Confessions of a Closet Carebear: EVE Blog Banter

Showing posts with label EVE Blog Banter. Show all posts

Thursday, July 5, 2012

This Far, No Further...

Welcome to the thirty-seventh edition of the EVE Blog Banter, the community discussion that brings the collective minds of the EVE blogosphere together to chew the cud, exchange opinions or troll the world.

"EVE Online sits on the frontier of social gaming, providing an entertainment environment like no other. The vibrant society of interacting and conflicting communities, both within the EVE client and without, is the driving force behind EVE's success. However, the anonymity of internet culture combined with a competitive gaming environment encourages in-game behaviour to spread beyond the confines of the sandbox. Where is the line?"

Rumors abound in this game. Rumors and urban legends. Buried amongst them may be some facts, but one can never be sure where those rumors blend into facts. EVE is rich in stories, player created events and actions, and the nature of the game promotes this with a single, shared universe across the world. People have always been known to do what they could to win - some more than others - but what is the edge of acceptable? At what point does the metagame go past gaming and into the dangerous realm of crime, and how do those who push the edge justify their actions?

EVE is real. CCP wants this marketing slogan from 2011 to become fact. But with this desire comes good and bad, the nature of humanity is revealed in bold strokes. There are good people in EVE. People who will give ISK, ships, advice, almost anything to others. Usually within a specific context, like TEST or Goonswarm with their new-player friendly attitudes. These alliances shower their home-grown new players with ISK, ships and knowledge, perpetuating a pay-it-forward attitude within those groups. Of course, this isn't for everyone. You have to be part of the culture outside of EVE to get access to the culture inside. Something Awful or REDDIT members who are recruited into this world have a leg up on the random player who read an EVE article on PC Gamer. The Mittani claims that this type of recruiting leads to higher player retention – the guy in the ship next to you isn't some random person who happens to have joined the same alliance as you, he's a goon, just like you, an SA member with a posting history and a cultural similarity. You already have an outside-EVE connection. This type of out-of-game experience is good for EVE.

EVE is real. The dark side of EVE is money. Money drives people to do things that they would never believe themselves possible of. In the Real World, perfectly normal, socially responsible people, will do the stupidest things for money. Stealing from work is a common issue. From boxes of pens to computers, upstanding employees have done stupid things because of money. And this crosses over into a game where you literally pay for everything, in time or money (or both). Money changes everything, starting with the level of commitment and what you are willing to do because you are invested in the experience. Many players (myself included) justify in-game action that would be considered cruel, illegal or just not nice outside of the game, because it's just a game. But if you take that kind of action outside the game, you've crossed the line. Anything goes when you are logged into EVE. Steal 50 billion in ISK and ships from your alliance. Give some new player a billion ISK because they made you smile. Pod some fool in a deadspace-fit Hulk. Wipe an entire alliance off the map because you don't like them. To some extent, actions outside of EVE are even acceptable (or laudable). Did you infiltrate an alliance (in game), and have access to their fleet actions during a battle? Happens all the time, in fact most large bloc alliances expect this kind of activity. Did you provide the public password to their TS server to your alliance, and send them greetings in a most unexpected way? This is closer to the edge, but still acceptable, because you aren't outside the EVE bubble yet. It's a very grey edge, and when you cross it, you often cross the line from it's a game to it's a crime – and you may not even realize you've done it. I try to define this line clearly for myself, and I'm going to offer that definition to you as well.

If the action you perform impacts someone outside the EVE bubble then you are over the line. I don't care if their RL Facebook account is linked to their blog which is linked to their corp forums, and their corp is in an alliance at war with yours. The minute you touch that Facebook page you've crossed the line. If you spam an EVE player on Twitter, that's not over the line. If you follow them, see them post to someone outside of EVE and bring that person into the loop, you've crossed the line. If the alliance/corp you are at war with is using an out-of game communication system like Jabber or Teamspeak, the minute you attack the service (not the group using it) you've crossed the line. The line is crossed when it leaves the game world and enters someone's real world. At that point, it's not a game anymore, and it could be a crime. It takes great situational awareness to keep your actions on the correct side of that line if you play the metagame, or a blatant disregard for others in the real world. Don't be that guy.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Crucible: Measures of Austerity

She was tired.

She knew it, because she recognized how others looked at her now. The dark bags forming under her eyes. The streaks of gray in her hair. She was known for her public speaking skills. They had been a major asset in her campaign. But lately, she was less persuasive. Less believable. She was tired.

Panaja walked back to her desk, grabbed her tablet and reviewed the figures again.

"Anzillaques, this can't be correct."

"I'm sorry madame. But we are straining the coffers to pay out bounties to those damn eggers every time Kuvakei's monsters strike."

"They seem to be getting very efficient, why not just scale back the payments?"

"You know that never goes well. Remember what happened in Jita a few months ago? We need to look at additional revenue streams. I've something in mind, of course..."

"Yes?"

"There is a decent volume of planetary production being run by the eggers. We could boost the taxes there, and stop replacing the customs offices when they are destroyed by pirates in losec and null. That should get us through at least for the next few months. In addition, we could let the eggers build the customs offices, and sell them the blueprints. Recoup some of what we are paying out for their work against Kuvakei."

Panaja considered the suggestion.

"It's pretty good. But there's one other thing."

"Yes madame?"

"We aren't underwriting Pend on insurance payouts for suicidal capsuleers anymore."

"I'm sorry?"

"For years, Pend has paid insurance on ships that WE have to destroy, to keep the peace. Now that they are being subsidized by CONCORD, we can stop that foolish practice."

"Interesting..." the CFO punched at her tablet for a few moments...

"Perfect!" We've managed to stretch the budget for the full fiscal year with that additional change, and we can even improve the payouts for assaulting pirate command sites. Of course, this also depends on additional egger recruits, but I'm sure that Obuchi can coordinate a campaign to encourage additional recruits to the capsuleer program."

"Thank you Anzillaques."

"Yes madame."

Panaja Paukonsuo sat, leaning back and closing her eyes. After the last year with the uprising of the capsuleers, and the internal audits and the economic breakdown, these new changes were promising. If she was lucky, she wouldn't be fighting for her job at the next board meeting. Anzillaques had done well. CONCORD would survive this economic downturn, and come out stronger. Of course, the eggers would have to take ownership of remote customs offices, and responsibility to maintain or replace them if they wanted them. Faced with the economic challenges, CONCORD needed to scale back, to focus on secure empire space. She knew it was necessary. CONCORD could barely afford to keep the stargates manned in nullsec, let alone maintenance and replacement of those customs offices.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Crucible: The President

It seemed strange, to be here, in orbit around Caldari Prime, but Miliose was not uncomfortable. Only when looking through the viewport at the Leviathan and it's fleet, did she think of the cold vacuum beyond. A shiver ran through her as she watched.

"Are you sure?" She asked, knowing the answer already.

"Of course. Not only that, the others will be entering production within weeks. Are we ready?"

"Yes, father. The Talos has been ready to enter production for some time. It is an impressive ship. It's a shame that our combat systems do not compliment it..."

"And that brings us to you, Joroutte. What can you report?"

"Well, Mr. President, after completing the modifications to the Talos, we began work on your request to bring blaster cannons up to modern warfare standards. Avagher has the specifications here on the entire product line, as well as plans for retrofitting existing combat systems."

Joroutte looked at her companion, who pulled out a data crystal case and set it on the desk. "We are very, um, excited, by the upgrades we have proposed. The, er, changes we have ready to deploy will, ah, bring the Gallente name back inline as a fearsome combat ship."

"How long?" His piercing blue eyes burned into Avagher Xarasier, his expression unreadable.

"We, ah, believe it will be in conjunction with, ah, the, um, launch of the Talos."

"And do they know?" He asked, looking out the viewport at the Leviathan.

Miliose glanced at the table, then back to her father. "Yes. They have an extensive network of operatives, and they have reverse engineered our blaster upgrades for their railguns."

Jacus Roden smiled, as he turned to the table. "Of course they have. Our ships benefit from their railguns as well."

He smiled now, knowing that Tibus would hear every word. "You have done well. The Federation will grow strong because of your hard work. We will remind our neighbors of our scientific prowess. We will remind them why the blaster was once the most feared weapon in the cluster. They will flee before a fleet of Talos battlecruisers, or they will die."

Crucible: Blog Banter 30

"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?

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?"

Much is being made of the winter expansion currently entitled "Crucible." After a long and dark winter, the spaceships and the universe that revolves around spaceship combat is being focused on in many small (and some larger) ways to restore the polish to a once-favored combat simulator. I have only a few minor concerns with the changes due this winter, but one thing I wish could have been introduced as part of Crucible would be a change to the impacts of Faction War.

Currently there is no real impact to anyone in occupied systems in the warzone. In war, taking possession of assets and controlling conquered territory are some of the least exciting and most necessary activities to stabilize the newly occupied territories. What if your faction stations turned over (from Minmatar to Amarr, and suddenly employed docking fees for the opposing faction? What if station services were disabled in systems that are contested? Some small change to the impacts of Faction War, perhaps even something based on existing mechanics (like something based on incursion effects), would round out the changes in Crucible to address at least something in each of the pain points from the last 3 years. The absence of even a small list of bugfixes for Faction War missions or complexes makes the Empyrian Age the largest expansion that isn't even glanced at in Crucible.

As for backstory, or storyline events to bring cohesiveness to Crucible?

Well, it takes a while to write a story. I'll be writing up separate blog entries for that, in the spirit of the Chronicles.

Crucible: The President
Crucible: Measures of Austerity
Crucible: Capital Competition (coming soon)

Thursday, September 8, 2011

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

Recent events with the CSM Emergency Summit minutes (or lack thereof) and the subsequent dissenting CSM voices on EVE Radio, assorted blogs and various other gaming media have brought the relationship between CCP and the CSM (and therefore the players) to the fore once again.

Tweetfleet conversations later discussing the situation led to calls for a Blog Banter to facilitate a broader dialogue across the blogging community. As a result, the following questions have been asked:

"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?"

OMG! EVE IS DYING! (again?)

Well, we've all heard it. In the almost 4 years I've been playing EVE, I've heard it a lot. EVE is dying. Usually when CCP comes out with an expansion that doesn't meet the wishes of a specific group of players. But then, we all watched the logins increase, from 20k, to 30k, to 40k, and more. And then there was Incarna. I'll admit I log in less since Incarna. In fact, I have two accounts due for renewal in the next 2-3 weeks that I disabled auto-renew on when Incarna came out. And I'm not sure I'll renew them. I've rambled about the expansions before, but looking seriously at each of the semi-annual expansions, Incarna is the first one that is absolutely nothing about spaceships. CCP claims it needs to move towards 3D character interaction (walking in stations) to move forward, but that motion is slower than maple sap in mid-December. Incarna was "released" in June 2011, with one small room and no interaction. Today (September 2011) it's still just one small room and no interaction. This room is supposed to be your quarters, but really it's only accurate if you live in a Minmatar station. So there are 3 more small rooms that haven't come out of CCP yet before we even start talking about actual interaction. And this was considered an expansion of EVE Online. So where did it all go wrong? How about missing the point completely. Here's a quote from the EVE Online website:

What is EVE Online?

EVE is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMORPG) that takes place approximately 20.000 years after our times in a galaxy on the far end of the universe. When you join EVE you assume the role of a freshly graduated „Capsuleer“, a relatively small group of elite spaceship pilots capable of controlling powerful spaceships on their own from within their capsules. Capsuleers are often referred to as "The immortals" due to the fact that the highly advanced capsules they are connected to from the inside, are capable of instantly dowloading their consciousness to a clone of themselves in the case of physical destruction.

This sounds like a game about flying around in spaceships. In fact, that's the reason I started playing back in 2007. Unfortunately, 2 of the last 3 expansions haven't really been about flying around in spaceships. Tyrannis was about planets, and getting stuff out of planets, but no interaction with your actual spaceship (unless you call a mid-space rendezvous with a static box interaction). Incursion made us hope CCP realized the game was about spaceships, and it was pretty good. Incursions are a great way to get players to work together and make a good amount of money in game. It brought some freshness to EVE, although it took several months to trickle out completely. And then there was Incarna. Incarna brought the NEX (a RMT Cash shop for clothing for your new EVE Avatar) and a single room where you get out of your POD and sit on a couch alone. Incarna also brought most standard gaming rigs to their knees with it's intensive hardware requirements and 3D engine, so much so that many veteran players disabled it, only to discover the insult of CCP - when you disable Incarna, you stare at a door. No ship. No hangar. In fact, as far as spaceships go, Incarna reduced the number of functional tools are game playability when in station. Many people took this suggestion (see the door) and cancelled their subscriptions, including myself. As I mentioned, two accounts come due in the next couple weeks. So why would I renew them?

This is the same question many have asked since the release of Incarna. People at CCP used to play EVE. Many still do, I'm sure. But do they do more than log in, flip a skill, and watch the video screen in their Minmatar Captain's Quarters? There was a time that CCP paid attention to what was happening in EVE Online and made adjustments to the game, because they recognized what their players were doing, and came up with ideas to make it better. Then there was a time that CCP recognized that EVE needed something fresh, and exciting, and they added new ships and content to the universe. But that freshness is now stale, changes have been made but not iterated on (like the never-finished nullsec upgrade Dominion), and updates to some ships have made others virtually useless.

So much bad news. So what is the future of EVE Online?

I'm going to be positive, because even after 4 years I still spend hours reading and writing forum and blog posts about this game that I love, but the reality is, CCP has to recognize the issue and act on it sooner than later. I think (I hope) that the winter expansion will bring the focus back to spaceships. Even though team BFF seems to be a small piece of the hundreds of CCP employees, they are the team that seems to actually play this game we love, and they are trying to work on the spaceship side of the game (or at least that's what they say). But as the weeks (and months) pass, more and more subscriptions (like mine) are tailing off, and the number of folks logged in is dropping. Hopefully CCP sees this trend, and in the winter expansion (or before it) they will bring back one small piece that everyone took for granted – low-impact ship spinning. So many would log into EVE, and just sit in station while using corp/alliance/chat (or now Jabber) and undock when there was action. When CCP took away that view, many stopped logging in because the heavy load of the Incarna Engine on a computer, just to stare at your ship, made it hard to do other things while EVE waited. Now, when the ping comes across Jabber, fewer folks are actually logged in, so why bother at all? By showing us the door or 75% CPU/GPU utilization to stand alone in a room, CCP has asked us not to log in and wait, so it becomes effort to log in at all, and people just don't.

The CSM knows it, and they are gearing up to try and push CCP to recognize that bleeding your cow to death isn't the wisest course of action. Posts by The Mittani, Seleene and White Tree show that the CSM is gearing up to do what CCP seems unable to without them - try and save EVE Online. Because if the current trend continues, and there isn't growth for the spaceship side of the game, EVE will die before it can become real (the fantasy shown at FanFest).

Upper management in CCP needs to look at the logs, really and make sure that the spaceships get as much attention as the spaceshirts - because if they don't there won't be anyone to wear the fashionable artwork coming into the NEX.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Alliances and Sovereignty

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from @Tetraetc - "Tetra's EVE Blog" - who asks: "Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"

Before I even begin, I feel the most important part of this particular banter is whether or not the writer has any real experience with any of this. Like any argument, there are multiple side to the questions about the state of nullsec in EVE. So here is the position I write from. In the summer of 2009 I joined a corp that was in an alliance based out of NPC nullsec (Outer Ring). Vanguard[dot] had recently moved there as a stepping stone to bigger nullsec experiences. Living next to Fountain when held by Pandemic Legion, pre-Dominion, and Cloud Ring, when nobody really cared about it (except the station systems in the northwest). Vanguard[dot] was not as PvP focused as my corp leadership, and after a few months we left for a different alliance in Syndicate - Art of Defiance. This small alliance was strongly focused on PvP, with a small internal industry wing to occupy combat-free times, and was quickly absorbed into Dead Terrorists when they decided to experience nullsec and created a difficult environment for Vanguard[dot] in Outer Ring (Vanguard[dot] joined the NC and moved up into a back-end constellation in Pure Blind). As a part of Dead Terrorists I participated in Max 2 (the northern war of Spring 2010), and then held sovereignty in Cloud Ring before the ill-fated decision to assault the south, and the final occupancy (and fall) of Feythabolis. I have been in sovereign holding alliances. I have fought against sovereign holding alliances before and after Dominion. That's the background for where my discussion of this topic will come from.

So on to the show...Have Alliances and the Sovereignty System limited the amount of PvP and RP Potential in Null Sec?
Let's get the easy part out of the way. After the reduction in the lag beast over the last few weeks/months in 2010 and early 2011, PvP from small gang to large fleet is alive and well in 0.0. Sure, targets aren't sitting out belly up on the beach, but they are there. The biggest worry with PvP in nullsec is whether some trigger-happy cyno-dropping fool is the one you catch, and you find yourself facing a bored cap/super pilot, and this isn't even that common. More common is the target-less roams out and around the NPC cores in nullsec and the occasional defense fleet to fight with. Although I personally am not a fan of the current state of the west/north, as long as you are only a bug (small gang) and don't mind flying 10-20 systems for a target, you can roam in the western blue ocean. Alliances and the Sov System have not limited the amount of PvP in Null Sec. There could be objectives and targets within sovereign systems to generate more PVP (which is a whole other topic), but it does exist.

RP is a whole other beast. A recent post by GoonSwarm leader The Mittani on Kugutsumen is a valid perspective. Role Playing in nullsec is a slippery slope, since the expansionist and combative nature of most groups in nullsec will usually not be limited by the character constraints of an RP player. In that selfsame thread, there is an underlying theme that the e-honour of the CVA alliance would have been their undoing had other factors not brought their fall about sooner. In fact, corporations from their RP opponents, Ushra'khan, seem to have mostly lost their RP perspective after breathing too much of the reprocessed air in nullsec stations. In an environment where any system can have value with a fully upgraded iHub, and powerblocs form for mutual defense and cooperation, there is no backwater region that would be left alone for the role-players in EVE to play the game as they choose. In post-dominion EVE, RP seems to be relegated to NPC nullsec and Empire if it is to thrive.

Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?

This sounds like a question from someone who hasn't taken a lot of social courses like world history or politics/government courses. Lets ignore the mechanics at first (yes, they are broken, that's a whole other story). People form communities for shared resources and security. This is actually something that all primates appear to do, and part of what makes us able to live in a modern society. Giant power blocs like the NC, DC, DRF exist because people inherently form groups when overcoming larger challenges. Making this hard to do in EVE is counter to human nature, and not good for the game. The bloc will still form, just in a less obvious way (unless CCP were to do away with standings all together, and that would be a total disaster). Take away the ability of an alliance to do anything, and corps will just form an unofficial one with standings.

And now the beast that is sovereignty. It is a fairly well known fact amongst the nullsec bittervets that the concept of Dominion Sovereignty and the implementation of Dominion Sovereignty are as similar as a blue car and a red car. Like many features in EVE, CCP deployed sovereignty and promised to "tweak it" as they went. Unfortunately they didn't and the current implementation is a mess. Let's revisit what Dominion Sovereignty was supposed to be like. Reading that, and then seeing what came in Dominion, you wonder why they hint at these things at all. The new Sov system was supposed to:

improve the pain of structure shooting (failure)
enable upgraded systems to support up to 100+ pilots (failure)
increase the cost of a sprawling empire (failure)
move sovereign battles away from tower shooting festivals (success)
enable official treaties and rental agreements with other entities (MIA)
enable small "roaming gangs" to impact your day-to-day activities (failure)
force players to develop strategies for conquest beyond warp-target-shoot (failure)
improvement of the industrial base of a nullsec empire (failure)
Return the mothership to the battlefield as a combat ship (success)
Limit the use of the supercarrier (aka mothership) as an anti-capital weapon (failure).

In fact, now's a great time to revisit CCP Abathur's blog series, which sounded pretty good, and does not seem to be anything like what we have today, which actually makes sense since Abathur appears to be gone from the CCP roster. If you took the time to read the Dominion blogs, you know that much of what was planned never happened, including, of course, the ever-mentioned and never-followed iterative development updates.

Now that I've got background in place, here's the thing. Nullsec Sovereignty should never be possible at the corp level. Nullsec Sovereignty should require alliances, but the individual alliances should not be required to sprawl across entire regions just to support a thousand pilots. In addition, the scaled cost of sovereignty should have been implemented in a way to encourage alliances to consolidate in smaller spaces. Small roaming gangs should be able to incite fights or affect your sovereign activities (but not actual ownership) by reducing indices on the iHub modules. Supercapitals shouldn't be able to do significant damage to smaller ships, and shouldn't be nearly invulnerable with a quick CTRL-Q when things don't look good. If you want to "force" more PvP into nullsec, you need to have variable targets that generate combat opportunities or have consequences for choosing not to engage. A quote I love from kugutsumen is "the barbarians should be able to burn the crops if you choose to sit safe in castle, and right now there are no crops to burn."

Thursday, January 13, 2011

EVE and Real Life (EVE Blog Banter #24)

Welcome to the twenty-fourth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Banter topic comes to us from the ever helpful Eelis Kiy, capsuleer behind the "Where the frack is my ship" blog. She asks: How does your real life personality compare to who you are as a character in EVE? Does a good leader of people in the real world make a good leader of pilots in game? Or vice-versa? Do your real-life skills help you with the roles you fulfill in your corporation or alliance? Or do you behave completely differently? Does the anonymity of the Internet allow you to thrive on the tears of others in New Eden whilst you work as a good Samaritan away from your keyboard? Or are you as mean outside of your pod as you are inside it? Have experiences in EVE Online affected your behavior, skills or attitudes outside of the game?

EVE is and always shall be a game. I have multiple "characters" in EVE, and each one represents a different style of play, but none of them represent me. The closest that comes is when my combat toon has a choice between mercy and murder, I don't take the time to think about what the RP/wizardhat solution is - I act. Hence the closest any character in EVE comes to the real me would be my combat toon when in a leadership role (after all, that's the only time a combat toon makes independent choices). As a really old-school gamer (I played the original Dungeons and Dragons (yes, the little brown pamphlets), when I play a game I am able to quickly transition into the game and separate that from reality. Regardless of that, I do not subscribe to the EVE = me arguement. A player may play a Pirate, or a Griefer, or a Can-Flipper, or a deep spy/mole in an opposing alliance, but that has nothing inherently to do with who they are. The challenge for some is that in their personal playstyle, they are the same as the character they play in EVE, so they cannot comprehend a different playstyle. This is the ultimate in role-playing in EVE - subsuming your personality into your spaceship-flying character, and making all decisions as if the pixels on the screen represent you, and choices you would make in real life. When I started playing EVE, this was the original path I followed, my character made choices that I would make, and did things the way I thought I would do them. Over time, I separated those two things, realizing that

I am not an immortal spaceman
The tight integration of me and my character pushed EVE too deeply into my regular life.

So now that we understand my characters in EVE are not a "representation" of me, do my RL skills or abilities apply at all in EVE? Well, yes. Skills and behavior are two different things. I am a decent negotiator, and have some small skill at politics. I also research and study the various aspects of EVE politics for entertainment, so one of my characters is the diplomatic representative for his corp. That character uses my RL skills and knowledge to negotiate with others - but he does not represent me, as the character is an industrialist (and I am not). This isn't even my main (although he's logged in at least as much as my main). In my (perhaps not so humble) opinion, the challenges of leadership in EVE all tie to the fact that a large number of the folks in leadership positions aren't in those positions in real life, because they aren't qualified to be. They may be too young, too inexperienced, or just simply not good at the variety of skills required to be a truly good leader (I certainly don't have enough of those skills, but I know it).

In EVE, you can be whatever or whomever you want. But in reality, you can't be more than you know. You can be different - but not more. Being the chief diplomat or FC for does not make you a real-world diplomat or military commander. Nor does your desire to be an FC or diplomat or CEO or alliance dictator make you good at that job. You may be in that role in EVE, but that doesn't mean you are good at it, in EVE or in real life. It's not a two-way street - what you know (or are) in the real world can affect what you do (and who you play) in EVE, but it doesn't go the other way. Sorry, Leadership V does not make you effective as a real-world squad leader. But ROTC and/or bootcamp might make you a better soldier in EVE.

List of participants:

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Blog Banter #23: Who enters the new incarna(tion) of EVE...

Welcome to the twenty-third installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With Incursion giving us glimpses of what Incarna will have to offer (the the Character Creator), this month's topic, by @Minerpewpew, comes just at the right time. He asks "What are your thoughts on how Incarna will effect the current EVE Online social dynamic?" I'd like to see this questioning go a bit further. How will this affect EVE's player base? Who will Incarna attract? New players to the genre? Seduce old players back into the game? Will we see new players come in that will never leave their station? Please explore to the best of your abilities!

EVE has seen a lot of changes this year, which may make it more appealing to the more mainstream MMO players. Incarna, due (last I recall) this coming summer, is the crown jewel of these changes. The ability to interact in some fashion with others in stations makes a level of EVE accessible to those familiar with the 1st person MMOs, where face to face interaction isn't a static picture next to text. Many people feel that Incarna will actually attract more real women to EVE (not G.I.R.L.s). I think that may be true at first, but unless they are able to find a path and place to deal with the inevitable darkness that exists just under the shiny face of EVE, they will be quick to arrive and quicker to leave. The roots of EVE are a social game - so many players actually just log in to chat it's like a glorified MSN sometimes. That aspect, in conjunction with interaction brought about with Incarna, will open up a new world of EVE with a different class of players. The ability to remotely manage Planetary Interaction, manipulate markets, and other activities that can (hopefully) be run whilst meandering the halls of a station seem to be activities targeted for this class of player.

Incarna may seduce some old players to return, but I don't expect a larger return than any other major expansion, and I don't expect that Incarna itself will be an incentive for those players to stay. Those players weren't EVE players who missed the interaction of others - they are players for whom the game lost it's luster, or just got busy in RL. What Incarna may do for some small number of older players, is open up EVE to their spouses, and by extension open up play time for them again. I have one friend who is married, and his wife is becoming interested in EVE with the new character creator, which has given him the leeway in their busy life to re-subscribe and start playing again.

I don't believe Incarna alone will attract a large new playerbase. Like any expansion, it will attract some old, and some new subscriptions. The difference may be that the new subscriptions to EVE will be less interested in blowing up spaceship pixels, and more interested in building relationships and products in the virtual world we call New Eden.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

EVE Blog Banter #22: Corporation Loyalty - Brothers and Sisters till the end?

Welcome to the twenty-second installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic is brought to us by L'Dene Bean of Nitpickin's who asks: Why, and how did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization "recruits" you. The shorter version: Who holds your Unshakable Fealty and why?

So this is an interesting question, since I run multiple accounts and multiple characters (yeah, how do I manage that, exactly...) Without giving away details, my personal (not character-specific) loyalty is to the first corp I joined. They are a good group of guys (although many are currently away from EVE) that I still chat with out of game, even though they may not be playing right now. The only reason my main left that corp was to maintain my 0.0 PvP lifestyle - the corp was too small for the alliance we were in (as far as active PvP toons) so we did a pseduo-merge with another corp that was in alliance, basically mothballing the original corporation until better times (a.k.a. more game time for the veterans to be able to effectively recruit and train new members). If that corp became an active PvP force again I would (with due consideration and notice to my current corp) head back at my earliest convenience - to fly with guys I like personally.

This is not to reduce the value of my current corp. I have flown with this group in multiple alliances, other members from my old corp are also here, and the group is just as solid, reliable, and entertaining as my old corp (which makes sense, since we were in multiple alliances together and we all got along already). The trend here? It isn't the corp - it's the pilots. That should make sense to anyone who has played a multiplayer game - the appeal is the players you fly with - where they go, you likely will go as well if they are a group you are close to. I even experienced this recently with an RL friend who played EVE with a different group originally. His core group of players had a corp collapse, they all went different ways, and he joined up with my corp for a while. Now that his old group is re-forming, he has left (best of luck!) to fly with his in-game friends - and I understand and respect that completely.

If you are playing EVE, and you don't play with (not just against) others, you are missing the biggest part of the game, and the main attraction to the game - the social aspect.

Monday, August 23, 2010

EVE Blog Banter #20: Griefing, Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming

Welcome to the twentieth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last month, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: "Griefing is a very big part of EVE. Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game. What do you think about all these things? You can talk about one, or all...but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it's needed."

I've been playing EVE for a fairly long time. I've heard lots of calls for "HTFU", or "Griefing is against the TOS" and my personal favorite "I hope you die of cancer." Right or wrong, good or bad, EVE is a virtual place we can be someone other than our day-to-day selves. I know some really nice guys who play EVE - guys with families, who would pull over on the highway in the rain if you were there with your flashers on - and in EVE they wouldn't bat an eye at scamming your entire corp's assets out from under you. These are genuinely good people, who play EVE to escape real life. So lets start with the inevitable fact that EVE is a game, and like any other game, is an escape from your personal reality. If you take EVE too far, and blur the lines between players in a game and the characters they play, you won't like what I have to say (hint: HTFU).

Griefing
Personally, I don't like griefing. The idea that you play to make other miserable intentionally isn't my cup of tea. But I know (or like to think I know) enough to (a) not be a good target for a griefer and (b) to give as good as I get. Mind you, I have no issue with smacktalk, or laughing at someone in local. My issue with griefing (that I don't like it) revolves around the fact that you aren't playing an MMO if you grief one particular player all the time - if you get your jollies in game from being a general ass, that's cool - but I won't be one to play "with" you since that's not my style. ASCII genetalia - fine. Hassling another player so much they emo log or even ragequit - just not cool.

Ninja Salvaging
Totally within the scope of the game. Those who take this to the next level and get the mission runner to attack them and blow up their ships? Experts at harrassment. And no, this is not griefing - unless you are doing this to the same poor sod day in and day out without looking for other targets. I have even been a rookie ninja salvager, without the part where you try to get aggro and blow up the mission runner. I love this piece of the game though. Scan down a mission runner, warp in and salvage his wrecks. Back in the day, salvage could be as valuable as the loot in the cans. Today, maybe not so much, but still valuable. In addition, performing an important service keeping New Eden green by cleaning up other people's trash.

Suicide Ganking
I am of two minds about suicide ganking. First of all, I think it's a perfectly legitimate tactic - my only concern is that even with the recent insurance changes, suicide ganking doesn't have a lot of drawbacks for the ganker. Choosing your ship wisely, you can still break even (or even make a bit of profit) when CONCORD responds to your actions, which I think is an issue since you can also collect the loot from your victim. When I mine in HiSec, I watch my overview, and if someone enters the belt in a vessel that doesn't do mining duty, I am aligned and ready to warp out. Will I survive? Not bloody likely. But I'm going to try. And if they succeed, more power to them. Confession: I have not participated in alliance suicide ganks/freighter ganks. Timing just doesn't work out. But I'd do it in a heartbeat if it worked with my schedule.

Trolling
No brainer. This one brings a smile to my face, or a smack to the forehead when I'm a victim. Total HTFU.

Scamming
Scamming takes two faces, that of the corporate mole/thief and that of the Darwinian opportunist. I think the Darwinian opportunist is brilliant, after all, you should pay attention to what you are giving your ISK for. CCP makes it easy to do this safely - and victims of these scams are frankly, stupid enough to fall for them and should learn from their mistakes. The corporate mole is a different beast, but one that has some grudging respect. Taking days/months/years to develop a character who is designed just to infiltrate (and steal) is a commitment to the game I can't make - although I do have such an alt in the works.

All of these are legitimate courses of play in EVE Online - whether you (or I) like it. So, in the immortal words of every scammer, griefer, troll, and ninja salvager: "HTFU" EVE is a dark, dangerous world, no prettier than the one we live in every day, except that we don't end up face down in an alley bleeding when we get mugged in EVE. It's a game, one that supports many paths to escape the grind of reality.

And if you want more sage advice, you can send 1,000,000 ISK to Swearte Widfarend, and I'll tell you which PI materials to produce between now and October 1st for the highest profit margins, and 1,000,000 more gets you which T2 items to focus your R&D efforts on.