Blog Banter 54 - The Definition of a Hero

I have not written anything here in quite some time, and my latest story is still stuck at the cliffhanger before the final confrontation. But rejoice! There is a Blog Banter to contribute to. Here is the premise:

Do classic heroes exist in EVE? Is such heroism even possible in EVE? How would you go about being one without opening yourself wide open to scams? Is the nature of the game so dark that heroes can't exist? How do you deal with that irony? What effect does this have on us and the psyche of new players coming in from other MMOs? Is it something special that we don't have classic heroes, or should we? Are our non classic heroes more genuine?

And I would add to this, who have we elevated to the level of larger than life heroes ourselves in the game, and do they actually deserve it?

Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. - Zoe, Serenity

Drackarn at Sand, Cider and Spaceships argues that there are no heroes in EVE. Capsuleers are all mass murderers and even the best among them have countless deaths to account for. At first glance he is not wrong. Clearly New Eden is a world of Black and Gray morality. In such a world, heroes are not necessarily nice people, though. As a matter of fact, the idea that heroes are morally impeccable, or even always doing the right thing, is not one that has always applied.

Quite fittingly for my argument, the question asked in the Blog Banter itself refers to the concept of the Classic Hero. Many of those were actually tragic figures doomed to untimely deaths and bound to cause tragedy and despair despite - or sometimes because of - doing heroic things: Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother who commits suicide upon realizing what had happened. He gouges his own eyes out.
Heracles kills his own children in a fit of madness and in another similar episode murders a whole royal family when the King breaks his promise to let Heracles wed his daughter. The guy also commits quite a few scams to achieve his famous twelve labours ... basically he's gaming the system in a very EVE-like way.
Odysseus - upon his return from Troy - slaughters all the suitors of his wife who have taken residence in his house, and then he has all the female servants who slept with any one of them hanged.
Jason scams the king of Colchis and runs off with the Golden Fleece and the king's daughter, whom he betrays later to marry another woman for political gain. Speaking of that daughter, Medea: She helps Jason betray her father, kills her own brother to cover their escape and tricks the daughters of a king to cut their father to pieces. To round it all off she kills the girl that Jason marries instead of her and also the two children she had with Jason.


The list of examples like that could go on to cover almost all the heroes of classical Greek myth. Things were not so black-and-white at all in those stories.

Looking at it from that position, New Eden definitely has it's heroes. The Mittani is a hero for Goonswarm. He was instrumental in bringing down their arch enemy and then in the buildup of the largest and most prosperous empire currently in existence. Elo Knight is a hero because he tirelessly leads Black Legion's fleets to victory after victory, often against superiour forces. The same can be said for the great FCs of Pandemic Legion and NC. Makalu Zarya once was a hero who lead Against All Authorities in an epic but doomed defense of their homeland. In classic hero fashion he then abandoned them after a bitter failure. Progodlegend was there for the same heroic defense that Nulli Secunda lost, just like -A-, and he remained a leader throughout the time that Nulli Secunda rebuilt and returned to be a major power in nullsec again, leading up to the largest fight ever in gaming history.

... and then there is Chribba, but Chribba is not a hero, he is a saint. See the difference?

Indeed, New Eden's player-generated narrative is full of heroes in the classical sense. Heroes with all their dark sides, their tragedies and failings who do indeed get people killed. It doesn't even have to be those larger-than-life alliance leaders and fleet commanders. The wormhole pilot who collapses a hole at the loss of her own ship to lock out part of an invading force. The Interdictor pilots who know that they will be primaried but make sure that the rest of the fleet can beat a bubbled enemy. The logistics people who keep large alliances alive risking their immensely expensive jump freighters on a regular basis. All of them are heroes in the sense of the classical definition.

Heroic deeds just usually do involve lots of bloodshed and tragedy as well.

Blog Banter 50 - Countering Malcanis' Law

I'm a bit late for this month's Blog Banter, but well, the month is not over yet.

This time the net is cast pretty wide with a whole range of questions:

With the Rubicon expansion being announced and the SOMER Blink scandals (or non-scandals depending on your point of view) that have erupted on the community at the same time, it truly feels like an age of EVE has passed and a new one is dawning.

But which direction is it going? This blog banter can be about several different topics: 

- where do you think EVE is going? Is it a good or bad vision ahead?

- if you were EVE's new Executive Producer, where would you take the game?

- What comes (or should come) after Rubicon in terms of the mechanics and ship balancing we've seen? (CSM8 not allowed to answer this one!)

- Is there anything in EVE's ten year past that should be resurrected? Or buried and forgotten?

- What is the future of the community? What should or should not change?

In general, I have a good feeling about the future vision for EVE Online. In contrast to the last ten years, there seems to be a long-term plan on how to move ahead. CCP is becoming more mature in this way.

In other ways the company still retains it's adolescent behaviour as exemplified by the SOMERBlink PR disaster (links not necessary except if you lived under a rock), the latest episode of the ongoing Mintchip soap-opera or the messy handling of the TOS change, but in terms of game development things look promising as far as I am concerned.

Whichever way CCP wants to take the game, however, one of the most pressing issues that they will have to address in the future is how to expand their playerbase without changing the special nature of EVE Online lest they lose what makes their game unique in a world where ever more MMOs are appearing on the scene.

Others have written on the subject already, but I feel like it deserves to be mentioned again for emphasis: There is an inflation of accounts while the real growth of the playerbase appears to be a lot less significant.

Of course I do not have the numbers, but everything I hear and read indicates that this is the case. While on the bottom line, CCP keeps making more money, it also means that they make this money off of fewer people than they could and that this trend is ongoing. Most of those people exist at the high-end of the spectrum - long term players with lots of ISK and experience.

While player retention at this stage is generally good, those players are also the ones most likely to leave the game for longer periods of time due to burnout or real-life matters. An old bittervet who has seen it all will leave and take a lot more convincing to return than someone who tried the game a few months ago and might be reeled back in by some shiny new feature. In the case of an old player leaving, we are looking at anything up from two accounts that might be lost indefinitely.

New players will probably keep coming to the game in numbers for as long as the marketing department does it's work, but there is a lot of turnover there. I dare to speculate that not so many take the step from short-term interest to long term "brand loyalty".

I have the feeling that there might be a real danger that the departure of long-term multi-account players will eventually exceed the potential of new players to keep the game afloat with their coming and going.

To address this, I would propose an actual expansion of the possibilities in game.

EVE is already great in the way how it offers many ways to play the game. If one gets bored or burned out of one way, one can go down a different path. This is the aspect which should be expanded further.

As a central rule for this expansion drive I would propose a modified version of Malcanis Law which states:

"Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of 'new players', that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players."

 My proposed counter to this would be:

 "Whatever measure that is introduced to keep the game fresh and exciting for the bittervets must also attract and retain new players"

There are lots of possibilities to fulfil that statement: Make PVE something else than a repetitive quasi-afk activity that needs actual attention and interaction (How about finally fixing/reworking those COSMOS mission arcs or introducing more Incursion-style PVE?). Change sovereignty mechanics to be less of a mass-fleet grind into something deserving more intelligent maneuvering. (Lots of bloggers have offered opinions and advice on that subject over time.) Redesign the crafting system to make it more attractive and less buggy. Finally redesign the corporation management to make it look less like the badly designed interface for an unnecessarily complex machine. Open up new possibilities for in-game "professions" (Bounty-hunting and mercenary marketplace are still dead in the water, for example)

What has to be central for any of this to work - and not become a fulfilment of Malcanis' Law instead - are possibilities for newer players and older ones alike to have fun and engage with eachother without introducing another mechanic that can be beaten by throwing excessive numbers at it whether that be ISK or amounts of players.

Right now, there are two aspects of EVE which more or less fulfil that criterion: Faction Warfare and Wormhole Space. In the former, there is clearly content which can be played by people in frigates and rather low skills. Numbers work to some extent, but by no means are they as effective or as necessary as in nullsec sovereignty. Wormhole Space has a bit of a higher entry threshold, but it also has a very effective built-in numbers cap through mass limits and the inability to use cynosural fields. Also in Wormhole Space there is a clear "level progression" that helps players to find the place that suits them best while taking away none of the sandbox aspect.

What EVE needs is more avenues to play the game in ways similar to that.

While I am not pleading for CCP to ignore and neglect the big players of nullsec, I would like to point out, that those player empires are pretty self-sufficient in creating content for themselves. They even have their own methods to attract and retain new players.

The assignment rather is, to engage and retain the ones who are not motivated in such a way. That applies whether they are new players without direction or old players who cringe at the thought of yet another operation to take down sov structures or run the same PVE site for the 1000th time.

I will not take the time here to write down every proposal I would be able to come up with for such mechanics, this post is long enough already. I have written down a few in the past, though. Whatever the measures or mechanics introduced, if they try their best to fulfil my rule above while not fulfilling Malcanis' Law, then the path into the future should be a promising one I would dare to say.

As a last thought, about what I would like to see revived from the past, I would say things like the Arek' Jalaan project. That was probably the most inspiring thing I have ever seen emerge from this game. The potential and it's realisation was just wonderful, and it was a sad thing when it was just left to die a quiet death. This mixture of in-game lore, metagame, player interaction and guiding influence from developers was a wonderful synergy that showcased how amazing the things are that can come out of this game.

Blog Banter 48 - Our fictional cultural heritage

After Kirith Kodachi has generously taken on the Blog Banter mantle, he presents me with a subject I simply can not let pass (courtesy of CCP Sisyphus) :

How important is “fluff” in Eve online? Would eve online be the same if it were purely numbers and mechanics, or are the fictional elements important to the enjoyment of the game? Would a pure text, no reference to sci-fi or fancy names still be an engaging game? Should CCP put more or less emphasis on immersion?

For me there were two things that brought me to EVE: The recommendation of a friend, and reading the in-game lore after that. 

Just like Star Wars never needed the whole in-depth lore that was constructed around it to be a successful space opera, EVE doesn't need the lore to be a successful game, but in both cases it just makes the whole thing that much more captivating. (With the prequels, George Lucas has also shown quite effectively how you should not treat your body of lore)

To this day - while I am off "active duty" as far as the game is concerned - I am still actively engaged with it's lore by writing stories which I always strive to keep as faithful to the source material as possible.

The massive amounts of historical background, chronicles, fan-fiction and other contributions to the body of EVE-Lore is almost impossible to ignore. It is just always there like a dim reflection in a transparent surface.

Of course there will be the extreme camps who either go for full-on roleplaying and keep everything as much in-character as possible (even though, not even CVA flies exclusively Amarr ships AFAIK), and there will be those who are just min-maxing and metagaming in complete disregard of anything that has to do with the fictional universe they play in.

Most of us will probably occupy some middle ground between those two extremes. 

Anyone who chose a player race at the beginning for other reasons than "The Rifter is the best beginner PVP ship" or "Caldari have the best PVE ships" has made a more-or-less conscious decision to pick a side for other reasons than pure metagaming. 

It might have been the plucky image of the Minmatar as the successful rebels; the impressive Amarr ships which just radiate a sense of righteousness; the political idealism of the Gallente Federation or the no-nonsense military industrial complex of the Caldari.

Even if people are not actively engaged in factual roleplay they do stumble upon bits and pieces of the background material every so often. Fellow players will tell them stories, they might click on a link to a chronicle or they may wonder what those Angel Cartel guys they are shooting all day are actually all about.

Like children growing up in a world they are thrust into, many of us gain a sense of identity based on a fictional cultural heritage. It may not be strong, but you will sometimes read cries of "Amarr Victor!" or "For the State." in local. Some of us will feel drawn to that, and even those who don't tend to banter in the long hours of an EVE playing session about how Caldari have no sense for aesthetics or how Amarr are religious nuts.

Even Goonswarm - the ultimate metagamers with their own out-of-game community - couldn't resist and came out with a lore-influenced statement for the Caldari Prime live event (and complained a lot about the fact that they were not able to influence the outcome).

I myself had imagined a character background for the game when I started. In good old RP fashion. I didn't really become a roleplayer in EVE, but during my career as wormhole pilot and my brief excursion into the world of mercenary PVP, I always had a sense that I sort of stuck to the path this young woman could have taken if she were an actual citizen of New Eden. Especially wormhole space captivated me with it's dark romanticism and frontier mentality. 

That is also the reason why I keep writing stories about wormhole space capsuleers.

I am sure many players feel a similar undercurrent of influence from the lore that makes EVE the unique setting that it is.

So, the question remains whether I think CCP should do more to immerse people into all that lore.

My answer would be a definitive YES!

However, that has proved to be difficult in it's own way. 

Because there are large entities who can basically project their power everywhere, such events will always suffer from OOC (out of character) interference by those who just want to stick it to "those filthy roleplayers" or simply want to wreck a live event because they can.

It might seem that the only way to prevent this is to create pre-determined outcomes like giving the Minmatar tribal elders super overpowered modules, or by destroying the Shiigeru anyway.

It does not have to be like that though. 

It could easily be argued, that - based on lore - even a large Alliance like Goonswarm or TEST or Solar Fleet could never match the military power of an NPC empire. They may have thousands of capsuleers, with their amassed crews that might be dozens of millions of human beings, but the four large empires have populations numbering in the hundreds if not thousands of billions each.

If the Gallente wanted to destroy the Shiigeru and they would know (of course they have spies) that an empire of nullsec capsuleers were on their way to support the Caldari, then they would gatecamp each and every system in the vicinity with so may Moros Thanatos and Nyx (super)caps that even PL would swoon.

If the Minmatar tribes would go on a trek to bring their elders together for a big meeting, they would send so many fleet boosting Lokis to support their sympathisers that even a newbie in a Rifter could perform like a pilot flying a Dramiel with max skills.

So what if PL does successfully kill one or two of the Tribal Elders by hotdropping them in lowsec? What if Goonswarm does wipe out half the Gallente navy?

They would have their impact on the game but the outcome could still be more or less the same. However, unlike it happened before, the events would be consistent with the lore.

That consistency would be crucial.

If people then complain, their argument could easily be turned against them: Did you really think you are the only ones in this universe who can build Titans or blob with capfleets? 

No, I didn't think so either.

Would that require more manpower and more resources from CCP?

Definitely, but it would also make the live events more satisfactory and more "realistic", and that would enrich our fictional cultural heritage much more than some overpowered deus ex machina CONCORD module.

Others have written more extensively on that particular subject, so I leave it at that.

Of course there are also other sorts of immersion events. The whole Arek'Jaalan project was just amazing as was the beginning of the Sansha Incursions. (That being said, let some other faction invade highsec already. Sansha Kuvakei must have gotten the message.)

The problem is, CCP tend to drop those things and not iterate on them much, like they did on game mechanics in the past.

Now they are in game mechanics iteration overdrive, which is not bad, but I do feel that the lore needs it's iterations as well.

It wont bring more people from SomethingAwful, reddit, 4chan, Russia or other out-of-game community. Those people will just come anyway as long as they have friends in-game to play with.

I am sure it would attract more of those who do not have an established out-of-game bond with an in-game community. The more fictional cultural heritage CCP can create for such players to build on and to identify with, the better it will be for the game overall I dare say..

Blog Banter 45 - Brainwashing the masses

There is a blog banter again, and this time it's actually touching on one of my pet-peeves in life and in EVE online. So be warned, I am going into full controversy mode now:

In a socially-driven game environment such as EVE Online's, everyone has an agenda. CCP promotes its products and has an army of volunteers to do the same; corporations and alliances deliver entertaining recruitment drives, CSM election candidates solicit for voter favour, bloggers and podcasters opine to their audiences.

In this intricate web of communication, influence and control, what part does propaganda play in your game?

 
Throughout my life I have been subjected to all kinds of brainwashing attempts, media manipulation, peer pressure, role model enforcement, advertising and other such things which usually get transported by propaganda.

There was even a time when I believed some of it.

I learned how wrong I was the hard way.

From that point on, I became an obsessively independent person with a defensive perimeter against outside influence that puts the U.S. embassy of Baghdad to shame. I have an active aversion against any organization that makes heavy use of Propaganda. To me it is the hallmark of a society that is in a state were things are wrong. Nations at war use propaganda. Religious fanatics do. It is a staple of dictatorships and disingenuous corporate moneygrabbers.

Whoever uses propaganda wants to reduce the discourse to populist oneliners and forge a unified group of people with only one goal: To do what their leaders want them to do.

Back when I started playing EVE I knew nothing of big alliances and all that. Very soon, though, I encountered the propaganda videos of Goonswarm on youtube. While I have to admit, that they are very good, I immediately developed a mistrust for those Goonswarm guys. I didn't even know who they were, but I disliked them because of those videos. Despite all the admirable creativity and skill that had gone into them.

I guess that mistrust saved me quite some grief in-game.

I fully understand how all that works. Like I said, it used to work on me too. Even now I still feel the lure. Sometimes I rewatch old Goonswarm or BoB videos and I feel the tingle of that dangerous desire to lose myself in the collective entity. To feel like you are part of something greater than yourself.

Of course I quickly realize again that it's all an illusion. The last thing the propagandists want is to make you great. They want you to stay within the borders they have established and toe the party line, so they can stay on top and remain the rulers with absolute power.

Of course EVE is a game, and Goonswarm and all the other big nullsec powers of past and present are not communist Russia or Nazi Germany, but the psychology remains the same, and the effect on in-game behaviour as well.

Just look at how it works out there.

It is a naive assumption, that nullsec is a lawless zone. Far from it. Actually highsec with it's griefers, scammers and ninja looters is far more lawless than wide stretches of nullsec. At least the people in highsec do whatever the hell they feel like doing within the constraints of the aggression mechanics and PVE content.

In nullsec, where such constraints do not exist, you have people who will only rat in systems they are allowed to. They can only settle in systems assigned to them, They are required to fly certain ships with certain fits and they will even get up late at night to be in time for some structure timer. They will vote for the same CSM candidate, post in support of the same forum threads, say the same things in local, and they have the same friends and the same enemies.

That is what propaganda makes them do.

 Of course that is then whitewashed with even more propaganda. Supposedly it's about community, friendship, lolz and mutual support. The members are kept happy by scraps they get from the table of their masters: Free ships, skillbooks and ISK. For the top tier that is mere change. The glass baubles with which they impress their gullible underlings.

In the end many nullsec alliance members become almost incapable of independent action. That is most evident when some truly independent, self-sufficient and skilled players run into a group of them that flies without leadership. The members of large powerblocs then usually end up on the killboards of small PVP alliances or even solo PVPers, because those people have not been stunted by propaganda and pampered with free gifts from seemingly beneficial masters. After that, the losers get ridiculed by their peers for getting destroyed. But it's all good. After all they are part of something big and powerful.

It is sad to look at actually.

Ok, so the question was which role propaganda plays in my gaming experience.

The answer is: In my personal environment, none. Apart from that, it serves as a constant reminder of the freedom which I have in game and as a warning sign for myself with whom I do not want to get involved no matter how great their propaganda art is.

Also it often annoys the hell out of me because I have to constantly second-guess everything that is written by the propagandists and their servants. Sometimes I get a bit tired of that and would just like to really know what is going on in game. Without some spin added.

The propaganda videos from the old Goonswarm vs. BoB war are still great pieces of modern art.

What a shame that they serve such a purpose.

Blog Banter 44 - Local, the Universe and The Rest

The echo chamber is reverberating loudly with the subject of Local Channel these days, and Seismic Stan decided to put the subject out there for a Blog Banter.

"The local chat channel provides EVE players with an instant source of intel of who is in the system. With a quick glance you can tell who is in system and what your standings are to them. War targets, hated enemies, friends and corp mates all stand out clearly. Is this right? Should we have access to this intel for free with no work or effort? Should the Local chat channel even exist? Should normal space be more like wormhole space where the Local channel appears empty until someone speaks?"

Many others have already responded and there are opinions a-plenty.

I will take an entirely in-universe approach here. You will read points and arguments others have made already, but I hope I can still add something.

To begin with...

It has been stated, that capsuleers are registered with their Pilot Licenses by CONCORD. Along with that license, CONCORD keeps a file of the capsuleer which is in the public domain (how else would you get info on another capsuleer at all). As others have pointed out, that information is sent across the system by the stargates as soon as a capsuleer jumps in.

That concept works perfectly in Highsec and Lowsec but it quickly falls apart everywhere else. I will address the in-universe aspects of the different regions.

Lowsec

Lowsec systems are generally held by Empire factions. Those are bound by the Yulai Convention which established CONCORD and a number of other general rules of conduct. CONCORD has limited authority there. They still register security status violations, for example. That would also extend to the provision of a local channel information network to keep the playing field level for the contesting parties.

NPC Nullsec

Here we still have gates and they can register capsuleers, but CONCORD holds no authority there. The only authority is held by the local faction, be that the Thukker Tribe, the Guristas Pirates or Sansha's nation. Would they have any reason to provide information to capsuleers about roaming brethren?

Well, for some they would.

Capsuleers who have sufficiently high standing with a local NPC faction could actually be granted access to the gate transponder network. The game mechanic that regulates this would be the corporation's standing. If your people ran enough missions for the Serpentis, well then the Serpentis will let you know whether potential enemies enter. For everyone else local would work just like in wormhole space: A pilot only appears there if they actually say something. As for the rest, happy dscanning.

Sovereign Nullsec

Sovereign Nullsec belongs to nobody until someone sets up sovereignty structures. CONCORD also has no authority there. Gate operators would not have any reason to provide jump records to others except if those third parties have established full control.

In terms of in-game mechanics, such a solar system would function just like wormhole space does, until some faction actually upgrades the system to provide a local channel for themselves. This would require a specific sovereignty structure or an upgrade to an existing one like an Infrastructure Hub. The local channel would work only for sov-holders and allies, others will see an empty chat window until someone actually speaks there.

As with other sovereignty structures, I would argue that the necessary upgrades should be open to hacking attacks. A ship with a hacking module should be able to basically deactivate local chat for everyone and revert the system to wormhole-space levels of obscurity.

On top of that, I would argue that black-ops ships' pilots should not appear in local no matter what. After all they are moving in covertly with a covert cyno field. That should be worth something.


But, but ...!

I know, all of this has a lot of pitfalls and problems. For example, it would benefit the defender of a Nullsec system a lot, especially in NPC Nullsec. It would also introduce even more cost to the maintenance of sovereignty. Neutral small-gang and solo PVPers will have a harder time roaming through Nullsec.

I just wanted to take a look at the issue from the in-universe perspective, but not everything can and must make sense in that context.

Blog Banter 43 - The Offbeat Award

For Blog Banter 43 Seismic Stan gave us a great assignment:

For the past two years I have attempted to do the same for EVE by distributing imaginary Free Boot Awards to an eclectic assortment of community luminaries. This year I thought it might be nice to expand the concept.

For Blog Banter 43 I would like to invite every participant to nominate their peers for whatever awards you think they deserve. Let's start the year with some EVE-flavoured altruism and celebrate the best and the worst of us, the funniest or the most bizarre, the most heroic of the most tragic of the past year. They could be corpmates, adversaries, bloggers, podcasters, developers, journalists or inanimate objects. Go nuts.


What I personally value above almost everything else is an independent spirit. Therefore, my community awards will go out to those who go off the beaten track and - simply put - don't do things the mainstream does.

So here it goes:

Down the Pipe Podcast 

For their running start with a program about wormhole space. Not only is that a theme dedicated to the smallest unified community within EVE, there is also not a single podcast dealing with the issue now that Lost in EVE has turned to different subjects. They delivered high-quality informative content from the first episode on and got many interesting guests featured on the program.

Keep up the good work

The Pod and Planet Fiction Contest

Who cares about "dirty roleplayers" and "lore geeks". Well Telegram Sam does. CCP, EON and Somer Blink obviously also do, because they sponsored prizes. Not a lot of people playing EVE care about lore, backstory and fan fiction, but enough people do to create 101 wonderful stories.

There is more creativity in this game than just out-metagaming eachother and superiour theorycrafting. It wont win you flghts, but it might win you hearts. You sure won mine.

Everyone who didn't join CFC or HBC last year

Can't beat the blob, join it, right?

Not in my book.

My admiration goes out to all the corps and alliances who didn't flock to the banner of the grumpy cigar-smoking bee or the business suit wearing dinosaur. I don't care whether you are super elite PVPers or carebears or  whatever. You have decided to do things on your own and deal with the consequences for better or worse. This is what makes EVE Online a special game: The fact that resourceful and creative players can find ways to slip hrough the gaps of established structures and do their thing no matter how powerful "they" are.

BTW, if you happen to belong to a certain alliance that managed to alienate everyone who might have been their friend: You did it the wrong way, sorry.

The people in my alliance

This is a sort-of honorable-mention in the above category. There was a time when I was away for the game for a few days. During those days, the people who are now part of my most dearest alliance in game got pressured to become part of one of the current mega-coalitions. When I came back from away-time I found out that we had been separated from our previous alliance leadership on grounds of not wanting to make that move.

I am thankful to this day that the people in question stood behind remaining free and independent.

Verge of Collapse

Not only for winning the tenth alliance tournament, but for bringing the fight to the mainstream nullsec crowd with relentless abandon.

In a comment someone called them the "PL of subcap warfare" because they dared to come out of their wormhole with a numerically inferiour fleet of T3 cruisers with faction-fit logi support to cheerfully blow up some CFC people.

Well, PL have thousands of people as allies these days. The people of Verge of Collapse do it all on their own.

They also took apart a small nullsec taskforce I was part of with only two ships.

Good work, keep it up.



So those are my 2012 community awards.

Fly creatively

Blog Banter 41 - Making the cut with the director

The universe of EVE is not without its drama and epic stories, both in and out of game. Imagine a publisher, movie studio or television network asked you to prepare a pitch for a new brand of EVE-flavoured entertainment. This could be your big break, what would be your synopsis to bring New Eden to the wider audience?

I took the approach of making this a fictionalized RL conversation where I am the CCP person who has to sell this to an imaginary director as a concept for a TVseries. So you could say it's an in-character RP piece where I play a different version of myself.  

Normally something like this would call for dressing up, but after thinking about it, I decided not to. To begin with, where would I get a three piece business outfit from, and stockings, and high heels. I can not even walk with those things.

No, I decided I would look like wearing a bad disguise and I need to be convincing.

In the end, I did go for the ladie's cut working trousers and a shirt with a narrow waistline rather than cargo pants and a hoody. It should work well enough, after all I am here to sell a gritty sci-fi scenario, not a romantic comedy.

So I close my eyes, breathe in deep and exhale slowly before opening the door. I am immediately relieved when I see that the director is not wearing anything too formal either. A pair of jeans and a flannel shirt which is not even tucked into his trousers. He didn't shave for a few days either.

'Welcome miss. Please have a seat.' He pulls up a chair for me at his desk which is laden with what must be half the desktop gadgets you can order at thinkgeek.

Good, he's into geeky stuff. That should work in my favour.

'So, tell me about this project of yours.' He cuts to the chase immediately and leans back in his chair with his hands folded behind the back of his head.

'Well I guess you read the introduction material.' I begin and open the satchel I brought. 'I have some storyboard drawings, costume designs and other artwork with me that should give you an impression about how we envisioned the look and feel of things.'

'Sure.' he seems disinterested. 'But give me your personal version. Why should I work on this?'

'Well.' I have to stop starting sentences with that word. 'In a nutshell, it's like crossing wild-west with game of thrones with classical greek mythology ... demigod heroes and all that.' I can't help but smile at before saying 'In space' I feel very clever dropping that meme, but it doesn't quite work.

He just nods.

'There are all the classic archetypes available, and some modern ones. You have the imperialistic and unyielding theocracy, proud warrior tribes, an idealistic democracy and a nation of supercapitalists that Ayn Rand would be proud of.'

I wait for a reaction but none comes so I just go on. I forget how nervous I am and just let it carry me away. 'It is a backdrop for epic stories, but there is a lot of grittyness and darkness in it too. There are themes of flawed ideals, the hubris and dehumanization that comes with effective immortality. How a person is changed by becoming one with a powerful machine in which other people are just components. Political intrigue. Devastating wars. High ideals that become perverted by cynicism. It is a world - as they say - of Black and Gray Morality.'

Again he nods, and finally he says something. 'I understand that the whole thing needs a lot of special effects and CGI to work.'

'We ...' I barely catch myself this time. 'That is true, but on the up side, you don't need to do a lot of on-location filming which involves a lot of cost. I mean of course for atmosphere there would be some - it shouldn't be like the StarWars prequels.' He smirks and I smile like sharing a mutual peeve with him. 'But a lot can be done with sets and rendering machines.'

'Still, the costs would be pretty high. I already hear my producer screaming about them.' he insists. 'I am just a bit worried that it's too much of a niche product to get enough viewers.'

'I am confident that the subject material will attract a wide audience.' I reply.

He bobs his head in consideration. 'Are you? I have read that the game you are basing this on is played almost exclusively by men of a certain age bracket and lifestyle. With an investment that significant we want to be sure that we will maximise our exposure.'

I do my best to stay calm and not get all defensive. 'You are of course right, but that has to do more with the game mechanics than the theme.' I was sort-of prepared for that one. After all, I have been thinking about the issue a lot myself.

'Science fiction programs like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica have been very popular with female viewers, and the all-around success of Game of Thrones has also demonstrated that women these days are not detracted by hard subject matter. Despite the game's mostly male playerbase, the narrative has many very strong female characters. The Empress of the Amarr, the director of one of the Gallente Federation's largest corporations, the leader of a large Freestate - the Syndicate. Also the fact that capsuleers are more defined by their skill to pilot a ship than by physical attributes makes gender differences less of an issue. There is definitely enough room for the female viewing population to find characters they can identify with.'

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

It looks like I'm getting somewhere, no reason to stop though. 'Of course many segments of the male viewers will find the theme and setting attractive too. Despite all the inherent darkness, there is heroism in the most classical sense. Of course the whole final frontier narrative will appeal to many men, and there is a lot of action, spaceships and shiny technology.'

He chuckles. 'Is that how you view men?' he wonders with a slight smile lingering on his stubbled face.

'It's how I think they like their entertainment.' I reply rather spontaneously. 'Don't get me wrong though. The material contains many deep philosophical concepts too. Reflections about what makes us human. How we would act when given the possibility to be reborn indefinitely. Also there is a lot of potential for links with current social affairs, like there is in all good science fiction. The major powers offer enough parallels with existing human societies that this will work.'

'The whole thing is not really suited for family viewing though.' he brings up.

Time for some subtle flattery. 'True, but that is the reason why I came with it to you rather than the Disney Studios or Lucasfilm. They wouldn't dare touching this.'

'Ok' he leans forward. 'You make a few good points, but I'm not sold.' he says 'What I want you to do is give me a story arc and a character development trajectory for at least twelve episodes. Together with the pilot screenplay you already submitted I will run this by my producer and see what he thinks about it.'

I can't hold the satisfied smile back.

'Don't get me wrong.' he cautions me 'I am not promising anything except that.'

I nod in understanding. 'Of course. What you ask for will be on your desk within the week.'

Blog Banter 39 - Home is where my Pod is.

August has almost come to an end, but before we see the month turn, Seismic Stan brings us another Blog Banter subject, courtesy of Richie Shoemaker from EON Magazine:

"Some say a man's home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox. 

In EVE Online, what does the concept of "home" mean to you?"

I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to space and the universe. While I like deep forests, old castles, Celtic stone circles, lush mountain valleys and lofty peaks as much as every other person, nothing has ever had the magnetic appeal of outer space for me.

Above my desk hangs a calendar with galaxies, nebulae and other stellar phenomenae. I have many books with lots of pictures and descriptions about the planets of our solar system and the fascinating vistas the Hubble Telescope has opened for us. I have stacks of magazines about astronomy, and I often go to sleep putting documentaries and lectures about such subjects on, to carry me off into my dreams.

I can spend hours fantasizing about rivers of liquid methane on Titan, the sandstorms of Mars and the molten surface of Venus. When I was a kid I saw Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series and I was sold for life.

When, after a long time, a friend told me about EVE, I read with fascination about the concept of humans being one with their ships, able to travel through the vast reaches of space like gigantic space-borne fish.

Disregarding all other aspects of the game for the purpose of this subject, the exploration of that world in my ship is where I feel at home. When the introductory Sisters of EVE epic mission arc took me all over the place, I was thrilled with the experience. The missions in-between were just waypoints on a journey. It was the journey that really mattered.

If only the stars could have looked the way then they do look now.

I can not complain though.

By merit of my wormhole residence, I get to go places where I would otherwise hardly ever come. Exits and entrances can open in the most out-of-the-way regions, and most of the time I do not mind flying those twenty jumps and see how the starscape changes as I progress.

At this point I would like to offer a deeply heart-felt "Thank you" to the art department who created those wonderful views.

Certainly, when I return to our home-wormhole, I get the feeling of having returned from long travels to see my best friends again, to come back to the homestead as it were. When I fly through the core systems of Sinq-Laison or Essence I have to smile when I remember my first weeks and months in New Eden. When I come through Lisbaethanne or Old Man Star, I fondly remember the excitement of my first encounters with dangerous pirates.

However, where my home truly is, that would be the ship in which my pod is cradled at any given time. Warping through space, moving, exploring, looking at the sights.

Home is where my heart is, goes the saying.

Well the pod is my ship's heart.

I am my ship's heart.

... and there in my escapist fantasy, that is where my home in EVE lies.

Blog Banter 38 - Witness to Change

Taking a cue from Ripard Teg, the most recent Blog Banter asks a really complex question:

"In his recent "That's just the way it is" post on Jester's Trek, blogger Ripard Teg posits that the established EVE player-base has come to accept many of EVE's design idiosyncrasies, rarely questioning their purpose or benefit. Conversely, he also suggests that new players might not be so forgiving of these "quirks". In an interview with Gamasutra, Senior Producer CCP Unifex describes EVE Online's developers as "relatively hands-off janitors of the virtual world", underlining that he has only four content developers but "a lot" of programmers and engineers.

Has a culture developed where CCP has started to take player effort for granted - expecting the "social engine" to fulfil tasks that might otherwise be CCP's responsibility? Or should this culture be embraced as part of "emergent gameplay" with these quirks accepted as the catalyst for interaction?"


There are actually three questions in this, and I will address them individually:


Q: Are long-time players really accepting the design idiosyncrasies?

From all I know, the answer is no. Issues like the ones Ripard Teg and others mentioned, turn up again and again as suggestions or complaints. I don't know if I ever read a devblog or a developer's forum post, accompanying the latest update, without finding at least a handful of posts in the vein of "why do they introduce feature X now when there is still Y and Z to fix?".

Things like the problematic POS mechanics, the horrible corp management interface, the sec status and GCC troubles, the fact that you can't change subsystems at an SMA, and so on and so forth, come up all the time.

I wouldn't say long-time players accept them, but they have come to live with them, and tolerate them, because they love the rest of the game enough to forget about it for the time being.


Q: Will new players be less tolerant of those problems? 

Very likely yes. Of course many of the problems tend to only manifest themselves after some time. Most people are not very likely to set up a POS or manage a corp within their first month or two. By the time such issues begin to become a regular annoyance, a player might have found their niche in the game already, and become one of those who are tolerating it's flaws for the sake of it's enjoyable aspects.

There are still enough things that will make a new player ask "what the hell is this all about?!" and that might end up with them deciding that they don't want to deal with it.

I remember very well how I very soon ran into the issue that I had to sell everything in my item hangar by individually clicking on each stack, instead of having a "sell all" function that just asks me for every stack whether I want to really sell it at that price or not. It still annoys the hell out of me, but there is enough in the game that I find so enjoyable, that I just swallow this bitter pill.

The tipping point might be different for every individual player, and there will certainly be the ones who are so enthralled with EVE that they switch to the acceptance camp very early. Those who are not, need to be caught as early as possible and given a perspective for the future of their gaming experience.

The big caveat with addressing things that may be annoying for new players, is to avoid 'dumbing down' the game. Many posts have been dedicated to this danger, and rightly so. There is a thin line to walk for CCP which lies between identifying genuinely stupid flaws and robbing their game of it's unique character.

I just want to pick one of the many examples: The autopilot.

Some people have suggested it should always jump to zero. I can't but disagree. There should be a reward for not flying AFK, and that reward is less danger and shorter travel times. I would actually propose, that if you make newer players sit at their desk when flying, it actually benefits immersion.

They get to look at the beautiful background, and see how it changes as they  travel. They can spend time in the new player chat while flying around and (hopefully) get useful information. They can look at ships around them and familiarize themselves with the interface without being under pressure.

As a matter of fact, that is what I did a lot in the beginning. 


Q: Should CCP do more about those idiosyncrasies?

That would be a definitive yes. The way I see it, they actually are doing just that. Presentations at fanfest were addressing security status and GCC mechanics at length. POSes will finally get a major overhaul in the foreseeable future, and the last two expansions did a lot to iron out glitches and fill the gaps in the game. The events of the last summer seem to have resulted in a new way how CCP views expansions, and that's good.

However, also here they are facing a possible pitfall: There are many very vocal older players, a lot of which stand behind CSM candidates who push their agenda with CCP. It would be a mistake to focus too much on changes that make life easier for players who have been around for years, rather than improving things that every player will encounter more-or-less from their first day onward.

Except if you directly come to Goonswarm from somethingawful, you are very unlikely to end up in nullsec sov-space within your first few months, and even if, you will not be dealing with sov mechanics or the shortcomings of capital ships. Just making improvements that work in this context would do nothing to retain new players. Most of the larger nullsec alliances also have strong communities behind them that do their own thing to retain new players. 


In Summary

I do think that CCP can rely on the "social engine" to some extent, especially when it comes to larger alliances and long-standing corporations with their own in-game and out-of-game communities. Where CCP really needs to put their focus is where players are not yet integrated into an in-game community.

The efforts of the more recent expansions have been great in this respect, and I hope CCP keeps going forward like this. Eventually their game will be polished enough for them to drop the next big feature that really expands the game instead of improving or fixing it.

However, for a player to keep on playing it is very important that they stay long enough to become a witness to positive change, and to be able to trust that it will come. That is the most critical "community management" task that CCP is facing.Things like promising all kinds of Walking in Station features for years, and then not delivering them, is something that should never happen again.

New players don't really read that many (dev)blogs or have experienced how the attitude of CCP has changed in a positive way. This message has to be brought to them both by the company and by us who are longstanding members of the community.

Finally, most gamers are not used to the amount of influence and participation CCP allows them in the development process. They view the games they are playing as a given, and take them or leave them. CCP, however, has mechanisms in place that allow players to have a voice in where the development efforts go. They would also do themselves a lot of good to carry that message to players as soon as possible.

It is a balancing act that CCP has to engage in, but at the moment I see the balance tipping into the right direction, and I just hope it stays that way.

Blog Banter 37 - Drifting out of touch

Oh Stan. I had just learned to live without your blogbanters and now you throw that tasty morsel in front of me:

"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?"

Online games have always had their crazies who took it too far. EVE is no exception. I have sworn off online games for a good decade because I became the subject of obsession for a very creepy stalker. Also another crew of people in a game I played back then, hacked into the server of a gaming group I was with for metagaming purposes.

The reason I stopped was not so much that I was afraid, it was that I was angry. I felt like I might actually cross the line that exists IRL. The line which is defined by laws that make it illegal to kill people. Especially with that stalker guy who actually managed to catch up with me.

I have since established a rule for myself to never ever engage in any way with the online environment that will allow people to find me, recognize me and put pressure on me IRL.

Sometimes that hurts.

It hurts when I would actually like to go to Fanfest. When I would like to hang out with the nice guys from my corp IRL just like we do online. When I feel I would like to see what that guy with the really nice, smooth, sexy voice looks like.

Then again, I am used to hurting at least once a month for a few days, so I just deal with it and head on.

Some people do not have their principles quite that clearly stated.

Maybe it's age, maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe it's a mental disorder. Be that as it may, some people seem to be unable to separate what happens in-game from real-life. They will take the issues they have in-game that one step further and cross a boundary that gets them into a strangely mixed-up meta-reality where both become the same.

People who DDOS and attack White Rose Canticle until a player feels forced to leave for good. People who threaten Mittani's wife and dog and of course the Mittani himself with his infamous fanfest slip.

There are people who think that this is all because of the Goons. That is not the case. Some older players might remember that someone cut the power to another player's house to be able to kill their Titan, or the historic T20 Scandal.

Like I wrote in my opening paragraph, metagaming insanity that crosses the line into RL criminal acts has existed before the Goons and before EVE online. As a matter of fact, most of the web2.0 generation have no idea how far things went back in the early 90s when mailserver relays were still open, when networks were not switch-based and unencrypted protocols like telnet and ftp were still the norm.

But I digress.

The question was "Where is the line?".

I would say the line is where you start to negatively influence the daily lives of people out of game. I hear the Mittani's wife does not want to take his name as hers because she is worried about the consequences. I myself have changed how I interact online because of other people's actions.

Some people may feel justified because the Goons are a horrible bunch in-game, I am sure the guys who hacked us back in the day felt we were a threat. Someone thought that Yuki Onna was such a whiny Carebear that the player deserved to be "dealt with" out of game.

If you are one of the people who think that "Eve is Real" you should stop right now with anything game-related you are doing and make an appointment with a shrink, because you are dangerously close to crossing the line.

Seriously, because you are drifting out of touch with reality.

 

Blog Banter 36 - Ever Further

I was almost worried about our most beloved Blog Banter Host Seismic Stan because of his prolonged silence. But here it is, the next Blog Banter about the history and future of EVE expansions. So without further ado, here is what we get to write about this time:

"With the Inferno expansion upon us, new seeds have been planted in the ongoing evolution of EVE Online. With every expansion comes new trials and challenges, game-changing mechanics and fresh ideas. After nine years and seventeen expansions, EVE has grown far more than most other MMOGs can hope for. Which expansions have brought the highs and lows, which have been the best and the worst for EVE Online?"

My shortest possible answer would be: Best Apocrypha, Worst Incarna.

Apocrypha came way before I started playing. When I did begin to play EVE I only knew of Wormholes as tunnels that lead from A to B. Sometimes B would be another system, sometimes it would be some weird location where you faced one of two options 1. You get killed by the NPCs 2. You get killed by the people who actually survive the NPCs

Despite all the "don't ever go there, you have better chances of survival in nullsec" warnings of my then CEO, I felt attracted to this dangerous frontier. Maybe it was because of his warnings?

However that may be, today I live there. I am one of the few EVE players (i think it was around 10%) who derive their whole gaming experience from this one expansion. Also, Apocrypha intruduced the T3 Strategic Cruisers, my most favorite ships in the game.

When I started playing, Dominion was live, but I hardly understood what that meant. The first expansion I experienced was Tyrannis. Many people were not impressed with it, but Tyrannis expanded something that is very much part of EVE: It gave a whole branch of the economy to the players. From that time on, scores of products were not just sourced to the market by some engine, but actually supplied by the PI installations of people.

Incursion was also nice. It offered the possibility for me as a rather new player to learn about fleet combat. How to compose fleets of different ships and make them work in different roles - an experience that was very valuable later when I moved into wormhole space. The fact that people suddenly died en-masse in PVE sites was funny and intriguing. I remember the posts on the EVE forums - full of rage - that complained about Incursion sites being too hard.

I also met lots of new people I would otherwise not have gotten in touch with. I know people who managed to graduate from incursion flying to becoming part of large nullsec fleets. So this expansion provided great opportunities for completely unconnected people to get to know eachother. These days it's a bit stale, with lots of site farming going on, but I gather that our latest expansion, Inferno, changed the conditions a bit and made it more random.

Actually, if Inferno would have been live when I started, my life as a player might have taken a different path. In the beginning I liked the idea of Faction Warfare a lot, but it turned out to be underwhelming after I tried it a bit. Too much established structure and repetition, sort-of like incursions have become.

Crucible was great. Not only did it fix lots of issues and re-align CCP to the core business of EVE, it also included a new class of ships that was designed by players. This expansion showed how great CCP is. I mean, how many MMO's do you know where players get to add new stuff. Sure the ships are not quite as they were intended by the designers, but still, the people who created the models for the Naga, Oracle, Talos and Tornado can be proud each time they see one of those ships in-game. The changes to graphics were also nice. The Gallente and Caldari ships got more character, and the experience of flying through space has become amazing. In the first days after the expansion I had a hard time doing anything meaningful because I was so busy looking at the stars.

To comment on Incarna is almost redundant these days. I do want to mention that the new character creator is great, and I do like that the new portraits look more like human beings and less like cartoon characters. Apart from that it did not contribute much.

I am more curious than ever what the future might bring. POSes need to be adressed, and at Fanfaest there were some interesting new concepts shown. I hope those changes will come soon, if not this winter, then next summer. Certainly the graphics will continue to improve. Will walking in stations make a comeback? How will the integration between EVE and Dust514 influence things? Will there be some more lore added to the game world?

Despite setbacks, and sometimes things being added with expansions where the impression comes up that CCP didn't really think things through to the end, the game remains fresh and ever-changing.

Blog Banter 35 - Through the Lens of Past Experience

I have criminaly neglected my poor story blog, and I really need to get back into things, so as a first step I decided to participate in this month's Blog Banter:

So here is what we are going to discuss:

Now approaching its tenth year, the EVE Online player community has matured into an intricate and multi-faceted society viewed with envy by other game developers, but is frequently regarded with suspicion by the wider gaming community. 

Is this perception deserved? Should "The Nation of EVE" be concerned by its public identity and if so how might that be improved? What influence will the integration of the DUST 514 community have on this culture in the future?

[Unrelated and random bonus question sponsored by EVE News 24: What single button would you recommend be included on an EVE-specific keyboard?]


I am going to approach this issue from a personal historic perspective. It may seem like I'm getting beside the point, but bear with me while I tell you a little story.

The past

Back in the 1990s I was playing online multi-user games in text based form.
There was no complex AI driven PVE content, so everything that happened in the game did so because some players made it happen. Sometimes GMs would run live events too, but that was the exception. Virtually all of the game was PvP or at least player interaction.

Over the years, I played on two different Shadowrun MUSHes. In this dystopian cyberpunk-fantasy gaming universe, almost everyone played some sort of professional criminal or operative, living on the dangerous edge of an unforgiving society ruled by ruthless corporations. 

If you got killed, you were really dead. End of story. No clone, no magical resurrection. You had to start over with a new character. You did get to start your new character with as many skillpoints as your old character had at the time of death, though.

The only mitigating factor was, that there had to be some RP based in-character reason why you were killed. If you had the impression, that your death was just arbitrary griefing, you could petition with a GM and maybe get it retroactively undone, but due to the harsh game universe, there were usually plenty of justifications to kill someone. People betrayed, scammed, robbed and killed eachother for all kinds of perfectly viable role-playing reasons.

How do you get by in such an environment? You act cautiously. You find creative solutions for difficult problems. You try to make friends and build relations of trust. Everything you did in every interaction would have consequences for yourself and the people you were involving yourself with. You had to really invest thought and consideration into your actions, and that made it exciting and meaningful.

Does all that sound familiar already?

The present

Many gamers these days seem to approach their hobby with a strange sense of entitlement. Everything has to be easy and consensual. Any real danger for your character or your style of play is an unwanted factor.

This is why I never got into any online game except EVE.When I first heard about it, an old RPG friend of mine told me that there was a game which was almost as dangerous and rewarding as the online games of old, and that made me decide to try it.

So if you read this far, you will sit there with the question: How does all of this relate to the Blog Banter subject?

Allright, EVE has a certain reputation. This reputation will attract some and wont attract others. Like the people who played on the old Shadowrun MUSHes, the people attracted will be those who are looking for a gaming experience that means something (to the extent that such a thing can exist).

Sure, some things could be better. When I read some of the horrible stuff people post on forums, I sometimes can only shake my head at the incredibly immature pseudo-macho-culture (after all real machos would get into real fights instead of posting stuff online), but that's in no way different from every other forum on the internet which is for a large part frequented by men with arrested development.

As for the rest I think EVE is doing fine in terms of public representation. There are great examples of wonderful creative output, community spirit, helpful content and more.(*) Some people will never opt for that style if gaming, but that's fine, because an ever increasing number of people do.

Is there a problem for CCP? Well they seem to be making money consistently, and that during a time which saw the collapse of the Icelandic financial sector and a global economic downturn. Any real problem CCP had was related to their interaction with the player base rather than the public image of EVE.

Has the recent Mittani incident tarnished the public image of EVE? I don't think so. After all, the man's apology was as public as his drunken mistake, and how often have you read about a player publicly apologizing for something he did wrong in a game-related context. If anything, it shows that the real people behind all this grief play and scamming are probably not so bad after all.

And the final question: Will the DUST415 community engage with this environment? Well I can not answer that, because I know nothing about FPS communities. One thing I do know is, EVE players will flock to DUST415 in significant numbers, and the spirit of gaming that makes EVE the most intriguing environment of the modern online game world will "infect" DUST425 no matter what.


My answer to the Bonus Question: Lock Target. The most fundamental function of them all.


(*) My selection of links was not meant to say that those are the only good ones. Voices from the Void, Fly Reckless, Notalotofnews, Podgoo, Roc Wieler, Kirith Kodachi, Ripard Teg, Tiger Ears, Pixxie Twilight and all the others out there I didn't name here. You are all great, and you deserve just as much credit. I just didn't want to start a link list.

Blog Banter 34 - A CSM for all parties

This time the Blog Banter subject comes from CCP Xhagen. His question is:

"How would you like to see the CSM grow, both in terms of player interaction and CCP interaction?"

Some time ago, I had a short exchange about what the CSM is. But the question now is, what we players think the CSM should be.

In my view there are two functions that the CSM can ideally fulfill which would help both them as an institution of EVE and CCP as a company. One is focused on interaction with CCP, the other is focused on interaction with players. Both would contribute to the communication and mutual understanding among all parties.


The reality check sounding board

I have the utmost respect for a management that can build up, sustain and grow a niche game throughout the largest financial crisis Iceland has faced recently, and I acknowledge that the EVE developers want to do their best for the game and are certainly in it with heart and soul.

However, we have seen that CCP management is capable of making choices that hardly anybody but they themselves really want. We have also seen that developers can come up with 'great ideas' that leave players wondering whether they even play the game. That is a natural consequence of their job, which does not necessarily include playing the game on a regular basis and knowing every little daily grievance of someone who does.

Here the CSM can be a very valuable asset for CCP when used correctly. Have one of those great visions for EVE? Came up with a new feature? Check with the CSM what their take on it is, you might be surprised.
For this to work well, the CSM needs to be comprised of people from all playstyles and regions. CSM6 - while very effective - was not a group reflecting that properly. Neither was CSM5. Other people in this round of Blog Banter have already suggested equal representation either by playstyle or by region. I would suggest a mixture of both. The position of the CSM chair could then be scrapped completely. It would also make it easier for many players if they don't have to read through the pitches of every candidate but only those who run for their playstyle (Nullsec Sov Holding Alliances, Wormhole Settlers, Faction Warfare, Pirates, Mission Runners etc.)

The Unfortunate side-effect may be, that generalists don't get a seat, but it is a sacrifice I would be willing to make when in exchange I could be sure that there is guaranteed representation of all player base issues. That would make an effective reality check sounding board.


The peergroup messenger

EVE players are a paranoid lot who are prone to overreactions and conspiracy theories. CCP employees are sometimes not very good in communicating well what they are up to. The combination can be disastrous as we have all seen in 2011.

If the CSM sit together with CCP staff and get a good picture about what is going on, and then tell it to the playerbase they represent, a lot of those problems can be avoided. Devblogs could become shared reports, underwritten by a developer and a CSM member in mutual agreement. It would make a major difference and possibly save the devs a lot of questions and comments. Much of that would more likely go to the CSM member who gave a second opinion on it. In addition, people just trust others more if they have the impression that they share interests with them. Therefore it is likely that the responses would be less extreme.

Does that make things more tedious and complicated? Maybe, but it will also make them more transparent and prevent a lot of nerdrage that is based on misconceptions, miscommunication or distrust.

Of course, that would require socially savvy and active CSM members, but when combined with the system of equal representation suggested above, it would enable CSM members to focus on their peer group rather than having to act as go-between for all of the playerbase (or deny that they do, like the Mittani).

Ideally, CCP would offer the CSM a centralized platform to do their communication job: A site connected to the main EVE page where players can directly interact with the representatives, where the CSM members themselves can maintain blogs about their activities, where all the minutes can be found, and where CCP devs can post their reports together with CSM comments.


In summary

I very much am on-board with the system of equal representation of playstyles. How exactly that should be organised, I'd leave for a more specialized discussion about that. In general, the CSM should not become larger than it is to save money and effort in coordination.

I am also very much for a CSM that actively communicates with the playerbase regularly, with CCP facilitating. Also, CCP should involve the CSM as much as possible in the planning and production phases of new features, fixes and changes. In the former to get player feedback, in the latter to inform the players about what is coming up.

I have the feeling that this way, the unique experiment that CCP started by creating the CSM, would reach it's full potential. EVE is the most community driven game on the market, therefore it would only make sense to develop a good method for interacting with that community.

Blog Banter 33 - That Universe is Mine?

So, a new Blog Banter came up. The assignment this time is:

"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."

At first I didn't really feel like writing about that, but after reading a few pieces I got inspired.

So, I am not playing that long, but the NPE has changed significantly in some ways. It is still lacking in others, though. The RP immersion entry points have been improved, mostly by changing the website. It now features lots of shiny content to introduce you to the game, albeit that I do not quite understand what the star map is doing there. It mostly distracts and confuses, and that's coming from someone who actually knows what all the data you get to see there means.

The tutorials have been streamlined and - despite some teething problems - are a bit better than they used to be. Space and everything in it looks fabulous, so it is actually great fun to just fly around and look at things (I did that a lot back when I started, and again after Crucible came out)

What bugs me about the way things are set up now, is the lack of hands-on information on gameplay, and the aspects of EVE that are not RP related. I am an RTFM sort of person, i.e. I like to gather as much information on a subject as I can before I start something. So when I started playing EVE, I did my research, and I found a lot of helpful guides written by players that were directly linked from the main page's articles. Now you first have to find out that you need to open the 'EVE Websites' menu and go to the EVElopedia.

Reading guides on pirating and griefing, which I found after two or three links down the line, were what saved me from getting scammed, canflipped, suicide ganked or otherwise victimized in the first weeks of playing. A new player these days will probably not find that crucial information just as easily.

One other thing that I remember from my starting days was, that I gained a lot of very valuable experience from doing the Sisters of Eve arc. Back then I started as Gallente, so Arnon was not far away. For Caldari it is also not a particularly long trip. If you start as Amarr or Minmatar it's a different piece of cake. If I may propose something simple, I'd say put a Sisters of Eve agent somewhere close to all the starter systems, not just Sister Alitura in Arnon.

I was really paranoid back then, so I accepted no help from anyone and rejected all offers by corporations to join them for about a month. Also I am the sort of person who does not like being in a position where I can't take care of myself independently, so I learned through tedious trial-and-error rather than fluttering my lashes at someone and say "Pretty please, help me with this mission." I loved being nice to others though, because I felt there wasn't enough of that to go around in the game.

My first big eye opener came, when I found out that some skillbooks are really cheap in Lisbaetanne and I started shipping them to Oursulaert. Some pirate eventually caught me, and when he convoed me he went from offering ransom to telling me a lot about lowsec and what I should pay attention to. Later we went ratting in some belt and I got to be the "clueless noob bait" drawing victims for him. He even gave me a share from the loot.

There were nice people in EVE in places you wouldn't expect.

So where was I going with all this?

There is a wide gap between what EVE looks like, and what actually goes on in the game. That gap has - in my opinion - become even wider due to the restructuring of the website, the great visual content and the nicer tutorials. I would like CCP to put links to Evelopedia guides back in the text of the main page and provide more entry points to the SoE arc, because it has more learning experiences than level 1 missions.

Maybe people would also get inspired by links to approved fan-sites which have further informative content available. The community around EVE is very rich, and I would venture to say, that CCP would benefit from referring to it. The right choices will have to be made, though. I can see how many people will be put off by the extremely low-brow trolling and macho posturing that is prevalent on many sites, but there are many examples of good contributors new players could benefit from greatly.

Also, I really like the idea about offering more pointers to the in-game community (i.e. newbie friendly corps) as proposed by this author

Edit: After reading this post I have to say I changed my opinion. Facilitating new players to form their own corporations and do stuff together is much more empowering.

In the end, I do think it takes a certain kind of individual to make that universe your own if you are not directly ending up in a big alliance by extension of your account with one online cesspool or other.

Blog Banter 32 - Vigilantes!

Allright, so as a cop-out on writing more fiction I will participate in this month's Blog Banter 32. The Apple of Discord was thrown by the author of Sand, Cider and Spaceships, and it looks like this:

"A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option. 

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online? Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

I never quite understood the mindset that drives people to look for weak and defenseless targets because it never felt like an achievement to me to blow up someone who can't put up a fight. I definitely like trying to hit those back who do, though.

Unfortunately, the opportunities to do that in highsec are way too few for my tastes. Highsec griefers like to say, that miners and mission runners should be prepared for non-consensual PVP. The way I see it, it's them who are in fact not prepared for it. They set up their engagements in such a way that there is usually no real risk of any retribution. You want non-consensual PVP? I think you are definitely entitled to it. Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject:

In the most recent episode of Notalotofnews, Erin suggests that there should be a possibility for players to put their kill-rights on the market after getting ganked. I would actually go and fly around in highsec again for other things than shopping if I could make ISK by shooting people on behalf of victimized miners. It would also finally effectively create the profession of bounty hunter in an official way supported by game mechanics.

Also, why are kill rights only extended to individuals? If someone ganks my corpmate, I should be allowed to go after them too, for the same amount of time. That would encourage high-sec players to form small gangs and seek retribution.

Furthermore, why are gankers allowed to safely wait for their GCC to expire in a pod or station? It should absolutely be allowed for players to pod them, especially the victims. Such offenders should not be able to jump out of the system or dock as long as the GCC lasts, just like an Aggression Timer. Contrary to the author of this post, I would not like CONCORD to pod the gankers, but getting a few corpmates together to hunt a pod that can't jump or dock would be fun.

Another thing I thought about, would be the possibility to pay a monthly fee to CONCORD and become a registered enforcer. Doing so would make it legal to not only shoot -5 targets, but generally everyone with a negative sec status. It's one thing to know that you can steal from this two-month old miner in a small corp with no combat pilots, it's another if there could be scores of people out there who are both allowed to, and capable of blowing you up for it.

Measures like that would increase the amount of PVP in highsec while introducing more consequences for criminal behaviour at the same time. That would make such acts more difficult and therefore would indirectly increase the safety of the more peaceful industry types, without restricting PVP by set game mechanics which do not rely on player interaction. It would also introduce a new PVP playstyle into the game: Vigilante anti-griefing. I am sure there are people who would enjoy that. I know I would.

On a final note, I'd like to say, that I often get the feeling that highsec players are not frustrated and angry because their ships get blown up every so often. The real frustration is, that they know the griefers will get away with it, have their 'lolz' and happily move on without any worries. Personal revenge is not the only form of closure, some people are perfectly happy if others carry it out for them.