Initial Takaways From EVE Vegas

Check-out time at the hotel is in a couple of hours, so now is a good time to take stock of what happened in the conference rooms in Planet Hollywood. 

Alpha clone state looks promising. CCP wants new players to view the free-to-play, alpha clone state as a viable long-term option. CCP Rise gave a presentation based on his experience running around Tranquility in a character with the alpha clone skillset. Not only did he maintain a 67% kill efficiency, but he could afford to lost 35 ships while doing so. Admittedly, he was a long time player before becoming a developer, so the question is: can a new player with no experience survive and thrive in New Eden? That depends on the New Player Experience (NPE).

The New Player Experience looks promising. CCP Ghost presented a compelling case that the new NPE is a much better experience than the current content. Most current and former players will say that is a low bar to clear. The former Icelandic criminal investigator explained the importance of story to human learning and stepped through the logic of one segment of the NPE. 

Admittedly, I have not run through the NPE on Singularity, opting to wait until Ascension launches on 15 November. I still have a concern about the reaction of new players to the end of the NPE. Will new players feel they are the subject of a bait-and-switch once the voice acting ends and the sandbox begins? I think CCP realizes they need more of a transition, but I doubt a planned part 2 is ready enough for deployment in two weeks. Then again, perhaps that is reason for the one week delay in deploying the expansion. Game companies only get to introduce a free-to-play/freemium option once, so hopefully new players will stick around.

New Eden is getting more populous (and more dangerous). CCP presented some additional information about the increasing capabilities of EVE's artificial intelligence. The mining operations will act as much like players as possible, including DPS anchoring on a fleet commander and logistics (yes, logi!) trying to keep the main NPC fleet between players and themselves. The composition of response fleets will depend on the level of the player threat to the mining fleet. Then again, a player with good standings to the NPC corporation running the mining operation may even receive aid in case of attack from another player.

For the foreseeable future, the old dumb NPCs will co-exist with groups using the improved AI. But I expect that eventually, the new code (which apparently uses less server resources) to squeeze out the older NPCs. 

The Star Citizen vulnerability window is closed. Throughout 2015, I looked at the state of EVE and thought that the launch of Star Citizen could entice a large portion of EVE's player-base away from the game. Originally scheduled to launch in November 2014, the game promised better graphics, a world filled with NPCs that fought like players, and an economy made more vibrant using the actions of NPCs.

EVE Vegas showed that CCP has closed the gap on all of these concerns. The level of art detail in EVE has now reached the level of improved explosions and prettier wrecks. Smart AI is no longer limited to special bad guys like Sansha incursions, Sleepers, and Drifters. Finally, the world, both in the form of NPCs and additional players, will feel more alive than ever. If anything, Star Citizen will suffer in comparison based on the limited number of people who can play together at any one time compared to the hundreds that EVE can currently support. EVE might suffer due to players wanting the space-fighter or FPS ground combat experience, but on most other levels CCP will have caught up to Chris Roberts' vision, as far as I can tell, by the time Star Citizen officially launches in 2018.

Those are just some quick thoughts on the information provided here on the ground in Las Vegas. Now I have to finish packing and check out of the hotel.

A Quick Update About Skins Gambling

Interesting comments about RL casinos lobbying against gaming casinos on OC Vegas @noizygamer

— Niden (@Niden_GMVA) October 28, 2016

Last night I made a brief appearance on the Open Comms Show and apparently made some comments in regards to skins gambling I should develop into a full post or two. Some of my comments resulted from my real world belief that established interests lobby for government regulation in order to secure their economic position. One just has to watch the news for how taxi cab companies lobby against Uber and Lyft for examples. Similar regulatory efforts backed by the hotel industry are underway against AirBnB. In EVE, we call this Malcanis' Law.

Where skins gambling, the category of operation that EVE casinos fell into, is concerned, the established real world interests are the brick-and-mortar casinos. If large amounts of money are wagered outside the casinos, the gambling interests have an interest in getting a piece of the action.

Skins gambling, almost if not totally unregulated up until this summer, is such an activity. Up until the legal actions swirling around Valve, one of the leading experts in the field, Chris Grove of Narus Advisors, estimated to grow to become a $20 billion industry in the year 2020. Indeed, one site, CSGOLounge, handled $1 billion in bets in 2016 before Valve began issuing cease-and-desist letters in August. To give some perspective on the amount, in 2014 gambling casinos and other gambling activities run by native Americans generated $26.8 billion. So $20 billion is a lot.

I'm currently in Las Vegas attending the CCP event in Planet Hollywood, so I don't have a lot of time or access to my locally stored reference materials to flesh out the subject with the word count it deserves. Just know that, like EVE itself, a lot of action is occurring below the surface.

Preparing To Go To Vegas

Over the years, preparing my EVE accounts to go on a real life trip has changed. Back in the early days of playing the game (2010-2011), my only worry involved selecting a long skill to train until I got back home. Considering I spent two, and even three weeks, in Bulgaria on business, that sometimes wasn't easy. In the following years, I became involved in planetary interaction and during my first few trips to Reykjavik I also worried about keeping my colonies operating.

For my return to EVE Vegas, my preparations are pretty minimal, both in and out of game. I have to include out-of-game prep because the meta never shuts down. This year, I picked up a portable charger for my phone. One day at Fanfest this year my phone almost ran out of power. I figure I'd forestall that possibility this week. Twitter is a pretty valuable means of communications. I also picked up a couple of things to drop off with The Open Comms show crew broadcasting the night before the convention begins.

In game, the extended skill queue introduced in Phoebe means I don't have to worry about picking out a long skill. I still, however, have to worry about my training time. The Crimson Harvest event gives out cerebral accelerators and I spent part of the weekend collecting them for my three characters currently training. With Biology V, the accelerators give a +10 bonus to all learning attributes for 48 hours. I gathered enough to keep the bonus going until Friday evening Las Vegas time. Unless my laptop magically can run EVE now, I can't use the accelerators while at Planet Hollywood. But I can use them until 2 November, which means I should try to get three more accelerators to use immediately once I get home Monday night.

Finally, doing all the things to prepare for EVE Vegas put a crimp into my quest to build a Nestor. I managed to meet the nocxium requirement, so all I have to do is mine enough ore to refine 8,500 units of zydrine and 3,600 units of megacyte. The zydrine I get from mining hedbergite in low sec and the megacyte from arkonor in null. Yes, I know just taking my Prowler to a trade hub and buying off the market is faster and easier, but I set up some rules for my quest for the great white battleship and this close to the goal I'm not about to abandon them.

I have a couple more days of work before I land in Vegas on Thursday morning. The event should prove interesting if nothing else, especially since I know where the Starbucks is now. I hope I can use my stars for free coffee. I think I'll need it.

He's Going To Vegas

Hashtag activism is alive and well in the EVE community. CCP's resident punster, after a long campaign waged on his behalf on social media, is going to Fanfest this year.

You asked to #GetAvalonToVegas and that's exactly what you'll get! If you haven't got your #EVEVegas ticket, get one before they run out! https://t.co/Lkl2wUSqRq

— Baldvin | CCP Avalon (@CCP_Avalon) October 6, 2016

Okay, maybe not as cool as players treating all of CCP to pizza, but another indication EVE players are a little different.

CCP's Runup To EVE Vegas 2016

Sometimes playing EVE is not that exciting. Interesting, yes. Exciting? Not so much. Over the weekend, I spent a good amount of time theorycrafting a fit for a Nestor once I finally finish building the battleship. Yesterday, I reworked the skill plans for two characters and spent about 250 million ISK on skill books. I hit the 50 skill limit in the client and will need to continue loading skills later this week. On my third account, between the time this post is published and the time I wake up on Sunday, the character will learn 40 skills. All of that while watching EVE NT's coverage of the first weekend of the Alliance Tournament, which usually guarantees I do not do much in the game for three weeks.

I don't mind too much because we now have the runup to EVE Vegas. Last week we saw not only the release of the CSM Summit minutes but a new video by EVE Online's Executive Producer, Andie "CCP Seagull" Nordgren.


I'm excited about the prospect of getting a schedule of events three weeks in advance so I can plan out which events to attend as well as identify blocks of time I can head over to Holsteins and pick up a milkshake or two. The usual standard at the last few Fanfests was to receive a schedule when I was already in Reykjavik, if not when I arrived at the Harpa.

Between the CSM minutes and CCP Seagull's video, we know a few details about some of the subjects CCP will unveil at EVE Vegas. The New Player Experience (NPE) is receiving a major rework, including the addition of voice acting. Procedurally generated PvE content is no longer just a pipedream but will see its first introduction on Tranquility in the November expansion. Also in November, players will see the introduction of a new type of structure, engineering complexes. The introduction of the engineering complexes should come as a pleasant surprise to those players disappointed with the thought that CCP did not intend to release any additional structures until drilling platforms sometime during the winter. Of course, no buildup to an event is complete without the mandatory tease of the introduction of a new online store to buy real world EVE items.

Based on CCP Seagull's statements in the video as well as the sessions redacted from the CSM minutes, I expect at least three dev blogs to come out between the launch of the 118.9 release on 11 October and the start of EVE Vegas on the 28th. The summit contained two sessions, "Team Genesis" and "Beyond NPE", that CCP could combine into one dev blog. Team Genesis is the development team in charge of working on the New Player Experience. I definitely look forward to CCP Ghost's presentation in Las Vegas on the topic.

The second is the session on "Mining and Industry". I assume that the upcoming dev blog will cover the new structures, but I wonder what other surprises CCP has has up their sleeves.

The final one involves Team Size Matters, the dev team involved in monetization-related features. With CCP inviting so many people to play EVE without paying a subscription fee, the game company will look to lure the new Alpha clone players to part with some of their money somehow. The upcoming dev blog and presentation in Vegas should prove quite interesting.

Normally attendees consider EVE Vegas the more social of CCP's two big yearly player gatherings. But this year, with a major expansion and the introduction of the clone states, players may want to catch CCP's Twitch stream for coverage of the event. They may learn something of value besides which devs can function perfectly with killer hangovers.