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Showing posts from September, 2015

A Bit of Unexpected Clairity

I found myself wistfully swinging my chair back and forth. Tomorrow is Vanguard, a release. I'm not excited about it and that disappoints me. It is not because I am angry at CCP or disappointing in Vanguard's content. It is because the five release schedule has brought so many releases that I no longer get that burbling the world is changing get ready for it glow of excitement that I used to. It isn't something I thought about until Expansion's came back. Also, attention has been elsewhere. I'm often a few releases ahead in knowledge and or projects.  But, today it is warm in the house. I don't feel particularly productive. I'm pondering going to bed early and I realize that tomorrow is release day and it is an, "Okay," type of moment. Now, realizing my own state of releases, I'm much more excited about the return of expansions. It is not that I am bitter or angry or even dislike the five week schedule. Nosy Gamer was nice enough to sit dow

CSMX - Post #29

To start with the biggest question: Why is Day 4 delayed? We had technical difficulties. During the entire summit we kept having files corrupt and they had to be recovered. This slowed everything down. Normally, Day 4 would have been recovered but with Fanfest on Thursday and Friday CCP had an Event and then the CSM had a gathering and a dinner, things didn't get done. Followed by developers where heading out to the European tour of Eve Meets, lots was going on, files had to be recovered, and everyone was exhausted. And here we are with them not finished and released. Releasing the minutes in 24 hours is ambitious and this time didn't go smoothly. I know other people like it. I've been over ruled on it. I still dislike it. I've been transcribing my notes and the video has been recovered so that last day should get together, approved, and released even if I have to endure my own voice and transcribe the entire thing on my next set of days off. Tuesday is release day.

Facets

Perhaps, I should have been more productive this evening. I could have transcribed some day 4 notes or worked on my outline and links for my Sunday post. Instead, I spent a lot of time reading. CCP is instituting a skill point change on Tuesday where new players will get a base skill point bump by giving them some basic skills that currently slow down the first few days of the game. There are a lot of reactions around this. Many good. Many that feel that it isn't enough. And a lot of people who are angry. I'll touch on that a bit more on Sunday. Somewhere in all of this reading, and talking with a few new players who have been in the game for a short period of time, I realized that we've had an interesting generation appear. Last year, I had discussed that we will have players who never knew Eve before Phoebe. This was exaggerated from its normal trend by the 'This is Eve' trailer. That gave us an entire wave of players, many that left but some that stayed. Many

So I Creep... yeah...

A the other day I received a commission to build some dreadnoughts for someone for a project. I'll discuss that a bit later. For now, I have a task to do and I am amazingly excited about it. Today is a day off. My husband managed to wake up before me and I debated drifting back to sleep for another few hours. Instead, I rolled out of the bed and helped with the morning dog walk because I wanted to start my Eve day a bit early. You see, I needed to move a lot of things around. I'd need to jump into low sec in some well occupied boarder areas. Having lived in these various regions, I know their residents habits. I got my alts loaded up with things and started to get them moved around. I needed to position a cyno ship. I needed to select a region to stage out of. I needed to get some blue prints out of low sec. I needed to do a vast list of little time consuming things to get myself set up to start moving materials and start making jumps. I found this all quite exciting. I

Nyx

This is Nyx. I've wanted to write about her for a while. It seems a good day to do so. Some might consider it a call of fate that I had a dog named Nyx before I started playing Eve Online. Nyx is seven and I did not start looking into or playing Eve until 2011. I often shy away from her name when it comes to Eve related things because people assume that she is named after the ship in game. Nyx, you see, is named after Nox. And Nox was named after the character in the Incarnations of Immortality series of Piers Anthony. I loved the name. I like x's. That is how Nox got his name and as he grew older and I decided to get Nyx, I had this desire to give them the same name. It was a hand off of sorts. Nox would teach Nyx and in that way he'd stay with me. He was an amazing, amazing dog. I miss his goofy, good natured energy. The goodess, Nox/Nyx fascinated me. Many people assumed that Nox was really Knox after the US Fort . But no, he was named for a goddess wit

CSMX - Post #28

The CSM finished its first summit. The second one will be in February of 2016. The first three days of minutes are released. Day One Day Two Day Three Day Four is on the way. We simply got slowed down with things like the o7 show, people travelling, some problems with the recordings, and being worn out. There is no nefarious reasons under it. We are tired. The attempt to release the minutes the following day is exhausting and easily unsettled by technical difficulties and scheduling conflicts. Changes are coming. CCP Seagull is back writing dev blogs and doing some face to face communication with the community. This is something that the player base has asked for and that we had asked CCP for as well. I'm glad to see the decision being made for her to step forward again. With her newest dev blog and appearance on the o7 show comes the announcement that we are moving to a hybrid release/expansion cycle. After spending the last fifteen or so months doing a six week relea

And Who We are?

Soon, I'll be checking out and heading to the airport. Before I leave, I'll lay out a question that I presented to CCP Seagull and Eve's Producers. "Is Eve a dark, cold, dystopian universe?" Note, I didn't add harsh in there. A lot of Eve is balanced around the ability to lose what you gain and fail what you try. The question is not about Eve being a hard game of challenges where effort does not automatically save ones virtual efforts. Nor do I believe that harsh is a one sided word. It does not mean loss or destruction although those are some of the greatest motivators. What I asked them was to look at what, Eve is. We have a game where we celebrate groups that rise up to help other people. We create as much as we destroy. We adopt new players, create complex social networks, and buy yellow jump suits when available. Is Eve a dystopian universe where there is no hope and only an oily, slick death in hallways that reek of the set from Aliens. When I

Day 5: Retrospects and Musings

I slept in. It did not feel like sleeping in because I was up until 0530. But, I crawled out of bed by 1300 when Corbexx buzzed me to find out if I was dead. We tried to find Sion but he ignored our calls and knocks so the two of us went to get soup on our own. Iceland is an interesting place. There is familiarity here, this is my 5th time visiting and the 4th time in a year. Yet, it is still very different. The general mood about the summit is that it went very well. There was apprehension at the start but we were productive. Yet, we have to bring that productivity with us past the summit. Talking to the developers and the producers often causes so much understanding. Somehow we have to keep that going, constantly. We can't be there every day and I cannot but feel that we can do better with keeping that free flowing movement alive. The CSM thing is often full of frustrations. I've put my phone down a few times and sighed. I feel like I need to solve everything but I know t

Day 4: September Summit, 2015

I should have felt rested on Thursday but I did not. I was up at six and out at my normal times. Last year I slept over one day and had to rush to the office. It has made me extra paranoid this time.  Dire commented yesterday that 0645 is not a super early time to get up. I debated being defensive. I get up at 0500 on my normal work days. Yet, that answer had a bit of a one upmanship feel to it and I remembered that I wasn't defending what I consider early. Part of my logging in what time I get up and go to bed and how long the meetings are is to let people know what is going on. I still hear about my 'free vacation' to Iceland. I've heard people say, "I am not interested in drinking and making friends with the dev's." Writing that I get up and have this mundane day is so that people know that we're up early and in meetings all day. There is such a chant of transparency but the summits themselves were cloaked. My goal in writing this has been to sha

Day 3: September Summit, 2015

I should have written yesterday but I succumbed to socialization and interaction overload and went and curled up in my room instead. Anyway, no one is here to hear my struggles with being social and stressing myself over the summit. Google photo's 'assistant' tool created a panorama from my habit of taking several shots. I hope you enjoy my view. Sion's view is an alley and he has a skylight illuminating his toilet. I'll accept my view eve with the ugly carpet and the entire steps to death thing going on. Dawn is a beautiful time of day. It is also to damn early. I am not a lover of the morning but while I am here I try to enjoy it. However, the weather has been very, very clear and lovely. September is a nice time of year for this place. There is a green peace boat in dock. A controversial group, I've only read about them. Seeing their ship docked was an odd experience. Also behind it you can see the clouds over the mountain. They often look lik

Day 2: September Summit, 2015

Waking up was easier this morning. As easy as 0615 tends to be. I got downstairs around 0715, ate, and wandered to the office to start the morning and catch up on my personal notes of yesterday. Today, there was a lot of sessions and we found ourselves often running over. Having more people in the room changes the dynamics of talking. The participation is greater and that shows in trying to give everyone speaking time. I found the little things session interesting because I've worked with CCP devs and the little things they are doing now. I send people to Karkur's threads. When I was building my binder, I realized that many things had been resolved since the start of CSM9. So much of my list is not little when it comes to development time or design time. That was one thing I tried to help get defined in the little things talk. What is a little thing. Lunch was cold sandwiches and then back for meetings. We ran over again, and again, and a bit more. My Uniformity and

Day 1: September Summit, 2015

The pictures from yesterday should be fixed. Technically, I had been here for a few minutes over 24 hours when I crawled out of the bed. I slept fairly well but things feel strange. A shower at least made me presentable and I wandered down to breakfast by 0715. Almost everyone else was there. I pondered if I was in truth, late, but decided that it did not matter. I ate my fruit and patte. I wish I knew what the patte stuff was. I think its lamb. I have no idea. Its some type of processed meat from a can and its lovely. Anyway, I waited for everyone to wander down to the office at around 0815. I then watched people much taller then I am pull away as they walked very fast. I could have walked fast but, I figured why? So, off they went into the distance and I wandered on along pondering how well I now know these familiar routes. The first meeting of the day was with Hilmar. He brought us a cake. Only, it isn't a cake in the understanding of cake that I have. It is

Arrival: September Summit, 2015

The flight was turbulent but smooth. I was amused by the rejection of the blanket that Iceland Air provides by the girl across the isle from me. She looked at it with complete disgust and dropped it onto the floor at her feet, horrified by it. I knew that would change as it got colder and sure enough, three hours in her capries and sleeveless, low cut top was not keeping her warm and she suddenly found some warmth in that blanket. I've always found it to be a cold flight but my decision to change my seat from a window to an isle was perfect. I had room and a general sense of physical comfort that I normally have not had. I was also on a new plane so my USB connection worked! That was great. However, the tablet wasn't responding and I was besieged with a bright glowing screen until the stewardess explained how to reboot it so that it would start working again. Flying into the sunrise is very beautiful. The sky quickly shifts from black to warm pinks and pale purples and blu

CSMX - Post #27

It has been a busy week. I was amused, around Tuesday, when people speculated that there would not be anything new until after the summit. The opposite was true. CCP was trying to get things released before the summit so that we could discuss them without redacting every other line. The summit isn't about announcing new releases nor is it about hiding things from players. It is about feedback and face time for that feedback. Getting this stuff out to you now let's us have a discussion that you all have just feed information into and makes it easier to share it in the minutes. That, I approve of. Fleet Warp Change Delay - This is going to a back burner for right now. While I support fleet warp changes in the macro usage that a pilot should fly their ships, I did not want to release a version that took away from game play. Change is fine but in change we should not lose the ability to work together in a swift way. Some Sov Changes - Somewhere in all of the changes since Aegi

The Shape of Space

To head out of town on a mildly contentious note, one topic that comes up a lot is, "What can be done to stop the gankers?" Oh, I tend to dislike discussion this topic. It opens up huge doors of emotion and anger. It touches upon how Eve is defined and people crouch on each side hissing insults over fitting and gameplay and assumed personality disorders. I don't hate the topic because of the topic, I hate it because of how people respond to it. Coding in behavior is rather hard for CCP. They can try to give carrots and sticks out to get players to do things. But reward is not as tangible as a cookie may make it seem. With organization and cooperative work, players tend to over come hurdles and learn to dodge or mitigate the damage of sticks. The only thing that can challenge a player is another player. What does everyone think about the shape of space? A few years ago, CCP opened up a few gates in the Amarr/Minmatar warzone that made a world of difference. The entire

Eve - Humble Bundle Store

CCP put up an Eve pack in the humble bundle store thing. I was going to add it on Sunday but it only has two days and change left. New accounts cost 3.99 USD and come with a cerebral accelerator. It is only for new accounts or upgrading trials. Still, if you've wanted another account, have at it. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/eveonline_storefront

Two Months, Nine Days

I looked at my corporation history the other day. I'd been in Sebiestor Tribe for quite some time. The NPC corp life is a bit different. The corporation chat window is almost always blinking as people chat. There are questions and conversations, people say good morning and wish each other good night. They discuss fits and discuss PvE and very, very rarely the topic of PvP may come up. When it does, it is mostly how to deal with people. I watched someone roar in defiance at any CODE. watchers that might be there. I've seen them chat with a suicide ganker while others tried to rescue someone who had gone into a wormhole. They chat with newbies, sometimes they share recipes, and in general they live a very, very different Eve lifestyle to what I have so far. It has been fascinating. It is not home. I to deeply desire to be around people who wish to be around me. No one knows what the CSM is. No one has ever commented on my name. Their world of Eve is not filled with news or

Eve Fueled Dreams

I had a little series of stressmares last night.  Unlike their cousin, the nightmare, a stressmare is not terror inducing. Instead, its stress inducing as things go wrong and problems mount one after another. This particular group was focused around travel from Eve related events. After I woke up and sat down with a glass of water to clear my head I realized that they were caused by my upcoming trip and the rushed feeling I have been given. In my stressmare I was at some type of convention and I had packed a small, red suitcase. Inside the small suitcase I had placed a bulky object my husband asked me to purchase. At some point someone told me that the suitcases were not watched and to be careful. I said I wasn't worried about it and of course, I lost my suitcase. In the second part of this stressmare my main red suitcase is also stolen from the suitcase area. Everyone tells me there is nothing that could be done about it and I wind up somehow with no clothing and some large,

The Problems of Being Self Taught

While I was on vacation Sisi updated with some new timers. One of them was for wormhole polarization. I decided to update my client and go examine the new timer to see what it was like. With this came using the new map to probe down the sites. I hadn't gotten around to doing that yet so I managed to kill two stones at once type of thing. It took me a bit to stumble through probing. I pretty much stopped after the release of Odyssey. I didn't care for the changes. Now top that with being rusty and I struggled for a bit. Let's see. Alt does what? Control does? Ahh okay, shift now or tab? Poke, poke, poke. Click, click, click. I was able to get my probes doing what they where supposed to do. Kind of. Okay. I remember this. Gather my seven probes, make my little shape, scan, shrink, scan... ohhh resolving. Needless to say I was quite pleased with myself. After a few more mistakes I was on my way to probing the system. Eventually, the muscle memory woke up and stretched

CSMX - Post #26

This week is about preparing for the first summit for CSMX. It will span from September 14th to the 18th of 2015. CCP Leeloo posted the schedule  on the official forums. The sessions cover all the topics listed and whatever else we can cram into it. Most are scheduled for an hour buy hot topics like null sec, structures, and projection are in two hour blocks. This will summit. If we try to get the minutes out the following day as we were able to do in January for the second CSM9 summit the week will go like this for me: Arrive Sunday morning around 7am, be disoriented and jet lagged, try to get to sleek at a reasonable time, up at 7, breakfast, walk to CCP's office, summit starts at 9, meetings till 6-7pm, find dinner, work on minutes, maybe socialize and talk more Eve after hours, work on minutes, go to bed around 1-2. Wake up, work on minutes at breakfast, wash, rinse and repeat. Most of my time is focused on notes and discussion topics for the various sessions. I have unreso

Seize the Last Minute

It turns out that I do not know how to count. In my mind, the 14th of September is two weeks from the start of September. That meant I had two weeks to finish prepping for the summit. In reality, the 14th of September is two weeks from the first, but the 12th is the day that I fly out and today is the 4th. That means not 10 days to prepare but eight. IE, a week. Whoops. That means trying to put my playing back on track is on hold until later in the month. It makes me examine what playing Eve without playing Eve is like. For the last year, if you look at publicly available things about me, my activity has dropped. I stopped PvPing at the start of the year. I am currently in a NPC corporation. My blogging has slowed down. I don't chat as much in Eve Uni Public Help or Rookie Chat. Many of my projects are on hiatus. I look inactive. But, I'm not. If anything I am busier then ever. I'm running out of time to do all of the things with the game that I'd like to do. Un

Checking my Corners

To often words become bad through their usage in an individuals culture. When I ran for the CSM, I shied away from the word politician because of the negativity I associated with it. But, if one looks at the definition of a politician I am one. It was a very hard thing for me to accept because I had attached such negative weight to the idea. Yesterday, I realized that I had the same problem when it came to the use of agenda. I was reading the comment over on Tal's blog . I often do not agree with him and sometimes he makes me very angry. But, I value his perspective in Eve because he is intelligent and articulate and it is much, much to easy to get caught up in ones own perspective and opinion. Even if Tal and I will never see Eve eye to eye, knowing how he views Eve and what motivates him improves my understanding of the game and potential experiences inside of it. But this isn't about Tal's post. It is about the comments and a discussion in which the idea that everyon

Blog Banter #66 - Escape From Originality

Blog Banter #66 Caldarification The art team has been working on many art assets recently and there has been talk of the "Caldarification" of Eve related art. Recently examples have been the WIP images of the Thrasher class destroyer redesign and the citadel. Do we need to keep the lines between the races designs clear cut or is some blending of more generic sci-fi styling a good thing? Should Matari be flying/floating scrap heaps? Should Gallente be 'all about the bass'? Or is a bit of generic sci-fi styling needed to bring new life to our important internet spaceships even if it leans a bit to Caldari? -Drackarn  When I first saw the title of the blog banter I squinted and made all sorts of grumpy noises. I thought that it was going to be a love song about Caldari. Then, I did the logical thing and read the entire topic and snorted a bit over Drackarn's poetic license with word usage. However, I did agree with him. In fact, I felt quite strongly about the t