Pretty Explosions

Just what the title said.  Things in EVE are very pretty. Especially when they go “boom”.

Backstory: someone in my corp had found these structures vulnerable and organized a fleet to finish them.  We were in Sleipnirs and related boats and made short work of it. What was surprising (to me at least) was the sheer quantity of stuff that dropped.  I mean, freighters worth of PI material, ships of every class and fitting, ore, blueprints.  Since there was no opposition, one can just assume the entire corp left EVE or – much more likely – realized that mining in Delve is safer than HighSec or Wormholes and just wrote off the entire hole… Either way, fun night for us…

Athanor

Astrahus

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Social Media as business model – free advice to CCP

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook graciously flew into Washington DC to visit a retirement home for ageing white men and explain to the residents how the interwebs works.  This was nice of Mark and he did a good job; those he couldn’t convince that Facebook is on the same level of social responsibility as Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama he will just have to buy later.  No, all booster-seat and water-sipping memes aside, his lecture was a total success and he must have left satisfied that his usual routine of apologies and vague promises of “transparency” will stall regulation of his empire industry for at least one more election cycle.  As his only concession, it is assumed that Facebook will offer some form of premium service where the consumer pays directly in exchange for data privacy.  For the company, this would be a great boon since they would receive this direct revenue in addition to revenue generated by selling the data on.  If found out, they would just send their CEO to DC again to apologize / bribe; a pretty good return of investment.

But we are here not to talk about Facebook but EVE Online, the only surviving Multiplayer Game where interactions between players actually matter.  EVE is made by the Icelandic firm “CCP” which has successfully built a company without any marketing whatsoever relying on their tribal customers to acquire more and more accounts. CCP has used the revenue to launch incredibly successful games like FPS, VR games and Vampire MMOs but fundamentally relies on generating revenue from its EVE players to sustain its business.  Unfortunately however, there are fewer and fewer players, even when we purchase more and more accounts.  The likely end-game for EVE are 4 US-players with questionable personal hygiene using their 30k accounts each to battle a Sino/Russian bot alliance flying weaponized Rorquals.  As long as CCP gets paid for accounts and not players, this is financially reasonable but as a social medial platform not satisfying.   Reddit’s /r/eve might dry out and of course that is where EVE is really played.

Salt

As both of my readers know, I don’t play EVE to actively upset or annoy other players.  The practice of doing so, deliberately harvesting tears (aka salt) as it is known is abhorrent to me.  The discussion about this is as old as the game itself and I am not going into it.  I said it before, I love EVE for the fact that you can choose to be a total asshole while not being one is also a choice.  Other games simply don’t have the game mechanic to really negatively impact another player.  Please, CCP, never dial that back.

So, whats this all about?  The other day I logged into the game ready for some interaction with my corp mates and look for trouble.  The (really) nice thing about NOMEX is that there are nearly always people online even if not hunting all the time.  Which means if I do what I do best (scout / tackle), I can have the cavalry called in within a few minutes.  And so I go out scouting down a C1 connection, not even bothering bringing my other character as rear guard.  If I find something with my Proteus, I’ll tackle it and my fleet mates will bail me out.

If it wasn’t for Real Life…

Edit This just in. A fast/furious little skirmish that started as a rapid gank on a Gila that ran one of the event sites and escalated when our target dropped a Bhaal plus many other things on us.  RIP my little Stratios, you will be missed replaced.  

 

As my last remaining reader knows, I moved to a new corp “Anomalous Existence” and am happy as a clam in this outfit. They are small enough to know all the guys and gals but big enough that stuff goes down all the time.  Unfortunately most of the times when I see a ping, I can’t log in for Real Life reasons.  I don’t mind too  much right now, as long as NOMEX doesn’t kick me out, I am happy where I am. My reduced online time however means that I have to scrap all things EVE extraneous like PvE, reading about EVE and of course blogging.

Expectations are met

My last post was about my move to NOMEX and what my expectations were.  I had hoped for a low-class WH PvP-centric corporation with minimal (asymptotically approaching zero) drama and lots of lots pew-pew.  I am delighted to report that all my expectations were met.  Just a look at yesterday’s killboard and you get a feeling that this is a corporation that’s going out and shoots “all the things”.

A short, sharp kick in the ass

Most of my remaining two readers will have realized that had the EVE Blues.  It was a combination of three things:

• Z3ro Return Mining, my ancestral home in EVE, the corp that I joined as a pod-pole 7 years ago, where I learned Wormhole flying and in which I found true friends is slowing down.  People age, families grow, recruitment is hard work and attrition has shrunk the corp to a few good friends with limited time online.  It just “happens”, there is no drama but as a game it wasn’t enjoyable for me.
• CCP made some wild design decisions that in fore- and hindsight have been disastrous and bit them in the ass. Rather than focusing on the diversity of players using the multitude of things to do in New Eden as their driver, they channeled all development and marketing activity into one thing and one thing only, Sov Nullsec.  It worked, thousands now log in only to experience a big fight with the entirely predictable result that the servers crash and people are disappointed.  I grew tired of being treated as third class paying customer and unsubbed 2 of my 3 accounts.
• I personally had changes in my life, good or bad but they didn’t allow for “regular” play.  Long, boring story, everyone has those phases, mine started in summer 2017.  Its only now that I have more of a balance and can re-engage in things that are not absolutely necessary to life (like computer games).

But sometimes, all it needs is a short, sharp kick in the ass to get motivation back.  I suddenly realized that I truly missed EVE and that I don’t have to stay with Z3ro.  I am allowed to leave. But where should I go?

Goodbye 2017

It is customary to recap the year past before the ball drops allowing a little bit of reflection what was good and what can be improved in the next year.  I won’t disappoint my last remaining reader but before I start, a fair word of warning: 2017 was not my “EVE year”.  In fact, it was the year I came closest to walking away from this game since 2009.