The Mittani is the master of the Eve metagame, riding that skill to internet gaming celebrity and the chairmanship of Eve Online’s 6th Council of Stellar Management. On the eve of assuming the chairmanship of the 7th CSM after his crushing victory in the March elections he made a fatal mistake that his enemies seized upon, leaving CCP no choice but to strip The Mittani of his title and place on New Eden’s player council.
Despite attending the 2012 Fanfest I missed witnessing the event by not attending the Alliance Panel. At the panel were several alliance CEO’s, including Dirt Nap Squad’s DNS Black and The Mittani, head of Goonswarm Federation. Both had appeared on the previous year’s panel and mixed up their presentations to be less than serious in an effort to entertain the crowd. In fact, The Mittani’s presentation the year before was not very good and he was visibly trying to impress the crowd.
The reason I mention DNS Black is that the hard drinking ex-Marine is always willing to share his beloved Jagermeister with others. He is also a happy drunk as I found out on the Golden Circle tour the day before the convention began. In other words, he is the type of person you want to hang around because sober or drunk he is very likable. And with DNS Black and The Mittani sitting together the alcohol began to flow.
After watching DNS Black’s presentation on how Dirt Nap Squad penetrated Jovian space then shooting The Mittani with magic missiles before presenting The Mittani with a genuine Jovian wizard’s hat, my interpretation of the video indicates that The Mittani thought he would be funnier if drunk. So in addition to what he had already drank he downed a couple more shots. A big mistake in judgment. Unlike DNS Black, The Mittani is a sloppy drunk and it really showed.
Also unlike DNS Black, whose presentation poked good-natured fun at CCP’s closure of Jovian space, The Mittani’s presentation poked fun at other players. Actually an appropriate choice for the head Goon as it demonstrated the GSF attitudes toward the game, but a presentation that I believe really required The Mittani to not get more that slightly buzzed in order to pull of properly. That didn’t happen.
After Fanfest ended The Mittani’s enemies seized upon a slide of a miner’s letter implying that he was suicidal after undergoing a bad divorce. Given that this is Eve I think everyone in the audience believed the letter was an effort to get someone to feel bad and compensate him for the 22 Hulks he lost in a smartbombing attack. I know I did as I watched the presentation. But in fairness to The Mittani, his PowerPoint presentation did undergo CCP review and they allowed it because the The Mittani made no mention of any player names. But in my opinion The Mittani was really feeling the alcohol and that part of the presentation was rated NC. No class.
With one half of the panel drunk CCP Xhagen attempted to close down the panel as it ran long but the audience wanted to ask questions. The panel still almost managed to close down without incident until a player indicated that the miner The Mittani poked fun at had also been driven out of the Drone Regions also. After the player told The Mittani that a second time The Mittani decided to shout out the miner's name and encouraged everyone to track him down to try to get him to kill himself.
Being at Fanfest staying in a hotel with flaky internet service I didn't catch the early rumblings about the call to gank the miner. From the little I read and heard in the Harpa center the controversy was that members of the panel, especially The Mittani, were a disgrace because they drank and used bad language. I didn't hear about the suicide controversy until I got back home on Tuesday. Not only did I find a threadnaught calling for The Mittani's ouster, but a player had contacted Eurogamer to get the media ball rolling.
The Mittani first issued an apology for his statement on the forums. But the apology was too late as CCP had already begun an investigation. As pressure grew from both the player base and the media, The Mittani carried through with his pledge to resign as chairman of the CSM on Wednesday. But two hours later CCP issued their own ruling, totally removing The Mittani from CSM7 and banning him from Eve for 30 days for violating the EULA/TOS.
The Mittani's reaction in the 29 March State of the Goonion is similar to that following the Incarna debacle last summer. Then, he called for calm toward the devs like CCP Soundwave who were taking a lot of heat and wanted to direct any rage against the top leadership of CCP. Now, he is pointing to the large press contingent that was flown in to cover DUST 514 at Fanfest and suggesting that CCP may be succumbing to pressure by Sony to make Eve Online less controversial. As a test Goonswarm will hold a Free Mittani event in which they take 1800 Tornadoes and burn Jita to the ground on 28 April, The Mittani's first day back. Depending on CCP's reaction The Mittani will decide what steps to take next. Given new CCP Marketing Director David Reid's statement in his speech at the CCP Presents event at Fanfest, this Free Mittani event should be something that CCP should trumpet. If a crackdown occurs instead, the game might have changed.
Showing posts with label fanfest_2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fanfest_2012. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Fanfest 2012 - Day 3
Saturday began, as expected, with a hangover. However, the never-ending supply of hot water available in Iceland really came in handy and by the time I left the hotel for the first event of the day I felt pretty good.
In typical CCP fashion the first presentation at 1100, "Growing Eve's Infrastructure", involved lots of numbers. Did I mention that CCP has a bit of a sadistic streak? The impressive numbers that I noted were that Tranquility has grown to 220 Sol servers and 48 proxy servers. The proxy servers handle tasks such as connection negotiation, routing and data integrity checks. They route traffic to and from the Sol layer. Sol servers are where all the processing missioning, mining and fighting are computed and shared out via various proxy servers to other clients. These servers have a combined 1 terahertz of processing power and 4 terabytes of RAM. The proxy servers are designed to handle up to 40,000 concurrent players, which is good because with the introduction of DUST 514 CCP expects the peak concurrent users to increase by a factor of 10. Yipes!
One thing I am concerned about is a possible move to virtualize Tranquility. CCP has already virtualized a lot of other servers with no issues. I even see how virtualization could aid in combating lag as resources would move around from underpopulated nodes to large fleet fights automatically. I'm mainly concerned if a server is vMotioned whether that would lead to nodes disconnecting all the players in the fight.
Following the infrastructure presentation at 1200 was the "War Declarations" presentation. The Eve-O forums contain a good summary of the presentation so I'll just make a couple of observations. The first is that while we were told one of the basic questions was whether there was a problem with the war dec system, the problem became widely acknowledged with the GMs allowing practices that used to be considered exploits to become common practice.
Another thing that struck me is that while the devs are putting in features like war reports and war histories to attract those outside of high sec to declare war, I still don't see null sec alliances doing so. For example, the current proposed pricing structure for wars I think would preclude that. For example, I think war deccing the Goons would cost 3.5 billion isk per week. I think that the cost will actually reduce the number of war decs as high sec corporations will no longer be able to declare nuisance wars against the large null sec alliances where the only combat occurs in Jita.
The good thing is that the changes to the war dec system are still in progress so I hope the devs take in player feedback about the holes in the system.
I felt a bit run down so I took a break until 1400. That first presentation with all those numbers really took a lot out of me. But eating some crackers, downing some aspirin, drinking lots of water and lying down for a bit left me refreshed for the next presentation I attended, "Eve Online vs. The Real World". The presentation was given by a graduate student from the University of Aberdeen who did his thesis on real world security and international relations theories as applied to Eve. I just put down my pen and enjoyed the talk. If the video gets posted to YouTube I highly recommend watching.
The next event I attended at 1500 was the War Declarations round table. I sat back as I watched the folks from Eve University, some mercs and some griefers discuss the mechanics. A very informative session that showed me just how broken the war dec mechanics were. For instance, people would drop corp, fly through two systems to another station and then rejoin corp. Yes, definitely broken.
With the end of the round table it was time to go to the main hall for the "CCP Presents" talk. This final session gave us CCP's vision of the future. On Friday Hilmar told us of the first 4 ages of CCP. On Saturday he told us of the fifth planned age from 2012-2015 which would begin with the launch of DUST 514 and would end with the launch of World of Darkness. That's right, no one put the stake through the vampire's heart and the game will see the light of the moon yet. Or that is the plan.
Next up was CCP's Chief Technology Officer Halldor Fannar. The big news was the demonstration of improved graphics but with a requirement of dedicating a team of 5 developers for a year on implementing the graphics the question of whether to put forth that effort will go to the player base. The other big news was that the purchase of GTX 560 video cards is now possible for the cost of 20 PLEX. I'm not sure I like that idea since I anticipate some cash strapped governments would use the exchange of virtual currency for physical objects as an excuse to tax my in game earnings.
After the CTO came the new head of CCP Marketing David Reid. He gave a great talk, but I have the same feeling as Wilhelm from The Ancient Gaming Noob about the former NC West President of Publishing. Does anyone remember the Tabula Rasa "we're triple-A and here to stay" interview given a month before the announcement that the servers would close? So I think this is a good time to list his "2012 Laws of CCP Marketing".
Following David Reid came DUST 514's executive producer Brandon Laurino. After giving the standard information from the Thursday presentation he decided to drop a couple of bombs. DUST will have PvE in the form of combat against rogue drones. DUST will also introduce gladiator arenas in 2013 in which battles can be observed and wagered on within both DUST and Eve. Also in 2013 combat on non-temperate planets and MTACs are planned.
Next came Eve Online's producer John Lander. Most of what he said was just a review of everything I'd heard over the past 3 days so I just sat back and relaxed. Then Hilmar came back out and introduced the new Eve trailer based on the story of Templar One. I was really hoping that the video was a trailer for an Eve Online movie but after a bit of reflection I figured that the orgy scene would cause some problems.
With the end of CCP Presents only one more event remained: The Party at the Top of the World. I walked back to the hotel, stopping by Hlölla Bátar for one of their delicious subs for dinner. The party was listed to begin at 8pm but was delayed a bit for some setup. I have to admit I was pretty tired but managed to make it through RoXoR's set and see Permaband's two songs, ending with HTFU. I called it a night around 11pm and went back to the hotel after 3 beers to catch some much needed sleep.
In typical CCP fashion the first presentation at 1100, "Growing Eve's Infrastructure", involved lots of numbers. Did I mention that CCP has a bit of a sadistic streak? The impressive numbers that I noted were that Tranquility has grown to 220 Sol servers and 48 proxy servers. The proxy servers handle tasks such as connection negotiation, routing and data integrity checks. They route traffic to and from the Sol layer. Sol servers are where all the processing missioning, mining and fighting are computed and shared out via various proxy servers to other clients. These servers have a combined 1 terahertz of processing power and 4 terabytes of RAM. The proxy servers are designed to handle up to 40,000 concurrent players, which is good because with the introduction of DUST 514 CCP expects the peak concurrent users to increase by a factor of 10. Yipes!
One thing I am concerned about is a possible move to virtualize Tranquility. CCP has already virtualized a lot of other servers with no issues. I even see how virtualization could aid in combating lag as resources would move around from underpopulated nodes to large fleet fights automatically. I'm mainly concerned if a server is vMotioned whether that would lead to nodes disconnecting all the players in the fight.
Following the infrastructure presentation at 1200 was the "War Declarations" presentation. The Eve-O forums contain a good summary of the presentation so I'll just make a couple of observations. The first is that while we were told one of the basic questions was whether there was a problem with the war dec system, the problem became widely acknowledged with the GMs allowing practices that used to be considered exploits to become common practice.
Another thing that struck me is that while the devs are putting in features like war reports and war histories to attract those outside of high sec to declare war, I still don't see null sec alliances doing so. For example, the current proposed pricing structure for wars I think would preclude that. For example, I think war deccing the Goons would cost 3.5 billion isk per week. I think that the cost will actually reduce the number of war decs as high sec corporations will no longer be able to declare nuisance wars against the large null sec alliances where the only combat occurs in Jita.
The good thing is that the changes to the war dec system are still in progress so I hope the devs take in player feedback about the holes in the system.
I felt a bit run down so I took a break until 1400. That first presentation with all those numbers really took a lot out of me. But eating some crackers, downing some aspirin, drinking lots of water and lying down for a bit left me refreshed for the next presentation I attended, "Eve Online vs. The Real World". The presentation was given by a graduate student from the University of Aberdeen who did his thesis on real world security and international relations theories as applied to Eve. I just put down my pen and enjoyed the talk. If the video gets posted to YouTube I highly recommend watching.
The next event I attended at 1500 was the War Declarations round table. I sat back as I watched the folks from Eve University, some mercs and some griefers discuss the mechanics. A very informative session that showed me just how broken the war dec mechanics were. For instance, people would drop corp, fly through two systems to another station and then rejoin corp. Yes, definitely broken.
With the end of the round table it was time to go to the main hall for the "CCP Presents" talk. This final session gave us CCP's vision of the future. On Friday Hilmar told us of the first 4 ages of CCP. On Saturday he told us of the fifth planned age from 2012-2015 which would begin with the launch of DUST 514 and would end with the launch of World of Darkness. That's right, no one put the stake through the vampire's heart and the game will see the light of the moon yet. Or that is the plan.
Next up was CCP's Chief Technology Officer Halldor Fannar. The big news was the demonstration of improved graphics but with a requirement of dedicating a team of 5 developers for a year on implementing the graphics the question of whether to put forth that effort will go to the player base. The other big news was that the purchase of GTX 560 video cards is now possible for the cost of 20 PLEX. I'm not sure I like that idea since I anticipate some cash strapped governments would use the exchange of virtual currency for physical objects as an excuse to tax my in game earnings.
After the CTO came the new head of CCP Marketing David Reid. He gave a great talk, but I have the same feeling as Wilhelm from The Ancient Gaming Noob about the former NC West President of Publishing. Does anyone remember the Tabula Rasa "we're triple-A and here to stay" interview given a month before the announcement that the servers would close? So I think this is a good time to list his "2012 Laws of CCP Marketing".
1. We don't need to make Eve something it is not.Let's see if he carries through with this list.
2. We don't need Jesus features to get new players.
3. We will launch DUST as a AAA shooter.
4. We will create moments out of our Eve experiences.
5. We will portray New Eden and its citizens with authenticity.
Following David Reid came DUST 514's executive producer Brandon Laurino. After giving the standard information from the Thursday presentation he decided to drop a couple of bombs. DUST will have PvE in the form of combat against rogue drones. DUST will also introduce gladiator arenas in 2013 in which battles can be observed and wagered on within both DUST and Eve. Also in 2013 combat on non-temperate planets and MTACs are planned.
Next came Eve Online's producer John Lander. Most of what he said was just a review of everything I'd heard over the past 3 days so I just sat back and relaxed. Then Hilmar came back out and introduced the new Eve trailer based on the story of Templar One. I was really hoping that the video was a trailer for an Eve Online movie but after a bit of reflection I figured that the orgy scene would cause some problems.
With the end of CCP Presents only one more event remained: The Party at the Top of the World. I walked back to the hotel, stopping by Hlölla Bátar for one of their delicious subs for dinner. The party was listed to begin at 8pm but was delayed a bit for some setup. I have to admit I was pretty tired but managed to make it through RoXoR's set and see Permaband's two songs, ending with HTFU. I called it a night around 11pm and went back to the hotel after 3 beers to catch some much needed sleep.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Fanfest 2012 - Day 2
On Friday I woke up, ate breakfast and showed up early to the Harpa center. I really believe that CCP has a sadistic streak in them by always scheduling CCP Dr.EyjoG's "State of the Economy" presentation at 10am in the main Tranquility hall. But the time is not as bad as it sounds. Either that or I was smart and just didn't drink much the night before. But I learned a lot about the New Eden economy by getting up early.
The first major thing I noted was the demographics show players moving away from null sec and into wormholes. Null sec went from having 16.2% of the population to having 15% and w-space saw a corresponding increase from 4.2% to 5.4%. The demographics also show that older players move from high sec to other areas. While 71.5% of players stay in high sec overall, only 65.3% of players with over 5 million skill points remain in high sec. And when excluding Jita, the population in Caldari space is actually declining while that of Amar is increasing. Dr. EyjoG believes this is a function of the Amar Empire's size and that population pressure is forcing players into the traditionally underpopulated systems.
Inflation is a big worry for Dr. EyjoG as the isk faucets are pouring in 24 trillion isk per month more than the isk sinks can remove. New Eden's GUP (gross user product) increased by 15% in 2011 (or YC113 for roleplayers) which Dr. EvjoG indicates shows that Eve has made up for all the players lost during the Summer of Rage. One of the big culprits, if not the biggest, to the wave of inflation is incursions. According to the statistics, 5% of the population in Eve takes part in the anti-Sansha efforts. What part of incursions do pilots run the most? Vanguards. I would expect a Vanguard nerf in the very near future.
Another area of concern is the PLEX market. The PLEX market now represents 25% of the total trade in Eve. The CSM is going to receive a new role as a watchdog over CCP's efforts to regulate the market. Dr. EyjoG revealed that there are over 10,000 PLEX on banned accounts that the Eve Central Bank could use to intervene in the markets. A new organization, the CCP PLEX Council, consisting of Dr. EyjoG, a senior developer, and a player (most likely a CSM member) will oversee the PLEX market. With the advent of the CCP/CSM Skype channel, this type of conversation should be possible whenever needed. For those who think the CSM doesn't have power, you might want to think again.
I would like to make one additional observation before moving on. Throughout Dr. EyjoG's presentation, no mention of subscriber numbers or actual number of pilots was given. In fact on one chart the numbers were clumsily blacked out. I don't know if this is to hide that subscriptions didn't actually increase very much to players or is now proprietary information because CCP is looking to take itself public. That said, I do believe CCP when it states that subscription numbers went up last year. I am skeptical of claims that the game has 400,000 paid (real life money or PLEX) subscriptions and the lack of numbers hardens that suspicion.
At 1100 was the "Ship Balancing" presentation. I admit the dev blog on ship balancing left me a bit confused so I welcomed the opportunity for CCP Ytterbium to explain exactly what the reasoning behind the moves. After listening to the explanation, things started to make more sense. Personalizing the presentation, why should Rosewalker need to learn Assault Ships and Heavy Assault Ships to fly the Slepnir command ship or Logistics to fly a Claymore? I think the proposed path that all she needs to learn is Minmatar Battlecruisers V makes sense. Of course, the fact that he already has Battlecruisers trained to 5 makes me a little uneasy about what happens when the expansion does come out.
After the ship balancing presentation I quickly ran out to the concession stand to get a nutritious meal of a brownie and water before the noon presentation "Year In Lag" by CCP Veritas. Admittedly I sat back and watched as he pulled out several very impressive graphs and failed to take notes. But the basic thrust of his talk is that Team Gridlock has made great strides on the servers and the next area that would gain the greatest return for the effort is working on the Eve client.
Once CCP Veritas finished, I made my way to Singularity for CCP Sreeg's presentation on "Eve Security". As tempting as watching the Faction Warfare presentation was, I just had to see the goodies CCP Sreegs would unleash. And I wasn't disappointed.
CCP Sreegs first surprised me with one of his first slides documenting his successes in 2011 and The Nosy Gamer featured at the bottom of the slide. I was so surprised that when he said he believed the gentleman who runs the blog is in the hall that I didn't raise my hand or otherwise take a bow. I'm not sure what surprised me more, the mention of the blog or that he knew I was in Iceland.
But enough about me, what about bots? First, the majority of characters banned have under 20 million skillpoints, with the most flown ships the Tengu, Hulk and Raven Navy Issue. Surprisingly, the security team caught on player botting in a Nyx. Really?!
As for the changes, the one where accounts are flagged as botters can no longer transfer characters was known before Fanfest. Two new ones are that bannings will be done daily, which means the algorithms that detect bots must be pretty good by now. Only one player was confirmed as being a false positive with a second about to be confirmed. Also, effective the week before Fanfest CCP began removing all of the money earned by bots from accounts. If the character is a mining bot, then a value of the minerals is determined and deducted from a character's wallet.
Among other security news is that two factor authentication will probably begin around July, but that is not confirmed. I'll have to review the presentation once it hits YouTube for additional details as I was most concerned with bots.
After the presentation I went down to introduce myself to CCP Sreegs. I waited awhile as people talked with him, including the gentleman who was falsely banned. During the presentation CCP Sreegs said that CCP would take care of people affected and he confirmed he was well taken care of. I then had a brief chat with the security chief as we walked out of the room as the next presentation began.
I had 90 minutes to kill before the Eve Keynote address so I made the five minute walk back to the hotel, grabbed some crackers, took some aspirin and drank a lot of water. Oh, and made a post about getting mentioned by CCP Sreegs.
Unlike the DUST 514 Keynote, the Eve Keynote started on time at 1530. First, Hilmar came out once again to try to convince everyone he "gets" it about Eve being about internet spaceships. He also came out with an interesting timeline of the "Ages of CCP". The first age, from 1997-1999 was the "Age of Innocence" where the few members of CCP gathered up the resources to actually begin building Eve Online. The second age, from 2000-2003, was the actual "Making of Eve Online", or the development of the game. From 2004-2007 was "The March to 200K", or making the game popular. The fourth age, 2008-2011, he called "War on the Impossible", when CCP attempted to build two new games while continuing to run Eve. That last kind of stepped on the whole "flying in space" is priority one and should have been saved for Saturday, but Hilmar does get carried away sometimes.
The new senior producer for Eve, Jon Lander (CCP Unifex) came up next to reassure everyone that the new concentration was on Flying in Space and not leaving features half built.
He also produced a production schedule that reminded me of Scott Hartsman-era EverQuest 2 with releases every month. Unlike EQ2 though, Eve will continue to have two major releases a year instead of one. Right now the Inferno pre-patch is scheduled for 24 April with Inferno itself releasing 22 May. Inferno 1.5 is scheduled for an August release with a point release in September and the winter expansion launching in November.
Next up came CCP Soundwave. CCP Soundwave stated that Crucible would not be a one-off expansion and that Inferno should be even better as the developers move on to start fixing some of the bigger things that need love like the war dec system and faction warfare.
After CCP Soundwave finished, CCP Veritas came on and talked about Team Gridlock's efforts to reduce lag. CCP Veritas is one of the more popular devs and besides, you can never get too many graphs.
To wrap up the presentation, CCP TorfiFrans came on to talk about avatars and other types of things. While improved skin colors, sleeve tatoos and race blending are interesting, he fortunately had other things to discuss other than reminders of Incarna. When you get to talk about salvage drones (finally!) that makes up for a lot. The steath bomber redesign also looks promising. But he got to end the presentation with the introduction of missile turrets. While Minmatar ships do use missiles as well as guns, the Caldari pilots went crazy. What could have been a rough conclusion got a rousing ovation.
Following the presentation I had a few hours to kill so I stopped by a restaurant called American Style for dinner. The place played American rock and roll music and was a rather nice place, especially since I managed to hit it at a quiet time. I had a Buddy Holly burger, which was pretty good.
After going back to my room for a couple of hours I headed back to the Harpa center for the Pub Crawl. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but my group lost its guide and we would up with the Goons group, squeaky bees and all. I did bump into The Mittani a couple of times and he isn't as bad as he would like everyone to believe. He also confirmed my view that going to Iceland is just like going to Wisconsin.
I lost the group in the 5th bar sometime around 1am and made my way back to the hotel, stopping by Hlölla Bátar for a sub to try to soak up some of the alcohol. Sorry, no pictures. Sometime what happens in Reykjavik stays in Reykjavik.
The first major thing I noted was the demographics show players moving away from null sec and into wormholes. Null sec went from having 16.2% of the population to having 15% and w-space saw a corresponding increase from 4.2% to 5.4%. The demographics also show that older players move from high sec to other areas. While 71.5% of players stay in high sec overall, only 65.3% of players with over 5 million skill points remain in high sec. And when excluding Jita, the population in Caldari space is actually declining while that of Amar is increasing. Dr. EyjoG believes this is a function of the Amar Empire's size and that population pressure is forcing players into the traditionally underpopulated systems.
Inflation is a big worry for Dr. EyjoG as the isk faucets are pouring in 24 trillion isk per month more than the isk sinks can remove. New Eden's GUP (gross user product) increased by 15% in 2011 (or YC113 for roleplayers) which Dr. EvjoG indicates shows that Eve has made up for all the players lost during the Summer of Rage. One of the big culprits, if not the biggest, to the wave of inflation is incursions. According to the statistics, 5% of the population in Eve takes part in the anti-Sansha efforts. What part of incursions do pilots run the most? Vanguards. I would expect a Vanguard nerf in the very near future.
Another area of concern is the PLEX market. The PLEX market now represents 25% of the total trade in Eve. The CSM is going to receive a new role as a watchdog over CCP's efforts to regulate the market. Dr. EyjoG revealed that there are over 10,000 PLEX on banned accounts that the Eve Central Bank could use to intervene in the markets. A new organization, the CCP PLEX Council, consisting of Dr. EyjoG, a senior developer, and a player (most likely a CSM member) will oversee the PLEX market. With the advent of the CCP/CSM Skype channel, this type of conversation should be possible whenever needed. For those who think the CSM doesn't have power, you might want to think again.
I would like to make one additional observation before moving on. Throughout Dr. EyjoG's presentation, no mention of subscriber numbers or actual number of pilots was given. In fact on one chart the numbers were clumsily blacked out. I don't know if this is to hide that subscriptions didn't actually increase very much to players or is now proprietary information because CCP is looking to take itself public. That said, I do believe CCP when it states that subscription numbers went up last year. I am skeptical of claims that the game has 400,000 paid (real life money or PLEX) subscriptions and the lack of numbers hardens that suspicion.
At 1100 was the "Ship Balancing" presentation. I admit the dev blog on ship balancing left me a bit confused so I welcomed the opportunity for CCP Ytterbium to explain exactly what the reasoning behind the moves. After listening to the explanation, things started to make more sense. Personalizing the presentation, why should Rosewalker need to learn Assault Ships and Heavy Assault Ships to fly the Slepnir command ship or Logistics to fly a Claymore? I think the proposed path that all she needs to learn is Minmatar Battlecruisers V makes sense. Of course, the fact that he already has Battlecruisers trained to 5 makes me a little uneasy about what happens when the expansion does come out.
After the ship balancing presentation I quickly ran out to the concession stand to get a nutritious meal of a brownie and water before the noon presentation "Year In Lag" by CCP Veritas. Admittedly I sat back and watched as he pulled out several very impressive graphs and failed to take notes. But the basic thrust of his talk is that Team Gridlock has made great strides on the servers and the next area that would gain the greatest return for the effort is working on the Eve client.
 |
| CCP Veritas at the Eve Keynote |
Once CCP Veritas finished, I made my way to Singularity for CCP Sreeg's presentation on "Eve Security". As tempting as watching the Faction Warfare presentation was, I just had to see the goodies CCP Sreegs would unleash. And I wasn't disappointed.
CCP Sreegs first surprised me with one of his first slides documenting his successes in 2011 and The Nosy Gamer featured at the bottom of the slide. I was so surprised that when he said he believed the gentleman who runs the blog is in the hall that I didn't raise my hand or otherwise take a bow. I'm not sure what surprised me more, the mention of the blog or that he knew I was in Iceland.
But enough about me, what about bots? First, the majority of characters banned have under 20 million skillpoints, with the most flown ships the Tengu, Hulk and Raven Navy Issue. Surprisingly, the security team caught on player botting in a Nyx. Really?!
As for the changes, the one where accounts are flagged as botters can no longer transfer characters was known before Fanfest. Two new ones are that bannings will be done daily, which means the algorithms that detect bots must be pretty good by now. Only one player was confirmed as being a false positive with a second about to be confirmed. Also, effective the week before Fanfest CCP began removing all of the money earned by bots from accounts. If the character is a mining bot, then a value of the minerals is determined and deducted from a character's wallet.
Among other security news is that two factor authentication will probably begin around July, but that is not confirmed. I'll have to review the presentation once it hits YouTube for additional details as I was most concerned with bots.
After the presentation I went down to introduce myself to CCP Sreegs. I waited awhile as people talked with him, including the gentleman who was falsely banned. During the presentation CCP Sreegs said that CCP would take care of people affected and he confirmed he was well taken care of. I then had a brief chat with the security chief as we walked out of the room as the next presentation began.
I had 90 minutes to kill before the Eve Keynote address so I made the five minute walk back to the hotel, grabbed some crackers, took some aspirin and drank a lot of water. Oh, and made a post about getting mentioned by CCP Sreegs.
Unlike the DUST 514 Keynote, the Eve Keynote started on time at 1530. First, Hilmar came out once again to try to convince everyone he "gets" it about Eve being about internet spaceships. He also came out with an interesting timeline of the "Ages of CCP". The first age, from 1997-1999 was the "Age of Innocence" where the few members of CCP gathered up the resources to actually begin building Eve Online. The second age, from 2000-2003, was the actual "Making of Eve Online", or the development of the game. From 2004-2007 was "The March to 200K", or making the game popular. The fourth age, 2008-2011, he called "War on the Impossible", when CCP attempted to build two new games while continuing to run Eve. That last kind of stepped on the whole "flying in space" is priority one and should have been saved for Saturday, but Hilmar does get carried away sometimes.
The new senior producer for Eve, Jon Lander (CCP Unifex) came up next to reassure everyone that the new concentration was on Flying in Space and not leaving features half built.
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| Senior Producer CCP Unifex at the 2012 Eve Keynote |
He also produced a production schedule that reminded me of Scott Hartsman-era EverQuest 2 with releases every month. Unlike EQ2 though, Eve will continue to have two major releases a year instead of one. Right now the Inferno pre-patch is scheduled for 24 April with Inferno itself releasing 22 May. Inferno 1.5 is scheduled for an August release with a point release in September and the winter expansion launching in November.
Next up came CCP Soundwave. CCP Soundwave stated that Crucible would not be a one-off expansion and that Inferno should be even better as the developers move on to start fixing some of the bigger things that need love like the war dec system and faction warfare.
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| CCP Soundwave explaining Crucible at 2012 Eve Keynote |
After CCP Soundwave finished, CCP Veritas came on and talked about Team Gridlock's efforts to reduce lag. CCP Veritas is one of the more popular devs and besides, you can never get too many graphs.
To wrap up the presentation, CCP TorfiFrans came on to talk about avatars and other types of things. While improved skin colors, sleeve tatoos and race blending are interesting, he fortunately had other things to discuss other than reminders of Incarna. When you get to talk about salvage drones (finally!) that makes up for a lot. The steath bomber redesign also looks promising. But he got to end the presentation with the introduction of missile turrets. While Minmatar ships do use missiles as well as guns, the Caldari pilots went crazy. What could have been a rough conclusion got a rousing ovation.
Following the presentation I had a few hours to kill so I stopped by a restaurant called American Style for dinner. The place played American rock and roll music and was a rather nice place, especially since I managed to hit it at a quiet time. I had a Buddy Holly burger, which was pretty good.
After going back to my room for a couple of hours I headed back to the Harpa center for the Pub Crawl. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but my group lost its guide and we would up with the Goons group, squeaky bees and all. I did bump into The Mittani a couple of times and he isn't as bad as he would like everyone to believe. He also confirmed my view that going to Iceland is just like going to Wisconsin.
I lost the group in the 5th bar sometime around 1am and made my way back to the hotel, stopping by Hlölla Bátar for a sub to try to soak up some of the alcohol. Sorry, no pictures. Sometime what happens in Reykjavik stays in Reykjavik.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Fanfest 2012 - Day 1
Due to some internet connection problems, this post is a day late so I'm posting on a Saturday to try to catch up. Since this Fanfest is not my first gaming convention, I looked at the schedule and figured out I didn't need to get my badge as soon as the doors opened. I think people had the same idea as there was still a line starting at the bottom of the stairs. I think I only had to wait 10 minutes to get my access badge and sign up for a group for the pub crawl Friday night.
I got to the first presentation, "Shoot The Shit w/Unifex", before the hall filled up but there was a problem. Apparently Eve Online's Senior Producer, John Lander (aka CCP Unifex) was unable to make it. A bad beginning for the con. CCP Guard and CCP Darth Beta filled in and instead gave an introduction to what was happening during Fanfest. That lasted about 30 minutes, with a lot of time to wait for the next event, a discussion on Crimewatch.
Crimewatch is something I think players will begin to hear more of. A function that controls aggression flagging, global criminal cooldowns, loot rights, kill mails and a bunch of things I didn't have time to write down. Basically the function is a mess and needs to be rewritten. The work is just beginning with the first changes occurring in April (probably with the pre-patch for Inferno) which we won't see because they will be back end processes.
Some of the changes include the creation of a single 15 minute aggression times, an option to keep the client open until fully logged off, and a weapons timer that means that someone assisting with aggression will also receive a cooldown timer. Or as CCP Greyscale said, God hates station games.
The biggest change will be the creation of a third state of criminal activity, "suspect". Basically suspect status is like committing a mistomeanor, like shooting at someone in low-sec. If you kill someone while you are suspect your security status can't go below -5. Also, players will be able to raise their security standings by killing players with negative security status.
I know that I didn't get all of the details so go visit the forum thread or make sure you watch the video when CCP posts it on YouTube.
At 1500 I went to a round table called "Black Ops and You". DNS Black alsong with two other members of Dirt Nap Squad along with a dev talked about ideas on fighting with stealty ships while DNS Black passed out Jim Beam. From the Golden Circle tour the day before I knew he couldn't get any of his favored Jagermeister because the duty-free store ran out. It was a pretty good back and forth with DNS Black and his crew looking at maintaining the elite (or niche) status of black ops within Eve.
The final event I attended was the CSM panel. Quite frankly I could have done without it but there was nothing else to attend. However I did come up with one interesting statistic that I found on the slide with the vote totals from prior years. In last year's election, 49,096 votes were cast for a voter turnout of 14.25%, meaning that there was a pool of 344,533 accounts that were eligible to vote in 2011. This year, 59,109 votes cast represented a 17.49% voter turnout. That means that this year 337,959 accounts were eligible to vote, a decrease of almost 6,600 from the year before. I will have to look up to see if the voting eligibility changed, but just from those numbers it appears that CCP did not recover all of the accounts that left after the Incarna launch last year.
After leaving the site I went to a place called Hlölla Bátar. It is a nice little sandwich shop right outside the doors of the hotel that I have become quite fond of. After that I stopped by The Celtic Cross for a drink and then it was time for bed. The economy presentation was first thing in the morning, and since I couldn't hook up to the internet and blog I got some needed sleep.
I got to the first presentation, "Shoot The Shit w/Unifex", before the hall filled up but there was a problem. Apparently Eve Online's Senior Producer, John Lander (aka CCP Unifex) was unable to make it. A bad beginning for the con. CCP Guard and CCP Darth Beta filled in and instead gave an introduction to what was happening during Fanfest. That lasted about 30 minutes, with a lot of time to wait for the next event, a discussion on Crimewatch.
Crimewatch is something I think players will begin to hear more of. A function that controls aggression flagging, global criminal cooldowns, loot rights, kill mails and a bunch of things I didn't have time to write down. Basically the function is a mess and needs to be rewritten. The work is just beginning with the first changes occurring in April (probably with the pre-patch for Inferno) which we won't see because they will be back end processes.
Some of the changes include the creation of a single 15 minute aggression times, an option to keep the client open until fully logged off, and a weapons timer that means that someone assisting with aggression will also receive a cooldown timer. Or as CCP Greyscale said, God hates station games.
The biggest change will be the creation of a third state of criminal activity, "suspect". Basically suspect status is like committing a mistomeanor, like shooting at someone in low-sec. If you kill someone while you are suspect your security status can't go below -5. Also, players will be able to raise their security standings by killing players with negative security status.
I know that I didn't get all of the details so go visit the forum thread or make sure you watch the video when CCP posts it on YouTube.
At 1500 I went to a round table called "Black Ops and You". DNS Black alsong with two other members of Dirt Nap Squad along with a dev talked about ideas on fighting with stealty ships while DNS Black passed out Jim Beam. From the Golden Circle tour the day before I knew he couldn't get any of his favored Jagermeister because the duty-free store ran out. It was a pretty good back and forth with DNS Black and his crew looking at maintaining the elite (or niche) status of black ops within Eve.
The final event I attended was the CSM panel. Quite frankly I could have done without it but there was nothing else to attend. However I did come up with one interesting statistic that I found on the slide with the vote totals from prior years. In last year's election, 49,096 votes were cast for a voter turnout of 14.25%, meaning that there was a pool of 344,533 accounts that were eligible to vote in 2011. This year, 59,109 votes cast represented a 17.49% voter turnout. That means that this year 337,959 accounts were eligible to vote, a decrease of almost 6,600 from the year before. I will have to look up to see if the voting eligibility changed, but just from those numbers it appears that CCP did not recover all of the accounts that left after the Incarna launch last year.
After leaving the site I went to a place called Hlölla Bátar. It is a nice little sandwich shop right outside the doors of the hotel that I have become quite fond of. After that I stopped by The Celtic Cross for a drink and then it was time for bed. The economy presentation was first thing in the morning, and since I couldn't hook up to the internet and blog I got some needed sleep.
Friday, March 23, 2012
As Seen On Eve TV
The internet at the hotel is pretty bad and kept me from making a regular post. Right now I have a chance to blog because I am in between the Eve Security presentation and the Eve Keynote address. I left the Eve Security presentation all smiles because at the bottom of one of the first slides was mention of The Nosy Gamer.
I always suspected that CCP Sreegs likes good forum porn and he confirmed it by mentioning the blog and some of my posts based on the tears of botters. He has made it more difficult to come up with those posts because the site administrators are now hiding all the tears behind login screens. Before, with CCP taking a noticeable break in its anti-botting efforts I slacked off on my coverage of The War on Bots™, but if CCP carries through with the plans discussed this afternoon, I'll have to pick the coverage back up. I have to run off to listen to the Eve Keynote presentation now, but you can be sure I'll write more about the subject next week.
I always suspected that CCP Sreegs likes good forum porn and he confirmed it by mentioning the blog and some of my posts based on the tears of botters. He has made it more difficult to come up with those posts because the site administrators are now hiding all the tears behind login screens. Before, with CCP taking a noticeable break in its anti-botting efforts I slacked off on my coverage of The War on Bots™, but if CCP carries through with the plans discussed this afternoon, I'll have to pick the coverage back up. I have to run off to listen to the Eve Keynote presentation now, but you can be sure I'll write more about the subject next week.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Day Before Fanfest
I'm a little tired but not hung over after yesterday's festivities. I spent most of the day doing the Golden Circle tour. I was sitting near the back of my bus near a Jagermeister-less DNS Black, the CEO of Dirt Nap Squad. While driving around the countryside it was very interesting to hear not only his stories but those from others in the bus. And the views were pretty good also.
Afterwards I went to The English Pub to check on the Eve University meetup, but didn't know it had moved to the Thingholt hotel until I got home, so I headed to the Tweetfleet meetup at The Celtic Cross. It was pretty crowded with a lot of CCP devs present. I think I saw CCP Sreegs, CCP Navigator and CCP Sunset along with The Mittani, Raivi, Michael Bolton. Later on I spotted CCP Punkturis at the downstairs bar attacting a lot of attention. I was going to ask a UI question for someone, but she and her husband left so when I finally managed to talk with CCP Punkturis, I asked the question I had been wondering about. It is true, CCP Navigator and the new head of marketing at CCP, David Reid, really are two different people. They just look like they are twins. And I should add that CCP Punkturis is really a charming young lady.
Remarkably, after drinking more than I have in a long time, I actually felt better than I have this entire trip when I woke up today. So now on to registration. And if you ever make it to Fanfest, take the Golden Circle tour if you get the chance.
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| Geysir geothermal area |
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| Gullfoss waterfall |
Afterwards I went to The English Pub to check on the Eve University meetup, but didn't know it had moved to the Thingholt hotel until I got home, so I headed to the Tweetfleet meetup at The Celtic Cross. It was pretty crowded with a lot of CCP devs present. I think I saw CCP Sreegs, CCP Navigator and CCP Sunset along with The Mittani, Raivi, Michael Bolton. Later on I spotted CCP Punkturis at the downstairs bar attacting a lot of attention. I was going to ask a UI question for someone, but she and her husband left so when I finally managed to talk with CCP Punkturis, I asked the question I had been wondering about. It is true, CCP Navigator and the new head of marketing at CCP, David Reid, really are two different people. They just look like they are twins. And I should add that CCP Punkturis is really a charming young lady.
Remarkably, after drinking more than I have in a long time, I actually felt better than I have this entire trip when I woke up today. So now on to registration. And if you ever make it to Fanfest, take the Golden Circle tour if you get the chance.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The Prelude to Fanfest
Reykjavik - I made it to Iceland in one piece. By this time the routine is not very hard: pack my bags, hop in a limo, shuffle thru customs and get on the plane. Except this time was for pleasure, not business.
There are no direct flights from Chicago to Reykjavik so I had to fly to Boston first. I took a flight that gave me a four hour layover because I wanted plenty of time to get my luggage transferred from United to Icelandair. Not that United has ever lost my luggage, but I decided to walk it over myself. I'm pretty happy I did because I ran into a pilot from Against ALL Authorities who got in line right behind me and we struck up a conversation for the entire stay. It was an interesting conversation that lasted over dinner at a Sbarro Pizza stand (although he was good and got a salad from someplace else).
I flew in Monday night, which means I missed the unofficial CSM flight by a day. That's okay, because I probably flew in with a "normal" crowd, meaning not a plane full of Eve players. My plane was full, which surprised the nice Swedish couple that were flying back home from a trip to Dallas. I had to explain why.
I liked that the flight was less than 5 hours, because the seats in the 757 were kind of cramped. I managed to get a few hours sleep on the plane so I didn't break out the iPad and watch Clear Skies 2 or 3 again. Sleep is good. So is arriving in country at 6:30am. Lots of time to adjust my body clock in preparation for Fanfest.
The hotel reminds me a bit of the hotel I stayed at in London two years ago. Small. That shouldn't matter because I don't plan to stay in it much. The one disappointing thing is that I can't get Eve Radio on the WiFi network. I was able to get another streaming site, by not Eve Radio. But I do have my iPad with my music collection so that will have to do.
I did do some running around Reykjavik. The first thing I did was find Harpa, the convention center Fanfest is held in. Okay it was the second thing. The first thing I did was run back inside the hotel and put on a sweater underneath my coat. While it isn't that cold, it is a humid cold. Something to do with being right by the sea.
One thing I didn't know is that Harpa is right on the water. I walked past the gates to a harbor facility to get to it.
After bookmarking the Fanfest site, I stopped by a hotdog stand to get lunch and then took a nap. Did I mention sleep is good?
After my nap I did a little more roaming around. I found the site for the Eve University meetup, which, as direction-challenged as I am, I can't miss. I also managed to pick up a shot glass for my boss. Now I don't have to worry about getting it. The hotel is also close to a lot of bars and restaurants. And I mean a lot. The hotel is also adjacent to a supermarket. That is big since it means I can get bottled water, a necessity not only because I get headaches when dehydrated but the water smells like rotten eggs.
I finished the day getting dinner from Tabasco's, a Mexican restaurant that also serves seafood.
I am beginning to think that fish is to Reykjavik what pizza is to Sofia; served everywhere. Of course, I took advantage of being in a port and ordered fish and chips instead of something Mexican. I didn't get the whale steak because I am on a budget. Did I mention that Reykjavik is expensive? I only purchased $300 in króna and my meal of fish and chips plus a beer cost around $30. I know I can get more money, but I would like to stay close to what I planned to spend. I'm beginning to think I should have planned to spend $500. I hope people in Iceland are paying their taxes through a sales tax and not an income tax.
Nothing really more to add. It's time to do a little more wandering around before heading on the Golden Circle tour. Maybe I can find the spot of the #tweetfleet meetup. It is farther away than the Eve Uni meetup and I do tend to get lost.
There are no direct flights from Chicago to Reykjavik so I had to fly to Boston first. I took a flight that gave me a four hour layover because I wanted plenty of time to get my luggage transferred from United to Icelandair. Not that United has ever lost my luggage, but I decided to walk it over myself. I'm pretty happy I did because I ran into a pilot from Against ALL Authorities who got in line right behind me and we struck up a conversation for the entire stay. It was an interesting conversation that lasted over dinner at a Sbarro Pizza stand (although he was good and got a salad from someplace else).
I flew in Monday night, which means I missed the unofficial CSM flight by a day. That's okay, because I probably flew in with a "normal" crowd, meaning not a plane full of Eve players. My plane was full, which surprised the nice Swedish couple that were flying back home from a trip to Dallas. I had to explain why.
I liked that the flight was less than 5 hours, because the seats in the 757 were kind of cramped. I managed to get a few hours sleep on the plane so I didn't break out the iPad and watch Clear Skies 2 or 3 again. Sleep is good. So is arriving in country at 6:30am. Lots of time to adjust my body clock in preparation for Fanfest.
The hotel reminds me a bit of the hotel I stayed at in London two years ago. Small. That shouldn't matter because I don't plan to stay in it much. The one disappointing thing is that I can't get Eve Radio on the WiFi network. I was able to get another streaming site, by not Eve Radio. But I do have my iPad with my music collection so that will have to do.
I did do some running around Reykjavik. The first thing I did was find Harpa, the convention center Fanfest is held in. Okay it was the second thing. The first thing I did was run back inside the hotel and put on a sweater underneath my coat. While it isn't that cold, it is a humid cold. Something to do with being right by the sea.
One thing I didn't know is that Harpa is right on the water. I walked past the gates to a harbor facility to get to it.
 |
| View from the Harpa building |
After bookmarking the Fanfest site, I stopped by a hotdog stand to get lunch and then took a nap. Did I mention sleep is good?
After my nap I did a little more roaming around. I found the site for the Eve University meetup, which, as direction-challenged as I am, I can't miss. I also managed to pick up a shot glass for my boss. Now I don't have to worry about getting it. The hotel is also close to a lot of bars and restaurants. And I mean a lot. The hotel is also adjacent to a supermarket. That is big since it means I can get bottled water, a necessity not only because I get headaches when dehydrated but the water smells like rotten eggs.
I finished the day getting dinner from Tabasco's, a Mexican restaurant that also serves seafood.
 |
| This ad worked for me |
I am beginning to think that fish is to Reykjavik what pizza is to Sofia; served everywhere. Of course, I took advantage of being in a port and ordered fish and chips instead of something Mexican. I didn't get the whale steak because I am on a budget. Did I mention that Reykjavik is expensive? I only purchased $300 in króna and my meal of fish and chips plus a beer cost around $30. I know I can get more money, but I would like to stay close to what I planned to spend. I'm beginning to think I should have planned to spend $500. I hope people in Iceland are paying their taxes through a sales tax and not an income tax.
Nothing really more to add. It's time to do a little more wandering around before heading on the Golden Circle tour. Maybe I can find the spot of the #tweetfleet meetup. It is farther away than the Eve Uni meetup and I do tend to get lost.
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