Only you can save the universe, CCP Seagull

Only you can save the universe, CCP Seagull!

Does that sound dramatic? Good.

In every story there comes a key moment, a time that people later look back on and say then, then was when it all changed.

Eve is at such a turning point.

This story starts with a rather vague presentation that CCP Seagull gave at Fanfest last year on the big picture for Eve development. Something something exploration something something three to five year plan something something player-constructed stargates. Hmm, ok, sounds good but far too vague to get anyone excited. Still the expansion that brought in wormholes was pretty good so the notion of new type of space reached by player-made stargates has appeal.

Most major development in Eve is transforming the game for this goal. It's no accident that a recent dev blog about industry was called Building Better Worlds. In the current iteration of Eve the title is nonsense - you can't put a world blueprint into a station manufacturing slot, wait a week, then collect a fresh made world. It's called that because the grand vision is leading to this new content which will be significantly sculpted by players. (We already know we will be building the entrances and some objects in space).

Since CCP Seagull's announcement of the grand vision Odyssey revamped scanning and probing, Rubicon introduced mobile deployable structures and the Summer expansion will revamp industry. The game is being prepared for an exciting and epic new style of play.

However none of the players are excited yet.

It's too remote, too far off, too vague. It doesn't affect us when we play. It assumes we'll still be here in 5 years but in fact many of us won't be.

Instead what matters to players is what has always mattered in multiplayer online games, something that was absolutely nailed by Jonathan Baron at GDC in 1999: glory and shame. We play games online since we feel or aspire to glory and are likely to leave them when we feel shame.

This is true for every player, every playstyle, every MMO. It underlies the reasons we superficially have for playing - to pwn noobs, to make isk, to put our alliance's name on the map, to become eve-famous, to socialise with our friends.

The latest Eve problem reported by the blogosphere is the shift of optimal manufacturing from high to null, with low sec casually getting squashed in the process. Supporters of the system argue risk v reward, that it's ridiculous for high sec to be better paid than null for members of the industrialist profession. There's also a reason for this shift and it's around the New Worlds masterplan - it would suck to have distant new continents that are hard to get to but still have to buy everything in Jita.

The effect of the industry revamp is to re-distribute glory and shame. An unintended consequence perhaps but a serious one. This revamp is positive for some players and they'll enjoy Eve more, possibly even expanding to more accounts if they find that the changes particularly suit them. Industrialists with well established set ups in high sec have to consider whether to relocate. Relocation to safe nullsec means joining a large coalition either as a line member or as a renter. For many players renting is shameful. You pay your lunch money to the school bully so he won't come beat you up. Why would anyone choose to do that with their leisure time? We can just change game. And for people who are a little vain about their pvp, like perhaps Ripard Teg and Mord Fiddle it would probably undermine that vanity. Income streams need to be neutral for them because their game politics is small band of rebels against  the evil empires. That's not a narrative they can sustain as PL peons.

And here we have to consider the process. The industrial revamp was, as per his admission on Cap Stable, heavily influenced by Goon CSM Mynnna. Now there are good reasons - he's very expert, most of the other CSMs aren't, he actually knows the implications and ramifications better than even CCP's game designers. But having a Goon finance guy design your risk/reward system is like having Goldman Sachs design your banking regulatory system. Even if he's an impeccable paragon of objectivity it looks crooked and its perception not hard numbers that count here as if people feel the process is crooked they'll lose belief in the game.

We're already seeing people outside the Goonosphere lose heart. Mord Fiddle has quit Eve, Jester self describes as a traitor. Gevlon delightedly sees it as a Darwinian extinction event purging the weak. Foo thinks it's not a big deal but that Those manufacturers that are a little tired will leave manufacturing or possibly even Eve itself.  New manufacturers will take their place. Parasoja is one of the tired. Blake is fireselling his compression BPOs. Neville Smit has become a schizophrenic.


Mynnna responds with a wall of data and some Goonly charm: Get out. You won’t be missed, and your less hysterical peers will be happy to pick up your slack, and profits

What Mynnna's missing is it's not about the numbers and rational analysis. Games are about emotions - we choose to play them because we find it fun. In real life if your company gets taken over by an organisation you dislike but they pay you more people would take that. It's hard not to be ok about an abstract dislike of becoming part of EA or the Murdoch empire if it means you get paid an extra three thousand a year.

In games we play because it's fun. No one has to just swallow their pride and become a renter because an economy shifts. We can simply play something else.

Now the thing about this is that the unsuccessful people are needed to keep the successful. Goons like Eve because they're doing better than most players - the quality of life for even the least of the Goons is higher than the average player. But without those average and below average players there's no one for Goons to be doing better than. Similarly for Goblins. It's only fun to be a goblin if there's morons and slackers to mock.

Months before implementation this change is costing CCP hardcore veteran players. We have no idea exactly how many as high sec industrialists form one of the least vocal demographics in the player base. Most of them won't give any indication of how they feel until they go.

And that brings us back to the Grand Vision. There needs to be a vision that inspires players in Eve because although CCP has hinted at Building Better Worlds the players who like building things are not feeling good about the game right now. The time for the big reveal is at next week's Fanfest. CCP can't sit on the grand plan any longer or else there's a danger that there won't be the players still around to build it. There's a real danger that people are starting to feel - as I did - that Eve's becoming a game of Go Goon or Go Home.

I'd like to build a better world. I'm improving my skills, building contacts, farming planets. But tell us what's coming and when you hope to deliver. Industrialists plan on a scale of months and years, if there's something to believe in they will stay and set themselves up for it.

But it's time to show us your hand CCP Seagull. Only you can save the universe.

Gentlemen's Disagreement

via Reddit

post from kespernorth and ceo of gents- It's time to talk about the elephant in the room. For various reasons, the core leadership of GENTS - the people I founded this alliance with - have had to step back and focus on their real lives. Lake, Nova, the Bloodtears and now Ryan have all had to drastically reduce their involvement in the game. This has led to there being only two really active execs, plus dribs and drabs of activity from me. We've stemmed the bleeding by appointing some new execs - Kinkouin and Kippig have been doing the best they can to manage the day-to-day business of the alliance - and by appointing new Distinguished Gentlemen, but in the end, someone has to provide vision and leadership. I haven't done an adequate job of that. As my real-life situation continues to grow more complicated - I expect to be starting a new job soon, among other things -  I've had to become less and less involved as well.
So I've made a hard decision. I've gone to The Mittani and let him know my assessment of my performance and the situation; we both agree that GENTS needs to go through a transition of leadership. We haven't worked out what shape that transformation is going to take yet; it's totally TBD. What is going to happen now is that, starting today, GSF's Corps Diplomatique is going to reach out to each of you corp CEOs and ask you where you want to go from here, whether that's staying in GENTS under new leadership or exploring options outside of the alliance.
Thank you all for your trust and hard work. This may be a busy time in the next few weeks as we determine our new direction, but with your talent and leadership I'm certain we will succeed in our new goals.

I must be the kiss of death or something. Recently I've gone to EMP, Black Legion then Gents all of whom suffered major trauma within a couple of months.

Fortunately I'm quite engrossed by other games at the moment. I'm playing The Elder Scrolls Online where I haven't got very far but I'm enjoying the early quests. I also really like the Diablo 3 expansion, especially the awesome Crusader class. And I keep my daily quests done in Hearthstone where I'm amassing gold in preparation for the new Adventure mini-expansion.

Ah Eve, my love, why must you keep floundering?

Eve: reactivation offer, 7 days free

NOW CLOSED, SORRY!

"The two-month pilot phase of the Recall Program is now over and it’s time to start looking into how it fared. Based on the great feedback we’ve received thus far we’d like to bring it back again later in the year, possibly even making it a permanent fixture in the EVE Universe – but for right now it is on hold while we evaluate. Look forward to more information on the Recall Program in the coming weeks. "

CCP have a new programme whereby a player (eg me) can send a reactivation key to someone who has stopped playing (perhaps you). There's a dev blog about it here.

Put your Eve character name in the comments if you want a key. Once I process it CCP will email you a key.

Recall them today and earn rewards!

Do you know a player that hasn’t been around for a while? Now you can send them 7 free days of game time and get them back into the action immediately! If they accept the free game time and make a further eligible subscription payment, you can earn rewards!

If you can't beat them, join them

If you can't beat them, join them says the old adage.

And lo and behold, after a year of fighting them I've now joined the CFC. I'm a member of Occupational Hazard, a corp in the Gentleman's Alliance.

So what prompted the change?

Most of it was simply to play Eve with friends. I left my old alliance with no intention other than to be in high sec for a bit and take stock. Some old friends were dissatisfied with their current corp and moving to Gents and asked me along.

But I also think that nullsec lacks people who are trying to win against the CFC. In order to win a competitor would have to blue lots of people. But the people who aren't in the CFC are still drawn to a romanticised notion of being edgy Spartans fighting outnumbered against a horde of lesser players.

Wanna know something about the 300 Spartans?

They lost.

Not to denigrate Leonidas and his chums who were heros who knowingly sacrificed themselves to both inspire and buy time for the rest of Greece.

In Eve however the absence of any rival coalition and the lack of a prospect of one coming about because people are too proud and too prickly makes donating free time to the cause feel futile.

So I'm with the CFC.

And I'm genuinely with them, I'm not "infiltrating" them. Like a footballer who signs for a new team I'll be giving my best to the side I'm now playing for.

So far I really like it. It's laid back and friendly. Fleet doctrines look interesting, I haven't yet gone on an op but it looks fun. There's no shortage of fleets as one might expect in a coalition of 40 000 people.

So it's a new chapter for me in Eve Online, have to see where it takes me.

The curious incident of the diplomats in nullsec

Gregory : "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Just as in the famous Sherlock Holmes story, diplomats in Eve are curious for what they don't do.

One of the fascinations of a sandbox game is that people have very personal playstyles and goals. To an outsider it may seem intuitive to expect all players of, say, the nullsec conquest minigame to play very similarly in fact we don't.

With the exception of the CFC, nullsec diplomats don't do diplomacy. Curious, eh?

Peace in our time.

Most people in nullsec are here for fights and by a somewhat darwinian process most people not looking for pvp action have been driven out. Not many would pick goldfish as their species if given the chance to participate in a sharkpool.

But the pure pvp style has its weakness - isk generation. Often pvp alliances are led by veteran players who made so much money in Eve's early days they don't have to worry about anything less that a titan loss. Sometimes you'll see Eve corporations when recruiting ask for "self sufficient" pilots - this is code for being able to lose expensive ships without being able to make money on your main.

The pure pvp style does destroy carebear-oriented small alliances but against the large numbers of the CFC coalition it can't compete. This is because the pvp style needs to not have many blues in order to feed itself a constant diet of kills. Added to this is often a certain abrasiveness of style that suits the personalities of the people who lead aggressive pvp alliances.

The fleetbear style however is a perfect adaptation to nullsec and its predators making maximum use of the current game mechanics. A fleetbear (term coined by Gevlon) is a ratter or miner who switches to a combat ship for big important ops then goes back to ratting and mining again once the emergency is over. They can win the big ops by forming massive numbers but blueball the little ops, the roams and blops drops by hiding in a friendly pos until the danger passes. In large numbers led by expert FCs fleet bears are pretty effective because all they have to do for the most part is shoot the primary. For this reason they are sometimes called "F1 monkeys." (Until recently with drone assist it was even easier for fleetbears, some of them alt tabbed to other games while their fc killed other fleets with assisted sentry drones).

Even more important, because fleetbears don't need to be fed kills you don't need to worry about blueing (setting positive diplomatic standings with) other nullsec entities. In fact the more blues you have the better as pvp is a secondary activity.

I argued recently that the battle of B-R changed the nullsec meta as it emphasised titans as a combat ship. For a nullsec entity to develop a titan force it needs its members to be generating isk. There are other methods of building up your titan armada (eg poaching).

And that brings us back round to the curious behaviour of nullsec diplomats.

In a fleetbear set-up the job of a diplomat is to woo, charm and cajole threats into becoming allies or non-threats. Where someone won't agree to become blue, a NIP will do. (A NIP is an agreement not to attack each others structures). After all it's not a big deal if ratters occasionally get ganked, it's just a cost of business for your less alert players who will simply reship and carry on ratting paying a little more attention to Local. What's more there's an overarching strategic aim to the role of the diplomats, they are trying to conquer the universe by making deals. Often these deals succeed simply because they're innovative. RvB has been criticised for supporting Goons in their high sec poco affairs. But know why they support Goons? Because no one else thought to ask them!

In a pvp organisation the job of a diplomat is mostly mechanical, for instance to request temp blue or other basic rather functional tasks that allow the pvp alliances to make brief marriages of convenience. It is never the goal to build up a strong blue list as that is seen as target denial to its own members. So the diplomats are not part of the alliance's strategy as the ultimate goal is always to reset everyone else and maximise violence.

The major remaining nullsec forces are as follows:

CFC - fleetbears

PL - elite pvp

BL - elite pvp

Triumvirate - elite pvp

SOLAR - fleetbears (russian), relatively minor

-A- pvp

various other russian alliances mostly pvp

N3 led by an elite pvp alliance (NC.), bulked out by fleetbears. Also currently losing rather hard.

Nothing illustrates the effect of diplomats more clearly than the last 12 months. After TEST, who were kind of antidiplomats (specialists in antagonising everyone), broke from the CFC to make a new coalition and declared an intention to attack the CFC the goon diplomats went into action. Shadoo, a leader of PL, declared he wasn't keen to manage such a huge campaign and offered a wargames alternative which the goon diplomats supported. A senior goon was despatched to the Test forums on a posting charm offensive. The diplomats helped to stave off the war with Test while CFC ratters earned isk in Deklein and elite pvpers blew each other up. The goons were catching up in terms of resources and titans.

Then a stroke of luck for the CFC. Due to Test's apathy, leadership of their coalition fell to someone so terrible that Test decided they couldn't tolerate him. Lacking the political savvy to simply talk to the HBC alliance leaders behind his back then present Sort Dragon with a fait accompli, Test chose to perform a dramatic reset which turned half of their coalition into bitter enemies. Despite this they still allowed Sort Dragon to control several systems in Fountain, icing their self-destructiveness with a layer of stupidity.

There then followed a month of elite pvp alliances NC. and PL picking on Test in Delve. There were provocations, sure, but this was frankly rather short-sighted, as they destroyed a chunk of Test's ship and isk reserves, spending some of their own reserves - particularly of stamina in the process. The CFC's small squadron of pvpers enthusiastically joined with NC. and PL to shoot Test.

With Test weakened and isolated the Goons decided to declare war, a move that almost backfired. Sort Dragon predictably handed over the Fountain space he controlled to the CFC, aborting a couple of PL titans in build. And the Goons made some initial progress against ferocious Test resistance.

Then it all started to go wrong as PL and N3 entered the war on Test's side while Black Legion made explosive gains in the North, destroying an expensive Tempest Fleet Issue fleet, and capturing the Q-C station with a small armada of carriers trapped inside. Meanwhile the allied forces in Fountain pushed back the CFC gains from 14 systems to a mere 4, threatening the CFC staging system in B-D in Cloud Ring.

The diplomats rescued the CFC - they simply bought off Black Legion. Meanwhile PL and NC. got sick of dealing with Test - their elitism led them to feel deeply frustrated with frequent mistakes and failures. In the end PL quietly stopped turning up as the Alliance Tournament got closer and NC., after needing to go home to deal with a massive sov drop didn't want to come back. Only Nulli stuck by Test and it wasn't enough.

So the war can be seen as a test of the personalities of the two sides. The fleetbears solved a problem using diplomacy. The pvpers grew fed up with each other because they're conditioned to abrasiveness and intolerance.

And that led on to the halloween war where N3/PL reaped the consequences of letting Test collapse. They got to fight the CFC again, this time with BL and all of the Russian alliances committed to the CFC side - another triumph for CFC diplomacy and political savvy. They've lost, the final stages of that conflict are being wrapped up this week at the 0-W hellcamp.

How different it all could have been had Shadoo permitted Montolio's attack on the CFC in January 2013 or if Black Legion had stayed committed to attacking the CFC during the Fountain War.

With the collapse of N3 there's no one to challenge the CFC as nullsec's dominant fleetbears. In addition the elite pvp groups are loathe to band together because other elite pvpers are rude to them, because they'd rather fight pvpers than blueballing fleetbears and because the CFC has simply now snowballed so damn big that no one has a chance to fight them when they're fully committed.

This can't be changed from the outside. We won't see fresh young groups spring up and take on the CFC effectively because they simply can't match either the titan force or the host of allies, not to mention the diplomatic contacts and spy network. There's no one in nullsec playing the same political game as the CFC - of making as many friends as possible while still maintaining pvp effectiveness (quite a difficult balancing act). And that means everyone who isn't the CFC will tend to prefer to fight people who are weaker than themselves rather than negotiate a competing coalition.

Nullsec is now stagnant until the CFC breaks itself up from within or until CCP redesigns the sov system in such a way that it is no longer beneficial to have tens of thousands of friendly pilots all ratting away, fleeting up now and then if a structure gets reinforced.

The diplomats, of whom only the CFC has officials who really deserve the name, have won Eve.

Nullsec Eve: the shape of things to come

Exciting times in null as we see the closing stages of the first great universal empire.

First kudos to Goons for effectively conquering sovereign Eve. With the announcement last night that the CFC will spend the next week hellcamping N3 we now see a nullsec where every significant sov holder has either been allied by the Goons, has a contractual arrangement with the Goons or is being hellcamped by the Goons or has disintegrated completely.

So what comes next?

At some point soon the CFC will draw a line under the campaign against N3. By the end of the week most of N3 will be dormant while they wait for the CFC to leave them alone. It seems unlikely to me that Goons will go after PL, it's too useful to have a major enemy that they can control and make deals with.

They can stamp down some of the small pests staging from NPC nullsec like Black Legion (with whom I fly) and Gang Bang Team but that's very limited pvp content. Stage close, melt the towers, play cat and mouse with fleets, the CFC trying to show us a small enough fleet to encourage us to engage then drop the hammer, while we will hope to run in, snatch the cheese then run off quick before the trap gets sprung.

We won't see another titan battle for some time. (Titans ganks are a distinct possibility).

But we're inevitably drawing closer and closer to the time when the Goons are forced to break up the CFC.

With the beating of N3 almost over and if I'm right that they won't go after PL the only other major space holders are the Russian alliances. That would be a poor campaign for the CFC - the Russians are too outnumbered alone but strong enough that a PL-N3-Russian alliance could be difficult. (After all N3 won't really die nor even lose appreciable strength, it'll just wait out the storm with its assets safely logged out). Plus the Goons love a forum confrontation which they won't get against the Russians who mostly never use the English-speaking forums.

So at some point during 2014 the CFC will fragment.

Soon someone in the CFC will be isolated and pilloried.

Here's how I think it will happen:

- first there needs to be an excuse. Someone will do something somewhere that the Goons find unacceptable in a CFC member and will "make an example" of the offender(s)

- the Goons will probably look to reset enough of the CFC to make for an interesting fight but not so much that they lose.

- the Goons probably already know who is going to get expelled from the CFC.

- a narrative that makes Goons the honest victims of their targets treachery will be manufactured and widely taken as true.

- there's an outside chance that the Goons will reset everyone in the CFC and take on all comers in a heroic Alamo style pitched defence. Especially if Mittens steps down as leader.


The breakup of the CFC will offer opportunities for all the smaller sov-capable alliances like BL, N3 (probably rebranded), Evoke, Triumvirate and so on.

We are also likely to see a change during the summer to power projection, especially if Eve has a boring Spring.

The future of nullsec fleets after B-R

While a lot has been said about the political effects of the great titan fight I think it's worth looking into the changes in ship v ship meta.

More than 70 titans died at B-R

Before B-R to most Eve players being a subcap pilot was a perfectly valid playstyle choice. After B-R many players will have shifted their thinking towards eventually becoming a titan pilot.

Before B-R for a lot of players titans were considered boring ships where you got landed with the chore of bridging other people around, the risk of accidentally and disastrously misclicking, but no compensating fun unless you were in PL doing drive-bys.

Now they're firmly, and probably rightfully, established as the king of ships, the top dogs.

It's not just titans - CFC held off reinforcements and crucially dictors with very effective subcap fleets that covered the local staging systems and gates into B-R. I was down there in Kurator's inty fleet but we were ineffective because of a much larger inty fleet ran by Alphastarpilot that controlled the way into B-R.

Now the shift in meta also requires a shift in playstyle to a much more economic one. It was pretty easy to get into a Domi or Battleship Of The Month and once you owned one, if it died your alliance paid for a new one. So after the initial outlay you got to pvp for free and didn't have to worry too much about isk.

Developing a titan capability is a huge grind for an individual player and is best done by what Gevlon's started calling a "fleetbear."

A fleetbear is a pilot who comes along to the very important ops but ignores all less significant pvp ops. Essentially they're renters who pay their rent in participation instead of isk. Typically CFC alliances will have some kind of minimum pvp participation measured by pap links (participation links) which allow players to fleet up and click the link to accrue measurable participation statistics that allow them to rat or mine in peace for the rest of the time.

Paplink FC? Paplink?

While this both amuses and bemuses the rest of Eve to see a sizable part of the player base joining fleets they don't care about to do pvp they're not intereted in just to "clock on" it does allow all of these players to potentially rat their way to titans and supers.

So Eve is shifting to become more of an economic game because of the shift in meta resulting from B-R. And this meta feeds back into the political meta where the key aim for alliances will be economic prosperity, and alliances that don't keep up financially can't compete.

The accountants have won Eve!