How The CSM Helped Me Win (A Copy Of) EVE

I'm sure a lot of EVE players have experienced this problem.  You've purchased EVE: The Second Decade Collector's Edition and, because you have two accounts, don't know to which account to apply the codes that come in the box.  I purchased the Collector's Edition but hadn't applied any codes because I play on both my main accounts a lot and didn't know which one I really wanted to mark as special.  I wasn't about to purchase a second Collector's Edition just to resolve the problem. 

My eyes lit up a couple of weeks ago when I saw that Raptr was going to live-stream a presentation on EVE with devs answering questions for 2 hours afterward.  Of course, the program occurred at the same time as the CSM Town Hall on 16 November.  And as any good EVE player would do, I went to the one offering loot.  Raptr was offering a Collector's Edition to the two people who submitted the best questions to the devs and 20 rookie pirate ships to people who submitted questions.

I figured I wouldn't win a Collector's Edition, but a rookie pirate ship would really look nice to fly around high sec.  So I decided to submit a question.  But since the Raptr event was probably going to overshadow the CSM event, I figured I'd throw in a second CSM-related question.  Here are my questions and the answers I received:

For all the devs: If you had to create a new character, what race would you choose and why? 

For CCP Xhagen: In all your time working with the Council of Stellar Management, who was your favorite member to work with?

CCP Affinity: "Since beta all my characters are Minmatar, I really like their backstory and ship design."

CCP Karkur:  "Is Jove a valid answer? Just because!"

CCP Eterne:  "Amarr victor!"

CCP Xhagen:  "Your question smells suspiciously like a trap! :) I'm going to take the diplomatic route and say that I made many good friends through the CSM and I talk with some of them still on personal notes, even though they've left the council. 

"And if I say that Trebor is my fav, will that make him not run again? :P"

A few days later someone from Raptr contacted me and informed me I won.  Turns out following the news and the CSM paid off.  I waited until now to write about the win because I didn't receive my copy of the Collector's Edition until Wednesday.

So while I didn't officially win EVE (I'm still logging in) I did win a copy of EVE.  Now to figure out how to apply the codes.

CCP's War On Bots: Spambots Two Weeks Later

Two weeks ago CCP Peligro and CCP Stillman made an appearance in Jita to witness firsthand the silence of the spambots.  The difference in the amount of chat traffic in Jita after Team Security implemented the anti-spambot traffic was striking.

The bans began on 12 November.

But the real question isn't the initial success of the anti-spambot measures or how many botters were banned.  The true measure is whether the changes are permanent or just temporary.  With the initial bans of the spambots ending on 26 November I decided to revisit Jita and see if the spambots had retaken control of local.

PLEX For Good - Philippines Typhoon Relief

Once again CCP is allowing players to turn their space money into donations to the Icelandic Red Cross, this time to help relief efforts needed in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan.  The effort will culminate with an eight hour livestream from 1300 - 2100 UTC (EVE time) on 7 December on CCP's Twitch channel.  With over $43,000 already raised the current drive is already the most successful ever.  CCP is looking into arranging for viewers to give donations directly to the Icelandic Red Cross through PayPal so that may be an option during the livestream as well.

For those looking to contribute PLEX to the cause, make sure to contract the PLEX to CCP PLEX For GOOD.  As of the time I post this, no other character has "PLEX For GOOD" in the name.

Accept no substitues

Of course, someone has already tried to scam people with a fake character.  I believe that character and player were both deleted from New Eden.  EVE is a sandbox, but even a sandbox has rules.  Not scamming real life fundraisers for disaster relief is one of them.

The Digital Dozen: 26 November 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 24 November 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	45.0	14,212	-4.0
2	2	Guild Wars 2	12.5	3,951	-15.9
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	9.2	2,916	-2.2
4	4	Final Fantasy XIV	7.1	2,233	-2.8
5	6	EVE Online	5.4	1,714	+38.7
6	9	Lord of the Rings Online	4.6	1,445	+65.5
7	5	Aion	4.2	1,330	+3.8
8	8	RIFT	3.2	1,007	+0.4
9	7	Tera	2.9	912	-22.0
10	10	Planetside 2	2.7	841	+9.8
11	11	Infestation: Survivor Stories	1.6	514	-14.9
12	--	APB: Reloaded	1.5	480	+7.1

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 31,555

 

The slow decline in the amount of hours the Xfire community plays MMORPGs continued on Sunday.  The 2.1% drop in the number of hours played compared to the week before was led by Guild Wars 2, which experienced a drop of 749 hours.  Lord of the Rings Online led all games attracting players with a rise of 572 hours compared to the week before.  APB: Reloaded rejoined The Digital Dozen this week after a one week absence while Neverwinter fell back off the list.

Helm's Deep Launched - Over the past few weeks I noted Turbine's promotion of boosted XP gains in order to get as many players ready to enter The Lord of the Rings Online Helm's Deep expansion content at launch as possible.  The strategy worked as LOTRO achieved its highest Digital Dozen score since the list began in February 2012.  The increase in playtime Sunday was magnified as Turbine's data center experienced a power outage on the 17th, which delayed the launch of the expansion until last Wednesday.

Not Hungry - Apparently players of Tera were not enamored of what En Masse put on the menu this weekend.  In addition to introducing pig mounts last week, En Masse also offered players custom food skins for their weapons in the cash shop over the weekend.  Perhaps if bacon were offered, players would have logged in more.

Ludicrous Speed - EVE Online also launched an expansion last week that brought players back to the game.  Titled Rubicon, the expansion introduced new ships, space structures and PvE content designed to lead players along a path to new space in a few years.  Oh, and players also got to experience some newly balanced ships.  All ships received changes to warp speed, with interceptors receiving what some call "ludicrous speed".  I believe many players logged in just to experience the sensation.

What Is RMT?

"My impression is that the ban has had little impact on trading.  Sony, effectively the government of Norrath, is fighting a war of trade restrictions that no government has ever won."

Professor Edward Castronova, Indiana University, 2001¹

RMT, or real money trading, is a practice older than the existence of the 3-dimensional MMORPG.  So why do so many people argue over exactly what constitutes RMT?   The latest example occurred during the SOMERblink controversy in EVE Online.  Reading the forums, I saw the debate occasionally devolve from a discussion of SOMERblink's business practices to what constituted RMT.  When people cannot agree on basic terms people wind up talking past each other.

So what is RMT?  At the most basic level, real money trading is the exchange of virtual goods, including in-game currency, and services for real world currency.  But some of the confusion occurs when the discussion turns to the two different types of RMT markets.

In a paper first published in Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Future Play, Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta, then at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, discussed the problems of the secondary RMT markets for games and how game companies could handle the problems resulting from players.²  According to Dr. Lehdonvirta, secondary markets are markets in which "virtual world users buy and sell virtual assets between each other without the operator’s involvement."  The secondary market is what most players think of when the discussion turns to RMT.  Activities such as purchasing in-game currency and items from 3rd party websites along with power leveling services make up the bulk of the transactions.  Game companies usually frown on these activities and will ban those players who engage in them.  Because these activities usually violate the EULA and/or terms of service for games, I usually refer to this type of real money transaction as illicit or unsanctioned RMT.

Where players come to disagreements on RMT are on those activities that fall in the primary RMT market.  The HIIT's Tuukka Lehtiniemi in 2007 defined the primary market as trade "in which the operators of certain services sell virtual items to users for real money. Such services are usually free to use. Typically players buy the service’s own internal currency with real money, and use that currency for microtransactions inside the service."  Services like this include the cash shops that often appear in games today.  Sony Online Entertainment's Station Cash and ArenaNet's Gem Store for Guild Wars 2 are two obvious examples of game operators becoming directly involved in selling in-game items.  A growing model is the PLEX-model, in which game companies sell items that players can either redeem for game time or sell to others on the in-game market in exchange for in-game currency.

Usually the operators of virtual worlds will allow real world money to flow into world but not out of one.  Exceptions do exist.  Perhaps the most famous involves Second Life.  People are able to convert Linden Dollars into real world currency.  The same is true for the Entropia Universe, although Mindark's world is more of an MMORPG than Second Life.  In fact, for a time in 2006, players could actually withdraw funds from the Entropia Universe using an ATM card.

Perhaps the most unique withdrawal of value allowed by a game operator occurs in EVE Online.  While players do not receive cash directly, they can receive real world value for their virtual currency.  Players have paid to attend events like Fanfest and EVE Vegas using PLEX as well as purchase graphics cards from NVIDIA.  CCP even has a program called PLEX for Good in which players can purchase PLEX using in-game currency and then CCP will donate money to the Red Cross.  In the past players have raised over $100,000 for relief efforts following disasters in Haiti, Japan, Pakistan and the United States.  CCP is holding another effort aimed at helping the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines that will run until 7 December.

Some will maintain that because the above examples do not result in bans from the game operators that those actions are not RMT.  But that assertion is not true.  RMT is not defined by whether rules are broken.  Instead, the rule of thumb for determining whether an action is RMT is whether something of value in the real world is exchanged for something of value inside the virtual world.


Notes:

1.  Castronova, Edward, Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier (December 2001). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 618. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=294828.

2.  Lehdonvirta, Vili, Real-Money Trade of Virtual Assets: New Strategies for Virtual World Operators (2008). VIRTUAL WORLDS, Ipe, Mary, ed., pp. 113-137, Icfai University Press, Hyderabad, India, 2008. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1351782.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT: Not Crossing The Rubicon

Rubicon.  For most, an expansion means shiny new ships and interesting features that players fight over.  But in the illicit RMT economy, an expansion means the possibility of increased sales as players try to buy their way to power.  At the same time, Team Security starts slipping in new code and procedures to attempt to stop, or at least slow down, the ISK rush.

Usually at expansion time I'm reading the botting forums and sharing the tears of botters as the bot devs don't fix their bots fast enough.  Or even better, the tears of the botters as Team Security sneaks in a trick that results in a ban wave.  But this launch week saw something I didn't expect; two RMT websites going out of the ISK-selling business.

I Need A Plan B

Perhaps the maintenance crew didn't switch out the pod goo properly, but I was pretty disappointed when I read VG24/7's interview with CCP's Chief Marketing Officer and Interim Executive Producer David Reid.¹ I knew that CCP Seagull's vision of player-made star gates jumping into the great unknow would take years to build and was ready to ride the story for that time. But expecting David Reid to hold back on information that could help him sell the game now is pretty silly in its own right.

EVE University's Neville Smit has a really good write-up on the future of Eve that explores the meaning of the information that Mr. Reid revealed and why the interview actually is the real thing and not just another flawed attempt by a games journalist to explain what is happening in Eve.  In my view he took away some of those potential "holy shit" moments that CSM Vice-Chairman Ripard Teg has referred to.  So yeah, advancing the main story line will require players to run ghost sites for the next 3-4 years.  I would have preferred to learn that as the story progressed and not before we crossed the Rubicon.

So with the spoilers, part of the incentive of just going with the flow of the main story is gone.  Exploring around low sec hoping to find something in some out of the way system of vast importance just isn't going to happen.  Just that possibility, even knowing I probably would find nothing, would have spiced up the game for me.  Now?  Thanks Mr. Reid!

So now is time for Plan B.  I'd tell you the details, but I don't have one made yet.  I have a little time as I'm still grinding loyalty points for the Sisters of EVE.  But I have a lot of vacation time I need to take before the end of the year so I'll have some time to come up with one.


Notes:
1.  I refuse to use his dev name as I believe using it may violate point 2 of the Terms of Service.

Attention To Detail

Sometimes work gets in the way of important things, like internet spaceships.  This past weekend I spent a lot of time working and tried to do a little research on Singularity at the same time.  Needless to say, I missed a few things.  The biggest thing I missed was the warp speed of the Prowler.  When I began testing I dutifully wrote down the warp speed of the Prowler without hyperspatial rigs (8 AU) and with two hyperspatial rigs and a +10% hardwiring (12.67 AU).

At this point people are shouting, "Hey dummy, the base warp speed of blockade runners is only 6 AU!"  Yes it is.  I don't even have the excuse of the developers hiding the change.  In his dev blog on the warp acceleration changes, CCP Masterplan provided a nice chart laying out the effects of the changes both before and after the release of Rubicon.

Then Rhavas in his excellent Rubicon preview post displayed the same chart.  If I had studied the chart in either post I would have noticed the change.  But I was in a hurry and didn't really pay attention.

I finished doing the testing and included my findings in Monday's post.  Thankfully I acted like a true Chicago-area native and wrote my findings in time and not speed.  But with an 8 AU base speed stuck in my head, imagine my surprise when I opened up the info page on my Prowler and saw a base speed of 6 AU.  Yikes!

I freaked out a bit and started testing on both Tranquility and Singularity to make sure fitting two warp speed rigs made sense and was able to recreate my times during testing.  My final warp speed with 2 Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I rigs and an Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Warp Drive Speed WS-610 skill hardwire is 9.5 AU, which is just under what an interceptor can do with 1 warp speed rig fitted.  So I won't need to make another cargo optimization rig, although the idea is tempting.  Perhaps I'm too much of a risk-adverse carebear, but given I still plan to fly in the same area as those determined Aussies for awhile I think I'll choose survivability over cargo capacity for now.

That is how I spent my first day of the winter expansion; testing the fit on my Prowler.  In the grand scheme of things, testing the changes once they go live on Tranquility is probably a good idea anyway.  But if I had paid a little more attention to detail (and charts!) I could have done something different with my time.

The Digital Dozen: 19 November 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 17 November 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	45.9	14,796	+3.5
2	2	Guild Wars 2	14.6	4,700	+5.6
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	9.2	2,982	+2.2
4	4	Final Fantasy XIV	7.1	2,297	-17.9
5	6	Aion	4.0	1,281	-9.8
6	5	EVE Online	3.8	1,236	-18.5
7	7	Tera	3.6	1,170	-4.1
8	8	RIFT	3.1	1,003	-0.5
9	9	Lord of the Rings Online	2.7	873	-12.5
10	10	Planetside 2	2.4	766	+20.8
11	12	Infestation: Survivor Stories	1.9	604	+11.6
12	--	Neverwinter	1.7	537	+6.3

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 32,245

The Xfire community for the eighth time in nine weeks spent less time playing MMORPGs Sunday than the week before.  But in a sign that interest may pick up again, the decline was only 0.4%.   Last week's #11 ranked game, APB: Reloaded, dropped off the list this week while Neverwinter made its first appearance in The Digital Dozen in four weeks.

Blizzcon Bump - While World of Warcraft lost 100,000 subscribers in the third quarter, the game is taking up a bigger and bigger share of the play time of the Xfire community.  Following Blizzcon, WoW achieved its highest Digital Dozen score since getting a 46.4 on 4 November 2012.

OMFG! - On 12 November SOE released phase one of Operation: Make Faster Game for Planetside 2.  Apparently the optimization patch worked as the Xfire community spent 20.8% more hours playing the game on Sunday compared to the previous weekend.

Calm Before The Storm? - Two days before the launch of the Rubicon expansion, EVE Online experienced an 18.5% decline in the hours played by the Xfire community.  Are players just waiting for the new ships and putting activity on hold?  I went back to the Sunday before the summer expansion Odyssey launched, but that gave no clues to any trends and the Tranquility shard suffered a DDoS attack that day.  I guess an 18.5% drop is actually an improvement.

A Prowler Crossing The Rubicon

With Rubicon launching tomorrow I should discuss a little bit how the changes will affect one of my favorite ships, the Prowler.

All The Ships I Have Mastery V For

Up until now, the lesser cargo capacity of the Prowler didn't matter too much compared to the other blockade runners when thinking about distribution missions.  After looking at the math I decided to fit Medium Cargohold Optimization rigs and have used them for the past 5 months.  I made a lot of ISK with the agents I found that would give me destinations an average of two stations away.  But with Rubicon the big thing is warp speed.  That makes the Prorater the king of distribution running blockade runners as it can fit two Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer Is and still carry over 8000m³ of cargo.  The Prowler, by comparison, can fit none in order to carry the maximum cargo required for a distribution mission.

How big of a difference is that?  In my pre-Rubicon testing, I first compared my Prowler with 2 Medium Cargohold Optimization rigs, 2 Extended Cargohold IIs, and no skill hardwiring in my clone making the Olin-Keri run.  I used that as my baseline because that was the farthest distance the Sisters of EVE level 4 distribution agent has sent me while I've ground SoE loyalty points.  The entire run is 7 jumps traveling 205.1 AU in low security space.  Using the Odyssey ruleset on Tranquility the trip took 7:48 one-way.  The same run on Singularity using the Rubicon warp speed changes only took 5:49, a time savings of 25.4%.  I then replaced the cargo rigs with the warp speed rigs to simulate how fast a Prorater will make the trip in Rubicon.  I made the Olin-Keri run in 4:39, which means the Prorater can do the distribution missions requiring 7200m³ and 8000m³ of cargo 20% faster than my Prowler.

So why don't I retire my Prowler and go Amarr?  Go Amarr?  Ugh!  But my decision of sticking with the Prowler isn't just based on racial pride.  Those familiar with New Eden's spaceways may have noticed that the Olin-Keri run is completely in low security space.  The Prowler still gives me some advantages useful in surviving in that lawless area.  First, align times.  The Prowler is generally faster to align than the other blockade runners.  Also, the Prowler has the smallest signature radius.  At 110m, the Prowler's signature radius is 15m less than the Caldari Crane's and 5m less than the Gallente Viator and Amarrian Prorater.  As fast or faster to align plus taking longer to lock.  And if I settle for only having a maximum cargo capacity of 6604m³ my warp speed is just as fast.  Perhaps just as important, the Prowler is the fastest blockade runner out of warp as well.  Having the ability to slow boat out of an area faster, like out of a bubble, while cloaked is definitely a plus.  Less time for someone to find me.

One other benefit to the Prowler I haven't mentioned yet is the second high slot.  Put a Sisters Probe Launcher in the second slot and if the situation gets sticky I can try to probe down a wormhole and escape.  Or if I ever team up with some black ops types, light a covert cyno. 

I have one final reason for not flying a Prorater or another blockade runner: I can't fly the others and I don't want to take the time to learn.  Due to the SOMERblink scandal, instead of researching Rubicon while on vacation I spent my time tracking down one of the biggest illicit RMT stories of the year.  While covering the story was important, I really wish I had spent the time digging around the expansion on Singularity.  I see a lot of potential for this expansion and for the expansions to come.  I even have a few ideas I need to flesh out and make sure they are not totally crazy and unworkable.  If what I'm thinking is viable, then I'll probably need the sneakiest blockade runner I can find.  In my book, that's the Prowler.