Light Viewing

I was doing some research for a former student and I came across this video:

jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence.html

I was reminded of what CCP Pokethulu discussed at the Eve Vegas, about putting your ding on the world. 

Eve Vegas CCP Pokethulu

Enjoy.

False Sense of High Security

Are you in the habit of carrying thousands of dollars in your wallet?  Do you regularly carry gold bricks in your pants? Why would you do the equivalent action by carrying very valuable items in a tin can of a hauler?

For some players Eve is problematic.  In other games they have there are rules hardcoded into the game that prevent other players from directly attacking their avatar.  These games then add gateways to allow for such behavior to occur.  In World of Warcraft there is the battleground system, the dueling system, and the “You don’t belong here!” system of entering an opposing factions capital.  There are also PvP servers that do away with the majority of the “safe guards” to allow whatever mayhem you want to occur.  Eve is a bit like the latter but with a twist.

We as people living in society have a false sense of security.  When I walk out my door everyday I expect that I will be able to get in my car, go to work, teach, and then come home without incident or altercation.  High security space in Eve is like this as well.  But just like in real life, other people can harm you in Eve if they choose to. There is nothing to stop someone from mugging me when I leave my house other than the consequences of the altercation and the law.  If I shoot some in high security space there is a consequence as well.  I’m going to lose standings and the ship that I am sitting in.  My buddy can then scoop up the wreck loot and we can be on our way and by the providence of the loot fairy be all the rich, but there is still a consequence.

Try using the same common sense that you would use in real life in Eve.  Some parts of high sec are the bad part of town.  If you have to travel there or through there, plan accordingly.  If you still want to carry gold bricks in your pants, where are you located again?

The Ever Higher House of Cards

CCP really needs to wake up with large fleet battles in null-space. They are fighting a battle that they can never win for metrics that are as harmful as they are beneficial.  No other MMO that I am aware of competes with number of players in combat at one time and place with Eve.  I know that the battle at HED-GP on January 17, 2014 had more participants in that one battle then were in the entire game world of other MMOs that I have played.  For as much positive press as CCP gets from these events, when they fail or have profound system problems that make the contest unfair, CCP and Eve are harmed in the public eye.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on CCP’s hardware or how it works or does not work, but I can be certain of one absolute fact.  It is finite.  The server has limits.  But instead of treating this as a game design problem, CCP handles it more as a server problem.  The server solutions are finite as well.  The cluster can only handle so many calculations per second.  The servers can only manage so much data per second.  CCP's solution is to improve the hardware and server technology and they have succeeded at this improvement process since I began the game. 

My first major battle in Eve was during the siege of the Distillery in G7-WUF.  The server crashed several times and was extremely laggy.  There were less then 500 people in the system that morning and they were using gun and missile boats.  Fast-forward to this last weekend and the battle included around 4000 people with a large percentage of those being drone platforms and the server stayed up, but not without serious problems.  It has been approximately eight years between those conflicts and yet the resulting experience was still the same.  

CCP needs to change the paradigm from one of performance to one of design enhanced by performance.  That is the real challenge for CCP.   How do you take a game style that is freedom oriented and restrict it without losing that sense of liberty? You change the object of contention and you change how it is controlled.

Testing the Ice.

I don’t know why I bother reading the forums or news sites about Eve.  What is it about gamers that make them not take responsibility for their choices?  I took part in the battle at HED-GP on January 17^th, 2014.  I knew what I was getting into before the fight began.  I knew there would be severe time dilation.  I knew that my modules would take forever to activate.  I knew that it might take hours for me to get into system.  I knew all these things based upon the much smaller fights I have participated in on unreinforced nodes.   

You know what else I know?  If you go jumping on the lake ice in the late spring, you are going to get wet.

CCP put their best equipment to the task of keeping this fight going and it did the job.  The game did not crash.  Unfortunately when team RUS/CFC came in, they did so in a manner that was like jumping on the ice.  Some found the thick parts, and others fell through. Whose fault is that?  CCP’s?  Or was it the people who knew the numbers.  Who knew from experience what the servers could handle.  Who instead of moving slowly on to the ice sheet instead decided to gamble on either their tactic working or crashing the system?

Guess what boys?  You lost because of your own choices.  CCP provided the area for the contest and it survived the day.  They did their part.  They even fixed an error they did make by remapping a system that had been put on the same node as HED-GP.  If CCP made one mistake that day, surely it was that, and they resolved it!

Mistakes were made.

Own yours.

Learn from them. 

Do better.

Addendum
Mabrick has a post on CCP’s response to the situation in HED-GP. Check it out if you haven't already.

Should You Play Eve Online

Should I play Eve Online?  It depends on who you are as a person. People play all different kinds of games for different reasons.  Some play cards, some play console shooters, some play games on Facebook.  Each player has a different taste for what they enjoy in a game.  Eve is definitely an acquired taste.

The rules are what are important to any game.  The rules of Eve are different than many other MMOs.  This is a game, which like all good science fiction enables the exploration of the human condition.  It allows for you to explore moral and ethical consequences through the choices you make.  Are you going to be a saint or a sinner?  A person of charity or a thief?  As you play the game you will find yourself drifting at times from the ideals you had in the beginning.  Will you remain true to your original intent, or will your character transition into a new way of experiencing the game?

Often, when people talk about Eve, you will hear about a few ideas that are central to Eve.  You will hear about the sandbox, or about emergent game play and how they are the reason Eve is fun to play.  In Eve there are no classes, there is nothing to lock you into a particular group other than the time it takes to have the skills to do something.  I’m a schoolteacher in real life, but in the game world I run a small production company, act as a scout for my groups activities, and when the time comes I am decent in a fight.   This is what my evolution through the game of Eve has made me.

Eve online has many flaws when compared to other popular MMOs.  The game can be confusing and difficult in the extreme for new players to adapt to.  The player versus environment (PvE) portion of the game is very repetitive and poor when compared to other games that focus on a PvE experience.  The solutions that many of those other MMOs use do not translate well to Eve, although there have been attempts to do so.  Mission levels, harder PvE content, and epic mission arcs are all attempts to improve the PvE experience.  Unfortunately they all suffer from repetitiveness and the ability to be gamed by clever players.

The more dynamic content is the situations players create for themselves. The player versus player (PvP) portion of the game is one of the main drivers of content in Eve online.  The stories that you hear about the game all are about the conflicts between people in the game.  Whether it is about ponzie schemes, heists, assassinations, the folding of alliances by spies, epic battles caused by epic mistakes, all of these stories are based upon real human drama.  It is the actions of individuals and groups that make for the most visceral stories.  Those stories are what make the game real for people as they as listeners can imagine themselves doing those things as well.

Unfortunately PvP can also be a detriment to the game.  The tools that CCP uses to allow those big fights can make the game not enjoyable for many.  Having to deal with people harassing you with a war declaration when you just want to get on and relax can be frustrating.  Hauling materials for a project and getting the load shot out from underneath you can be disheartening.  That is the price of freedom in this game.  The freedom to be a bad, bad man isn’t without consequence, but then transporting goods from here to there isn’t without risk or consequence as well.

Should you play Eve Online?  Yes, you should play the game, but play it with the correct expectations.  This is a game that requires you to put on your  big boy pants and get dirty with the hard work of building something that matters.  It’s your story and your time.

Be the hero.

Be the villain. 

Be human.

2 by 2

Since my last post I’ve been moving around quite a bit.  I was ratting in null sec and preparing a move into Red vs. Blue.  All that changed with a message from a former corp mate.  He needed help with a project so  I put my plans on hold and headed back down the hole into J-space.

All the moving around got me thinking about migration.  CCP has two economists last I heard working on the in game market.  Has anyone ever bothered to examine the factors that lead to the population of Eve moving around?  What about other games?

In World of Warcraft, the population seemed to move with every expansion to the new major city.  While the “national” cities remained important due to the auction houses, by comparison to the current expansion city they seemed a bit barren.  When you look at zones you see a similar situation.  The high end zones are packed with people while the mid levels are mostly deserted. The low end zones tended to have more people than the mids because people were either trying out new classes or making a lowbie pvp toon.

Eve doesn’t have such a stratified structure when it comes to play area.  Anybody can go anywhere and if you fly smart, you may survive until your destination.  Your success is still dependant on some degree of leveling.   If I am not being directed here or there, as in WoW, why do I live where I live in the game?

For my current move it was about several migration factors.  With regards to push factors there were few opportunities to PvP and not enough jobs in terms of helping about corp mates as I was flying mostly solo at the time.  For pull factors I would say better opportunities to PVP, and help out my new alliance.  I also had links to the community through my former and now current corp mate.

Interestingly one of the push pull factors that I went opposite on is living conditions.  Living out of POS is bearable, but definitely not as nice as a station.

What then are the opportunities that lead you to be active in the part of space you are in?

Concert Season

I'm currently not playing much as it is concert season and I'm quite busy with our current productions.  I  managed to get on today and get the industrial toons back in gear making bits and bobs.  I also talked with a former corp mate about possibly moving over to his new corp, but that my resume may need some work.  Seeing as my first option may be a closed door, I'm contemplating spending some time in RvB to get back into the PvP side of things.  As is the case I needed to another jump clone to be available so I thawed the one that had been in cold storage in 77S8-E

I haven't been out in this part of space since my goon days way back when and so I thought I would go check out the new nebula in this part of space.  So I charted a course north in into the drone lands and I have to say CCP did a great job on the Spire.  I'm not such a fan of Etherium Reach as I was anticipating something else entirely.

Another thing I noticed...there was nobody out there.  Here I am bopping around in a noob ship, getting stuck in large warp bubbles, and just checking out the sights.  To be honest, it is to be expected.  0.0 has always been rather vacant and I was flying during off peak hours.  I can hope that I'll be chased when I next get on, fear the noob ship... FEAR IT!