Randir...

~or "Wander Lust...”

We, and much of the MMO world have been rocked recently by the new EVE Trailer featuring ingame video set to real time player comms... a trailer that has captured the imagination of new players and set a new fire in the bellies of older vets. I laughed out loud and cheered the first time I watched it, and every time since.

And real life can be just as exciting it seems... Rixx Javix found this video short on Vimeo and shared it and well, it’s quite simply as amazing if not more so than our new EVE trailer, only this one is based on real life and all I gotta say is… as the EVE Player Trailer beckons to my heart, THIS beckons to my very soul…

Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available.

Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds - and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there.

                Erik Wernquist

Let us pray, that one day, we will once again reach for the stars and get off this one lone rock...

And the human race will find adventure, again...

                Turamarth Elrandir

Fly Fearless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

PS the title... "Randir" is elvish, the Quenya word for Wanderer... Gandalf was also know as Mithrandir, the Grey Wanderer... and hence my last name, Elrandir... or Star Wanderer.  =]

It’s a Thing With me Now…

~or “Woof! Woof?"

Back a few months ago I decided to make a pilgrimage most of us, them as who love the Lore of New Eden that is, eventually make sooner or later… I travelled to the Eve Gate in the New Eden system. The Eve Gate, if you don’t know, is the genesis, the birthplace of the human race in New Eden.

~segue…
Our genesis story revolves around the Eve Gate, a naturally occurring wormhole that was discovered by our ancestors back on Earth and they used it to migrate out from our home system and colonize the rich new systems in the New Eden cluster… Then, after one hundred years of colonization and trade between Sol system and the fast growing and rich New Eden systems, the Eve Gate “…unexpectedly and seemingly unprovoked, collapsed in an apocalyptic catastrophe of a scale never before witnessed by the human race, ruining the New Eden system in the process.” 

And we were cut off, left in complete isolation. We regressed and for millennia thousands of the original colonies died off… only a handful survived. From them grew us, the five major Empires that arose from the long dead ashes of the Eve Gate Event… the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Caldari State, the Minmatar Republic, and the Jovian Empire, and a number of smaller independent factions and states.

~end segue…

Back in April I made my own Pilgrimage to the New Eden system and the Eve Gate for the very first time, to see for myself the birthplace of humankind in New Eden… It was a moving experience for me. I am an avid SciFi reader and so the Lore of New Eden calls to my soul… I take to heart my Matarii roots and the stories and lore that surrounds my heritage in EVE just as I am also deeply interested in the Lore of Anoikis, my chosen home in EVE.

Interestingly enough, we who live in Anoikis get to experience EVE in a very different way than the huddled masses in Empire space… I call it Traveling without Moving… Every 24 hours at the very most our connections to Empire and other Anoikis systems changes… Imagine if you lived in Dodixie or Jita and on a 16 to 24 hour cycle all the gates randomly changed their connections… to systems anywhere in New Eden… anywhere… Hi, Low, NULL or even Anoikis…

For many this would be utter chaos bordering on madness… the disruption this would cause Empire players would create a Niagara Falls of tears… why Industrialists alone would cry the Grand Canyon full to its brim! But, for us, the few who are brave enough, and yes, crazy enough to make our very real homes out in the black of wormhole space… it is pure excitement.

Everyday bring new Anoikis and often Null systems to explore and raid, new Lowsec systems to hunt in, new Hisec systems to trade and shop in… I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to look forward, with anticipation, to Where Will We Be Today? And in Anoikis fleet comms you never hear, “Are we there yet?” said in anything other than purest of jest… for we know full well that our brethren in Null say it all the livelong day and in earnest too.

This little fact of the Tao of Anoikis impacted my Pilgrimage in an interesting way… When I set off, our stat lowsec was in Nasesharafa which was 38 hops from the New Eden system… so I used a Maladiction interceptor for the trip, due to ‘extremely fast’ and ‘immune to bubbles’. When I had finished my tour of the gate and connecting historical systems I turned for home and found that our old static had died and was now in Jeni, a mear 14 hops away… LOL. Gotta love Traveling without Moving!

So yesterday I was on alone early and I did the scan-down-all-the-things thing… and lo and behold, our new U210 static low was in Central Point… 2 hops from the New Eden system… well huh…

What the hey... so I trundled on over to the Gate… warped to the BM I had left on my first visit, the place where I had dropped a well named Mobile Depot… just like all the cans you see on scan and all with messages from those who came before.

As I sat there contemplating the gate, life, the universe and everything… I decided to once again leave my temporary mark as twere and drop the Depot I had with me… after I named it appropriately I then decided to leave something else behind.

They have some Spirits and a case of Quafe for mixer… and the hound, if they get hungry enough… I hear they are a bit gamey but you can get real hungry out there in the black… ya know?

Fly Fearless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

Feature Fatigue…

~or “Patchspansion Overload…”

I have reached my limit, I can’t keep up, I’m simply overwhelmed… I was writing up a post and in the course of this and that saw that CSM Sugar Kyle had a new post up, “Test Server Adventures” and Von Keigai also had a new post, “New Wspace in Rhea” both were different takes and views on the new space, the 100 new star systems (call em T-Space, S-Space N-Space or even W-space… just don't call em Anoikis) and on the unique system, ‘Thera’. All of these are accessed only via wormholes and are coming to EVE in Rhea in Dec, from the Dev Blog “Thera and the Shattered Wormholes”… then tonight I came home ready and excited to tackle these New Features and devote some time to reading up, then considering and such then I wanted to get into writing up my reactions and thoughts…

Then I see a new post, “Sneaky CCP, Sneaky”, by my friend Helena Khan about the 2 NEW NEWER Dev Blogs… “Coming to EVE Online in the Rhea release on December 9th” by CCP Seagull and “Quick, give me manual control!” by CCP Nullarbor… OH FFS CCP!!!!!

I started reading the Dev Blogs even before I finished Von’s post and had Sugar’s and Helena’s posts up on my second screen… and I was half way through the Dev Blogs when I saw that Hermit (and thanks for the mention man… that was a hard & weird day for me…), Sugar (AGAIN!!), Helena (AGAIN!!!) had even newer posts up... as, it seems, does a majority of the bloggers on my must read list…

Then it hit me… I was overloaded. I stopped reading, closed all blog screens and logged onto EVE.

I wanted no moar to do with ANY reading about any of the NEWEST NEWER NEW STUFF coming in Rhea when I had not yet finished reading and absorbing all I wanted to on the OLDER NEWEST NEW STUFF that just came with Phoebe and the OLDEST NEW STUFF that came out with Crius… It was then that I realized CCP had sneaked in a new mechanic to the Metgame… “Feature Fatigue.” And I had pushed my timers too far… I needed a cool down period… and bad.

I’ll be back after the timers run out…. Sheesh.

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

Three Strike Rule...

~ “/sigh…”

Night before last was… well, one of those nights that give you reason to enjoy when things go right shall we say.

First, my wife had surgery last week. 3rd go ‘round on this particular operation and the 4th surgery in this exact same site… no matter how you do the math, this sucks.

So Lady Pain (I love her and she loves me, but he hates my mistress EVE…) is home and her convalescence is going well all thing considered, bringing with it the hope of full recovery. And it, of course, brings with it the caregiving she needs as she recovers, which I have no issue with… but it is damned hard to go through for all involved, most especially her.

She is, for the most part resting and recuperating… which means after homework, dinner, dishes and laundry and other such… I try and have a bit of a sit down for some me time, which now can, and does, get interrupted, often, very often, without warning… and I’d better be damn QUICK about answering too… She txts and expects, perfectly understandably, for me or Boo (dottir) to STOP whatever I/she/we doing and come right quick… and I do (notice I said “I”do)… but this can be, well, not good shall we say if one is say flyin Logi inna C5 site or mebbe, as I was night afore last, running C3 sites solo inna Vargur… or trying to respond to a ToO… (Target of Opportunity)…

My options are, of course, to simply not DO anything where a sudden txting, very similar to a DC, can leave everyone hanging… or I can just fly and pray… guess which I opt for? Yea… I fly man. Now let’s add to this winning formula for fun that there are simply times when no matter how hard you try, yer gonna fail. Nights when Bob, the God of Holes, deigns to take notice of you… and in the noticing notices that things have been going well for you… and decides that that’s simply gotta effin stop. And one has no choice but to accept the consequences… like this particular night…

I first logged on TurAdan and spent an inordinate, and yet quiet absorbing, amount of time working on his Forever-Q™. TurAdan is gonna be a UberScanner. He’s already inna ‘Stero, albeit a very poorly T1/Meta 4 fit ‘Stero, but skills are steadily clicking away in his now 80+ day Forever-Q™… I love being able to work my way down a fit or a role, dropping skills in in order of (1) importance to the fit/role and (b) by time to level… and then just close the skills screen and check notifications ervy now and again.

Then logged on as Tur(Amarth) and as usual I wanted to get PI runs out of the way first and while I am doing PI n shit we are all chatting in TS  as usual… Jor is setting up some PI alts, Sov is scanning somewhere, Tsra is… I dunno, I never know what Tsra is up to… and Endy is well, being Endy. After PI is done I’m agitating for us to GO SHEEWT something… anything… so I decide to try out my new Vargur. She is fit as a PocketDread for soloing C5 sites so C3 sites should be AFKable innit…

So I warp out to a site, where per SOP I am supposed to drop an MTU and BM the MTU for the Noctisising of the wrecks later. But, I am in my shiney new Vargur and I put off that step for a little bit as I start in on the site. I wanna try out Defensive Self-Tackling for a cycle or 2… Bastion Mode ya know… can’t move… be das bunker in space… but, the C3 Sleepers simply don’t put out the same DPS as C5 Sleepies do, so I just off Bastion and allow the Hardeners, Giant Repper and Giant Noses to do they thing… but I am all into my new ship… checking it out from different angles, F9ing the screen clear and taking pics, etc. all the while spamming Dscan and keeping up with chat etc.

2nd spawn arrives with Frigates… I turn on the Huge Smartbomb and all the little nasties nearby start bleeding… scheeet! I figure to speed up the taking down of them pesky frigs I’ll sick my droans on em too! Uh huh… ‘cept I really shoulda turned OFF the Huge Smartbomb first… but no, I dint… so I watch as my 5 Hobgob IIs lose all shields, armor and 50% of their hull HP on the first pulse… <facepalm1>… The Not-so-SmartPilot™ spams the Huge Smartbomb off and tries to recall droans in time but only gets to watch as the Sleepy frigs make easy scrap out of the poor near dead things… dear lord save me from myself…

OK, itsa derp, but not too bad, I treat Droans like what they are… smart bullets… they are expendable to a degree after all and I still have my PvP backup Droan… a lone Gecko! And that lil monster is a terror! So, dubble checking the Smartbomb is actually OFF, I launch the Gecko and sick him on the partially burnt up frigs and joyously watch as they melt afore his awesomeness…

Now I work my way through the site until all are steaming wrecks in the void and… oops, eems in my haste I fergot to bring the damn MTU… Ok, no prob, Recall droans! Align and warp back to POS to get an MTU… and… it’s only as I go to warp that I realized I had not yet BMed the site… <facepalm2>. I watch the lovely lovely wrecks, holding the approx. 35m ISK worth of Lewts and Slavage that this site is usually worth, rapidly disappear into the black off my stern while I am unable to stop my ship nor click a wreck or even open the places screen and grab a BM in space in time… and, of course, the site has despawed from the scanner window as I warped out. Oh fuk me.

I land in the POS and silently curse Bob the God of Holes… Well, what do you expect me to do? curse myself?? I KNOW it was ALL Bobs fault! He’s never liked me…  =\

Anyhoo… I finally buck up and tell the guys… I have to, the wrecks will be on scan for HOURS and someone will eventually put 2 and 4 together and get = Tur. They, my guys, my corpies, my good friends… supportive, caring, decent-to-a-fault guys that they are… of course LOL and rib me mercilessly… =P

Well, it is what it is and there are still sites in the sky and ISK to be made… So I BM the next site from the scan list (yea I BM everything now), grab an MTU and 5 new Hobgobs, then I swap out to my trusty ‘stero and head back to the site cloaked… I land and slowboat to a good spot well inside my Vargur’s range, make a Pounce BM, head back, reship to the Varg and head back out… And this time I do it by the numbers… Warp to the Pounce, drop MTU on the pounce, (dubblecheck that damned Huge Smartbomb is OFF) launch droans and start in on the site… NOW I feel confident this time things will go as they should…   yea   right.

OK, so I am running this site, into the second wave when Sov says…

“Ventures on scan! In the hole I’m scanning, heading to a gas site, everybody reship NOW!!” …

“Uh Sov, I’m running a site…” says I…

“Don’t care, finish it later, 4 Ventures! Reship NOW!” says Sov…

So I kill the last Sleeper cruiser while scooping the lewts and MTU and recalling droans… I’m eager for the Pew Pew but disappointed at the same time… I just HATES leavin ISKies sittin in the sky but, !!PVP!!

So I warp to POS, ask what to wear, “Dictor.” Sov replies, so I jump into one of my Sabres and warp to the outbound hole. Sov is scout, NC1M in on the hole and Tsra joins up… Sov gets us a warp in and calls “Jump, Jump! Warp to Sov, warp to Sov.” We jump and as we enter warp Sov calls out… “Crap! sleepers just spawned, Ventures warping out, everyone warp out on landing.” “Crap.”

I land, hit the warp-to for the return hole, my ship turns and starts accellerating and a bubble goes up... WhatTehFuk??? Sov, “Tur, you bubbled!” I look down and realize I had moved the mouse back down to the hub controls… and had inadvertently hit the bubbler… <facepalm3> oh godsdamnit!!! I turn on def and prop mods and try and burn out of the bubble knowing it is futile… having popped the bubble I am at the center and trapped with 2 Sleeper BSes… so it’s just a matter of time… and very little of that ‘til… Boom. Fuk… fuk fuk fuk fuk fuk fuk… I warp my POD out thru the hole and back to the POS.

I sit idly… thinking over the last few hours… and I realize, three strikes, yer out.

<facepalm1> Smartbomb my own droans…

<facepalm2> warp out of a completed yet unbookmarked site…

<facepalm3> bubble myself and get killed by Sleepers…

And not once… not even once did anything untoward happen due to what I had feared most, my wife calling me away. Nope, this night’s derping was mine and mine alone. I don’t rage, I don’t whine and I don’t cry… I simply thank everyone, say goodnight, log off and go to bed…

Mebbe tomorrow Bob will have mercy on me… mebbe not... Bob’s an ass that way.  =\

Fly Fearless, but smart… and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

Thera Goes The Neighborhood…

~ “Highlights from the 2^nd Episode of CCP’s “o7” Show”

OK this sucks… I JUST posted my Phoebeness Post and minutes later found myself reading Kirith Kodachi’s post, “Welcome to Thera” … Damn, damn damn damn… now I have NO CHOICE but to immediately write about this…  =\

I am a wormholer, and all things Anoikis are near and dear to my skeevy heart… and it seems CCP Fozzie dropped a bit of an Anoikis Bomb of a reveal in today’s 2^nd Episode of the “o7” Show.

If you want to watch the whole thing, which I HIGHLY recommend you do, hit the link above but then immediately skip forward to 07:15… for some reason CCP has over SEVEN minutes of… nuthin but splash screen… they just don’t seem able to edit out.  =\   Ah hem…

OK on to the why I am posting a 2^nd post just 2 hours after my last you ask? “Thera” is why, the First NAMED Anoikis Star System… an Anoikis system with NPC Stations… yup, STATIONS with an S… OMG.

OK you has linky to video, so Ima not go into much detail, I will however synopsize the most pertinent reveals below… To put it simply, (1) When you are podded, no moar skill loss, no moar upgrading clones and (2) New Space and New Systems in Anoikis…

“Thera will be the biggest system we have ever added to EVE”  -CCP Fozzie

The “o7” Show 2^nd Episode reveals synopsis:

CCP Terminus on what’s coming in Rhea

Time stamp: 20:15 – 23:00

Clones step 1:

No skill loss/no moar clone grades/implant loss ONLY

This was done for primarily for Vets but has benefits for New Bros too…

No Hints about step 2 etc.

Anoikis Stuff:

CCP Fozzie on what’s coming in Rhea

Time stamp: 32:35 – 40:00

Moar New Space… a COLLECTION of new Wormhole Systems

CCP Fozzie Highlighted an Anoikis system called “Thera” (watch for this to be rolled out NEXT WEEK on Sisi…)

Thera is the first ‘named’ Anoikis system with Multiple Full Service NCP Stations. Thera is a very old Anoikis system, we are just discovering it now. Thera is deeply tied to the Anoikis/Empires lore-storyline… watch for new lore-storyline stuff to be coming out daily...

Details:

Thera will be in a new 5^th type of space/no POSes/No Local/-1.0 sec/will have Sleeper Sites/most connections including statics will be to K-space/no statics to W-space/no Capitols allowed in/cannot build Capitols inside/unique system weather/new sun/newbula/a really Gigantic System/Stations very very far apart/largest system ever added/Landmark Sites everywhere…

Thera will be ‘Traveling Without Moving for Stations’… a Dark Jita without CONCORD…

OMG!

And… at the very end of the show I caught this did you?… 

Can we say NO MOAR CORP CANS!!!

Fly Fearless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

The ZOMGodness

~ “CCP Proves They Still Have It…”

Ima segue a bit… 
So my NEW JOB (…some of you who follow this know that I have been employment challenged for some time now… 7 months to be exact. Plain drove me outta EVE even it did it did. Well I finally landed not just a job... not just another contract... but a full time position… and from an ad on Craigslist FFS… LOL! I have been an IT Contractor for 17 years, and for at least 7 of those I have increasingly wanted to break out of contracting… so Yay me!) …

So my new job has hours that I really like, 9 to 6. You see I am not a morning person, I would actually like to get all medieval on them as do bounce outta bed at the crack o dawn with a song in dey hearts and a smile on dey lips… effin weirdos… Now don’t misunderstand me, I still have my alarm set to 6AM like so many do, but then it’s set for 6:30, then 6:45 then 6:55 and so on… and like many I nudge my 11 y.o. dottir awake at 6:30… then at 6:45 then at 6:55 and so on… =P (she is no moar a morning person than I am, we get along that way…).

The point being that I have to have Boo (dottir) at the bus stop… (4/10ths of a mile away, at the end of our driveway, you know... just outside the Force Field...) by 7:30A at the very latest… leaving me with a full hour and a half to leisurely meander down the 30 minute of light traffic back roads it takes me to get to work sooooo I am ALWAYS early! Schweet! (Understand this has not always been the standard for me TBH)… and no, I do not even for one picosecond consider the option of going back up that driveway and back into the house until much moar reasonable 8:15ish… oh noes… that would only lead to me waking up, dried sticky drool caked into the keyboard imprint on my face, and calling my boss to tell him what he already knows… that I’m late… again. Nope, circumstances’ forcing me to be early to work inna way I can deal with is a dream come true.

So on the Tuesday the 4th things went as usual… I was hoping against hope, and experience, to actually get up ‘early’ enough to d-load and at least get a look at Phoebe… yea, right… the bed was, as my dottir says… just too warmy warm. Anyhoo the downside to my new schedule is I dunt get home till 6:30 at the very earliest and moar like 7ish most days now… so I dint get to experience all the Phoebeness until nearly 8PM! Oh well… so it goes.  =[

But I digress…

So there I was at 8 in the evening playing catch up with the better part of the playerbase… the client d-loads the patchspansion and it takes no more than the expected time, good good… then it applies the patchspansion, again in good time… and I log on…

And I am amazed. The first thing I noticed is the new HUD and the Compass and BOOKMARKS INNNN SPAAAAAAACE… Whatta concept! Whatta REALITY!!! OK, you may just possibly have the impression I am just a wee bit overjoyed with BMs in Space… and if not, well lemme tell you, I am! I zoom out from the POS and ALL of my pounces and safes are right there!! OMG I can finally SEE how they relate to each other and the POS… How truly wonderful… and after fiddling around a bit I find this…

As you can see in the first pic, by default ‘All the Things’ are shown in space…

But I don’t LIKE ‘All the Things’… especially the Gods Damned Sigs and Anoms. Ever since CCP decided to remove the Mystery from Scanning and Probing and give us all Large Neon Colored Signs in Space showing us EXACTLY where all the “Hidden Stuff” is I have hated that aspect of the OV. I actually spend quite a bit of time quietly hating on the Discovery Scanner every time it sweeps across my screen and reveals everything… and I hate the Large Neon Colored Signs designating where every Signature and Anom in my systems is… and wishing I could turn it OFF… what crap.

But if you right-click on the Compass itself, you get the Sensor Overlay popup… which allows you to ‘choose’ what you want to see in space… oh my, this is the dreamy goodness I have so longed for. (…and yes yes yes, I know all of this is in the Dev Blog… but it bears repeating!!)

You can turn off each item separately by simply clicking on it or,

 Click on the All Seeing Eye and shut it ALL off, including the Discover Scanner Sweep...

Voilà!

OK on to USING the BMs In Space… Yup, all I could have ever wanted. The ability to SEE the relationship of your BMs to the ‘verse is simply too good to be true. We who live in Anoikis  (Anoikisians, Anoikians, Anoikii?) live by the Cloak and BMs moar than anyone else in EVE. And when yer ship is cloaked and you are using BMs to get a pounce or position yourself for the slaughter… erm, umm, I mean to DEFEND our homes this is one of the greatest tools CCP has ever bestowed upon us… and being able to reach out, click and warpto… OMFG

I found at full zoom out, you can even see your off grid BMs and their relationship to the POS and each other… I know a lot of players use Tacs, Pounces and multiple safes etc. … but unless you live in holes and fly ‘round ALLATIME in cloakies (until they need to be sterilized from the pod funk) you cannot imagine what a bag full of win this is for us!

I spent so much time playing with and rethinking my Tac, Pounce and PI BMs and such that I lost track of time… I had wanted to pop out and play with the Multisell and such, but the hour was late and so I turned my attention next to the Forever-Q™ Skill Queue…

I was flummoxed. I had longed for this for years but with one thing and another I had never really worked out exactly what it would mean… how much simpler it was when you only had to plan for 23+ hours and just pop in a long skill when you knew you weren’t going to be able to log on for a while. I need to do some research so I decided to just loaded up everything I had less than a day or 2 to skill and then popped in all the L4 and L5s I needed for Command Ships… 65d 16h etc… again CCP, OMFG!

I have touched on only 2 of the changes to come our way with Phoebe… and I feel like I am playing a new game… I can’t wait to see what emergent behaviors are to come of these changes and what CCP has up its rolled up and ready for a fight sleeves with Rhea and whatever comes next...

I am moar excited for us and for the game than I have been since I first undocked into the cold hard black of New Eden four long years ago… and I do believe I had the same grin on my face then, as I did last night.  =]


Fly Fearlessly and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

BB60: The Measure of the Game…

~or “Shit or Get Off the Pot…”

Blog Banter # 60 - Measuring Success

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 60th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

* * * * *

Jakob Anedalle of Jakob's EveChecklist blog asks:

With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now out, and more of CCP Seagull's vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term to see it through.

Long term, what do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they've succeed?

What do you see as the outcome that we'll see as players?

Is it concurrent player count or something else?

Get writing!

===================================================

You have been weighed.

You have been measured.

And you have absolutely...

Been found wanting.

Welcome to New World. God save you, if it is right that he should do so.

This Blog Banter landed in my mailbox as I was reading the Minutes of the 2014 CSM Summer Summit which I had found the link to over on Aggressive Logistics. In that post CCP Seagull is quoted and I immediately looked it up in the Minutes… the quote is located in the ‘Veteran Player Retention’ section (in the PDF, pg 120)…

It starts with Sion Kumitomo -“I recognize the cultural blow that incarna was. The risks that you take by being more risky. I understand that there are real legitimate concerns now.”

CCP Seagull – “For the record. This was so many years ago and we have done so much work to reach now. I, as the executive producer, am in a risk taking mode. But, in the new way that we work. Not just random things. We need to be bolder. We should be able to get over our trauma of Incarna. We need to own our game and be courageous with it. I think our players want that of us.”

Örvar Halldórsson – “We feel excited but also mildly terrified every release. We don’t try to break things or let things out of hand. But, leaving them open ended means in the long run we don’t know the unpredictability of what people may do. That has to be an accepted thing. It is an exciting thing. But, we cannot be in too much control. We can’t keep it safe because it gets boring.”

CCP Seagull - - It's time to get over incarna and start taking risks again, educated and calculated risks of course, but we need to make sure that we deliver solid content to veteran players. We have trained players to be afraid of us doing big things. It meant we put something big out that was half done and it never got touched again. Us doing something big, such as industry, means CCP is going to mess it up again and we will have to pick up the mess. We, internally, have become scared in a sense of making bolder changes to the game so that we know we can control the outcome. Because we do not want to be perceived as messing up again. We can predict what is going on. That predictability is boring everyone to death now. We need to challenge and move forward with solid plans owned by teams that are building the vision in their hands. We need to turn up the volume.

OMG THIS.

Now, what will the fallout be? Will players who’s gameplay turns on Jump capable ships, who are deeply invested in the mechanics of pre-Phoebe Force Projection and Logistics unsub in droves? Will Cyno alts, Lo and Nullsec Industrial, Capitol and Titan pilot char owners vote against the changes with their RW wallets?

Will das mittens quietly ping the CFC… “Everyone unsub for a month or two and CCP will learn to do as their told… or else.”… ugly picture that.

I don’t believe so and personally I, and I believe a majority of the playerbase... even Goons, will keep the faith with CCP and with CCP Seagull’s determination, vision and her belief in US. She answered to this point, unsubs due to changes, quite directly at EVE Vegas. CSM Sugar Kyle posted the minutes she herself took at the Eve Vegas 2014 - Ship and Module Round Table with CCP Seagull & CCP Manifest. CCP Seagull was directly asked about one type of potential lost subs due to the coming Phoebe Jump changes…

Q: The reduced need for cyno alts means fewer subscriptions. Is CCP worried about this?

A: We absolutely expect there to be a reduction due to cyno accounts. We think that the balance this change is bringing will be good and bring other people to the game or back that will compensate.

And she very pointedly responds to this entitled Nulltroll (in the comments Sugar says she was pretty sure the inquirer was in PL)…

Q: …Some changes seem made to stop emergent game play which seems against the sandbox. If a group oppressively dominates, the sandbox should allow that but you are making changes to stop that.

A: When we add things into Eve it is a form of behavior shaping. Our responsibility is to make a rule set and a landscape that makes it as good a game as it can be for many people. If the environment is unbalanced it is our responsibility to try to correct the flaws or change them and not be afraid because they have always been broken. It is not a simple system. We have avoided changes for fear that changes are bad. But we want an interesting and viability world for as many people as possible so we have to make things change even if some things won't be liked.

This harks directly to her above statements that “…it’s time to get over incarna and start taking risks again.” CCP is no longer afraid of us, ‘bout fukkin time.

Long term, what do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they've succeed? …concurrent player count or something else?

Long term signs CCP is succeeding in the new paradigm of RW Risk vs Reward will of course be increased player activity (PCU) and over time, hopefully the sub levels will not only bounce back but start to increase once again. But it will also be in the…

…outcome that we'll see as players?

For me and my mates, the answer will be increased excitement and more enjoyable gameplay… more things to DO. Players having to figure things out once again… challenges and obstacles to overcome, riches to be won and lost, opportunities taken and missed… New players in space, new stories, new wars, new maps as new lines are established… a reinvigorated, almost New, Game… almost.

I did this once… let’s see if lighting can strike twice…

******

Dear CCP Seagull,

In the Minutes also in ‘Veteran Player Retention’ section this is stated…

CCP Seagull - Do we care about the veterans? Yes we do. It is on the agenda in a way it has not been in many years.

CCP Rise - After a long period of neglect around and post Incarna we need to look at more game health, maintenance and balance. Our attitude is moving from the best way to take care of veterans being just game health is to include game health and also look at newer and bigger things to add to what people can do in Eve. Stuff like the sov discussion is part of that. Things like star gates are part of that.

CCP Seagull, do you mean this? Do you really mean it? Then you HAVE to take a hard look why Incarna failed… Take a fresh look at the promise that was Walking In Stations.

The failure of Incarna was not that players didn’t want Avatars… yes, some didn’t, but many did… very many, and I feel MOST would have been very interested in FP Avatar gameplay had there just been CONTENT to USE the new Avatars IN. THAT was the only failure of Incarna… no content.

CCP Seagull, do you want new players? Do you want old players to resub? Do you want to really change the face of EVE? Let us OUT OF OUR SHIPS!!! Open the gods damned DOOR and I believe in my heart you will be AMAZED at the flood of new players… Give us a NEW WAY to play EVE… one CCP once failed at.

Goddamit I want my friend back… here is part of why he left, “A huge moment for me was Incarna.  I actually thought Incarna should have been the start of something great…” and it could have been… it should have been this.

Come on, CCP Seagull, make the dream come true, show us CCP really wants to open EVE up, to create NEW CONTENT and give us NEW THINGS TO DO… show us CCP really can deliver on its promises.

On The EvE of Contention…

On The Bone of Contention…

On Getting Back in Contention…

And, the dream…

Worlds and Stations

Fly Wreckless and see you in the, Station… =/|)=