The Upper Hand is on the Other Foot Now!

As it turns out I was looking at how CCP was wrong about wardecs in entirely the wrong fashion.  I focused on it from the standpoint of someone who wanted to throw out wardecs and maybe grief some people.  I didn’t see the absolute bonanza of opportunity beating up on an entirely different class of people.

Idiot nullseccers.  Any major nullsec alliance that puts in a wardec is going to probably regret it quickly.  There will be a dozen predator corps and alliance ready to pounce on them and terrorize any ships in highsec.  Heck look at Goons and Test in Poetic’s post.  It’s easy to be a badass in deep null when you have a few dozen/hundred of your closest friends.  The guy in a freighter hauling stuff to/from jita?  Probably gonna need a heads up.  Those mission runners in Motsu and Penirgman ain’t so safe either.  Now to some extent this might be intended by the alliance heads.  Chase out the carebears that never contribute.  Fine.  Love it.  However CCP has swung the pendulum over to the defender by providing them easy access to plenty of wardec loving folks to grief the griefers.  This gives any major alliance that doesn’t have it’s strength in highsec a VERY different choice than they had a few weeks ago.  First they can  go ahead with the wardec as normal, realizing that they expose themselves to every swinging dick(head) in empire who wants a piece of them.  Second they can just wave off and ignore whatever the problem is, and third they can find someone else (or create an alt corp/alliance) to handle the issue.

Not exactly a huge adaptation, but it points to the major flaw in the new wardec system.  Throwing out a wardec is now a HUGE liability.  If you are on the hook as the aggressor you are exposed to anyone who wants to join the fun and pound you senseless.  The question is:  Who wants to be that guy?  Who wants to be the other guy scoring easy kills?  I know everyone talks about “good fights” but let’s face it, it’s fun to post 50 killmails with no losses.  Lots more fun than to post the 50 lossmails.

The marketplace is a bit of a joke, as Poetic already pointed out.  If you want help there’s plenty of people willing to throw in for free.  The only reason you’d even think to offer money would be if you had assets requiring defense, in which case you might have to actually take some steps.

Offensive wars bring with them all the liabilities with limited opportunities, thanks to no way to force a fight.  Defensive wars bring far greater opportunities with fewer chances for nasty surprises.  I don’t really have a problem with this.  Any kind of PvP should require exposing yourself to risk.  What I do wonder is why anyone would throw out a wardec, especially “professional” highsec pvpers who can simply wait for a juicy wartarget to jump in against.

I’m using it every time I can

Alliance Tournament Flap

Lots of people have weighed in on this, but perhaps unsurprisingly no one seems to have anything to say to defend Hydra and Outbreak.  I don’t give a rats ass about either of them.  I don’t have a dog in the hunt, no horse in the race, whatever.  However what I’m seeing seems like a bunch of people ganging up on someone and doing it using some somewhat disingenuous methods.

First let’s talk about Hydra and Outbreak’s history.  We get that these alliances are closely aligned.  They are hardly the only alliances like that in EvE.  Nearly every alliance in the game has connections with some other alliance.  They are closer than many, and they understand this.  Last year the openly colluded and threw the finals match which had to be humiliating for CCP during such a highly publicized event.  It was also an awesome demonstration of the power of the EvE metagame.  The biggest difference between that scam and the average scam in Jita was the victim.  To CCP I say the same thing I say to anyone who gets scammed in Jita.  HTFU.

This year they took additional steps to protect themselves.  They e-mailed and petition CCP for clarifications on rulings.  CCP either refused to answer or gave them the go ahead.  Now I am going to talk a bit about the responsibilities of a company and it’s official representatives.  I am going to make this point from the point of view of someone who has extensive knowledge about how important proper dissemination of information is.  When a CCP Employee makes an official policy statement using official channels it has to be upheld.  If for whatever reason it can’t be the reasons should be absolutely open and transparent.  This didn’t happen.  Sreegs removes two alliances from the tournament.  Two very successful alliances.  They worsened the competition.  They say they did it because

 Unfortunately Hydra and Outbreak are working from the same playbook as last year, practicing together in a single corporation on the test server in a single wormhole. We view them as they represent themselves, which mirrors how they represented themselves last year, as a single entity. For that reason they are barred from competition having entered the tournament masquerading as two units while functioning in reality as one.

Apparently Sreegs has decided to draw the line with them being in a single corporation.  Fine.  What’s the difference between that and just being in the same wormhole at other ends?  From what I see other posters saying that’s the Goons/Test method.  Let’s see what the official rules are regarding B teams.  From the Dev Blog Post:

We will be actively removing those alliances that try and add a ‘B’ or ‘C’ team. We want everyone to have a fair chance but stacking the deck in this manner will not be permitted. This removal will also include the main alliance if we detect anyone trying to field more than one team.

Well glad we could clear that up.  That certainly leaves no room for error on what criteria are being used to judge what a ‘B’ team is.  Realizing that this “definition” of ‘B’ or ‘C’ teams was beyond vague, and very sensitive after his recent tangles with CCP, Garmon took the step of asking for clarification through official channels.  CCP’s representative responded with an answer.  On the basis of that answer, Hydra and Outbreak proceeded as planned.  Then Sreegs stepped in.  Ignoring the already in place GM response, he banned both teams, and went ahead and banned one team out of the PL/Your Votes Don’t Count duo.  Here again we see some interesting decisions being made.  CCP is throwing their own employee under the bus, saying we can’t trust GMs.  @ArnarHrafn recently asked:

How do you think we compare to other MMO’s when it comes to handling petitions #tweetfleet

At the time I responded with “My Logs Show Nothing” and generally going on to state that I had little trust in the sytem.  Arnar responded that they had updated it and I would see it was much better if I used it.  Arnar:  Seems to me like nothing really changed.  GMs are still untrustworthy because they either don’t know what TO say or don’t know what they CAN say.  If we are to trust any CCP representative we have to have some level of trust for all of them.  If a GM can be overruled with this level of finality, why should ANYONE use the petition system?  If anyone in the game has a question CCP clearly doesn’t trust it’s GMs enough to answer these issues so we should just flood the forums and look for Dev responses.

Now let’s look at PL and Your Votes Don’t Count.  Again quoting the rules:

This removal will also include the main alliance if we detect anyone trying to field more than one team.

So why is PL still in?  If Your Votes Don’t Count was considered a ‘B’ team, then PL should go too.  This is actually the one part of the rule I’d consider clear.  If you remove one you remove both right?  Of course expecting consistency from CCP is like expecting consistency from Springtime weather at this point.

Now let’s look at the player response.  I’m going to focus mostly on one guy.  Ripard Teg.  Had he posted this as “Garth” I might have given him a pass.  However he did it under his “own” name and he accuses Outbreak/Hydra of using childish tactics.  Going to mommy when daddy doesn’t give them the answer they wanted.  Daddy didn’t give an answer.  Mommy gave one then Daddy punished anyway.  Of course he goes to great length to build and strengthen his argument.  He goes too far.  Here’s a quote:

However we are very concerned that we might be breaking CCP’s interpretations of certain rules without being aware of it.

We are very concerned that we might be breaking certain rules.

We are breaking rules.

Frankly that’s rank amateur, headline grabbing, grandstanding bullshit.  That is literally changing the facts of the case to fit your argument.  I understand that Garmon’s credibility right now is at a low point, but this is a knife in the back even by those standards.  What Garmon said:

we are very concerned that we might be breaking CCP’s interpretations of certain rules without being aware of it.

doesn’t mean:

We are breaking rules.

It means:

Hey what the hell are the rules exactly?  What is the line between collusion, cooperation, and what exactly defines a farm team?

but that doesn’t sound nearly so scandalous so we’ll go ahead and change it right Ripard?

Finally Ripard compares Hydra/Outbreak to Aperture Harmonics.  I might have a bit of an advantage on him.  I wrote for EvE-Tribune here and talked to both sides.   Got their stories and information.  AHARM asked if things were working as intended in Nova.  They provided no information what might NOT be working, they were not asking for a rules clarification, they just asked a GM if things were ok.  Hydra/Outbreak asked a specific question, and got a specific answer.  That’s a BIG difference.

CCP could and should have handled this differently.  If they wanted to ban Hydra and Outbreak because of what happened last year, they should have done it.  It’s their game and if they are going to be “unfair” about it they don’t need to sneak around.  They can just say “Fine, well played.  See you again never,” or some such.  By letting them get this far, put in the effort they already put in and THEN pulling the rug out from them under some legalistic equivocation they look more like a deranged Grand Vizier pulling strings behind their own curtain.  Then CCP goes and breaks their own rule by dropping Your Votes Don’t Count and keeping PL.  Clear, concise rules, with consistent enforcement.  It’s a simple goal.  CCP dropped the ball and the community is cheering them on for it.  As for Sreegs outro:

With all that said we’re looking forward to moving on and making Alliance Tournament X the best and most competitive tournament ever so enjoy the rest of your evening!

Hydra won 9, and came in 2nd in 8, the only reason the insane finals match happened in 9 was that Hydra and Outbreak both won through against each other.  If CCP wants to eliminate ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams, have them face each other in the first elimination round.  Don’t throw your employees under the bus with bad rulings.

I’m using it every time I can

When Giants Fall

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a DIE-HARD Red Sox fan.  This hasn’t been the best of years for Red Sox Nation.  In fact when there’s a year like this year, often you think back to better times.  One of my happiest Red Sox memories is game 6 of the 2004 ALCS.  Curt Schilling came back from a torn tendon in his ankle and pitched a fantastic game very shortly after having his ankle surgically prepared.  The surgical technique they used was new.  So new they named it after Schilling.  The doctors warned him that if it failed he might lose mobility, maybe even the ability to walk normally.  He stumped out to the mound and beat the Yankees with 7 innings of 1 run ball.  For those of you not from the US, that’s like your football goalie coming out on a surgically repaired ankle and giving up 1 goal against the best offense in the game.  In their own stadium.  In the playoffs.  He took the “refuse to lose” attitude to a whole new level.

What’s this got do to with EvE?  Schilling is a bit of a gamer.  He founded and funded Multi-Man Publishing to keep Advanced Squad Leader alive when Avalon Hill foundered.  When he couldn’t participate in the annual tournament in October because of the playoffs, he started a tournament in January so he could take part in it.  He also plays World of Warcraft and played Everquest and EQII.  I can only imagine how he’d react to EvE.  In fact I’m going to ask him on twitter at some point.  Possibly repeatedly.

In 2006 he founded a company that would come to be known as 38 Studios.  Their only game of note was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.  I say was because last week they couldn’t make payroll and struggled with a loan repayment after begging Rhode Island for more funds.  This was particularly humiliating for Schilling because politically and economically he is very conservative, and has spoken out publicly against government bailing out private companies.  So now he’s facing the ruin of his company, possibly his own finances, and the knowing the consequences of his actions will be visited on his former employees.  Clearly this wasn’t in his plans.  Things went wrong, and now he’s in a situation where all his decisions are bad.  There’s no magic bullet, there’s no easy answer.    Depending on the extent to which he has personally invested in the company he could lose anything from his investment to everything he owns.  I don’t think he will go bankrupt, he’s a smart guy who has probably done quite a bit to protect himself financially.

Rumors always surrounded Schilling that he was planning on running for a seat in the Senate.  Forget it.  Most likely he’ll have to move out of New England entirely, possibly back to PA.  For years he couldn’t buy a drink in Boston because of his postseason heroics.  Now he can’t buy one because they won’t serve him.

The heroes in all this?  Turbine has already swooped in to hire people.  CCP is heading in soon.  The good news is it looks like at least some of the people lost in the shuffle will find themselves new employment, even if it means having to move across the country.

Honestly this story has hurt me more than I expected it to.  You don’t expect your heroes to be perfect.  You don’t expect them to win every battle.  You expect them to win the war.  You expect them to win the ones that count.  Having a giant fall hurts having one put his own weaknesses on display hurts.  It reminds you of your own vulnerabilities and moments of darkness just as seeing them succeed against the odds reminds you of their victories and your own potential.  Excuse me I need to find my game 6 DvD.

I’m using it every time I can

War Never Changes

It doesn’t.  CCP is releasing it’s next expansion, called Inferno.  One of the major prongs of the Inferno trident is changes to Wardecs.  A while back I talked about several major problems with wardecs, that there’s no real reason for one side to fight, neutrals were still free to join in and rep as much as they wanted, decshields, the interface was clunky as hell, bringing in friends was awkward, and there was no way for the defender to force the war to end early.

Things that got addressed:

1. Mercs
2. Interface
3. Decshields

Things that didn’t get addressed:

1. No reason to fight
2. Neutral RR
3. Defender can’t “win” and force the attackers to withdraw the dec by game mechanics

Now this expansion does a lot to address issues with wardecs, but they are pruning hedges while ignoring the elephant that crushes them.  There is literally no reason for a defender to do anything during a wardec.  If they have a POS at risk they might have to defend that, although if they are smart in how they set it up it should be a PITA to assault and very easy even for weak defenders to keep up.  A highsec-only corp without a POS can just dock up and rely on the higher wardec cost to end the war for them.

Neutral RR.  Crimewatch might affect this, but there’s still no real fix even in the pipe.  At best you can (possibly) confirm who the involved logi was in your lossmails.  People are still free to bring in tons of unaffiliated help with little warning to aid them.

Finally, and related to the first comment, defenders cannot simply “win” and make the wardec go away.  To use an example:  A mission running corporation gets wardecced by griefers.  They band together, come up with good tactics and manage to defeat the griefers in open battle several times, however the griefers leave the dec up hoping to pick off people who are trying to sneak in a mission on their own.  Having some sort of “Domination” bar, where one side or the other can force terms upon the other needs to exist.  Also:  More fun for spies if you get particularly juicy terms.

Oh and individual targets can still skip out on the war.  I want to be able to wardec assholes!  Not wardec a corp and watch the D-bag I really want to hit skip out.

I’m using it every time I can

Quick Hits

Inferno:

CCP is missing something in their patch.  They’ve made a lot of good changes, especially to FW and the modules, but I strongly suspect that it will fall just a bit flat on the wardec front.  I have a big draft on this that needs a bit of editing before I inflict it upon you.

Hulkageddon:

Big whiff last night on a smartbombing attack for Fancy Hats.  Failures happen but that one stung just a bit.  1.2 Trillion isk destroyed, over 3600 kills and plenty of mayhem for the longest running Hulkageddon yet.

Blizzard = Good Guys

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/14/blizzard-fixing-game-australias-mess-giving-diablo-3-to-those/

Will be writing a lot on this move as well.  This might be one of the most awesome moves by a gaming company this year from a whole lot of standpoints  Seriously brilliant.  When I have time I will inflict my nollij on you here as well.

Fly Dangerous

I’m using it every time I can

Reinforce Success

So Massively finally had a good article about news from a space-based MMO.  Too bad it’s not about EvE.  At least not directly.  If you go through to the actual forum post, Gozer (Ghost Busters name, Top Gun avatar, true child of the 80s) makes a few comments that help put last summers issues in some perspective.

Cryptic has some fun games.  Champions and STO are both fun, and free.  They do have rather limited resources.  Perfect Worlds has given them much more money to work with than Atari did, and STO has seen a bit of a renaissance, but some old problems have stayed around.  PvP is one of them.  The folks at Cryptic have all of one dev working on PvP.  One.  They realized that they have to focus on what works for them.  The Star Trek audience wants PvE.  They don’t want to shoot each other, they want to explore strange new worlds.  As a result their PvP stinks, and they are looking at putting it on the chopping block completely because dropping it wouldn’t really affect the bottom line.

Last summer part of CCPs problem was the revelation that the number of people working on walking in stations dwarfed the number of people working on Flying in Space.  This amounted to mortgaging the future without doing anything to even maintain the present.  In the military you talk a lot about reinforcing success.  In the business world it’s finding (and exploiting) your niche.  If you attack on a wide front you don’t send more troops into the meat grinder occupying 1/3 of your troops, you send them to help exploit the breakthrough the other 2/3 created.  If Apple succeeds in distinguishing themselves as a company that markets products to trendsetters and fashionable folks, they should work more on that, not trying to build servers for major corporations.

Today CCP is again working on ships.  We have seens ships, ships, and more ships, graphics, and PvP changes from CCP because that is what EvE does.  Walking in stations would be the business equivalent of Apple focusing most of it’s developers on a new widescreen HDTV system.

You can expand your market, you can find a new niche and maybe CCP can find a way to create a new market for a broader EvE community.  That’s fine, but you can’t just pour water down a well and hope for gold to float up.  It turns out gold doesn’t float up.  If CCP wants to expand they need to use their resources rationally, small groups of devs building up to a larger group, while maintaining their effort on EvE.  STO is going this route, they have one dev taking a look at PvP in their game to see if it is worth maintaining.  If it is, they will add more resources without hurting the core game.  If it isn’t they will pull the plug and use those resources more profitably elsewhere.

In the future look for CCP to focus on EvE.  I expect Dust 514 to land with the sound of 10 lbs of bird poop and stay there.  Shooters have sequels because the money is on the release.  Yeah they sell map packs, but the draw is the newest, shiniest graphics.  CCP can’t deliver that and they aren’t even going to get  sales at release.  I think it will start flat and drop from there, resulting in massive losses and an even bigger dependency on EvE.  You’ll know there’s trouble on the horizon if CCP shows bad numbers for Dust and puts more devs on it to try to save the sinking ship.

I’m using it every time I can

Repercussions

John Turbefield ‏ @CCP_Diagoras

Compared to the 7 day average before Escalation, the last 7 days have seen a 45.53% decrease in average m3 of ore mined within high sec.

Well then… Clearly Hulkageddon has hit some people hard.  Very, Very hard.  While even with over 4000 kills as part of Hulkageddon I don’t think it’s even a tithe of total miners, the number staying docked up and playing Hello Kitty Online has cut deeply into the amount of ore mined.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem.  Drone regions and other “Mining with Guns” options have traditionally provided the bulk of most ores necessary for the unquenchable appetite of the EvE Economy.  This has of course resulted in a MASSIVE price increase in base Tech 1 ships since the end of April.  Like the Armageddon

Wait…

Well how about the Megathron?

Huh…

Well, all right.  Surely the EBBIL DRAEK won’t screw up the theory.

You know what, FUCK you guys.

Ok, so that isn’t killing us.  I suspect there is a good deal of minerals in most manufacturers supply bins, keeping them insulated from even more shocks.  All the speculation and changes and price spikes have likely taught them to be more proactive about keeping a good source on hand.  Prices might inflate later but I think this drop has more to do with a falloff after the crazy inflation earlier this year than anything else.

Mineral prices are simply FLAT for low ends.  Trit is even going down.  Still it seems to me that past a certain point Hulkageddon is counter-productive.  It is certainly fun, and I think to an extent it really does add to the flavor of the game.  However I was wondering if it has a price and if it can be taken too far.  At some point down the line the mineral prices are going to get bumped.  This may hurt the people shooting, certainly far more than losing a few catalysts or other gank ships.  Then there’s things like this:

Bagehi ‏ @bagehi

@HelicityBoson Rhyan Starcannon > well i just lost my mining ship, only got it today only been playing again 6 days… #LOL

I wondered how the event was affecting guys like this.  Utter nooblets.  The guy is in a corp, and might have even heard of Hulkageddon but… what a welcome to EvE.  I actually took a bit of time to talk to the guy about it.  He had a pretty cool attitude about the whole thing I was glad to find.  While he didn’t appreciate being a target he wasn’t out of his mine pissed about it either.   This neatly reinforces one belief I’ve long had about EvE.  People who will play the game for a while really will put up with its crap.  Part of being something awesome means sometimes “awesome” happens to you in the form of winning an egg.  Yes people have likely quit over it, yes it’s a matter of people shooting folks doing something most of the shooters literally wouldn’t be caught dead doing.  I don’t think the consequences will be THAT serious in the long-term.

Fly dangerous.

I’m using it every time I can

Defining Narrative

But first and most importantly:  Congrats to the newest member of the Blog Pack:  The Nosy Gamer.  He’s been providing solid information on the sordid side of EvE for a long time, and was even recognized by a speaker at Fanfest for his efforts.  If you haven’t bookmarked him already, you should.  Also back in the pack are Rixx Javix’s Evoganda and Helicity Boson.  I’m surrounded by giants and for once am truly humbled when I see the company I’m in.

Now to Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax.

Narrative is a key part to any game.  I’m not talking the strict, dictionary definition of “a story or account of events, experiences, or the like,whether true or fictitious.” I’m talking about narrative in the sense of “The story you yourself take part in in the game you play.”  EvE gives a huge challenge to its players.  CCP doesn’t hand them a narrative.  CCP doesn’t carry them from “Kill Ten Rats” to “Kill Deathwing” because CCP thinks that a cornerstone of the game is the players choosing their options.

Your narrative is defined by the actions you take and the ramifications they have on you, combined with the actions others take and the ramifications those actions have on you.  The narrative is a collaborative effort.  You alone do not define your experience.  In a multiplayer game, without set paths, other people will interact with you, as you will interact with them.  Your influences will color each others efforts.  The narrative you experience is influenced heavily by you and your choices, but other people can, at times, heavily influence you, or even take over your narrative for a time.

The key to remember as a player, is that your intentions drive you to encounters, like scenes or chapters in a book.  Those encounters play out with multiple players, and everyone gets a say.  You will notice some words didn’t turn up in this post.  ”Fair” and “Fun” for example.  This isn’t an accident.  Fair doesn’t exist.  Fun is your responsibility.  EvE provides shovels and sand and buckets.  Building and defending castles is your responsibility.

I’m using it every time I can

The Ego Takes Over

Egos are an important factor in EvE at pretty much any level.  They drive people to do things that might not be terribly well advised whether it’s a corporation, an alliance, a lone pilot, or a blog writer.  Today I’m going to take a look at a few examples of these ill-advised misadventures.  First, being an ego-centric jerk, I’m going to look at myself.

I consider myself a good PvPer.  Not a great one, and I’ve done pretty well at solo PvP.  A little while ago I had a failfit daredevil I wanted to lose.  And I did.  This was actually a REALLY good fight that I wish I’d frapsed.  I yo-yod in an out several times trying to find a sweet spot where I could get damage on him without getting blapped but in the end he managed to tag me and I lost the ship.  Deciding that I should show this upstart how it was done.  And I didn’t.  While I managed to pop his retriever, my tail was FIRMLY tucked between my legs.  I almost brought back a sentinel, which I’m quite sure would have ruined his day, but decided I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I lost that too.  Here my ego drove me to two mistakes.  The first was to go back in a rifter against a ship that was pretty much made to butcher frigates.  He easily has several times my tank, and enough DPS to kill me if he can catch me and I was sloppy enough to let him catch me, then I knew exactly the ship to bring to get some revenge and I neglected to offer battle, even with success nearly assured with the ship I had in the wings.  A cruor would have been even more fun come to think of it.

At the corp level, well, where to start.  Again I’ll pick on my own corp.  Fancy Hats currently has 13 people, of whom 12 have been active in the last week, with 9 contributing kills.  Percentage wise that’s fucking fantastic.  Of course one is a temporary alt, and another one will probably leave soon after Hulkageddon ends.  So really we have 11, 9, and 8.  Like many other corps we have dreams and aspirations.  We want to find a home, be it in low or nullsec.  The easiest way would of course be to find an established corp that’s recruiting and just go.  However we’ve gotten attached to our little kingdom.  We are proud of its accomplishments and its unrealized potential.  It does cost us.  There have been opportunities we have flat out missed.  Invitations we simply haven’t taken because we want to stay under our own flag.  For example we’d love the chance to fly with a AA or AAA alliance in null or low, shake things up a bit and really dig into the big picture experience of EvE.  We threw out some feelers and ended up in S I L E N T..  That ended… Poorly.  had some fun, met some good people but the alliance just fell apart.

Now not all of that is ego.  Some of it is us wanting to challenge the odds and show that we do have the chops to contribute to a major alliance.  However we could do some real damage other ways and make our mark, choosing to do it this way is as much me wanting to keep Fancy Hats going as my leadership saying “LET’S DO THIS!”

Alliances.  Old-School CVA.  Thinking the game revolved around them, bringing in the sick the poor, the downtrodden, and getting them trod on again.  Their high-handedness with their allies and their assumption that the stars would line up for them and their concept of how the narrative of EvE would play out in their favor resulted in countless losses for their pilots and allies.  The new leadership put a thorough cleansing on the whole edifice of the alliance and seems to have gotten the fires out and the ship righted, but it has been a long and painful process.

Finally blogs, the meta game, what have you.  Everyone knows I will pick Mittens, so I wont.  Instead I’ll pick on Roc Wieler. Go ahead and hit his site if you have a few hours to read and try to find something with more than a whispy, tenuous connection to EvE.  He usually has 1 a month that a dedicated EvE player could figure out is EvE related.  For a post that is actually ABOUT EvE you have to go back to around October.  OCTOBER.  LAST YEAR PEOPLE.  If I wanted a fitness blog he’d be fantastic, he really does come up with some decent workouts.  He’s not an EvE blogger anymore.  He hasn’t been for a long time and he clogs up the feeds with his rambling rules, “In-character” posts that have nothing to do with events in the game (as opposed to the excellent posts Mike Azariah does over at A Missioner in EvE.  Roc’s blog has devolved in smug ego-stroking that only becomes more and more annoying with every post and major announcement.  When he ran Capsuleer it was fantastic, a huge contribution to the community and his blog posts talked about things in the game.  Now?  It’s been more than 6 months since he posted something that a casual reader would know was about EvE.  Yet he keeps going, calling it an EvE blog.

All of these are cases of Ego.  Some hurt the player, some hurt many, and some really don’t affect many people at all.  Ego is a factor.  If your recognize your own you can figure out when you are making a mistake and adjust your plan.  Self-knowledge is an important part of your toolkit in a game as cutthroat as EvE.  Bringing this to the table will help you win the fights you need to win.

I’m using it every time I can

Ah-ha?

Not sure what exactly Nosy Gamer (Best Blog not in the Blog Pack) has uncovered here, but it certainly looks like he might have a gem. In this post he distills Sreegs answers to questions on the comments thread for those (like me) who can’t be bothered to wade through the chest-deep trolling on the EvE-O forums.  The part that has my head spinning at the moment is the massive extra chunk on my final assignment for the semester that got emailed out Thursday that I only saw this morning This:

Q.  There was a suggestion at Fan Fest that the confiscated PLEX might be sold to players.  Why not some of these assets as well?

CCP Sreegs:  “One problem I have with this is that we’re seeing patterns of activity where the isk is botted up and in this case we’re printing isk at a rate which it should not be happening at out of thin air.

“At the end of the day though I’m not an economics guy so the assets sit in the banned accounts until or unless someone decides to use them for something.

“I’d considered at one point using them as a reward system but I can’t get over the fact that a lot of this stuff just simply shouldn’t exist and that can’t be good for an economy.”

Q.  I understand that you have reservations about returning ill-gotten goods to the economy, but there’s a sizeable amount of isk in circulation that was created through illicit means as well; and Dr. E. seems to be more worried about the isk at this point.

CCP Sreegs:  “The isk was created to purchase the goods. “

The first Q/A talks about the concept of returning some of these assets to the EvE economy, which I think I support to some extent (PLEX for certain) however he raises a good point on his second answer.  The isk was created to purchase the goods, and by way of corollary the goods were generated to absorb the isk.

What makes me think that we need to see some of these items reintroduced is the massive inflation we have seen lately.  Buying power has gone way down.  Let’s say you make 20 million isk an hour in your PvE Efforts.  You used to be able to fully fit an Amarrian BS in 5 hours.  That’s a saturday afternoon.  Now you can’t quite manage the hull.  If you want an Abaddon you need to spend 12 hours just getting the hull.  This is discouraging to people.  They want to fly the big and shiny things.

On the other hand, we have been living in an era of reduced consequences.  With more isk available from Incursions (100+ mill isk/hour was quite feasable for a long time) and low prices, people didn’t care about ships.  They became Jaded and scoffed at the concept of loss.  Now people have to deal with more consequences, they have to be more aware of the results of their actions.  This has resulted in some very fun and interesting battles, but also an attitude of entitlement by many players, where they feel that cheap, impact-limited  pvp was a right, and not an aberration.

By nerfing Incursions down to L4 mission levels (or lower by some accounts) and eliminating “Mining with Guns” CCP has smashed the pillars that held up the high-isk, low-cost economy.  Now isk levels are most likely sinking as income is harder to generate, and prices are skyrocketing as the tonnes of ores that used to flow in from missions and rogue drones has abruptly stopped.

Finally there’s this comment:

Dr. E. seems to be more worried about the isk at this point.

I think that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  I wonder what the long-term fallout will be.  While I happily gank hulks to line Goonswarm pockets.  Hey mittens can I get my 100m payouts in tech?

I'm using it every time I can