I've spent a long time trying to blog again about Eve Online. My interest in the game is somewhere between hardcore and moderate; Best described at this time as rambling melancholy.
The challenges of playing Eve in a PvE slant feels like you have to endure pain to enjoy the pleasure. It's kind of sadistic. It's all had me weighing up the pro's and con's of staying and continuing with Eve Online. Or transferring my interest and efforts to Star Trek Online. How long more do I give Eve Online to fully pay out for my gameplay style in the long term.
So much news is constantly ongoing it feels like you have to wade in to get anywhere.
Like the last patch notes, things do get technically detailed, both in and out of the game.
Ship redesign good.
BUT I'm 99.99% convinced the only reason that T3 ships were "rebalanced" was to update them to apply SKINS to bring in real cash for CCP. I'm that cynical.
CCP work flow bad.
Game balance? What have they been doing internally when developing these new systems, have they not leaned anything from past experience in meaningful ways. Obviously not. Some things never change.
More freaking SKIN's. People wonder why CCP wont' do anything about plex prices going higher and higher. My view is that they want people paying real cash for their omega accounts as well as skins. It's great PR to say you can pay for the game with in game effort but they want it to be harder to do. So you take the easier route and use real cash.
In removing the captains quarters I hope they do revisit walking in stations. I get the technical reasons for doing it but it was nice to stretch the legs every so often. With the removal of the captains quarters I'm sad that there won't be a Fedo tank/cage any time soon.
What really struck me was the dev blog announcment of the captains quarters removal. Specifically this except:
"As we look toward the fifteenth anniversary of EVE Online and start preparing for the third decade".
All I could hear in my mind was my own sarcastic phrase.
"Wouldnt' it be great if the third decade had some kind of code, a companion as part of a boxset that aided and celebrated the capsuleer on their journey in the third decade.....".
My venom and bile has been renewed. Triggered little backstabbed snowflake sucker that I am, Two box sets.... Salty.... I'm so Salty about it....
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I've found that all my Eve accounts/characters have defaulted into a kind of maintenance mode.
Those I do log into are usually ones that need to have skills/ships/fits tweaked or extra assets transferred around. It's all a game of asset and isk management.
Such as Capsuleer Day or the new discovery rewards. If I want certain characters to have the new pod/ship SKIN i'll swap and move the SKIN from characters that do have it, or just buy it off the market.
Ships going for a cheaper price in a historic low... Hop on my "main" and splash some isk on it.
None of the accounts are paid for, so all are classified as Alphas. I've always had my characters based around a faction. The only characters that are not that way are one main character on each of my old paid accounts. Both of them are omni faction/skills etc. So having the bulk of my characters limited by race as Alpha's isn't that big a deal. They all have usable ships/fits and standings to work away.
I do have one true exception, a Caldari character that I've based around Gallente skills and ships. That character was born a Caldari citizen so as an Alpha he is locked out of the Gallente ships he would have normally used as an Omega. However he was once in null with a lot of his older Caldari assets, so on leaving null (a while ago) he had ships and gear that could be repurposed. So in the end it's not a problem.
I know I've waffled on a good bit about this subject and my pedantic nature for these characters before but it's good to review things. Just to see how far I've not gone in my own gameplay style.
To also help with expressing intentions and in turn understand my own process, actions and results for those characters. I'm being pedantic already.
Waffling does helps me to see what I've really been doing and to plan what I should be aiming for. It's easy to get caught in a repetitive loop with Eve, it's such a time sink. Add in my own flaw for micromanagement and it's no wonder then that I've been rethinking and planning character actions outside the game. When you want to have everything just so it can become a game in itself. Eve has a hook in me that way. Some people are like that, I know I am, I also know I'm not the worst at it.
To do anything really meaningful in this game takes time. To really make the most of this you need co-ordination with others and voice comms. That takes too much time. It's hard to pack all that into a normal day never mind a busy schedule. If you do have limited time or don't want the hassle of co-ordination, you start to make choices and for me that's usually to cut Eve altogether or leave it on the fringe with a quick login here and there for the sake of it. Leaving the larger wants and needs to imagination and planning. That whole situation is especially compounded as an Alpha state character, where your abilities are limited. Yes I can buy the super cheap T3 cruiser but I can't sit in it or fit it outside of a simulation, let alone fly it or test that fit in real combat.
I've found that instead of shifting my time within Eve I've been cutting my time away from the game in favour of other games that are easy on commitment. It's not like I can log into Eve and queue for a dungeon run or two like a pug in WoW. Then again I've put WoW on the chopping block as well.
I thought the new, short term dailies might save the game. But after seeing The Agency, I'm left feeling like it's too much effort (a grind) for rewards that are not worth it. The Agency is not imho from a first day look not worth the effort. I'd rather do some level 4 missions and go buy the rewards (SKINS) if I want them.
I'm also not a fan of the way they have specific ship challenges. I'd have rather they put in place a version of The agency for Alpha's and for Omega's. Omega's could get a renewed version for every 10 Million SP. That covers a lot more ground. Yes an Omega may be all about mining but at least every 10 million SP would increase the chance that a player is skilled in higher SP ships.
As it stands at the moment an Alpha can't do the "fly a Tech III" challenge and would probably struggle with the two battlecruiser challenges. As the saying goes, just because you can fly it does not mean you can survive in it.
Even if you do all 6 Challenges per day your still a long way off getting enough points to reach a later reward. That's offputting to me. I applaud The Agency but it's a system that needs a lot of work and more consideration. For me it's a grind, too much of a grind that's not part of any routine, I'm not compelled to go out of my way to do any of it. So I'll wait and pick up a reward SKIN that appeals to me from the market when they are cheap.
So let's see, I'll run through my accounts and characters in login order... Yes I have a login order.
Main - 3 characters - 100+SP Caldari/60+SP Caldari/50+SP Caldari wannabe Gallente.
Other than a quick look at my Gallente wannabe's wallet size (he still has a market in null that brings in some isk) I've no real reason to log a character in. Seeing the character select screen does me fine unless the market items need to be updated.
Main2 - 3 characters - 80+SP Caldari/ 40+SP Minmatar/ 20+SP Amarrian
Again another account and trio of characters that I don't use unless I want to fidget with assets or isk.
Old trail account 1 - 1 character - max skilled Caldari Alpha
No real login or use, with the implementation of Alphas it was good in my mind to skill up such old characters and equip them with the best they could use. Nostalgia and the sake of it. Pedantic micromanagement at it's best, more to follow.
Old trial account 2 - 2 characters - A max skilled Caldari like before and an Amarrian starter character that is about 80% skilled up. Enough ships and gear to match his skills for now. I'll finalise his assets and isk once training is finished. Again nostalgia and the sake of it.
Inherited character from a friend. My friend no longer interested in the game let me pay for a transfer. The character came over as a maxxed skilled Gallente Alpha but does have a good few skills unused. This character was lacking some skills but the free alpha time quickly filled those gaps. She is the only character that I feel I could extract skill from, but i doubt i ever will. Yet again nostalgia and the sake of it (there is a pattern here...)
So that's 10 characters over 5 accounts with no real active use for any of them. At least not beyond a small item market in null and skill training for an old trial. A lot of sentimentally pedantic reasons than any real use in the game. Is this playing the game my way?
I also have 3 more old trial accounts that I used as ninja alts back in the day. I recently reequipped them with a few ships and gear to return to that old profession with a side of ganking. Should it take my fancy. Time will tell if that ever happens but at least I have the "expendable" characters back for the option to do it. They are all Gallente and all are max skilled Alpha's. They have not needed any real assistance in getting skill books. The opportunities system actually gave a good amount of isk in reward for completion when they were skilling up. I'd like to use at least two of them at the same time but that breaks the EULA.....
My wife's account has a starter character with little training. I kept an eye on the skill queue and completed training the initial bunch of skills. Should she return at least she will start out with less hassle. I also reparked the character in a new starter system; Should she return at least she can begin again with agents from scratch. I would be shocked if she did but hope springs eternal.
So 14 characters over 9 accounts.
I have access to a friends 2 accounts with two characters each. It's been interesting as he no longer has a pc or even a laptop with which he can access the game. He keeps up to speed on the game by surfing the web (on a tablet) so has been e-mailing me instructions and chat about developments about what he wants from his charecters. Even he bitches and moans about things and he's been out of the game a while. It may breach the EULA for me to log in his accounts and change things but I'm a good friend so sod it. Besides whats the worst they could do. Ban all our accounts that don't generate any real world income for CCP anyway.... That would be the best way to actually remove the Eve addiction from our systems. Maybe I'm subconsciously telling myself to self destruct this game.....
Access to 18 characters over 11 accounts.
Gameplay wise still nothing beyond one of my characters with a small item market in null and some skill training for old trial accounts. There really is no "activity".
With the changes that the Alpha/Omega implementation brought I did use two 60 day codes from both boxed versions of the second decade collectors edition. I've blogged about them a lot before.
These codes were going to expire with the changes and I thought it best to use them. And I did. The codes gave me two more accounts, my pre Alpha's. These would be my dedicated Alpha clones that I thought I'd use to fully enjoy being an alpha in an Omega's world without sullying my sleeping Omega's. Or shuffling around with my old alts. Pedantic to the max eh....
Both these accounts have a main character that is skilled up to the maxed. I created an alt on each account to also avail of the "free" SP. I may as well skill them up for free.... I just wont' add any extra gear to them beyond a few fitted T1 haulers. So one was for PvE activities and the other was based around PvP.
So no surprise I'm not active on the old accounts I've really been using the new Alpha's right?!!?
Naaaaaaaaaah.
The PvE account is an all out PvE/Hi-Sec carebear. I did gain more isk, LP and standings with that character mainly via a grind in missioning. But you can only grind so much solo, so this character was to join a hi-sec corp for a group missioning angle.I did successfully grind SOE level 3's to gain standings and get an Astero BPC to sell (and then buy the really expensive remaining skills like Gas Harvesting). More for the sake of it as a completionist.
The joining of hi-sec corp's has been a failure, despite jumping from corp to corp, big and small, advanced and starter. The main drawback and thorn in the side are war declaration's. Hi-sec war dec's are a joke, PvE corps really are being picked on by the organised hi-sec PvP'ers. I've seen too many brand new corp's/players/startup's being beaten down like a five year old in a playground being smashed in the face with a baseball bat. It's an apt analogy both for how the newer player feels in meeting the older organised PvP organisations and as a bystander watching it all unfold. Not much an old vet can do but advise. Step in the way and I'd be creamed aswell. Don't undock in what you can't afford to loose bla bla bla.
Eve needs more balance to keep people in the game (crime system, bounties, war dec's), it's not just a hi-sec thing. I may cry juicy juicy tears of carebareishness but having a community in the game means paying members and in turn means profit for CCP. Which in turn allows them to do more for/in the game. I could go on.
It's a year since I made the decision to stop paying for the game, not much has changed to make me come back. The winter expansion is supposed to be all about improving PvE, time will tell.
A carebear side note from one of the corp's I joined. I had a conversation with a new player, a new ceo of his new startup corp. Who mainly recruited by responding to other newbro's help requests. He would help them if he could or learn with them on how to do what needed to be done. Admirable but not very conducive for a corp formation, more of a blind leading the blind kind of way.
Anyway this conversation with him was based around recruitment and trying to appeal to a broader base via a corp recruitment advert. He said that he was working on it. Further in our conversation I found out that by working on it he meant gathering the isk to pay for the advert. He calculated that he'd have the 7 million isk for it in another week or so. Long story short I send him the isk, worked out a new corp advert's wording and smiled to myself at this newbro thinking that the isk for a corp add was " very expensive". Moral of the story is that it's players like this, the real new blood that are the loss to the game after they get frustrated by war dec'd ganking etc they move on to other games. What would Eve be link with an active playerbase consistently above 40 thousand!
The other account was to be a PvP/factionwarfare/WH based character but this soon fell out of favour almost immediately due to time constraints. The alt there is like the other hauler alt training skills for the sake of it.
The PvE is the main account used. No real surprise there, me being a PvE, casual carebear and all.
Time and effort are the real killers to Eve gameplay.
I need time and effort to get my PvP Alpha into wormhole space or faction warfare in any meaningful ways. Not a happening thing fore a long time.
So it all boils down to a login asset management sim. 30 mins here and 10 mins there.
A small PvE Alpha searching for a few good people to fleet with and grind some missions for isk.
Is it my lack of time or the games lack of opportunities? I still don't know.
Either way looking back at what I've done in Eve and how things are now, how the mighty have fallen.
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