There's been some discussion on the blogosphere recently about Zynga's apparent decline. Ted at Terra Nova thinks the novelty is wearing off. Spinks thinks it's part of the end of the MMO era.
About 4 years ago when Farmville was at its peak many commenters on MMO games publicly deplored it. Our hobby seemed to have slid down some spectrum towards brain dead accessibility from complicated virtual worlds like Ultima Online and Star Wars: Galaxies via WoW to games that were essentially just clicking to see a number go up. Why oh why, people like the Common Sense Gamer asked, do people play games that only require 5% of their mental processing power?
The answer, of course, is simple.
Because those games require only 5% of their mental processing power.
The question that doesn't get asked enough then, is what were these people doing with the other 95%? Knowing the answer to this is the key to understanding whether Zynga's business model is about to die a miserable death.
I don't actually know. But here's a guess.
Facebook is for many people about sex. It is a way of meeting and chatting up strangers that for a lot of people has become an element of modern courtship. I think many Farmville players were using chat programmes to flirt with some people and gossip with other people about who they flirted with. But online chat has dead times. Rather than stare at the screen waiting for a message people alt-tabbed and played a Zynga game. That's their business model.
Of course they don't want to raid with WoW players or pvp or any of that stuff - they're not actually gaming, they don't think of themselves as gamers and the last thing they want is to be lured into some activity that demands attention over what they're really doing (flirting and gossiping).
Speculation about Zynga's falling revenues and outlook needs to take into account two things:
- is Facebook still a popular element in modern courtship behaviour?
- are there better things to alt tab to?
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Sunday, 29 July 2012
How not to run your guild
People who make guilds in MMOs generally do so for social and altruistic reasons. Running a guild is a lot of work, inevitably places you in a position where you will have to deal with confrontation but we do it in the hopes of achieving a wonderful social space from which to play our game.
Real life issues are generally a pain in the butt for guild leaders. We don't make guilds because we want some random internet person's political, religious or philosophical positions. But just because we don't want it does not mean we don't have to deal with it.
If someone in your guild makes a character called Pleasenomore Neegroz boot them and report them to the game moderators. Then apologise to the rest of the guild for his/her behaviour and explain what action you've taken. (You may also wish to retain his/her IP address and RL details on file so s/he can't sneak back in on an alt).
If you ignore it first the black people will leave. Then everyone else who dislikes racism will leave. Then everyone who isn't an ignorant troll will leave. Then the ignorant trolls will leave because your guild is full of ignorant trolls and sucks.
The same goes for other types of discrimination including the ubiquitous use of faggots or gay as pejoratives. If you act early you'll have to boot one or two people. If you hide your head in the sand most of the guild will adapt to people using these terms and will self-select for ignorant dickheads. Good people will leave and Counterstrike kiddies will be attracted to your butthead-friendly atmosphere.
If you run a guild, make sure it's YOUR guild.
Oh and to Saylah, /hug.
Real life issues are generally a pain in the butt for guild leaders. We don't make guilds because we want some random internet person's political, religious or philosophical positions. But just because we don't want it does not mean we don't have to deal with it.
If someone in your guild makes a character called Pleasenomore Neegroz boot them and report them to the game moderators. Then apologise to the rest of the guild for his/her behaviour and explain what action you've taken. (You may also wish to retain his/her IP address and RL details on file so s/he can't sneak back in on an alt).
If you ignore it first the black people will leave. Then everyone else who dislikes racism will leave. Then everyone who isn't an ignorant troll will leave. Then the ignorant trolls will leave because your guild is full of ignorant trolls and sucks.
The same goes for other types of discrimination including the ubiquitous use of faggots or gay as pejoratives. If you act early you'll have to boot one or two people. If you hide your head in the sand most of the guild will adapt to people using these terms and will self-select for ignorant dickheads. Good people will leave and Counterstrike kiddies will be attracted to your butthead-friendly atmosphere.
If you run a guild, make sure it's YOUR guild.
Oh and to Saylah, /hug.
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Digital consumer protection - the consultation answered
Here are my answers to the shortened form of the new UK consultation paper. Do have a look and, if you're a UK citizen, submit your own feedback to the consultation process.
Yes.
Q2. Should there be an exception to the 30 days limit where both the consumer and the trader might reasonably understand that there might be a delay before the goods are used?
Yes. It's common practice to pre-order video games. If you pre-ordered something you might not know there's an issue with it but you may in some circumstances have paid for it. (Most pre-orders don't bill you until the game launches but lets cover ourselves here).
Q3. Do you think there should be a limit on the number of repairs or replacements that a consumer must accept before being able to ask for a refund?
Yes.
Q4. Do you think that this limit should be based on a fixed number of repairs/replacements, or on the total time taken for all repairs/replacements?
Fixed number.
Q5. If the number of repairs or replacements before the customer could ask for a refund were limited, what should the limit be?
2 repairs or 1 replacement. Not all technical problems are easy to fix and sometimes the supplier may need to try different solutions before finding one that works. However there needs to be a point at which a line is drawn and if they haven't fixed it in two goes they're probably not going to fix it.
Q6. If the total length of time taken repairing or replacing the item were limited, how long should this be?
14 days.
Q7. Do you think it’s right that traders should be able to make a deduction from a refund to take account of the use a consumer has had of an item since they bought it?
No.
No - it would be too complicated and the courts can review any unfair behaviour by traders anyway,
Q9a. Do you think that items worth less than a certain amount should be exempt from having a deduction applied – in other words should consumers always get a full refund for these lower value items?
Yes.
Q9b. If yes, at what level do you feel the threshold should be set?
£150.
Q10. Do you think it’s sensible to make the rules for different contract types as similar as possible?
Yes. Confusing contracts have come to be used to deliberate confuse consumers into paying more than they should in some areas (eg "zero percent" finance). It's vital to protect people better.
Yes.
Q2a. Do you agree that the introduction of these statutory remedies will help consumers and traders to reach solutions quicker?
Yes.
Q3. Do you think that consumers would benefit from an outcome based standard for services? i.e. the direct consumer benefits would outweigh any higher prices arising out of increased costs on business?
Yes. There's been so much financial misselling over the last ten years that more robust regulation would actually benefit the industry as well as the consumer because people would feel they could trust, say, a financial adviser not to give them advice while betting the other way in private.
Q4. Do you think it would be worth introducing a "satisfactory quality" standard just in respect of services to a consumer’s property?
Yes - in this sub-sector the risks are low and the benefits would be substantial, but in other sub-sectors it would be too risky.
Q1. Do you agree that we should make clear what legal rights the consumer has in digital content transactions?
Yes. It's vital. It's become standard practice for software to include EULAs that require us to waive all of our rights. Not so long ago a games company required customers on April 1st to agree to a Eula forfeiting their souls. They collected 7500 souls from gamers who agreed to this Eula.
We are proposing that the consumer should have the following rights in relation to digital content:
Partly. Online games vary their content over time and the effectiveness of a player's favourite character or technique may get reduced (this is referred to as "nerfing"). Point 3 must not mean that a company has a duty not to nerf Paladins or games like World of Warcraft will be impossible to sell in the UK. Points 1, 2 and 4 are fine.
Q3a. What do you think would be a fair and workable outcome for the consumer if digital content failed to meet the rights listed above?
The consumer returns and / or deletes the digital content and has access to a refund within 30 days of purchase or some similar short period
Q4: Do you think the consumer should be able to expect:
The entire digital content package (including the digital file itself and the means of accessing that digital content) to be of satisfactory quality (i.e. meet the digital content rights listed above)?
With products like online games there is no meaningful separation between the product and the means of delivery. It can't be said that you have a satisfactory copy of World of Warcraft if you can't log in to the supplier's server as the game doesn't work locally, it only works while connected.
The supply of goods
Q1a. Do you think 30 days is a reasonable period to return faulty goods for a full refund?Yes.
Q2. Should there be an exception to the 30 days limit where both the consumer and the trader might reasonably understand that there might be a delay before the goods are used?
Yes. It's common practice to pre-order video games. If you pre-ordered something you might not know there's an issue with it but you may in some circumstances have paid for it. (Most pre-orders don't bill you until the game launches but lets cover ourselves here).
Q3. Do you think there should be a limit on the number of repairs or replacements that a consumer must accept before being able to ask for a refund?
Yes.
Q4. Do you think that this limit should be based on a fixed number of repairs/replacements, or on the total time taken for all repairs/replacements?
Fixed number.
Q5. If the number of repairs or replacements before the customer could ask for a refund were limited, what should the limit be?
2 repairs or 1 replacement. Not all technical problems are easy to fix and sometimes the supplier may need to try different solutions before finding one that works. However there needs to be a point at which a line is drawn and if they haven't fixed it in two goes they're probably not going to fix it.
Q6. If the total length of time taken repairing or replacing the item were limited, how long should this be?
14 days.
Q7. Do you think it’s right that traders should be able to make a deduction from a refund to take account of the use a consumer has had of an item since they bought it?
No.
No - it would be too complicated and the courts can review any unfair behaviour by traders anyway,
Q9a. Do you think that items worth less than a certain amount should be exempt from having a deduction applied – in other words should consumers always get a full refund for these lower value items?
Yes.
Q9b. If yes, at what level do you feel the threshold should be set?
£150.
Q10. Do you think it’s sensible to make the rules for different contract types as similar as possible?
Yes. Confusing contracts have come to be used to deliberate confuse consumers into paying more than they should in some areas (eg "zero percent" finance). It's vital to protect people better.
The supply of services
Q1. Do you agree that the introduction of a statutory guarantee will help consumers and traders to understand their rights and obligations?Yes.
Q2a. Do you agree that the introduction of these statutory remedies will help consumers and traders to reach solutions quicker?
Yes.
Q3. Do you think that consumers would benefit from an outcome based standard for services? i.e. the direct consumer benefits would outweigh any higher prices arising out of increased costs on business?
Yes. There's been so much financial misselling over the last ten years that more robust regulation would actually benefit the industry as well as the consumer because people would feel they could trust, say, a financial adviser not to give them advice while betting the other way in private.
Q4. Do you think it would be worth introducing a "satisfactory quality" standard just in respect of services to a consumer’s property?
Yes - in this sub-sector the risks are low and the benefits would be substantial, but in other sub-sectors it would be too risky.
The supply of digital content
Q1. Do you agree that we should make clear what legal rights the consumer has in digital content transactions?
Yes. It's vital. It's become standard practice for software to include EULAs that require us to waive all of our rights. Not so long ago a games company required customers on April 1st to agree to a Eula forfeiting their souls. They collected 7500 souls from gamers who agreed to this Eula.
We are proposing that the consumer should have the following rights in relation to digital content:
- the digital content must meet any description given
- the digital content must be of satisfactory quality, meaning it should meet a reasonable person's expectations taking account of all relevant circumstances
- the digital content must match any trial version or demo
- the trader must have the right to supply the digital content and should not put the consumer in a position where the consumer is breaching copyright of the digital content.
Partly. Online games vary their content over time and the effectiveness of a player's favourite character or technique may get reduced (this is referred to as "nerfing"). Point 3 must not mean that a company has a duty not to nerf Paladins or games like World of Warcraft will be impossible to sell in the UK. Points 1, 2 and 4 are fine.
Q3a. What do you think would be a fair and workable outcome for the consumer if digital content failed to meet the rights listed above?
The consumer returns and / or deletes the digital content and has access to a refund within 30 days of purchase or some similar short period
Q4: Do you think the consumer should be able to expect:
The entire digital content package (including the digital file itself and the means of accessing that digital content) to be of satisfactory quality (i.e. meet the digital content rights listed above)?
With products like online games there is no meaningful separation between the product and the means of delivery. It can't be said that you have a satisfactory copy of World of Warcraft if you can't log in to the supplier's server as the game doesn't work locally, it only works while connected.
Friday, 20 July 2012
UK law changes on digital consumer rights
The British government, specifically the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is proposing to change the law on consumer rights with regard to digital content. That means games, our hobby, will have an entirely new legal framework.
It clearly needs it. Currently the situation is laughable- the company puts in a ridiculous EULA which requires you, as a purchaser to waive every right you have and take any dispute to somewhere so far away it may as well be Mongolia if you do want to dispute it. These things are supposed to be contracts but they really aren't because one party has no power of negotiation. If you read, say, the Secret World's Eula and then contact Funcom and say the Eula's fine except I don't agree to dispute resolution being done in Norway (or whatever) then their answer is almost certainly going to be "tough, take it or leave it." So it's not actually a contract, it's not a negotiated agreement. It's simply a forced waiving of your rights. It's the old Roman system of caveat emptor, a system which was replaced as commerce rose in the seventeenth century because it's a crap system, it restrains trade because you can't trust the seller. It hurts both parties in the long run.
Not so long ago a games company required customers on April 1st to agree to a Eula forfeiting their souls. They collected 7500 souls from gamers who agreed to this Eula. Nobody reads them, everyone has to agree to them, it's ridiculous and unfair to expect people to be bound by them.
But what will a strong consumer protection framework mean for games? Can you ask for your money back if they nerf your paladin?
Possibly.
The consultation is open to the public at the moment so the law that final comes can be changed by our input. It's inevitable that strong representation from the industry will attempt to neuter the law so it's important that as many of us players as possible provide input to the consultation so that it leads to a workable law that protects consumers without making it impossible to sell games where the experience changes. Because if a consumer if protected from being given a worsened experience, then they are perhaps protected from having their paladin nerfed and that would suck. Not because I hate paladins, but because there needs to be some artistic freedom to tinker with the game in something like a MMO.
Tomorrow I'll do a question by question analysis of the shortened consultation.
It clearly needs it. Currently the situation is laughable- the company puts in a ridiculous EULA which requires you, as a purchaser to waive every right you have and take any dispute to somewhere so far away it may as well be Mongolia if you do want to dispute it. These things are supposed to be contracts but they really aren't because one party has no power of negotiation. If you read, say, the Secret World's Eula and then contact Funcom and say the Eula's fine except I don't agree to dispute resolution being done in Norway (or whatever) then their answer is almost certainly going to be "tough, take it or leave it." So it's not actually a contract, it's not a negotiated agreement. It's simply a forced waiving of your rights. It's the old Roman system of caveat emptor, a system which was replaced as commerce rose in the seventeenth century because it's a crap system, it restrains trade because you can't trust the seller. It hurts both parties in the long run.
Not so long ago a games company required customers on April 1st to agree to a Eula forfeiting their souls. They collected 7500 souls from gamers who agreed to this Eula. Nobody reads them, everyone has to agree to them, it's ridiculous and unfair to expect people to be bound by them.
But what will a strong consumer protection framework mean for games? Can you ask for your money back if they nerf your paladin?
Possibly.
The consultation is open to the public at the moment so the law that final comes can be changed by our input. It's inevitable that strong representation from the industry will attempt to neuter the law so it's important that as many of us players as possible provide input to the consultation so that it leads to a workable law that protects consumers without making it impossible to sell games where the experience changes. Because if a consumer if protected from being given a worsened experience, then they are perhaps protected from having their paladin nerfed and that would suck. Not because I hate paladins, but because there needs to be some artistic freedom to tinker with the game in something like a MMO.
Tomorrow I'll do a question by question analysis of the shortened consultation.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Saturday, 30 June 2012
TSW: something old, something new
The Secret World started yesterday and despite still being invested in two other games (Diablo 3 and Eve) I was persuaded to download it and have a look around. And I'm delighted I did.
Unusually for me I didn't check out the hype, min/max the talent trees and argue on the game's forums before launch - in fact I'm playing it without knowing anything about it. And I think that's definitely a fun way to experience it.
With no knowledge of the mechanics I was forced to learn how to play by experiencing the game which is actually a very enjoyable experience. The game feels rather slow at first, cutscenes abound and are not skippable. That favours the clueless enormously. If you're itching to get to coordinates X,Y so you can loot the Sword Of Promise and then get to the Bat Cave and farm elite bats until 60 it's probably very annoying to be sat down and lectured. But not having much idea about anything it's quite soothing to be eased into a slower pace more exploratory frame of mind.
I've just spent about an hour figuring out a puzzle quest. At one point I was quite flummoxed so I did peek at a youtube walkthrough, but only up until the point I was stuck. Otherwise I've been enjoying floundering around trying different things and falling on my face a lot. Or as we called it once upon a time "playing".
It's the complete antithesis of how I play my other games and I'm really enjoying puzzling the game out, reading the lore, trying to get my head around the bigger picture/global conspiracy/doomsday scenario plotline or whatever the hell is going on.
I'm sure that in due course players will find ways to differentiate "elite" players from the scrubs with some kind of gearscore or skill point-based elitism. But right now it feels like a pre-internet game, taking me back to games like Eye of the Beholder where I once spent three days stuck on a puzzle before eventually figuring it out.
My only slight quibble is the minimum specs. It won't run on one of my computers and chugs along somewhat reluctantly on the other, crashing because it's out of memory after about 4-5 hours. Still it functions well enough that I probably won't bother upgrading.
All told, it feels very interesting and very different, a genuine change of pace in a cliched genre. Recommended.
Unusually for me I didn't check out the hype, min/max the talent trees and argue on the game's forums before launch - in fact I'm playing it without knowing anything about it. And I think that's definitely a fun way to experience it.
With no knowledge of the mechanics I was forced to learn how to play by experiencing the game which is actually a very enjoyable experience. The game feels rather slow at first, cutscenes abound and are not skippable. That favours the clueless enormously. If you're itching to get to coordinates X,Y so you can loot the Sword Of Promise and then get to the Bat Cave and farm elite bats until 60 it's probably very annoying to be sat down and lectured. But not having much idea about anything it's quite soothing to be eased into a slower pace more exploratory frame of mind.
I've just spent about an hour figuring out a puzzle quest. At one point I was quite flummoxed so I did peek at a youtube walkthrough, but only up until the point I was stuck. Otherwise I've been enjoying floundering around trying different things and falling on my face a lot. Or as we called it once upon a time "playing".
It's the complete antithesis of how I play my other games and I'm really enjoying puzzling the game out, reading the lore, trying to get my head around the bigger picture/global conspiracy/doomsday scenario plotline or whatever the hell is going on.
I'm sure that in due course players will find ways to differentiate "elite" players from the scrubs with some kind of gearscore or skill point-based elitism. But right now it feels like a pre-internet game, taking me back to games like Eye of the Beholder where I once spent three days stuck on a puzzle before eventually figuring it out.
My only slight quibble is the minimum specs. It won't run on one of my computers and chugs along somewhat reluctantly on the other, crashing because it's out of memory after about 4-5 hours. Still it functions well enough that I probably won't bother upgrading.
All told, it feels very interesting and very different, a genuine change of pace in a cliched genre. Recommended.
Friday, 11 May 2012
Eve: claiming my corner
You may have noticed that this blog has been quite quiet for a week or so. Sometimes that's a sign, in a blogger, of a general lack of enthusiasm for gaming.
Sometimes the game just grabs you by the hand, whirls you out onto the dance floor and won't let go.
A chain of events that really goes back 3 years to when I first tried Eve has led me to a week like that. It started when I first read about Eve and realised that it was possible to pay for one's sub if one did well at the economic side of the game. That got me interested in Eve's economy and ever since I've been mixing an economic playstyle with an explorer playstyle. I've experimented with almost everything from null sec (both sov and small gang), piracy, invention, trading, hauling, mining, exploration all the way through to going to a pub and having a beer with Eve players and devs. And I've made quite a lot of isk along the way.
It was quite natural that when a new economic minigame was introduced, Planetary Interaction, I got into it in quite a big way. I started in a quiet low sec system, lost a hauler or two to gate camps, realised that null sec was about the same danger for more planet goo, moved to a quiet Great Wildlands system. Then I realised that whatever I did I'd have to get through the Empire gauntlet so I may as well move my operation to the gateway system.
I operated there in a pvp permanent hotspot for many moons then naturally graduated to ninja PI in a wormhole. Wormholes are all 1.0 true sec which makes them considerably richer than regular null sec for PI. It's also a lot easier to escape with a cloaky hauler through an entrance that maybe no one else realises even exists than it is to escape through a null sec to Empire choke point. (Although I've become reasonably adroit at steering a cloaky T1 hauler doing 12 m/s through a gate camp). I've been doing wormhole ninja PI for almost a year in a couple of different homes, having to move in December when player-owned customs offices were introduced and I lost a dispute over customs rights.
Then 2 weeks ago someone put up a customs office in my then PI hole. OK, time to relocate. But this time it was different. This time I found an empty wormhole.
The hole is a class 1 with a nullsec static. In other words it's a quiet little low level hole that most people won't be terribly interested in and which won't receive a great many visitors. Its static leads to nullsec which has very low population density and, generally, a population who aren't very interested in seeking adventure through the holes as they live in a place where adventure comes naturally.
I moved in.
It has taken me about two weeks to get established starting with finding the hole, deciding to live there, researching what I would need to build a base, buying the starbase modules on Buy Orders (I hate Buy It Nows), finding a hole to high sec, getting a few ships in before the entrance got camped by a Cloaky Loki piloted by a ferocious German with a magnificent blond handlebar moustache and a trusty stealth bomber side-kick. I then made a couple of trips through the long route from the nullsec static (45 jumps from Jita) but got a little discouraged that one of my haulers got caught by the normally rather desultory Solar Wing gatecamp guarding the drone regions. Still, one tech 1 hauler full of stront wasn't too bad a price for getting most of my stuff inside. Finally someone explored their way into my system from a wormhole with a high sec static. I waited 10 hours for them to not be around any more then convoyed a load more stuff in.
I then built my POS. It's a large Caldari POS with lots of Ewar, some guns, and some field control stuff like scrams and webs. I've also got some utility buildings like hangars up. While nothing in Eve is ever quite safe this is about as safe as any player structure could be. To attack it you need to get a decent sized fleet in with plenty of ammo. Into a low level hole where the entrance collapses behind you after you move in a dozen battlecruisers. No battleships or capitals can be brought in. A putative pos-bashing fleet would need to keep everyone healed through the guns while being warp scrambled and ECM jammed. And that would put it into reinforced. They would then either have to stay there two days to wait out the timer or leave a prober. The timer is set for the most awkward time possible for the majority of times zones. Leaving a prober would mean they have to come back through some random hole anywhere in null sec – they might have to go 40 jumps into Goonspace or some such to get to me. And just to put the cherry on top I'm training up some of my guys to be able to control the spacebase guns so when it comes out of reinforced I'll be able to give them a warm reception.
The main danger to it is me getting bored of Eve and letting the fuel run out.
Now although the hole is very remote it does get visitors from time to time and these visitors leave doorways. Some of these doorways lead to wormholes with high sec statics (ie a guaranteed wormhole to high sec) or are actually a doorway straight to high sec. So while generally I'm remote I do have nice safe routes out from time to time.
How remote?
Well I can monitor how secluded I am by scanning. In fact I can get a quick impression just by one Deep Space Probe scan. Signatures in a wormhole appear in a sequence like this:
ART, BRT, CRT, ERT, JRT, etc.
Except wormholes made by visitors. They break the sequence, being labelled something like FGH. So if I do a deep scan and there are two out of sequence signatures I've probably got 2 visiting holes that will last 4-16 hours from when they were made. If I want to go shopping I'll check them out, otherwise I'll just log off and do something else. When there are no holes, and probably no visitors, I creep out the way toys creep out of the toybox at night when the lights are out and everyone's snuggled safely in bed.
The sites I've been running so far are anomalies, which are straightforward combat sites, and I also did a radar site. I've only found one radar site and one magnetometric site and one of my visitors ran the mag site while I was hiding in the toybox. I have about 8 grav sites and 10 ladar sites though so I'm training up gas cloud harvesting and I shipped in a Hulk. (Actually I tried to fly my hulk in but it bounced off the hole, too fat to squeeze through, so I took it back to a station, repackaged it and carried it in inside a hauler).
Oh and the PI! This place really is PI heaven. I have laboriously set up a network of PI alts honeycombing the planets. I have my own POCOs up – no tax for me! Even if a hauler or two gets ganked I should be able to export enough P2s to pay for my accounts leaving all my other business ventures as pure profit.
So what's next? Well with Diablo 3 starting soon I have a short term project and a long term project.
The short term project is to set up a pvp fleet. My lead ship will be a Falcon, one of the most hated ships in Eve. This ship appears out of nowhere and ECM jams one or several ships. In addition to being designed to attack from a cloaked state it's one of the strongest ECM ships in the game. It seems particularly suited to flying top cover for my carebear ships as its jamming will allow a Hulk or something to escape from a tackle. Backing it up, for when I have someone carebearing in my hole I aim to both have some pvp ships at the pos, mostly battlecruisers but I'll also have a low skill point tackler or two outside D scan range logged off. So if there's someone running a site I can log on my tackler frigates, jump them with the Falcon then warp in some frigate backup and possibly log someone on at the POS to get a battlecruiser. That's a lot stealthier than simply logging on in a battlecruiser at the POS which will appear on their D-scan.
The long term project is to bonus the Hulk miners. First I aim to build an Orca using a Large Ship Assembly Array, a bpc bought off contract and some imported capital ship components. But ultimately I'd like to construct the mighty Rorqual, king of carebear ships which would not only allow me to mine in perfectly bonused Hulks and Skiffs but will also double as a pretty decent POS repairer if needed. All that's fairly uncertain of course, by this time next month maybe someone will have kicked me out. I think the odds are in my favour though, and I certainly have one of the safest places to mine in Eve during Hulkaggeddon.
So that's why I've been quiet this month – it's been a ton of work, a great deal of fun and I want it all set up and tranquil ready to go into Eve hibernation mode when Diablo 3 comes out next week.
Sometimes the game just grabs you by the hand, whirls you out onto the dance floor and won't let go.
A chain of events that really goes back 3 years to when I first tried Eve has led me to a week like that. It started when I first read about Eve and realised that it was possible to pay for one's sub if one did well at the economic side of the game. That got me interested in Eve's economy and ever since I've been mixing an economic playstyle with an explorer playstyle. I've experimented with almost everything from null sec (both sov and small gang), piracy, invention, trading, hauling, mining, exploration all the way through to going to a pub and having a beer with Eve players and devs. And I've made quite a lot of isk along the way.
It was quite natural that when a new economic minigame was introduced, Planetary Interaction, I got into it in quite a big way. I started in a quiet low sec system, lost a hauler or two to gate camps, realised that null sec was about the same danger for more planet goo, moved to a quiet Great Wildlands system. Then I realised that whatever I did I'd have to get through the Empire gauntlet so I may as well move my operation to the gateway system.
I operated there in a pvp permanent hotspot for many moons then naturally graduated to ninja PI in a wormhole. Wormholes are all 1.0 true sec which makes them considerably richer than regular null sec for PI. It's also a lot easier to escape with a cloaky hauler through an entrance that maybe no one else realises even exists than it is to escape through a null sec to Empire choke point. (Although I've become reasonably adroit at steering a cloaky T1 hauler doing 12 m/s through a gate camp). I've been doing wormhole ninja PI for almost a year in a couple of different homes, having to move in December when player-owned customs offices were introduced and I lost a dispute over customs rights.
Then 2 weeks ago someone put up a customs office in my then PI hole. OK, time to relocate. But this time it was different. This time I found an empty wormhole.
The hole is a class 1 with a nullsec static. In other words it's a quiet little low level hole that most people won't be terribly interested in and which won't receive a great many visitors. Its static leads to nullsec which has very low population density and, generally, a population who aren't very interested in seeking adventure through the holes as they live in a place where adventure comes naturally.
I moved in.
It has taken me about two weeks to get established starting with finding the hole, deciding to live there, researching what I would need to build a base, buying the starbase modules on Buy Orders (I hate Buy It Nows), finding a hole to high sec, getting a few ships in before the entrance got camped by a Cloaky Loki piloted by a ferocious German with a magnificent blond handlebar moustache and a trusty stealth bomber side-kick. I then made a couple of trips through the long route from the nullsec static (45 jumps from Jita) but got a little discouraged that one of my haulers got caught by the normally rather desultory Solar Wing gatecamp guarding the drone regions. Still, one tech 1 hauler full of stront wasn't too bad a price for getting most of my stuff inside. Finally someone explored their way into my system from a wormhole with a high sec static. I waited 10 hours for them to not be around any more then convoyed a load more stuff in.
I then built my POS. It's a large Caldari POS with lots of Ewar, some guns, and some field control stuff like scrams and webs. I've also got some utility buildings like hangars up. While nothing in Eve is ever quite safe this is about as safe as any player structure could be. To attack it you need to get a decent sized fleet in with plenty of ammo. Into a low level hole where the entrance collapses behind you after you move in a dozen battlecruisers. No battleships or capitals can be brought in. A putative pos-bashing fleet would need to keep everyone healed through the guns while being warp scrambled and ECM jammed. And that would put it into reinforced. They would then either have to stay there two days to wait out the timer or leave a prober. The timer is set for the most awkward time possible for the majority of times zones. Leaving a prober would mean they have to come back through some random hole anywhere in null sec – they might have to go 40 jumps into Goonspace or some such to get to me. And just to put the cherry on top I'm training up some of my guys to be able to control the spacebase guns so when it comes out of reinforced I'll be able to give them a warm reception.
The main danger to it is me getting bored of Eve and letting the fuel run out.
Now although the hole is very remote it does get visitors from time to time and these visitors leave doorways. Some of these doorways lead to wormholes with high sec statics (ie a guaranteed wormhole to high sec) or are actually a doorway straight to high sec. So while generally I'm remote I do have nice safe routes out from time to time.
How remote?
Well I can monitor how secluded I am by scanning. In fact I can get a quick impression just by one Deep Space Probe scan. Signatures in a wormhole appear in a sequence like this:
ART, BRT, CRT, ERT, JRT, etc.
Except wormholes made by visitors. They break the sequence, being labelled something like FGH. So if I do a deep scan and there are two out of sequence signatures I've probably got 2 visiting holes that will last 4-16 hours from when they were made. If I want to go shopping I'll check them out, otherwise I'll just log off and do something else. When there are no holes, and probably no visitors, I creep out the way toys creep out of the toybox at night when the lights are out and everyone's snuggled safely in bed.
The sites I've been running so far are anomalies, which are straightforward combat sites, and I also did a radar site. I've only found one radar site and one magnetometric site and one of my visitors ran the mag site while I was hiding in the toybox. I have about 8 grav sites and 10 ladar sites though so I'm training up gas cloud harvesting and I shipped in a Hulk. (Actually I tried to fly my hulk in but it bounced off the hole, too fat to squeeze through, so I took it back to a station, repackaged it and carried it in inside a hauler).
Oh and the PI! This place really is PI heaven. I have laboriously set up a network of PI alts honeycombing the planets. I have my own POCOs up – no tax for me! Even if a hauler or two gets ganked I should be able to export enough P2s to pay for my accounts leaving all my other business ventures as pure profit.
So what's next? Well with Diablo 3 starting soon I have a short term project and a long term project.
The short term project is to set up a pvp fleet. My lead ship will be a Falcon, one of the most hated ships in Eve. This ship appears out of nowhere and ECM jams one or several ships. In addition to being designed to attack from a cloaked state it's one of the strongest ECM ships in the game. It seems particularly suited to flying top cover for my carebear ships as its jamming will allow a Hulk or something to escape from a tackle. Backing it up, for when I have someone carebearing in my hole I aim to both have some pvp ships at the pos, mostly battlecruisers but I'll also have a low skill point tackler or two outside D scan range logged off. So if there's someone running a site I can log on my tackler frigates, jump them with the Falcon then warp in some frigate backup and possibly log someone on at the POS to get a battlecruiser. That's a lot stealthier than simply logging on in a battlecruiser at the POS which will appear on their D-scan.
The long term project is to bonus the Hulk miners. First I aim to build an Orca using a Large Ship Assembly Array, a bpc bought off contract and some imported capital ship components. But ultimately I'd like to construct the mighty Rorqual, king of carebear ships which would not only allow me to mine in perfectly bonused Hulks and Skiffs but will also double as a pretty decent POS repairer if needed. All that's fairly uncertain of course, by this time next month maybe someone will have kicked me out. I think the odds are in my favour though, and I certainly have one of the safest places to mine in Eve during Hulkaggeddon.
So that's why I've been quiet this month – it's been a ton of work, a great deal of fun and I want it all set up and tranquil ready to go into Eve hibernation mode when Diablo 3 comes out next week.
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I recently tried to get a group as dps and it’s a matter of waiting for the LFM then desperately trying to be the fastest respondent as 40 people ask for the spot. Or starting a group yourself and spending half an hour looking for a tank. I then tried tanking which went ok but left me feeling really drained. We wiped 4 times on the last boss then killed it on the 5th try which would have been absolutely fine if doing it with friends but felt very uncomfortable doing it with strangers. Even though no one complained or group quit just the expectation that they might rather killed the fun.
With LFD I can quest knowing that a group will at some point pop up without me having to think about it. That’s a big enough improvement that I’ll probably let my sub lapse after the free month and come back when it’s available.
I think in future I'll just train myself to consider the release of a game's LFD tool to be its actual launch and everything that comes before as some kind of beta, albeit paid.
Other than that I'm enjoying some of TSW and I certainly admire it as an evolution in gaming.
I've not especially enjoyed the pvp which can be summarised as roll the most populated faction then follow the zerg to win. (Also melee seems to do the same dps as everyone else while suffering twice the exposure so it feels daft meleeing with a blade build).
Instances are interesting the first couple of times but organising groups in chat is for me a horrible overhead. I'm rather baffled as to why they elected to have cross-server instances and still not have a LFD tool. I don't mind meeting people but I don't want to keep meeting stranger after stranger, most of whom don't even play on my server. Either let me make friends within a small community or deposit anonymous people into my content efficiently.
So what is great about TSW are the missions. Part of me is uncomfortable with the inefficiency on wandering around trying to figure out some obscure hint but I'm squelching that side so I can explore the game. The missions unlock the stories and the stories and lore are also wonderful. I've just finished China Mieville's Kraken which is perfect reading to complement this game - a story of cultists with magical powers running around contemporary London. (And written in plain English unlike most of his books).
So all in all well done Funcom, check it out if you haven't done so already but not for me a game that dominates my gaming time. I'm more interested in Eve and Diablo 2 really.