Incarna, MT, Riots… and The Director’s Retreat.

With the advent of the Incarna Patch, we have seen things in EVE never before seen… Riots. Real, honest for god riots…

As I and my corp live in a WH, we are just a little out of touch sometimes re the goings on in Empire… and I found out about the riots in Jita (and elsewhere) cause I was on a store run from our C2 WH w/ like 50Mil I$K of sleeper loot & salvage… and I was unable to jump into Jita due to server load… wha?? When I finally got in, there were like close to 2000 players IN Jita… and many of them were firing on the monument... WTF??? So I started running Google searches and reading up, etc. and that was my intro to the Incarna/MT et al Rioting and in general all-round crazyness that had started up while we were down in the hole.

Over the last few days I have looked in on the Riot in Jita and been out to the Caldari Leviathan, the scene of another riot as hundreds of pilots fired on the Leviathan (causing only the barest sliver of red in shields and armor)… One of the most fascinating things I saw was the Caldari Navy NPC Fleet, which normally acts as a protecting force around the Leviathan (usually around 30 to 40 BSs and BCs) respawned right in the middle of all this and was basically wholly melted in under 2 to 3 minutes…

I’ve been out to the Leviathan many times. Good money to be made there preying on the Cal Nav fleet. If yer willing to take the sec hit, you can use a weird drone agro mechanic to attack individual ships and loot and salvage them. The “weird drone agro mechanic” is to primary and attack a single ship with your drones. Many of the nearby Cal Nav ships will agro and attack the drones. You start your attack on the primary ship and immediately recall your drones. Once target lock is broken, either through the drones melting or jumping into your drone bay, ALL Cal Nav NPCs deaggro and you can safely fire at will on the primary until it pops. Then loot and salvage… if you can, cause there is usually a small ninja salvage ‘fleet’ lurking openly in the Cal Nav fleet ball w/ you… I know… cause that’s the other thing I do out there.   =]  but I digress…

I waited, a bit… but like so many I have decided to jot down my thoughts and reactions to this latest ‘Incarnation’ of our favorite shared virtual life... and the problems and issues concurrent with it that have raised the passions of so many of its inhabitants, myself included.

All of what I have read about boils down to really one basic Issue as I understand it:

A break in trust between CCP and its client base, (We) the people who pay for game time on the Servers that host “EVE Online”.

Everything I have read, and my personal experience over the last 7 months, leads me to this one basic conclusion. We trusted the DEVS and Executives of CCP to stay the course of their stated mission, to create an unscripted MMO(RP optional)G using the “sandbox” ideal where in CCP creates and maintains the Sandbox we play in, and We create, and live in, and fight over, the sandcastles therein.

Why? Greed. Simple, age old corporate greed. Greed is NOT good. Greed sets the desire for ‘profit’ over the desire to provide a ‘good service or product’ to your clients. Create a great service or product, for profit, as CCP did when it created EVE and you will have customers flock to you and you will greatly profit thereby… But sadly, if the service or product is good enough, as it is with EVE, and you will make so much money that eventually greed will raise its fugly head and you may even abandon your original goals… for greed. I fear CCP may have reached this point, I hope not.

Allowing the ‘foot in the door’ of MT, “Microtransactions” for vanity items, which is nothing more than CCP leagalized RMT (keeping in mind buying PLEX for RL money, then selling it for I$K is a form of legalized RMT too…) wherein CCP is the benefactor of the RMT (not someone else, which is still a banning offense)… allows for the ‘possibility’ of increased profits (IE Greed) one day from non-vanity game play items such as faction standings or actual items (the oft referenced “Gold” ammo, etc.). Yes I know CCP is saying that is NOT ever going to happen…. But they have provably lied to us already and hence the break in trust.

Break in Trust: I will list just two I know of as one may be a mistake, more than one is the start of a pattern…

I.                    “Captain’s Quarters will be optional.” The only ‘option’ is to disable it and instead of Ship Spinning or anything interesting, you get an extremely unpleasant static pic of the CQ non-functional door that is supposed to (but doesn’t yet) lead out of the CQ to the rest of the station.

II.                  Is CCP going to introduce Pay-To-Win MT's into Eve Online?

It's a yes or no question that doesn't need days or weeks to answer. The fact that there has not been a definitive answer to this point in time screams a resounding "maybe" or "yes" because no would be so easy to say if they have no plans for it.

If they do, I will leave. You will have hordes of children flocking into this game because they can then PAY to circumvent the time honored (and time consuming) Skill & Grind of the World Famous EVE Learning Cliff… and using legalized RMT, beat players who have paid their dues, in skill time and I$K grinding… the way it was always supposed to be.

I love this game because I am a 50 year old guy who does not want to play games w/ kids… got two of my own and can play “Go Fish” w/ them anytime I want… I go to EVE to play with ADULTS. or at the very least extremely bright and socially mature young adults…. Though I cannot say I know for a fact of anyone under 21 that I have flown with so far, and MANY I fly with are well above 25 with a few near my age.

I have turned off the CQ. It is less than useless in its current form, it is extremely laggy; gives us some (but not all) of the functionality we had before but in a far less friendly and vastly more time consuming format. It does not replace ship spinning w/ something as, or more, interesting to do than ship spinning was.

If One Whines, One should be able to give Alternative Solutions… my ideas are:

(1) Options other than docking (speeding up actual gameplay and possibly helping to reduce lag):

Give us the option to contact our agents and conduct business w/ them OUTSIDE of the stations (within docking range) via comms like we do now for Agents in Ships. Getting missions, completing missions and getting paid all do not REQUIRE one to dock. Docking is required ONLY if cargo needs to be loaded/unloaded for missions, or to change or refit ship(s).

(2) Make CQ more interesting until WIS is ready... (this is my pet request):

(a) Strike a deal w/ Netflix so we can rent moves, TV shows and watch them on the CQ big screen. I personally would LOVE to watch "Firefly", "Star Trek", "BSG", or "Clear Skys" in the CQ.

(b) Possibly add a change of view from 2^nd person behind your toon to 1^st person on the couch watching HoloV.

(3) New Ship Spinning:

(a) Give us the ability to click on the Ship Hologram and see our current ship either full screen and rendered similar to the old ship spinning in dock view

(b) Possibly a change of view to 1st Person with a fully rendered model we can manipulate and spin.

(4) For the sheer hell (and fun) of it... put in a bathroom, allow the toon to enter, shut door, and... well, you know... w/ flushing sounds as toon exits... Make it last long enough (on average) so a player can go too. =]

OK on to the fun stuff… Part the Second: The Directors Retreat

This past weekend SL, AI and I got together in South Carolina ostensibly for a wedding of a friend of AI’s… but “WE” knew it was actually a cover for the HB Directors Retreat! Oh the wedding was real enough… my wife made the wedding cake and the groom, AI and his staff Sgt. were in their Dress Blues, swords and all… The bride was, well, quite simply stunning.

But from Wed night (well, Thurs midday) through Sun afternoon, aside from the timeouts for the wedding and food and the guys chasing my 8yo daughter and her best friend around the apt for tickle fights, oh and the obligatory bar hopping on the last night in town…   =]  we had our systems setup on the same table and discussed Corp matters both of deep moment and of little consequence to our little corp.

There are few things better in this world (on a par with hearing your friends and allies warping to your rescue) than the three of us, the founding directors of our corp, flying together and in person. You get so very much more understanding from face to face than you ever can over chat or even TS.

Plus, we’re close friends… it was just plain ol fun.

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

How We Lost the Battle... But Won the War…

or~ Stories from our Early Daze in EVE

This is one of a series of Stories from the early days of our corp…  This one is about our first, and so far only, WarDec.

I had joined the game after my son AI showed it to me. Initially I did the tutorials then I dicked around in low 0.5 systems solo ratting and just mucking about on my own... finally in late Jan of 2011, AI,SL and I setup HB our very own corporation.

Now basically, and if you have been reading any of my blog you already know this but I feel our corp at that time basically followed a business model I feel is best described as Bunch-a-Boobs… We were doing the 3Ms… Missioning, Mining and Mucking about trying to make some I$K and we didn’t really have a master plan or any real set goals.

When I joined, AI & SL had been ingame about a year, long enough to have been in a corp, done some lowsec roams, SL seemed to be skilling up for Industry and was very interested in manufacturing and he BADLY wanted us to have a POS. AI also wanted a POS, was more interested in management, wanted to be the CEO of our corp, which was fine w/ me and SL… SL didn’t want the headaches and TBH I didn’t either… yet. I did take the 2^nd in command spot as VP in charge of Public Relations and the Director of Salvage Operations.

I liked the idea of that title, “Public Relations VP” very much from the character of “Jayne Cobb” from the, very sadly very shortly lived SF series, “Firefly” (if you don’t know about this show you should, "Firefly"… and if you do, ‘nough said), Jayne was quite simply a ‘heavy’… you know, the ‘tough guy’ type…. the strong, silent, very deadly type… but the also extremely dumb… type. When Mal Reynolds, the Capt. of the tramp freighter “Serenity” was asked what Jayne’s job was on the ship, he thought about it and answered, ‘Public Relations’… Jayne’s job was to bully, beat up and kill people.

Anyhoo… so here were, ratting, running missions, mining, all of us skilling up our toons trying to get into the next class of ship. We had a few guys join us… Tif, and Cap (and though Cap is still a member, he has been AFK for a few months now… we wonder what happened we do), Kow joined us next and then, one fine day…

We receive an unsolicited request for membership from a “Tonto”… and like 10 minutes later, we get a War Declaration Notice (WarDec) from CONCORD! SL and I had been looking at this “Tonto” guy who was asking to join our corp when that hit us and we accepted him right away saying how we were gonna need people now that we were at War.

I must admit, my initial gut reaction was something the same… but all I can say now is that at the time it felt, I don’t know… hinky… something not right… but we were like a bee hive that got kicked… all aswarm and abuzz about getting WarDec’ed… Why? Who was it? Why?? How many are there? WHY??? Did you kill one of em? NO! Did you? NO! WHY??? I gotta tell you, the first time for anything is always, well the first time you know? But this was really outta-the-blue for us. Then we get contacted by the CEO of the corp what dec’ed us…  It’s easy… Pay 150M I$K, and he’ll go away...

Ohhhhhhhhh… So that’s what this is all about! We’re a NOOB CORP and therefore an easy target and they is an official Pirate corp, this being of course, one of the main careers in EVE… This one is a Noob Griefer corp specifically, pirates who prey on new characters and corps as what don’t have the skills and ships to effectively fight back and who aren’t in an Alliance and therefore are easy targets for more skilled and experienced pilots, EVE Mafia style. Well… that took a load off lemme tell you. We were worried it was like, personal or something, you know. Anyhoo…

Well, that made our reply very easy… “Thanx, but shall not be partaking in your EVE protection racket.” The response was as expected, “Well, in 24 hours, enjoy your $15 per month screen saver.” You see from the time, actually the moment, a WarDec is started, IE “bought” (for 2 Million I$K per week) you have 24 hours from then until it goes ‘live’, IE the War Dec prosecuting corp or Alliance can attack the defending  corp/Alliance membership anywhere in EVE. This also means the defending corp/Alliance membership can, conversely, also attack the prosecuting corp/Alliance membership anywhere in EVE without any CONCORD intervention as they are legally ‘at War’.

So we spent an interesting 24 hours to say the least. Lots of discussion about what to do when you get War Dec'ed. IE, how to defend, how this will affect our gameplay, no 3M’s now, will we lose? If we do lose, IE if the prosecuting corp is able to keep us from profitably Mining, Missioning and Mucking about so that we won’t be able to make I$K to pay the bills and replace the ships, what do we do then? Even at a year plus neither AI or SL were what you would call ‘highly’ experienced PvP’ers and god knows the others of us weren’t. We didn’t have a war chest in the corp wallet and we had all been putting our I$K back into ships for ourselves as we skilled up, so the corp wallet was… well, in a word, we were poor. So, while I know my guys, and I know they will get in there and give it their best fight, the overall expectation was not highly favorable as I saw it.

Plus I had some concerns about our newest member, “Tanto”… he seemed perfectly OK with us being in a war right as he joined, he wasn’t ‘around’ much, IE he didn’t join in the discussion on the dec and ‘huddle up’ with us you might call it… he actually went off to go do ‘some things he had to take care of’… Little did we know it but he went out and got our corp its first officially recorded “kill”… He went off and got into some PvP.  As that first day wore on AI and I called and talked a few times I got more and more convinced that we shouldn’t have accepted “Tonto” so quickly… I was very concerned he was an Alt and an enemy spy.

AI and I finally agreed to kick “Tonto” from the corp for the duration of the War Dec. IF he was a real noob, maybe he’d come back after, but I simply felt we couldn’t take the chance he wasn’t a spy. As Public Relations VP it was my job to write up a letter of membership termination in which I said we were not in a favorable position to integrate a new member into the corp due to the Wardec, and then we ‘gently’ kicked him from the corp.

The next day, just before the Wardec went “live” we were contacted and got one more chance to ‘pay up or else…’ Again, “So sorry, but nope.”  And lo and behold a bit later, 24 hours on the dot after the WarDec was declared, Tif calls out in chat “They’re insystem!” SL and I were in our home station, the SOE Station in Soshin. We check local and sure enough, one of the dec’ing corps guys is insystem and lands right outside our station. SL is hot to go out and get this guy, at the time SL had been primarily flying a Rokh a very impressive Battleship, I was flying a Thrasher (Destroyer class), and Tif was in his Exequror (a heavy cargo Cruiser) none of the other members of our corp were OL at the time.

So… here it is, nothing to it but to do it. SL coordinates with Tif to warp to the station and he and I time our undock to coincide with Tif’s landing at the station… the griefer, a corp member we had not seen until now named “Oz”,was in an Ishtar (Tech II Crusier) We all lock up him as he locks up us and we all go to it. He releases his Ogre II’s and attacks. I engage him with my Thrasher orbiting at 1000m with all 7 of my 280mm Howitzer’s in volley fire,  Tif’s Exequror is running 250mm railguns, and SL’s Rokh was firing Cruise Missiles and 250mm Gauss guns...

Tif’s Exequror was the first ship lost, my Thrasher was next ship to be asploded, but right before I was killed I saw that we were getting into him pretty good and SL was still out there in his Rokh, so I docked in my pod and jumped in my Rifter and immediately undocked to re-engage. SL calls out that he is going down and once the Rohk was gone, well, to put it simply my Rifter was instapopped and I get Pod killed immediately after…

System: Soshin - 2011.01.29

Agressor: Oz / Ship: Ishtar / Primary Weapon: Ogre II

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

Victim: Tif / Destroyed: Exequror

Victim: TurAmarth / Destroyed: Thrasher

Victim: SL / Destroyed: Rokh

Victim: TurAmarth / Destroyed: Rifter

Victim: TurAmarth / Destroyed: Pod

In other words, we lost. We lost bad. We lost every ship we put in the field against one Tech II Cruiser and one of us, me, got podkilled… SL logged off immediately and I believe so did Tif. I woke up in my clone back in my noob system many, many jumps away. Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap… Oh well, its EVE right? You want a safe, nice cuddly cozy game… go play WoW.

Now comes the weird EVE part…

A few minutes after that action was over I was contacted by the griefer who killed us all. Initially the convo went as one might expect…

Oz > hello

TurAmarth > yes

Oz > you do realize that this isn’t what we want right?

TurAmarth > well... not gettin what you want anymore than we are. So it's at least fair.  And if you really meant that... simply stop.... but you won’t... right?

Oz > not until we get what we want

Oz > however

Oz > aside from this 'situation' for a moment

TurAmarth > well... then that's that... cause you aren't anymore than we are...

TurAmarth > we have no situation.... ya'll are playing EVE mafia... and we aren't going for it.

Oz > fair enough

Oz > hope you enjoy your game for the next couple of months

Oz > good day

TurAmarth > I will.... you too....

Now… as you can expect while I was not a happy camper, I was not as upset and some get in these situations… It IS a game after all and we PAY for the privilege of playing. I once read something a guy wrote in his blog that has stuck with me ever since:

“When something bad happens to you in EVE, remember to smile and say, ‘Thank you CCP, May I have another?”

After cooling off a bit I was going back over everything and I realized Oz had at one point said, “…aside from this 'situation' for a moment” which I had not really ‘caught’ when he first posted it… So I convo’ed him and asked what it was he wanted to say “…aside from this situation…”? He responded, “Oh yes... I was going to say, aside from this whole war thing. That was a damn good showing... seriously.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Turns out we had him nearly on the ropes… he told me he was approx 3 seconds from losing his stability. We talked for a bit about how the fight went in general then he said, “And also, you guys showed some real cohesion too, very organized.” “You did well, I was seriously contemplating leaving.” Well… I was starting to feel a little better about getting our collective asses handed to us. We talked on a bit and I told him a little about us, how the CEO is my RL son and an active duty Marine etc., etc., and suddenly Oz says, “Tell U what, since you are being so cool about this I will retract this war.” “Besides, lol, next time we meet you will likely win, it’s just me against all U guys, I’m a one man corp!.”

I was stunned… I LOL’ed and told him, Oh BTW, one thing he didn’t know was… we have no money… maybe 10M I$K in the corp account… we couldn’t have paid if we had wanted to! Then he then offered to help us out with that!! At 03:30 he had stated he would not stop until he got what he wanted… at 04:30 he offered US I$K to help out with our losses and just in general… I turned him down, of course, we are small yet proud corp, I did ask, “…however... if we are ever wardec'ed... can we call ya?” Oz immediately responded, “Yes, and I will come.” Go figger huh, this is ONE VERY WEIRD GAME! He also told me that he WAS “Tonto” I was rocked that my instincts were right on that one, we both lol’ed over that quite a bit.

Now at this time I had been ingame only one month, and what he said next absolutely floored me… “Where did U learn to fit your ship? U in particular…” “Your fits are advanced and correct.” We only saw his alts before the actual action outside of SOE Station in Soshin. Directly after the fight, I looked up “Oz” on Battleclinic… very impressive killrecord, so needless to say I was really quite pleased to hear such praise from such an experienced PvP’er. I told him I was one of the types who read EVERYTHING… I Google every little thing I get involved in or even hear about ingame. I had started working with EFT and moved on to PYFA for fit testing. His response was, “Aha!” “That’s the best thing you can do, keep doing that, it shows.” I and my corp had just been buggered hard and but good publicly outside of our home station… and here I was feeling good about myself.

I told Oz about the first time I got podkilled…  “The first guy who podded me was sorry he did so when he saw just how noob I was.... he returned all the loot & salvage from my ship and bought me a replacement Rifter... I am finding much to like in the honorable scumbags of EVE...  =]”



And so it was that we weathered our first WarDec, met a strangely honorable pirate and made a friend I hope we will be flying with for years to come. It turns out that we, simply by showing up and giving it our all, earned his respect and admiration so as of 2011.02.29 at 05:35 we were  no longer at war.

An additional note,

The fight was, of course, very public taking place as it did outside of a major popular station. I was contacted by Dro, the CEO of a small missioning and wormhole corp, who had seen the whole thing… and he had brought 4 members of his corp down to Soshin and wanted to know if we would accept their assistance? They were also very impressed with our ‘moxie’ (I’m not gonna link that one, if ya don’t get it, google it yerself!) and wanted to know if we might be interested in joining their corp…

This is the strangest game I have ever played. We come out to do battle with one guy in a Tec II Cruiser and get 4 ships, one of em a Rokh, blown the hell away… and we get street cred. We get people convo’in us with things like, “good show”, and offers of assistance and the guy who dec’ed us offers us I$K and friendship simply because we came out and fought back… how strange is that?

I love this game... Fly Safe and See you in the Sky...  =/|)=