Tier 5: I hate it, but I love it!

For one week running the Minmatar Militia has had tier five control of the Amarr-Minmatar war zone and a full week before that we had tier four control.  What does this mean?  If one is willing to painstakingly run faction warfare missions for hours on end; a plethora of ISK.  On the other hand this means almost zero activity in some of the more regularly populated systems of the war-zone.

If you're unfamiliar with faction warfare, each system in the war-zone can be contested or defended by closing faction warfare complexes.  Once a system is captured by a faction, it can be upgraded to a certain level (up to five) at the system ihub.  The combined total of all system's tiers contributes to an overall tier of control for the entire war zone.  At tier five control, most of the systems will be captured and upgraded for your faction giving a 220% increase in loyalty point gains (cha-ching!).  Controlling all of the systems also means that your enemies can't dock in any of these systems.  Imagine being unable to dock in any of the systems you are most active in.  You can see why activity can plummet when one faction has tier five control.

I have no idea who organizes these tier pushes, I imagine large alliances running shadow operations with alts behind the scenes.  When an alliance is running low on funds a cue is given and the alts amass to run complexes and FW missions until their eyes bleed.  They alternate factions between pushes to lessen the effects of market flooding that results with these extended high-end tier control stints.  Of course I could be mistaken, but high end tier control is a huge undertaking which I believe is out of the scope of either side currently involved in FW.

I have a love/hate relationship with the tier system.  On one end it allows me to make a ridiculous amount of ISK in a short amount of time, on the other it kills PVP activity in the region.  Either no enemies are out or all of the friendlies are running missions.  I go through this cycle where I PVP for a long period of time and eventually run out of ISK, at this point I'm praying for tier four or five.  When it finally comes I drop everything I'm doing and start pumping out faction warfare missions, these mind-numbing sessions of torpedo launching and watching netflix can go on for days.  When I feel I've established a good currency buffer I vow to never PVE again and start looking for fights, to my dismay the war zone is usually still inactive.

I believe that in order to fix this "problem" CCP needs to remove the docking restriction for systems in enemy hands or at least designate one system for each faction inside the war zone that cannot be captured, thus giving a base of operations for each side.  This would help to prevent the lull in activity we see every time a faction obtains tier 5.

"Unreasonable things" that I want in EVE

I've been extremely busy for the last few weeks and now I can finally finish my post regarding the list of potential changes that CSM8 and CCP asked players to vote on.  Many of the items on this list are changes that I would love to see, some are more aesthetic (but still important), and some of them are already slated to make it into the next patch.  You can find the list here, these are my top six  picks from the list:

-Expand skill queue window to 48 or 72 hours.
-Killmails to also show Logistic pilots, if they rep the person that did the damage/killing blow.

-Increase limit of saved fittings from 100 to 200+.
-Add visual cone shape showing curent D-scan area both in map and in space
-Tactical overlay (Ctrl-D) should be able to show velocity vector (direction+speed) of displayed objects.
-Add small gang highsec/lowsec PVP/PVE events to the game.


When contemplating the potential changes from this list it got me thinking about some things that I would love to see put in the game, but aren't quite as reasonable as the list CSM8 provided. Here are some of the unreasonable changes I'd want for EVE.

Real-time spacial control:
I love flight combat simulators; ever since EVE's release I've always wanted a system that would bring a real-time combat element to EVE. The typical frontal aim-and-shoot seen in most combat flight simulators wouldn't be applicable to EVE, but I believe a control system could be implemented that would give players the ability fly their ships in real-time. Much like what we see in flight simulators and other live action flight video games.

Jovian space, ships and mods:
Make it hard to gain access to, make the ships and mods rare as hell, make the ships and mods crazy expensive, I don't care. Give it to us!

Increase the uniqueness of each system:
Give more systems different places to visit, give each system a unique "feel". Create more unique complexes, monuments, astronomical anamolies, give each system a backstory, etc.

Make orbital bodies orbit!:
I'm pretty sure that in real-life planets and other orbital bodies don't stay in the same spot around their parent object for all eternity. I'd like to see the progression of planets around their stars, moons around their planets, and the like. I know many objects take multiple Earth years to orbit their parent object, but some take much less. It'd be cool to see! To solve problems of useless bookmarks just implement a bookmark system that records locations based on a grid of the orbital object which you are near at the time of BM creation, not the grid of the entire system.

More skillpoints for new players:
If EVE is going to continue to gain subscribers we need to make the lives of new players a lot better. Many people I know stopped playing the game because they felt overwhelmed by all of the skills they were "behind" on. New players should receive an extra 5-10M unallocated skillpoints after paying for their first month, this would help lessen that feeling of "noobness" that new players experience and in turn keep more first-time players subscribing. To make everyone happy just give all current subscribers the same bonus before implementing the change.

In-game mini-games/gambling:
Face it, EVE can get very slow at times. What better way to pass the time than by playing your favorite card game with your fellow fleet members or corp mates? Make it interesting and allow ISK/item betting. Key term here being "in-game", I don't want to use third party programs while I'm playing, it takes away from the immersion factor.

What big changes to EVE Online would you like to see?

LNA's First Alliance Tournament

Within a few minutes of our match against Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork on Saturday, we knew our time in ATXI was over.  It was a well-fought match and one of the more enjoyable ones LNA had during the tournament, but our Minmatar rush setup could not compete with the raw blaster power of the Gallente rush setup that MIF fielded that day.  When it was obvious we no longer had a chance of winning, GF's were posted in local and we as a team congratulated ourselves on how far we made it during the tournament.  I don't think anyone had any expectations for LNA, but it was shown that we are not to be taken lightly.  I think everyone on the LNA team had a great experience with the AT, scheduling was a little tough for some and I know it became stressful at times, but I believe we all walked away with a sense of pride and accomplishment.


For me it was exciting to be a part of one of my most favorite things in EVE Online.  I have watched every alliance tournament that has been broadcast and always payed close attention to the teams involved.  I love the theory-crafting facet of EVE Online, and to be able to apply that to developing setups for the tournament was very enjoyable.  It was really cool to watch the replays and hear people who I have been watching commentate for years talk about our team.  Experiencing the tournament first hand is something I'll never forget and I hope to be a part of it again next year.

What does the future hold in store for LNA?  It's anyone's guess, we'll continue the fight in the Amarr/Minmatar warzone and focus on lowsec pvp.  People will come and go and we'll continue to have fun blowing stuffs up and being blown up by whatever comes across our path.  There's talk of forming a team for the Syndicate Competitive League, but you can be sure we'll be trying our best to make an appearance in next year's Alliance Tournament.

Another LNA Victory!

Congratulations to my fellow teammates and the whole of LNA!  It was a very solid win against TEST alliance, needless to say we brought a very good counter to their setup.  I'll provide a link on this post to the youtube video of our match once it is posted by CCP.   I'm very excited to see some more internet spaceship explosions tomorrow!  Don't miss our match against Exodus. at 20:15 EVE Time!

Weekend two of ATXI

I'd like to wish all of the participants in this weekend's matches the best of luck!  Be sure to tune into www.twitch.tv/ccp to watch all of the action!  Don't miss the match of TEST vs. LNA at 20:00 EVE time, it should be a good one! :)

I'm very curious to see what kind of ship setups each team will be using.  Last week we witnessed the raw power of Dominix sentry setups and that of the Vindicators/Kronos.  I imagine we'll see many more flag ships being fielded and hopefully some unique setups.  It will be interesting to see which ships get banned as well.  See you in the battle arena!

Who are Late Night Alliance?

First of all I'd like to congratulate my fellow teammates in Late Night Alliance for winning our first two matches in the EVE Online Alliance Tournament XI.  We've had a great time preparing for this tournament and to finish that strong in the first weekend is very gratifying.  You can watch our first two matches here and here.

So who are LNA?  We are a conglomerate of faction warfare corporations fighting for the Minmatar Republic.  In fact, we are one of the first Minmatar faction warfare alliances to be founded after CCP made the necessary changes in Inferno.  As Shahfluffer's put in his interview with The Mittani; we are "The alliance that was born out of a group of Faction Warfare corps made up of ‘MURICANS, Canadians, people that live upside down (Aussies and Kiwis), a random Mexican and Persian, and Gurls who would log on in "late US" timezone to kill stuffs gloriously."   You can read the entire interview here, it will give you a basic understanding of our attitude and how mighty and hairy our chests really are.

We are a group of players who log in the game to blow stuff up.  We could care less about politics, sovereignty, who's big and who's not, and the like.  While some of us do pay attention to the various happenings and changes in EVE politics, our primary focus is having fun and bagging internet spaceships.  We do have alliances and corporations who we particularly like to shoot at (Eve Uni, Fweddit), but for the most part we believe in equal opportunity engagement.  The core membership of the alliance comes from various pirates, low-seccers, and ghey knights who have been involved in FW for the last few years, our cornerstone being the infamous Bahamut420.  We drink a lot and are accustomed to tossing around "tasteful" jibes at each other.  All of us are big fans of Puffins.

Overall we're a great bunch of people to fly with.  We have our moments, as with all alliances, but for the most part we have things figured out.  Feel free to head over to our home in The Bleak Lands region if you're looking for some low-sec PVP;  at least one of us will be online willing to GCC you for a good time.  

To Matchmake or Not to Matchmake?

As my alliance prepares for the upcoming Alliance Tournament XI, I am realizing how much I enjoy organized and regulated PVP in EVE.  Now don't get me wrong, I love the "sandbox" aspect of EVE, it is one of the reasons EVE is such a great game, but I do wish there were more options for creating fair matches between players interested in fighting each other.

I've heard many of the arguments against a matchmaking system, and most of them make a fair point, but there has to be some way we can preserve the sandbox of New Eden while still enabling players to participate in fights without having to worry about being blobbed at every turn.  The possibility of being blobbed is part of the fun in itself, but I still yearn for a system that allows for a regulated fight.

I've heard many people point to FW complexes as the solution since there are restrictions on ship types depending on the size of the plex.  While its nice to not have to worry about a battleship showing up to a frig fight, it still doesn't solve to problem of being overrun by a fleet with twice your number, and the "bring more ships" option sometimes just isn't plausible.

Some have also said that one should go to Singularity (the test server) if all you want to do is blow stuff up.  To me this is another cop out; I want what I do in-game to still have a lasting effect on the game world.  When you take risk of loss out of the equation it dulls the intensity of EVE PVP.  Although I will admit going nuts on the test server can be fun from time to time :)

I'm aware of free-for-all tournaments that are hosted throughout the game universe, these are a lot of fun to participate in but utterly lack what constitutes a fair match.  I want to be able to test my skills against an equally equipped enemy with no room for argument.

The major issue I have with matchmaking in EVE is that it would take away the sandbox, or the randomness of the game.   If a full fledged matchmaking system was implemented I believe there would be a collapse of activity in the game world, which of course is a horrible thing to ponder.

 Look at World of Warcraft; there is a dungeon finder, raid finder, and a PVP system that is entirely based around matchmaking.  You can literally stand in one location and queue up for almost all of the end-game content this game has to offer.  While providing convenience for their players, the developers have consequently made it so almost nobody goes out into the game world which they so tirelessly worked over.  This kind of system would ruin EVE and must be avoided.

So how can it be done?  I think in order to preserve the sandbox, but still allow players to participate in matches outside of the alliance tournament, CCP needs to give some in-game tools to players that will allow them to set up their own regulated tournaments without running the risk of them being crashed by other players.  A system like this would take a lot of work to implement and would have to be restricted in some way, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.

I imagine a system where a CEO or executor could initiate a match against another corporation or alliance.  On this theoretical interface you could edit the match date/time, participant list, ship restrictions, ship bans, and other match variables.  It could be set up with a point system like the one currently being used in the alliance tournament, the CEO's could assign certain ship types to each of their members (without the opposing team knowing the ship types, of course).  When the match is about to take place the game would run a check on each participant to make sure they are in their assigned ship and using the allowed modules/implants.

If they pass the check the player is "locked in", they then would choose the distance they want to be from the match beacon and are teleported to the match area.  This match area could be an un-scannable deadspace pocket or off-grid system with no way in or out. Nobody would be able to perform any action until the match begins.  There could be some sort of bubble around the match area that instantly pops any ship that moves out past 125km of the beacon.  There would also have to be some sort of point tracking system to decide on a winner if the match goes over a certain time limit.  After the match is over all players would be teleported back to where they were originally before the match began, and a winner is assigned.

I know there would be many issues to be worked out with a system like this, not to mention it would take a shit ton of work to implement and fine tune, but wouldn't it be fun?  I believe all players should have the opportunity to experience something akin to the alliance tournament, rather than just those select few who get to do it only once a year.

Moving and the Science Behind the Sci-Fi of EVE

Until this last week, moving into a new home has never been distressing for me.  I would gather and organize my few posessions and load them into a truck in an order that maximized the efficiency of the packing and that of the consequental unpacking.  This time it was different, a lot has changed in my life since my last move; I'm in a steady relationship, I have a new job, and I've bought a LOT of stuff.  This time I felt like a Hoarder pilot trying to organize multiple stations worth of unpackaged goods in 10 different regions while using auto-pilot and having my assetts, sort-by, and stack all menu options disabled.  Can you spell cluster-f***?

At one point I had an amazingly nerdy thought, "God I wish I had a jump freighter."  Which got me thinking about the plausibility of future generations obtaining some of the technologies portrayed in EVE Online.  I was reminded of a series of articles published under the EVE online backstory that are mock scientific articles which give pseudoscientific explanations to some of the technologies that make the fiction of EVE possible (FTL Travel, FTL communications, Cloning, etc...)

I re-read these pieces and was very impressed with how each pseudoscientific idea or principle was presented.  Many explanations referenced and extrapolated upon real-word scientific principles and used scientific termonology while doing so, which gave the articles an air of credibility.  Out of all "explanations" for sci-fi technology I've encountered in media, these articles are the ones that really set the bar.  They were both fun to read and thought-provoking; reading them made me feel as if all of this fiction could one day become a reality

There are many leaps, bounds, hurdles, and stumbles before humanity can even hope to obtain interstellar travel, but I really hope I live to see the day when those awesome capabilities are within our grasp.  Let's hope that governments and parents alike don't lose sight of the importance of education and the proliferation of science and math.   Perhaps one day we will witness the creation of a "depleted vacuum", "mass boson sphere", or the "entanglement of quantum states".  :)

A Reflection

The ten year anniversary of EVE Online has come and gone.  With it came the reflection of EVE exploits throughout the last decade.  A commemoration video was released by CCP  demonstrating the graphical changes the game has undergone since its release and giving estimates of 40 mil. ships destroyed, 14 bil. NPC crew members killed, and 15 mil. pods destroyed in the last ten years.  During the height of the buzz surrounding the ten year anniversary I was just coming back into EVE, and I never really gave the event much thought until last week when I was going through my old things and I found this...

This is the original box set for EVE Online when it was released in May 2003, it came with a bitchin' poster, CDROM, and a short manual.  The poster features a Bantam mining the shit out of another Bantam, a couple Condors, Vexors, and what looks to be an early version of an Impairor.  The box has a Fed Navy Comet doing some damage to a Caldari station.

When I found this token from the past it gave me a greater appreciation for really how much has happened and how far the game has come since its launch.  Looking back to my earliest memories of the game, I believe the anniversary event failed to capture the magnitude of all that has changed.  At least in addressing the finer details, which I find enjoyable to reflect upon....

During EVE's release, cruisers were the biggest hull available.  I remember seeing a Moa one week after release and thinking how much of a total bad-ass this demigod of EVE must be to have obtained such a behemoth.  Capsuleers from surrounding systems converged on the Moa in their rookie ships to gaze at this paragon of death and destruction; their eyes gleaming with dreams of one day owning such a ship.

Not long after, battleships were introduced to the game and I made it my goal to obtain a Megathron before summer's end.  Back then mining and industry were really the only options for most players to accumulate any wealth.  Missions gave little ISK and pirate bounties were even worse; level 2 agents were the highest available, no incursions, no moon mining, etc.  It was the players, various plexes that were few and far between, asteroid belts, and stations.  With determination I undocked my Imicus day-to-day, pelting omber after omber with my mining laser of justice; slaying asteroids left and right until I was able to afford a Thorax.  With more than twice the amount of available mining lasers at my disposal, my Megathron drew ever closer.

When I finally obtained my goal I was stuck not knowing what to do next.  I had reached the pinnacle of EVE yet I dare not risk my hard-earned battleship in the open field, and I refused to adulterate my achievement by mounting mining lasers.  So began my pull away from industry and into the world of PVP (with smaller ships, of course), but that is a story for another time.

Back then there was no such thing as signature radius, tracking, explosion radius, and the like.  It was all about who had the biggest gun with the longest range.  One can imagine why battleships (especially railgun ships) were so powerful; having the ability to insta-pop frigates and blast down cruisers in seconds.  The EVE community was in its infancy and it was exciting to make friends and connections.  Null sec was hardly populated and the seeds of the big-name alliances were just starting to spread their hand out over the red areas of the map.

Most of the convenient features we enjoy today were not implemented; there was a very limited social interaction and trade system, no sovereignty, limited missions, no faction warfare, no WH space, comparatively few modules and fewer ships...you get the picture.  A current player may look back on this game and scoff, but at the time it was a remarkable achievement.  MMO's were just starting to make their mark and the complexity of the game was astounding at the time, especially without the online resources we have today.  Although I would never willingly go back to "the old days", they breed a certain nostalgia that many other games from my past cannot compete with.

To see how far this game has come in the last ten years only makes me more excited to see what is in store for us down the road.