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 fictionish.
There is also the fact that at current stats, the blighted weapons do not seem very good or at least not good enough for people to use them over other things. Options and choice and decisions are all very good words to use but the item has to fall into a category where it will be used. Being balanced by potential cost and availability is a hindrance for ganks perhaps but it is also a hindrance for usage. Plus, eventually, everything balances out. As long as they are expensive people will hunt down the pieces to sell them and push the cost down. I think they are a great idea but I don't think they are where they need to be to create something interesting to play with and try new things with.
Stealth Bombers: I've received a lot of good feedback. This was also a common topic at Eve Vegas. The usage of stealth bombers and ISBoxer is a very hot topic for the community and CCP Fozzie said that the use of ISBoxer is not why the changes made, were made. In fact he clearly posts in the thread the reason why. ISBoxer is tightly tied up into the concept of bombing fleets these days due to several prominent bombing ISBoxers. My personal stance in ISBoxer is the same. I'd prefer it was outright and clearly banned. However, the Stealth Bomber thread is not about ISBoxer. CCP Fozzie has also said that they are looking over the changes again after all the feedback for them. Keep up the good posting and solid ideas and counters.
Speaking of ship balancing, CCP Fozzie points out some of the design goals for various T2 ships based off of their ship yards in the Heavy Interdictor thread.
The starbase weapon rebalance is being pushed back to December.
The Multisell dev blog came out. I went onto the test server to try it out. Selling things is quite different. I think that the window will save a lot of time all together but I advise people to give it a try and get their suggestions for tweaks in, now. Some areas are moved around. There is a gear/sprocket that now contains the customization areas. When I tested it there was an irritating popup menu that said 'sold' on it. That, per the thread, seems to be a temporary thing.
And don't forget about the mission objective tracker along with a few other changes to give more clues about the status of missions.
Some other stuff:
Corbexx put together a nice little spreadsheet for POS usage information. He is pretty much wallowing in it from wormholes. However! Lots of people use POS and we're finding that people use them for every reason under the sun. I'm putting everything I've gathered into it. Then we'll bundle it together for the devs to read as they are looking towards the future of POS.
The minutes?
Due out by next week. I'm hoping things are still on schedule. We did discuss it some at Eve Vegas.
Making Noise:
Things in general have calmed a little bit. I have fewer new threadnoughts to read having caught up so I've been putting some time into the forums and posting on them. I'm not much of a poster on Eve's forums. That environment has never been my medium. I do read them however and when I have something to say, I try to speak. I don't really want to just make noise to make noise because I have the CSM ticker but sometimes people make that request of me.
I scheduled my open chat. As for the others, I will invade Eve Uni public mumble for the accessibility to everyone that wishes to join in. I'm going to go for November the 15th at 1500 and 2200. That's a Saturday. As always these talks have no set format. They are a sit down and talk, listen, and discuss things. I do these so that people can have casual voice time with me and whatever other CSM members I drag along. My native environment is this blog and in game channels but I don't wish for them to be the only way that people feel they can talk to me. I also want people to feel as if they are talking with me, not just listening to me talk or someone else talk to me. That is why I do an open chat.
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 fictionish.
There is also the fact that at current stats, the blighted weapons do not seem very good or at least not good enough for people to use them over other things. Options and choice and decisions are all very good words to use but the item has to fall into a category where it will be used. Being balanced by potential cost and availability is a hindrance for ganks perhaps but it is also a hindrance for usage. Plus, eventually, everything balances out. As long as they are expensive people will hunt down the pieces to sell them and push the cost down. I think they are a great idea but I don't think they are where they need to be to create something interesting to play with and try new things with.
Stealth Bombers: I've received a lot of good feedback. This was also a common topic at Eve Vegas. The usage of stealth bombers and ISBoxer is a very hot topic for the community and CCP Fozzie said that the use of ISBoxer is not why the changes made, were made. In fact he clearly posts in the thread the reason why. ISBoxer is tightly tied up into the concept of bombing fleets these days due to several prominent bombing ISBoxers. My personal stance in ISBoxer is the same. I'd prefer it was outright and clearly banned. However, the Stealth Bomber thread is not about ISBoxer. CCP Fozzie has also said that they are looking over the changes again after all the feedback for them. Keep up the good posting and solid ideas and counters.
Speaking of ship balancing, CCP Fozzie points out some of the design goals for various T2 ships based off of their ship yards in the Heavy Interdictor thread.
The starbase weapon rebalance is being pushed back to December.
The Multisell dev blog came out. I went onto the test server to try it out. Selling things is quite different. I think that the window will save a lot of time all together but I advise people to give it a try and get their suggestions for tweaks in, now. Some areas are moved around. There is a gear/sprocket that now contains the customization areas. When I tested it there was an irritating popup menu that said 'sold' on it. That, per the thread, seems to be a temporary thing.
And don't forget about the mission objective tracker along with a few other changes to give more clues about the status of missions.
Some other stuff:
Corbexx put together a nice little spreadsheet for POS usage information. He is pretty much wallowing in it from wormholes. However! Lots of people use POS and we're finding that people use them for every reason under the sun. I'm putting everything I've gathered into it. Then we'll bundle it together for the devs to read as they are looking towards the future of POS.
The minutes?
Due out by next week. I'm hoping things are still on schedule. We did discuss it some at Eve Vegas.
Making Noise:
Things in general have calmed a little bit. I have fewer new threadnoughts to read having caught up so I've been putting some time into the forums and posting on them. I'm not much of a poster on Eve's forums. That environment has never been my medium. I do read them however and when I have something to say, I try to speak. I don't really want to just make noise to make noise because I have the CSM ticker but sometimes people make that request of me.
I scheduled my open chat. As for the others, I will invade Eve Uni public mumble for the accessibility to everyone that wishes to join in. I'm going to go for November the 15th at 1500 and 2200. That's a Saturday. As always these talks have no set format. They are a sit down and talk, listen, and discuss things. I do these so that people can have casual voice time with me and whatever other CSM members I drag along. My native environment is this blog and in game channels but I don't wish for them to be the only way that people feel they can talk to me. I also want people to feel as if they are talking with me, not just listening to me talk or someone else talk to me. That is why I do an open chat.
The stealth change is something that hits close to home for me. My PvP comes from stealth hunting in wormholes and the coming change does make things harder for corps like mine that don't ISBox. I'd much rather see scripts banned than the stealth change.
ReplyDelete"However, the Stealth Bomber thread is not about ISBoxer."
ReplyDeleteFozzie can keep claiming this, but it doesn't make it true. The fact is that he keeps trying to separate the two issues when they are inseparably connected. After these changes, ISBoxer will be even more powerful for bombing as it provides an advantage that non-ISBoxed bomber pilots will not have in the form of a way to work around the decloak drawback.
CCP's policy regarding macros and similar software is that they are legal as long as it does not allow players using them to acquire ISK or accomplish other activities at an accelerated rate compared to players who do not use such software. If ISBoxer didn't fit that definition before, it most definitely will after these changes.
For that matter, ISBoxer accelerates gameplay for any situation in which it is used. It removes the time needed to alt-tab to different clients and reissue the same commands multiple times. This may be considered overall a small acceleration (which is ridiculous if you look at the case of an ISBoxed 20-man fleet), but it is an acceleration nonetheless.
It sure would be nice if CCP would actually enforce their own rules and policies!