Reasonable Foreseeability

In the wake of Burn Jita 2, I have a few thoughts:

• Who plays Eve, but ignores the metagame?
• How do haulers, one of the most at-risk groups to events like BJ2, manage to ignore it?
• What responsibility does CCP have to players in regards to known events that CCP is not actually causing?

I'm fairly sure the answers to the first two are something like "many" and "through dumb luck".  But the anser to the third is not clear.  One very angry pilot posted the following in part of a draft letter he plans to send CCP, and posted on the forums:

"Lack of capacity in Jita causing a large amount of ships (likely on autopilot) containing vast wealth to be stuck on the gates around the system."

In the larger context of the letter, he was implying CCP's lack of ability to meet player demand for access to a system was responsible for a large number of the deaths in Burn Jita 2.  This made me stop and think for few minutes.  What we have here is a player trying to apply a real world legal principle to Eve online, a game made on a pile of interconnected rules that are constantly gamed for profit and entertainment.  A lot like the real rules in real legal settings.

The principle in question is that of "reasonable foreseeability".  For those unfamiliar, this rule is often applied in cases where negligence of one party results in some sort of harm to another.  For example, if I own a store, and I have flooded floor, and fail to notify customers of this, and then a customer injures themselves by slipping and falling on the floor, I am in some part culpable for the injury, as it was reasonably foreseeable that someone could have an accident, and I failed to warn the customer.  As long as a situation exists where the first party could reasonably anticipate harm based on action or inaction, that party has a duty to inform or reduce the risk.

So did CCP fail to reasonably foresee many of the ships losses in Jita?  On one side, you can argue that any pilot using autopilot to travel is removing blame from CCP.  By letting the computer just move you around and failing to pay attention, you are allowing other players to do what they will in your absence.  You could also argue that no hauler, on autopilot or manual pilot, had a chance to make it through the gate camp because of the mechanics of hauler alignment, the power of alpha strikes, and the normal "after the fact" nature of CONCORD response.

On the other side, you can argue that in normal game functioning, in the vast majority of cases, autopilot will allow you to jump through just about any gate in the game.  System traffic causing gate locks is very rare, and not to be expected by a reasonable player.  CCP knew Burn Jita 2 would happen, so failing to reinforce the nodes for Jita and surrounding systems was negligent, and broke reasonable player expectations.  Further, if CCP knew about BJ2, and given the warning issued last year for Burn Jita, and this year for Luminaire, if no warning was issued this year, CCP ignored a situation they knew would occur.  They failed to act on a reasonably foreseeable harm to many players.

Eve is not a real legal system, nor is it governed by real legal principles.  Most of the rules in Eve relating to player aggression fall far short of the legal principles in many real world legal frameworks.  But we also know many people expect some sore of justice in Eve, and many players are angered when they perceive a loss to be unfair, out of their control, or if a loss can be perceived as CCP's fault.

I don't really blame CCP.  If you can't be bothered to keep up with the metagame in Eve, especially when it relates to large events that are public knowledge, then I have little sympathy.  Eve is known for these sorts of events.  But I'm an Eve blog writer and reader, so I'm in a minority of the player base that chooses to get into the metagame.

What do you think?  Did CCP fail in their duty to act on a reasonably forseeable situation?  Should all the ganked haulers HTFU?  I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts.

Crossing Lines

Poetic wrote a post about a former CSM candidate that is apparently a rather unpleasant person.  Corelin wrote a rebuttal and covered CCP's decision regarding the issue.  I have no desire to elaborate more, as I do not want to give any more attention to this person, but it brought something back into the forefront of my mind that comes and goes.  That something is the language we use in Eve, and other games.

I will not enumerate terms, as they are plentiful and pointless.  But one term, in particular, has become personally relevant to me.  In the world outside my computer, I am a married man with a wife who is extremely tolerant of my gaming habit.  She lets me play quite often, and even lets me schedule things around Eve once in a while so I can make it to a fleet or event.  I've never gotten the red-box of wife aggro, and for that I am grateful.  Some of you may think this is stupid, but to all the other married pilots out there, you understand how great it is when your partner lets you indulge in just a few more minutes of fake spaceships.

One of the things my wife does like is listening to comms.  The personalities, accents and comments often make her laugh, and it gives me a way to share the experience with her that she can appreciate, even as a non-gamer.  It also helps her understand that I'm not just staring at a screen, I'm playing with other people.  She can understand the social aspect of the game, even if gaming is not her thing.  But I'm always a little on edge when I put comms on the speakers.  I promise I am coming to a point.

My wife is jewish, and like many religious individuals her religion informs her life and her identity.  The term "space jew" gets thrown around in Eve, along with many other terms.  I haven't had it come up on comms yet, but I'm sure one day it will, and I'll have to explain the concept to her.  The term is not really related to religion, but it is based on stereotypes and racism that are both very real.  It doesn't matter if the speaker is anti-semitic or not.  It is a hateful set of words.  Using those words perpetuates the underlying history of discrimination and hate that all such phrases perpetuate.  How do I explain that to my wife?  More importantly, why should I even have to consider that possibility?

Game are for fun, and for relaxing.  Our language can be coarse, and that's fine.  But there are so many delightful phrases that do not spring from real hatred in the real world.  Using terms like "rape cage" or "space jew" demeans the speaker and the listener.  These phrases are demeaning because they perpetuate hate.  They are demeaning because they lack creativity.  They are demeaning because they are based on phrases or actions that were created to belittle, demoralize and inflict pain on the people they target.

Eve players are a ridiculously inventive bunch.  This creativity is exhibited time after time.  Hell, we break the game and exploit the game, and figure out elaborate schemes and cons that can be insanely convoluted just to get a few more kills or a few more isk.  Let's use a bit of that creativity to come up with insults that don't rely on pointless hatreds and conflicts.

I'll get you started.  Here's a partial list of terms that are synonymous with greedy:

acquisitive, avaricious, avid, carnivorous, close, close-fisted, covetous, craving, desirous, devouring, eager, edacious, esurient, gluttonous, gobbling, gormandizing, grabby, grasping, grudging, gulping, guzzling, hoggish, hungry, impatient, insatiable, insatiate, intemperate, itchy, miserly, omnivorous, parsimonious, pennypinching, penurious, piggish, prehensile, rapacious, ravening, ravenous, selfish, stingy, swinish, tight, tight-fisted, voracious

Learning Logi

Tonight was an interesting night.  Whenever I log in on Grimmash, one of the first things I do is check the fleet finder to see if any gangs are out and about.  While I have been trying, and failing, to figure out solo pvp in my frigs and destroyers, I find small gang to be both more enjoyable and more effective.  By effective, I mean I might have to actually put more ammo in my ship at some point instead of learning if I insured it or not.  Tonight started slow, with a few losses to bring my ego in check.  Two destroyers and three frigates found the jump gate to the great FW hunting grounds filled with booze and good fights in various ways on April 1, 2013.  I mostly blame my poor choice in engagements.  I keep warping into plexes in situations I think I can handle and finding out the friendlies already popped, or that I misread the situation.

But that was not to be my only action on the Day of Fools!  After licking my wounds, doing some *real* shit, and trying to find PvP videos to learn something from, I hopped back in game.  It seemed some BC support was needed, so I quickly allocated and fit up a nice Myrm, only to learn that we were instead going for cruisers.  Doh.  At least I have a BC ready to fight now.  Then the FC asked if anyone could fly logi.  Lo and behold, I can fly any T1 logi cruiser, and I can even fly the T2 Caldari and Gallente versions.  A few minutes later I was sitting in brand new Augoror with a few ideas and another Aug pilot depending on me.

Our roam starts, and we try to engage the Caldari in a few places, to no avail.  I ask lots of questions on comms to try and not derp my way into a nice killmail for someone else.  I finally get the basics of cap-chaining, repping and spot-boosting cap in order, just in time to jump into a TEST gang in Kedama.  We did ok.  Unfortunately for that fight, I had not learned the protip of assisting my drones to whore on the killmails.  Cue the sad trombone.  I get many thanks for being a not completely stupid logi pilot from the fleet, which was awesome.  It's always nice when you help your mates kill stuff and then get some credit for helping out.

Edit: Someone else like this fight, too.

The next fight I had learned how to get a little killboard credit for shooting friendlies with concentrated armor beams.  We found a bunch of squids hanging out in a plex in Hikkoken.  I'm starting to really like Hikkoken.  Jump gate, warp to plex, warp the gate, get bacon.  Also, get on the kill mails this time to prove I'm doing something.

Finally we ended up back in Nennamaila, only to find out a large group of Tornados were making our life tough.  At this point we had three Augurors.  The we had two, and only because the Tornados primaried the first, then split damage on the other logi pilot and me.  Internet spaceship strategery ensued, and I called it a night, saving my blooded Auggie for another fleet.

Logisitics is fun.  I really enjoy it.  Although it may not have the satisfaction of making things pop, I get to manage a lot of things, and I get to keep my fleet mates in their ships.  It also makes the roaming part of the roam more active.  Every jump and warp had a little mental checklist to go down.  Lock logis, establish cap.  Am I anchor?  Yes, get range on the proper target,  No, get orbit range on the anchor.   Lock up ancillary targets in case of hostiles.  Repeat.  There is a bit more than just listening to comms and trying to keep up.

I've tried to play healers in other games, and found the process to be much more hostile.  In WoW, everyone was expected to just know a completely different play style, and the margin for error was nil.  In Eve, the fleet listened, explained, and coached.

This is an odd characteristic I have noticed with Eve players.  The gaming media loves to paint us as
 psychotic sociopaths who delight in the anger of others.  I have found, through most of my Eve career, that even your enemies are often willing to talk if you approach them the right way.  Your fleet mates often want ot actively help you get better.  Maybe this spirit lies the persistent world of Eve, maybe it lies in the fact that you are fighting other people instead of mobs, but there seems to be some sense of a desire to share knowledge with others in many aspects of the game.  I think we lose sight of this quite often.  We have all seen the learning curve of Eve.

But what we do not see written about is the vast amount of players who want to share the game with others and help them get better.  Many of us want to answer questions and help our mates learn how this whole thing works.  We may fight them in a few months or a year, but we can only do that if we help people keep playing the game. So my thanks go out to the FCs and fleet mates and corpmates and even enemies I've played Eve with over the last few years.  I've only gotten bored with the game when I let myself get bored.  I've always found players willing to help me learn things.  The more I learn, the more I enjoy the game, and the more I realize how much more there is to learn in Eve.

A special shout out to Kirith Kodachi.  I've greatly enjoyed reading his blog, and tonight I got to fly with him.  Even though he was apparently too busy shooting things to broadcast for reps.  You are lucky I had you on the watchlist, Kirith!  Name recognition has benefits in some cases.  Kidding aside, he helped us get some intel on the second fight, and helped make it happen.

A final note, this is the 100th published post here at Warp to Zero, which may be why I'm in a reflective mood.  I never thought I would get this far in blogging about internet spaceships.  In the next few days, I'm thinking of writing up a retrospective on my time in Eve so far.  I planned to do that for the 100th post, but the logi experience almost seems more fitting.  Regardless, thanks to everyone who keeps coming to read my ramblings.  I doubt I would have kept writing if no one had bothered to come.  Thanks especially to the sites who have linked me, and the readers who take the time to post comments.  It is often said that Eve isn't that great of a game, but the community keeps people coming back.  I know that is true for me.

Growing Up

Now approaching its tenth year, the EVE Online player community has matured into an intricate and multi-faceted society viewed with envy by other game developers, but is frequently regarded with suspicion by the wider gaming community. 

Is this perception deserved? Should "The Nation of EVE" be concerned by its public identity and if so how might that be improved? What influence will the integration of the DUST 514 community have on this culture in the future?

-Seismic Stan, Freebooted, Blog Banter 35

Any discussion of the Eve community is tricky.  When you think of Eve from the inside, there are myriad groups all work with and against each other.  How do you succinctly capture a community that includes the CFC, R & K, Rote Kapelle, Tuskers, Faction Warfare, RP junkies, pirates, miners, inventors, manufacturers, wormholers, carebears, and traders?  Then add the flavors of each in all the various parts of space.  Then look at the meta community, which adds yet another layer. 

I suppose the common theme to all the players who keep coming back is one of involvement.  The only way to succeed in Eve is not play, but if you ignore that, you reach a semblance of success by being involved.  Involved with other players, with the markets, with whatever your chosen niche of the game is.  On to the questions: Is the perception of Eve as a suspect community deserved?  Should the Eve community care about this? Will Dust 514 impact either of these things?

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We must be careful."

-Obi-wan Kenobi

The gaming media loves Eve.  It seems the pace of scandals, scams and general player outrage have picked up pace over the last year.  Some of these things were intended by CCP, some… not so much.  But Eve is the juicy steak at the MMO table, the friend who you don’t remember inviting to the party, but always shows up and everyone remembers that one thing he did.  There are two sides to this reputation. 

Almost every person I have talked to who is a gamer says “Hey, I heard about that crazy Guiding Hand thing…” or “Wasn’t there some ship blown up that was worth a lot of money and people made fun of the guy for being stupid?”  If the conversation continues, my companion usually eithers says something along the lines of “That’s awesome!” or “I would never play a game that risky!”.  This is a good thing.  Eve requires a level of devotion not seen in other games, and the people who say “Awesome” are the players we, and CCP, want playing our game.  They add to it, and help create the story that is New Eden.

The other side of the coin is “cyber-bullying”, photo-shopped Tyrano-Dictators, racism, sexism, terms like “spacejews”, and the unsavory RMT/Botting/Espionage events that happen in the client and the meta-game.  Some of those things are good.  Espionage, for example, is a great aspect of the game.  Some of these things, like racism and sexism, are not Eve-centric, but rather afflict gaming as a whole.   I’ve written about some of these habits before. 

The gaming media is more than happy to jump on these events, and often “Our Eve” and what the rest of the world sees as “Eve” can be very different.  Accurately portrayed or not, the gaming media is where a lot of players get information, and informs where players put their paychecks.  Eve thrives on players, and alienating the gaming public at large is not good for growing the subscriber base.

“This speaks to a larger point. We need to revise how we showcase the culture of EVE… …This solemn effort has already begun. Time for us to grow up a bit.”

– CCP Navigator

CCP has acknowledged the power of the media in the wake of Fanfest.  As a company CCP has always taken a very broad view of acceptable behavior in the sandbox they run, but things change.  Creditors are owed money.  Subscription bases need to grow.  Business partners may not have the same attitude towards the perceived behavior of the player base.  When Hilmar fell on his sword last summer, it was done late but well, and contrition was and continues to be delivered to an audience in the hundreds of thousands.  When The Mittani fell on his sword, he did not have any meaningful way to prove his contrition, and his offense happened on a larger stage – the stage of media relations and corporate interests.  CCP responded as harshly as possible without passing a death penalty.

This new approach means that the Eve community does need to care about the perception of Eve to others, because CCP has decided it matters.  A sandbox full of danger can exist without being offensive.  The players have a lot of power in this.  How you carry out an action is often more important than the action itself.  Take piracy as an example.  You can be a cut-throat fiend of the spacelanes without being a douchebag.  It involves not saying things you would never speak to another human in person.  Danger and abuse are not the same things.

“The drink will flow and blood will spill

And if the boys wanna fight, you’d better let ‘em”

-Thin Lizzy

Dust 514’s integration will be very interesting in light of recent CCP’s response to Fanfest.  FPS players are a bit of a different breed, and I hope there is no crouch button in Dust.  The games are still somewhat partitioned, as Dust Bunnies won’t be chatting in space with the Pod Jockeys.  But CCP will have fun with the chat language used in the common console FPS.  If anything, I imagine there will be two standards, one for each game. 

Also, with no PC integration for Dust, the player bases may be different enough, and partitioned enough, to not really have an impact on each other.  The genres are completely different.  FPSs and MMOs tend to draw from very different player groups, as comparing an MMO to an FPS is like comparing French to Russian.  Aside from Sony money, not launching on the same platform as ALL of your existing users is a bold bet that a lot of non-Eve players are going to jump on the New Eden train.

“Most of the arguments to which I am party fall somewhat short of being impressive, knowing to the fact that neither I nor my opponent knows what we are talking about.”

-Rodney Dangerfield

The short answers to the questions: Eve’s reputation is partially deserved, but only if you consider that all games have the same knobheads in them and Eve just gets the bad press of late.  The players should care about this reputation, both as humans and in regards to keeping Eve and ongoing concern.  And Dust is a wildcard, bringing a completely new player base into contact with serious internet spaceshippers,  As it stands Dust needs to stand on its’ own.  Only if the game is worth playing will the perception of Eve matter.


Oh, and the button on an Eve keyboard.  I would make a special key that tabs only between Eve instances. Call it the "FAIL" key.

Jita Blog Talk

MOre than a few people have been talking lately about the upcoming Jitahellcamp.  Ripard Teg thinks CCP have their collective backs to the wall.  Syncaine is musing on the urban planning challenges of holding all the tears that will come and the health ramifications of drinking said tears.  Poetic seems to have not really noticed, with his latest adventures in a stream-of-consciousness pile of posts.  I;m sure you can find some others to read too.

I talked about this in regards to the philosophical context of the conflict that is coming.  But what about the day to day?  Here are some thoughts and predictions.

I cannot wait for the Jitahellcamp to come, and I think it will be a wonderful moment for Eve.  So I am a bit more Syncaine than Ripard.  There are also some long-term implications if the Gooswarm wins the field.

The economy of Eve may finally have to split up and the players will realize one mega-hub is a terrible way to run the economy.  The only reason attacking Jita matters is because it is THE hub of the game.  Sure, other empire hubs exist, but they do not hold a candle to the volume that is Jita IV.  If trade is significantly disrupted, that makes a strong argument for spreading out a bit, which in turn opens up greater options for buyers, sellers, traders, and just about anyone interested in a more dynamic market geography.

Get ready to profit!  I think there is a good chance many traders will ignore the warnings, or don't pay enough attention to the metagame.  If the camp is successful and shuts down trade into and out of Jita there will be a lot of opportunity to make some isk on the edges.  Not to mention the stockpiles in Jita being temporarily removed from market circulation.  I leave it to you to decide what is going to be valuable, but you may want to make preparations.

Buy your stuff now.  If you think you might need anything in the week or two after the 24th, you may want to get those supplies before supply chains and trade convoys are disrupted.

Put your bibs on, because there just might be an all you eat buffet of non-Eve players writing, blogging, and generally mucking about in and around New Eden.  I cannot wait to see how Massively tries to spin the hellcamp.  Be prepared for the sound of a thousand voices screaming, followed by... more screaming.  As Syncaine and Ripard said, the forums and blogs will be awash with lots of people complaining about the GSF and CFC.  Although this is rather the norm, I think the volume will go up to eleven.  Time for a wonderful chance to simply observe people in Eve responding to actual content. People say they want more, but often regret getting what they want.

Is CCP reinforcing nodes, and will Jita get TiDi-ed in the days leading up to the jitahellcamp?  I can see a lot of pilots getting a fresh clone and a few ships to enjoy the pretty colors when hundreds (thousands?) of Tornados, tacklers, Orcas, freighters, pods and god knows what else shows up in Jita.  I know I'm thinking of trying to get good seats, and maybe onto a few killmails.  You might want to set up some safes  now though, for all the good it might do.  If I go or not, this promises to be an interesting few days.

April 24th: Welcome to the Inferno

Bravo Mittens.  Bravo CCP.

The Eve community has just been granted an amazing chance to do a lot of things, and we have one month to prepare.  Regardless of your opinions of The Mittani, CCP's reaction to his comments, and all the other arguments made in the last week, the players of Eve have just had a gauntlet thrown down at our collective feet.

To the White Knights:  You have just been challenged by Biggest Bad of Eve to what will either be the largest battle the game has seen, or the quiet acceptance of Dear Leader's arrogance and bravado.  If you want to take a stand against Goons, against griefing, against everything The Mittani and the CFC stand for, you know when and where to organize.  On the 24th of April you will be given the opportunity to take the field and send CFC back to the fields of nullsec in ruins.  On April 24th you can quietly be elsewhere and let the CFC shut down the hub of New Eden, fueling the burning superiority and pride they so blatantly display.  The choice is yours.

To the CFC:  I hope you make good on the speech Dear Leader gave.  If you burn Jita, the game will be fundamentally altered for some time.  You will prove yet again that you can run rampant through New Eden.  At the very least you will exemplify the fact that players in Eve create the content in a way no game designer ever could.  I wish you luck, and hope you have someone to fight when you get to Jita IV.

To CCP:  This needs to play out.  Inadvertantly or not, your actions and reactions before, during and after Fanfest have just spawned a defining moment in New Eden.  This is the true test of the Sandbox.  As has so often been stated, we will watch what you do, not what you say.

Inferno is coming, perhaps a month earlier than anyone expected.  It will interesting to see who ends up getting burned.

Man Makes MMORPG Mad

I'm going to piss people off with this, so if you don't like that, you can stop reading.

The Mittani got drunk at the Alliance Panel at Fanfest, made some very poor comments about suicide, and now is getting railroaded all over *gasp* the Eve blogoshpere.

Players (Human Beings) in Eve use terms like "rapecage", "rape face", homosexual slurs, racist slurs, and probably some things I have never heard.  Players in FPS games hump dead opponents.  Duke Nukem talks about sexual acts on amputated body parts.  "Gamers" have a lexicon that would make a nun burst into holy flames due to proximity.  This is insensitive and childish and immature.

This is also the state of online gaming, the internet and locker rooms in the United States, and I would wager in the world at large, in the bored male demographic.  What Alex Gianturco said was something I assume he regrets, but was nothing even remotely beyond the pale for gamers to hear.  This incident speaks more to the sad state of discourse in the greater gaming community at large, and if anything should a be point for gamers to rally behind.  Not to rally against one drunk guy, but to rally against all gamers who use such terms in any context anywhere.

If you want to get indignant, call, email and riot in every game you play against anyone who uses such terms.  Report every incident of any offensive language you encounter.  Stop using it yourself.  But until you can say you have never told someone to die in a fire, you've never drunk the tears of another player, and you've never done anything that could have made someone angry or mad or depressed, please spare the world your righteous indignation at one example of an otherwise pervasive trend.

Tripping in Rifters

I put a frigate pilot in RvB recently, and this was a good choice.  A few highlights of the whole RvB experience:

• People tend to pay attention to comms and be somewhat focused.  This is a great change of pace from some small groups I have previously flown through hostile space with.
• The PvP ON button.  As long as I get on between lunch and midnight (US TZ), there is usually a 30-40 man fleet cruising around, looking to find the other fleet and make some fun happen.
• Cheap ships are fun.  I fly T1 fit Rifters, because if I loot one wreck every few fights, I pay for all the ships I lose and then some without really trying.
• RvB communication.  They tend to try and balance fleets against each other to make the fights at least interesting.  This is not to say there is not some blobbing, or stragglers caught out, but it is generally attempted to make things fair-ish.
• 89-9 kill ratio, at this point, with 99.5% efficiency.  That's just sick, and more indicative of how the other fleets call primaries as compared to my skills in a Rifter.  And the fact that my Rifters cost about 500k right now...

Some not-so-highlights:

• Modules being bought out/not stocked.  I dare say some budding industrialist could set up shop in Hageken, Ako and Autaris and make a killing supplying just about any module regularly used in PvP.  It's awkward trying to fit ships in a permanent warzone that is not conducive to cheap indy ships.
• Complaints about hulls being used.  Both sides do it, but the corp I am not in seems to love moaning after seeing someone undock in a 'Cane.
• The overview.  This is my first real experience of fleet-sized engagements, and the overview is rather painful, and I know understand the challenge of trying to find that damn Maller in a group of 30 flashy reds.

But overall, putting an alt in RvB has been phenomenally fun and a great way to learn a little bit about PvP.  You should try it.

Mass Effect 3: A Lesson in Player Investment

I don't often post about other games here, but I wanted to take a look at the uproar over Mass Effect 3 and the endings, and something it says about games and gamers in general.  I promise there is a tie in to Eve at the end, but to explain the ME3 situation will require a lot of background.

<There are ME spoilers here, so be warned.  Also I have always played a paragon female Shepard, so I refer to Shep as "her", and may have only directly experienced portions of the game available to a paragon.>

If you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks you may not have noticed the anger amongst players of ME3 over the various endings available.  There are a few complaints, briefly:

• The ending is illogical, employing a dues ex machina once the Crucible is activated.
• The behaviors of the team mates are illogical, with them all teleporting to the Normandy, as is the consequence of the Mass Relays being destroyed.
• The sudden change of the nature of the synthetic-organic conflict does not take into account anything the player has done.
• The 3 endings are, aside from colors and types of explosion, identical.
• The 3 endings are all "bad", in that Shepard dies, all life is either destroyed or is scattered, and the mass relays are gone, making everything Shepard and team have done a pyrrhic victory at best.

I'll tackle these, but in a different order.

Although the actions in the Crucible do reek of deus ex machina, I think that is somewhat unfair.  There is plenty of subtle foreshadowing, especially as you get closer to the end.  However, if you chose to save the Geth and Quarians, and invested in EDI and Joker's lives, this ending is a deus ex machina, as the only thematically hostile synthetics in the game are hybrids: Cerberus and the Reapers.  More on this later.

***

The disappearance of the Normandy makes no sense.  When and why did Joker jump the ship?  Where was he going?  How did people get back on?  If the Mass Relays are destroyed, you are essentially setting off a pile of supernovas throughout the galaxy.  The endings all show this, and given the layout of the galaxy, this is equivalent to letting the Reapers kill everyone anyway.

***

The ending videos themselves, when viewed side by side, are an exercise in either a rushed ending or a lazy ending.  The color varies (green/red/blue) and the effect varies (energy glow, explosion, lightning), but every other part of the cutscenes is identical.  This is garbage, and an offensive way to claim multiple endings.  Those are not alternate endings, those are alternate costumes for one ending.  Bioware must have expected this sort of response to palette swapped videos, and I am a bit shocked they appear confused.

***

I would call all 3 endings "bad', in that they end tragically.  That's fine, except for one main problem.  The endings, at least for a paragon/neutral Shepard, are not thematically relevant in any way.  For a bad ending to work, go watch Blade Runner, or Gladiator.  Shepard gives up everything around her, and her life, and this outcome only satisfies a thematically jarring plot device, and ignores player's actions in the game.  The renegade option, oddly, seems to leave Shep alive, no longer in space.  What?  When did Shep become John Constantine?  None of these endings work thematically.  This leads me to my main complaint, and aside from the lazy videography, my fundamental issue with the endings.

***

The framing of the conflict between Organics, Reapers and Catalyst does not stand up to any scrutiny of the preceding narrative.  No evidence is given for why synths will take over, either in the conversation with the Catalyst, or in the preceding games. The Geth, if you played paragon, are actually victims of speciesism via the Quarians, and if you follow Legion's side quests throughout ME2 and ME3, you learn almost all the reasons the Geth are "Evil" is because they were just trying to survive or were essentially indoctrinated.  The only open hostilities in the game are lead by the Salaarians, the Quarians, the Reapers and the Krogan.  All all organic or hybrids, none are synthetic.  EDI, the ship AI, is consistently moral, or seeks to be moral, or at least wants Shepard's (organic) approval for her actions.  The whole premise of the Catalyst is baseless in the fiction provided, once you understand all the parts.

To take this one step further, the Catalyst is an AI controlling Reapers (hybrids), and is the only major force seeking to do the very thing it claims to be combating, wiping out all life.  The Catalyst is making a solid case only against itself, or maybe only Organics, in a really tortured, self-contradicting philosophy.  Some Organic made the Catalyst, or the AI that then made the Catalyst.  Russian dolls!  Then, also mysteriously, the Catalyst implies that Shepard making it to the Catalyst has broken the cycle the Catalyst is using to maintain order and life.  Only Shepard can make the choice of what to do next.  But, all those choices, if you play them out, lead to roughly the same outcome as letting the Reaper keep going.  This, oddly, is not a choice.  At the last choice of the game, literally an intersection, you have 3 choices that make no sense and do not consider any of the rich storytelling, world building, or decision making that the player made.

And this, I think, is the crux of the problem of Bioware has stumbled into.  They built three beautiful, engaging, vibrant games that focused heavily on players impacting that world.  There are small impacts (each decision) and the aggregate decisions (paragon or renegade) that dramatically influenced both individuals and civilizations.  The end of the series throws all of that development at the feet of a nonsensical and irrational child who gives you the choice of which end of the world you prefer, with all three options destroying the galaxy you tried to save.  This insulted the expectations of the players.

That is the key - expectations Bioware built over years both through marketing and gameplay.  Games are interactive, unlike movies, novels, or any other form of media.  The players invest in the characters and story.  They explore the options, the nooks and crannies of the game world.  They make dramatic relationships, kill vilains and heroes, and I would wager no two ME trilogy play-throughs are identical for any two players.  At the pinnacle of this series of choices and investments, the model was changed, the rules were tossed out, and the creative capital players invested into their Shepards turned out be about as valuable as CDO in late 2008.

I think this is something MMO players, and Eve players in particular can identify with.  How many times have you heard the "Dream of Eve" tossed into a discussion to validate opinions?  How many players rage when the game is changed away from the way they learned and loved it, or even from their concept of what Eve is?  Some critics have called gamers entitled or overly critical of Bioware, citing the dev's artistic license to end the story how they want.  Sorry to break it to those critics, but in a medium where emotional investment determines the future of a company, player opinions and desires are a very real concern.  When a TV series or novel ends, it's over.  Also, a novel or DVD generally runs a lot less than $59.99.  Game makers ostensibly want to keep selling games, and a big enough let-down of player expectations and trust can sink not just a franchise, but an entire company.

Incarna was the case example of this in Eve.  The dream was betrayed for a rushed, incomplete piece of game that combined hardware failures, a poorly implemented Cash Shop, and nothing for players to invest in emotionally.  The results were profound.  Mass unsubs, riots, threadnaughts, The Mittani becoming a champion of the players, and tangentially, layoffs, corporate reorganization, and thankfully a heartfelt apology from Hilmar and one of the most dramatic turnarounds in product development to ever have been seen in the gaming industry.

MMOs actually have the finest measurement for player emotions:  Time spent playing, logins, and subscription numbers.  If the devs are making poor choices, the players will speak through these metrics.  Traditional games do not have a rolling metric to show how people feel.  Once the $60 has been spent, the only feedback in on forums, blogs and Youtube.  I hope Bioware, and the rest of the gaming industry, learns from the lessons of the player reaction.  You can patch and iterate in Eve or another MMO.  When the next Bioware series comes, the iteration will be seen in sales numbers, and an all-or-nothing proposition has a lot less margin of error.

Homogeneity

Over at Jester's, there was an interesting post highlighting what I think is a common view in multiplayer games.  A commenter posted that Eve doesn't have smarter players, it has less players doing more with alts, and also that CCP has failed to deliver on the "Dream of Eve".  The poster seems to imply that because players are using alts, and focusing on optimized play-styles, Eve is dead to him.  Ripard seems to take that same premise and draw the opposite conclusion, that optimization is good.  I think both slightly miss a larger function of Multiplayer gaming in general.  The older a game gets, the more people learn the "right" ways to work, and many players will gravitate towards this.

Take WoW as an example.  I played a hunter for some time, and during each expansion, there came a point where the optimal gear for each build was known, and if you didn't use that build and gear, finding a raid spot was tough.  This took some creativity and trial to learn, but once it was found, most groups with progression on their minds demanded you work towards the optimal.  This holds true across classes.

Look at TF2.  Each map has specific characteristics and each class can use those to some degree.  If the Engineer guy decides to build teleports to a point that is far from conflict, or puts a sentry in a poor firing location, he will be jeered by teammates.  If a sniper runs around meleeing instead of using geometry and range, this will also be called out.

As time goes on in any situation, people figure out the rules and how to push them to the edge, and how to optimize achieving goals.  In Eve this usually means killing people or making isk.  After 9 years, it is not surprising that many players have maxed skills, min-maxed almost ever ship in the game, and have come up with the best income streams for most of the markets.  I would go so far as to say Eve's market dynamics are so complex that I doubt anyone, even at CCP, truly understands how all the bits fit together, much less the players.  And new players willing to look around have a lot of resources telling them how to rat, plex, fit, market, build, scan, mine and scam.  They aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, because someone else already did it for them, and they know it.

This holds true in any game.  Few"srsz bsnz" players try non-cookie cutter fits/builds/strategies in most games unless they are looking to "fail" in hilarious fashion, or they are bored.  Civ, Sins, any RPG you care to name, all games that have been on the shelf for a while have tomes of knowledge on the interwebs just waiting for people to find.  This is the mature phase of any game.

Players also have a new phase and a mature phase.  Reading both Ripard's comments and the poster's, I draw this conclusion:  Once you learn all the rules of a game you care to learn, you have hit the mature phase.  At this point, you rapidly learn if you enjoy the game for what it is, or if you are bored.  If the gameplay intrigues you after you have learned the ins and outs, you keep playing.  You optimize, you screw around, you do these actions to amuse yourself.  If you find the game boring after you have learned it, stop playing.

Blaming the devs or other players for your boredom probably means you want to like the game, or you regret the time you spent because the shine is gone, or you are just nostalgic for the new feeling almost every consumptive media gives when you first find it.  But failing to consider your own development  arc in a game, and blaming others seems to me to be an easy way out.  I would rather gracefully say goodbye and hit the unsub button, and move on to the next world.

Blog Banter 33: More Options

Blog Banter 33: The Capsuleer Experience

Like mana from Valhalla (yes I know I'm mixing my religious metaphors), the latest Dev Blog by CCP Legion asks questions which make for perfect Blog Bantering. To quote him "...we want to make the first days, weeks and months in EVE enjoyable and not just something ‘you have to plough through in order to get to the good stuff’" and the newly formed Player Experience team will focus on "...where and why people lose interest in EVE...".

"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."

So let's get self-eviscerating. Banter on. 

Cheers, Seismic Stan

Response 

I started trying to come up with targets tied to the “first days/weeks/months”, but as I wrote this became more of a list of features I would like to see in Eve that would improve not only new player experience, but all player experience.  Without further ado, here is a list of changes I think would benefit all players.

Skillbooks

Get rid of skillbooks.  Completely remove them from the game.  Having to fly around picking up skill books is a tremendous waste of time.  You can require pilots to dock to unlock new skills, but realizing you have to fly 5 jumps because no stations close to you have the books you need is a waste of player time.

Corps, Factions and Missions

Anti-faction missions should only come from specific agents.  It is very easy to accidentally tank your standing with an opposing faction in the first weeks of the game, and there is no indicator of exactly how hard this is to fix later.  This also becomes an issue for players who have played for a while.  If you log on Saturday morning, and draw four anti-faction missions from two agents in a row, it’s like CCP is telling you to stop playing and go do something else.  Constraining players by limiting choices of activities is a bad idea in a sandbox.

Let players choose the NPC corp they want to join, and make the corps have various benefits/drawbacks for non-combat aspects of the games.  For example, some could have lower taxes but more spread out agents, while other have higher taxes with lots of agents.

NPC corps should also provide something besides missions as standings increase.  Discounts, real time tracking of players, knowledge of surrounding systems, permanently renting lab or manufacturing space, all of these things could be potential benefits of building standings with specific corps.

Lastly, level 4 missions should be faster, with fewer ships, but harder to complete without either good tactics or friends.  Currently 4s do not teach players much besides how to tank large amounts of damage.  I would love to see missions involve fitting ships towards more specific goals, using EWAR, and other facets of gameplay mechanics.

Research and POSes

Research is horrible in Eve.  The concept is wonderful, but the implementation and wait time is so bad it drives people out of the activity.  Setting up POSes to do research is like pulling all your teeth and getting dentures to get rid of some plaque.So, here are a few proposals to get people into R&D.  

Let players rent space to anchor modules.  Pirates and NPCs do it, why can’t we?  Or, let standings open up research slots on stations.  So if you have high standings with Ishukone, you have access to a tier of slots that others do not have access to.  Waiting a month or more to do ANY research is pointless, and players should have some way to establish a place in space without having to anchor a POS.

Which brings up a related point.  Players should be able to make individual homes in Eve that are more than just the hangar.  A sub-POS structure that serves the player that anchors it would be phenomenal in letting players buy into their character and location would provide a nice stepping-stone to WH/Null space holding, and make Eve feel like more than a series of NPC subway stops.

PvP

Many people have talked about arenas or something similar, and I agree with adding something like this to the game.  One drawback for new players and high sec players is finding fights that are worth having quickly. Right now when I want some quick PvP, I don’t fly to low and scout around in a rifter hoping to find someone else, because that can take a evening and result in nothing but growing my heat map of traveled systems.  I launch TF2 and play that.  I can get a match in about a minute.

Eve could use a “push button, get bacon” pvp option.  This would let both new to PvP pilots come out and play, and open up a competitive arena system for more serious players.  Ladders, matched ship types, multiplayer matches, economics supporting the ships, modules, ammo, betting systems, and a whole new career path with prize purses would all be possible.

Blog Banter 32: Mechanics and Education

Seismic Stan occasionally posts questions to the Eve blogging community.  His most recent is:

"A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships, there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option. 

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online. Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

Seismic Stan asked us if there should be a way to remove non-consensual PvP from Eve, which I will take to mean, should there be parts of High Sec that do not allow non-consenual PvP.  I cannot think of another way to reframe the question that makes sense.  So we are either talking about PvP free islands or a PvP free High Sec.  I vehemently disagree with the removeal of PvP in high sec.  I would cautiously support development of very small islands of low value, PvP-free High Sec, but with a lot of caveats.

I thought about how many ships I have lost to non-consensual PvP.  The answer is a handful of T1 industrials in low sec, because I was being stupid.  Then I thought about how many “newb” corp members have lost ships due to non-consensual PvP.  The answer was at least 4.  Specifically, four players who lost ships due to mechanics that are not really explained by the game and are rather counter intuitive.  Some variation on can flipping or ninja salvaging wrecks.  Those players proceeded to log off and never log again, without so much as a goodbye in chat.

 That’s four players who took the time to learn how fit, learned the skill systems, figured out the agent and standing system, and then got caught out by a mechanic they didn’t even know they needed to learn.  If a game mechanic can so enrage people who have already invested a significant amount of time to quit, there is either a problem with the mechanic, or there is a failure to educate players on how the game actually works.

So I will answer the question thus:  If Eve does not develop a better new player experience that actually educates on core PvP mechanics, I am fine with small islands where new players are able to learn mechanics.  By small I mean between 1 and 3 contiguous systems per Empire Faction in 1.0 space with no agents higher than 1, no exploration sites higher than DED 1, no ore besides minimal veldspar, etc…  Losing players due to obfuscated or unexplained mechanics is just bad game design.

But I would rather see a more formalized introduction to PvP built into the game so it is less likely that players can invest a month or more without understanding the rules of PvP conflict.

Blog a Day #14: Gifts Response

A response to Poetic Discourse.

This is a tough choice of gift!

I already bought and am researching the BPOs offered, so that is rather pointless.  I could care less about the destroyers and faction ammo.  But weighing an implant v a remap, that is tough.  I need to look up the info on the remap, as I am not sure if it is an instant thing or if it gets added to my character to use at any point.  If it the second option, that may be a no-brainer.  This could be a nice ace in the hole if I get bored of my Per-Wil Map of Doom (tm).

Blog-a-day #5: Podcasts Response

A resonse to Poetic Discourse.


What I Listen To:

Voices from the Void - Usually informative, always entertaining, and yeah, Arydanika has a voice that is just plain fun to hear.  Seismic Stan is a nice addition/replacement.

Ender Black's  Pod Goo - Nice range of interviews and topics covered.  Nice approach to analyzing tactics and strategies.

What Don't I Listen To (And Why):

Fly Reckless - Never seemed to stick for me, I think the in-jokes got too thick when I was trying to listen.

Isk (iTunes) - This is personal:  I am trying to be a good former smoker and listening to someone light up on the podcast is infuriating and tempting.  Also, sometimes the format is waaay to long.

Ransoms and Roams:  Tried to listen, did not hold my attention.

What I Wished Was Still Around:

Lost In Eve

General Thoughts:

I find that podcasts that have a high production level (like a radio show) tend to keep my attention.  As I am constantly working, studying, or moving around, being able to stop and start listening, or listening to little segments at each go is very useful to me. VandV does this well.

Consistency (even if it means short episodes) is the second biggest influence on me spending ear time on a show.

The podcaster's voice is also huge.  I know that much is this is due to fate and your parents, but a good voice is much nicer to listen to.  Proper diction and pacing can help overcome otherwise unappealing voices though, as can engagement in what is being said.