The High Cost of Brand Loyalty...

~or “Pick a New Topic... Please”

Before I go there, I need to preface this by saying I LOVE the idea of books, graphic novels, art, clothing, and swag of all types and I believe in ALL of the potential inherent in all of that for EVE, OK? I have ALL the EVE novels, The Burning Life, The Empyrean Age, and Templar One. I also own EVE Source and EVE: True Stories and hope one day to order EVE Universe: The Art of New Eden and Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online.

I think that goes a ways to show that I am sincere when I say that I really really really want more Art, and Books and Lore and “stuff” and everything for our game… ok? I really do. Seriously, I do.

But.

The new “The Fountain War” Kickstarter campaign by author Jeff Edwards in cahoots with… er… um… Partnering with TMM and CCP to write and publish a book about The Fountain War. The Kickstarter campaign has a goal of $150,000 dollars. I have some concerns, enumerated below, about this project 'cause...

(1)

According to some comments and blog posts I have read there is this idea that "Jeff is willing to take on a huge risk, professionally and personally..." because he is going to take time off from his work-a-day job and focus on getting the first serial of the Fountain War released as soon as February 2016 - and then try and make the completion date of December 2016.

But.

In EVE Online, Kickstarter, and The Fountain War, Wilhelm Arcturus, The Ancient Gaming Noob comments;

“From today’s project update, where the funding will be spent.

Here is where the money for the Fountain War book project goes:

60% Author Expenses (normally covered by a publishing house)

20% Publishing and Distribution

10% KS and processing fees

5% to Merchandise

5% to Marketing

If they got exactly $150K that would mean:

$90K Author Expenses (normally covered by a publishing house)

$30K Publishing and Distribution

$15K KS and processing fees

$7.5K to Merchandise

$7.5K to Marketing”

$90,000 dollars for… approximately 1 year of research and writing. As I understand it Jeff is keeping his dayjob but taking time off (part time? on sabbatical leave?) to write the book. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely sure Jeff will write himself to the bone on this project… I’m just sayin’, can I has that gig?

(2)

$150,000 dollars, okay okay, $60,000 after Jeff’s living expenses, is still a lot of money for a book about “this-really-cool-thing-that-happened” (no matter how major or amazing it was) in a very niche game in the MMO gaming world. Especially when compared to the little fact that the “History of the Great Empires of EVE” was Kickstarted for originally just $12,500 (topping out at $95,729 in the end) and that book covers a far greater scope of Nullsec history with pitchurs and evreethang…

So why would a book covering just one War that spanned but a few months need more than 10 times the funding of a book covering literally YEARS of EVE history?

Answer... it doesn't.

Then why ask for $150K?

Answer… Mittens.

Why do I say Mittens?

Answer… Have you seen some of the goal prizes?

(3)

$25 gets you a digital Holiday card from Mittens and Jeff. <blink> <blink>

$100 to get 'followed' by Mittens (and Jeff) on Twitter, for a year... really? There are people I LIKE I dunt want following me on Twitter FFS… how could that be worth even like $10? or…

$100 you can has ‘Live on Twitch’, Mittens and Jeff will drink a toast to YOU, you special little snowflake you… =\

$250 T-shirt, shot glass and a Hardcover copy of the book, signed by Jeff (cool) and Mittens (really??)…
$500 invite to: private party w. Jeff & Mittens at ComiCon ’16, or…
$500 invite to: private party w. Jeff & Mittens at EVE Vegas ’16, or…
$500 invite to: private party w. Jeff & Mittens at FanFest ‘16

$1000 Vegas style Dining Experience and private party after with Mittens and Jeff at next year’s EVE Vegas. Why would I want to do that? I mean seriously?

$10,000 you get a supplemental chapter all ‘bout little ol’ YOU. Really? I mean… seriously a whole chapter on one or more (IRL rich) players? I have NEVER heard of a ‘history’ book ‘selling’ chapters and I would have preferred to not have heard of it this time. This also has the potential to gets totally in the way of accurately reporting history.

And I can guarantee you a large number if not ALL of the key players probably aren’t able to afford $10,000 per to tell their tale in a whole chapter… so we will likely end up with variations on some rich kid who spent the whole battle either cloaked up, spamming memes in local while pounding back beers and Cheetos and Armchair Generaling the whole fight…

Or just as bad some rich player who spent the whole battle actually playing League only having to grumpily go AFK from League to check his EVE clients every 10 or 20 minutes to see if he needed to actually ‘do’ something… You know, turn on an Invuln, cycle a booster, go back into Triage, try and lock a few targets, cycle the doomsday or some such on one of his 5 Titan alts… yuch.

All the Mittens stuff is only going to appeal to what is in truth a minority set of the playerbase. Jeff does not seem to realize he is limiting his potential market. Hell I know Goons who don’t like Mittens… Look Jeff, you wanna get EVE players lined up around the Internet just begging to click “Support”? Simple… try giving them ALL something they’ll want, like this:

$25 get EVE poster of your choice

$50 get EVE poster of your choice signed by CCP Dev of your choice

       +$25 for each additional Dev signature

$50 get T-shirt of your choice

$75 get T-shirt of your choice signed by CCP Dev of your choice

       +$25 for each additional Dev signature
$100 Rixx Javix's EVE Online Battlecruisers Art Print Set
$200 Rixx Javix's EVE Online Battlecruisers Art Print Set signed by Rixx Javix of your choice
$250 Rixx Javix's EVE Online Battlecruisers Art Print Set signed by CCP Dev of your choice
       +$25 for each additional Dev signature

$150 get Rifter model kit

$250 get completed Rifter model

$1500 and you get a Floating Nyx Model when they come out

There… hit goal in like 3 days.

I'm not hatin’ on the overall ‘concept’... I really am not, I own damn near every book so far written on EVE. I am however very concerned with the gross overreach in asking for $150k and some of the marketing ideas are, IMHO, just plain wrong.

(4) and this is, for me, the BIG ONE…

When is some writer, any writer gonna get head outta ass and write about someone other than Mittens? and while you’re at it, how about the rest of New Eden too? What, Hisec, Lowsec and especially my beloved Negsec (Wormhole Space, Anoikis where there be Sleepers…), do these spaces where the majority of the players live and die, do they have NOTHING worth writing about? I know, from personal experience and for a fact, that they do.

And I am not sorry at all but Nullsec is not the End Game of EVE and Goons and Mittens have not won it... There are thousands and thousands of stories across the width and breadth of the New Eden cluster just waiting to be told. Will somebody please step up and tell them?

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

Prosecu Victorious Empyreans...

~or “Participatione Veteranus Emendato…”

And in case the title and subtitle din’t clue you in, this one’s about PVE…

Main Title translates as, “The Victorious Pursuit (of) EVE Players”

Sub-title translates as, “Improved Participation (of) Veterans”

Well… YOU try making a Latin based acronym for PVE and see if YOU do better… <grumble><grumble> anyhoo…

In these dark days of decreasing PCU and increasing player malaise I found much to be hopeful for in The Right Honorable Sugar Kyle’s recent post, Eve Vegas 2015 - PvE Round Table.

PVE is one of those contentious issues in EVE… the PVErs feel our PVE sucks balls and the PVPers WANT our PVE to suck balls… and I feel CCP has been basically neglecting PVE in favor of driving PVP. PVE in EVE is mainly just a way to make ISK, not an end in itself as PVE is in most all of the other MMOs out there.

Most MMO’s that allow PVP have it as a sideline, as an option, but not as the focus of the players time ingame. EVE’s PVE in comparison is very formulaic, lack-luster and overall a grind… IE boring repetitive gameplay.

This has led IMHO to 2 Very Bad Things ™ for our much beloved MMO…

(1) bots are very successful at formulaic and repetitive tasks therefore botting can very lucrative and has the additional incentive of relieving the player from the ‘boring and repetitive’ parts of the game while at the same time making his PVP ISK for him… and,

(2)  PVE players (IMHO the vast majority of gamers in the world) are not interested in our much maligned MMO because the PVE sucks balls (and because of the unrestricted PVP).

So… how do we overcome these obstacles to player growth and retention? Better PVE might be a good place to start. And it looks like CCP has decided to give that a try.

I have written on this before… basically if more than 50% of your existing customer base (ref Socialbears) wants “X” and if approximately 90% of your potential customer base (ref Simple Sales Problem) are not interested in your product… mebbe you should take that into consideration… seem to me CCP might be doing just that.

The Burner Missions… the Seekers in hisec and all of New Eden… the Drifters… all PVE with a decidedly new feel and in some cases very cutting edge gameplay, at least as compared to New Eden’s normal PVE fair. I have not run any Burners but the general response in the metagame has been good overall as far as I have seen…

I have myself have greatly enjoyed hunting Seekers for fun and Antikythera elements and then run like a scared little gurl at the sight of Drifters landing on grid… As a matter of fact I recently paid the Drifter ‘stupid tax’ when I found a Drifter wormhole, the first I had encountered, and instead of taking the time and making the run to reship to my trusty ‘stero… I jumped the hole in my Sites fit non-cloaky Ishtar.

I BMed the return hole and went sightseeing… warped to and landed on something I had never seen afore and a Drifter was there… turned, burned, tried to warp… nope. Scrammed and assploded… shit. Did get my pod out only to find that the exit hole, being artificially created by the Drifters… lands you 80+KM out and like a gated site you can’t BM the hole and warp to it at ‘0’… you always land 80+km out and have to slowboat… in your POD… to the exit… pucker factor at 10+ the whole time knowing that Drifters often chase you and I’m not completely sure they won’t podkill in one of their holes... shit. But I finally made it out and back to Amarr ok.

The point being this was a PVE encounter not PVP… I was afraid of a NPC ship that was more than capable of destroying me, one that acts unpredictably, one that can and will often chase you and one that can and will often engage you without prior aggression… IE an NPC that acts like a player. Excellent!!

I am looking forward to CCP Affinity’s upcoming Blog post with another one probably in January and another one potentially in March. She has a two year plan with a very flexible roadmap. She has also said that they know they need to add more missions and they will be working on it.

The Tribute System is Concord giving players an extra thank you for doing what they normally do. Not sure what this is, sounds like LP to me, but anything to make PVE more interesting and lucrative is all to the good IMHO.

And while “payout” is important I feel that NPCs that act more like live players is where we need to be headed. I believe we need NPCs to cover the range that lies between shooting a structure and shooting a player.

Think about it. Until the advent of the Seekers and Drifters we interacted with NPCs in space basically in one of these 3 ways:

NPCI L1: Structures. Basically not a threat on their own (unless a POS and then only if armed and really only when manned).

NPCI L2: Empire missions and sites from L1 to L5. Always the same ships, comps, and tactics. Very quickly understood with fits, comps and tactics for a 100% win rate… hence what we call the grind. Unless you really fuckup you basically can’t lose = boring.

NPCLI L3: Incursions and Sleeper Sites. They had far higher DPS and scammed and webbed but eventually they too had set ships, comps and tactics and have been gamed to the point of being just a grind… granted a small error in these and you stood to lose big, but they are also the most lucrative PVE in the game.

Now we have:

NPCI L4: The Drifters. Ships and fits that are capable of killing capitols… and with unscripted appearances and non-standard and non-formulaic tactics… tactics that include initiating engagement, chasing in warp, re-engaging AND in the future…

NPCs …will dock at your citadels. When you attack some of these NPCs they will follow you. They will follow you from system to system. They will follow you through wormholes. Oh HELLS yes!!! And…

NPC patrols are coming to FW. You will get LP for them. Patrols and NPC activities are coming to all areas of space. This could add some randomness and opportunities. There will of course be standings hits for attacking patrols.

Any NPCs that follow you through wormholes won’t affect the holes Mass Limits (I disagree with this… a ship is a ship and a mass is a mass whether flown by me or an NPC but oh well…) They will (however) spawn holes. See?? Mass is mass dammit!

We have always had the Peddlers and Trader NPCs that move from station to station…but they ‘do’ nothing. They have no impact on the game and attacking them was not worth it. Right now they are just set dressing… CCP Affinity wants to turn them into real convoys of ships that actively Trade from system to system so if you have standings with them they would move stuff for you. However, they can be scanned and attacked as well so hunting them has a place. It isn't just a free to safely move.

Maybe one day we will figure out how to steal from Interbus ships that move things from the Citadels.

They are looking at Drifter convoys that will come to the aid of Sleepers. !!!!

They are looking into how this might affect Capital Escalations and is why they are also looking into nerfing Drifters a bit. Their super weapon will not work against transversal. Basically, going fast at an angle in a small ship like a frigate will make you immune. They do not want to radically change our ability to complete a site. See future dev blog.

There will be more Drifters. (IE NEW Drifters)

Next year Drifters get their own CAPITAL ship.

Plus Drifter LOGI… after all, who goes out to fight without logistics?

The Drifter storyline will continue to advance.

You will see this in the Drifter vs Amarr events.

Drifters are planned to drop different loot, possibly Drifter skins and ships.

They're working on the AI in these areas.

Drifters are the test bed for the better AI responses.

Some of this will be also available to us in missions.

CCP wants to change NPC standings interactions so that you can't be friends with everyone. Being friends with “these” people here means “those” people over there become hostile towards you.

Lastly and IMHO very importantly CCP is looking at a procedural generation system for NPC Interactions. Procedural generation will add randomness and uncertainty by moving triggers, items, and NPCs around. Fleets would increase with (react to) the number of players. Not Soon ™ though, they are looking at hopefully two years to get it implemented and in the game. But at least they are looking at it…

They are working on Data site rebalancing.

Current rollout plans are:

Tribute and Data sites around Christmas.

NPC Patrols in March.

Drifter capitals next summer.

They are planning more Holiday Themed PVE events, but… they need to fit into the story line and… No Sansha Claws. LOL

Dire Neccessity (Blog Commenter Extraordinaire) added that CCP wants to keep the in game Eve universe and real life holidays separate. Accordingly, Crimson Harvest is about as close as we’ll get to an in game Halloween event and out of game announced trinkets is about as close as we’ll get to a Christmas Celebration.

All of this sounds incredibly good to me… NPCs acting in way that fill the gap between shooting static or weakly auto-defended structures and shooting players. Think on it… you come into EVE from a themepark background. You find yourself facing NPCs that range from std so-easy-to-wafflestomp L1 frigs to you-better-has-your-shit-together-an-some-friends-along L5s and Sleepers… to running into NPC pirates who fly and fight like noobs to one who are worth fighting… really worth fighting. This fills out the gray space between Uber Misson Runner and Leet PVPers. Instead of days or months of feeling all but untouchable to getting suddenly-butt-sexed by a group of PVPers you would have all kinds of levels of “interaction” potentially easing the way from one to the other.

All in all I am feeling somewhat vindicated… I have been one of the voices out here on the webs calling for CCP to realize that good PVE does not harm or lessen EVE’s PVP roots and nature. In fact I firmly believe that if you give the Themeparkers of the world really high class PVE… then they will stay even though EVE is a PVP game at heart.

Fly reckless and see you in the Sky! =/|)=

BB68: Flying the Deadly Skies on Ductape and a Prayer...

~or “Dual Boxing onna 5 y.o. Laptop…”

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 68th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are please visit the Blog Banters Page.

BB68: This is my Rig, There are Many Like it...
What do you play Eve on? I'll show you mine if you show me yours! Are you pew-pewing on a laptop? Plotting universal domination on a 12 monitor set up? Mining away on a 50" TV? Is your set up located where your other half can speak to you or do you lock yourself away for hours in your Eve themed shed? How do you play your important internet spaceships?

Banter on!

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I really enjoy this one and it kinda makes the rounds every year or so… the last time we did this was Dec 23rd last year. My situation really hasn’t changed much in the last year, so here is how I still do it...   =]

I’m most often setup in the pub… yes, I said Pub. I married a Brit so a 'bar' is the thing behind me one sets one's pint, or in my case a Ruum n Quafe, on and leans against whence pontificating... and a 'Pub' is the place where the ‘bar’ is... (though I sometimes move everything and setup at the kitchen table just for ‘cause… anyhoo)...

So this is how I do EVE and what I do it on...

Triple screens:

22" Main Dell screen on top of the kids old toychest cum end table cum monitor stand to my left;

17" Secondary screen, my laptop screen, for blogging, browsing, etc., etc. on the right and;

50" Distraction, the HDTV for time spent waiting on a fleetup or whatever up center there on the hearth... sans the XMass lights, this was taken back in Dec of ‘14 and aside from the lights, looks pretty much the same...

The Rig:

My system is still the same maxed out nothing-special-here 5ish year old HP Sleekbook 15 w/  1.7 GHz Intel Core i5-3317U-3 MB L3 cache/8GB DDR3 RAM sittin onna lapdesk as the years and gravity combined with my ass, and multiple Ruum ‘n Quafe’s, have worked together to slowly conform my "spot" to absolute perfection on the sectional sofa...  ahhhhhh...  =]

So... How do YOU EVE?


Fly wreckless and SEE you in the Pub... =/|)=

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"Blog Banters" are brought to you… now… by the Good Folks at...

“Sand, Cider and Spaceships” by Drackarn

“The brainchild of the Blogfather, Crazy Kinux, blog banters are single subjects discussed across the EVE blogging community. It encourages the sharing of ideas and cross-pollination of readership. All in all a healthy thing for any community.“

Mid-Life Crisis…

~or "Chasing Sweet Young Things in Fun Natty Sportscars…”

You know how I’ve said in the past that I like that CCP keeps changing things up, keeping the game fresh, and keeping us learning and striving…?? yeah, well… not always. You see CCP is now going to let us rip out and sell… knowledge.

I have been trying to write about this for some time now. I am highly torn… (1) I want EVE to grow, (2) I want CCP to be profitable, but (3) I don’t want it at the expense of the Core of the Game. (4) I don’t want WoW inSpace… and I am very very afraid that in order to get (1) & (2) CCP will have to give up (3) and we will end up with (4).

Why? Because EVE is a niche game, a very niche game. The guys who started CCP and created EVE wanted a game similar to Ultima Online… with the same gritty, real, harsh, open world, in-your-face almost completely unrestricted PVP gameplay… just set in Space and as cutting edge as possible.

And it is all that and more… it really really is. And that’s the rub. Because of the gritty, real, harsh, open world, in-your-face almost completely unrestricted spying, lying, scamming, ganking, blobbing PVP gameplay, EVE is quite simply limited in the number of gamers who are going to want to play in such an environment. It’s just the way people are.

Statistically speaking (300k EVE to 8mil WoW) very few gamers are also going to spend money to play the game described above especially when you add in EVE’s form of Levelling, IE Book Skills plus Human Skills. Book Skilling takes ‘real’ time and can cost huge amounts of ISK and unlike other MMOs, the live player must also learn some seriously in-depth skills that are NOT at all your std WASD, ‘twitch based’, move and shoot mechanics… He needs these new skills in order to understand and use what Book Skills give his toon and they take real effort to learn…

Both Book and Human Skills are absolutely necessary for a player to be able to “Level Up” in EVE and effectively Fly and Fight better ships and fits and Gather and Create to increase and improve ISK generation so he can afford those better ships and fits … And in a game where after all that Skilling and Learning and Gathering and Creating and Investing ‘in’ the game… the Risk and Loss are Real aspect combined with the almost completely Unrestricted PVP aspect… can obliterate months, even YEARS of effort… very real effort, in a matter of seconds.

You have to admit… EVE players are a weird bunch even for gamers so as such there are even fewer of us. Hence EVE (and CCP) has a sort of ‘cap’ on its potential total playerbase (IE profitability) built into the game’s very core mechanics.

And this sucks. Because those of us invested in the game are invested BECAUSE it is a niche game that fits our mentality… our desire for an open world, our desire for real freedom and for something of real value in a game… ‘real value’ you ask? Yes… because Risk and Loss are Real and because in order to have anything in EVE one has to work and fight for it… fight other players, learn and work the games mechanics, and claw and fight your way up the vaunted skill cliff… so what you make and do in EVE has VALUE to you. And because it all can be permanently lost, stolen or destroyed… that gives greater value to creation and ownership.

***Chart Porn Warning***

And now CCP wants to Tear Down the Cliff… or mebbe just undermine it…

And we have all seen the PCU charts… the one that got me most was the one below from MMOData, which went dark in June ’14 cause it was getting increasingly difficult to get any useful numbers from the various game companies. And in a very sad note it was stated, “As for the only growing subscription based MMORPG left, EVE Online, I no longer receive subscription numbers. CCP no longer responds to my requests.” Rather telling in and of itself.

But at that time we had this. Just look at that red curve… if this was a true bell curve then we were at the apex at the end of 2014 and that boded very well for at least the next 4 years and it would mean EVE would not “die” until sometime near 2025…

I wrote at the time that I felt EVE was maturing, reaching the plateau of its “middle years”. What others saw was “If it aint growing… It’s dying!” but I disagreed… I felt we had potentially reached a state of maturity for our very niche game.

That CCP may have already signed up basically all the players (at least in this generation) who are willing to pay to play this very different kind of MMO was a bit of a worry TBH, but I felt that was OK as we are a VERY dedicated playerbase… and the slow losses to this and that would be balanced by those like us coming up in the gaming world… those who wanted something more, something different... that was my hope anyway.

But again, if we look at the following chart from I snagged today from EVE Offline for the Tranquility server, we see a roughly similar curve… with what looks like approx. 2012 as the apex of the bell.

The sad part of both of these is this though… the extrapolation going forward…

Sigh…. doesn’t look good huh? Yeah… me neither. (Vince is gonna be ALL over this one I bet.)

Anyway, CCP shutting up about subs and shutting down the numbers they used to so proudly publish, and the… well, graphic, evidence that things are not ‘growing’ anymore… and the push to “lighten up” EVE… to make it more noob friendly and easier… I fear CCP is having a bit of a Mid Life Crisis and chasing sweet young things and fun natty sportscars... oh, and yeah, they also wanna keep the lights on and pay the bills and staff n stuff like that too...

So while all these changes 'sound' good, just don’t sit well with me when the level CCP seems to be willing to go to are, well… draconian at best.

The Right Honorable CSM Sugar Kyle, in her post Conflicted said…

“When this [Skill Trading] was proposed at the CSM summit, I swiveled my chair and asked if they realized that they were undoing the basic structure that characters and game progression worked under. They said that they did.”

They understand they are changing one of the CORE aspects of the game. Now this aint a new POS or a change in how far you can jump… this is a change in the core of how we are WE in the game.

CCP Seagull said change was necessary and it was time to stop being afraid of the fallout from Incarna… and I have backed her every step of the way. I even stopped myself from going full retard after the Discovery Scanner stupidity… Oh I spoke out against it, but I held my real rage in check and I worked hard to see the why and any potential upside. For the most part I held my tongue and I thought to myself, “You gotta take the bad with the good”… “Medicine, while good for you, dunt always leave a pleasant aftertaste.” and shit like that.

But this… personally, I really fear it’s a step too far. I guess we’ll see, I’m not leaving… yet.

Fly it like you actually know how… and I’ll see you in the Black  =/|)=

Investment…

~or “It’s All Profit and Loss… But What Do We Profit and What Might We Lose?”

From the Patch Notes for Vanguard, 6^th heading down, Skills… 

All new characters will now start with approximately 400,000 skillpoints rather than 50,000.

I find this interesting and potentially… mebbe not smart. I do get the whole let’s make EVE easier to play for the newbs cause no matter how you look at it PCU is down, CCP stopped sharing any hard numbers on the subs a few years ago and no matter how you slice it or look at it, I don’t believe anyone can say the playerbase is growing… it’s not.

So CCP is making changes, as any good company would, to try and boost sales, secure their financial stability and increase profitability. Hence the increased focus on improving the NPE (New Player Experience) and refreshing the game by breaking the stagnation of nullsec and opening up those areas of the game for more players.

This change, a relatively large bump in new player base SP, is pretty obviously a part of the NPE strategy. Get players into a few T2 weapons and Frigate L5 on the very first day. There is debate on this and some hard feelings and others who feel it is naught but good.

Sugar Kyle said something that resonated strongly with me, in her CSMX - Post #29…

“It is a fine balance between helping new players invest without taking away rewarding first moments. I'm not convinced that skilling them into T2 weapons and Frigate 5 on day one is the path to go. For one, not everyone wants combat capabilities and for two, you  take away so many early accomplishments that your help can also hinder.

We who play, who write these blogs and argue these mechanics are vested in Eve. We have to invest new players first in the very concepts of our game.”

Investment… I am vested in EVE. I have spent 5 years playing EVE, from a few hours a week to 5, 6 or more hours an evening. I started in Nov. 2010 and I had but the std. 50k SP. I, as we all have, worked my way up the skill tree, the vaunted Learning Cliff of EVE. I am proud of this, I am proud of my accomplishments.

As Sugar said, we have to invest new players to our game… not give them cart blanc, just hand them the power and abilities without any of the costs, consequences… and the wonder of exploring and the joy of discovery. Something handed to you for free is worth exactly what you paid for it… it is worthless, you have nothing ‘invested’ in it.

Let’s define this…

in·vest

/inˈvest/

verb

2. to devote one's time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.

“…with the expectation of worthwhile result.” OK, what is a ‘worthwhile result’?

worth·while

/ˌwərTHˈ(h)wīl/

adjective

1. worth the time, money, or effort spent; of value or importance.

“…of value or importance.” OK…

We need to define exactly what it is we place value on or feel is important in the time we invest in skills in EVE Online. Is there actual value or importance in the Skill Points?

Obviously yes as skills are how one gets access to new ships and modules and activities in EVE. Access to almost everything is skill based and skills are accrued over Real Time, not Game Time as in so many other games where grinding while logged on is how one accrues skills and abilities.

And the dual crux for me is this…

EVE is such a complex game with so many paths that can be taken that not everyone necessarily wants combat capabilities right off the bat.

What if someone joins the game because his buddies talk about building ships and modules and the market… or even building Supers or Titans?

What about explorers who are mainly interested in scanning and searching covertly? What about players who come to EVE because of the market with no desire to ever undock again once they get to Jita?

And then there is this…

Just ‘giving’ such a higher number of SP at the start really does remove so many of the early accomplishments all the rest of us went through. I don’t know about anyone else, but as frustrated as I sometimes was back in my noob days… frustrated feeling I wasn’t keeping up, frustrated that I felt wasn’t really contributing to the group because of my low SP… even then I knew that it was OK, that this is how one learns and grows.

I look back now and I remember my noobhood as a fantastic and amazing time, one that I would not now change for the virtual life of me. This ‘gift’ of SP denies new players some of this experience… and as in real life the only thing we take from EVE, the only thing of real value… of real worth… is our experiences and memories.

I have a saying I try to live by…

“All you can take with you when you die is your memories… Pack carefully.”

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

See? Change is the only Constant.

~or “Here We Go Again!”

This is a quick one but I wanted to hit a few really interesting points from the Sept 17th 07 Show.

Big changes are coming to EVE, again…

CCP Seagull Bigger Picture and Changes

Start 0:31:30 to 0:33:52

In a concise and friendly little tête-à-tête CCP Seagull announced she wants ALL structures and infrastructure in new Eden to be as player created, destroyable, dynamic and driven as the market is.

She says that the fast 6 week cadence has “made it a bit harder to see the big picture sometimes” so…

They are bringing back Expansions…

These will be a new hybrid form of Large, dare I say ‘Jesus Feature’ type of release… but they are also going to continue the now familiar smaller regular 5 week releases. The Expansions will be based on features that belong together and have a ‘bigger’ impact on the game as a whole. These will not have a fixed schedule as such but will be rolled out as and when it make sense and they are ready.

The next one is going to be an Expansion… not a std. release. It is about Citadels, Structures and new changes and roles for Capitals.

Plus, we can look forward to Seagull being more active blogging and in video. And we have found that on the whole when she speaks, stuff happens.

Just after CCP Seagull’s fireside chat, we get some news about the AT Collusion Allegations…

The Prizes have been seized and an investigation is ongoing… Ooooo  Drama in EVE? Nooo say it isn’t so!... right.

The last part that really got my interest was an interview with CCP Quant.

Start 0:58:40 to 1:00:55

As we all know, requests for the QEN, the CCP Quarterly Economic Newsletter, or for that matter ANY economic figures at all has been in perma-request mode since CCP stopped publishing the QEN. Well, CCP Quant is going to be putting out graphical financial information in the future.

But… These will be about New Eden’s Economy (not CCPs finances…)

Subjects such as ISK sinks and faucets, trade deficits by region or area, import/export figures, production/destruction figures. All interesting and for the good no doubt, but CCP KNOWS what we are asking for, what we really want is how healthy is the GAME? How healthy is CCP in financial terms… what do the PCU numbers really represent? What ARE the sub and account numbers for EVE Online?

I doubt we will get those though… we all know there has been signs and portent of decline in the playerbase numbers. We just don’t know how bad it is. And if I was Hilmar, you wouldn’t know either. No company helps itself or its image or finances with bad numbers. Bad enough people are asking… last thing I’d do is give the Chicken Little crowd ANUY hard numbers that could be used or even twisted, no matter how much or little, to bolster their negative views… or worse, their agendas.

There is a lot of other good info and some fun stuff on the 07 Show… it’s really worth a watch.

Fly wreckless and see you in the Sky…  =/|)=