…also known as “fix teh lag!!!111″.

I really like where CCP is going this week. Already two Devblogs about the lag issues (one about the mass tests, one about the general problems of big systems and finding the small problems). And @CCP_Fallout just announced that we have 4 more blogs incoming.

I think that the main problem about the lag at the moment is not the lag itself (Although it sucks to loose ship and pod without being able to move), but the communication from CCP. Up until this week, the answers were “We are aware of the problem” and “the logs show nothing” once you had lost your ship to lag. Now, with these new DevBlogs, there might be a chance that the players stop whining complaining about CCP doing nothing against the lag while not participating in the mass tests (Although I have to admit that I never participated either, due to bad timing).

Please note that the following is not a rant, just an explanation. Now, I am a nullsec guy myself, and it’s not the big lag in fleet fights that gets me, its the small lag in the day-to-day work. The big fleet fights take maybe 1% of my playtime, and I can accept lag and blackscreens when 500 people jump into 500 people (Maybe because I am flying rifters at the moment, since my wallet is too low to even fly cruisers). I can even accept blackscreens and massive delays when 50 people fight 50 people, even though I know that it used to work before dominion. What really annoys me is the small lag. The 5 seconds delay after purchasing a module on the market for it to appear. The 30 seconds it sometimes takes to load a system with 2 pilots in it. It really isnt much, but it is so annoying because it just shouldn’t happen.

I am not about to quit the game because of this, but it is good to see that CCP has realized that the communication with the playerbase wasn’t optimal, and that they are now showing what they do, and that they are as frustrated as we are. Or, to quote CCP Warlock:

In the meantime, I can guarantee that the team here feels just as frustrated as developers about this problem, as you do as players. Probably the most frustrating part is that based on past experience, when we do find this issue (or issue) it will be something that, in retrospect, appears incredibly obvious and silly to have caused so much pain.

So we will continue to beat our heads against this problem until we solve it, and then I suspect we will beat our heads against the nearest wall for a quite a while afterwards.

In other news: No news. I had quite some time to log into eve, but due to a mistake on my part, I had jump cloned to empire, and now I am stuck in a trade hub that is camped by our WTs until I can JC back to nullsec. Well, it gives me a few hours off my training time, I guess. And since I will not be able to play tomorrow, it might actually help to speed up “Long Range Targeting V”, the last skill I need before I can inject the “Logistics” skill. Although actually flying the scimitar will require two more long skills and logistics at least to IV, and flying it properly… oh my. Logistics V is a pretty damn long skill, but afterwards, I can cross-train amarr cruiser V and get the guardian aswell, I guess. With the added bonus of getting amarr recon aswell, which I love although I never flew it. If you want to know why, watch this video.

On a completely unrelated note: I have changed the blog theme to a working one that does not take years to load until the Ushra’Khan-Theme was cleared of pluggit.org-links that slow it down.

This was originally going to be two separate posts: one a funny little interchange with a butt-hurt mission runner who’s Domi I popped, and another as a commentary on the recently brought to light allegations of CCP reimbursing peoples mission ships who lose them to stupidity. However, seeing as they fit together so well on the gray-area subject of aggro-refreshing, I thought they’d play nice together.

Laughing Out Loud:

If you shoot at ninjas, bad things happen. I know this little mantra has been a bit over-played over the years, but this is an eventuality, not a possibility, and solid proof of this came the other night.

Getting bored in Emol without finding much, I popped next door to Ammold to see what sort of trouble I could get into. I tried antagonizing a raven and then a Vargur without much success, and then managed to liberate the ships crew from a Navy Domi and a very belligerent Drake pilot who ended up canceling his own mission rather than pay my modest finders fee for the return of his M.O. Tisk tisk. Fun, but no pew.

Finally, I dropped in on a Dominix, finished with his first room and heading towards the gate to the second one. I zipped over to the last non-looted wreck in the room and snagged a piece of ammo before heading towards the gate. Domi yellow-boxed, popped drones, and then very predictably, went flashy red. Bingo. In my salvage Ruppy, I got my disruptor running, deployed my warrior IIs, and started taking out his drones.

The plan WAS, to bring in the Orca for some fancy re-fitting on the fly, but due to getting THREE convo requests and a phone-call all in the span of about 30 seconds, I managed to warp my Orca to the wrong BM and watched as my Rupure went down kicking and screaming to Kubwa’s drones. Crap.

After that, he of course warped before I could bring in the Orca for real this time. Double-crap. So instead, I settled into a long bout of aggro refreshing hijinx. I’d refresh, then swap to a CovOps and try to find some more unwilling playmates, before swapping into another Ruppy and refreshing again.

Finally though, after about 45 minutes, this was starting to get old and I was starting to lose interest. Pissed, I docked up to take a little food break.

However, in docking at the only station in Ammold, I realized that the Domi wasn’t there, despite still showing in system. I did a quick dscan with my alt still parked in his mission and found nothing. This could only mean one thing: safe spot.

Grinning, I swapped back for a CovOps and sent out probes. When scanning for victims , I always name BMed hits as the ship type as well as the ship’s scan ID. This was coming in very handy at the moment, as I could do a large-probe system scan for a specific ID and then narrow it in. Roughly 25 seconds after deploying probes, I was en route in a cloaked covops to Kubwa’s not-so-safe spot.

My grin turned into full on laughing out loud as I saw Kubwa’s flashy red Domi appear on my overview as I exited warp. Giggling, I BMed the spot and immediately went back to the Orca for the Rupture. Pumped, slightly drunk, and still giggling like a schoolgirl, I warped back to my new friend.

What I hadn’t accounted for however, was that the Domi was moving through this safe spot, so when I came out of warp 50km from him, I panicked. Going for broke, I overheated my AB and started powering towards him anyways.

As the seconds painfully ticked by, I began to realize a little detail that immediately brought a shit-eating grin back to my face: Kubwa was AFK.

Astoundingly enough, Kubwa had apparently walked away from his computer with his ship out in space with a glaring aggro timer staring at him. As I entered disruptor range, I locked him up, sent out my drones, and set into a nice tight orbit. Kubwa’s active tank wasn’t much help with no one actually activating it, and the Domi went down hard.

I sat there clutching my sides from laughing through the whole thing and realized that Kubwa was STILL AFK, his pod just sitting there. I started sending out requests through Corp and Alliance chat for a pod-suicider in the area when my new friend suddenly came back to life:

Kubwa > hrm….interesting?  how am i still aggroed to you?
Aiden Mourn > wierd
Aiden Mourn > magic I guess
Aiden Mourn > nice safe spot
Aiden Mourn > =p
Kubwa > wasn’t a safe spot
Kubwa > i left to go pick up my wife
Aiden Mourn > I’d blame her for this then
Kubwa > nah. think this is petition worthy
Kubwa > seeing as how much longer than 15 mins past since i killed you
Aiden Mourn > not if youre looking for a worth-while response
Kubwa > i’ll get my ship back
Aiden Mourn > no you wont
Kubwa > there’s no debating it
Aiden Mourn > but you might get a well-worded response telling you why you wont

Aggro mechanics are a bitch my friend, but go easy on the old lady for this one.

======

The Elephant In the Room:

Apparently, aggro mechanics are proving to be a bit more of an elephant in the room than can be ignored any longer, with the staggering recent reimbursment by CCP to a carebear who lost his CNR due to aggro-refresh techniques by a ninja he’d shot at.

Aggro-refreshing, for those not in the know, has always been a bit of a gray-area in the Ninja’s arsenal of tricks in hunting mission runners that involves literally refreshing the original aggro timer on the carebear who shot at your salvage ship before docking, by aggressing items in space that belong to them: i.e. wrecks. I do want to make it clear that this has NEVER been deemed an exploit officially by CCP, nor do we at SN endorse using actual exploits in Eve.

In light of this event, Paul from My Loot, Your Tears made an inquiry with a senior GM who confirmed that refreshing aggro is NOT considered an exploit. The GM followed it up though by saying that CCP “reserves the right” to change this feature later.

And thats where the problem lies. In making this a case-by-case deliberation, CCP only brings the aggro-refresh bug to the surface without addressing any real solution to the problem.

Aggro-refreshing is not a perfect system either; its bugged to hell and works like a malfunctioning appliance at best: sometimes you need to change sessions (docking/undocking) between refreshing, and somtimes you don’t. Sometimes the timer resets itself, or even disappears completely and other times its stays visible. And other times, you get the random “GCC bug”, which despite the lack of CONCORD warning, flags you with a GCC timer, at which point you can neither dock or change ships for 15 minutes without getting blown to bits. So there’s no denying that its a flawed tool and I would seriously doubt that its a “working as intended” game mechanic. But that’s where my biggest problem with it is.

What I would like to see is a solid answer, a yes or no response, from CCP. Pick a side, and follow through with it. If refreshing aggro via a wreck or can is a viable and fully intended game mechanic, then fix it and get rid of the bugs. And if IS a bug or exploit that’s resulting in reimbursed ships, then just call it that and we can be done with it. Aggro-refreshing is hardly the only trick up a ninja’s sleeve, but I for one would appreciate a straight answer.

Because as Paul also mentioned on his blog, the real concern in this is “how often DOES this happen?” This particular event has been blown into the public spectrum due the mission runner in question posting about it on his blog, but how many others who’ve shot at ninjas, then ignored aggro timer warnings and been killed have had their ships replaced as well? Seeing as I spend the majority of my time in Eve separating people from their ships, isk, and assets, its an issue that rings pretty close to me, and I’d like to know if its all a waste.

o7

-Aiden

Welcome to the nineteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks: The CSM: CCP’s Meta Game? – The CSM, an eve players voice to CCP.Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets toprojects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has not come outthis was not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scamby CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What’s your take?

Wow, what a huge topic. I have been a bit strapped for time. I want to treat this topic in the way it should be, but I want to get this in on time, so, here is hoping that I can organize my thoughts in a cogent fashion. I believe this can be broken down into three areas, the CSM, Software Development, and Player Expectation.

Within discussion of the CSM, there are four areas that need covering. First is the fact that the CSM is a step forward in MMO game development. Second, the concept that the CSM is just meant to pacify the player base without any real input to the development process should be discussed. Third we need to cover the effort put forward over the CSM’s history by the CSM members. Finally we need to discuss the true democracy, or lack thereof, of the CSM voting process.

I feel driven to remind everyone that the CSM is the lone entity of its kind, at least within my realm of knowledge, within MMO games worldwide. Whether we feel like the concept has lived up to its potential or not, it is still a concept that only CCP has pursued. In my opinion that is enough to be considered a big step forward in MMO development and support.

The argument has been made that CCP put forward the CSM concept as a “pacifier” to keep the natives(players) quiet and satisfied that our voice was being heard, but with no inclination to really respond to its input. I would agree that not everything put forward by the CSM has been implemented. I would venture to guess that not even a third of the changes proposed by the CSM have been implemented, though I don’t know that for fact. However, in my opinion, if even one change has been made that came out of the CSM process, then the CSM concept has brought our voice to CCP and it has been heard. Skill queues and ship loadout changes being the major examples of that.

I do realize that there have been a few CSM members that have either not taken their membership and responsibility seriously, have used there membership for the free trip only, or have taken advantage of their knowledge for gain and broken the NDA. However, from the reading I have done across the CSM’s history, the majority of CSM members have been very motivated to listen to the voices of the EVE player base, assemble it into cogent presentation, and have taken those to CCP. Teadaze and Mynxee stand out for CSM 5, but I know they are not the only ones from CSM 5 hard at work. I also have gotten the impression that folks throughout CSM history like Song Li, Vuk Lau, Omber Zombie, and others have taken their election seriously and have tried to do what they can to better the EVE Online for the most players. That kind of dedication within an online game player base speaks volumes to me.

I have read a number of posts and comments indicating that the CSM is not representative of the player base, that the voting process is not high enough profile, and that these things denigrate the value of the CSM. I have heard the “not representative” argument in relation to real life elections as well. If you want to be represented, you have to participate. Abstaining is not helpful. If people want the word to get out, they need to pass it themselves. Some of those complaining that not enough people know are more than capable, and have the tools to bring information of the CSM elections to a larger audience, but don’t. If we want the CSM to be more representative of us, the player base, then we have to be part of that solution, not just commentators on the side.

The second area that needs to be discussed is software development. CCP is first and foremost a software development company. Being a software developer myself, though in the web area, efforts tend to center around what has the best “Return On Investment” and what “low hanging fruit” we can pick to get the most bang for our buck. From all the professional reading I have done about software development, that is a pretty standard approach across the industry.

Within game software development, focusing on the best “Return On Investment” takes on a particular aspect. Game developers primary focus is on growth of the company, thus growth of the player base for each of the platforms they are currently supporting. Tuning of the platform takes second place to this. Bright, Splashy, Explody, Neato, Golly-Gee-Wizz new features is what brings in new or returning players. This effort provides a greater perceived return on investment than grinding away tuning the already existing engine.

Another typical approach within development is to take care of the “Low-Hanging-Fruit”. Low-hanging-fruit are the quick, easily resolved, low resource intensive issue resolutions that help to improve the platform, but pull minimal resources off of the type of development in the above paragraph. Working on low hanging fruit tends to provide a much higher return on investment, so it tends to be a primary focus within development strategy.

Finally, from the reading I have been doing across a number of blogs, forums, and comments, a large amount of the more vocal player expectation is just unreasonable. As a player, expecting the software developer to implement every thing they ask for is just ridiculous. Most players don’t have the technical knowledge of the platform to understand what is necessary to implement their wishes. Without that knowledge, our expectation of immediate response by the software developer becomes even more abhorrent.

I do realize that there are very real concerns with the game platform that need to be addressed, the largest and most prevalent being lag during large engagements. Even though I am not a null sec PVPer, I consider that to be an issue that should be at the top of CCP’s list. There are definitely a number of valid needs that players have expressed that CCP needs to work on.

The biggest issue I see with the whole CSM process is communication. From all that I read, the CSM is trying to keep the player base informed of everything going on. However, CCP seems to be struggling to keep either the CSM informed, or we the players informed of what their real vision for the future. Without that real communications to the CSM, and including them in planning out for the future, CCP is weakening what could be an evolutionary step forward for them, and for MMO development in the future.

See other participants:

1. Growing Pains | CrazyKinux’s Musing
2. CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden
3. CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!
4. Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE
5. A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms
6. CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson
7. Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs
8. CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
9. The Cataclysmic Variable: It’s Crunch Time!
10. The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors
11. CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?
12. Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar 
13. Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings
14. Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo
15. Blog Banter #19: Assumptions
16. EVE Blog Banter #19 | EVE on Real Life
17. A Reality Check | A “CareBears” Journey
18. Quit your bitching | Fly Reckless – EVE Online
19. War has come to EVE | Scram Web
20. CCP and the CSM | Morphisat’s Blog
21. More to come…

Its no secret…CCP loves them some Suddenly Ninjas. From laying the smack-down on EVE-O C&P forum whines, to taming a raging bear-rant in the Missions section, the Dev team at CCP seems to truly enjoy slipping in some ninja salvaging-love, appreciation, and support whenever they can; sometimes subtly, and sometimes very not so subtly.

After a prospective SN recruit asks for ninja salvaging advice in the New Citizens Q&A forum section, CCP Navigator drops a little free SN shout-out ;) . For your reading pleasure and edification, I present: brand new Dev-love. Thanks Nav!

Posted – 2010.05.26 11:36:00

There is a Corporation who are devoted to ninja salvaging called Suddenly Ninjas, if I recall correctly

For further reading pleasure and educational benefit, I present to you the full list of past Dev and GM shoutouts, name drops, love, and support for Suddenly Ninjas and it ninja salvaging community.

You, carebear….yes, you. Taste that? That, sir, is the bitter, bitter taste of you being wrong. Enjoy.

A bit of a link-rampage there, but I just had so much Ninja love, I had to share. And again, thanks to CCP Navigator for the shout-out. Keep on keepin on, sir.

Oh and before I forget, a HUGE congratulations to Mynxee for sweeping the CSM election and being voted Chairwoman of the CSM5! Congrats! (I believe Iceland sells t-shirts, and I further believe you should get me one :P )

o7,

-Aiden

As excited as we all are about what could possible the most pivotal expansion to date for EvE i’m left to wounder if CCP is going to drop the ball again come tomorrow at 18:00 Eve time when parts of the new expansion go live.  As most long time EvE players have come to realize expansion usually equals a lot of down time. Also  for those of us with money tied down in the market get worried how the new  expansion will affect the market and our wallets. The biggest concer for those I have talked with will be the all out carnage the opening up of the planets will no doubt cause. With the war in the north going strong Tyrannis is likely to spread out pilots looking to stake a claim planet side. Or cause us all to blast our selfs all to hell fighting over the same planets.

So as Tyrannis is now only a few hours from full deployment (I hope) I wounder if there will be anything to help out the dedicated miners in EvE. In what has become the most boring, grueling, and down right crappiest profession of choice in EvE  will CCP start taking care of us that mine for ISK or will once again will we get dumped to the side. I know that sounds a little harsh considering hell they are giveing us a whole plethora of planets to discover and fight over and probably get blown up over but still it’s not exactly mining, it’s more planet side production. Even still it is a source of automated income that to the industrial/mining pilots will be a welcome income. I have my fingers in all the income baskets and do a little of everything from missioning to mining/manufacturing, and even go as far as to do trade running in low sec. There is a lot of ways to make good and fast money in EvE you just have to have one of three things happen in order to do it. You are ether really smart and figure it out on your own / You get in with a really good corp and they basically hold you hand while you make money / or you luck out and find someone that will show you their tricks and who knows maybe even not blow you up and pod you only for you to find out it was all lies. I conceder myself lucky in the fact that I have found an amazing corp to fly with and have also been smart enough to figure out some very easy ways of makeing large amounts of ISK in shorts times with almost no risk.

But for now I am going to log off and head outside an enjoy the summer weather for a few hours before all hell breaks lose on EvE. Until next time fly safe, be profitable, and always be ready for war. Oh ya and enjoy the video of the day below and don;t forget to leave your questions and comments below.

The Nun

Because I Got High

Hi there!

I just felt I needed to deliver this before I scoot off to work today. It’s an excellent read, and if you have friends that are interested in EVE Online but haven’t “taken the step”, this could just be enough to push them over. Read it, it’s great!

I’m working on an entry for Roc Wieler’s/CCP Tyrannis contest. As of right now, I haven’t even started it yet.

It’ll be my first step into the realm of EVE Online fiction writing. Exciting.

[ 2010.03.24 02:39:27 ] Mynxee > i might be developing a crush on you
[ 2010.03.24 02:39:32 ] Aiden Mourn > lol
[ 2010.03.24 02:39:33 ] Mynxee > despite our age difference

Voting is now open for the CSM 5 elections, and for more reasons than the obvious above example, I’ve thrown my <insert secret number of accounts> votes in with Mynxee.

Why? To cut to the quick, because she’s spent over 3 years experiencing and exploring this game from what I like to call “the other side of things”, and I think her sheer breadth of experience in this game would be both impressive and invaluable as a CSM delegate.

There are those of us who play this game to do just that; play a game. We look at things like mission grinding as a masochistic and tail-chasing endeavor, we view mining asteroids as a complete waste of free time, and we generally shun the play-style of those we (sometimes lovingly) refer to as carebears.

Are we all then griefers, or pirates, or ninjas? Sometimes, of course, but the larger generalization would be that we simple like to seek out all the angles and hidden facets of this fantastic virtual universe we call Eve. The short and narrow might be the quickest way to high NPC corp standings and LP rewards, but for us,  the scenic route is more fun.

It’s my opinion that Mynxee champions that outlook on Eve; that without the bad guys and the bullies, this game would lose a lot of what makes it so complex and riveting. Her proposed revamps of the broken and redundant UI in the game is something I can whole-heartedly get behind and the ideas she has for re-balancing neutral RR, ECM, and blob-fighting are fantastic.

“But Aiden, you’re more of an asshole, scammer, and underhanded prick than you are pirate, why aren’t you going for Manalapan?”

I’ve got nothing but complete and utter respect and admiration for Manalapan for the DBANK scam he pulled off; truly INCREDIBLE work on his part. Those who got scammed I know have had a few things to say about his run for CSM (Manasi, you’ve got one of my favorite blogs, but shit happens), but welcome to Eve folks, stop trusting people. I would honestly like to see Manalapan run again next term with a more concerted effort on an actual campaign. Sure, I agree with his stance that without the scammers and greifers we’d be “playing WoW in space” but beyond that I was never sure what his actual platform was.

Whatever your outlook or play-style is in Eve is, I encourage you to GO VOTE in the CSM elections. Variety and different ideas are what make this game, and I’ve always thought the CSM should be a well-rounded cross-section of the players of Eve, so no matter what your ideals or goals are in this game, go make your vote count.

I have complete confidence in Mynxee that as a CSM delegate, she will use her completely undeniable love for this game wisely to make the changes that will benefit you as a player no matter your play-style.

o7

-Aiden



Side note: I’d also like to encourage you to vote for fellow Blog Pack member Mike Azariah. He’s got some great campaign ideas even if they don’t align as well with my own ideas as Mynxee’s, but then again that’s just me. Check him out.



post title lifted from Ryan Adams