Slippery Slopes

Before we start:  I feel like half of my posts are just responses to Ripard Teg, but the guy writes so much and on so many topics that I find my self not caring.  Just a throwaway thought before I get down to it.

Read this.  And then maybe the thread associated, and maybe some of the previous articles.  This is the internet, I can wait.

Now we can start.  Most of the debaters in the the topic of what kind of players play Eve and how CCP should treat them seem to accept that both the "Bonus Room" scam and player perpetrating are despicable examples of human behavior.  If something like this happened in your work or your family life, you would cut ties with the person and tell others to avoid them.  That is a relief.  It means that, as I have long suspected and occasionally written, most players of Eve who also participate in the out of game community are either decent people, or are decent enough to recognize truly atrocious behavior.  What I find disturbing is that many of those same people think banning players who conduct "Bonus Room" style behavior will somehow start a slippery slope where anyone can be banned for anything.

This is not a valid concern.

Bad behavior comes in many forms.  Often bad behavior is an isolated incident, where someone gets carried away.  You say something nasty while drunk or in a group, and later realize your mistake.  Sometimes bad behavior comes from healthy testing of boundaries.  Children get in fights or disobeying parents.  These sorts of infractions can be dealt with simply and quickly.  A little feedback goes a long way, and that sort of feedback is what helps people define acceptable behavior in any society.  But some bad behavior is premeditated, cruel and repetitive.  Simple and measured feedback doesn't work, because the perpetrator has no regard for the rules.

In some situations companies have, or choose to assume, a moral or legal obligation to protect their customers.  CCP has already shown they are willing to accept a moral right to protect.  In that case a player made comment about killing himself after falling for a scam in Jita.  While his conversation was in jest, CCP contacted local authorities who then checked in on the player at his home.  While the player's initial post was fairly shocked, his first response to CCP in the comments was to thank them.  He realized that if he was not joking, CCP may have saved his life.  Also reference CCP's handling of The Mittani.  I assume anyone reading this is familiar with that event, and will not repeat the story here.

In most cases companies also have a right to refuse service to customers. This is the opposite side of the coin illustrated above.  CCP is completely within rights, in extreme cases, to refuse service without referring to the EULA or complex rules-arguing.  They can decide that people perpetrating a certain level of malicious, planned, and orchestrated bad behavior simply do not get to play with the toys CCP has made.  They can do this on a case by case basis.  If they want, they can put in place stringent internal rules to limit this scenario.  But they can do it, and they should. 

It is ok for a company to admit that things may have gotten out of hand or beyond the comfort zone.  Especially if the reaction is obviously and, if necessary, publicly done to provide clear feedback to behavior that is well past any reasonable boundary.  A few strong examples may do far more good than incrementally adjusting the rules to define the perfect balance for the bad behavior boundary line.   There is no slippery slope here.  There is truly bad behavior and the opportunity to strongly denounce it.

And finally, Eve Online is a game.  It is for amusement and relaxation, an escape or an adventure.  It is not a sacrosanct nation that needs to allow or tacitly support real abuse or psychological manipulation in order to protect the liberties and rights of fictional characters.

The Championship Tournament of Winners

Reading through Jester’s posts about the recent New Eden Open got me thinking about competitive tournament play in Eve and in other games. I can think of a few broad types of ranked play in gaming. The DOTA/LoL approach, with lots of characters and a set map with set objectives. The FPS approach with identical classes and rankings based on K/D rates and what have you. The RTS approach of winning matches against other players. The WoT approach where you have either informal rankings based on metrics or Clan tournaments. The ad-hoc Eve tournaments with weird buy-ins, metagamey team composition mechanics and various win conditions that have varied. The WoW arena approach. All of these have strengths and drawbacks that are far too numerous to go into at any length. The point is there are a lot of ways to skin this cat.

Coming from a rather uninvolved standpoint, I want to come up with a new way to do tourneys in Eve!

In my experience the biggest problem to most competitive gaming formats is either a lack of depth, or so much depth that the mental barrier to entry is too high for most people to get into a game. Based on comments, the latter seems to be a big “problem” in Eve. Add to that the cost of participation and you have a rather gnarly set of hurdles to overcome. So here is a half-baked idea:

Take the arena system of WoW, in broad strokes. You have XvX teams enter an arena, fight for a certain amount of time, and at the end the one with the most people left standing wins. This is a pretty simple system. Get rid of the stupid arena mechanics. Instead the arena is a grid, Eve-style, say 300km in diameter. That is plenty of room to move around. Both teams start at 200km from the center. No podding. If you go boom, your pod gets put in a station in system, and you go into spectator mode. Go.

Next we need to consider ships. The simplest way is to tier it. Tiers could be based on tech level and hull size. The Tier 1 Cruiser bracket, for example, would allow each team their choice of one Tier 1 cruiser or smaller hull for each player. Fittings would be capped at Tech 2, the impact of implants should probably be negated. Just hulls and mods and rigs. This would create 5 hull tiers, and two tiers for each hull size except cruisers. If we discount tech 3 hulls, there are 10 tiers. Maybe have an anything-goes tier for people who want faction fits, implant sets and all that silly stuff.

To make sure you can fit before fights, put an option in the fitting interface where you can set your tier and that wipes the affect of implants. Now everyone has a pretty even playing field, and most players would have options that are not too expensive. A T2-fit cruiser or frigate is a pretty cheap investment, generally speaking. Those would want to go all spendy could fly in the Tech 2 tiers.

There may need to be some special rules in the fight system. Perhaps a concord-like entity that really bites down on non-sanctioned combat, to allow safe travel in the fight system. Perhaps there need to be a few of these systems set up in order to ease strain. Maybe not.

Then you get to the bracketing. Enter seasons. Let’s go with 3 month seasons, as a number out of a hat. Each week you get X matches (5? 10?) that are ranked. Each team gets a ranking as the season progresses, and then at the end you have playoffs at each tier that leads to the finals. If you have 10 matches per week with a 12 week seasons, that is 120 matches. Not a small number for determining ranks. The post season lasts for a month or two. You get two full seasons a year.

For added fun, let’s make all this happen on the live server. During playoffs, the playoff system gates get locked down so only the competitors can come and go. Once you lose, you have to leave. Put the feed on in Captain’s Quarters. Or at least a link to the Twitch page or something. I’d say let players bet isk on the matches, but that might be difficult, legally and logistically.

Outside the sanctioned matches, put exhibition arenas around the cluster. Little pockets of space where player can queue up to fight each other using the same rules, but without rankings.

This whole thing is mostly a thought experiment. Eve’s competitive PvP, as it stands now, is for a select few, and will hold back Eve’s esports presence because there is not much a normal player can do to join in.

The whole point of this idea is to create a space for competitive small gang pvp with real leader boards and rankings. The current tournament system in Eve features a crazy buy-in process, expensive ships, and convoluted rules. I want to see people flying normal ships with normal modules where tactics, team composition and flying are the main factors that influence the fights. Not weird metagaming, practicing in wormholes, and PLEX buy-ins for auction spots.

The reason there are only a handful of Formula One teams isn’t because people don’t want to drive fast cars. There are only a handful of F1 teams because the barrier for entry is so high. But there are race tracks and racing leagues all over the world where for a small outlay you can throw a car around the trtack and compete against others. If CCP wants players to really get into eSports in Eve, they need players to be able to participate.

A more accessible system could provide this entry point, giving new or space-poor players a simple entry point while allowing a venue for those who wish to field more expensive and skill-intensive ships and fits. Instead of dumping a low-SP alt in RvB, players could dump a new character into the ranked system, and realize that this season they can learn to fly frigates, but next season they will be able to fly cruisers. And then they can move into tech two hulls. If you went with one race’s ships, hitting all 10 tiers would probably take you a good two years to fully fit competitive ships. That would also help keep players in the game, and help CCP’s bottom line. When everyone gets to fight in space, everyone in the real world wins.

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.

Fail Fits and Rookies

Edit: A commenter noted that I am wrong about the tutorials teaching players to use multiple tank types.  This is very probably right.  I do no think that alters my fundamental point.

Read this over at Poetic, and the comments.  Always a fun time, reading the comments.  I'm torn on how to handle fail fits.  I'm sure I have some fail fits that I like, elite players be damned.  I also want to laugh at fail fits.  But then I wonder, did that fail fit player buy some PLEX and go nuts, only to get his investment all blowed up and not understand why?  And why do so many people ignore advice from those that blew them up?  Questions without answers.  But one thing could be done.

CCP could make the tutorials actually teach people about fits instead of having tutorial missions that encourage fail fits in a roundabout way.  I'm talking about those starter tutorial chains that give you a frigate, then give you an armor repper, then give you a shield booster.  And each mission tells you to use that specific module.  Not very good.  Arydanika talked about this on her blog a few weeks or months ago with some low-sec style guys, and they came to the conclusion that there should be fitting tutorials.  I agree.

So I propose, in the same vein, the following tutorials to be added as a Capsuleer Ship Fitting chain, given to you at the same time as the other newbie tutorials, or possible after the military/combat chain:

1. Charge the Batteries: Teaching capacitor basics.
2. Plugging in the Chips: Fitting to CPU requirements.
3. Turning on the Lights: Fitting to powergrid requirements.
4. She Can't Take Anymore, Captain!: Shield tanking.
5. Structural Integrity: Armor tanking.
6. Fire When You See the Whites of Their Eyes: Close range fitting.
7. Get Under Their Guns: Close range combat
8. One Shot, One Kill: Long range fitting.
9. Tack to Starboard: Long range fighting and kiting.
10. We're Going to Need a Bigger Ship: Moving up to a destroyer.

There, I made names and topics.  CCP can do the rest.

The Little Things

Just logged in to check my orders before heading out.  I clicked the "Show My Orders" option.

Best. Update. Ever.

I no longer care about anything else ever done in Eve.

CCP has won.

That is all.

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.

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.