CSM 8 candidates, at the post, sort of

     I've read through a bunch of the initial posts on fora, and listened to Xander's interviews.  Xander, by the way, has a refreshingly candid interview style of the CSM members, CCP and the CSM candidates.  He asked straight up questions, without all the soft balling and smarmy prancing around that most other podcasts seem to do.  While he isn't always able to escape his own opinions and prejudices, he does a pretty good job on his short, and to-the-point candidate interviews over at Crossing Zebras.  A few days ago, there was also a wormhole candidate gathering at Down the Pipe, and it was pretty good too.  In the order they had their CZ interviews, my thoughts . . .

     First one is Mynna.  He's fairly high in the Goon directorate and is one of the people who was responsible for the multi-trillion isk FW exploit a while back.  I was pretty critical of the Goons and the players involved at the time, but in retrospect, if CCP and their "economics expert" (whatever) were incapable of figuring out in months prior, what the Goons figured out in a matter of days, that's CCP's problem for being too fuckin' stupid.  At any rate, Mynna is not quite as flamboyant as Mittens, and I'm not sure how much of a puppet he will be for Mittens, but it's pretty much guaranteed that he'll get onto the CSM.  He's obviously a null candidate, but refreshingly, he mentions the fact that he feels fucking up high sec isn't going to fix anything in the game, nor will it force/cajole/persuade high sec players to move to low or null sec.  He also mentions that while he hasn't done much indy play in a while (as he's a market/finance guy), he does think the indy UI needs to be addressed.  I would agree on that point too.  I'm not voting for him because he doesn't need my votes.  He's a shoe-in right now.  *

     Nathan Jameson is a wormhole rep, and founder of Talocan United.  I've read their site numerous times for info on wormhole space and POSs.  Great resource.  For Nathan though, he sounds like an intelligent and articulate guy.  A pretty good communicator, and I think, he would be a great spokesman for wormholes.  How much he represents other areas of the game is, by his own admission, limited, but I think he wold be a great CSM addition that would and could speak up knowledgeably if something was mentioned that might fuck with wormholes.  The two main issues with wormhole space are pos's and dreadnauts.  2 things that are also a thorn in other parts of the game.  If I was concerned about wormholes being represented, I would seriously consider voting for this dude.

     Next is Roc Weiler.  He's a FW role player, a music writer/composer, a fiction writer, 3D artist and coder.  He doesn't really have a specific platform or a specific block of players he represents, instead, his platform is to use his skills to represent all players to the best of his ability.  That may sound mamby-pamby to some, but he's a talented dude, in a lot of areas, he's articulate, intelligent and a great communicator.  He's run multiple times in the past, but lost.  Mainly I think, because in the past, the CSM members were mainly representatives of big in-game voting blocks from null.  With many of the block candidates not running this time, I think "every man" candidates like Roc have a good chance for CSM 8.  Depending on the rumoured "new" voting system that CCP might implement, Roc is definitely in my top 3 choices.

     Next is Mark Scaurus.  He is a low sec rep, and also an editor over at Mitten's news site.  He wants to fix low sec to make it more attractive to players.  I believe the problem with low sec is the way the current players use it, not anything game related, so to me, his goals are vapour.  He's also a fan of ganking, pirating, can flippers, etc.  In other words, many of the things that piss other game players off, and keep many more players away from Eve.  He's no one I would ever vote for, even though he seems an intelligent and articulate individual.  He doesn't speak for the majority of players, aka high sec, he only speaks for the 6 or 7% that play in low, and gank/grief in high sec.  As another possible "pet" of Mittens, he doesn't need my vote as he will be another one that is unfortunately an almost assured winner of a seat on the CSM.  *

     Xenuria is the next one.  He/she/it/whatever also ran last year on the platform of changing the options on Eve avatars so that tits could be put on the male avatars too.  Brilliant.  A few other public faux pas meant that he ended up not even being elevated to the height of "complete laughing stock".  No however, he claims, it was all role playing.  Riiiight.  Anyway, this year, his platform is balancing risk vs reward, and fixing the new player experience.  He is also playing the disability card with "Hey, I am autistic too!".  He also likes to mention his prowess in psychology.  The fact that he talks about "risk vs reward" as a mechanic shows me he doesn't know shit about it, nor shit about psychology, because risk is a personal assessment, not a game mechanic.  He's vapour.  The fact that he falls back on the new player experience, like THAT isn't already a panic button for CCP, also tells me he's vapour.  As someone who also is a card-carrying disabled guy, from personal experience, anytime someone plays their disability card when it isn't at all needed, is doing it as a sympathy gig.  More vapour.  He also states that his "disability" causes him to have communication and relation problems with other people.  As the CSM positions are all about communication and relating to all the players, the other CSMers AND CCP, what the fuck is he running for?!?!?!?  More vapour.  Anyone voting for this guy is proof positive that "the smartest players in MMOs are Eve players" is complete horseshit.

     Mike Azariah is another every man candidate with no fixed platform.  I've read his posts and blog, and I've listened to him multiple times on podcasts (Podside).  He's intelligent, articulate and a smooth communicator.  He's got plenty of time in Eve, and is currently in null sec.  He's not afraid to speak his mind, and more importantly, he's not afraid to ask questions about things he doesn't know, and he also listens.  He's not a fanboy of any specific style of play that I've seen, and I think he would be an excellent addition to CSM 8.  He's another guy who has run for CSM multiple times, and lost, and again, mainly for the same reasons that Roc ran and lost, I think.  With the change in CSM weather, I'm thinking/hoping that he has a good chance for CSM 8 too.  He's another that is in my top 3, and if the new voting system allows, he'll likely get some of my votes too.

     Night Beagle is another wormhole candidate.  His platform is to champion the concept of every player having a voice and a chance to vote on any/all the issues or game changes that CCP decides to implement.  In theory, it's a noble idea, I suppose, but there are so many problems and reasons that this wouldn't work, I can't help but think he's dead in the water before he starts.  How can CCP go out to the entire player base and ask us what we think about an idea that would be the same kind of thing that neither they or the CSM can talk to us about because of the NDA??  I can't imagine he's going to get many votes.

      Unforgiven Storm is a Goon, but running as an independent for changes to industry mechanics.  He also wants to get CCP to focus on a single problem and fix it before moving on to something else.  He claims to have fixes to an umber of the industry click-fest game mechanics and UI, which I'm in favour of.  His plan, however to get CCP to focus on single big game change items is a lost war.  Their new process of taking a bunch of game issues, and making a number of small changes to them, over a larger number of updates, is in completely the other direction.  He seems like he can communicate well enough but I don't know how much support he will get.  The fact that CCPs update methodology has changed means that there might be a chance that some small industry changes might make it into each update though.  He wouldn't be anyone I'd vote for though.

      Hunter Blake is a null sec Eve player of a number of years, and also a DUST player and an "official" DUST representative on the CSM.  DUST is still in beta and CCP has lots of unimplemented features for DUST and no hint of a release date, so I don't see what an Eve CSM member can do with DUST to any more of an extent than the current CSM 7 members have done.  I play DUST too and it's a long way from being anything but an FPS right now.  If the DUST players get Eve accounts and get behind him though, they get a DUST rep on the CSM pretty easy.  He's no one I'd vote for though.

     Ayeson is another wormhole candidate.  He also comes across as articulate, smart and a good communicator.  His "angle" that sets him apart from the other wormhole candidates is his interest and work with the API and CREST.  CREST is the new interactive system that allows both reads AND writes to the Eve universe, unlike the current read only API system.  CREST is also what currently connects DUST to Eve, so it is a powerful system and tool.  Ayeson would be another great choice for the CSM.

     Chitsa Jason is another wormhole rep.  He's another guy with lots of wormhole experience and likely also a great choice for the CSM.  His special "angle" is that he's also a mercenary.  He'd also like to see more random site spawns in wormholes to make pve less predictable.  If it was my choice, I might lean more towards Ayeson and Nathan.  This is the 3rd strong wormhole rep, IMO, and I think the voting system might allow multiple choices to be made, and if not, the wormhole community is going to hold a primary to pick a single representative.

     Daehan Minhyok is another "every man" candidate, a null sec player, and standing on a platform of a lot of general points, including the "risk vs reward" thing.  New player experience, "re balancing" high sec, etc.  I don't believe high sec is out of balance, it's just being used to it's potential, unlike low and null.  I don't buy the risk vs reward schtick either.  Daehan, known mostly as "Min" is also a regular on Podside.  He's a nice enough guy, articulate and been communicating with the community for a while, but overall, he's a "meh" candidate to me.  Not very strong.  For an "every man" candidate, I would go for Roc or Mike first.

     James Arget, is (in no real order) wormhole candidate number 5.  Nothing much to differentiate wormhole candidates from each other aside from what I call their "angle".  POS and dreads - check.  James' angle is he wants to teach CCP how to play Eve in wormholes.  I don't have any doubt at all that CCP devs know next to fuck all about playing Eve in any depth, and likely little about wormholes either, but I think it's an exercise in futility.  I think he's one of the weaker wormhole candidates.

     Cipreh is wormhole candidate number 6.  He wants to promote wormholes more to the player base and he wants to promote more small scale pvp in wormholes.  ?  Nothing he needs to be on the CSM for, and not much else is original or anything the other candidates aren't standing for either.  He's one of the weaker wormhole choices, I think.

     Ripard Teg.  For anyone even remotely familiar with the meta side of Eve, Jester's Trek is a blog that comes fairly easily to mind.  I think he's got a lot of qualities that would make him an easy and obvious choice for the CSM, but due to the amount of research and quality and quantity of his blog posts, he's also a guy that I think can have as much of an effect on CCP as a blogger as he could on the CCP.  My fear would be that his ability to write what he writes, and the way he writes, would be compromised if he was on the CSM and under NDA.  I've told him that a couple times.  According to CCP and the CSM, his blog is well known in Iceland, but also according to some CSM members, Jester's blog doesn't have much of an effect on CCP.  Now that statement, I think, is pretty funny.  Based on the personalities of some of the CSM 7 members, how critical Ripard was of CSM 7, and the egos of some of the devs at CCP, this sounds remarkably like "Well, I don't give a shit that you blew up my titan, I didn't want it anyway".  I, like many other players, think his blog has a definite effect on CCP, as it certainly has an effect on the player base.  While I don't always agree with Jester's comments, or opinions, he is also an every man candidate, and is also aware that high sec players are paying customers too.  I don't think he's always held that opinion, but I think that he will represent the entirety of the player base far more thoroughly than many other candidates would.  At the very least, if he makes it and only does one term on the CSM, it will give him valuable insight into the way CCP thinks and that would make his blog and analysis that much better.  This is the third guy in my top three, but I believe he is almost a shoe-in for a position, so I'm going to gamble on that belief, and save my votes for other candidates that I think might need them more.  Ripard is the third one of my top three so far.  *

     James315 is a claimed high sec representative for Eve.  In fact though, he doesn't represent high sec, he wants to tear it down.  He specializes in greifing and ganking high sec players (specifically miners), because he feels high sec is too easy, and there's too much money being made.  He waxes longingly about the good 'ol days of pvp when roaming pvp gangs would duke it out, and then he goes and suicide ganks high sec mining barges.  ?  He feels players should be forced out of high sec and made to play in null or low sec.  His views are way past extreme, and I believe he is a troll candidate.  To lend "legitimacy" to his play style, he wraps it in a pseudo-religious story and "role plays it".  He also believes the big blue bro-pacts in null sec are a myth, and that the amount of money players in null are currently making needs to be increased.  ?  Did I mention I think he's a troll?  No one, with any amount of game experience like this guy claims to have, could possibly believe any of his . . . "ideas" would do anything but make about half the Eve customers leave as soon as those changes went live, and then Eve would be history.  If he isn't a troll, and if people actually vote for this guy, again, it pretty much refutes the PR schtick that Eve players are some of the smartest gamers on the intarnets.

     Trebor Daehdoow has server on 3 CSMs so far, and is one of the few current CSM members that has decided to run again.  His CSM performance and experience, and Eve experience, are well known.  I think it's a great addition to CSM 8 if he gets re-elected.  I can't see how he wouldn't get re-elected.  A valuable source of continuity from CSM 7 to CSM 8.  A great choice, but again, I'm saving my votes for others that aren't a "lock" like him.  *

     UAxDeath is the perennial Soviet CSM choice, and on CSM 7 but no idea if he is going to run again for CSM 8.  If so, that is another position locked up for CSM 8.  *

     So, just spit balling for now, out of the ones listed about, there are likely 5 candidates for sure with asterisks, and you can pick one of the wormhole candidates to add a 6th.  That leaves 8 more players.  I hope at least one, or maybe two of those, will be Mike and Roc.  Still a long way off and more candidates to hear from.  I like hearing their voices.  Somehow that's important to me.

CSM 8 Wishlist

     I have no illusions about CSM members being able to wield the power of real life politicians.  So politicians can't, won't or don't wield the power of real life politicians.  Any one running for CSM, in this new "age" of CSM influence with CCP, that makes promises like they are a politician, is no one worth supporting for the CSM.

     CSM members are advisors and message-passers.  If CCP is going to do something, the CSM says "hey, that's a bad fucking idea", or they say "it's a good fucking idea".  When information makes it out through the NDA filter, the CSM passes it on to the interested player base.  When some players have an idea or concern, and they think it's getting smothered in all the bullshit and whitenoise of the "official" forums, they can bounce it off the CMS members for passage on to the lofty heights of Iceland.  In theory, if CCP is going to plan something, hopefully they might deign it advisable to bounce it off the CSM members, who in their hopefully broad knowledge base of player gameplay, would be able to give them timely and informed pinions on what the player base might think.  At least, this is my "take" on what the CSM is and based on that take, I have a few criteria for who I think is worth a vote or 3.

     Anyone who neither understands or accepts all the styles of play, of all the players in Eve, has no right to be on the CSM.  If they are too fucking stupid to understand that all play styles have allowed Eve to remain financially viable, mostly . . . so far, is too fucking stupid to represent the player base.

     Anyone who doesn't understand that ALL the players represent financial security for the Eve game, is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     Any mouth breather who parrots the a business killing and brainless meme like "HTFU or go back to <insert clever kids' game here>, is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.  This is closely tied to the point above.

     Anyone who think that you HAVE to associate with other people to play Eve, is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     Anyone who thinks that Eve is "all about pvp", is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     Anyone who thinks all players need to be draggin out of high sec and/or NPC corps and turned into pvpers is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     Anyone who thinks that fucking up high sec to "drive/force" players to move to low or null sec, is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     Anyone that thinks that there is some imaginary "majority" that plays in null sec, is too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.  At ANY TIME, all anyone has to do is hit F10, and turn on either docked up pilot statistics, or current players in space, and it only takes a double digit IQ to be able to see where the MAJORITY of the dots live.  If someone can't figure that out, they're too fucking stupid to be on the CSM.

     In the past, lots of people have been representing some type of play, or play style.  That flew in the past because the most vocal part of the player base, is usually the most aggressive, and that is usually the pvp crowd.  That has been no different than just about any MMO I've played since the days of Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call.  The most vocal, are usually a minority, like on fora.  Voter turn out is low enough that organized entities can easily get a representative on the CSM.  The high sec players usually have the least or no representation, and yes, even with the one we currently have, she is pretty much completely fucking useless.  Not even worth the effort to Google her name.  A lot of high sec players don't vote, and don't care about the CSM or the meta game, because they just "play" a game.  They are casual players.  Eve is a part time distraction, little more.  As such, they have little interest in Eve politics.  In null sec, where being part of a herd is part of play, and also pretty much a necessity, it's not hard to organize a few thousand votes to get elected.  Same with tighter communities like wormholes.  While wormholes have the smallest percentage of active accounts, they are capable of electing their own representative to the CSM.  Faction warfare, mercenaries, you name it, all aggressive play styles and all able to represent their style of play on the CSM.  Even high sec corps like Eve University managed to get their man on the CSM, but he hasn't really represented high sec, mainly the new player experience I think.  No true high sec voice or opinions have been expressed by any CSM member, or even CCP member, aside from the new CCP dev who finally noticed that high sec, pve players, also pay for accounts.  Only took 10 years for that news flash.

     If a CSM candidate only plans to represent their little herd, like Mittens did for his mouth-breathers, that's a fine strategy (maybe) for the old CCP plan of focusing on a major item to patch.  With the new CCP plan of making small changes, over a broad range of game content, I think a new age of more open, and more general mindsets is required to match that.  Having an interest in one facet of game play is fine, but to the exclusion and prejudice of all others, is stupid.  I think with this new CCP plan for their game updates, we're going to see more general interest CSM candidates get voted in.  Sure, special interest groups will still likely get their guys in, like null sec, faction warfare, and wormholes, but I think players with a more rounded whole-game view will get in as well.

     A bigger view is what I'm looking for.  An adult view.  A long term view where all players' game play is included in Eve plans and where it's understood that getting the non-asshole players out in the MMO universe, to join Eve, is a smart goal.

CCP's fucked up bounties

     Hypothetically speaking, of course, say I'm a space-rich asshole in Eve who gets my rocks off by using the chip on my shoulder (from real life inadequacies) to fuck with other people in-game.  For any old reason, or none at all, I think I'll take 500 million isk and drop it on someone, just for the lolz.

     In listening to a recent podcast, it appears lots of people don't understand how the new bounties work, including CSM members, so I thought I'd try it out and see how it works.

     First of all, the bounty is paid out at a rate of 20% of the UNINSURED value of the ship.  That part is important, which is why it's all big letters n' shite.  The bounty is also supposedly including the value of modules on the ship that were destroyed, but as the value of the ship is based on market price aggregates, I couldn't really speak to the surety of this.  For the purposes of this little experiment, I'll use round numbers for ease of matriculation.

     So, take a T1 ship worth 100 million isk. 
- top level insurance on that ship will cost roughly 20 million isk.  That level of insurance means you will get 80 million isk back if the ship is destroyed by mis-adventure or assholery.
- if you don't insure the ship, and it gets destroyed, you get roughly 20 million back in the form of un-insured insurance.
- if the ship is insured, the "uninsured" value of the ship is 20 million.  If the ship isn't insured, the uninsured value of the ship is 80 million.
- the bounty paid out in both examples is 4 million for an insured ship, and 16 million for an uninsured one.
- the total isk loss for the insured ship is 40 million (because of the extra cost of the insurance) and 80 million for the uninsured ship.

     Got the numbers straight?  There'll be a test later.

     Now, each time a ship is destroyed, 20% of the uninsured value of the ship is subtracted from the total bounty.  So on a 500 million bounty, it drops to 496 million isk for the insured ship, or 486 million for the uninsured ship loss.  Don't need to a be a rocket sturgeon to figure that out.  What isn't as obvious, is what the ACTUAL cost of a bounty is.  How much does it REALLY cost the player?  In this 500 million example, the "actual" cost of the bounty can be quickly calculated.  Best case scenario, at a 1/5th payout rate, it'll cost the bountied player

Insured - if all the ships bought are 100 million isk ships, we know that we lose 40 million isk and the bounty payout is 4 million per loss.  500 million/4 million = 125.  That means that the bountied player would need to buy roughly 12.5 BILLION isk worth of ships to clear the bounty, and that also means that the total isk loss from 125 destroyed ships will amount to 5 billion, 10 times the amount of the bounty.

Uninsured - if all the ships bought are 100 million isk ships, we know that we lose 80 million isk and the bounty payout is 16 million per loss. 500 million/16 million = 31.25.  Rounding it down to 31, that means the player would need to buy 3.1 billion isk worth of ships, never insure them, and then the total isk loss from 31 destroyed ships will amount to about 2.5 billion, or about 5 times the amount of the bounty.

     I'm not rich enough or motivated enough to test if these 5x and 10x ratios extrapolate to most ship types, but I imagine they'd be close for the rest of the T1 ships.  For T2 ships, the losses would definitely be higher because insurance sucks and costs are higher.  That might mean a faster payout, but the total loss for the bountied player is still multiples of the actual bounty.  Also, just like with belt rats, player bounties are shared with all fleet members.  If the bountied player gets podded at the same time, that's more of a loss and I don't know how much more bounty, if any, is paid out for that.

     So, if CCP had a clue, bounties would, and could only, be applied to people with negative sec status.  You don't get a negative sec status unless you did, or tried to, fuck someone.  "But what about gankers/can flippers/thieves?" you might inquire.  Well, if they go flashy, that means they took a sec status hit, they are open to be killed by anyone, and, you could lay a bounty on their ass while they are all flashy, plus, you could/can sell the kill rights.  Assholes can grind sec status too.

     "So what about scammers and thieves that don't go flashy?" you ask.  Well, CCP needs to stop and actually think and come up with some method to deal with those, or not.  It's these . . . "features" of their game that are keeping teh regular online gaming crowd away from Eve . . . in droves.

     Bounties on corps and alliances are fine.  If that helps encourage pvp, so be it.  That's not the same as an individual bounty because a player can shed a corp/alliance bounty by leaving said organization.  A personal bounty however, is permanent until it is gone, or low enough to not be a motivator for someone to kill you.

     If a player is an asshole, I'm fine with the bounty system the way it is.  Unfortunately, it's another poorly thought out mechanism for griefers to fuck with people, and this time, there is no way to defend against it.  it's permanent.  I've read that players have left because of it.  No doubt.  Too bad the ship re balancing guy didn't look at the bounties too instead of whatever moron Hilmarr had do it.  Fail.

Eve: Themepark or zoo? Not so much sand.

     All the haters of high sec players and indy types like to throw around Eve memes like "pubbie", "care bear", "sandbox" and "theme park".  PVP types are pretty much incapable of understanding or even accepting anyone who isn't angry enough to try to attack other players with no more expected gain than an e-peen number boost on a kill board.  The same angry little pvp types will also be quick to advise that said care bears would be wise to go "back" to a theme park MMO.  Like many/most memes, many/most of the users have no real clue what they are talking about, what the meme actually means, and angry Eve types are no different.

     A "theme park MMO" is basically any MMO where the content of the games is decided by the developers.  Regardless of how often you try or experience that content, it's going to be the same.  It's like a real themepark.  You go on the roller coaster today, and it'll be pretty much exactly the same ride you took on it last week, unless of course Bill-the-maintenance-guy was off getting a little sugar from Suzy-the-candy-floss-girl instead of tightening roller coaster track bolts.  How many roller coaster type rides does Eve have?

     The most obvious place to start is any pve content, and contrary to the pro-pvp crowd, Eve has tons of pve.  All the different types of missions are a very obvious addition to the theme park list, regardless of the type.  Planetary interaction, research agents, COSMOS missions and epic arcs are four more.  There are grav, radar, and DED sites to scan down as well, and that too is pretty much clockwork, bog-standard pve content.  More theme park-ery.   How about grinding for rep or status?  Same.  How about crafting?

     In Eve, "crafting" is a sure magnet for hooting and derision, but the industrial player does pretty much the same thing as any crafting player does in any other MMO.  The player goes out, locates and collects crafting material, either from the environment or from killing npc mobs.  They train up specific skills in order to create whatever particular item or items they decide, and in some cases need to buy the recipes first.  Sometimes, the player even needs to go into hostile areas of the game where either pvp combat or high level npcs provide a higher level of threat to make it difficult to obtain special materials for higher level items.  The player takes the materials, builds the item, and uses it or sells it.  Are we talking about Eve, WOW, LOTRO, or GW2 here?  Doesn't matter, they're all the fucking same as far as "crafting" goes.  Pretty much full-on theme park.

     Eve has tons of theme park content but there's also another clever meme to learn, and that's "zoo".  In basic parlance, a "zoo" MMO is set up so that a particular game feature can be tried almost as many times as you like, but each time, the content of the feature will or can be a little different.  Just like in a zoo, where one day you walk by the lion enclosure and the lions are outside sunning themselves, and the next day you go by, they're up against the feed shed going halfers on a memory.  Lots of content in Eve was highly predictable pve, but since CCP jacked up the AI levels recently, higher end npcs can be tough little peckers to deal with, because you don't know what they're going to do every time.  I'm specifically talking about sleepers, complex sites and Incursion npc AI here.  CCPs plan is to jack up AI across the board to make npcs act more unpredictable.  Maybe not full on zoo-ness, but definitely zoo.  More zoo stuff is T2 invention.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Scanning down wormholes, grav sites and other random spawns are also on the "zoo" side of game play.  So, there are some "zoo" aspects to Eve, and more zoo-like features have been suggested for future inclusion.

     In a "sandbox", the content is player driven.  A "real" sandbox has sand and . . . well, that's fucking it.  Eve isn't a sandbox.  It has a shit load of rules and mechanisms.  Eve players like to turn up their nose and claim it's a sandbox, but I played in sandboxes a lot as a kid, and I can't do a fraction of the shit in Eve that I could in a sandbox with just a stick and a rock.  The closest thing to a "sandbox" that I've ever played on a computer is Minecraft.  In there, the only thing that limits you is your imagination.  If the standard game play in Minecraft is too plain for you, then you can always make your own mod and truly build your own content, in a world that is completely unlike anyone elses.  In Eve, people are obviously confusing a minimised EULA with a sandbox.  Being able to be an asshole doesn't make where you're standing a "sandbox", it just makes it a spot where an asshole is standing.  Being able to run around in areas with low level/new players and ganking them doesn't make it a sandbox either.  People could do that in Asheron's Call or Ultima Online, to name just two.  Being able to claim, upgrade and control in-game territory is also nothing new.  DAOC, LOTRO, WHO, and GW2 are 4 that quickly come to mind, where you could do exactly the same thing.  No body was yapping about sandboxes with them.  At best, being able to fuck other players around without the Eve devs stepping in, it might amount to a spoon full of sand.  Far from a box, unless it's maybe a little box that a ring might come in.

     "But look at null sec!  Players control that whole area of the game."  And?  I knew of a guild in DAOC that controlled the whole RvR area of the game server and were operating no different than the null sec alliances in Eve.  That was also complete with battles involving all three races and hundreds of players fighting over keeps and resources.  Again, being able to lie, cheat, steal and grief in Eve, doesn't make it a sandbox, that just makes it a game that attracts assholes, generates lots of "bad" news for Eve, and simultaneously keeps the majority of "normal" gamers away.

     When you look at it, without the kool-aid glasses, Eve is maybe about 80% theme park and 19% zoo, with more npc zoo content planned, and 1% sand . . . spoon.  When it comes to null and pvp zones like Factional Warfare, the sum total of active accounts in those two areas is somewhere around the 20% mark of active accounts, and all those players are operating with 100% reliance on the theme park content for every item they own.

     So, the next time some meme spouting drooler of a pvp player tells a care bear to HTFU or go back to a theme park MMO, tell them to fuck off.  Tell them to then go get a clue.  Then tell them you already play a theme park MMO.  It's fucking Eve Online.

Saving Eve: 2 places to start

     Back a couple years ago, the common complaint was that CCP was pumping out too many big game features - the "Jesus features", they like to call it now.  Why were big, new features a problem?  Well, because for the most part, none of the features were complete.  They were like a house that had doors and windows that stuck because the house was cooked, and it had nothing finished on the inside.  CCP promised they would get back to them, but for the most part, they never did.  Eve is in perpetual beta.  It's got all kinds of things that were unfinished or patched and are still broken.  Null sec sovereignty, factional warfare (yeah, still broken), wormholes, corp and alliance UIs and player owned stations, to name a few biggies.  Contrary to the spin fests that David Reid puts out, even with these new, awesome ship changes in the latest patch, subscriptions are still in dire need of resuscitation.  CCP's penchant for grabbing PLEX money for anything and everything, to me, is proof that they are looking hard at ways to make some extra cash.  Most recently, anyone who wants to pay $20 for an overpriced EON magazine that costs $15, just let CCP know.  They'll pop one in the mail for you, but that'll probably cost another PLEX for mailing fees.  After all, who the fuck would want to use a PLEX to pay for their subscription anyway??

     So, the two ideas?  Well, not that they are anything novel, but they are simple, but not necessarily easy.

Players in station or active in systems

     First, drop all the other side projects, and put ALL the coders on fixing null sec sovereignty.  Make sovereignty performance based, and then alliances and corps will only be able to hold, what they physically can hold.  What they are living in.  No more dog-in-the-manger bullshit where big organizations own all kinds of space that no one does fuck all in.

      See the picture?  Right now, when I took that screenshot, there were ~40,000 players online.  You can see exactly how much of that population is in null sec, based on the display that is set to show how many players are active or docked in systems.  Two words:  GHOST fucking TOWN.  The biggest dot of the dots in the outlying null sec space is 92 players, and that was only one dot on the edge of the Vapor Sea.  All the rest of the big dots?  None were over 50 - I checked.  The vast majority of the small dots were 1 to 5 people.  Yeah, I spent about 30 minutes mousing over and clicking on that shit just out of curiosity.  Lots of podders and bloggers like to throw around null sec populations like 20,000 or higher, but the last real numbers of active null sec ACCOUNTS were just under 12,000 accounts, and that number went up from the previous CCP population numbers by .05%.  And yeah, that's not five percent, that's 1/20th of one percent, and that was the end of 2010.  For people to imagine that the active accounts in null went up by nearly double since then?  Whatever shit they're smoking is better than medical grade pot.  So for anyone interested in guessing, 12% of the online population is about 4800 accounts in null vs a very optimistic 20% of 8,000.  Look at the dots and decide for yourself.

     So anyway, performance based sovereignty.  Lots of easy-to-see unused space will no longer be claimed.  That leaves lots of room for other corps and alliances, that aren't part of and don't have huge super-friend daisy chains, to move down into null and maybe carve out a bit of space for themselves.  THEN they can spoon up with all the blue-fests down there.  And holy fuck, if that doesn't mean that there would be room and reason for some of the high sec players to move to null, like the players are crying about and CCP expects.  Also, with all the problems in null sec, and the sov grind that exists, lots of problems need to be fixed before other things like POSs are touched.  It'll be extremely easy to completely fuck up POS reworking when the space the POS is supposed to go in is fucked.  Fix the space FIRST, then you'll have more of a clue about what the players want and need a POS to act like.  Fix null sec FIRST, and that will sate the Eve vets, and encourage other players to go down there.  Fixing null is unlikely to bring in new players and more money, but new player features can come later and I'll touch on options for more money too.  More on that in another post though.

     2nd, ship skins.  Drop all the bullshit that the CCP artists are doing for all the NEX store crap that the majority of players don't give a fuck about, and get them on ship skins.  Supposedly, according to CCP devs, implementing individual ship skins is not that much of a difficulty anymore with the new V3 graphics.  Apparently, some CCP staff take issue with the idea of players being able to change the colour schemes on the ships, but too fucking bad for the devs.  I might give a fuck if they ACTUALLY PLAYED, but they don't, so I don't.  I doubt the players do either.

     My idea on how to do this is for another post, but basically, each player pays for a ship skin, once, for each type of ship.  There are over 200 different boats, so that is 200 individual payments, from 450,000 accounts.  Each skin only has to be bought once and while I doubt many would want custom skins for ever ship in game, I bet it would at least get 10 to 20 ships per player, not to mention start a new graphics industry going in-game for designing skins.  If you ever want to turn off the custom skin, there's an option for it in settings.  If you want a new/different skin, you pay for it and it's applied.  There's some money for CCP.  That way, CCP doesn't need to fuck with people actually using PLEX for what they were fucking invented for, by "allowing" players to buy $150 video cards for $400 worth of PLEX, or fucking $15 magazines for $20.  This, obviously, aside from being a big revenue stream for CCP, allows the many creative players to exercise their art muscles and would go a long way of appeasing the player base while CCP devs try to keep their heads out of their asses and hit the next big problem.  For that, I would suggest POSs for the WHOLE dev team to get on.  The more people working on it, the faster it gets done and the more people available to work on more patches.  Ship skins would also pique the interest of new players.

     That's it.  Forget about FW, POS, the fucking NEX store, UI tweaks and anything else.  Fix null, get ship skins, then move off to the next point.  Keep Greyscale and Punkturis away from the processes, and everything should be fine.

So there I was . . .

     . . . humping my ass through the boonies, deep in Indian territory.  It had been a tough day.  Pitched battles.  Gain ground, lose the ground, gain it again.  It's just the way it is.

     We had fought for over an hour trying to save a small station from some punk-ass Vanu in their purple, princess suits.  We managed to push their defensive tank line back a couple hundred yards and reduced their number from about 2 dozen soldiers, down to a manageable 3 or 4.  Just as we thought the situation was cool, they started rolling in with their heavies and some fast air.  Shit went sideways pretty fast from there.

     Their tanks were firing from run-up positions on a small hill about 200 yards south of the  compound.  We had our heavy infantry switch out to AT launchers to try to thin their ranks, but even with missile lock, once the tanks went hull-down, our rockets just hammered the hillside.  We got a few lucky hits in but we weren't clearing the armour fast enough, and certainly not as fast as they were clearing us with their small arms fire and HEAT rounds.  Huge splash damage.  The medics were busy little bastards keeping our guys on their feet.  We had some hard core dudes in MAX suits and they tried to flank from low ground to the west, but even with their engineers repping their power suits from cover, all the unguided proxy and HE grenades they sent down range didn't thin the tanks fast enough to be of much good.

     After about 15 minutes, the air support they had called in, arrived.  Their fast air was problematic as their low speed passes allowed their auto-cannons to rip shit up bad.  We were sending a lot of SAMs their way but splitting our heavies into AA and AT groups were reducing the effectiveness of our defence in a major way.  We couldn't send enough of either type of fire to take planes or tanks out faster than they were arriving.  As we tried to hold pop-up fire positions for our AT gunners, their air support and gunships would hit us from behind.  When we moved into cover from the fighters around the corner of the main ammo compound, their snipers were taking us from cover to the west.  Their shit was wired tight.  Ours was not.

     Our numbers and morale were dwindling.  We had been reinforced by a LAV and half a squad, along with 2 or 3 tanks.  The platoon commander decided to get the fuck out of Dodge when we were finally pushed into a small building in the corner of the compound.  Control of the facility had been lost, and the word was sent for the new reserves to do a fighting withdrawal to the north while the remainder of the platoon re-orged back at the bio-dome, a couple clicks to the west.  The hope was that the Vanu would consolidate most of their troops to secure the compound and only send a few after our smaller force.  The other ~40 troops would mount up in fast air, gunships and armour, and counterattack from the rear and their left flank.  If anyone couldn't get into a plane or tank, then they could jump on a turret MG or tail gun.  Everyone was invited.  We had 2 minutes for a piss break and a gear check, and then we were rolling out.

     Go time arrived.  We took about a dozen heavy armour, a couple LAVs and a couple gunships.  The rest went north, where they would slant off to the east and hit the enemy's left flank.  We were coming in straight from the south, hopefully, while the princesses were watching to the north for a counter attack from the direction our fighting withdrawal went in.  We hoped.  I had my gun cam running with the intent to catch a little retribution.  It was a satisfying thing to see our armour rolling out and I figured it was going to be even better to see us crash into the rear end of some unsuspecting enemy tanks and LAVs.  LAVs don't like 100mm AP ammo much.

     As we were getting close to swinging north, a fast air scout flew over our column.
"Well shit", I said over comms, "there goes the party."
"STEADY UP!" yelled the platoon commander, "Fighter, 12 o'clock high, get some triple A on that!"

     The fighter was low to the deck and coming fast, and as he crested the hill in front of us, we probably surprised the shit out of him as much as he did to us.  He pulled back on the stick and started to roll hard, up and to the left, and then he magically turned into a big ball of smoke and bits of metal flying out in a funky star burst pattern.  We had no idea if he got word out or not but our main force was nearly on the Vanu and there was no time to worry about it.  The fighter saw us, not our flanking force.  It still might work out.  What didn't work so well, was my gun cam after a piece of shrapnel caromed off turret and turned my gun cam into just a useless piece of tech.  Meh.

     We got to the break-off point and wheeled north.  I was manning the 30mm chain gun on the Prowler's cupola and keeping an eye out for any more enemy air assets.  The chain gun does a nice job on just about anything with it's AP ammo though, so a few tank targets would be cool too.  The prowler is a big tank with a fat ass, and it was slow up the first hill.  The lower, lighter, faster Lighnings (apt name . . ) left us in their dust, crested the hill and headed down a shallow dip and up the next hill.  We could see smoke and hear gunfire, lots of it, so I swung the gun forward, scanning the sky and quickly reloaded the mag.  Bad karma to be fucking around with reloads once we hit the shit.  And hoo baby, did we hit the shit.

     Did I mention the Prowler was a pig with a fat ass?  Well, it is a pig, but when you get a bit of a downhill, and a nice run of speed with a short uphill, you almost get enough air on the other side to pull a back side fakey.  I saw blue, then brown, then fucking stars.  We hit the ground like 40 tons of bricks and I bounced the chaingun off the bottom stop.  When all the craziness and vibration stopped, we had landed right in the middle of the Vanu defence force, which was busy sending round after round . . . to the west.  At our flanking force.  :)  Well, boy howdy!  How I DO love a nice broadside silhouette.  It was pretty hard to see what was a good guy and what was a bad guy.  Smoke, fire, explosions, Vanu tanks trying desperately to get the fuck out, and Terran tanks trying to get the fuck in.  The squad commanders were screaming out primaries, turrets and cupola guns were spinning like tops, and rounds were flying in every direction.  Every time I had to reload I cursed the fact that I hadn't taken time to put a little extra training into reloading skills.  If I'm loading shit, I'm not exploding shit!

     The Prowlers finished up blasting the stragglers while the Lightnings sprinted off after those Vanu that were smart enough to get out of the carnage.  A few fast air were buzzing around but our air cover had taken most of the enemy patrol craft out.  One of the enemy fast air, a nasty little one man killing machine called a Scythe, was jinking and juking, desperately trying to outrun and scrape off a couple SAMs.  He was a pretty slick pilot and managed to bounce one off a hillside, but the other missile was still looking for him.  The pilot levelled out and didn't seem to realize that his escape from the SAMs was running him straight down my gun sights.  I lined up on his nose, a little high, squeezed the trigger, and let him fly directly into my line of fire.  I fired 100 rounds of red hot AP into his windshield, and he piloted his fighter directly to the scene of a crash.  Splash one.  Good pilot though, just unlucky.  Sometimes lucky is better than good when you're in the shit.  Me and my driver?  So far, we were lucky.

     We surrounded the compound and poured a withering wall of fire at anything that moved - in buildings, outside or in the air.  In only a couple minutes we'd cleared the compound of enemy troops, and the total counterattack had been over in only 10 or 15 minutes.  We circled the wagons, set up a defensive perimeter, and while the main gunner kept his head on a swivel, I jumped out to rep up the tank and reloadboth guns.  Sent a couple scouts out to the east and north to set up pickets, and called her a night

     So, ok, I wasn't exactly "humping" too much seeing as how my less-than-narrow ass was parked in a gunner's chair, and it wasn't Indian territory, it was Terran, then Vanu, then back to Terran.  It's all good though.  Word is, we need to rest up for a big op tomorrow.  We're loading up half a dozen Galaxies, and going to hot drop 60 or 70 MAX on a New Con party.  Hope they have enough chairs.

Elitism & perspective

     I guess it's a pretty standard thing for "older" people to remember how they had to walk uphill both ways and seemingly forget that at one time they didn't know everything and couldn't do everything.  In Eve, how they had to push the frigates out of the hangars, by hand, in bare feet.  They look down on any new/young person if the youngling can't do what the vet can do now, and the vets don't remember what it was like at a time when they knew as little as the n00b.

     Eve is certainly no different in this regard.  The vets are way out to sea on the ocean of Eve, and many look back with disdain at the players just starting to wade into the surf.

     One of the biggest problems with Eve is that many new players get their first taste of Eve by getting fucked over in a scam or being blown up.  The elitists explain that the new players "should know better", but there's no explanation of HOW they should know better.  The vets have no cogent answer, because they don't remember how they figured out not to be scammed, or they DID get scammed and don't want to bring up the hypocrisy of their current point of view.

     When the elitists started, there were no PLEX (didn't come in until about 2008) so they really don't give a shit how many different ways there are to spend PLEX now, nor do they care about the rising cost of them.  From their lofty heights, the vets are oblivious to the fact that paying customers (yes, even if they buy PLEX with ISK from the market, they're still paying) who can't afford the inflated PLEX prices will stop playing.  This elitist view is held by some of our CSM members too, notably, Karde of Noir mercs.  Not really representing all the players, apparently, only the "have" players that pay for subscriptions with real cash.

     I read and hear all the disdain from "experts" who laugh at all the "fail fits" that show up on kill boards.  Somehow, the rest of the players, the "fails", weren't born with innate knowledge of Eve ship fits like the critics.  Apparently, any trial and error fit experimenter is somehow supposed to also know that they were supposed to "ask someone" about the fit.  How and where that someone was to be found, for someone with a life who doesn't obsess over a game and the whole meta aspect of it, is not answered.  The standard "they should have known better" is all that's proffered.

     Contrary to the angry pvp perspective, any player that goes through all the tutorials, learns the basics of how to play Eve.  It isn't all about pvp, because if it was, there would be more reference to that in the tutorials.  But there isn't.  Granted, it's pretty damn hard for NPCs and AI to simulate pvp, but pvp is far from "all there is in Eve" like the elitists like to preach.  If it was "World of Tanks in Space Space Space®"(to be said with suitably booming and echoey voice), there would be nothing but NPC markets full of spaceships and gear.  But there isn't.  Curiously, it would appear that there is a huge layer of player activity underneath the destruction where players actually CREATE all the gear for/in the game!  Also, conveniently coincidentally, there is an equally huge layer of in game resources and mechanisms that allow the creating of all the shit getting assploded!  Just like in real life though, all the people that build all the shit, and do all the base level, boring, repetitive jobs that generate the raw materials, are looked down on by all the "cool" pvpers in the game.  Anyone who doesn't do pvp, according to the elitists, is either;
 a) an automatic target
b) needs to start doing pvp immediately
or c) needs to leave
Can't imagine why Eve subscription increase is drying up . . .

     The problem, is lack of perspective.  Non-chip-on-their-shoulder players, of which the MMO world is apparently majorly populated by, can understand hard core pvpers.  The world is full of angry, aggressive people that want to "get even" for their life, and so look for any means to lash out.  Non-pvpers might not like these people, might not even understand them at times, but they accept their existence.  Pvpers, on the other hand, are far more narrow minded and short sighted.  It's their way or the intarpipe highway, especially in Eve.  Anyone in Eve that doesn't do pvp, just hasn't been "enlightened" yet.  they think just about anyone can be "converted", hallelujah!  Possibly, the huge chip on their shoulder is blocking a large percentage of their view, or prevents them from looking left or right.  In any case, many/most of them can't imagine why any "sane player" would want to do anything but try to shoot other players.  The elitists KNOW that anyone that doesn't play like them, is doing it wrong.  A "sandbox" like Eve, where any play style at all is possible, is awesome, BUT, only if everyone plays like the pvpers.  A sandbox is only a sandbox if it's all pvp.

     Now, don't get me wrong.  I don't mind pvp.  I do it in many games, just no interest in doing it in Eve right now.  I like HALO and Battlefield 3, I'm in the DUST beta and I spent more time in Planetside 2 than I do in Eve right now.  But, I like all the things I can do to CREATE things in Eve.  From and industrial player's perspective, Eve is very much like many other MMOs.  Improve the building skills, get the materials, build the items, and then sell them.  Even having to get the raw materials in more dangerous areas of the game is not some novel concept created by CCP.  It takes a lot of time and effort, sometimes really fucking boring time and effort, but that is not a big deal for a builder, a creator.  That's just the way it goes.  People who build, accept that.  The people who roll on in after the fact and destroy what was just built, have no appreciation for much of anything other than the possible grief it causes someone else and/or the adrenaline shakes they got.  It doesn't take a lot of time or talent to destroy things in most cases, and Eve has few exceptions for that process.

     The elitists laugh and enjoy intentionally griefing players that are doing things they despise doing.  The elitists have no problem explaining that stupid miners need to stop mining while they grief barges in Hulkageddon, and they laugh when the miners complain.  If miners explained that the griefers would have to stop doing pvp for a month, and start mining instead, the pvpers would lose their shit and likely rage quit.  To the elitists, it's completely acceptable to only support their point of view, due to a lack of perspective.  Granted, not all the non-pvp Eve players have perspective either, but they won't be causing a player to quit Eve due to griefing.  For the most part, the DO have perspective.  They are the majority of the player base.  The players that cause almost all the Eve news, are a minority, and the vast majority of the news is negative.  Because they lack perspective.