What Might Be...
I've been thinking a lot about how to describe Eve at its current point. Some of that comes from the flood of new players coing tot ehj game. They will never know pre-phobe teleportation mechanics. Five light years will be normal for them. And with one change a new generation of players are born to Eve. They will never have played during battlecruisers online. Dominion sov is a legend to them. The fall of bOB will be archaic history. Their world has always had the Venture, a compass, and an unlimited skill queue. Most will never experience a clone upgrade.
Change is not bad. Change is just change. Plo sent out a mail that he is closing Galactic Hauling Solutions. With the Phoebe changes it is just not attainable for him to keep up a competitive, smaller, low sec focused jump freighter service. Plo and I talked during the Phoebe changes. I hoped that what would happen to ease logistics would be enough for him to keep his smaller group running. I also knew that it might not be and that was a terrible and miserable thing to have to accept.
Change has no taste when you first experience it. It will be sweet or bitter later. I'm currently watching low sec. With the removal of the presence of third party groups coming in and causing, some low sec groups have started to consolidate. From large group being 50-100 we are seeing groups of 200-500 form. I don't know if this is a temporary thing or a permanent thing. The personality of the people have kept them scattered before but perhaps this speaks of a certain level of need to hold and defend any type of territory in Eve. Combine time zones and assets and there is a tipping point a group will obtain.
For so long my world was a handful of people. Experiencing larger groups is not bad but it is still a vastly different world for me to explore. I don't know if I like one more then the other. Both are interesting and have different pros and cons. It helps with my perspective and understanding of things. That in itself is important. Low sec is large enough to have many types of play. I also want it to have many types of play.
My biggest worries are focused on how this upsurge of large groups will interact with small groups. Will we get medium groups or will it become the two extremes? I believe that because the nature of space prevents any true lock downs this can be avoided. I know that the two operate in completely different ways. But, it is a concern and one that I am fortunately capable of looking out for as long as I am on the CSM. I guess if I was not on the CSM I'd still rally behind it and have to join the CSM...
As for the newbies? They are starting to have their own stories. Here is one of some low sec mining adventures. And here is one of another venture into dangerous space. Some say that the trailers misrepresent the game and that they will leave in boredom. This alone shows that they will not. It is the every day game that brings us back. The interactions and adventures that come with logging in. If we can continue to support them when they are new and not berate them for going out and having suboptimal fun, I hope we can keep them sharing these stories as they play in the world that Eve is. Like this guy.
I can see the new super nova(?) from Sujarento.
Finally! it seems like CCP is back in the game...so to speak.
That star reminds me of the sidebar note "A File is Lost, A Star is Born" in the Collector's Edition book page 76. *hugs boot.ini file hard and hopes that big bad Rhea won't hurt it*
Angry Onions November 27, 2014 at 7:35 AM
Looks like the game is going in fun directions and everyone is happy with it.
I don't, of course, either I would no be "angry" Onions. But then, how can you tell whether you're a part of a minority unfairly treated, or just a misfit in a freak game? There's degrees of freakness even among freaks. Some are freaks who "share the wave" and fit among freaks; some just get the wave in ways so odd that they're misfits within the misfit community. The guys who would love some obscure alien-of-the-week race in Star Trek and despise the Federation and the Klingon and the Vulcan and the Romulan with identical, misfit scorn.
Sincerely, I could not play EVE in a different way than I did. Can't imagine it in another way than I do, either. But, what if I was just a misfit? What if EVE *truly* was about the ships asploding and making firends and backstabbing them... and nothing else?
How could I tell, if the only people I talked to where like me?
It appears that people with a better knowledge and heaps of better information just disagree of me. Like if people like me really don't matter as much as the ones going crazy over Thera and beyond, and CCP is doing the right thing to ignore us and hand out all toys to the well-fit misfits.
Maybe CCP is just right and I am just a bloody misfit in EVE, and CCP is leaving me behind forever and for good.
DireNecessity November 27, 2014 at 9:27 AM
Onions,
From the style of your language I suspect you aren't currently subscribed in the game. If I may request, fire a subscription back up. If nothing else it will 1) give you an opportunity to attempt carving out your particular against the grain niche (which sounds very Eveish to me) and 2) hand you a little space cred. Both pretty big upsides for a rather small monthly expense.
If I've read some of you past posts correctly, you've expressed frustration that CCP Seagull is listening to the wrong people (queue obligatory 'Null-Sec cartel' language) and while that may well be true, underneath such observation is the astounding shift that CCP is actively listening to its players. Layer over that Seagull's particular version of fearless (no sacred cows) and things look pretty exciting. Sure, Null-Sec is getting a good deal of attention at the moment but 1) they sorely needed it and 2) we've no reason to believe it will last forever.
So be an iconoclast, I for one like that about you (who else am I gonna argue restaurant metaphor with?). More importantly, while things are in incredible flux and CCP is actually responding to player input, now is very probably the very best opportunity you'll have to deliver your imprint on the games design.
As with any game, certain play styles are more difficult than others. The nature of a non-consensual PvP sandbox obviously influences this a lot. Two takes on this: (1) persevere. Frame shift: not unfair, just challenging. Take it on, enjoy the difficulty; be proud that what you can achieve, you earned it. (2) put some real effort into alternative play styles (note: more than I was in null for 1 month, logged on 3 times, joined 2 CTAs and didn't like it) to the one stubborn path you may prefer. If it's not you, no problem -- be someone else for a while. Even if you still don't like it at least you'll see better what people are talking about.
Most players that have embraced the "sandbox" do have significant experience of the "carebear" life (for want of a better term), whereas the converse does not hold nearly as often. At the end of the day, one is free to enjoy the best of both worlds. Most happy EVE players I know play both carebear and pirate styles, typically by having alts but not necessarily. Have fun earning ISK and have fun losing it while helping others lose theirs, get the most out of the game.
Hey Dire
Well, yesterday wasn't in a specially good mood for RL causes. But on EVE topic, the matter is that there is no point to return to EVE as the thigns I liked doing sitll are the same and sitll serve no other purpose than do them in a different way -and I've walked that road for literally years. Do missions. Do them better. Do them better with a different weapons system. Do them with a Marauder. Then with a different Marauder with a different weapons system. And now what? MTUs, the mini-siege modules?
Same old thing. Same old missions. And no reward at all for it. I've got good standings with all 4 empires -no purpose, CCP is actually dismantling the whole thing. My security status is perfect (9.9x), no purpose at all, and anyway now sec status is something you can just buy out -how convenient.
Even if CCP focused in adding high end content to highsec still would be just different red crosses to shoot at. Would be fun for a while, but completely useless because it would not have any impact ingame as per inception and design.
"Carebears do nothing ingame, tha'ts why there are no stories on carebears who matter", but why? CCP implicit answer is "because they don't use the tools which involve stop being bloody carebears". My answer is "because CCP doesn't wants to develop tools for people who don't enjoy EVE's current PvP and yet want to have an impact".
CCP is just moving away. Why bother implementing some system so players who destroy stuff fear the retaliation of people who won't come with a gang of thugs but with a team of lawyers? Highsec doesn't matters. The empires don't matter. The future is Thera and beyond.
It's just like a rewrite of Nordic sagas. Just this time Iceland is a cool place that MUST sustain a living (nullsec) and Greenland will not be a bloody environmental disaster (wormhole space) but the gateway to untold richess in Vinland (the New Space).
Norway, meanwhile, will rot as no self respecting viking would ever stain his hands with a laws book and all in all, in case of conflict, just pull your sword and let the blood run...
(I apologyze for going too far with meta... but I think it's relevant to bear in mind who designed the game, who is developing it, and who are those people's myths and heros. All fiction keeps a link to all fiction past).
On logistics , I find it curious after having lived in wormholes for so long that the rest of the game has such a different perspective on logistics. In wormhole groups everyone when humps their own stuff, every bit of it themself. Yet the rest of the game expects a service to handle that for them.
Sugar Kyle November 27, 2014 at 11:26 AM
I've had this discussion wit Corbexx who has said the same thing. I pointed out that those with that tolerance and interest had done just that and such groups ate successful in their wormholes. But we cannot judge all off of the tolerences of a few. If more were tolerant in that way wed not have had these groups rise up so successfully.
In my perfect world more people would chip in and fewer would look down on those who do non explosion focused work.
Heretic Caldari November 27, 2014 at 12:31 PM
As someone who's lived in and out of wormholes, I do understand both sides. The great benefit w-space dwellers have is that by and large, we're almost never that far from getting something to highsec. Even if the exits on one day really suck, at worst, we wait a couple days and poof, nice route. For low and null, but most especially null, as I've not lived in low, they are almost always forced to use blockade runners or jump freighters, because, unlike us w-space freaks, they have fixed terrain that just can't be avoided. Plus, low and null also deal with industry on a scale that would make most w-space dwellers gag, and that kind of scale requires freighters or it's not worth the time and effort.
It's the fixed terrain that's the key. That, combined with the greater scale an the larger size of most of the null and low groups mean that logistics will always be different for k-space. I suspect that, industrialists aside, if it was as easy for null and low denizens to get to high as it is for w-space folk, k-space logistics would look a lot like w-space.
Aliak November 27, 2014 at 2:29 PM
Molden Heath awaits your return when you get tired of your new blue blobs :)
Kaeda Maxwell November 29, 2014 at 7:34 PM
Cause sleepy backwaters are so much better :P