The Old Guard

So much news, so many posts, makes me wonder why I should say anything as so many others are saying so much. Still, a blog without posts is a dead blog.

So the latest news with the financial statement for CCP and the money they have borrowed. Seems fairly normal for business, bet big and hope your horse comes in. The big horse bet is Dust514. I suspect Dust514 will get off to a good start. The crunch is does it have the legs, and given CCP’s performance with EVE so far I would say so, does it have the market’s attention, i.e. do gamers want to play it (seems so) and will the cash cow be milked in time for the investors? (probably not)

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/06/realities-of-eve.html

The loan is interesting, in that what will happen when the chickens come home to roost? Will the investor be prepared to wait? What will they ask for? (a 10% share in the company based on future profit projections?), will CCP simply borrow from Peter to pay Paul? All very interesting, suffice to say I think things will stumble on anyway after the dead line. When the coffers run dry is when things close the doors, so we’re not there yet.

Letrange is now quitting, sigh, liked his blog. All Jester (Ripard Teg) seems too write about mainly now is Global Agenda. Helicity Bosun, KIA via CCP. Sigh. All a damn shame. We’re losing the old guard one player at a time, very sad times. Guess it’s all part of it, the turn over and there has to be a trigger event to stop people playing after a number of years. Given the loyalty shown by most players though it’s a bad sign of the times given the ructions from CCP and the forums on fire.

So when am I quitting? Thought about unsubscribing my accounts, solidarity and all, but reality is there is no point. I have a mate who has done some silly things and is now housed courtesy of the Government. I am running his 2 accounts, bit bizarre to unsubscribe my two and keep his running. I am managing his POS and skills, tidying things up for him while he’s taking some time out.

Also I will be there until the lights turns off, it’s just who I am. If there is an idiot holding the flag atop the hill alone that would be me, stupid and loyal to the end. Loyalty just works for me as a person. I have the utmost respect for the French Old Guard after Waterloo (1815), they refused to surrender and were cut down by close range canister (grapeshot), but the stood, the never gave up and they died proud. Someone has to be there at the end. Seems to be what I do, so I’m here until EVE goes down.

Also heard of an old bloke, over 70, in an old folks home in Florida who was playing EVE. He loved it, met people from all over the world, could play when he liked and no one judged him other than by who he was in game. It kept his brain alive as well. Could be me one day, beats fading away.....

Captains Quarters

Think the best article I have seen is by Roc Wieler, an entertaining read with some great ideas:

http://rocwieler.com/2011/06/28/incarna-1-01/

If CCP had put out a lot of fun items like Roc has suggested at reasonable prices I think they would have sold like hot cakes. I almost got some plex just for Aurum, but thought I’d wait to see what I could get, glad I did.

Would have loved an Amarr snipers laser rifle, a Caldari rail gun, some politically incorrect posters and an alien skull. Not to be. Imagine if you could get stupid things, like bowler hats, pith helmets, simple monocles, canes and top hats. Imagine a corp specifying that attire for meetings and corp members! Imagine a group in hunting jackets and pith helmets all in a group at the bar, the macho ones in camo headbands and the vixen squad in latex (now EVE is distracting me from EVE LOL). It would be cheap fun, and a lot of it would be enjoyed. I was keen to part with some coin over silly items.

Instead I got the myopic CCP view with an $80 monocle that doesn’t even shoot frikkin’ laser beams. Can’t even strap the laser monocle to a corgy and tie fire crackers to its tail and let it lose in station.

I hope in time we get some junk like Roc details, I’d buy it. How about something useful like dotlan maps on the Tele? Still, you have to start somewhere and I guess this is what we’ve got.

Anarchy

There is no secret of the rage that is out there, forums are on fire, CCP is pouring petrol on the blaze and bitter vets are getting perma-banned (like Helcity Bosun http://www.machine9.net/blog/?p=609 ) and people are unsubscribing their accounts. The CSM has responded well and issues the same statement through both Saleene and Trebor. No news there, it’s all over the EVE channels.
http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-friday.html
http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-friday.html

So, WTF is going on? Let’s try and filter a little bit. I have held off on any comments for two reasons, I have been busy with the NC failscade trying to get my stuff out of Dodge, and it pays to wait a little when sh*t storms hit to see what filters out. My job involves filtering the anger and coming up with what people are saying and trying to find a way forward.  I am not professing to be smart, just not stupid and I use common sense (which isn’t common right?). In fact I would say my management style comes from the movie saving Private Ryan to a certain extent (based on the little speech as to the worthiness of the mission). Basically problems stop with me and solutions begin.

I think EVE has just had its first heart attack. It’s had arrhythmias, palpitations’ and other warning sign, but its cardiac arrest time now. Like all things it a culmination of events. It’s Aurum and the cost of vanity items, it’s CQ and is lack of depth, resource hog monkey face avatars, its null sec nerfs (anomalies and JB’s, as well as poor industry options, RMT, unbalanced super caps) and the perceived CCP disconnect from its audience and CCP’s hidden agendas.  The crunch is, is this a fatal heart attack? Or is it a severe warning, and who is the warning to, CCP or the EVE gaming community?

I was watching a documentary on the cold war last night (couldn’t do much in null sec without a cyno) and noted from Winston Churchill’s speech about the Iron Curtain going up over Europe. It your statements aren’t bold, they just noise. So my bold statement:

This is the first heart attack before the imminent death of the patient. EVE, the game we know is dying and changing into something current players may not recognise in the near future.
So let’s look at some theories, which if tested long enough become facts (Richard Dawkins and ‘the Greatest Show on Earth). Theory: CCP is moving EVE in a different direction from the existing game model.

Fact:  The money trail shows what CCP is interested. It is roughly 40% Dust514, 40% Walking in Stations and Aurum vanity/luxury items, 20% EVE game development

Fact: The backlog of current game issues is so long that it will not be addressed in the next few years with the current resources assigned.

Fact: MT are a normal way of generating large revenue volumes which exist in other gaming platform models, such as FPS and Virtual games. In fact games make more money than Hollywood and non-dedicated gamers make more money than serious gamers (so the $100 million per year for Farmville alone on FB is played by non-dedicated gamers and a bigger market source of revenue)

Fact: CSM is the voice of the players; it does not have to be listened to nor is it privy to major game direction/strategy or significant financial events related to the existing EVE game.

Fact: CCP GM’s have publically stated, and taken action against outspoken players (both with and without good cause), to indicate that the general EVE gaming communities opinion is not valued.

Fact: one current area of CCP’s success is the retention of new players (who won’t know any different of how it used to be compared to the bitter old vets).

The CSM is nothing more than a reflection of the community, a voice that is heard but does not have to be taken on board by CCP. The disconnect can be seen in the current attempts by the CSM to work with and communicate with CCP, and the way they were uninvolved in the pricing of vanity items. In fact you could say they were kept in the dark, and this was a deliberate CCP management decision.

I wonder if my note about the Sims dying and trying to pick up on this market for VR in space as a new market demographic. Smart, but a fail. CQ is not working. It is a resource hog for ugly monkeys (where did my cool avatar go) with real life prices for pixel vanity items. This may work in the dying Sims model, but not in EVE currently. Note, currently, this is where I expect to see a major change.

Clear skies clearly showed what a group of awesome amateurs could do on their own time and resources. Compare the results to CQ with it years in development and you can see why it’s such a fail (Clear skies has multiple races, ships and stations for environments, we get one limited one for EVE after how many years?). But the fail may be for existing players, not for new ones. The new potential players know no different, and CCP is trying to attract a new demographic with a new model. VR in stations is not to appeal to the existing player base, but a new one. It is to be expanded and be allocated resources regardless of what the existing community think. It’s a business decision and model that CCP is pursuing.

Dust 514 is also a major commitment of resources from CCP that once again does not support the existing player base, and is in fact intended to deliberately appeal to a different market demographic.

So CCP has put major resources into walking in stations and Dust514, neither of which are for the existing player base, but to attract a new market demographic. Existing issues have been around for a long time and we have all been asking for them to be addressed for years, and still no resources. Hmm, this indicates that it’s not important to CCP. That a new market will pay MT without thinking for Dust and CQ, as they know no different and it’s a model they are already familiar with.

It’s like CCP has said the game as it exists is great, but the big money is in MT and vanity items, and that’s not our current game demographic. They have sunk significant resources into this perceived new market and left the existing to stagger along as ‘it still works so it’s ok’. Then when the community complains (via forums, etc) CCP has slammed old vets (Helcity), ignored CSM and kept them in the dark and issued official postings that basically say ‘shut up you whiners we’re doing this anyway’. Hmm, doesn’t sound to me like they give a damn about the existing community other than as a platform on which to shift the business model for the entire business.

What we have feared is also supported by the leaked newsletter. I totally agree with what Jester has to say (this is well worth a read): http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/06/pebble.html . Taking it one step further, if you worked at a company and were asked to contribute to an internal publication, would you say the corporate rally cry or something controversial (severely limiting your career lifespan in the organisation). While it may be un-official it is the ‘allowed’ opinions internally. You try saying something against the culture of a company and see how long you enjoy the remnants of your job.

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=932 

I think CCP believes the current gaming community as very demanding for a low revenue model. A better revenue model is what they are pursing and see this as growing pains and do not care about those they lose along the way. They think they are right, have a plan, and are awesome. They have patted themselves on the back and believe their own propaganda. But, you can’t dump the current gamer demographic without actually having the next one in place. This is one execution to soon, and it could well be the death of EVE.

CCP doesn’t care as it no longer wishes to support the current gaming community. It doesn’t care if we all leave, it’s chasing new markets, and we are last century’s business model. If you emo-rage quit they will say, told you so, they were high maintenance and low financial rewards.

The crunch now is whether like a heart attack victim will the patient, CCP, listen to the advice (player base/CSM) and take action to improve its health, or will it say no, we’re right, your wrong and carry on until the next massive heart attack and its inevitable death? I am sure CCP is hoping the sims and FPS will save its business in time, uh-oh....

The emperors new clothes

Saleenes blog says it all:
http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/2011/06/megatransactions-incarna-10.html

Think it can be best summarised:
I can buy some expensive CCP pixels or some real sexy underwear for my real life Mrs for the same price, hmm, guess mistress EVE will take a distant second place.

For sh*ts n giggles

EVE is a pretty serious game and it would be nice to see some more light hearted things. Here's some random ideas:

• I can rig a ship but not a still, when can I make my own in game alcohol and sell it rather than it be seeded. I mean, who has cornered the hooch market?
• Luxury liners (Gallente?), they get mentioned, why can’t I fit one out and fly high paying patrons around?
• Luxury yachts – wanna make one and sell them.....
• Offshore gambling (outside the 200km water limits and into international waters) are big business, I want a casino ship to go with my brewery....
• Oh, but the vices of alcohol and gambling? Better add a whore house – exotic dancers sorry or an Amarr Chapel ship for the penitent.
• So that’s one odd ship for each race, expect for the Caldari smuggler, which has a small compartment that you can’t scan for drug smuggling, etcetera.
• And I want a Ferrari now I’m a squillionaire

As for gold plated chromed colts with ivory handles guess we might get that with Aurum in Captains Quarters when they add personal items for Incarna/walking in stations expansions.

On a slightly more serious note – how would stealth bomber hunters work? Bit like u-boats and sub-hunters of WW2 I would have thought. A special sonar fitting to ping them out? Or a special probe? Or maybe a cool effect which leaves like a glittering snail trail (think Star Trek did this) that you track to a point which you can then try and uncloak.... would be thinking it would be a T2 Destroyer with 2 fitting options – sonar or snail trail.

Oh well, just some random less serious thoughts.

Paranoia saves

The recent DDOS attacks on EVE should come as no surprise, given recent events around NC/EVEnews24 and others. Also given the global climate of attacks by LULZ....

So what can you do?
1. Update all your Microsoft patches
2. Install Secunia PSI, patch and update everything else that Secunia highlights
3. Make sure you anti-virus is up to date and valid
4. For the paranoid (or more security able) install a free firewall (such... as those that come with an Anti-Virus product or Comodo)
5. Be paranoid about emails and links you are sent (hovering over them shows you the actual link, if it does not look legit then it isnt)

Its ok, I use apple/linux so I am safe. Hahahahaha, your the first sucker I will visit then. Research has shown that because that fallacy exists the users of Apple are more gullible and better targets than other users (LOL) because they think they are safer.
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/20/apple_malware_attacks/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/17/apple_sql_attack/
Secunia recently reported that from 2005 to 2010, Apple has had more security vulnerabilities than Microsoft except for a single year (2006).
Its now that OS's other than MS are getting market penetration of significance that hackers (read organised crime) and now starting to exploit those OS's.

So its simple, Patch and make sure your AV (preferably with a firewall) is up-to-date.
I would also recommend for the paranoid to change your EVE account passwords. This should be done periodically anyway so now is a good time when a security alert has been raised.

An ugly thought

Hypothetically: Imagine CCP hires an economist (yes, I know they really do have one)and said to them look at the impact of RMT and tell us what it is doing to the game. So the economist needs some numbers to work with. CCP runs a query against its logs, give me all the players who are on for over say 20 hours a day and never leave system. Ok, it’s not 100% but it’s only theoretical. It maps them against systems and hey presto lots of pretty lights showing where the bots are working. Pick a few from each area, check more detailed logs to get what kind of activity (mining or ratting) and work out how much on average the bots are making across the board. Not an unreasonable way or demanding task to run.

Ok, now the economist has some numbers that are a reasonable reflection of what’s happening. Then look at changes over time and compare it to the impact of what is going on in game. Look at sovereignty loss, and namely ships build numbers and losses. Building a super cap requires a lot of minerals, sovereignty, and ISK spent. This can drive the economy to perform certain acts, where to be based, what resources you need. Then look at the crunch, big ships cost big money ($1000USD + for a super carrier), and does RMT actually support or inhibit super caps and caps?

What if the answer was it supports so much other in game events that the financial impact is to actually drive the EVE in game economy more than if it didn’t exist? What if CCP doesn’t do much about bots because it’s not in their interest to do so? It’s a sand box right, and as long as the profit margins increase it’s a winner.

They want smaller PVP in null sec, which means breaking up the big alliances. Bust them for RMT? Seems they are all doing it. There’s the null sec remap in a flash if you want it. Bit harsh? How about Jove incursions: have killer Jove fleets warp in to where confirmed bots are running, blow them away, and the POS they use. Any fleet that turns up to protect them also gets wacked. It would work, but is it in CCP’s best interest to actually stop the bots and RMT or does it help drive the economy?

Oh well, all a great conspiracy theory, would be interesting to know the truth. Would love to be able to run some queries against CCP’s servers and see what drops out. Otherwise it’s all just dark thoughts late at night (yeah, couldn’t sleep, brain went off on strange tangents).

Defining a bitter vet

Playing for years and realising its all a big stitch up.

Thank f*#k it’s only a game or one could become quite embittered by it.  It does get to me, but I just kind of shrug, get over it and go back to the game. What’s wrong, fundamentally, is Real Money trading (RMT). Like all things it is never one factor that pushes things over a threshold. No one thing is particularly significant, until threshold is reached then everything seems to boil over. So what else is flawed to add up to threshold?

Null sec is the ultimate end aim, but is it?

1.       Null sec industry is not broken, it’s completely useless. You mine minerals only because its the only way to get the high end ones, then you ship them out to empire (unless you have specific cap builds that need them in null sec). Mining only works in fleet so you can kill enough rocks and tank the rats. Then when you have the minerals you are really only interested in building caps, especially given the limited number of build and R&D slots available. It means that you have to have an empire base (or low sec) to contemplate building in null sec. Then let’s not even consider how building ships to melt them down is the most efficient way of moving minerals. http://letrangeeve.blogspot.com/2011/06/some-reflection-on-00-life-and-kills.html

2.       Ratting sucks? See http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/04/equal-pay-for-equal-risk.html  basically the return on time versus risk means you are better off mission running! You can get the lottery in some ways when you hit a hauler spawn (load of minerals) or a nice drop from a rat, but it’s not as efficient (read safe) as Empire, so not as cost effective. The only way to rat is to scan down dungeons and do them, so that’s another ship (cov ops) with associated skills, call it Null Sec elitism requirement, for not a lot. Add the recent nerf to ratting plexes and this is now a big bulls eye. By that check maps such as DotLan and see where rats are being wacked, where the very low sec areas are for the rats and you now have a rich environment to go hunt ratters for PVP. So yeah, bulls eye has been painted on those areas.

3.       Small fleets are dead fleets. You head off on a small roam, it snow balls a bit, you shoot at a few things, stir up a hornets’ nest and get hunted down by a large red fleet. When you get on roams as well it can be hard to find kills http://www.ninveah.com/2011/06/collapsing-waveform.html

4.       No movement without carriers. Jump freighters suck, only repackaged ships and containers. So moving junk is painful. Change them so they can carry rigged ships and full containers and they start actually becoming freighters, rather than a big fat pain in the arse (rich target). It seems carriers are great for moving things which I thought would be a freighters role. Without a carrier in Null sec you’re screwed. See  http://letrangeeve.blogspot.com/2011/06/some-reflection-on-00-life-and-kills.html for another opinion along the same lines.

5.       Getting your arse kicked without a fight. The enemy roles out a big cap fleet, your side can’t face it, so they roll over sovereignty without you being able to stop them. So you need a carrier to move stuff, don’t have one? Well you can side by the fireside as it all burns down. Everyone is busy moving their stuff out, so without a carrier you are at the mercy of others. It has cost me a lot more than a few times.  My worst kill mail that haunts my table (which sucks) was when my corp turned traitor and I bailed, stuck in nowhere moving my stuff and got caught by a red fleet in blue space. Most of my losses have come from trying to flee collapsing regions, like Geminate, through heavily camped areas. So now with a flick of sovereignty, with no fight, and no losses I wave good bye to 2 DIC’s, 2 HIC’s, 1 AHAC, 1 SB, 1 Electronic attack frigate, 1 Ashimmu and 1 logistics. That hurts.

6.       Null sec war is pointless. I roll out my fleet, you roll out a bigger one, we rally and roll out more, and then so do the reds, so we pack up and go home. Oh wait, no, let’s fight. First on grid wins. Time dilation my arse. Grids loaded, holding, enemy warps in, lag hits, one side wipes the other for 100% kills and no losses. Yeah, hell, that was fun. Blob fleets and lag, game over. It cuts both ways I guess, a Geddon I was flying get red boxed by the whole enemy fleet and sailed on through the middle of the enemy fleet without a scratch in Y8R when we were hot dropped. Yeah, that makes sense, proves the point that he who is first on grid wins. http://www.ninveah.com/2011/06/fall-of-nc-from-casual-grunts-view.html

So there’s the things that stack up but are ok, until the final kicking. Which is:

RMT
It seems all major null sec coalitions are involved in RMT. Evidence posted on EVEnews24 about Russian based RMT got them DDOS’d. Here is the evidence on NC and the goons:
http://www.evenews24.com/2011/06/10/jabber-logs-purportedly-throws-proof-of-northern-coalition-leadership-allegations/
What is CCP doing about this? Notes from XXX  show they are planning something. But is the actions with tech moons (non-existent one day, then added, one rumour had it to make NC a target). Is this all due to high level politics? Did the NC not pay off the right people to keep it’s RMT going? IT Alliance went south over RMT (link), why not the NC? Why not the DRF next?

So what is CCP going to do about this? RMT is the crunch, this is what puts it over the threshold, this is what is killing Null Sec.

And this is just kind of funny. Where’d the ‘Reds’ get there super cap fleet? They bought it off the NC. Everyone so interested in profits they sold themselves down the river. Reads a little like the end of the Vietnam War with South Vietnam trying to make as much money as possible until the house of cards collapsed and everyone looked around going how did that happen?

And for the sidelines, Bitter vet view on dust – let’s ignore it. What if you threw a war and nobody came? I actually really like the idea, and would love to play it. But I am not buying a PS3 to do it. I was looking at buying a console to play with my little boy, and a PS3 was on the cards. But Sony has so blown it, just bad timing for CCP.  I agree with CCP’s business model to chose Sony, seems limits from Xbox stopped them developing for that platform, so CCP went with what they had, fair call. That aside I like the blurb, seems like a cool game and has an extra factor that a lot of other games don’t offer. But there are a lot of FPS games out there, so why should people part with their cold hard cash to play it. A serious question, really, what if CCP threw a war and no one paid?

Bitterness aside, I like scanning down dungeons, ratting, roaming around in null sec, going on roams and being parts of big fleets, chatting on TS with corpies, watching sovereignty flip. It’s all good. At the end of the day it’s a just a game and I still love it. It doesn’t cost much for a lot of fun and meeting some cool people. And I want to play Dust514.

The NC is dead, long live the king?

Sounds like the longest lived coalition/alliance has passed away today. Hats off to the Russian super cap fleet for the unstoppable steam roller. Like all things in EVE this is just the way things go.
Wonder if CCP sorting out bots will result in the fall of the DRF? are they next?