You may notice that a PayPal donate button has appeared on the bottom right of the site, this is because it has reached the point where I can no longer fund the running of this website from my own pocket.

Keithneilson.co.uk is in some difficulties and will probably drop off the face of the web pretty soon if I am unable to find a source of funding to pay the hosting and domain registration costs.

If you like what I do here, and want me to keep doing it please consider donating.

Alternatively, if you would like to purchase advertising in one of the spaces to the right details can be found here. ISK based advertising is available for in-game services but I am willing at this point to consider advertising for other things for real money (subject to approval and negotiation).

Thanks for reading and hopefully normal service will resume shortly.

M out

Improvements to Planetary features

Increasing usability is a big plus of this feature, the UI is a big of a nightmare and the sheer volume of clicks required is enough to tax even someone with OCD’s patience. I’m not sure about encouraging players to keep tabs on their colonies, I’m all for making it more involving but to penalise players who don’t click on their colonies on a daily basis may be going a bit far.

One thing that did intrigue me in this section was the mention of “the master extractor”. Is this a single unit which allows the resetting of all planetary extractors with one click? I certainly hope so.

Invasion… Sorry, Incursions

Looking at the success of the recent Sansha’s Events it would seemt hat CCP are looking at making these a proper part of the game, extending PvE to encourage more grouping and teamwork in week long scenarios to repel Sansha’s incursions. Whether these will turn in to yet another ISK faucet for PvE players to farm or something a little more involved is yet to be seen.

Improvements to EVE Gate

Forums. nuff said.

I’m not that bothered about the in-game broadcast that can be displayed on the web as I can already do that with twitter. Which says everything you need to know about EVE Gate really: It currently does nothing that other existing tools and services have been doing longer and better. If it was more open to integration with these existing services (like Twitter and Facebook) then maybe I might use it more but as it stands its not going to replace the services I already use for my out of game EVE communication needs.

I know I’ve said it already but: F O R U M S (Yay!)

Revamped Character Creation

I can understand why thery’re not calling this Incarna Phase One (which is what it is really) as they don’t want to leave any room for misunderstanding. This is just the avatar creator. You get to play around with it to figure out what you want your character to look like. From what I understand this will only affect your in game portrait to begin with but will allow you to play dress-up and muck about with body shapes for when you do leave your pod.

So those are the big selling points of the winter expansion, no word of a date yet and TBH I’m more interested in the little tweaks and things that will be sneaking in under the radar. rest assured that when the time comes I’ll be going over the patch notes with a fine tooth comb.

M out

So after a week of awesome, with a Dev Blog every day, I would seem to have my work cut out for me breaking them all down. Some very interesting topics in the blogs, after a eerie silence in the wake of  That Zulu Blog. Technical and complicated stuff ahead, I take no responsibility for any damage caused by brain explosion…

There are so many blogs and I consider them to be essential reading so I’m not go into much detail on each of them. You’ll have to read them for yourself.

THE LAG BLOGS

Need for MOAR Speed – Wherein Zulu announces that there will be a large number of blogs over the following week.

Fixing Lag: Fostering Meaningful Human Interaction, Through Testing and Communication

A blog about mass testing and what CCP learns from it by CCP Tani. Goes into some depth regarding the results of the mass test on August 5th (which I took part in)

The Long Lag

The incredibly clever CCP Warlock talks about one of the major issues CCP are facing with lag on TQ. Whilst not dealing with any specific issue, Walock talks about the longer term issue facing CCP as they try and scale the TQ server to handle more and more players and information as EVE grows.

It would seem that at its root, lag is not a software/hardware issue that can be fixed by writing better code or throwing faster hardware at it. The maths are pretty complex but its to do with the organisation and topology of the distributed network that makes up TQ.

The more data you have flowing around a network, and the more nodes that the network has, the more lag you’re going to get. Purely due to information congestion. Its brain melting stuff but very interesting.

There is some reading outside the dev blog which I think everyone should at least have a look at to gain a better understanding of the specific problem that CCP are facing. Warlock also gave the linked presentation to the CSM at the summit, and I have to say it was very interesting and enlightening.

The PDF of CCP Warlock’s presentation to Para2010

CCP Warlock’s Doctoral Thesis (Well done if you can get through this and understand it, even the abstract made my head hurt)

Fixing Lag: And I, For One, Welcome Our New Automaton Overlords

CCP Atropos talks about the new ‘Thin Client’ tool that CCP are using as part of their testing process.

Carbon and the Core Technology Group

This blog should address the concerns that many have voiced (which I didn’t share) that no-one is working on EVE.  Carbon is a framework used internally at CCP in order to facilitate the re-use of code developed, both for EVE and outsite it, in all of CCP’s projects. This allows technology developed for WoD and Dust to be ‘plugged in’ to EVE and used effectively. Similarly, it also allows technology developed for EVE to be used in other titles.

Carbon is the backbone which will support all of CCP’s future products, such as Incarna, and allow more flexible development and synergy between them.

Fixing Lag: Character Nodes

CCP Atlas reveals another strategy being used to spread the workload of EVE among more discreet systems. Character Nodes basically run independently of the solar system nodes and handle all the data realting to individual characters that isn’t directly connected to interacting with the solar system.

Fixing Lag: Module Lag – Why Not All Bugfixes are a Good Idea

CCP Veritas talks us through the hunt for the module lag bug. Some good pics of the thin client at work and a startling pic of Veritas himself upon discovering a surprising fact.

OTHER BLOGS

The End to Science From Beyond the Grave (and more)!

CCP Soundwave announces the end of ‘Ghost Datacore Farming’ meaning that you’ll have to have an active account to have access to that particular passive income stream.

And So…

The responses to all these blogs have been reasonable and measured. None of them have produced a threadnaught of epic proportions and I think this a good thing. This is the way of things; say something people don’t like and you’ll get rage and anger shouted from rooftops,  say something people like and you’ll get quiet praise and applause of golfing proportions.

Many players on the forums are grateful thatt CCP are communicating more, seeming to have dropped the bunker mentality. The various threads accompanying the above blogs are full of interaction with developers, including CCP Oveur himself. I would advise CCP to keep the momentum up and continue with this level of communication as it was what has been lacking in recent months. This level of openness and transparency is what was needed in the first place.

We want moar communication of at this level and of this quality.

M out

If you don’t want to wait you can get a dose of Dust fiction right here, right now, in the form of my (currently unfinished) blognovel Platoon XIII. Be sure and let me know what you think as I’ll be picking up work on it again soon.

M out

Just goes to show that pretty much no-one reads the forums.

Well the wait is over and I am proud to present you with The Blogs of EVE Online.

The Blogs of EVE Online is a website which not only produces OPML files of Active (posted in last 2 months), Semi-active (posted in last 4 months), and Archived (not posted in last 4 months); it is also capable of producing OPML files according to a variety of criteria which can be selected by the user.

There is a category system in place (though many blogs are yet to be categorised), so The Blogs of EVE Online is almost a directory (but not quite). You can register a username and log in to add blogs and eventually you’ll be able to lay claim to your own blog and edit its details.Let me give you the tour:

The Front Page

The front page has links to all the functions available, with the login/register link taking you to a page which displays your claimed blogs and lists any OPML files that you have generated (more on that later).

Blogs of EVE Online - Front Page

It also lists 4 main OPML files which are generated by the administrators (David and myself). The dates that these files are generated on are included in the filenames for now and they can be downloaded through right-click > save as. It will also list the three most recently added blogs (with links) but I’m thinking of asking David to increase that to 10 or maybe have a ‘featured blog’ picked at random from the most recently updated blogs (the Active OPML basically).

Add a Blog

Blogs of EVE Online - Add a Blog

Using this page you can add a blog to the archive. I would ask that you try searching for it first though in order to prevent duplication (though the script will catch it if the name, url, or feed url are exactly the same). There are 4 peices of information that we require in order to add a blog to the archive and these are the Blog Title, The Blog URL, The Feed Type, and the Feed URL; everything else is optional (though your twitter would be nice as it will allow users to link the twitterers to the blogs). The captcha is not optional unfortunately as it allows us to filter out bots and reduce the moderation load.

You can also add a category (or more) to any blogs you add and we would encourage you to do so, especially if you’re adding your own blog as you will be the person who knows best which categories your blog belongs in. We’re still working on a mechanism by which you can claim already added blogs as being yours so that you can edit their details in the archive but for now, if you add a blog whilst logged in you can choose to have that blog listed under “My Blogs”.

List Blogs

Blogs of EVE Online - List Specification

Here’s where the fun begins. The script can generate a tabulated list of blogs which includes the following data:

• Blog title (link to homepage)
• Feed URL (link to feed)
• Status of blog page (up or down)
• Status of blog feed (up or down)
• Date added to archive (This version of it. The data for the original date of addition to the original archive was not available)
• Date of last update (the important bit)
• Edit link (only available when logged in and you have editing rights on that blog)
• Test Link (checks the status of both the homepage and the feed)

Various criteria can be specified for the contents and ordering of the list and the output looks like this:

Blogs of EVE Online - List Page

Search

A fairly standard search interface, which allows the user to search for blogs in the archive and specify how the lis is ordered. This is important if you’re looking for your own blog in the archive. You can also search for blogs by twitter name, so if someone in the tweetfleet has caught your eye you can find their blog for further reading (as long as their twitten name is entered in the archive)

Blogs of EVE Online - Search

The results are presented in the same way as the list results:

Blogs of EVE Online - Search Results

Create an OPML File

This is where the magic happens. The page below allows the user to create a custom OPML file according to criteria that they specify. The Admins have an extra checkbox on this form which allows them to update the ‘official’ OPML files on the front page. The custom files generated by the user will be available for download immediately but will not be published to the rest of the site, they will however remain available on the ‘My Blogs’ page for a limited time (I’m confirming how long this is with David and will update you when I find out).

Blogs of EVE Online - Create OPML

You can select  the level of activity to include in your OPML file as well as individual categories. so you could have an OPML file which only included semi-active industry blogs if you wanted.

The Rest

Blogs of EVE Online - Register

A fairly standard user registration page.

Blogs of EVE Online - Login

And a standard login page

Blogs of EVE Online - My Page

The above page is only available to registered users and lists any blogs you have claimed, and the OPML files you have generated. At the moment the links to these generated OPMLs don’t seem to go anywhere. I’m looking into it.

So there it is

The OPML archive is now open for business. If you find any bugs or have suggestions for improvements feel free to let me know and we’ll see what can be done.

Some ideas I’ve got for future development (which may or may not happen):

• A browsable directory with screenshots of the blogs
• Allowing generation of untabulated lists wiht less data so that they can be copypasta’d into blog posts.
• Standard filenames for the ‘official’ OPML files so that they can be pulled automatically for use in other services (blogrolls, etc)
• ‘Featured Blog’ listing on front page chosen at random from active blog list.
• More robust blog claiming system.
• Some kind of rating/ranking system.

Other than that I would ask you to play with it, poke at it and generally make as much use of it as possible. If you’re interested in volunteering to help us manually categorize the 685 blogs we have currently listed again, let me know and we’ll get back to you.

M out

Lets start at the beginning:

Pilots License EXtensions, or PLEX, are an item in EVE online which represents one month of game time. PLEX are a way to legitimise the purchase of ISK. Heres how it works:

1. Player buys a game time card, either directly from CCP or from somewhere like Shattered Crystal.
2. Player then exchanges that GTC into 2 PLEX each worth one month of game time.
3. Player can then treat the PLEX as they would any other in game item. Hauling it, selling it, giving it away, etc. They can even exchange it directly for game time in the game, though if that was the point they could have forgone the exchange to PLEX in the first place.

It usd to be that PLEX were inviolate in EVE. You couldn’t put them in a ships hold and haul them about which meant that there was no risk of locing them, or having them pirated from you. This changed a few weeks ago. I had a post all worked out about how this was a ‘bad thing’ but then I had a think about it, and here’s the chain of reasoning I came up with:

1. Player pays money for a GTC
2. Player converts GTC ito PLEX
3. At this point CCP have fulfilled any contractual obligation to redeem the GTC
4. What the player does with it after that is up to them.

The PLEX is an in game item that can only be redeemed for game time and has no value outside of the game itself. You cannot extract the PLEX from EVE and convert it back into real money, and so legally it has no value. This means that it is not subject to the various laws that govern virtual currency or online gambling (such as they are).

As an in-game item, a PLEX is not the most valuable item in game by a very long shot. Players don’t expect CCP to refund them the value of high end modules or ships when they are lost (or they shouldn’t at least), and the same rules apply to PLEX.

What it boils down to is this; if you do not want to risk losing a PLEX (or any other in game item) then you shouldn’t remove it from a station.

The legal question is quite clear cut as I see it, even more so with regards to this weekend’s gankage as it has been suggested that the PLEX lost were bought with in game currency in the first place. If this is the case then the player in question has not actually lost any real money at all.

This is amply covered by Rule 1: Do not undock in a ship which you are not willing to lose (including cargo).

M out

This is just a short addendum to my series about PI, detailing my Production planet and the finalised logistics chain. Read on for the details…

The rest of the ‘Lots of Pale Blue Dots” series can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

I finally finished training Interplanetary Consolidation V a couple of days ago and was able to set up my production planet on a Barren planet in the same system as the majority of my extraction planets. I’ve also switched my gas planet over to all extraction and will be manufactring Oxides on the barren planet along with everything else.

The Production Array

As you can see from the above image the manufacturing network does not have to be spread out according to where the resources are so link costs can be minimized totally. I’ve set this one up with an import and export LP just to keep things tidy, but you can just as easily run one with just one.

The P2 products from the 12 advanced processors are routed through the PCC (not being stored there, though you may notice a little leftover from when I was using it as storage which I changed quite quickly as I lost resources once it was full) and into the two storage units. Each of these storage facilities takes the components for one of the P3 products; Oxides, Biocells and Superconductors to the top, to feed the APFs making Gel Matrix Biopaste; and Supertensile Plastics and Microfiber Shielding to the bottom to feed the Datachips manufacturing plant. The nanites go straight to the LP for export.

The Logistics

For 24 hours of production I need to deliver 1920 units of each of the P1 materials to the import LP except for oxygen which is used in 2 processes, those for Oxides and Supertensile Plastics. I make deliveries on a daily basis as part of my PI routine. Because I’m working in lo-sec I’d like to vary my delivery times as much as possible (in order to make interception harder) but unfortunately the need to keep the factories running precludes very much variation. I’ve got a huge stack of most of the P1 materials sitting in my hangar and will be feeding them into this network on a daily basis for a long time to come.

Flexibility

The advantage, which I forgot to highlight in my other posts, of this kind of network; with having each of the 5 essential planets (Plasma, Gas, Oceanic, Lava, Temperate), is that it can easily be repurposed to manufacture any PI product fairly easily. The biggest hassle will be repositioning the extractors on the extraction planets, but all you have to do on the manufacturing planet is switch out the schematics and maybe throw down a hi-tech facility or two and you’re good to go.

Thank you to all who’ve enjoyed this series, I’ve certainly enjoyed making it and exploring this new facet of EVE. I look forward to seeing how it will be iterated on in future and the improvements that will bring.

M out

At its heart EVE is a game made by the people that play it. The content may be created and provided by CCP but the true appeal of EVE is not in the game itself, but in the people that play it.

In EVE relationships matter, they are important. From the level of the individual up to the level of the big alliances and corporations and their diplomatic shenanigans. I’m willing to be that more people stay playing EVE because of the people they play with than the actual content provided by CCP.

This is why long term players are important in EVE. The longer you play the deeper the relationships you build, these relationships stand as an example of what it means to play EVE. You get to know the pilots you fly with/against, you know who to talk to for advice on certain game mechanics, you get to know who you can trust to go in with you on an investment.

Now, a discussion I had on twitter with @rulesaremyenemy and @fivechairs prompted this post. Rules put forward that EVE’s population is still growing. That may well be but player turnover can be quite high and still show growth, all growth indicates is an increase in CCP’s bank account. High player turnover is bad for EVE because it means a lot of players not hanging around to build the relationships essential to the games success. This leads to players not seeing that its worth building those relationships (because they don’t see the advantage of them) and then the whole thing falls apart. This leads to an EVE where there are no interpersonal relationships between the players, and the churn replaces the population completely in quite a short period of time, then EVE dies.

EVE dies because the new players have nothing to aspire to. They don’t see anyone else flying the big ships because no-one has been around long enough to train for them. They don’t see the characters who have made a name for themselves over a period of years and are respected or reviled by their friends and enemies repectively.

In a game which is based largely on your character’s reputation, which takes time to build, short termers have no opportunity to become as famous or notorious as some of the game’s well known figures (Sir Molle, The Mittani, Darius Johnson, Chribba, and Mynxee, to name but a few.

There are not only ephemeral reasons for why the long term player is someone CCP should be looking to cultivate, there are fairly solid business and gameplay reasons as well:

Long term players attract new players, and players attracted and ‘mentored’ by long term players are more likely to stay and become long term players themselves. This builds a guaranteed income stream for CCP, and gives them free word of mouth marketing to boot. Long term players also generally have more than one account.

Long term players keep the game’s economy running, they fly and manufacture the capital ships which take a long time to train for and need alot of resources to build.

Without long term players building relationships and social networks things like the BoB takedown, Guiding Hand Social Club heist and the recent U’K dissolution could not happen, and New Eden would be a much less interesting place to play.

Without long term players we wouldn’t have institutions such as EVE Uni, the CSM and a (currently sem-stalled) PvP/political/espionage game in 0.0.

EVE needs its long term players, and it needs to increase their numbers, in order to remain EVE. The public quitting of long term subscribers in the Zulu and ‘Vote for Me’ threadnaughts (who’s bright idea was that?) may hide a considerable number of long termers who simply quit in silent disgust, without announcing it to the world (though we can’t be certain, and CCP are hardly going to publish those numbers).

With the upcoming release of a variety of SF MMOs (SWTOR being the biggest) people will move elsewhere for their spacships and lasers fix. SWTOR may even be enough to tempt alot of older EVE players away as most of us got our start in science fiction from that franchise. There have been many tempting games which have lured us away over the years, but we have always returned to EVE. This time it could be different.

Speaking for myself as a fairly long term player, my main is from January 2004, I’m increasingly finding myself dissillusioned and losing faith in CCP. I’m thinking of cutting my losses and moving to another game. DDO and EQ2 have gone free to play, LOTRO is soon to follow, and World of Tanks looks promising. None of them are EVE though and I would like to see EVE continue to be the best SF MMO out there, the question is does CCP want the same thing?

If the answer is yes then they need to keep their long term players happy, they need to give them reasons to stay. If they don’t the churn will get worse and EVE will lose the thing that makes it great; a community that has developed and emerged over 7 years as being the driving force behind much of the game’s evolution and development. A community that has won awards (which should be a credit to the community, not to CCP). We are what make EVE what it is, we are what make EVE successful.

At the moment we feel ignored and marginalised. CCP value new blood over loyal customers, but that new blood will not stay if the general impression they get from us long termers is that EVE is broken and the massive fleet fights that it is marketed on are not possible. New players may be brought by word of mouth, but they can also be driven away.

CCP have a resource available to them that they are misusing. The marketing power of a loyal and passionate customer base is not to be sneezed at, and what’s more its free. CCP need to remember that.

M out

Will this talk put the recent dramas over Zulu’s blog and the CSM summit minutes in perspective, or will it merely serve to demonstrate that CCP really are out of touch with EVE players? We’ll just have to wait and find out. I really hope there’ll be a video available of it.

M out