Change. Change is the only way to describe Phoebe at this point.
CCP Seagull released a dev blog touching on a lot of the upcoming, November 4th, release.
Welcome to the new skill queue changes. I appreciate everyone who participated in my posts about skills, skill queues, and account babysitting for their energy, conversation, and thoughts. When CCP introduced the ability to plex another person’s account I saw it as the first step to ‘fixing’ the babysitting account problem. Now with the change to the time restrictions for the skill queue, someone can load up their queue with up to 50 long skills and their babysitter can just inject the account with PLEX, helping it to stay subbed. Injection of skills that you do not have the pre-qualifications for will hopefully be in the future but they will not be a part of this release.
People have spoken of the fact that they will never log on. I know that logging on to change a skill may have started a series of events that gets a player in, playing. But, looking at it, if you don’t want to log in you don’t want to log in. Forcing you to log in for a skill queue is not giving you a reason to play. That is another thing that needs to be addressed. For this, the potential quality of life improvements are enormous and worth the fact that those who are not motivated to log in are still not motivated to log in.
My quality of life PvE improvements will be going in. I talked about these on Day 140, right after I returned home from the Summit. I’ve been building a list of problems with Team Space Glitter. Most of these have to do with exploration. I will gush more about it once the Dev Blog is released but I am very, very happy to see my project bearing fruit.
CCP Greyscale has released a update to the changes for jump drive usage and jump fatigue for logistical uses. I am happier with where we are. I was hoping to be around seven light years after sitting down with people and running routes to all corners of space. CCP has decided, currently, upon ten. It is still up for nerfing. Nor is this a forever number. After reviewing the feedback, CCP Greyscale has said that he does not feel that logistics are healthy enough at this time. The goal is to improve that health which will lead to further nerfs.
The Rorqual is exempt from the added range but continues to have a lesser gain in fatigue. This trade off comes from the Rorqual’s use as a logistics ship and its combat ability. It could not have both range and the combat abilities and CCP has decided not to remove its combat function at this time. I look forward to seeing combat Rorqual on the field because I absolutely expect them to be used.
Doomsdays in low sec? I’m still scratching my head over this one. The feedback thread is available on the features and ideas forum. However, no bombs and no bubbles. CCP Fozzie has made that clear. It allows me not to work myself up into a frothy rant. So far the best feedback on this I have read so far is about being able to DD Faction Warfare structures.
With the changes coming in Phoebe, CCP is also twiddling with the HP and resists of Sov Structures. Sov structures. This is not about POS.
There is a thing called “Hobojamming”. I’m told it has worse names. Basically, interdictor bubbles will not pop when the interdictor docks in a station. Interdictor pilots should read and provide feedback.
The sensor overlay is getting a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now, utterly excited. Viewable bookmarks in space. A directional dial to stuff. More customization. It looks amazing. It is now live on Sisi. There is a need for a new shortcut key due to the decoupling of the dscan menu.
Eve Probe has a new update out. It has a few new graphics that are worth looking at.
CCP Punkturis dropped a hint on twitter about MultiSell. It was later confirmed in CCP Seagull’s Phoebe Dev Blog. It now has a thread where they are looking for feedback for this Beta feature.
Do you want to fly a Titan? For an unknown period of time everyone gets all the racial Titans and skills on Sisi. It is a great time to try the test server out if you never have or to update it if you have not. The directions to access the test server are on the Evelopedia. Someone suggested having access passes to Sisi for inactive accounts. What do you think?
There is some work going into the forums. Read the Dev Blog.
Yes, I know there are not any ships or modules rebalancing listed.
Live Event in progress
There is a live event going on. It is about some mysterious new stuff coming out of wormholes.
This is more Steve’s area, but a dedicated site for Eve’s 3rd party developers is being built.
CSM Stuff
We appear to be a CSM that loses members. Major J Silva has resigned. Gorski Car is his replacement. The CSM and CCP have discussed when replacement members should officially stop. Per the thread, this is the last member we will replace if we need to replace one on CSM9. Hopefully, everyone else is good to go.
Bringing on new members is important. The top 14 are selected for the CSM. That could be the top 12 or the top 16 if CCP had felt differently about their selection. Everyone that comes on, who is willing to work, has things to bring to the table. I’d prefer members to resign than sit in their seat AFK for the full term. That hurts everyone. This position isn’t about some title or forum tag. Bringing on people who the players voted for as members decide to leave is good. Each person has the potential to contribute something.
I also do not believe that I only represent who voted for us. Other’s may feel differently. I appreciate my voters. They gave me their trust and their hope and I am doing my best to pay that back. But, not voting for someone is not a reason to cut them out. We’re here to make Eve better, keep communication flowing between CCP and the players, and deal with whatever we can. Limiting that to ‘who voted for me’ is ridiculous.
Minutes
We finished the minutes on time and got them to CCP. CCP has started reviewing and signing off. We are push, push, pushing to get them approved by CCP so that we can release them to you.
Sion tweeted the results for those who are interested in member activity levels.
Sessions Processed for the minutes:
9-Sugar
3-Corbexx, Steve, Xander
2-Sion
1-Ali, Mangala, Mike, Mynnna
The way we handled the minutes was that each member took a session. For example, I took the low sec session. We had video recordings of the meeting. I then did a hybrid of transcription and minutes. While I don’t include wandering jokes about licorice, I make sure that you get the discussion between the CSM and CCP. My nine sessions totalled about ten hours of meetings. Each person has their own style and I will make sure to point out the ones I did once they are released and I can write a full review of my thoughts on the topics.
Eve and IRL
Next weekend is Eve Vegas. I land on Thursday evening and will leave the following Wednesday morning after driving construction equipment around Dig This with my husband.
CCP Seagull released a dev blog touching on a lot of the upcoming, November 4th, release.
Welcome to the new skill queue changes. I appreciate everyone who participated in my posts about skills, skill queues, and account babysitting for their energy, conversation, and thoughts. When CCP introduced the ability to plex another person’s account I saw it as the first step to ‘fixing’ the babysitting account problem. Now with the change to the time restrictions for the skill queue, someone can load up their queue with up to 50 long skills and their babysitter can just inject the account with PLEX, helping it to stay subbed. Injection of skills that you do not have the pre-qualifications for will hopefully be in the future but they will not be a part of this release.
People have spoken of the fact that they will never log on. I know that logging on to change a skill may have started a series of events that gets a player in, playing. But, looking at it, if you don’t want to log in you don’t want to log in. Forcing you to log in for a skill queue is not giving you a reason to play. That is another thing that needs to be addressed. For this, the potential quality of life improvements are enormous and worth the fact that those who are not motivated to log in are still not motivated to log in.
My quality of life PvE improvements will be going in. I talked about these on Day 140, right after I returned home from the Summit. I’ve been building a list of problems with Team Space Glitter. Most of these have to do with exploration. I will gush more about it once the Dev Blog is released but I am very, very happy to see my project bearing fruit.
CCP Greyscale has released a update to the changes for jump drive usage and jump fatigue for logistical uses. I am happier with where we are. I was hoping to be around seven light years after sitting down with people and running routes to all corners of space. CCP has decided, currently, upon ten. It is still up for nerfing. Nor is this a forever number. After reviewing the feedback, CCP Greyscale has said that he does not feel that logistics are healthy enough at this time. The goal is to improve that health which will lead to further nerfs.
The Rorqual is exempt from the added range but continues to have a lesser gain in fatigue. This trade off comes from the Rorqual’s use as a logistics ship and its combat ability. It could not have both range and the combat abilities and CCP has decided not to remove its combat function at this time. I look forward to seeing combat Rorqual on the field because I absolutely expect them to be used.
Doomsdays in low sec? I’m still scratching my head over this one. The feedback thread is available on the features and ideas forum. However, no bombs and no bubbles. CCP Fozzie has made that clear. It allows me not to work myself up into a frothy rant. So far the best feedback on this I have read so far is about being able to DD Faction Warfare structures.
With the changes coming in Phoebe, CCP is also twiddling with the HP and resists of Sov Structures. Sov structures. This is not about POS.
There is a thing called “Hobojamming”. I’m told it has worse names. Basically, interdictor bubbles will not pop when the interdictor docks in a station. Interdictor pilots should read and provide feedback.
The sensor overlay is getting a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now, utterly excited. Viewable bookmarks in space. A directional dial to stuff. More customization. It looks amazing. It is now live on Sisi. There is a need for a new shortcut key due to the decoupling of the dscan menu.
Eve Probe has a new update out. It has a few new graphics that are worth looking at.
CCP Punkturis dropped a hint on twitter about MultiSell. It was later confirmed in CCP Seagull’s Phoebe Dev Blog. It now has a thread where they are looking for feedback for this Beta feature.
Do you want to fly a Titan? For an unknown period of time everyone gets all the racial Titans and skills on Sisi. It is a great time to try the test server out if you never have or to update it if you have not. The directions to access the test server are on the Evelopedia. Someone suggested having access passes to Sisi for inactive accounts. What do you think?
There is some work going into the forums. Read the Dev Blog.
Yes, I know there are not any ships or modules rebalancing listed.
Live Event in progress
There is a live event going on. It is about some mysterious new stuff coming out of wormholes.
This is more Steve’s area, but a dedicated site for Eve’s 3rd party developers is being built.
CSM Stuff
We appear to be a CSM that loses members. Major J Silva has resigned. Gorski Car is his replacement. The CSM and CCP have discussed when replacement members should officially stop. Per the thread, this is the last member we will replace if we need to replace one on CSM9. Hopefully, everyone else is good to go.
Bringing on new members is important. The top 14 are selected for the CSM. That could be the top 12 or the top 16 if CCP had felt differently about their selection. Everyone that comes on, who is willing to work, has things to bring to the table. I’d prefer members to resign than sit in their seat AFK for the full term. That hurts everyone. This position isn’t about some title or forum tag. Bringing on people who the players voted for as members decide to leave is good. Each person has the potential to contribute something.
I also do not believe that I only represent who voted for us. Other’s may feel differently. I appreciate my voters. They gave me their trust and their hope and I am doing my best to pay that back. But, not voting for someone is not a reason to cut them out. We’re here to make Eve better, keep communication flowing between CCP and the players, and deal with whatever we can. Limiting that to ‘who voted for me’ is ridiculous.
Minutes
We finished the minutes on time and got them to CCP. CCP has started reviewing and signing off. We are push, push, pushing to get them approved by CCP so that we can release them to you.
Sion tweeted the results for those who are interested in member activity levels.
Sessions Processed for the minutes:
9-Sugar
3-Corbexx, Steve, Xander
2-Sion
1-Ali, Mangala, Mike, Mynnna
The way we handled the minutes was that each member took a session. For example, I took the low sec session. We had video recordings of the meeting. I then did a hybrid of transcription and minutes. While I don’t include wandering jokes about licorice, I make sure that you get the discussion between the CSM and CCP. My nine sessions totalled about ten hours of meetings. Each person has their own style and I will make sure to point out the ones I did once they are released and I can write a full review of my thoughts on the topics.
Eve and IRL
Next weekend is Eve Vegas. I land on Thursday evening and will leave the following Wednesday morning after driving construction equipment around Dig This with my husband.
I have to say I'm pretty excited for this release. There's enough stuff here to almost fill the old six-month expansion. I'm curious to read more about the exploration changes when the dev blog comes out.
ReplyDeleteDoes CCP still remember the Corp and Alliance changes? According to Fanfest, it sounded like they were going to do that before the Sov Null changes, but the Null changes have started and still no word on the other.
They absoutly have not forgotten. I wrote the minutes for them. :)
DeleteThank you for all the work you're doing in the CSM, Sugar. I miss Jester, his frequent updates and his very insightful blog (queue the hate...), but I certainly enjoy reading what you and others in the current CSM are accomplishing. This coming update looks jam packed with features. Kudos.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the PVE updates you've championed as well. Not everyone wants PVP in EVE.
Thank you. Now hopefully the Dev blog is amazing and makes me amazing!
DeleteFollowing the Dig This link yields the follow review, “As they say, playing in the sandbox taken to a whole new level...”
ReplyDeleteGently introducing the spouse to the joys of the sandbox? Devious.
I’ve been building a list of problems with Team Space Glitter. Most of these have to do with exploration.
ReplyDeleteI hope that they'll fix z-axis probe movement in scanning. (Yes, I know you cannot say anything about it or you would.) I believe!
Here is my first take on the features announced for Phoebe: I'm a bit excited. I would add to what I said there that the bookmarks in space is a nice thing.
Can you say anything about the changes on Sisi to decloaking? Cloaked ships in range of each other now mutually decloak.
I have attacked this to the best of my ability. :)
DeleteRegarding Sisi access for inactive accounts: Of course there is the potential for abuse (playing on Sisi only and not ever paying for an active account again), but I think this has potential for good. It gives former players an opportunity to try out new features that may draw them back into the game. In the worst case, if a significant number of players decide to just stay on Sisi, it could at least increase the pool of players on the test server, providing more load and coverage.
ReplyDeleteNow comes the next question: if you give inactive accounts access to Sisi, do you give them the ability to provide feedback (either via the test server forum or other means)?
It is a good question. What do you think? Is it for feedback or just for letting people get a taste of Eve?
DeleteI've spent my share of time unsubbed, often because of a disagreement with changes to the game or CCP's policies/actions. Personally, I would definitely appreciate the opportunity to give CCP regular feedback on features and issues that would encourage me to resub.
DeleteHowever, I can also appreciate the dangers of changing a product based on the feedback of people who don't use or pay for your product.
It's a delicate balance, and I don't consider myself qualified to give the final answer on which side of the balance is best for the game. But just as the opinion of one player, I think allowing for some form of feedback from former subscribers would be a good and useful thing.