Pages

Monday, May 5, 2014

Fanfest 2014 - Scattered Final Thoughts

I'm writing this from a hotel in Boston and won't get home until sometime this afternoon.  But I thought I should write down some final impressions of Fanfest 2014.

First, the convention seemed anti-climatic.  I think that was due to two reasons.  The first is the flood of industry dev blogs released right before the convention began.  That drew a lot of interest and then we were just digesting news during the convention.  Usually, part of the energy is learning about new things.  I didn't feel like that was the case this year.

The second reason is the people.  I had a lot more interaction with people before the convention.  Fanfest actually resulted in me toning down the socializing in order to track down news at the HARPA.

I think Fanfest 2014 closes EVE's run of 10 years of steadily climbing subscriptions.  I say that because no one was celebrating the new, higher number of subs.  I'm doubly convinced with the lack of the release of the CSM election results.  Not only is no dev blog published (as of the time I write this) but I looked on the forums and I only saw a player-created thread with the results.  Even when the dev blog is posted, I doubt we will see any data that will allow players to assume the number of subscriptions has increased.

I've stated before that the industry changes were necessary before the vision of s-space beyond the gates we build is possible.  CCP Seagull in the EVE Keynote address spelled out that not only industry, but stations and structures (that includes POS), corporation and alliance structures and roles, and sovereignty and sov warfare all need a revamp before players can begin constructing their own stargates.

I also think that moving to a 6-week release cycle is potentially a good thing.  Not only does that follow what is a growing practice in the industry, but I doubt CCP could implement the needed changes in core systems to enable players to build star gates if they didn't abandon the bi-yearly expansion development cycles.  Of course, CCP needs to adapt to that development cycle like ArenaNet has done with their every 2-week content release schedule.

Speaking of building, I found out at the Vision panel that EVE of Destruction is not just a mixed-martial arts event.  CCP Scarpia, the new lead game designer for EVE, would like to make everything destructible as well constructable.  Since CCP Seagull was sitting right next to him, I'll wager he's not going off on his own.  But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that vision to occur soon.

On the server front, CCP Veritas and Team Gridlock look like they are making progress on improving server performance.  The rewrite of the Dogma code should do that.  With any luck, Team Gridlock will get the code in a state that they can release it onto Tranquility by the end of the year. 

I think the security teams, both InfoSec and Team Security, will get very interesting this year.  The new guy always wants to come in and make their mark.  That means CCP Bugartist, who played EVE for 3 years before getting the job, could start trying to tighten the screws on botters and those selling illicit ISK even more.  Changing the rules so that getting caught buying illicit ISK results in a seven-day ban for a first offense and a permanent ban for the third is a nice start.  I can't wait to watch the presentation on YouTube.  I think I missed a lot by actually watching it in person.

As for EVE: Valkyrie, I don't really care.  I don't like combat flight simulators and that's what Valkyrie is.  But a lot of people do, so I hope CCP is successful with bringing the game to market.  And before anyone asks, I did try the game.

Finally, about DUST 514.  I've watched SOE close down games like The Matrix and Star Wars: Galaxies and the following player gathering in Las Vegas turned into a wake for the game.  I don't know how I would feel to take a trip and get the impression that the game I came to celebrate was now either dead or about to die.  Especially if I spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to attend the event.  Not cool.

I had planned to attend the DUST Keynote, but got tied up with the Security roundtable.  That keynote is another session I have to watch.

I know I missed a bunch of other things, but I'll try to get around to writing posts with that information later.  I really can't avoid doing so if I want to write about the industry changes.  But those aren't really specific to Fanfest and I just jotted down the highlights of my experience in Reykjavik this year.

16 comments:

  1. Your insight and, dare I say, cold analysis of Eve is always a pleasure to read. Pregnant with content and a qualitatively detached pov -- very nice. Meaningful to we newer players as many blogs aren't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm not sure we haven't grown. The number of new players after B-R was so high the rookie systems went into TiDi. Surely some fraction of those must have stuck around?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to pull out a new graph and plug in some concurrency numbers to go along with the other analysis.

      Delete
  3. Thanks for the great post Nosy. With the new direction CCP is taking Eve, Dust, and Valkyrie perhaps not growing the players base too quickly, while they're trying to make core server changes, isn't really a bad thing - last thing I want them to do is bite off more than they can chew, however, maybe they already have.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think you are hanging around with too many bitter vets Nosy. Eve is growing unlike any game in the world right now. With Legion going to the PC, and Valk upcomming, CCP will have a solid offering for the 3 main sci/fi game types. Pretty impressive that they all link lore and possiably even link effects.

    Hang in there. It may be a few miles down the road to see the subs rise, but they are in a great position for the future if they can deliver.

    Credacom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THIS. +1

      And one thing to remember, we really should at some point start to think about how all EVE, DUST (415 and Legion) and Valkyrie subs are ONE set of subs for CCP and should all be counted as the EVE Universe playerbase...

      So as CCP has stated flatly that they are NOT shutting down D:415, if Legion takes off (I for one WILL have Tur there!), if Valk takes off (from all accounts it really should)... then 'EVE's subs' will = 'CCPs total subs' for all the games tjhat take place and part IN the EVE 'verse.

      Delete
    2. @Anonymous - You'll have to provide figures, because all the hard data at my disposal tells me EVE Online lost subs last year. The clincher is that CCP is not boasting of higher subscription numbers. EVE is not growing.

      @TurAmarth - Sorry, but I disagree that all the accounts for all the games should be combined. Then you have a completely invalid measure, as EVE is a subscription game & DUST/Legion is F2P. Can't combine the two. You do that, everyone in the genre will 1) laugh & 2) start asking if the numbers are so bad that CCP is trying to hide something. That would be like Blizzard combining the numbers for WoW, Warcraft 3, and Hearthstone. They're all in the same universe, right?

      Delete
    3. Only CCPgames can kill EvE.

      Regards, a Freelancer

      Delete
  5. See what happens when Roc isn't there?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I notice the punishments are all about buying ISK, but nothing about selling ISK.

    Did the security roundtable touch on the other side of the transaction , or is CCP turning a blind eye towards the sellers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No they aren't. In fact, the two people who do the bulk of the work on the anti-botting front, Peligro & Grimmi, are going to devote more, if not all, of their time on anti-bot/RMT activities. If you notice, Grimmi has traded in his GM tag for a CCP tag.

      Don't be too dismissive on the effect banning buyers will do to the RMT shops. My theory is that it will force the shops to lower their prices even more, which lowers profit margins. I think I can even test that theory and produce a graph like the one Dr. Eyjo seems to like so much.

      The only direct mention of the sellers is that they started releasing more numbers about people getting banned. I really want to know the alliance that made up 21% of all bans for botting/RMT. At that scale, the obvious guess is that one of the null sec alliances had its rental empire smacked.

      I'm optimistic, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching to see if the new crew comes in and starts to backslide.

      Delete
  7. Sellers will come as long as there are buyers. Also the grand isk seizes have been mainly Seller, am I not correct?

    ReplyDelete
  8. hitting the demand side of Rmt is risky especially when you dont have a strong pull of new players into the game

    ReplyDelete
  9. When you recover from Fanfest, how about an expose that details the ways in which ISK sellers try to disguise the true nature of the transactions when getting that ISK to players in-game. Money laundering in EVE has got to be a bit more complex than passing it through a temp account that's soon biomassed, or leaving PLEXes in an abandoned can at a far-off moon in a deserted system. Contract system shenanigans? Market-fu to make it look "legit"?

    I've THOUGHT about buying ISK from one of the illicit sellers, mostly when I was at the beginning of my EVE career and broke, but never actually done it. Even when I was new, I was aware that CCP strongly disapproved of such things. I couldn't envision how I could do it WITHOUT getting caught, and that's one reason why I never followed through. I guess my mind isn't devious enough :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It wouldn't be much of an expose. The really successful ones try to hide it in massive transactions. Any other method is so secret I don't know about it.

      Delete
  10. If the CSM was told about faction stations before Fanfest, I missed it. The combination of that, the announcement that the devs want everything player-buildable in space to be player-destructable, and the announcement that stations and starbases is second on the list of upcoming big changes leads me to think that these changes will become viable around the same time.

    There's every reason to think that the first couple of dozen or more stations to be destroyed will be destroyed by the people living in them and faction stations will take their place.

    ReplyDelete