Category Archives: CCP

Slippery Slopes

Posted on by

Before we start:  I feel like half of my posts are just responses to Ripard Teg, but the guy writes so much and on so many topics that I find my self not caring.  Just a throwaway thought before I get down to it. Read this.  And then maybe the thread associated, and maybe some of the previous articles.  This is the internet, I can wait. Now we can start.  Most of the debaters in the the topic of what kind of players play Eve and how CCP should treat them seem to accept that both the “Bonus Room” scam and player perpetrating are despicable examples of human behavior.  If something like this happened in your work or your family life, you would cut ties with the person and tell others to avoid them.  That is a relief.  It means that, as I have long suspected and occasionally written, most players of Eve who also participate in the out of game community are either decent people, or are decent enough to recognize truly atrocious behavior.  What I find disturbing is that many of those same people think banning players who conduct “Bonus Room” style behavior will somehow start a slippery Continue Reading →

The Championship Tournament of Winners

Posted on by

Reading through Jester’s posts about the recent New Eden Open got me thinking about competitive tournament play in Eve and in other games. I can think of a few broad types of ranked play in gaming. The DOTA/LoL approach, with lots of characters and a set map with set objectives. The FPS approach with identical classes and rankings based on K/D rates and what have you. The RTS approach of winning matches against other players. The WoT approach where you have either informal rankings based on metrics or Clan tournaments. The ad-hoc Eve tournaments with weird buy-ins, metagamey team composition mechanics and various win conditions that have varied. The WoW arena approach. All of these have strengths and drawbacks that are far too numerous to go into at any length. The point is there are a lot of ways to skin this cat. Coming from a rather uninvolved standpoint, I want to come up with a new way to do tourneys in Eve! In my experience the biggest problem to most competitive gaming formats is either a lack of depth, or so much depth that the mental barrier to entry is too high for most people to get into a Continue Reading →

Reasonable Foreseeability

Posted on by

In the wake of Burn Jita 2, I have a few thoughts: Who plays Eve, but ignores the metagame? How do haulers, one of the most at-risk groups to events like BJ2, manage to ignore it? What responsibility does CCP have to players in regards to known events that CCP is not actually causing? I’m fairly sure the answers to the first two are something like “many” and “through dumb luck”.  But the anser to the third is not clear.  One very angry pilot posted the following in part of a draft letter he plans to send CCP, and posted on the forums: “Lack of capacity in Jita causing a large amount of ships (likely on autopilot) containing vast wealth to be stuck on the gates around the system.” In the larger context of the letter, he was implying CCP’s lack of ability to meet player demand for access to a system was responsible for a large number of the deaths in Burn Jita 2.  This made me stop and think for few minutes.  What we have here is a player trying to apply a real world legal principle to Eve online, a game made on a pile of interconnected Continue Reading →

Fail Fits and Rookies

Posted on by

Edit: A commenter noted that I am wrong about the tutorials teaching players to use multiple tank types.  This is very probably right.  I do no think that alters my fundamental point. Read this over at Poetic, and the comments.  Always a fun time, reading the comments.  I’m torn on how to handle fail fits.  I’m sure I have some fail fits that I like, elite players be damned.  I also want to laugh at fail fits.  But then I wonder, did that fail fit player buy some PLEX and go nuts, only to get his investment all blowed up and not understand why?  And why do so many people ignore advice from those that blew them up?  Questions without answers.  But one thing could be done. CCP could make the tutorials actually teach people about fits instead of having tutorial missions that encourage fail fits in a roundabout way.  I’m talking about those starter tutorial chains that give you a frigate, then give you an armor repper, then give you a shield booster.  And each mission tells you to use that specific module.  Not very good.  Arydanika talked about this on her blog a few weeks or months ago Continue Reading →

The Little Things

Posted on by

Just logged in to check my orders before heading out.  I clicked the “Show My Orders” option. Best. Update. Ever. I no longer care about anything else ever done in Eve. CCP has won. That is all.

Growing Up

Posted on by

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? -Seismic Stan, Freebooted, Blog Banter 35 Any discussion of the Eve community is tricky.  When you think of Eve from the inside, there are myriad groups all work with and against each other.  How do you succinctly capture a community that includes the CFC, R & K, Rote Kapelle, Tuskers, Faction Warfare, RP junkies, pirates, miners, inventors, manufacturers, wormholers, carebears, and traders?  Then add the flavors of each in all the various parts of space.  Then look at the meta community, which adds yet another layer.  I suppose the common theme to all the players who keep coming back is one of involvement.  The only way to succeed in Eve is not play, but if you ignore that, you reach a semblance of success Continue Reading →

April 24th: Welcome to the Inferno

Posted on by

Bravo Mittens.  Bravo CCP. The Eve community has just been granted an amazing chance to do a lot of things, and we have one month to prepare.  Regardless of your opinions of The Mittani, CCP’s reaction to his comments, and all the other arguments made in the last week, the players of Eve have just had a gauntlet thrown down at our collective feet. To the White Knights:  You have just been challenged by Biggest Bad of Eve to what will either be the largest battle the game has seen, or the quiet acceptance of Dear Leader’s arrogance and bravado.  If you want to take a stand against Goons, against griefing, against everything The Mittani and the CFC stand for, you know when and where to organize.  On the 24th of April you will be given the opportunity to take the field and send CFC back to the fields of nullsec in ruins.  On April 24th you can quietly be elsewhere and let the CFC shut down the hub of New Eden, fueling the burning superiority and pride they so blatantly display.  The choice is yours. To the CFC:  I hope you make good on the speech Dear Leader gave. Continue Reading →