed in the place they wanted in the time they wanted. The military implications of such a mobile outpost had not been considered at this time, and the concept was dismissed as a civilian effort. With the strengthening of the capsuleer militia however, the Republic started to look at ways to mix the effectiveness of the capsuleer vessels with the mobility of the Thukker Motherships. After a few months of engineering, this resulted in the Wolverine, the first capsule-fitted Mothership ever designed.

Meanwhile in the Empire... A few very bold Blood Raider attempts were led by ships with huge cargo and docking capacities, hauling hundreds of Raider dropships to the site of the Raid, similar to the first Incursion tactics. Soon, the military experts at the Empire realized what was happening - and that they can't fight off the Raiders without their own forces having a way to deploy full mobile operations. Searching for ways to achieve this goal, they put forth a commission for the most effective Mothership design. It was shortly decided that the Imperial Armaments' 'Reclaimer' will win.

The Caldari agents had ears and eyes everywhere again, and the Raata kind of liked the idea of having a ship serve as a mobile base for the quick response fleets. The race began as every major armaments provider started to test their own designs fr the task. In a somewhat heated discussion, the leaders of the State finally decided that the Kaalakiota Corporation's Albatross will be fitted for capsuleer usage.

The Gallente Federation's own engineers were still busy revising their Hybrid designs, when this new challenge was put forth. Luckily, ORE had been in the process of creating a ship design that would be more suitable for the hostile environment of capsuleer-inhabited outer space than the Rorqual. They sold the plans for an undisclosed (and probably incredibly high) sum of ISK to the Federation. A small group of talented scientists from all areas spent about a year, re-purposing the original blueprints to fit into the Federation's military profile.

Properties - what makes a MS a MS?

So, here we go. All the four factions have their own Mothership designs. There are things they share, in the form of base stats and bonuses, coming from their role. However, them being racial, this allows for a diversity of small boosts they can give to the fleet they are supporting. Let's go through the commonalities first:

They have no drone bay or hardpoints. There should be a whole group of people that are (should be) able to defend them at all times.
They have the ability to fit POS modules as if they were regular ones, and have the role bonuses to reduce the grid requirements to an acceptable level. The POS modules allow them to be used the corresponding station service. A list further down.
They have the resources comparable to that of a Tier 3 Battleship. If they had more, they could fit capital modules in their spare slots, or they shouldn't have spare slots, both of which makes them too pewerful in combat or much less interesting to fly.
They can support up to two gang links in their high slots.
They can use their POS modules and gang links when in deployed mode, other modules can only be activated when they are mobile.
Deployment itself does not consume fuels, but the usage of the station functions does.
They cost about three carriers' worth of materials to build, and their hit points are tuned in a way that they have sufficient buffer to last through a low-number capital engagement with capital support. Dreadnoughts will be the bane of these ships.
They have a cargo hold of 5000 or more. There are a lot fo things that you'd want to put in them even if you don't plan to participate in cargo heavy activities.

The POS modules would all fit to High Slots, allowing the following functions:

Assembly Array: We want to be able to sustain ourselves in space, right? That means it has to be able to fit assembly arrays, fuel cost linked to manufacture job scale. It should also be able to construct ships, so allow the fitting of up to Large and Medium Advanced arrays.
Ship Maintenance Array: Docking (as in a station) of up to a balanced number of people with subcapital ships only. Timed ship and module repair and capacitor recharge (which use fuel), fitting service (only when docked).
Corporate Hangar Array: Storage of modules, commodities and ores within the hold of the ship. Essentially a corp hangar that's again only accessible if docked. Moving items, stacking, repackaging should cost fuel if there was at least one item to be executed on.
Mobile Laboratory & subtypes: Research slots. Each job consumes a certain amount of fuel depending on the scale it represents.
Moon Harvesting Array: Yeah, you read it right. They can mine moons. Fuel is consumed for each cycle.
Reactor Array: If they can mine moons, why not be able to react the materials? Well, they should be able to. Fuel, again is consumed per cycle. Silos are not wanted here, the materials could be placed in the cargo of the ship.
Refining Array: The ability to reprocess minerals in deeps space is a really good thing. It should definitely not step on the toes of the Rorqual (compressing ore must remain a valid way of operation) and neither should it be more preferable than a station. Stuff can be refined from a corp hangar or the cargo and a balanced time will lapse before the end product appears in the location of origin.

Racial Bonuses

Now that we have looked at what the Mothership can do, let's stop for a moment. I did wish for factional ships rather than only one, but we can look at it from the other angle - why would I pick an Athena over a Reclaimer? Well, because they have different bonuses, meaning that the other might suit your play style! Remember, this has to keep small group in mind when in design. So, let's look at what kind of bonuses the ships would offer.

Wolverine:

Bonus to traditional Minmatar Command links.
Bonus to capacitor need of jumps.
Bonus to Refining Array efficiency.

Reclaimer:

Bonus to traditional Amarr Command Links
Bonus to the maximum number of docked ships (when a ship maintenance array is fitted)
Bonus to Assembly Array slot number

Athena:

Bonus to traditional Gallente Command links
Bonus to jump range
Bonus to Corporate Hangar capacity

Albatross:

Bonus to traditional Caldari Command Links
Bonus to jump fuel consumption.
Bonus to Laboratory slot number

Closing Words

So, here we have them. The pride of any nomad group - their Mothership, their mobile home. No longer are they forced to carry around POS modules in clumsy ships, and no longer does it take hours to move from one system to another. Just unanchor the Mothership and go. Well, there obviously have to be some drawbacks, righ? Well, here is the list I can offer:

The whole stuff only works if the pilot is online. Account sharing is a bannable offense. I leave the conclusions to you.
It consumes fuel for every freaking operation (just as a POS would, maybe even more). You have to keep the checkbooks tight if want to rely on this thing.
The tank on this ship is really thin for its size. No capital modules means that the Motherships can barely be fitted to be saved by a good triage carrier when caught by a gang.
The only safety this ship has is that in can sit on a deep space bookmark and cloak up.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of ways that you can exploit these things, and there may be big holes in the idea, but that's why I'm putting it out there - take a look and please comment if have any suggestion as to how it could be improved.

Sessym out.

Precipice of Change

2011-11-16T10:14:00.001+01:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry #29

This morning I saw something on youtube, and I got the nerdchills. For a long time, about EVE, again! The short video was showing engine trails and a new warp effect from the Singularity Test Server. With the beautyful backdrops of the new nebulae, the impression was incredible.

Many little things that make together EVE be closer to the thing it can become. The trails are a good addition to show how powerful these ships are, the warp tunnel now looks as if we were really travelling in the bubble the canon talks about, bending the very space with it. Turret flares missing the ship andds another layer of credibility, immersion. What we will look at our monitors is vey close to the great graphics that stare back at us in the sci-fi movies, except that those recordings are rendered for weeks, not fragments of seconds.

CCP was always good at capturing the subconscious of people. There are small details, hidden complexity, which you are not aware, but your brain registers them and they contribute to the overall immersion much more than the things you actually realize do. Look at the same picture with different lighting effects and you'll see what I mean. The space environment in EVE just got the most important thing it missed (and started to miss more and more when the devs were no longer concentrating on it) - scale and perspective. Only when a lumbering battleship draws engine trails longer than its own lenght, do you realize how terrifying a speed 117 m/s is. Only when you see phenomena that have their sizes measured in lightyears shrink jump by jump do you realize the distance you are taveling through in seconds. I could continue this on and on. The reason I don't do is that this isn't what I want to talk about.

EvE Online: CRUCIBLE is going to be a turning point, and we all know this. But it's going to change the game we love in some aspects not many people think about. This last two years, the relatively stagnant Flying in Space EvE is going to be gone. God willing, forever. You'll undock into a whole different universe. What we leave behind I would call the era of tears. We, the society of EVE, CCP, and the New Eden were crying a lot. Sometimes at each other, sometimes with ourselves. We have to go forward. And this means things will change. The pvp in space will evolve. CCP wants it to evolve beyond the best practices we are used to now. Some things get simpler, and we have to accept that. Some things get easier, and you have to be ready for the other people to learn the tricks only you knew...

In other words, let's be ready for what CCP throws at us. We will be heard. Yes, they are a business, and we are customers, but before everything else - let us be a game creating society. The people, they work at CCP because they love the concept and potential of EVE. The players, they should play the game because they love it. Let us stop treating CCP as a company and ourselves as customers - companies never, ever listen to their customers. They listen to their bank accounts, nothing else. The relationship is indirect, no matter how many PR they apply. But if we become a society in and of itself, we will have a direct connection to each other - gamers and developers. That is something fearless, something no profit-oriented organization have attempted before...

Sessym out.

Blog Banter 30: Immersive Marketing

2011-11-15T13:14:00.001+01:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #28

'Tis a new month again, and our favourite British Minmatar Keeper O'Records Record-A-Worthy, put forth another two questions to banter posts for his keeping o'records. The first question cometh:

"With the Winter expansion possibly being named 'Crucible', it certainly is a melting pot of refinements and tweaks aimed at making the EVE experience smoother and more wholesome. If the developers suddenly found themselves some spare resources and approached you for an additional feature to include before release, what single concept would you pitch them and how would you implement it?"

You probably already know that I'm a lazy person, so I'll just point you at my previous post (funny how I answered the question before it was asked, huh? ). I'll wait patiently until you read my Letter to Sansha Claus, then, if you still want more rants, welcome back here.

For bonus points, the one thing lacking from this "patchwork" of iterations is a cohesive storyline to package "The Crucible" together. How could this expansion be marketed to potential new customers?"

Now that, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers is a good and hard question. Exactly the ones that I like! So let's start dissecting it. So we want something that makes 'Crucible' make sense. I'll answer with another word. "Embrace". The whole excpansion is about breaking stagnation and embracing a new concept. To hold something close that's so dear to everyone. And that thing is violence and change. Let this expansion be the finger that points up: it gets only better! So how about this narrative:

"There are things that never change. Or this is that some want to believe. But they are wrong. We all were, at some point, wrong. The absence of change is something none desire. Change is your test, your challenge put forth by the universe. We, capsuleers are the cavaliers of change. Creation, destruction, violence, compassion - they all serve the same purpose. The world is merciless, harsh. Despite this, the whole has a purpose - and that purpose is ours to shape..."

I would certainly enjoy a trailer with something like that. It could be a nice sequel to the "I was there" episode saying that "we are capsuleers, we are the symbols of change".

I must however, put forth a disclaimer before continuing. When looking at new players, I'm very picky. I'm not content with 'any players will do'. This may seem an elitist attitude, but don't get me wrong. In my belief, there are people that have no need of the EVE universe, and it's probably better off without them, too. I know some of those people, and I'm certain you know some. These are the people that cannot enjoy the game for the same reasons long-term EVE players do. This is mainly because if you're living on a wormhole colony or something and hadn't already noticed, we have a say in where the game develops.

There are voices that should and shouldn't be heard. Those that don't play, those that can't accept the parts of the game they don't like, those that are not prepared to stay with the game - they'll probably never shut up... but they can be ignored in my opinion. I know that's a bit harsh, but so is EVE, and I like "her" that way. If I need love, I go to my wife. If I want violence and challenge, I'd prefer to pixel shoot pixel people in pixel spaceships than real fights.

And guess what? Crucible is a very good name - a well defining name. There are all kinds of people doing all kinds of things to each other. Because they want to. Because they can. And the heat of it all, the challenge, the test is yours to jump in. With a little care and clever design, CCP can show the world a new class of marketing: the active, interactive, immersive one. The "we'll give you what you want" message is well received from the existing players. And in my opinion, CCP should build on the tight community, keep it that way. Inflated subscriber numbers may not be as good as the beancounters think. EVE is not about fun - it is about complexity, longevity, planning, understanding, learning - the things that really define a hobby. Many people look at it that way - and that is what CCP should look to achieve. Because favourites, games are cycled throughout the lives of people - usually in a seven-year cycle - but hobbies persist. You never really quit hobbies. These are the things you enjoy spending your time on - and EVE should always provide a lot of opprtunities to reward the time spent on it.

There's something in marketing that many sales specialists build on when advertising: perceived vaule. In this world, in this economy, soon there will be only one thing that has substantial perceived value by the 'simple' people: longevity. EVE is good at it, but not as long as the database is running on Tranquility (and its descendants) - only until people consider the game to be worh talking about and the players worth helping. Do you really think they should ignore that?

Sessym out.

Letter to Sansha Claus

2011-11-08T13:43:00.000+01:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #27

Dear Sansha Claus,

Many people deny your existence, but I know you're out there. I believe in you! And I know the wishes made with your name become true! I've been a good little capsuleer. I may have been a little sloppy as of late, but real life and all, you know about that shit... Of course, you know about everything! So let's go ahead and look at what I yearn to see within EVE Online:

Missile launch animation rewamp
Firing and module look&feel rewamp
Introduce territorial Planetary Interaction so that we finally can rivalize with each other
True 'Mothership' concept to support the nomadic lifestyle

Missile launch animation rewamp

Ships right now just poo smoke and a glowing orb is hurled towards the target. Clearly, this is not the finest example of EVE's astonishing visuals, so it is only right people will want some new animations. When most people say they want missiles to have new effects when launched, they usually mean 'turrets for missiles', which is one good solution, but is does not come near to what it coudl be. First, we have two groups of missles: guided and unguided.

Surprisingly enough, guided missiles have lower payload and are able to follow their targets for a longer time, while unguided ones carry greater payloads in shorter ranges and usually take slower, larger targets to score a perfect explosion than their guided counterparts. It's not that they can't follow enemies - they too have some 'dumb' sensors that also lock on the target, but being slower and worse at following movement, these things do much better if they are aimed. Guided missiles, however, they would probably benefit better from a system that lets them leave the launchers at nearly full speed.

So what I'd like to see is that guided missiles are launched from silos that open up and close on the ship hull, while unguided missiles have bulky launchers that track the target just as turrets do. But wait, there's more! Engine trails for missiles... 'nuff said, methinks.

Firing and module look&feel rewamp

Even with the upgraded turret effects, some firing animations just look too underwhelming. I love lasers because of their bright flares. Autocannons also do a decent job now, but blasters, rails and artillery aren't really that good.

Let's begin with the easiest: make laser flares match their size and type. For example, make quad guns flare four times, duals flare twice, you get the hang of it... On impact, show hotspots where armor damage is taken.

Autocannons should leave sratches in the same way, while they could fire from all their guns, so dual guns should have two trails for example.

When you fire railguns, the tremendous force and speed should be shown with botha flare and a smoking and hot trail. Those shells are moving at relativistic speeds, damn it.

Artillery vents a lot of particles into space. That's how it should be, you're firing projectiles that are usually the size of a small car. But where do those particles go? I vote for more fire from the barrels and more pronounced smoke trails. Impact should also show an effect that wears off in two or three seconds. Firing many (6 or 8) artillery cannons should leave you in a cloud of smoke and dust.

And now the trickiest thing. Blasters.Right now their animations is something between (pardon the wording) spit and ejaculation. It's not pretty, and certainly does not convey the heat and kinetic energy of the slug. We need something that looks more like you just processed tons of material to glowing hot plasma, and shot it with a speed proportional to that of the light. The beams could have a spiraling effect around them or something.

Territorial PI

Planetary Interaction, or as they call it 'pai' right now is just a few dots and lines that produce goo for your stuffz. This is so non-eve that it almost hurts. Why, oh why can't I mess with other players' planets (beyond draining them of their precious resources faster)? There are richer and poorer deposits of materials on each planets, which is a good thing. These deposits move over time, but what would it be like if you had only a given territory of a planed to exploit for your pleasure? Say, you play 'rent' to CONCORD and they let you play simcity on an area that's size depends on the 'rent' you're billed for (which is also increasing by security status, of course).

In short, I want everything they talked about at Fanfest 2009 on planets. I want to be a dictator on a planet that herds the common people to his service.

Motherships

This is the big gun. Or more likely, the big ship. I'm thinking of a mobile base of sorts that you can take deep within unknown space, with several of your buddies, and deploy / move it faster than you could move a POS. There are a few key functions that consitute a true 'mothership' concept.

It must have a jump drive. It's a capital ship for obvious reasons - and more like a small station than a spaceship. The tank and firepower on this thing is not exactly a priority. It's more like a multifunctional carrier than a real combat ship.
It must be able to enter high-class wormholes. The mass on this should be not much higher than a regular capital.
It must allow the fitting of various modules that helps it function as a makeshift POS, able to manufacture, research, refine, repair. The catch is simple - if the pilot's not online, it doesn't work.
And the point of all this: people are able to dock in it, up to subcapital size! There should be limits of course, but this is beyond the scope of this letter right now.

So dear Sansha Claus, I know you're busy planning your next incursions to known space, but please set aside some time and consider these things. I know you have a lot of little elves working for you now up high in Iceland!

Sessym out.

Power to the Masses... What could possibly go wrong?

2011-10-13T14:01:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry 26#

After Hilmar's apology to the player base, I couldn't stop thinking. I believe there are a few things we must consider carefully about this situation. Some blogger already took the letter apart, but as much as I try to avoid being redundant, I will need to examine it for the post's purpose.

The first part is taking responsibility. With this, Hilmar openly states that the driving force beyond the last two years' stumbling was him. A vision that still lives, but the road to that vision was misinterpreted. This 'I've bitten off more than I can chew spans a few paragraphs, detailing how he presumably got carried away. This part closes with the big admission. I applaud him for this, just as many people do, but this is one thing that got me thinking. More on that later.

The next section explains that he understands the error in trying to sell the present Incarna content as a full-fledged expansion, especially in a game that revolves around entirely different things. The letter also shows that they are aware of the way they always overestimate their capacity in regards of development. It is also made clear that beyond the little result we saw there were much technology development that should have been built upon much more.

Then he moves on to the virtual goods fiasco. After a short recap of how they have erred on that, he restates and confirms their current standpoint towards virtual goods. It should be a relief for many people, but there are things that never change. Let's move further.

The next part of the letter speaks again about Incarna, and how it ties into the CCP vision of EVE. The general principles are outlined with a promise that Incarna will not be prioritized over the crucial space improvements. This seems a good thing, too.

The last section is where the letter becomes almost cerebral in tone. Hilmar personifies EVE, and boldly goes where few dared to go before: he promises to listen more to the community, to have their voice taken to heart, and the will to mine the full potential of the EVE universe.

Now, this is all good and nice, but let's be a bit realistic here. The company that we knew as CCP has grown rapidly from a garage inc. to a 600-people company. The growing pains we all felt. They had to build a corporate culture, and probably they are still trying to find their way around being able to operate as a large entity. Their CEO seems to have comitted himself to the new culture, he (or the one helping him) writes:

The greatest lesson for me is the realization that EVE belongs to you, and we at CCP are just the hosts of your experience. When we channel our passion for EVE constructively, we can make this vision a reality together.

So his vision of a corporate culture is where the whole corp works together with its customers, the capsuleer community to achieve its goals. As much as this is heartwarming, it has some prospects we need to be aware of. Going from the back of the letter to the front, there are a few concerns that my thinking revolved around.

The last part of the letter remains to be taken as truth, but if it is, it means we, the players will be given the power to change the game. Depending on how they plan to achieve this, it has an interesting aspect. Greater power means greater responsibility. My bet is on the philosophy 'look at the way you use something, and try to help', which has worked great in the past and probably is the easiest to make a policy of. That said, it will be interesting to see if the very vocal players would really get a word in the development of the game.

Incarna is considered a failed thing by many players. There's a good chance CCP is monitoring the rate of clients that have it turned on. I don't think that rate is very high. Regardless, we mustn't forget about Incarna. It's rightly a part of EVE, only, it should be a working part, not the tick we knew it to be. And for that, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, it requires no less than development resources! I know many of you would happily play around in your fragile bodies out of their pods. The ideas need to be transformed into actual work, and for that , CCP needs us desperately. Incarna won't be real until we make it real, just as with everything else from EVE.

Virtual goods are one thing people tend to be very sensitive about. Basically, if you're already paying for a service, you shouldn't be forced to pay for another service to make the first one enjoyable. That's what Hilmar promises. I, just like many others resent the idea of purchasing game advantage with real money. It just feels dumb. You could argue that you already RMT with PLEX, but the truth is, with plex, you buy other people's playtime that he or she used to make ISK, nothing else! In this regard, we too have responsibility. If the players buy it, they will continue to sell it. It's not that it cost much to create...

The second section of the letter is about expectations. The hype, the way they got everything riled up and screaming we want it is only possible because the people en masse act like they usually do. So the lesson here is that we too should step back and do some soul searching. What can we do to prevent scandals to break out? Shouldn't we try and be more constructive? Shouldn't we HTFU? Hysterical responses have their use but they are effective only so many times. Let's stop being the screaming mass of idiots and start carrying ourselves as real stakeholders, shall we?

And this leads me to the heaviest sentiment. The apology. In that letter, the CEO of a corporation apologizes to a bunch of players calling a box a box, balls to the wall.

Will we, can we, as a community, admit when we are wrong, with the same honesty, the same sincerity?

Sessym out.

Blog Banter 29: EVEmersion

2011-10-12T12:46:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry 25#

A week ago, Seismic Stan on Freebooted put up the question for the 29th Blog Banter. Somewhat late, but ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, feel free to enjoy my part of the Banter:

"EVE Online is renowned for its depth. Its backstory, gameplay and social aspects are all qualities that draw players in. What does immersion in EVE Online mean to you?"

Immersion is a word that's thrown around a lot these days in the EVEosphere. Now, I could look up the definition for the word but the question here revolves around exactly what it is for the players. So, this topic ties in closely with the 'seven souls of EVE' I have mentioned before. I shall take a look and examine what immersion in and with a game can mean.

For many games, it is rather simple, even shallow. You think about the game, you think about how you will try things, and that is all. But EVE is somewhat different. When someone is immersed in EVE, he or she does one of the following things:

The things that you love to do for some reason. This usually triggers a flow experience at some point.
The things that allow you to do the things you love to do. This creates an atmosphere of anticipation, which is a very real and tangible feeling.
The things that other people (sometimes not even present or real) make you do. Caution is a big driver of acts.

So what exeactly is immersion? It is a state of mind, a flow of thinking that lets you interpret the depth of the world you are in. Immersion is not about entertainment. It is about learning. By embracing this artificial yet very natural world, EVE immersion is about learning things about yourself. What would I do if... That is the question immersion answers over and over not by words, but by experience. EVE online is in a unique position in this.

When Hilmar, CCP's CEO looked at the ISK Guide, his reaction was: 'God, what have we created?'

They, CCP, are a company that created a new place of immersion. Once you start to 'get EVE', you'll feel that you are a part of it. Your actions will affect things in many different ways. You may not be aware of their significance, but back in your mind there's always the looming feeling that you may have just ruined or made someone's day.

Once you understand these things, once you feel that you get real value out of a game, you are immersed. The value thing may or may not be true, but you must always remember: in EVE, the things are what you make of them.

I know I make a lot of EVE. I think about all the things I see in game, and try to imagine how would this look like if it was 'real'. Human imagination has its ways with creation. According to some beliefs, anything can exist that you imagine. I am immersed in EVE when I imagine myself in the place of the character that represents me. Stories are to be told here, millions of reasons, wills and deeds.

I love that CCP tries to look at a universe as a whole, not just take one perspective and stick with it. In that aspect, I can fully appreciate their intent to expand the game beyond spaceships. I'll be honest. I'm not here because of the spaceships. I'm here because everything else that goes with them. They let me talk with people I never would have known. These conversations arc through cultures and generations. Immersed in EVE means that you're no longer playing a spaceship game. You're part of a virtual world that is very similar to your own, because the people you play with are real. Thus, immersion in EVE begins with understanding the sentence: "EVE is Real."

Sessym out.

Wounded

2011-09-28T12:27:00.000+02:00

He maneuvered the camera drone softly around. The look of the site was spectacular but he was much more concerned about the red crosses Aura marked his adversaries with. The Wolf class advanced frigate, now labeled 'Flameburst' was taking ages to reach the warehouse. Ages, as in ten or so seconds. The capsuleer quickly brought up the cargo trasfer interface, and the robotic arms pulled in the reason for him entering this deathtrap.
-Watch the heat sink! - yelled Kem, as the Wolf, propelled by the extreme power of the oversized afterburner drifted towards the warehouse, nearly scratching one of the weakest parts of the ship. Fortunately the kinetic barriers kicked in, and the frigate bumped off with almost equal velocity. The capsuleer turned the warp drive on, and within seconds the fickle Wolf was leaving the deadspace pocket, the angry Serpentis still trying to achieve a target lock until they realized no one's there anymore.

The station was one of the few permanent homes for the capsuleer. The dock coordinator smiled at the timely return, and then sent the little ship to the capsuleer's favorite hangar. The amarrian design provided a magnificient view of the station interior. The pilot did not leave the ship, but contacted the agent he was working for. High security space was always busy, and a lot of people meant a lot of criminals. There's always a new job for the venturing capsuleer, provided he or she climbs the ropes of official corporate trust. The capsuleer was well known in this station, at least in the official circles. Sometimes people would knock on his room right next to the dock. In the age of nanites and people not dying because of some gadgets and computers within their bodies, who in their sane mind would think to register a knock on a metal door in any system? Those people who did knock usually had something fishy in mind and wanted the capsuleer to take care of them. Kem marveled at the extent of some of these requests. Simple deliveries of small trinkets and leading large scale military operations alike. The capsuleer had well-tried crew for these runs, including the lead engineer, Blake, who was sometimes harsher than a brutor farmer boy, but Kem really didn't mind the attitude. The man always pulled his weight and beyond all the cursing and spitting, he had a heart, and women like Kem had a good eye for that. Her thoughts shifted back to the capsuleer as the elevator carried her down to his hangar.

The man talked not a word more than was necessary. He always seemed to be suspended deep in his thoughts. Kem did not question him about his past - the wrinkles around his eye and the pale reflections in his iris told all she needed to know. Some people become capsuleers to leave their proletarian roots behind. Many dream of profits and challenges unknown to planetside people. Some others try to break free of the traditions their nations are entrenched in. And some, probably the most, have something they'd rather leave behind. No matter the reasons they admit, each and every one of them is trying to escape something. This particular capsuleer seemingly had multiple things to escape from. Who she saw was a man without fears and regrets. He probably lost his family to something horrible, she mused, because he never talks about them, nor does he reveal his family name. The capsuleer always introduced himself by his callsign, and with subordinates preferred the address 'pilot', rather than any fancy ranks or titles. This appealed to the seibestor woman, though she noted that for an amarrian - and a khanid of all kinds - the capsuleer was awfully humble and very kind in his own way. Some of the crew were slaves before the 'mighty Empress' decided to release them to the four winds - without food and jobs. The capsuleer took these stragglers in, and gave them work and hope. He actively encouraged them to seek ties with their families. In case they died when he lost a ship, he sent the remainder of their belongings to their families, along with their remaining pay to help ease their grief. It wasn't much, but it was a nice gesture. The pilot actually took care of his people. The small battleship and cruiser fleet he maintained gave them homes and employment. In return, the rules were strict. He always undocked with a skeleton crew, no errors, no slackers permitted. Rather dead than useless is what he believed a crew member should be. As much as he approached the people casually, he demanded complete attention and precise work. This duality is a marker for a kind of people who Kem could refer to with only one word: wounded.

Of panem, circensis and hopes

2011-09-23T11:43:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #24

The current senior producer for EVE Online, CCP Zulu, has released a dev blog. This somewhat ordinary-looking event has caused quite a stir actually. The moments that define history, as he puts it, are now. The last Blog Banter had already put forward the question about what is going to happen to EVE? If it hasn't ended already I'd recommend Stan to add the devblog to the summary. What we see here is CCP going 'whoa! if :awesome: is no longer awesome then wtf is?' I wish I could tell. But there is a lot of room for a lot of words to explore just this.

So, we have a company that prides itself on listening to the players and delivering the 'awesomeness' they all crave. Yet in the past months they not only failed to do exactly that but suddenly realized it. So let's stop the Bullshit Hardener II's and start the Damage Control III. Arnar's blog is a sign of that. Many in the comments thread observed it had nothing of substance. To the more observant, however it said a whole lot of things. The main message of the blog is that they started massaging the brainpower at their disposal to resolve the situation.

Let's take a look at what CCP and the players want, and what they don't. First of all, Both want EVE to live as long as it has a point. Both parties want EVE to thrive and grow. Now, this is all good, but they imagine it in a different way.

Those players that rave and rant about EVE are the keepers. They are already sold, they will stay, pause and come back. They want more people to shoot at of course, but they mind the content much more. New things to do in their eyes is inavoidably equals or is better than new people to do it with.

CCP, however, as a company, logically sees it the other way around. To go on, they need money. To expand, they need lots of money. The only way they are going to get more money if they get more players.

Those of you observant enough to have spotted the snake biting its own tail, congratulations! Because this is exactly what happens. The existing players' demand for expansion can only be fueled by the extension of the playerbase. A company can develop both ways. Expansive development is when they build upon the existing concept and try to increase its scale. Extensive development occurs when a company takes on new concepts and tries to integrate them with both itself and the customer base. In EVE terms, 'FiS' (blech, ugly word) development is expansive, or vertical. The new things that are not related to you undocking in a spacehip (such as Incarna) are extensive, or horizontal.

This has caused several conflicts of interest in the past, Incarna being at the peak of it. I start to see 'what went wrong' is that CCP decided to move away from the demand for expansion to facilitate extension. Players see this as neglect, which in truth is a grave misunderstanding. But the problem was magnified by both parties with how they reacted to the deployment of Incarna. All the players got is a tech demo rather than true extension. And so the riots and media storm began. Now journalists in the gaming world like to pick on developers, especially one as anecdotic as CCP. Everyone knows they have a 'fucking hard game'. The misconceptions mixed with the drama hace caused damage even managers without any passion for EVE have to deal with. The moments that define history are those when it becomes apparent to even the most apathetic or diconnected that something must be done.

But if Incarna failed, then what won't? In truth, it isn't the idea of Incarna what's failed, but the rollout. It is still a valid concept and will still be, so those wanting to ditch it are lying to themselves. There are those that agrue that the forum posters and bloggers and media stir is the word of the vocal minority, but guess what do those people do that 'just play the game?'. They use the content. CCP can tell which content they use. CCP will judge player reception not only by those who do :words: but by metrics that are produced by the whole of the playerbase. This is why you have POS towers. Guess why you have Incarna? Because many people that you have invited to play EVE said on leaving 'I just can't see myself as a spaceship'. Actions, not words - there is a blur here. Some words are the action itself, some become the action (unsubs induced by the mass hysteria) and some stay hollow. And some echo chambers sound louder than others. So in all this chaos and flow of not accurate information, how would you expect CCP to save EVE?

Everyone has an answer for that, even if that answer really is 'do what The Mitanni suggests' (notice the use of word). Mine might not be the correct one, but I 'stay a while, and listen'. So the moment that defines history will be a positive one for EVE's future, if CCP can resolve the conflict of extension and expansion. There is a way to do this. It can be summarized in one word: balance. Balance efforts. Give something new, refresh something old.

The latter is more obvious. There are a lot of things that can do with improvement. Make them work. Make them complete. Revamp them so they become more challenging or engaging. Add on top of them so they have consequence.

The former? How can you extend without pissing off people? This became increasingly hard over time. The only way to push EVE beyond the niche that gives a hard cap on its player count is to add horizontal content to it. To add no-spaceship content. Actually, many people would welcome this. The thing is, with all those spaceships and warping around, you sometimes want to take a break. EVE also lacks instant gratification. It is a good player filter, but a costly one. Incarna has the perfect setting and potential to give EVE what some people struggle to find in it: a place in the sandbox.

The old saying 'panem et circenses' comes to mind. MMOG players are very much that simple from a business standpoint. Give them something they see useful, and give them things they can lose themselves in. In this context, 'panem' refers to the necessities of life - features that make playing the game enjoyable. 'Circenses' is the concepts that link them to the game, the entertainment, the reward they get for using a feature. If 'panem' is missing, the players will revolt and whine that the game is broken. If there are no 'circenses', players will be angry at the developer and say that the game is broken, full of grind, too hard, pointless, take your pick. It is difficult times we're facing. Difficult times indeed.

In summary, whatever the changes, there should be a few things that are kept in mind. I call these the seven souls of EVE.

Scale. You should feel the enormous thing that you are part of around you. YXou should be constantly made aware how many things your actions touch.
Consequence. Everything you do must have one. A permanent one. Nothing should be excluded. The cold harsh universe is not a place where you could do something and change nothing.
Choice. You must be able to make your own. Work for it or pay for it? Keep it or kill it? It must depend on you.
Risk. Everything you do must have a chance to go south. Excitement and entertainment cannot be truly experienced until you know you were risking something for it.
Competition. This is the point of playing with others. You must in each activity compare to another player and success should be granted to the better.
Interaction. Anything in game must do something meaningful. Meaningful in a sense that other players must be affected, both directly and indirectly.
Foresight. EVE rewards planning and organised effort with increased rewards. This should be always the case.

As I have seen it so far, anything that goes into development and misses the fine alchemy of these souls, will either have rotten 'panem' or be a boring 'circensis'. Let's hope CCP too knows this.

They have one more chance:

Sessym out.

Random Brain Fart - EVE Races Warfare Philosophy

2011-09-15T16:08:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #23

Amarr - Give up! My armor is strong as my faith in God, no weapon can harm me. His holy laser light will reach you no matter how you try to run!

Caldari - Can't dodge missiles, eh, punk? And yeah, I shield tank because I'm not gonna buy damn nanites.

Gallente - Just wait till I get in range, you're so fucked monsieur. By the way, armor tanks are manly, m'kay?!

Minmatar - RATATATATA! AAAAAAAAH! RATATATA!

Sessym out.

Blog Banter 28: "The Future of EVE Online, CCP and the CSM"

2011-09-08T10:25:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log,Entry #22

Today's topic is the courtesy of Seismic Stan and his blog, Freebooted. Whilst I admire his sense of humor and lightweight writing style, I want to reflect on the questions he puts up as the new organizer of the old Blog Banters.

The Question

In recent months, the relationship between CCP and it's customers has been the subject of some controversy. The player-elected Council of Stellar Management has played a key role in these events, but not for the first time they are finding CCP difficult to deal with. What effect will CCP's recent strategies have on the future of EVE Online and it's player-base? What part can and should the CSM play in shaping that future? How best can EVE Online's continued health and growth be assured?

The Re-cap

To better understand the question first, let's recap what exactly happened here. Many people can think back until the release of Incarna, Monoclegate and such. But actually where it really began was the ambition on the side of CCP that they can manage running a healthy MMO (which requires tremendous effort and resources on behalf of the developer and exceptional persistence on behalf of the player-base by the way) and develop two revolutionary games at the same time. Impossible? No. "Fearless"? Rather insane, I'd wager. What see here unfold is very much like when one tries to ride not two but three horses at the same time, even though only one of them has a saddle. It is only expected that you try to keep over the other horses by clenching the saddle, which is infuriating to the horse wearing it.

More directly: the first wing flaps of the infamous butterfly were the decisions made at CCP that they take this path. Before embarking on the journey of becoming a multi-product company, they launched a last great effort that awarded EVE players with the much beloved Apochrypha expansion. When it was finished, most people went over to the other projects, namely Carbon and DUST. Incarna had working prototypes for over a year even back in 2009, but for some reason it didn't match the standards CCP set for themselves. Then came Dominion, which turned the sovereignity mechanics of the game upside down. A lot of players felt the impact of this, but it only hit months later, and people only get angry about a change when the negative impact on their situation and interests is apparent. Guess what did it coincide with? You bet, it was the :18months: scandal, or Summer of Rage if you will.

The gist of that situation was that it then became visible to the CSM that CCP no longer concentrated on EVE. No matter what they say, no matter how they praise the community, the reality of EVE development was that it received little attention within he company compared to the Carbon framework and other stuff. That alone would not be a problem, since as we learned later, EVE can benefit greatly from its development. What hit people square in the jaw was that the plethora of existing bugs and usability issues seemingly received little in the way of attention. To quell the fires, Team BFF and Team Gridlock were launched or rather more emphasis put on them in terms of communication. Regardless of their effort, rage in the playerbase started to cyclically build up. Tyrannis failed miserably and just like CCP, I don't want to mention that expansion more than it is necessary.

So, moving on, people seemed to calm into a steady frown, some looking at everything on the dark side, others shouting 'I want to believe'. Regardless, Fanfest did go in a positive tone, aside from the nVidia guys who didn't know when to STFU & GTFO. Everyone seemed to want to forget all the arguing that came out of Summer of Rage '10. Then, suddenly "Fearless". We all should know by now how this went from 'the most successful release eva' to 'this is the time when we look at what CCP does not what they say'.

The Answers

There is a resounding question hanging over most people's mind who followed the events that unfolded:

"What will happen to my EVE?"

I'll once again give you the now classical answer: it depends. It exactly depends on the actions CCP takes in order to:

Communicate intentions to the players. Most people can contend with being screwed over if they are warned upfront.
Understand that the tremendous content already existent in EVE allows every staying player to love something in the game. This they will care for, nothing else.
Strike a balance between FiS and WiS resources.

First, a company as transparent as CCP is (no matter how other people try to distort it, they do speak a lot about what they do), needs to get more serious about speaking to the dangerous lot EVE players are. 'It's going to be awesome' isn't an adequate communication, especially, when for a lot of people, it's not so awesome. Everyone, including developers and players have their own perception of reality, and CCP should at least try to affect that perception, not just dump their own on us. As an example, to some people, mining is boring. To others, it's great because they can do whatever besides it. Some people love solo and small gang PvP, some (*gasp*) don't. The vast majority of people will agree though that they don't like when CCP 'promises' something (if you are familiar with their style, the never truly do) and then break their promise.

Second, the astonishing variety compared to other games means that many people will have different expectations and different interests. Some of them will want life to be easier, some will want it made harder. In the end, nobody truly cares for the things he didn't ever touch, and chances are, that is a long list. They will, however, care for new types of features (such as CQ and Incarna) and if the content fails to fulfill its perceived purpose, they get angry. Now, what is the perceived purpose of Incarna as of yet? Humane way of interaction through lifelike pixel bodies.

The key word is interaction. INTERACTION. INTERACTION. INTERACTION...

Currently, there is no meaningful interaction out of your spaceships. You could argue contracts and market, but that is core gameplay, and not a feature. A feature is something that you can choose to use or disregard. Incarna and Captain's Quarters are empty features. You can use them but you get no real benefit. I can understand why CCP decided to roll it out to see what it messes up (it's an eight year-old game after all), but it got the hype from the wrong angle. This is not the way EVE's future lies at.

The third concern is balance. Just like Torfi described at Fanfest with expansion vs. iteration, CCP will need to strike a balance between WiS and FiS. The reason is simple. Some people will not use Incarna at all if they aren't forced (hell, they shouldn't be, more on that later). Those people will feel abandoned if you roll out just stuff related to Incarna. Other people though may be set off by the miniscule amount of content EVE currently provides outside the space game, so more needs to be developed ASAP.

The Verdict

I don't really feel entitled to say such an important thing as a verdict over a gem that's loved by more than a hundred thousand people, but I do feel entitled to my opinion, so I'll just go ahead and say it.

I think that the future of EVE depends greatly on the decisions that are made to patch up the current situation. The prospect of our favorite game losing its soul is unnerving. There clearly has been a change of direction, which can be perceived through the trailers as well. Up until now, CCP and EVE was all 'this is yours, play with it' and then it somehow went to 'we own your ass and you know it'. I don't like either the transition and the direction. Despite this, many positive things can come out of this.

There are things that CCP needs to return to in order to keep players satisfied. Some little game mechanics help with what they actually do can go a long way to please even new players. It's not the invitation part that's hard - keeping players is. So if EVE can keep its wonderful players while adding new ones, it will stay alive and dynamic - and that means better communication and more concentrated effort for improvement. CCP's growing pains affect both the players and the game greatly, and if the EVE society dies in them, so will CCP.

Sessym out.

Titanium Sabot H

2011-09-07T16:20:00.000+02:00

The mechanical trigger hit the cartridge, giving heat to the few metallic sparks that erupted inside. The propelling compund, a careful mix of explosive and oxigen sprung to life. Small molecules burst from the heat of the sparks, rapidly devouring the air they were floating in. In a matter of nanoseconds, the whole charge was spent, and the giant surge of energy split the cartridge open. It didn't waste much energy, so the inflation of the flue continued to push the bullet forward, into the rotating spiral of the barrel. The outer sheath of the bullet slightly melted, and took the shape of the barrel, allowing it full control over the motion. A few more nanoseconds, and the explosion given away all it's pressure, directly into the bullet, which accelerated to five times the speed of the ripples it would make in the air. It left the barrel instantly, further propelled and shaped by it, launching into the open. Some of the flue had escaped with it, with no containers restricting its inflation, giving a last nudge to the small projectile. The bullet darted through the relatively thick recycled air of the station, connecting on the metallic surface it was aimed at.

The outermost sheath heated up further due to the friction from the air, and the pressure poised by the armoured cloth. The heat dissipated quickly as the molten matter flew off the bullet, weakening the molecular structure of the armor. The cords started to split as the blunt and soft outer shell gave way to the second, hardened and sharpened sheath. Soon this layer of the bullet took all the heat that the tremendous force it was fired with caused upon impact, and its hot, pointy front combined with the polished surfae pushed it through easily. The second layer of the armor was more problematic. The ceramic scales that overlap each other beneath the clothing stood ready to take the energy away from the shot. The third sheath however, an incredibly dense but flexible metal compund broke the second sheath into sparks and caused the bullet to pivot slightly and turn around the edges of the scales, bypassing the resilient ceramics and breaking through right into the skin. The sheath was spent in the process, and the bullet had lost four fifths of its energy, but the sheaths had done their job and penetrated the armor. Now it was the shell's turn - there were nanofiber reinforced bones it its way. The hot metal burned through the flesh, and the volatile matter slowly took the shape of a waterdrop, it's titanium core tearing into the flesh and bones, finally stopping in the left chamber of the heart, leaving it essentially disfunctional, though neither of the other wounds caused by the projectile were bleeding.

Just about when the bullet passed through the last layer of the victim's skin, the Imperial Armaments 'Regimen' PER-60 started its recoil cycle. The barrel retracted in the bullet's wake, and the second round was lifted into position within the gunlock. The trigger loosened back as the murderer's finger released the trigger and the spring pushed it back into its place. Most of the kinetic energy from the recol was spent by now, and as the first ripples of yound started to emanate from the shot, the handgun returned to its previous position, no longer forcing the hand upwards.

The murderer, a certain capsuleer from a certain corporation looked at the target. The tripple-sheathed, high velocity Titanium Sabot H round did it's job well. He was thinking about the globalization capsule technology brought to the unverse. He just left his Jovian-made hydrostatic capsule in a Gallente station in Amarr space, only to be assaulted by an assassin of Intaki origin, who was probably working for a Caldari corporation, judging by his equipment manufactured by the Kaalakiota Corporation. The sidearm he used to protect himself was designed by an Amarrian corporation to fire rounds favored by the Minmatar, no less.

Interesting weapon, the IA 'Regimen' series. These sidearms were designed to use conventional explosive-propelled projectiles of 6 mm caliber, which aligns well with the corporation's core philosophy. It was no coincidence that the 6 mm 'H' series of traditional minmatar design fit well into this handgun. The logic there ould go like this: if you are out in the open, where you are prone to assaults, it is best that you have a reliable gun at your side, one which can be fired immediately with good efficiency and cheap charges. The mechanical firing method also came as a side effect of this - you can't jam a weapon that doesn't have microchips in it. Alas, the PER-60 could fire a nail if it had the proper cartridge.

The assassin was well prepared. Killing a capsuleer in his quarters would not necessarily dispose of him, but, especially if they last died a long time ago, could wipe a lot of memories out of them. What, however, he failed to register is this particular capsuleer's bad habit to be always alert and don't trust anyone and anything. That's how life went in New Eden.

Business As Usual

2011-09-02T16:44:00.000+02:00

It was freezing. The sudden decrease in pressure surely perforated some of the cruicial parts, but the temperature drop took over much faster, leaving it solid, pale. It was really unconcerned about the situation, though. In fact, nothing really could concern it, seeing that it was a frozen corpse now. The only thing that would be of interest about it could be if it rejoined to its old self in form of cheap biomass, but seeing that the unsignificant event that led to its current state happened far in deadspace, nobody is likely to pick it up.

A few region farther, three red warning lights lit up over a tank. The first signaled a new arrival, the second signaled that the reason for the arrival was death, and the third signaled that the new body is functional and no medical attention required. The fluid started to drain down the pipes and it was time for the awakening serum to be introduced to the patient. As the drug was injected, the tank opened and the man stepped out, seemingly staggered but with freakish calm on his face for someone who just died. He strained one of his eyebrows looking at the novice doctor assistant, like he was saying 'what the hell are you looking at?', but the capsuleer did not utter a word. The assistant woke from his stupor and handed him the towel he was holding. The capsuleer wrapped it around his pelvis casually, and walked towards the shower. He twitched his nose, the irritating smell of the statis fluid his clone was in took over his senses for a moment. He frowned, then entered the cabin and opened the tap. Hot water poured down the well-built body. Some twenty seconds later, he was walking towards his personal quarters. The aisle was surprisingly quiet this hour, leaving him to his thoughts. He entered the capitain's quarters throughout the Door. From here, he had an almost perfect view of the insides of the station, where like small dots and muscles the maintenance crew was moving al kinds of parts and ships around. It reminded him of the work colons do, taking in and ejecting their volatile food continuously.

He looked back at the Door. That thing meant a gateway between two worlds to him. One was the known, the thrilling and the profitable. The other? He had no real feelings about the other on top of indifference. For many years, he perceived people beyond that door as parts of the body that served his existence. They did not matter much to him - he wasn't interested in their ailments, problems, hunger and affairs. But sometimes he is just forced beyond that Door, to the world that he doesn't want to be a part of, or, more accurately - not this way. He shook off the thoughts of his head, and then walked up to the console, ordered a new capsule, requested his Hurricane to be prepared for boarding, and sit down on the sofa, waiting for the fleet and alliance comms to light up. Flying into dangerous space in a capsule-fitted ship and getting even his pod blown up was his way of business-as-usual afterall.

Obvious Celestial is Obivous

2011-08-24T09:43:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #21

There are times when you fuck up. These are not the times you should worry about. There's always some little room to correct mistakes. But there are those moments when you fuck up while others are fucking with you.

Pardon the explicit language. So let's stop a little and analyze what led to this moment.

I log on, load grid in space. I warp to my gate watch safe (It's home system afterall), see a small gang camping the gate. Corp mates are planning on hauling stuff in. The industrial carrying the first round of fittings and ammo jumps in from the high sec gate, just as pinpoint and I report the camp.

Docked, I have to leave the computer for a few secs. By the time I return, the gatecamp is busted, and a lowsec roam is being planned. It's one of those nano roams, so I hop into the shield-fit Hurricane and x up. I have a hunch and take some redundant faction ammunition out of the 'cane. It hits hard, but the stuff's expensive if you never get to use it...

Recon ships and a black ops BS is added to the mix, we decide on the tactics and prepare to undock. The other corporation is amassing in our home system, bent on revenge. The nano-fit is the better idea, yeah.

So we undock and crash the gate, barely slipping their fleet. They're close behind, time is of essence. Discussion goes on about how to deal with the whole situation. This is where we as a group fuck up. People get a bit disoriented and they catch up on the next gate. Order is issued to scatter.

And this is where I fuck up while others are fucking with me. I warp off the gate by warping to a planet, making a bookmark in the process. All good, I gave them the slip. Or not? Landing, I see two of our merry enemies, one at 0, one at 50. Crap. Trap. I'm not going to give up, start aligning, burning out of range, and open fire. Then the whole gang jumps on in. Time to spam the warp button.

So, my ship turned into something like an egg, did I level up? Sure I did. New things I learned:

Don't warp off to obvious celestials if you're about to flee. First, last planet, sun, station are all bad choices.
Don't warp at zero. Don't warp at 50 either. Everyone warps at 50.
Align the moment you land. Don't look at people on overview thinking what are those about. They're out to get you.
This is not my first ship loss, and won't be the last. Also, looking at my previous losses, I didn't lost a ship when I did everything right. That feels comforting.
I still feel honored that people must assemble fleets of 10-20 people to have the balls to fight a 6-man battlecruiser gang from Fla5hy. If that's not blobbing, I don't know what is.

Sessym out.

Holy Shit, That Guy's 5.0!

2011-08-22T01:30:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #20

Note to self #1: pirate corps that look at your sec status as a primary objective are being unprofessional at recruiting.
Note to self #2: when a 5.0 guy joins a pirate corp, he's up to something :P

I tought I'd give a little background about me. Not that I think I'm interesting, but there are some people who might get something out of it.

So, I was born a capsuleer a fewmonths more than a year before, and ever since then I was striving to do something to make a difference. Not as in big 'make a difference in a world', but do something I can look back at, and say, 'yeah, god, was that cool.' I've been hunting those moments all the time, and had quite a few. I'm not going to go through them, because it's realy hard to ecplain why would I remember some things this way. Rather, I'd go through the history of what I thought when I was doing things.

I joined EVE because a bunch of long-time gaming friends did and we saw the way we could make our game pay for itself. That was a cruicial point as we had to organize our carrers around it. This wasn't really much fun, but learning the roper was certainly an experience I look back and smile. We did try to make up a pirate corp, but things kind of fell apart as our mentor and the CEO of the corporation decided he had enough of EVE for a time. So we were sitting there, missioning for our PLEX. It wasn't fun, a side from the occasional challenging mission or getting into a new ship, devising new fits. Then we decidd we want to take a look at 0.0.

Joining a renter corp in Tenerifis was a kinda-good idea. In hindsight, it taught me one thing: grinfing for ISK and flying carriers is not what I want. Some of us stayed, some of us drifted on, now to a corp that was then part of a pet alliance. They had their own space in Period Basis, and the months passed by slowly as the alliance fell apart. The corp was forced back to high sec, but in about a month, it could return to its previous hunting grounds. Really good bunch of people. Had gun talking to them, but unfortunately we've slipped inot inactivity due to our alliance being in the learning stages, leaving many people unsatisfied. Back to high sec, and summer hit.

So I was sitting around, looking for lowsec systems to scout for weeks, and then saw a recruitment post somewhere. The thing is, most pirate corps have an attitude in their recruitment posts that deters inexperienced people. FLA5HY RED doesn't. They let me in, afterall. I'm not sure where this is going. There are times in your life when you feel you just have to do something. If nothing else for, jsut to see if this is what you really want. So I'll stop worrying about the 400 millions a month, and lurk in the forlorn wasteland of EVE, low sec.

The lessons I learned?

Tough I can and do enjoy PVE activities, I'd rather have the opportunity to cease shooting crosses and start warp scrambling people. I have too much repressed aggression to be a carebear.
0.0 blob warfare isn't particularly a place where I feel I'm useful.
I now have a life to atted to, and that's not an excuse, it's a fact that drives my playstyle.
I don't like half-assed attempts and disoriented leadership. I'm not going to comlpain, just go my way (and probably die in a fire).
Don't look at my sec status. I'm still a pirate (wannabe).

Sessym out.

Outsourcing Pixels

2011-08-18T16:00:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #19

With the new dev blog out, and as there are some interesting ideas being tossed around, I figured it's time for another post. Today's topic will be outsourcing, as in allowing people you're not really affiliated with to all sorts of dirty work for you as an alliance.

In the current state, outsourcing only exists in some awkward forms of renting space. Contracts are made via mutual agreements that the renter will offer services (such as billions of ISK, ships, modules, capitals) to the owner of the area, and joins their ranks in some form to legitimately use the alliance holdings. Now, this is a complex operation that requires high levels of activity in many areas as well as a great deal of financial and logistical planning. In a nutshell, it is not for the beginner player who wants to venture into null sec, because he or she'll probably be unable to support both the corporation and self. There is a very strong point in the design principles showing up time to time which is about catering to the needs of small players as opposed to the current situation where they are exploited and frowned upon.

So, let's go on to my proposal of one of the possible solution to this problem. I dub the thing as 'Outsourcing', and it should be available parallel to renting. What is this all about? The definition of outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external organization to perform some business functions for the owning entity. In the real world, companies do this because the costs of maintaining the function internally are higher than simply paying for a service. What does this mean in EVE terms?

Well, it means the exact opposite that what we have now. I personally think the mechanics of making people to pay for being allowed to use your space is retarded. Moreso because despite having agreements on things, large alliances tend to neglect their part of the deal when they have pressure on them by another alliance. So let's turn the whole thing upside down. To do this, think about the needs and ends of an alliance.

Sovereign alliances need armaments to protect their space. Ships, modules, ammunition and fuels must be obtained by the pilots in order to participate in the activities of an alliance. Someone has to extract and manufacture the goods that keep the warmachine going.
Someone has to make those things locally available in vast quantities, over a long time.
Someone has to cater to the needs of individual pilots, set rules to allow them to make profits of their own, provide housing for their assets and other services.

These are the basic foundations of running an alliance effectively, keeping morale high and people logging in for CTA's. Now, let's take a look at the current situation.

Point 1 is usually left to the individual pilots for smaller ships, and they need a lot of income to keep up. Many alliances run a reimbursement program to relieve the strain from their pilots, absorbing most of the cost for losing some key assets. Point 2 is all about logistics and market viability. Basically, this is handled by the jump freighter guys bringing ordered goods from Jita or whatever. Alliance contracts and market orders are often a viable alternative of acquisition. Point 3 is where alliance leadership comes into play, setting the rules is a big thing on the scales of success and failure. Stations and POSes are managed by alliance people to house the 'grunts' that in return serve as footsoldiers in the alliance army. Some people just like to toy around these rules. I'd mention renting space here as a valid strategy to generate income for the alliance.

What are the problems with this? First, people have to get ISK somehow to buy the stuff that they can use in battles to keep the alliance going. This leads to them looking at space to farm it in various ways. Second, the complications that could arise from things being not available (for example, tritanium for manufacturing or station installations) can deter many people of the industrial route, accelerating the problem further. In essence, the more you rely on importing goods the more you have to, because it's just that much easier to go to Jita and haul a few freighter's worth back. Then there is the people wo are ratting. Seriously, why are those exclusively interested in PvP forced to shoot red crosses regularly in order to pay for their ships? You'd think that an effectively operating military organisation would have a way to supply them with equipment.

Ass 0.0 stands right now, you're going there for 3 things. Roaming around looking for trouble. Participating in large scale battles. And finally but most importantly to make a ton of ISK. Socereign 0.0 is a profitable place to live in, but what are your choices if you're planning to take part? You either join an alliance submitting yourself to its rules or rent space with a few buddies and try to come out in the positive.

Now, what if it would be possible to pay other entities to do some of the activities for the alliances? What would you want to outsource?

You certainly want to keep all of point 3 in the alliances hands, or don't you? For exaple, running a staging POS or a jump bridge is costly and tedious. Why don't you just pay X entity a sum and leave it to them?
Furthermore what if you could pay entity Y to manufacture / acquire ordered goods by a schedule? What if you could pay them to move your goods, handling your import / export needs? What if you could hire them for example maintain sovereignity and for example military / indutry levels in a system in your weak timezone?

The essence of this idea is that instead of generating artificial costs of maintaining and owning space, why don't just make it so that the alliances themselves have an incentive of having small holdings performing the tasks they deem too tedious, providing them opportunity to live there while inducing costs in place of the strain on leadership to get these done?

So, as a sovereign alliance, you could advertise a contract (a treaty if you will), that if the subcontractor provides ordered services, they get an amount of ISK, while penalizing them if they fail to meet the requirements of the contract. The greater the subcontractor entity, the more fee it could charge (given that higher numbers provide financial and contractual security in industry as well). The subcontractor would get the benefit of being marked as such, ability to use alliance assets (including stations, POSes, systems) to a configurable extent with or without a fee, and the possibility of making a decent profit while using them. The sov holders this way get localized market (which in turn WILL induce those of industrial mind to produce goods for it) and they can concentrate more on their efforts of defense and conquest.

Some disclaimers left: this should in no way be exclusive to other methods of setting up small holdings in null sec. This should be tuned in a way that both entities benefit but it scales to a desirable level. Alliances should be given enough income to be able to make choices in this matter.

I don't think this will entirely fix null sec, nor do I think there's one golden move that will. But maybe... magybe ginving players incentives to actually employ other people than oppress them will incite many more people out to experience the 'land of opportunity and adventure'.

Sessym out.

Almost. Dead. Again.

2011-08-16T15:39:00.000+02:00

So, I decided to write some words for the Starfleet Comms competiotion. I hope it is as entertaining as writing it was.

This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 3. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms.

The air was heavy with the moisture of oils and the stinking rust that came off the old pipes. Blake was taking the classical approach for inspecting the leaks that set off the alarms on the bridge. It wasn't easy work, as free space is not something you can find in abundance of the service tunnels within a Rifter class frigate. He kept hammering away at the hydraulic pipes that connected to the mechanism handling the main thrusters. As always, time was of essence. The dirt on the floor, formed from lubricants and various nasty substances started to thicken, and then at one turn the tertiary depressurizer gave up, and hot liquid started to drip as the wrench connected with a deep clank.
-Gotcha, bitch! - Blake spat as he began to search for something in his toolbox to close the leak with.
-Damn man, what's taking you so long?! - whistled an anxious voice from his comms. He dropped the wrench as an emphasis, and shouted back.
-Keep yer ass shut, ain't no fancy nanites here!
-Get that pipe patched up, we don't have all day!

Blake wouldn't admit but he really liked the owner of that voice. It's been two years since they worked together. The capsuleer was a 'chill dude'. He had a good sense of humor, insane ideas, and a deep wallet for all Blake cared. He particularly liked to join him on his shady deals, and he was pretty sure there were times when they wouldn't make it without the other. Blake kept telling him to stop, but he insisted that he didn't really care. All these risky endeavours were just for fun, he claimed. Well, certainly it was more fun than sitting around the station the whole day while the damn fool was sniffing around the market for his next lucrative deal, but Blake couldn't get over the fact that to the capsuleer, everything is replacable. It really didn't matter to him if the ship he was in blew up or he lost hundreds of his crew in the same explosion. He was even joking around with his life, saying to those threatening him to go on and gut him, telling his new clone needed a lot of biomass. Blake, on the other hand, as a regular and sometimes only crew member, liked his own hide where it was, covering his organs. He also liked his wallet flashing in green light on his PDA, so he did what the pilot asked and thought of the comments he was allowed to spout at him as a bonus.

The capsuleer stared at the directional scanner. The poor thing had been constantly running its calibration cycles. He had every reason to be anxious. The cargo was hot. He mused about his ship of choice. Perhaps it would have been better to choose a more powerful ship. He had access to the universe's sturdiest cruisers and fastest frigates. Yet he had to do it in a Rifter. The poor old fellow was collecting dust and adding new layers of rust in a dark corner of his hangar. He couldn't help but point at it - "I want you to get that ship ready". "You are an idiot. She's a glorified wreck with some thrusters and rotting guns attached." That was what Blake yelled when he noticed what he was pointing at. He had a big mouth, he always stank of oil and had no interest in the big goings-on of the world, but he was a damn good engineer and mechanic.

The nebulae did a good work of hiding the rusty frigate from the people sniffing around. 'Low Security Space' doesn't even start to describe the place they were forced to stop. A rival gang of capsuleers were waiting on the incoming gate, and the warp core wept as the enemy distruptor latched on it's signature. Luckily enough, the pilot was not really a sharp one and forgot that microwarpdrives don't require hudred percent stability to operate, so the combined effect of injected energy and mass field bloom was more than enough to toss the agile frigate out of range.

The ships capacitor of course fell short and the ship dropped out of warp way before the exiting gate. Luck seemed to be on its side when the sensors recalibrated and showed a small nebula with some rocks floating around. It could of course be one of the local scoundrels' outposts, but the buildings were apparently derelict, however still anchored to the plain asteroid. A quick sweep of the camera drone showed no apparent danger, and the dusty clouds all over the place could provide a good cover as they are heavily polluted with metals. It was a perfect place to hide for a few minutes, but only so long.

The markers still showed the 80 percent module damage on the MWD systems, as the directional scanner flashed and the signatures of the enemy ships became apparent in its display. Blake's rusty voice came like a heavenly blessing.
-Pfeh! Ya can fire up navigation again. If ya overheat the fucking MWD again, I'll put chilli in your pod fluid, ya asshole!
-'Bout time buddy, let's get the hell out of here.

As the rival fleet landed on sensor grid, the Rifter entered warp, structure creaking and crackling.
Blake cleared his throat and wiped off the sweat from his forehead.

Almost. Dead. Again.

Sessym out.

Features and Ideas - the posters' psychology

2011-08-09T08:54:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #18

This week ends with an interesting discussion in the EVE forums. A new dev blog came out that stated the main generic objectives CCP set themselves to evolce null security space. Now, a lot of people praised them for this step, and I can't say I disagree. This is something long overdue. What I really want to look at now though is the patterns people seem to post in.

As it turns out, there are a few types to how some would like to see it go. The first is the type of player who assumes it is at a great risk that someone lives out there, therefore they shall make a ridiculous amount of money. These people are what we could call the carebeary types.

Then there are those that whine aboout how supercapitals mean everything, and how small alliances don't really have a chance against monstrous coalitions, and how blobs can do anything better. This bunch is rather mixed, you can see people from all over the map and from many kinds of organization. Whether this is a sign that the statements hold some truth or that parrots are everywhere, remains to be discovered. Let's dub them the small gang people.

And finally you can find the hardcore alliance dudes, the ones that do not really care about supercapitals online as long as they can have their legions of blues shooting legions of reds. Their highlights are usually going towards the direction about stations, POS and generally feel offended at the thought that jump mechanics may get tedious.

First of all, let's address the profit concerns. I want to say one thing: been there, done that. It's pretty much like a solo effort with very few people who you can actually trust beyond the alliance rules. The risk is almost negligibile IF you know how to minimze it. That is of course watching intel and local, staying aligned, bubbles on gate, etc. And the profits that can be made? They ARE ridiculous, though I don't really have any base to complain because that means with sufficient carebearing I could keep two accounts going in EVE. Yeah, I ratted out two PLEXes each month... Can we move on please? So, after confirming that living in 0.0 is (was?) indeed profitable, you have to look at it from different angles. Some people go and live there exclusively because of the profits. They are the infamous 0.0 carebears, with some teeth and a grain of salt included. But what about the others? Well, ships and guns cost ISK, so it's rather obvious they need to find some way to make isk with minimal effort, using the exact same skillset they developed for PVP. That means anomalies. That means team effort. That means, when you run a top-level anomaly with a few friends, you should be able to pay for your next BS / BC / logi ship, whatever. The current state is rather awkward because many people use other characters that reside and mission in high sec just for this purpose.

The second concern is how home defense works. It is again a two sided coin. Right now, the most effective wa of defending your home is to blob up, camp choke points, hunt people that show up on intel. This sometimes becomes a small gang fight, sometimes escalates to a real battle, and most of the time - guess what? The hunted just slip away or get blobbed. So there's the source of whineage. Very few people enjoy running into gatecamps of 30+ drakes or whatever. The small gang bunch is right in this. Now, the problem here is that how else could you organize an effective home defense fleet? The incursing gang will always feel the fight was unfair if the defense gang is efficient!

The next thing, stations and POS. So, you live in a system without a station, you need some place to store your ships, modules, do ammo manufacture, etc. Compared to the station, living off a POS is so much different. Done that too. The real problem under POSes are the differences in boarding a ship in a station and boarding it inside the POS shield. The second means you don't get the shield bonuses from your skills. On a shield taked Hurricane, that means you have like one third of your EHP on you. When undocking from the station, your capacitor and shields are at their maximum capacity. Then there is the matter of modules. Not only do you lose the aforementioned benefits but you are unable to activate any module that would help your comrades repair their shields, nor can you release drones... In short, it s-u-c-k-s.

So, mandatory prediction coming up. CCP will try to wrestle with the POS code and break something else in the process. While at it, they'll think hard and discover that some things are too convenient for the big alliances, modify them, only to induce more cooperation, thus more robust cooperations. They'll probably mess with the resources so that each region would have its own technetium. You get the picture... Regardless of all good ideas, crappy otr excellent implementation the mighty people will come up with something entirely different that they expect.

Sessym out.

Drakes Are Bad For You

2011-07-29T14:23:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #17

This post will be more of an opinion and personal observation than anything up until now. This is now officially about Drakes. And why do I think flying Drakes is a dumb carebears' advice to newbies. So, when asking someone, why fly a Drake, the following will bound to come up as pros:

Strong passive tank, with no cap management required
Good range
Missiles don't have tracking problems, only ship size is of concern

Now, these things are newbie friendly, aren't they? From a certain perspective, yes - as in, they are easy to manage. The problem with this is exactly that. The Drake is a unique ship that has very few worthwhile counterparts in the EVE universe. I'll admit that they are effective. But my main concern here is about newer players. Generally speaking, they have a lot to learn. Not just in terms of skill points but in terms of the game mechanics themselves. So the is easy mode represented by Drakes healthy for a newbie?

EVE question - EVE answer: "It depends." If there's only one combat ship you bother flying and you're much more interested in mining, production, trade, etc., sure, go ahead and train for it. You literally get a lot of bang for your buck. But if you're the new and aspiring ace pilot of the killboards, for the love of God and all that is dear to you, stay away from passive tanked missile ships. They make you forget more than you could learn from them.

The simplest thing is the range. Heavy missiles hit out to 70 km with good skills, which is plenty for medium ships. Actually, they need help in form of fitting modules if you want to target that far. So watching out that you didn't lose target lock will be like, the only thing you have to worry about. 'Real ships' aren't like that. You have to be able to manage range, else you won't kill any players.

The second part of Drakes being too easy to fly is the way missiles work. They always hit, assuming it's not some crazy fit speed monkey that can outrun them. There are a few things about missiles that make them easy to learn. I'm not saying they are for dumb people, certainly not. There are many variables one should be aware before one can call oneself a professional missile user, but on the surface, all you need to know is that what size of missiles can hit your target. So yeah, missiles will teach you little in the way of how to pilot your ship properly.

The third reason I'd not recommend using a Drake to learn how EVE works is it's too tanky. In the real EVE, the one that is filled with players trying to kill you, and if you're in 'real' ships, you usually don't have the option to deflect 400 DPS just by existing and probably running an invulnerability field or two. That means that you actually have to worry about how your tank holds, not just try to bail when shields are under 33%.

Passive tank in itself is a scourge on the aspiring pilot. Before I explain further, I want clear up the concepts. Passive tanking means that you shrug off your opponents' damage only by the recharge rate and resistances of your shield. You are utilizing the passive regeneration of your shield. Any other type of tank that involves providing high quantity of effective hit points that take a long time to grind through are buffer tanks. Active tanks are those that depend on activated modules and expend capacitor to regenerate the ship's HP.
So, passive tanks are bad for you because you don't have to manage them, just know when they break. In a real PVP situation, you are usually fielding tanks that are either buffer or active. Not that these are not mutually exclusive, and that the Drake too can be fit with a buffer or active tank. There is no black and white in EVE. Regardless, generally speaking, you will have to learn how absorbing damage and repairing within the boundaries of the engagement works, and a passive tanked Drake will do little to help you on that.

Once you ditch the Drake as the single best ship for everything, a lot of possibilities open up. You'll have to learn a lot to be successful with the other ships, but it's well worth it. Tracking and optimal range on turret systems, active tanking, capacitor management, fitting for maximum gank... Trust me when I say, even the dull grind of PVE can turn into real fun once you realize you're speed-, active- or damage tanking the rats.

Sessym out.

The Rubik's Cube

2011-07-28T15:37:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #16

The EVE universe is divided into several areas that have very different attributes. Understanding these 'natural' circumstances will be crucial to not only the survival, but how the capsuleer fares generally. In most cases the average beginner player is not exposed to these environmental effects. If you think about it, this might be a real problem regarding the new player experience. Essentially, the people coming to EVE live in a different world than tried capsuleers - and CCP-ers do.

The first thing a new player will encounter is the much cursed UI. There are a lot of thoughts about how to fix this unintuitive and sometimes barely usable part of the game. Albeit some could be successful, there is another question we definitely must raise. Do we really want it fixed? What do you mean by 'fixing' it? Simplification? In a sense, it is logical and simple. You cannot see the logic at the first few tries, but it's there. The bewilderment that it's complexity causes to most people is a troubling thing. You know, sometimes I wonder, and this is a seriously tough question - how in the hell do you simplify something that has so many functionality in it, with almost every aspect being relied on? The game will never be the same, when the UI is changed. The ten million dollar question is, however, will it be more useful? Will I still be able to get the amount of information I do right now?

There is a certain beauty in EVE which comes from, what I can convey as the sincerity of the graphic elements. They might not be big and might not be flashy, but everything is there somewhere. The current representation has a very important attribute that I wouldn't want to see taken away - the way it relies in exact numbers. For example, for distance, you don't see bars - you see numbers. For transversal velocity, you can make it show the exact values instead of say, curves getting longer or shorter. Simplification and cleanup can go a long way with graphical indicators, but in EVE, it would take away from the game if you lost the ability to see the exact values of things. Colored bars moving around is just so not like the sci-fi universe we're in.

So, when the new player finally learns to tackle the environment that is presented to him / her as the NeoCom, the exposure stops. You're sort of dumped into a 'Rookie System', where you are less than aware of the universe and its dangers. Ideally you learn to run the tutorial missions, and then move systems, maybe join a player corp. Your career and the associated can shoot up if you are lucky and join the right corp. Many are not. Yet they still live in high sec, slowly learning about the games' perks, and avoiding everything else they don't know or haven't experienced.

The thing is, EVE isn't about the known! It's about learning something new every day. It's about accomplishment. The original plans of running missions in a battleship or mining in a hulk will soon ring a little hollow. Been there, done that. You know where the real fun starts? Where the boundaries of the computer game end! Human interaction is imperative. You're in a multiplayer and multilayer game...

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say try PVP. Without guidance, without people to work together with, it can be a bitch to learn, and could do more harm than good. I don't expect every capsuleer to dare to be bold. But if that's not the case, just learn to deal with your losses, interact with other people, and be mature. Generally speaking, EVE has an old community, most players know better than to be childish about it. I see sometimes people cursing and whining on local - don't do that, you'll just be laughed at. You'll be nothing more than a chunk of loot.

So yeah, keep on trying new stuff out. What's the worst that could happ

Sessym out.

Design Principles

2011-07-25T13:43:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #15

Welcome to EVE. This is a game about spaceships. The ship models that you may find look great are actually very... limited in their usefulness. The ships that are okay-ish in their looks are mediocre or don't really have a role. The ugliest ships... now they are the ones you are looking for!

So, in today's post, we take a moment and reflect on the design principles, especially regarding graphics, at CCP. First of all, we need to understand how aesthetics in EVE work. The main driver beyond how ships, stations and other stuff is depicted is that there are well defined graphical styles for each race, function, and technology level. Seeing that EVE is an eight year old game - she carries herself really well despite the fact mind you - the graphical styles too begin to show some change. The most noticeable examples are the Amarr ship models. To have a good comparison, you can look at the old Maller model versus the recently updated one. Or you can put it beside say, an Armageddon. The difference is subtle, yet the impact on syle is huge! The new design is much more akin to the Legion (the most recently introduced Amarr ship) than the old doctrine. Speaking of which, let's go through stlyes by race.

First off, the much featured Gallente ships. These ought to be robust maschines with rounded curves and sometimes alien layout. They have a tendency to sport a generic body concept with many limps, sometimes wings. They tend to be sort of symmetrical, except the odd sideweighted ship. Some parts are inherited over the ship line, for example all drone ships (even the Proteus with the drone subsystem) have these dial-like drone control links embedded in their hull. The Gallente ship designs seem to be fairly consistent, with the Hyperion and Nyx hulls standing somewhat out, but there are many more ships from the other races that are far-flung from the original style compared to them. Station and structure design tend to try and represent something organic, though most of the time with little success.

Caldari build flying boxes that are best described as polarizing. Most of their ships and buildings are percieved by either cool-looking futuristic or eye-hurtingly ugly by the audience. They also tend to attach special systems right outside their ships. Iconic examples are the Cormorant, Caracal, Drake, Raven. Station design is very similar. By looking at the creations of Caldari industry, maschines come to mind as opposed to the Federation's organic-looking style. This concept looks as if it hasn't really chcanged over the years, the recently introduced ships are well within it. It's worth to mention that the updated model for the Scorpion is much more detailed and thus falls a bit farther from utter 'caldariness', but I don't think the new direction it's pointing will be much more different than the one we are used to.

Amarr ships were introduced as ones that try to dominate the view. Their strong curves, clear forms ought to intimidate and demand respect. This leads Amarr designers to create ships that loosely resemble birds, and their structures usually sport rings, spires and wing-like forms as well. Their most recognitive trait is the golden plating that covers the whole ship, barring some unexposed surfaces. Now, this is where a noticeable shift has begun to take place. The newer releases exhibit a move away from the golden plate towards a darker, more insect-like form. New Amarr ships look like they have been stripped of some of their plating, their curves distrupted by some emersions. This new design is a bit disturbing because eventually, when all ships will have gone through the model overhaul, they may end up being entirely different and unimposing.

The Minmatar have arguably gone trough a change gradually, as their ships improved. The first designs were looking much like Earth's current space equipment covered in rust. Duct tape and chewing gum that barely held together. Then as the technology progressed, ships that sport a solid, reliable look like the Maelstrom, Nidhoggur and Loki became dominant. There have been no model overhauls yet for the Minmatar ships, so I cannot say if that's for the better or the worse. The principles we talk here about are too an iconic part of EVE that must be kept.

Functional styles also differ greatly as the ships grow in size. The what looks great has actually crap stats must be tied into this principle. See, each race has specifics that shine only in given situations. Seeing that EVE is comprised of many different situations, one may find that one craft with its bonuses and attributes set in stone, it can not perform the way it could. Take the Hyperion for example. If you take a look at the hull design, you imagine something that rams into the castle gates cannons roaring, tearing down everything around it. Now, dear reader, that is not the case. The Hyperion will not ram into any castle gate, because the statistics of its fitting suggests a loadout that is cursed to sit still due to the speed loss from armour tanking. The Hyperion is frowned upon because its layout prevents it from living up to the expectations one might have from such a ship. The tradeoffs are too high in most cases. There are, of course, exceptions from this rule. Some ships do look good while being awesome stats wise. I imagine most capsuleers would want to kill me for this, but take the Raven for example. If you look at it, it is a bulky ship that is slow, sits there unmovable, and pounds away at its opponents with unrelenting fury. Now, it does that doesn't it? I grew to like it because there is beauty in functionality and simplicity. A Raven is a statement of that. It's strong, safe, reliable.

Technology level design principles are interesting because they essentially are no more than new paintjobs with the occasional supplements of a wing or hardpoint here and there, yet they still manage to create the impression that some ships are totally different from the ones they inherited their hull from. And surprise, surprise - they usually are. I don't want to spend much discussing them right now - they pose a significan improvement over the looks of their T1 counterparts.

So. CCP is rewamping all ship graphics, and the most troubling part in this is that I'm not sure if there's a filter on how far they can move from the original looks. Because that is what EVE is like. Sinister, rusty, dangerous.

Sessym out.

Habitual Life

2011-07-20T10:28:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #14

We capsuleers are so much different from the people that die for real when killed. Well, we act like we were different. In truth, there is more to this. When you stop dying, some things change. For instance, I no longer fear for anything. I consider myself and my assets already gone because both body and the battleship surrounding it is made of something I can replace. It is certainly an inconvenience, but it's good for the economy.

The crew, on the other hand, is another matter. Those people die when the hull crumbles. The sad thing in this all is that I don't really care. There are thousands more who dream of being part of an Abaddon class battleship's town-sized crew. I can replace them, too. Ethics and morals matter little to most capsuleers. They delude themselves that they fight for something honorable, though in many cases it's their own interest that is motivating them. ISK, Loyality points, more ISK, admiration, new ships, domination of a territory - ISK again. People have yet to see themselves for the animals they are.

Capsuleers are not only no less selfish than ordinary people are, they have something dangerous in common with them: habits. Some have the habit of self-destructing their ship. This is relatively harmless, since the sequence allows most of the crew to evacuate. Some have the habit of killing everything on sight. What we enjoy is not always what we do, however, we pursue our own habits. I for one, have the rather expensive habit of buying new ships over and over. I don't really need them, my trusty old battleships and haulers are up to the job for the most occasions. It's just ISK burns. I must spend it on my experiments.

Take Quintessence, the new Legion class strategic cruiser I built, for example. I didn't need it per say, yet it has five hundred millions or more in it. I wanted a ship that is mobile yet durable. It is a costly and extremely strong vessel for its size, not mentioning all the luxury that Tech level 3 equipment comes with. I really enjoyed the time I was perfecting my technique with it, the piloting it involves to allow it to emerge unscathed from the most missions classified as level four. It is especially effective against the swarms of rouge drones that like to deploy small crafts in large numbers. But functionally speaking, it only is really more useful than a battleship if you have long distances to cover. Otherwise the firepower is far from what the Abaddon sports.

What I want to emphasize with this is that even capsuleers are human, just losing grip due to the lifting of some limitations. I have a habit of experimenting with equipment and my trained crew really enjoys it. However, I know of a group that have an even nastier habit. The Jovians. They experiment on others. By others, meaning whole empires. I was wondering why did they give the capsule to the childish human races? When I think of habits, I now know the answer.

We are a fucking experiment. A large part of intelligence in humans comes from the awareness of death and fear of the unknown. They tried to take away them, to see how people would change. By this move, they exaggerated our tendency to live by habits. They made us more like the animals we thrive to leave behind.

The disease that lurks in them is that of indifference. Somehow the people that have it start to lose interest in anything. Life becomes a habit for them, they live because they haven't died yet, until they can't even be bothered to breathe. They probably try to understand this part of the human nature, the animal that they so fervently sought to purge with their genetic modifications. The ones suffering from the jovian disease, they are a sad reminder that instinct and consciousness should never be separated. We, capsuleers may well be the experiment to make them understand instinct, something they lost in pursuit of false superiority.

So in the end I can only conclude with one statement that may have been said when they thought of this:
"Let's see what happens."

Sessym out.

To 'win EVE'

2011-07-19T14:49:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #13

I have read some interesting thoughts this week. You remember the butterfly effect trailer, don't you? Well, what my thoughts were revolvign around lately are just this. The story of the trailer is that a lone capsuleer roams about 0.0, and saves a miner who in return invites him into a fleet that in the end escalates to a giant capital battle. I mean, can you really do this? It would be amazing if you could. Then again, it might not be that simple.

First off, I don't really think you could find a miner who is a member of a 0.0 alliance mining alone. It's too dangerous, and miners are the kind that likes being protected. So most likely by the time you find a lone miner, you're reported like 10 times in their intel channels, and he's the one left behind from the other warping off, a gang of combat pilots on the way to gank you.

For the sake of storytelling, let's assume you somehow do succeed in saving someone from an alliance. Maybe alt characters or something. Now you aren't just simply invited to fly into the next blobfight. You'll be milled through the careful security process they have. IF they find you adequate, then MAYBE you can participate next time there is a major battle.

And here we are done picking that trailer apart. But 'I was there'... Yeah, another masterpiece of a video. That's another sort. What that guy is talink about is the flow experience I have talked about way back. It also lays out a future(?) vision for EVE flying in space experience. Right now, it is more likely that the enemy is bridged in from a Titan, onto a cyno, with capital ships on the field, and the battleship fleet that is depicted in the trailer is more likely to be evaporated before the hero interceptor can make the legendary run. There are things to do. It was mentioned in the CSM minutes too, that large fleets provide little opportunity for individual heroism. You have a fleet commander yelling out commands, and grunts following them, while the logistics pilots, either in their advanced cruiser hulls or in their carriers are trying to keep firepower from dropping like flies.

EVE is a good game. It provides opportunity for many things. But when it comes to focusing on your goals, you may end up with the feeling that you can't 'win EVE'. You can't get the thing you are looking for. Because you were not there. You were sitting beyond your computer, trying to make out what the FC just shouted for the fifth time, while trying to get a lock on the primary, struggling with the low framerate you are getting on the screen.

So what can you do if you want to be there? You need to change role. You need to change purpose. Or, wait for the oh-so-rare moment, and get more and more disappointed by each encounter. From all the activities I tried, the best were the rookie roams. Because I was totally there. I was flying my frigate, I was unstoppable and indestructible. I didn't try anything. I did it.

For today, this is the primary lesson. To win EVE, thou shalt not try, thou shalt do. It may be sometimes hard. It may mean many different things at once. As a die-hard miner, you may strive to suck up that huge spodumain roid. As a filthy pirate, you may want to keep your status perfect -10. As a faction war participant, you may wish your supported empire to own all lowsec. As a market guru, you may want to make billions a day. As an alliance leader, you may want to lead your people to triumph, to own all of 0.0. It is possible. Sometimes, you get the impression it's not. But if you get out there, you may as well succeed. There are hundreds of others trying. But you have a plan, and you don't just try, you do.

The point of EVE, where you 'win' it, is not even when you accomplish your goal. That's too easy. The true win is when you have fun.

Sessym out.

The Yarr Gene

2011-07-14T10:44:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #12

I usually rant and rave about the greater goings-on inside the EVE universe and everything else connected. Now I feel it's time I share a few thoughts that are related to my own dealings.

First of all, no longer being a part of the 0.0 business, I enjoy, like most of the people flying warships in high sec space, the new world of missioning. It became a lot easier to access agents and I like it. There are some unexpected (or rather, well expected) effects of this improved quality of life. Namely, the quiet backwater system I live in with the former Q20 agent now is home to a lot more people. The population exploded into three or four times its size since then.

There is another interesting trend here. I'm not sure if they are new, or just growing rich, buy fancy new ships, but I see more and more expensive, pimped ships each day. Such is human nature, you might say. Where people had only flown Dominixes, Apocs, Ravens and even Drakes, now is quite a few Machariels, Golems, navy issue ships. Watching them, something happened to me.

I remembered. The roots of my EVE playtime came back to me. The things I have been taught, and the thing that I was originally interested in. Piracy. I grew jealous of their shiny ships and began to thirst their loot. I already know the thesis of getting it. Just need a few more millions to begin tricking them into giving me their stuff or their money. So yeah, the Yarr Gene surfaced. There's hoping I won't screw up, because if I don't do, there may be some more interesting stories here.

Sessym out.

The Capital Question

2011-07-13T12:56:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #11

This year's first CSM Summit, where the not-quite-pixel people travel, we elect to represent our internet spaceships needs, and in the 'Ask any question, devs answer' thread, an interesting concept seems to unfold. Namely, the matter of capital ships. In short, CCP is looking at capital ships as a whole, and talk indicates there are plan in place to redesign this layer of the game. Let us dwell into this today.

So, I was not here when capitals were introduced but the concept is pretty clear. Basically we have these assets as a tool for pixel empires to battle each other more effectively. Capital ships are meant to be strategic, military powerhouses that entities with sufficient wealth to support them can rely on to keep their territory intact or conquer more. This sounds great, but as always, devil's in the details. Again, I'm no expert on the history of capitals, so I will defer from recounting past changes.

The current situation however is pretty obvious to those that spent a good chunk of time in sovereign 0.0 space. From the top down, we have Titans. These ships allow alliances to drop entire subcapital fleets on a cynosural field, essentially teleporting them many jumps away. Furthermore, they possess impressive firepower in both capital sized weapons and the Doomsday Device, which allows for instant extermination of one ship, and is hard to counter with fittings even on the beefiest ships.

Next down the list is the Supercarrier. Previously called motherships, these things were transformed into an anti-capital ship with the introduction of fighter-bombers. Essentially, these were meant to be the counter to Titans, with their massive amount of hitpoints and jump range. We will touch on this a bit more further.

The most used and reliable capital ship is the Carrier. These class of ships are the packmules of EVE. Not only are they able to travel far with their jumpdrive, but their abilities in remote repairing, carrying a multitude of assembled and outfit ships as well as ammunition makes them invaluable for not only 0.0 corporations but many individuals. For a high-end player it is almost mandatory to have one. Just by owning a carrier you gain a self sufficiency that can help you weather the worst of times. For the same reason, losing one is a loss that you really can feel.

Then there is the poor old Dreadnought. These once loathed ships are now only used when the fighter bombers of supercarriers cannot reach the target. The main reason for this is their expected lifetime. Since siege mode, wherein they are most effective locks them in place with no remote repair allowed, a dreadnought is perceived to have a life expectancy of a tackler frigate. If there is a major encounter, it will be targeted and will go down quickly from the insane DPS of the fighter bombers.

The main roles of capitals right now, based on the above, are logistics, repairs, and infrastructure warfare. The problem here is, you have 4 ships for 3 roles. What should be done, then? There are many concepts, so I would like to share mine.

Let's get to the generic changes first. We need them to be used in serious situations, not hotrops. And therefore, let's reduce their jump range, while retaining the fuel statistics. This means they are capable of bridging the same distance but with twice the planning. Second, balance tanking ability so that any capital can actively tank one another, but a few smaller ships (like, 3 battleships) will break them. This will provide the need for the support fleet.

Let's proceed with the roles then. First of all, we need a ship that provides logistics, as in spare ships, clones, ammunition, fitting. For that, bring back the mothership. Cloning bay, ammo bay, fairly large cargo, ship maintenance hangar that can carry about 10 battleships assembled, and allow it to jump the longest from the list of supercapitals.

Second, we need a ship that can provide capital repairs to those in need. The carrier is a fine example, its ship maintenance hangar should be tweaked to accommodate only smaller ships, but maybe more than the cubic meters allow. This is necessary

The third role is infrastructural warfare. The Dreadnought could make a return here, being cost effective and providing damage output to stationary objects and structures without being pinned down. An XL weapon tweak might be needed so that the siege nonsense is either not required or is no longer a nonsense.

What about the Titan, you may ask. Well, it should become the ultimate weapon against other capitals, with the DD allowing to break through the carriers' repairs on anything.

To keep the existing content, new capital ships could be added. For example, a black ops capital that can bridge a fleet just as a Titan can right now, or a sleek assault carrier that has low hitpoints but is agile, has versatile fitting and can field fighters and bombers alike. Think of it like a capital arbitrator. There could also be AOE EWAR ships that belong into this group and perform things like the projected ECM burst. Once you free up the capital ships from the sovereignty grind, the possibilities open up.

Despite all the speculations though, CCP will likely implement it in a way that no outsider can think of right now, or I hope so they will.

Sessym out.

The Wonderful Six - Connection Between Mirrors and Internet Spaceships

2011-06-27T07:26:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #10

The rage is about to cease as I write this entry. Thousands of players have made clear to CCP what they don't want. In essence, there was no clear word on whether CCP decides to sell non-vanity items in its newly introduced cash shop.

But let us stop for a moment here. Vanity and non-vanity? What are we talking about?

To cite a classic EVE response: 'It depends.' So, everybody thinks it's clear but the nature of EVE is in fact very resistant to micortransactions. I say that because the complex mechanics that make up the game are depending on simple principles. Those are in short risk, trade-off and effort.

Risk means that whatever you have, your actions can and most of the time will result in losing it, whether you value it or not. Ships can pop, prices can shift, competition can drive you out of business any time.

Trade-off is the principle that your decisions have to have an impact. The best example is ship fitting. Do I armor tank my hurricane and sacrifice its speed and damage, or do I shield tank it and sacrifice slots that could have been used for tackle and EWAR? Or in industry - do I buy it and save the time required for production, or do I build it and take the risk of selling whatever I need it for later?

Effort is required to make the game meaningful and a value as entertainment. Essentially, everything you do takes time, ISK, skill training, faction standings, etc. This means that not just you, every other person who engages in the same activity, has to put at least the same energy and time into it as you to compete with you.

And that, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, is where we connect to the world of microtransactions. This is something all game developers will consider when they are thinking of ways to add the ability to buy ingame things with real money. The predicament we face is a simple question that is hard to answer well. How do we not break the game with it so people will still enjoy it? The answer seems as simple as keeping the cash shop vanity-only. But the how does it translate to EVE, is what I am trying to explain here.

When I say EVE is very resistant to breaking, I refer to the above introduced three principles that make up the bones and flesh of it. If you introduce something that bypasses any of them, you break the game. You still have to be carefulwith it. Let's look at a few examples.

Example 1: 'Aura' projectile ammunition

Does all kinds of damage, evenly split but no more than Faction Ammo.
Short-range Ammo, with all other stats the same as e.g. EMP S/M/L.
Unique graphical effect when firing it.
No material cost, just drop AUR and you get the shells.
Can be put on contracts, sold on market

Example 2: 'Decimator' Gallente battleship

A T2 Hyperion with increased power grid and same CPU and same slot layout as the T1 hull.
Requires Marauders 3 and Gallente BS 5 to board
Role bonus of increased Web range, velocity factor
125 m^3 drone bay and 125 bandwith
Only the blueprint copy is handed out, requires the same materials as a marauder would.

Example 3: 'Divinitiy' Amarr Control Tower

No standings required to anchor.
Invulnerable in an online state.
50% reduction in fuel cost for all modules.
Only the blueprint copy is handed out, requires materials to build.
Cannot be sold, relocated to player hangar upon destruction of carrying ship.

So, here they are. Now, which one of the items listed above is vanity? It is example 2, the Decimator! It is a fairly overpowered ship, why the hell then, you may ask is it okay to put this in the cash shop? Let's see!

Risk - check! You may have it "pimped out" as you want, but I land a black ops gang on it, and it's gone before you know it. It'll pop just like any other ship does.
Effort - check! You need to train up to board it, you need to build it from materials that have been created by normal game mechanics.
Trade-off - check! Since it does not bypass the fitting requirements, so you'll still have to think carefully what you put in its slots.

Now let's take a look at why the other two examples are non-vanity, in other words, gamebreaker stuff. Example 1, the ammunition is created out of thin air. It bypasses the effort rule. It also does all kinds of damage, which, if set too high, will bypass the trade-off rule. Example 3, the POS tower is bad because it most importantly bypasses risk - cannot be destroyed in normal circumstances and cannot be taken by killing the ship that carries it. Also, to a lesser extent, it bypasses effort, because anchoring in high security space would normally take months of standing grind. It also is unavailable for any other players who might be interested in it.

So, to sum things up, when a cash shop item enters EVE, there are quite a few requirements that should all be met in order to make it blend into the game. I'll call these the 'Wonderful Six':

Risk - All the risks that are associated to the same item group must also apply to the cash-shop item.
Effort - There must be an ingame effort associated with the item, preferably higher or the same as its group.
Trade-off - It must not eliminate trade-offs typical to its group.
Availability - It must be available to everyone, at least via purchase with ISK. (Most of the times the AUR cycle will provide this, but it's still a valid concern.)
Balance - It must be balanced against its own class of items, and must not give an arbitrary advantage.
Challenge - It must not eliminate or overly diminish the challenges a player might face during the game.

When purchasing cash shop items, please consider the following. Buying anything that does not meet the above criteria enters what I call the no-fun zone. It will sooner or later break the game experience for all parties involved.

Sessym out.

Dude, your face...

2011-06-22T15:24:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #9

Actually your whole body. Yes, in EVE. You can see people in EVE now... Ah well, not really. It's just some bloke in a makeshift apartment staring at his billion-ISK fleet. The more interesting part, however, is the story of all this.

It's been talked about a lot, it's been worked on a lot, and now finally, after much rage and red, the first piece is finally out. On Tranquility and of the way. Because what the characters walking inside their capitain's quarters' really are can be called as a tech demo. Now they know how to do a few things.

First, they sort of know how to control character avatars in an interior environment. The movement is smooth, though it definitely can use some work. The way the character reacts is a bit awkward in that it sometimes follows the camera angle, sometimes not. On top of that, I'm not entirely sure the WASD controls were the best choice. I find that a lot of times you start typing 'wwwwwwwwww' in some text window instead of walking forward. I personally would welcome a point n click approach included, so that the damn space barbie can walk up to that couch and sit without having to play a platformer game towards it. Oh wait...

Second, they now know how to do the station interiors themselves, lot of work ahead, huh?

Third, we can see a glimpse of the new interface in there. Yes, I'm talking about the active ship menu. This being CCP we're talking about, it is quite likely, that they aren't going to design something entirely new when they have a few bit lying about. So yeah, get ready for floating transparent buttons and windows overlay.

I can't stop myself but continue my verdict with the statement that the biggest plus I cna see is they have a lot of potential there. God knows, I might even get out of the CQ and mess around with other people in station. I also want to meet Scotty, the docking manager. The graphics are damn good too, but I'm not sure about the optimization. Got some flickers here and there on high settings, but I only have a dx10 card so that I cna contend with.
After carefully evaluating the situation with this expansion (read: raise eyebrow, nod head, sip beer, relax eyebrow) the current standpoint is: 'So what...' Yeah, I'm left a bit indifferent. After much excitement, it wasn't that big of an impression. Maybe it's just me, but the content presented here seems to be irrelevant to my interests. So, is Incarna a fail or a win? In some sense, both. It failed to leave the amount of immersion I was expecting. It's like two worlds in the same game. I suspect this has to do with the difference in graphic detail and lighting. In space, you have fairly low-res textures on most ships. In the station, everything is smooth, shiny, clear. It breaks the game into two. This, I feared from the start. What we can see here is technically amazing and I must applaud the people that put the effort and imagination behind it.
Because it is apparent on every surface and every little movement, that it was a whole lot of work, trial and failure to make Slideshow Online available parallel with Spreadsheets online.
But when I look at the screen something gets lost. It really is apprent when you look at people's new and old portraits. Something that was very EVE, got lost in the process. I am not a very good writer and thus I can only convey this in one way: MOAR RUST.

There is another huge feature though that made me smile. As you may know, I'm a gunnery pilot. And, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, let me present you the new turrets! The purity of awesome just got a new definition. I really like the new turrets. The only minor Issue I could find is that while the old ones were generally light-colored, their icons could be seen in space next to the targets. However, the new turret graphics came with new icons, meaning that now there are dark, green, brown, even black dominant colors, making it difficult to see which targets have one on them at one glance.

So. One room. One guy. 67 new turret models. Good work, CCP. Now please finish it.

Sessym out.

The pests

2011-06-17T07:44:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #8

This is my high-sec home. We're missioning, and salvaging and blowing up NPC's. The only problems are the pests. While other places have rats or roids, we have...

NINJAS.

That's right. They come into a mission and grab its loot. Floating junk all over the place, might as well use it, right? Well, you'd have thought that it was all they do. But when you look at their employment history and see a two year old pilot you realize they're usually up to something more. There's a reason why I don't really bother with them. First, let's see what they do and want you to do.

1. Scan down missioning ship. It's easy most of the time, because most missioning ships are battleships or no unscannable objects anyways.
2. Warp to mission area. Usually by the time you get a warpin, the owner had completed or tanked the first room.
3. Start salvaging wrecks. Since salvage won't flag you, the danger of CONCORD being spawned protects the salvager from the mission owner. Not that he could catch a frigate anyways.
4. Steal loot from mission runner. Criminal flag obtained, the ninja practically invites the mission owner to shoot him / her. And, ladies, gentlemen, and capsuleers, that's where the magic happens.
5. Kill mission runner.
6. Drink tears.

Now you may wonder how the fuck can part 5 happen. Easy. When you shoot at someone in low and high security space, they got 15 minutes to take revenge. That's more than enough for a witty capsuleer to jump your slow, undertanked battleship and beat the shit out of it. Not jsut that, but the whole corporation the ninja is in can attack you too, and they probably will if they're nearby. Also, by shooting at the precious loot you tried to protect, they can extend the timer further, so if you get the idea to dock up and wait for things to clear up, don't forget the timer.

So, what can be done to throw the sand of the sandbox back into the face of the 'bully'. Let's go through the list again:
1. Unscannable ship. Like a Tengu. Tradeoff is, it's expensive and gimped. You might just get ganked the other way by suiciders.
2 and 3. Use marauders. Skill-intensive, expensive, but fast in completing missions and also is able to get the loot from 40k away. Until then, you can shave off the frustation by letting go of wrecks. Some missions can be blitzed easily. Some might have bounties worth gunning for. But in overall, you can optimize your cheap insurable T1 battleship to do the job until you train up.
4. Dun shoot at no ninjaz. It's almost certain that they have something up their sleeve. If they realize you don't give a damn, they probably will go away. Or, take the loot. Watch for the mission objective though. Some objective items cannot be stolen, some can (those that can be bought over the market). Always obtain that first or leave the ship it is in alive if possible. Transporters are especially nice in this way because they even save you the trouble of approaching their wrecks.
5. You can build hybrid setups that can live with neuting and tank the other PVP ship (for example,a hurricane). Fit war distruptor or warp scrambler. Omni-tank and carry various ammunition. Run if there are more than 1 BC's. Usually can't tank them AND the mission. They will probably bring passive tanks and cheap stuff because of CONCORD. Be aware though that they are living off this, and generally have a better understanding of aggro mechanics. They can, for example bring logistics ships into the fight. High sec consensual, non-war PVP is more like, for example Lineage II than EVE. You have flags you have to watch. We've covered that few lines up.
6. If you got your ass kicked, don't get angry. They'll often convo you and try to piss you off. Disregard, answer with cool head, analyse. If you don't behave like a child whose toy was taken, there's a good chance they'll begin to respect you. It's a rare thing.

I keep telling myself I'm not some carebear. Truth is, I am. I just like to shoot at both red crosses and internet spaceships of pixel people. And yeah, I'm also trigger-happy. Sometimes I find myself cursing like
"Why the hell has highsec to be like this.. I want to shoot people out of the blue if I don't like them."
Then I realize that's jsut not EVE. In EVE, you either take the full risk, or let everything go as it goes.

Sessym out.

They're doing it

2011-06-09T15:13:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #7

So yeah, DUST 514 is coming. CCP in their infinite wishdom decided several years back that they would do another game that makes the planets in EVE matter. And they recently announced the new game that's born out of the enthusiasm. It will probably be cool. Or not. But that'as not the point. The point is, CCP is trying to do something very different with DUST than they did with EVE.

Our beloved spaceship game is a game of long planning. You sourself set the objectives of the game by selecting some features - and they are available for anybody working hard enough towards them - or create entirely new ones using the already existing features as tools.

Mind you, DUST will be inherently different. They could have gone with something like an RTS or some simulator game, it would have been very good and using the experience they gathered from EVE. Rather than choosing easy, they 'in their infinite' wishdom thought of something more crazy. A shooter. On console. And they say it will be sandbox and in a persistent world. How, then, you may ask it is different from internet pixel space? The keyword, my dear friends is instant gratification.

First of all, they wanted something that you can hop in right away and go play with. So yeah, that narrows the possibilities to a few options. Then when you take it further, you realize that this kind of stuff is best played out on console. The next step was obvious in the thinking: look for areas with lot of free market, because that's waht CCP is good at. And you end up right away with console shooter.

So you'll have this game where people insert their disk to the box, load up and start shooting internet pixel clone people right away. It does not require planning. It does not require you setting an long-run objective. But you CAN. And some people will. And they'll become the leadership of DUST 514 corps or specialists in say, vehicles. But. To get ahead of the crowd, you must spend real money to unlock that new gun.

And here we go again. They try something different. Microtransactions. Oh noes, the horror. You might say that there will also be microtransactions in EVE but that's another matter. That black leather jacket you buy with AUR is not equipment. You may also point out that you can obtain ISK via selling PLEX. Albeit true, the nature of EVE online makes it so that rich as you may be, the stuff is destructible or can be taken. Nothing is bound, nothing is safe. That I can contend with. Living in the mess of a country I am, I will probably never be able to affor such luxury anyways. And then there's the DUST 514 microtransaction plans. New weapon blueprints? New vehicles? To unlock them, they say, you either pay with AUR or ISK. Now, let's talk about 'getting the edge'.

In EVE, if you want equipment as first, you must build it yourself before anyone else. To do that, you need to be anything but rich IRL. You have to be on the spot right on time, you have to have the appropriate skills and equipment first, and then vigilant enough to get ahead of competition. It takes brains not dollars.

Now look at the DUST 514 plans. So, say, you want to get your cutting edge armor before anyone else? Pay x amount of AUR. Yeah, there might be skills and rankings and other stuff you must take care of but because of the nature and speed of the game, it probably is already done by the time you can open your purse. No brains. Just dollars. Since the game will be living off the player's willingness of buying new stuff, to provide incentive for the customers, it definitely WILL give an advantage.

So regardless of what businessmen think, and regardless of what some people are parroting, I think the evaluation of success for DUST 514 can come from how true the following three sentences will be:
1: 'I haven't spent a cent over buying the game, and I still can be a successful player.'
2: 'I am strongly dependent on the happenings of both the EVE Online universe, and the layer that's DUST 514's world.'
3: 'Years have gone by, and I still play DUST 514 with a whole lot of my friends.'

Sessym out.

This won't be the last

2011-06-07T19:32:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log Entry #6

Taking a break. Yeah, that's a common thing for most EVE players. It has much to do with human nature. Basically, there are three main types of quitters.

The first group is the people who start weighting their real life happenings way over the game. This is nothing to frown upon. If you have stuff™ to do, then you have stuff™ to do. So they realize that they long for their internet spaceships less than the subscription is worth. They often come back when things settle or when they can arrange their free time again.

The second group is the burnt out. Well, this is slightly less glorious than stuff™ to do. To put it in its harsh simplicity, they screwed up. They got bored. Bored. In EVE. In most cases there is so much to do in the game, most people haven't tried things or tried but never got to the point where it starts being fun. Instead, they pursue select activities to the point they stop being fun. But there are differrent mistakes that can lead to burnout.

First is overdrive. When you concentrate and develop somthing to perfection. Suddenly you realize that if not all your conditions are met, you're feeling awkward. You simply stop ejoying the aspect that other players can do their thing and that often means they compete with you, and screw you over eventually. This relates to the flow theory I introduced in my first entry. Basically you put yourself outside the flow domain, the task being too easy and the reward being too high. What you are doing to have fun stopr being fun and you don't realize it until it's too late. It's time then to take a break (and let your account expire if the financial aspect is of concern) for a few months. You'll return when the longing becomes grater than the memory of tedium.

Second reason for a burnout is oversatisfaction, the "I have everything" effect. This basically is the reason why older players often leave the game. The experience becomes shallow and even new content gets old fast. Unless an oversatisfied person finds something he can dwell into for new flow, he's lost. It is then advisable to take a break, probably get some long skills running while new content is produced.

The third group of people who stop playing EVE do something utterly strange, nested deep within their understanding of the world. They 'ragequit'. In a fit of emtional turmoil, they decide to leave the game and never look back. They may make a huge fuss over it, shouting their often flawed viewpoints to the community, who, franky, couldn't care less. Childish and unfruitful reaction, that alienates mature people, because if they don't share the view, they will see little point in the move.

I tell you one secret. Be it any kind of quitter, you are very likely just taking a break. He who tasted the internet spaceships shall never forget the flow. He shall return when appropriate, to the embrace of this cold, harsh universe of pixel people sitting in pixel spaceships pixel shooting each other, letting the pixel DUST 514 of their pixel empires to fall on pixel planets.

Sessym out.

The Blob

2011-05-31T07:21:00.000+02:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #5

Today's topic is another often misused word in the EVE universe. It is a fairly hot topic everywhere, but ties well to the last post, Tiny Empires. So. Blob. It exists anywhere where there's no limit how many people can play together. It's what other games call zerging and constitutes a tactic of obtaining victory over other groups of players by reliance on numbers.

To blob, or not to blob, that is the question? Apparently, it's not. But as it stands, EVE players use the word for two meanings, and they might even not be aware. The first meaning is aforementioned tactic, where you get fight with uneven numbers, thus throwing all odds against you. An then there's the other. The so called 'blob warfare'. This will refer to another aspect of the game, the large scale battles. Because what's really a blob?

blob (blb)

1. A soft, amorphous mass.

2. A daub, as of color.

Let's go with soft, amorphous mass. Because spacehips are like liquid, just more shooty. So there's this mass of people wo want to achieve certain objective. Ideally they move as one, act as one. They are a blob. When you see a hundred drakes warp on the same grid, the word really gets meaning. The thing is, there's power in numbers.

First of all, there's the safety thing. Because you're blobbing, the only thing that dares to attack you is a bigger blob, or a counter blob of nearly the same size.

Then, there's time. Yeah, if you think of sov warfare, time's definitely a factor. We have these timers that cause the dreaded metagaming of alarm clocking another alliance. Tactics of setting the 24 hour timers off at the lowest activity times for the enemy. It's so EVE, yet it borders on crime to force people wake up early or stay at night just because your alliance must protect system lol-tac-shit. Otherwise good communities fall apart on this.

With the right kind of blob, everything is possible in 0.0

Now let's think about this a little more. What do you think happened if there were artificial limitations in place so that the fight may be 'fair'? Nothing, really. Everyone would travel with maximum numbers allowed and maximum strength allowed. In other words, there would be no place for newbies in really good alliances throughout the game. Is that what you want? I'd rather be blobbed all the time than have only a few places to learn. And yeah, if you look carefully you will see blobs that lost to a much smaller group. Lag and counterfits and all that.

Sessym out.

Tiny Empires

2011-03-10T10:32:00.000+01:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #4

In EVE, empires constantly form and fall. Or, as the players would describe it: win and failscade. 0.0 is a place of the ultimate sandboxiness, where everything that is, is there because of the players. Stations are built by them. A value of a system is determined by them. The laws and rules are determined by them. That all is possible because they can form giant organizations of several thousand and still operate relatively effectively. In fact, a well organized alliance is no less than a tiny pixel empire, where pixel people build, conquer and defend their pixel homes. This all despite the hardships they face.

First, there is the matter of game mechanics. The easy part. This and that works the way it is. Tools are missing and people find themselves constantly compensating for something that should be there. It is not 'awesome' from a user viewpoint, but surely is from a developer view. Basically people are showing CCP how to do things, with minimal game design effort involved. Whether it is done or not, however, is another question. Promisses were made and broken, but that is not my point.

My point is, that either by being built into the game or facilitated by people, the infrastructure is there. Mess with that, and you'll open a can of worms that may well be delicious jelly candy, but more likely infectous parasites. In my opinion, CCP disregards human behavioural patterns too much, and while in most cases exploiting them beneficially, in the sovereignity warfare, it is ill-treated. People tend to band together. They are cooperating. They are networkers, and sooner or later will build up relationships with each other on every possible level.

That is why all massively multiplayeer games have clans, guilds, corps, whatever. It's the first level of organised association. Even nerds from the basement recognize the need for such element being supported from within the game. And then corps become either friendly, neutral or hostile towards each other. Corps have their own profiles with similarities banding together. And when that is strong enough they begin to realize what they can accomplish, and begin to see limits in their operation. The next level of oganization begins when differences between the lower-level groups start to compliment each other. And that, dear readers is an alliance. It is fairly common for a game to accomodate this level, too. But it does not stop there.

Now when we have an organization that encompasses different profiles and unites them into a force to be reckoned with, 'physical' factors come into play. This many people will need wast resources and space. This many people are willing to work together for a common good, and are eager to put their newfound strenght to use. They might find that their neighbors have resources they need but lack, and either strike deals or wage war with them. Soon the landscape will be riddled with the scars of battle as large groups are too ambitious or different to make agreements. And then the third level of organization hits. Leaderships realize that loose friendships are usually mutually beneficial and begin to build another network of friendly and hostile organizations. That is a coalition. And it forms everywhere, anyway.

What makes EVE coalitions so special then, you might ask? Well, the answer may not be with me yet, but there are certain factors that inveitably strenghtens the meaning of a coalition. First of all, EVE is a harsh space. Security is an unknown concept until enforced. Therefore weaker entities can only survive if they are either left alone or befriend others. Being left alone though is really rare in New Eden. If they smell your weakness, other groups will undoubtedly attempt to take what they can. This causes ties to tighten up. And when the larger entities realize that there is always a bigger fish they do the same. Team up. Aid each other. There may be some sparks between them, but their sharing makes them stronger. And that is no game mechanic. That is how we as a race became the pest of the planet. Sufficiently stubborn people grouping together always appear to win over environment.

There was talk about taking away jump bridges. That would be utterly stupid, because the purpose would be to weaken coalitions. What do you think will happen when the only way to move suppllies is a convoy? People team up against harsh conditions. They will make it so that they must only move through blue space. In numbers lies security. Alliances will team up to ensure flow of supplies. That means more, tighter coalitions, not more warfare.

Sessym out.

The Politics of Internet Spaceships

2011-03-07T13:52:00.000+01:00

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #3

How very typical of people. My dear friends, it's now official. EVE Online is no longer a game!

It used to be that you logged in did whatever you wanted and logged of. It used to be that you set an alarm clock for a CTA and put it out with the other eleven hundred. But that was all play. Even if it was serious business. Even if some people stated it's a lifeform, it, in truth just was a game.

Before you stop reading because I'm confusing you, let me elaborate. This far EVE politics consisted of major alliances spouting propaganda. Now it has begun. The CSM elections. This year it's different. No longer the CSM are hitchhikers to Iceland. They are now player representatives, stakeholders, whatever. In one word, it's politics. True politics. They are competing for your votes. They are doing so with campaigns. They are doing debates on blogs, podcasts, etc. They propagate themslves in every possible way in order to win 'the most expensive free trip to Iceland you'll ever get'.

It is a bit humorous, though. Because it was really predictable that a lot of peple will want in on the cake when they know for sure it's delicious. I don't mean to insult them. They probably all mean well. But I would like to warn them if I could. It just struck me that with this transition, the CSM is transforming to what very much resembles a senate. They will be elected by players, they will be watched, their words will be hung on. It is a good chance to make the voices of everyone heard. But it has another potential.

They will gain popularity in the process, and that is an ethically slippery thing to climb on. People tend to change, tend to turn. And the whole CSM business can turn with them to something different. It can turn to groups trying to advocate ideas that benefit only them. Some people laughed at the CSM before because they seemed to be a 'PR stunt', they saw them as meaningless puppets. Then the former CSM's, with the fifth beign the more successful, proved otherwise. Now many people of those think that the CSM is indeed useful. And that is dangerous. They will want to use them, but not in the ways they meant to be. The ways are that of greed, egoism and malice. If that comes true, I will laugh at them. All of them.

I play computer games to challenge my wit, to have me thinking of new trinkets, of new ways to use what I have. Turning CSM into true politics is a step in the direction of ruining my fun. It will then depend on CCP and whether give in to the attempts of make the game easy for some people. When that happens I'm totally quitting. But that's going too far forward. I suppose we'll see what this spaceships politics would bring.

Sessym out.

Carebears and their ilk

2011-02-14T21:52:00.000+01:00

Bold Pilot Log, entry #2

In EVE, there is a strange air around this type of person. Actually, the term Carebear has evolved in quite a predictable way. Originally it way used for the 'why can't we all just get along' type of people. Nowadays you are a carebear if don't have tackling devices or long range optimization fit to your ship. It doesn't matter if you are just grinding to get the ISK for a new shiny toy. So let's narrow down the term 'Carebear' to the people who try to live peacefully.

It's not going to happen. Because of sandbox. Because of other beople. Being safe in EVE doesn't mean that there is no threat. It essentially does not allow a situation where you are not in danger of losing something. That's assuming of course you're not sitting in a station and spinning your favourite ship. What safety boils down to, is that there are no threats that you are not able to avoid. This property fo the game has been cause of much whining in the past. Actually it is one of the things that has kept it alive.

It is simply much more fun to play a fully competitive game than it is with a fully cooperative one. By the latter, I can think of games like Guild Wars. A Guild Wars character is pretty much lost without a guild. Without buddies to play with, it gets old really fast. Not EVE. Being a privateer in EVE has its upsides. You don't have to trust anybody. You don't have to share with anybody. But you also will not get much help. It's no Carebears haven. It may seem like, if you are living in high sec or deep in 0.0 with a nice pvp alliance to protect you. But that, just like safety, is an illusion.

High sec is only safe until you aren't interesting. You start building your way, and then without a way of avoiding the upcoming dangers, you are beaten back to where you came from. Others will want your stuff. They want it because the best way for many things to be acquired is to take it from someone. That is why just can't get along peacefully. You have a moon that I want, I will shoot your POS. You fit shiny expensive modules on your missioning ship, I will find a way to blow it up and take it. Nothing is safe but there is hope. There's a tool that will keep you safe in eve. A neat little feature that comes embedded in all players. Brains. Use them.

A little hint on how might be useful you say? Well, I might try.

Scout for threats before risking something valuable.
Don't risk what you can't afford to replace. Yeah that's the correct advice. You maybe can afford to lose your Tengu because you have the ISK to build another. You maybe can afford to lose your Nyx because it's not your ratting ship, just a tool for battle. You might be able to afford risking to fall for a scam because you then just sit back into your carrier and rat for another evening. Got it?
Research subjects before venturing into unknown areas. Someone has done it before and surely, he was clever enough to leave out the important details. That's where your own brain can help.
Analyze your losses. What did you wrong? What was inveitable? Did you have a hunch that something's not right? What was helpful? What can you do to make sure it does not happen again?

This EVE online is a computer game. Your brain is inevitable part of the play. It sometimes can make you feel you are a failure. Maybe. Maybe it's just a kind poke to get better. You ain't gonna lose anything valuable. It isn't serious business or anything right? :)

Sessym out

You have become what all men should fear...

2011-02-03T19:47:00.000+01:00

Bold Pilot log, entry #1

Nerdchills. That's what they call that strange feeling that rushes through you when you see something awesome of a pixel-play. And then there is that odd way you lose yourself in something, thinking, dreaming about some awesome pixels while time rushes by and after having some fun with it it occurs to you that the Sun's rising. "You are about to become what all men should fear..."

No, seriously, EVE Online is one of those games you can forget yourself in. You even find yourself doing things out of habit. I find a sweet irony in the intro video that tries to establish your role as a capsuleer, and what that means. The irony being that those who forget themselves in the EVE universe indeed become something all men should fear. Nerds. Haha. You may be reading this and thinking that computer games are evil or that I'm insulting your favourite game. Let me reassure you that either is not true. What I mean is not a trait of a game but a very human reaction.

It is called the 'Flow' theory. Namely, when the challenge and reward is kept between the right constraints, a special state of mind occurs, where time is of no concern, and the side-effects of the activity are not noticed. Some people live it so strongly, that even the memory of such a flow state is a reward and an incentive of its own to repeat the activity over and over. Some people cna go to extreme lengths trying to re-live the flow. This, my dear reader, is what I dub the cause of game addicton. A good game is addictive in a way that it rewards the challenges you are up to. EVE in this regard is, as in many more ways, unique. The sandbox theory it builds on allows you to pick your own challenges, and, more importantly, mostof the time your rewards as well.

This is, however, a double-edged blade in more than one regard. Firstly, chosing your own challenges in a proper, flow-generating way requires a special type of person. This loophole of the sandbox is what repels the unfitting personality. There is no need to see this as an insult: some people simply don't find this kind of entertainment pleasing. When I'm saying you are not an EVE-player personality, it's not a deterrent, you could still be a very clever person with three degrees seeking refuge from your daily chores. What matters however, is the way you pick your goals. Most people point to the learning curve when they are prompted to name the main cause of people leaving EVE. The second duality in the nature of the sandbox is that the soul of the game is competition. You are competing with all players at all times on many levels. This, too can deter people of specific personality. The third thing is the response of the environment. It is not very game-like in the way that faults do come back to bite you. This is etched into EVE so deeply, that if I, for one, found out that you can make mistakes without paying their toll in time or isk, I'd definitely leave the game alone. But there are many people that don't like when silly moves backfire. This too is a trait that is required to fully enjoy EVE.

And then there is another interesting element. The people who have been playing this game for a long time, and remember things many don't. They sometimes are described as 'bitter vets'. This, I tell you, is too the flow theory in work. They had many flow experiences. So many in fact, that it is now long-term memory. You know the saying about time and memories... Yes, the human memory is selective, and gradually leaves out the undesirable memories. This causes them to recount the past flow memories as 'good old times'. They too long for the flow, and often have formed some sort of neither with nor without addiction, that often crystalizes as being pessimistic or indifferent.

Now let us slip into the backstory a little more. You are about to become what all men should fear... Why should New Eden's people fear you? Because you don't just die? Because you can be more powerful than their empires? No. The reason, they should fear you, dear capsuleer is that you have just the right psychology to get flow experience while knowing full well that you are crushing lives and destroying billions worth of assets with a few buttons. The true reason they fear you is that they don't know what you enjoy most, yet you directly or indirectly interfere with their lives and bring change. People fear change. People fear those that enjoy changing things. People fear that you'll have a flow in the wrong time at the wrong place and the wrong way.

If you are a true EVE-player, that psychology may not be too far from you. The sandbox serves a beneficial role. It keeps the flow inside, and you out.

Sessym out.