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Showing posts from October, 2014

Rambling: Free

Today I came across a discussion in Eve Uni chat where a particular player said he felt that CCP was setting Eve up to go free to play. The changes in the trial accounts sealed it for him. With them leaving so many skills open that a trial account cannot reach, he feels that it is the first door opening to change. I disagreed. He ignored me and continued on his points. I disagreed. He ignored me some more. Not being successful in the communication point I found myself thinking that it was a ludicrous idea. Of course it is. Ha, Ha. But if I'm honest with things, it is one I've heard before on other blogs and forums.

"Be the Villain"

I hunted down the "be the Villain" add that one sees for Eve on the internet. I've been following a lot of threads. Many of them go, "Eve advertises you to be the villain." This is also in reference to some blog posts some months ago. But today, I finally tripped across what I was looking for. It's an add for Eve. It contains four images in the order below. It does end with Be the Villain. That doesn't suprise me. It is rather shocking marketing wise. But it is not the only part of the advert nor I feel the entire focus.

An Undocked Adventure

With the minutes released, a weight was off of my shoulders and everything has become a bit easier to focus on. I was logged in and on coms when someone reported a Rhea jumping into Tama on what looked like a badly positioned cyno. Per the report the Rhea appeared to be a few kilometers off of the station and dithering between warping or going to dock. Tama is a system with a station that can be a pain to dock at. Not the worst station in the world but not the best. Now, when I light cynos at stations like this I do my best to hug the center of the station and work up or down. I'd probably light my cyno in between some of the poking out bits under them down by the spire. That reminds me of a nifty guide I was shown. It comes from this forum thread where the poster took a guide on station docking ranges and added where he cynos in on stations . I don't agree with all of his cyno positions that is only because of my personal comfort level. It is useful if you have neve

CSM 9 Summer Summit Minutes are Released

Two days early, the CSM 9 Summer Summit Minutes have been released. You can download them here . It is a PDF of roughly 140 pages. It is quite the weight off of my shoulders for the minutes to be out. To no longer sit on all of that information is quite the relief. Plus, I can discuss things in more details. The minutes are a big deal simply because they are one of the actual 'tasks' that the CSM has to do and they are quite an important one. In the minutes you see the interaction of the CSM with CCP. A lot of information and detail about what is going on comes out. There is also going to be a lot of different writing styles. Nine people contributed to the minutes out of the thirteen members of the CSM who attended. Gorski gets a pass because he was not given his CSM position until after the Summit and the submission of the minutes to CCP. At one point there was a question of more homogenization. It would be nice yes, but the minutes are a tremendously large task. I was

Puttering in Space

Let me talk about my tiny, industrial goals. Niden recently interviewed me about industry and markets in low sec. He wrote it up here, on his column Low Life on Crossing Zebras . One thing I did say to him at the start was that he might wish to find someone who was more industry focused. For some reason he settled with me. I was super honest and said things like, "I don't know." I compare myself to many of the industrialists I know, who make their living off of it and feel a bit shamed. If anyone remembers the skit by Eddie Murphy when he discusses how his friends have McDonalds and his mother makes him a burger , that is about how I feel. I don't let that stop me however. As unbeautiful as my burger may be, it is still mine and I can look to aspire to bigger and fancier industrial goals. My last post was discussing my need to reevaluate how I am handling my marketing. This ties into my industrial goals. In some ways, I've had these plans in place for a whil

TCS: Selfishness and Adaptation

I was told that I could whine and throw myself a little pity party for a TCS post if just I'd write one. Armed with permissions I gleefully looked to write a long saga about the trials and tribulations of the CSM balancing with my market attempts. That post didn't quite happen. I find that writing about how bad I feel for myself makes me feel a bit stupid. However, there was truth in the fact that the negatives and hardships that are part of running TCS should be shared. Not everyone who picks up markets in a vein similar to mine will join the CSM and find their time consumed. However, other types of game time consumption do and will happen to most of us. I often bemoan that I don't feel as if I fit in with a lot of market bloggers. They make ISK by the billions, per month. Some months TCS makes a billion ISK in pure profit after everything else but that is not common. However, that is no ones fault but my own. I don't run TCS like a proper business so it should be

CSM9 - Day 176

Last week was perhaps my quickiest and dirtiest weekly post. I'll try to do a bit better this time. We're down to nine days before Phoebe is launched. There have been stacks of dev blogs and several threads on the forums covering everything else. Naming conventions have come up with Oceanus and now with Phoebe. We're really not agreeing with CCP on the direction names have taken. With Oceanus it was a blandness that made the eyes cross and took away from the sci-fi feel and theme. For Phoebe the 'blighted' names brings way to much of a fantasy feel to it. Also, blighted and uber powerful guns just don't work together. It is amazing how much power there is in a name. I think that we see it in these last few weeks as items are renamed and new names introduced. I think a 'hyper velocity cannon' would sound great and be reasonable and easy to understand. Even a hyper special cannon or something along those lines sounds interesting and science fictionis

Let Them Choose a Way

Let's talk about options. CCP Rise discussed an idea he has been kicking around in his spare time of permanent death. He pointed out that it is an idea as old as Eve it is just one that has never been achieved. He also said that how it would be implemented is still a series of ideas or guesses. It, like many things that have been said and will be said, is an idea. I like  the idea of permanent death and I say that as someone who will never, ever use the option. The thing is that I like options. I have also pushed for players that start to have more options in how they start the game. To move back and use another game as an example, I shall use Skyrim. I love Skyrim with all of my heart and soul and when I finally started to use mods for Skyrim I picked mods that did not give me special bonuses but instead gave me more options to live in the game world. I picked a mod that gave me an alternate start. It threw me out somewhere to the west. I was immediately chased by wolves and

Ramblings: Clearing My Mind

I was writing some very boring words about moving items for my market. They made sense but bored me into not being able to complete them. I was just saying the same thing that I've said before. I'm worn out enough that just stocking the market is about the full extent of my energy right now. It turns out I was sick by the time I got back home. My husband brought it with him when he flew in. Nice of him. Then my fan died today which left me without a machine for much of my time. However, a trip to the store and some searching and things are back to normal. I'm still in an odd state where I feel as if I have things to say but not much is coming out. My normal method for that is to write through it anyway even if I have no point and make little sense along the way. With Eve Vegas past us and the release of the minutes coming up I think I am rather wound up. I should just start writing my halfway through my term post because I think that is what is clogging up the writing.

Eve Vegas 2014 - General Game Design

This was a bit boarder in topic but it was very much ask questions about Eve. This topic also had some longer discussion that I often did not include. One of those was in the realms of AFK cloaking. That had a long discussion attached to it and I wrote very little because it is the same arguments that have been going on for years. There has been talk to censor these questions to 'good' questions. People ask what they want to ask. It is why they come. So enjoy both good and bad questions and know no one would censor you and tell you how to ask questions the right way. Q: There have been a lot of changes to blueprints. Some people have invested what equals centuries of time into researching blueprints. There was no type of compensation when the blueprint research was changed and that time was lost where skills are at least reimbursed or something is given for other things that change. A: We know that people have a lot of time invested into some things. But we are trying not

Ranting: Reviews and Behavior

My own time in Vegas has moved to vacation from Eve related events. I spent some time over the last two days writing my notes. I still have one more session to write up and one session that wound up not having many notes. CCP Manifest created a feedback thread early on Sunday to get peoples feedback. This wrapped into the community team's request for feedback from the attendees.

Eve Vegas 2014 - Ship and Module Round Table

I am in a food coma from the buffet as I try to look over the scrawled lines of black that constitutes my fast note handwriting. This session was one of the longest and most crowded which will surprise no one. It also started first thing in the morning so it filled after it started leading to some possible rehashes of topics. A few times we go on about a topic for quite a while and have discussions. In general, in feedback from the convention, we have asked for these to be recorded in some way. Until then, here is my rehash. Q: Make the new T3 Minmatar Destroyer vertical. A: I'd like that as well and will bring it up with the art team. Q: New jump changes - Black ops don't have any long distance repping ships. A: These limits are known. BlackOps are unique in what they do. I don't think we will make a mass produced Etena to go along with them. but we are not happy with the current state of T3 repping subsystems. Q: Battle Cruiser and Battleship warp speeds. They a

Eve Vegas 2014 - CCP Seagull's Round Table

CCP Seagull sat down with CCP Manifest sitting beside her. I will say at that CCP Manifest controlled himself and CCP Seagull did all the talking. I don't think he stabbed her with a cattle prod of STFU even once. As always my notes are somewhat short hand and may occasionally break proper use of my native language. Q: Are you looking at making changes to make mining more interesting? At this point CCP Seagull explained that she does not make that type of design decision and that is not what she does in her position. Knowing that the argument would derail into people asking her about ship balancing and everything under the sun I interjected and suggested that she start the session explaining to people what she does and how she interacts with her teams so that they could give her questions she could answer beyond vague empty statements. My decision to do this absolutely came from discussions at the Summit and the knowledge the CSM has of what CCP Seagull does. I hoped that it w

Eve Vegas 2014 - Social Media Round Table

As always with round tables I take notes in a rapid scrawled shorthand that I then have to decipher later. I also condense down the questions and the answers because I'm writing at full speed. The side effect is that my hand hurts a lot. I never write this much anymore. Ow. I try to break it down into Devs and such when multiple ones answer but I'm not perfect. CCP Manifests Round Table about Social Media and PR stuff from October 18th. CCP Guard was there too. To Start: CCP Manifest is the SR PR guy and in charge of Social Media. He reads over the dev blogs before they are released. He sorts out interviews when people wish to interview the developers. His main focus is on Eve Online. Q: A request for an approved set of graphics or video that players can use to promote Eve. A: A pack of approved for use graphics could be good. However he notes that they do not hunt people down for use stuff unless they are making a large amount of profit off of the Eve IP. CCP Guar

CSM9 - Day 168

It is not quite Monday morning where I am so the Sunday post is still written on Sunday! From the CSM side of things Eve Vegas has been a fantastic and new experience. I have met a lot of people. I have talked to people about my views and philosophy. I wound up being dragged onto the live stream with Ali and interviewed by CCP Guard to my horror and amazement. I have explained to people what the CSM is and I have been hugged and thanked by other people for doing it. I'll be writing a halfway through post pretty soon I think. But for now, let me try to skim over what has been going on. This week has mostly been the Eve Vegas reveals. Many members of CCP's team has been travelling this week and things were quiet until the weekend hit. I've also had heavily broken internet at the hotel which means I have not had the time to skim forums and bring up the threads and links that I normally do on these days. T3 Destroyers - These are not fully fleshed out yet and the first o

Saturday Short Hand Summary - Eve Vegas

I will preface this with something that will surprise no one. I am quite tired and I have been quite busy and occupied. I am also writing from my phone which makes spell checking hard. I am just tired enough not to care. My next suggestion is that you follow the eve tweetfleet on Twitter. The updates and images are rolling in hot and heavy for those that want to follow people around the convention. I've been taking notes at the round table sessions. Normally, during these events I do not spend a lot of time doing stuff and I have a lot of time to write. This time, I've actually spent considerable amounts of time socializing. It is quite a change and not a bad one. However, it does eat into my writing time. The other reason is that I've been having problems with getting access to my room. At the moment my husband has called the tech support and they are sending someone to the room to fix things. He arrived a few hours ago. That is why I am laying on the bed as my hair

A Look at the History of Expansions - Part Sixteen

A Look at the History of Expansions - Current List Previous post: Empyrean Age In June, 2008, CCP introduced Eve Online: Empyrean Age. With Empyrean age came the long promised introduction of faction warfare. While this is not the faction warfare that we know in current times, it was a large addition to the game adding a new region, new missions, and a new playstyle to the game. But it is no longer June and CCP has released the Empyrean Age 1.1 release. Other areas of Eve are also entering their eternal dance. The first CSM is about to end and elections are starting for the second. CCP is locked in their eternal war to combat lag. They have migrated Eve into StacklessIO  with notable improvements. Jita, sweet Jita, how well we know its name. Before the release of stacklessIO, Jita capped out at around eight hundred pilots. Now, it is holding strong at a thousand . However, it still crashed once the population hit 1,400 pilots. Still, CCP is encouraged at improvements. They also

Why I Will Never be Space Rich

@RixxJavix On behalf of TCS, a premier low sec boutique specializing in all the PvPers accessories, ISK is sent to @Mikeazariah — Sugar Kyle (@Sugar_Kyle) October 14, 2014 Silva decided to sell himself.  This is Eve and it makes complete sense that this can happen. He didn't go about it cold and technical. He put himself up for sale and decided to see what would happen. What happened is Rixx started a 'save Silva' campaign to buy him. Rixx, however, has little cash, and he stated this. That was when Bagehi stepped in and offered to donate towards Rixx's purchase. That was the unusual part. Character buying in Eve is very cut throat. The characters skill point totals and abilities have an absoulte value. The buyers buy and use or buy, clean up the skills, and resell. It is a trade of bodies and abilities. It is one that is a clever work around to the out of game sale of characters. I both like and dislike buying and selling characters. I have done it myself. I

Now or When?

This morning, I decided to be a tiny bit productive in game. I've been trying to put my markets back together. The other weekend, when I had my glorious adventure, I got one of my alts stuck in the station with Sugar. She was going to be the in cyno for my great escape that I wound up not needing. Today, I extracted her when I got up from work. The corporation that lives in that station is USTZ. My days off are scattered through the week so I logged in, noted that local was at zero instead of seventy five, and warped out to freedom. I absolutely love the danger and I love avoiding the danger. I like that thinking and planning and a bit of patience can allow me to just step out of a bad situation. Hopefully. It may not work. I might have left that and jumped into an instalocking spammy camp and lost the ship a jump later. That is also something I adore. And I love and adore the possibility while not actually wanting to be the one that falls victim to it. But, I know that it w