Eve Online....

Well, well, well, a freebie worth claiming on the in game store. 7 days of free Omega game time.

Who'd have thunk it! Akin to the way Star Trek Online does some giveaways, but this is one of the few times something of actual value has been given free on the in game store in Eve. I can't really think of anything else that springs to mind. It's a precedent for sure, both for Eve and the store never mind it being of 'real' value. CCP has a hard time of doing things like giveaways of value, real value.... So fair dues to them.... That it coincides with the expansion launch and a week of login 'gifts' is also no real coincidence but it's good for gamers. Or should I say better for gamers. Either way I don't get to say that often at all in regards to Eve and CCP.....  

So once I'd seen the news the first thing I did was to confirm on my main that it was real. It was(It's CCP, you never know what the 'catch' is)! The next thing was to contact two friends, old Eve veterans. One returned within an hour of contact; The other not so much. By'the'by for anyone who reads this blog long-term, the guy who did come back is the guy I mention more for loosing ships and isk than anything else. I contacted him at 11PM his time(we're still on opposite sides of the globe), we stayed online chatting etc for about 30 mins... That's to say I then logged off... He stayed online for another 4 hours reworking his P.I. and production chains. When Eve hooks you it hooks you.

Not sure he'll spend cash on any more game-time, neither will I but I can see why CCP would want to give the freebie etc. It's just so strange that there should be a hint of good will along with the blatant 'pay for our overpriced subscription'(something else to be bitter over). It'll take a lot more 'good will' for my CCP Gripes to be alleviated... But I wont drone on about those I've enough past posts bemoaning CCP actions etc(here, here, here, here, here and here).

So I've 12 Alt accounts from a verity of times(old trials etc etc that I've also blogged about a long time ago) and my 2 main accounts means that 14 accounts are now active. I'm sure that will help with the CCP statistical skew. Of course I have an unhealthy dose of skepticism. Presedence may be set but CCP has a history of not being consistent. This is a freebie that may never be seen again(odds are more in favour of that).

So what am I going to do with my mains and alts with this gift of game-time.... Nothing. CCP has not learned form what STO knows about keeping players active. CCP may mimic in store freebies to get players into the game, claiming from that store and seeing what they could buy; But Eve is a passive skill point game. STO takes active play and gives freebies to boost and be used! Yes that's a very simplified version of 'things'. But for CCP to have meaningful giveaways to draw players AND keep them will take more than just a valuable claimable store item. I'm waffling and it's all very off the cuff; But CCP need to come up with more to make it more meaningful for players long-term. Something like what Star Trek Online's Lifetime sub does. Oh wait! CCP did.... Mystery code(FFS)! I'm gonna stop now before I really rant and link all my old ranting blog posts. With the games third decade on the horizon I'll just leave this here:

"This is just the beginning of what the Mystery Code will unlock.  In the future, whenever we have big things happening—not just across the EVE Universe but across all CCP games—you will find a Mystery Code element to enjoy.
There’s much more planned we can’t discuss right now, but you can rest assured that as we continue our journey into the Second Decade with you, the Mystery Code will be your perfect traveling companion."

Fanfest Panels....

Some more fanfest panels have been posted up on youtube. Here is the link.

It will take some time to go through what sounds interesting and what may be interesting, but these two are on the top of my list:


EVE Fanfest 2015: EVE & DUST 514 Community Panel 

EVE Fanfest 2015: Developing Apps on Google App Engine 

Fanfest over... Good things coming....

So with Fanfest over there is a lot to digest on the Eve Online front.
Overviews of both Day 2 and Day 3 are interesting  There's a lot to look forward to seeing realised in game.


I am particularly looking forward to the structure changes, the full details are here. I'm glad I took down and sold my POS when I did.

Of the new effects coming I really like the look of these two.

POS Shield

Ship Explosion

There are lots more that can be seen here.



The new scope video adds to the mix:

There has been a lot of chatter about Pandemic Legion pushing into Brave Newbies space and the sound cloud clips that have surfaced have been interesting.
Brave-middle-management-meltdown

Brave-evacuation-underway

Fanfest 2015 - Day 1 in review from CCP

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/fanfest-2015-day-1-in-review/

Eve Online Update....

I've had this in draft's for a while now but I'm only getting to write it up and flesh it out now. With luck I'll finish this post and write up a decent view of what I'm doing in Eve with my characters tomorrow. It's late now so I'll see how much I get to waffle and what I get to remove from this.

CSM voting has been completed and I'm glad to say that I got to vote my selection with all my accounts. And the results given in the fanfest keynote presentation today were a win for my top pick.


The scope news spots are continuing and are great to watch.

I really, really enjoy them.

The latest video to carry the story forward is from fanfest and is a real teaser.

 
 Another major part of fanfest's presentations today was the Eve Valkyrie video.

Eve Valkyrie looks like it will be a big title on PC and PS4, I'll be very much staying with it on PC and will look forward to it.
Part of me can't help but think back to when video's like this were shown about Dust514 but I think that CCP had well learnt it's lesson. Indeed Dust 514 may not have had much "air" time or mention at all in the live feeds but Dust is listed on the Fanfest scedule. Listed along the lines of the playerbase and "learning" from the experience. There does not seem to be any current info on what they are doing with the game and where it's future is going.
Dust would have so much more and the community would be so much more forgiving if CCP was clearer on details, for fanfest I'd have expected more. Dust 514 is after all a product and CCP does employ a number of people in the Dust 514 team, why should merchandising and Eve Online models get more of a mention than a subsection of the playerbase that IS in the sandbox.
The current playerbase has already slated the lack of Dust 514 in the keynote and I think the video and comments in the forum best represents the overall generalised view Dust 514 players have about CCP. Maybe my comments are premature as fanfest is ongoing. Things can change. But I read this with interest and the response is also interesting.

For some reason the way CCP is going about their VR games very much reminds me about my love for the Splinter Cell games. I like Splinter Cell. I played it on the original xbox and on the 360, each release after the other. I knew about the Splinter Cell offshoots on phones and DS's etc, but I was never tempted to keep up with them even when those other "smaller" releases had free gifts and unlocked items for the main triple A releases on the main systems. That memory makes me wonder how much CCP will push each new slice of the Eve universe on every platform/system/device they can and how much they will want to swing off the Eve Online branch. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat.


Fanfest is worth watching (http://www.twitch.tv/ccp), the future year ahead of Eve is looking to be quiet a blast. And the Eve Valkyrie should be very interesting.

I'm not a fan of the new UI icon's I can see why they would want to do it but modernisation for modernisation sake is not always a good change.
Maybe it's just me but they new icon's, especially the drone identifiers look very space invader...

As for adding the plus sign on top of the NPC icon's again for me this looks completely naff and throws the icons off.

Overall I think the new icon's add a new form of hieroglyphics to the game that the spreadsheet fans will love bit that if you had to describe all these new icon's to a new starter to the game. really if a vet reading a dev blog is making faces then a noob has no chance. Thankfully they are tweaking these and with luck they will get good feedback and adjust things to be "better".

There is so much information from fanfest, form the keynotes/main presentations, that it will take time to look into in detail and as fanfest continues there is sure to be more information and further details. I have to say that I was surprised by the "stats" presentation, fro enjoying it and for the surprise that the last two years worth of data is available for each character.... I almost looked up one site that would present my characters data but I think I'll leave that till I have more time to really check it out.

Nullsec sov is a key point and as with every ting in Eve is related to so much more, there is no way even with all that's been said and argued about it that a proper conclusion can be seen as the future is hidden in NDA'd material, Even the info from Fanfest hinted at more structures that would truly change the face of what we know... time will tell, the other side of fanfest may be clearer.


Besides Watching Fanfests details I tried looking for more updates to the Eve 101 video's but It looks like CCP has taken over eve 101's spotlight on video's on eve. CCP are doing their Flight Academy well but I did like the 101 series.


There was a great article on mmo player behaviour from PC Gamer that is worth reading.


Evogenda had a good post here as well that seems to echo elements in my own game time in Eve.

I'll leave this post and waffle about my characters tomorrow. Apologies in advance for the spelling, a late night spelling check is no spelling check at all. o7