Going Farther Down The Rabbit Hole

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

- Abraham Maslow, 1966

Sometimes I look back up at the entrance to the rabbit hole that led me to my present day expertise on the subject of real money trading. When I started playing MMORPGs in 2005, the vast majority of players considered any form of RMT in their games as an evil game companies should not allow. Then the free-to-play business model, led by Dungeons & Dragons Online in 2009, hit the west in a big way, bringing player acceptance of game developers introducing RMT into virtual worlds. When I began blogging about CCP's War on Bots in 2011, one of the fascinating facts that led to my descent further down the rabbit hole is that CCP punishes botters more harshly if the botter is tied in any way to illicit RMT activity.

I won't bore the reader with another summary of my definition of real money trading. I'll just point out that The Nosy Gamer currently hosts nearly 100 posts marked with the tag "illicit RMT." With my history of covering the subjects of botting and RMT, I could easily fall into the trap of looking at any subject involved solely through the lens of RMT.

The latest imbroglio in the EVE Online metaverse concerns the practice of some Twitch partners to conduct either subscriber-only giveaways using in-game items or grant subscribers to channels a weighted chance to win in-game item giveaways. A lot of people view the practice as another form of RMT. On EVE-Radio's Open Comms Show last night, host BigCountry asked me if the practice is RMT.

A simple yes or no question, right? If I answer yes, then people will pick up their torches and pitchforks. If I say no, then everyone will assume I approve of the practice and I'll begin to hear cries that I am a sellout to Big Twitch. But what if no just means the giveaways are not RMT, not that the practice doesn't violate any of CCP's rules or policies?

Real money trading is just a subset of the activities that players conduct to monetize (or attempt to monetize) the intellectual properties of the creators of the virtual worlds we all play in online. These efforts cross the gamut from Capsuleer, the first major EVE Online iPhone app, to Rixx Javix' artwork, to Wollari's efforts to raise money to upgrade Dotlan. To this list we can now add Twitch streaming.

I think my trip down the rabbit hole is about to get a lot more complicated and require more nuance. The illicit RMT hammer served me well for many years and will continue to do so for a long time to come. But in my research so far into the world of Twitch streaming I found I need to wield a scalpel, not a hammer. I expect in my future posts on the subject I will manage to upset both sides of the debate.

A Reminder Of How Much Of A Gamer I Ain't

Today is the second day of Electronics Entertainment Expo (aka E3) in Los Angeles. Since I don't start my new job for a couple of weeks, I have the chance to watch some of the coverage this year.

Watching the press conferences reminded me that I am not the target audience for the major game companies showing at E3. While I have both a PS3 and a Wii U, I don't play console games. Basically, once the console companies switched from joysticks to the initial versions of today's controllers, I decided to just play PC games. I think the fact that EVE: Valkyre uses an XBox controller is one of the reasons I didn't like the game when I played it at Fanfest in 2014. Kind of hard to like a game when you can't work the controls.

Thinking back to Monday's press conferences, the only excitement I felt occurred when EA announced an expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic and the virtual reality demo for Minecraft. I admit I might pick up Yoshi's Wooly World on the Wii, because the game looks so cute. But for me, the most amusing part of E3 is watching the reactions of all the hard-core gamers and the drama I didn't know existed until I go on YouTube. If the screaming and tears aren't flowing now, just wait a couple of days.

I'll keep watching to see if anything pops up that might get me to pick up either an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4. But my PS3 has sat idle since the closing of Free Realms and I never owned an Xbox. Maybe in a couple of years when Project Morpheus comes online or if VR becomes advanced enough to no longer require the use of a controller I'll buy one. But for now, I think I'll just stick to playing MMORPGs on the PC and stay out of the mainstream gaming culture.

Hug Amarr

Yesterday Signal Cartel [1420.] held a fleet to celebrate reaching the 400 member mark. Yes, 400 players exist in EVE Online whose idea of a good time is flying around dangerous space looking to explore and not kill. When Johnny Spunk, G8keeper, and Mynxee started the corp, I don't think they envisioned such a large amount of players would flock to their corp, even in their wildest dreams.

We formed up for the roam in Thera, where Mynxee handed out ships and skillbooks to anyone who needed them. Training a racial frigate skill takes eight minutes and our doctrine Griffin fits only require Caldari Frigate I. The fleet had a couple of slight wrinkles compared to our normal wartime Hugs fleets. First, the fleet consisted of a logistics wing of 15 ships and a 42-ship HPS (Hugs Per Second) wing consisting mainly of Griffins. Perhaps more amusingly, one of our squads consisted of Forsaken Asylum pilots led by Sahriah BloodStone. Yes, an alliance that wardec'd us not that long ago flew alongside us in a celebration fleet. Outsiders may scratch their heads, but our corp credo leads to some unusual personal interactions, at least for EVE.

Once the corp members cleaned out some goodies in containers located throughout Thera, we left the wormhole for our first destination, Titanomachy. The journey went without issues as the fleet traveled through the mostly desterted systems between our Thera exit and B-R5RB. I think 50 ship spikes in local led the few residents in space to dock up and hide.

The Titanomachy Monument in B-R5RB

We spent some time taking screenshots and listening to the stories of those in the fleet who took part in the battle. Johnny then made the decision to head for Jita via HED-GB. I think the veterans expected death, but off we went.

Departing for HED-GB

We could hear the scouts over Mumble as Johnny prepared us all for what to do in case we met a gate camp. But a strange thing happened. As we made our way to HED-GB, the gate camps melted away. The scouts started laughing, and I laughed along with them. I guess no one wanted to tangle with as much ECM as our fleet packed. Once we got to HED-GB, Johnny warped the fleet to the station.

Hug camping the station in HED-GB

With the way to high sec clear, we started looking for our war targets. Forsaken Asylum wardec'd Renegade Armada., our current targets, just in case we ran into them while fleeted up. Locator agents confirmed one war target located in Amarr, so we diverted to the system. At this point, most of the FA contingent left because they have rules about station camping, but Sahriah stuck around. A good thing too, because while in Amarr we received a wardec from ... Forsaken Asylum. Apparently someone with roles in FA saw us fill up local and automatically pushed the button.

Since we couldn't get any action in Amarr, we shifted to the next target: Apollo Tyrannos.

@noizygamer GET THOSE AWAY FROM ME UGHGHHHH

— Apollo Tyrannos (@apollotyrannos) June 14, 2015

Our scouts found four Drifter battleships camping a gate, so we decided to deliver some hugs to that old grump Apollo. We can confirm that, at least for now, fireworks and snowballs do not draw a violent response from the Drifters.

Drifters confused by hugs

The Drifters seemed confused by the snowballs and fireworks and spent their time scanning the party ammo. Perhaps one day the AI will figure out what to do, but for now the response gave us fodder for making fun of Apollo on Twitter.

Once we finished hugging Apollo, we headed back to Thera where most of the fleet hung out at our home station. I didn't quite make it. I misclicked in space and didn't warp off with the others. By the time I aligned, a Muninn one-shotted me and I entered warp without a ship. Oh well. I did get to the station and safely dock. I decided to log off for the day and wait until I could clone jump again.

All in all, I had a great time yesterday. Not only that, but I now have a jump clone in Thera, along with a Cheetah, just in case I need to fleet up again. That's right, I somehow never got around to installing a jump clone in Thera before. Now I'm ready for the 500 member celebration. I wonder how we'll top this fleet, though.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT: I WANT ISK

"I can also mention that the issue didn’t lie in our code but rather in a few individuals no longer working with 'I Want ISK'."

- Statement from I WANT ISK, 11 June 2015

Yesterday, CCP removed the block on IWANTISK.com for players attempting to access the website using EVE Online's in-game browser. The gambling website also, for the first time, acknowledged that CCP instituted the block due to an investigation into illicit real money trading activities that resulted in CCP banning at least three I WANT ISK bankers.

Slow Times

I knew events in EVE Online are on hold, but I didn't know the extent of the problem until I heard Big Country discussing my Wildfire post in the first hour of his Tuesday night talk show on EVE Radio. I think he took my scouting of the epic arc as an attempt to avoid loss and that I should just run the missions blind. I did that back in 2012, before the warp speed changes in Rubicon in November 2013. Sorry, but if I decide to fly a battleship with a top warp speed of 2 AU/sec, I want to minimize the number of jumps I have to make. If I can fly an interceptor instead of a battleship for 10-12 jumps, so much the better. Besides, I decided to make a spreadsheet and I need the practice using the VLOOKUP function.

But I really don't feel like writing too much right now. Partly because I'm still fiddling around with what I want to do next in EVE. Do I finally get a Stratios and start living Jonny Pew videos and run Ghost Sites and Standard Sleeper Cache in low sec? Do I just jump into a wormhole and start exploring a chain? Or should I start a salvaging business in low and null sec, cleaning up New Eden? I understand we need to find homeless drones before they go rogue.

Also, over the past month or so I found myself playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. A nice game I can spend some time in and just shut my brain down and grind. But SWTOR as the subject of blog posts? Not really.

Finally, I didn't want to delve into some of the drama surrounding EVE lately. Let me correct that. I didn't want to delve into some of the drama surrounding EVE without more evidence. For example, I had not heard from a credible source confirming that CCP banned two IWANTISK bankers for illicit RMT activity. That ended on Monday, when 1ronbank confirmed the bannings. The pieces are falling into place, but not enough yet to write a blog post.

Perhaps once the energy returns to EVE with the introduction of FozzieSov I'll get some energy myself. Or maybe I should find a new source for story ideas. But for now, I'm just floating along as we begin the summer season.

Unfollowed

Fyi @evenews24 you have till Friday to stop the advertising spam in your RSS or your feed on the site will be reduced to an icon #tweetfleet

— Total Eve (@Total_eve) June 9, 2015

I didn't notice anything wrong until I visited TotalEve.com yesterday. For those unfamiliar with the website, Total Eve is an aggregator of a lot of news sources, podcasts, Reddit and dev posts. One of those news sources is Eve News 24. Imagine my surprise when I clicked the first link and found myself on Markee Dragon's website. I then decided to look on the blog and, sure enough, the top article in my EN24 RSS feed leads straight to Markee Dragon's website.

I don't oppose PLEX resellers like Markee Dragon having player affiliates to drive sales. But when the player affiliates start placing the link into their RSS feed, I get a little upset. I don't have ads on my blog for myself. Why would I let EN24 use my blog to make money?

I had the EN24 RSS feed on The Nosy Gamer for years because I wanted an EVE-specific news feed on the blog. Perhaps I will again. But as long as EN24 runs advertising in its RSS feed, no EN24 news feed here.

UPDATE: Since riverini fixed the RSS issue, I have reinstalled EN24's feed back on the right side of the blog.

Steeling Myself For Wildfire

I describe myself as a carebear. A risk-averse carebear who avoids high sec because, let's face facts, high sec is very dangerous. Over the past few years I've run hundreds of courier and mining missions in low sec as well as running data and relic sites. But my current exploration goal requires me to brave CONCORD-patrolled space once again. I want to acquire RSS Core Scanner Probes.

The faction scan probes are rewards for running the Minmatar level 4 epic arc Wildfire. With two characters with the standings requirements to run the series of missions and the skills to fly ships to complete them, I can get 20 RSS Core Scanner Probes every three months. Oh, and the ISK payout for running the missions isn't too bad either.

I face one major problem. I don't really like running security missions. CCP solved the problem of shooting at crosses in the recent Carnyx release, but I still don't like shooting at things. Recently I took up running level 3 missions in an Arbitrator to practice armor tanking, but I'm still not a big fan.

Also, the prospect of flying around battleships and command ships doesn't fill me with happy thoughts either. The epic arc requires a lot of travel. I know, CCP recently increased the warp speed of command ships to that of mining barges, so I could buy a Sleipnir and dual box with my Claymore. Or I could just accept the slow flight times, get crazy, and finally fly my Typhoon. I think I bought the ship three years ago and never did manage to fire any missiles in that time.

My best strategy is to carefully read the mission descriptions and preposition fast frigates in the systems with courier missions. Do I really want to travel 12 jumps in a Claymore when I can make the trip in a Stiletto instead? Perhaps if I set up the infrastructure for running the epic arc I will actually do so on a regular basis.

When I started writing this post, I dreaded the thought of spending a few hours running missions in high sec in order to get my prize. But as I considered all the details in my quest to acquire more faction probes, I realized I could turn running Wildfire into more than shooting a bunch of NPCs. Perhaps the experience will turn out interesting enough to blog about. Blogging about doing a PvE mission arc? That's crazy talk!

Why Fireworks BPOs?

At the request of @noizygamer, I've put in a CSM feature proposal for fireworks bpo's. #tweetfleet #csmx

— Sion Kumitomo (@siggonK) June 5, 2015

Even when I don't log in, I try to advance the goals of the alliance. At the Madison meetup I brought up the subject of players getting fireworks BPOs, if only to break Mynxee of her fireworks and snowball buying habits. Asteros are not cheap, and she could buy more if she didn't spend so much buying up stocks of hug ammo from the trade hubs.

Why should CCP start seeding fireworks (and snowball) original blueprints on the market? Mainly, fireworks (and snowballs) help instill a sense of community. CCP originally created snowballs as a one time gift to celebrate a real world holiday. Snowballs proved so popular with the player base that CCP brought back the items and created fireworks as well. Getting together with others, even complete strangers, and celebrating a holiday like New Year's is fun.

EVE is a sandbox, and players hold celebrations for in-game reasons in addition to celebrate real world holidays. For example, when my alliance, EvE-Scout Enclave, reached 300 members, alliance leadership took a Hugs fleet out to visit Titanomachy in B-R5RB, followed by a trip to a trade hub to shoot off fireworks and snowballs. Well, that was the plan, but the fleet took a wrong turn somewhere and ran into Imperium forces who received all of the planned hugs instead. Our side had a blast; I don't know about the SMA or FCON pilots.

The use of fireworks is not just confined to a group of crazed explorers. Did you know that a group of pilots is celebrating Federation Day this Saturday? Federation Day is the day the Gallente celebrate the founding of the Federation. While a lore event, player celebrations of the holiday go back for years. Did I mention that Federation Day is in June and CCP usually only hands out party ammunition in December?

Quite frankly, as important as making some player events more fun is to an MMORPG, I do have another motive. I'd like to see CCP create a new holiday item this year. By making the current party ammo player-made, CCP could then introduce a new party module or item instead. For example, I think a glitter bomb module would bring a nice change of pace to New Eden's scenery. I envision a glitter bomb module to act like a smart bomb, just more colorful and doing 0 (or -1) points of damage. I don't know if Crimewatch would prevent the use of a glitter bomb in high sec, but the thought of a conga line of glitter bombing capitals snaking through a null sec alliance's capital system brings a smile to my face. Perhaps the glitter bomb comes in one standard color and players could buy scripts from the cash shop to change the color of the effect.

I know that some people will say that CCP should limit the amount of party ammunition in the game. Signal Cartel, during our various wars, even ran across players who appear allergic to fun. I guess because internet spaceships is serious business and, as an exploration alliance, we don't tend to take high sec war decs too seriously. But fireworks are fun, and I don't think CCP should place an artificial limit on the amount of fun we can have throughout the year.

I'm Back With A Prediction

After three days of spotty to non-existent internet connection, I am back on-line. Between Madison and the local Starbucks, I managed to download an order I placed for some records. After reading the documents, I have a prediction. CCP will probably close an office in the U.K. next month.

Before anyone gets excited, EVE Online is not dying. CCP is not dying either. No one, as far as I know, is even getting laid off. According to the financial reports CCP released over the past few years, the company has a non-negotiable lease for office space in the U.K. expiring next month.

I think everyone by now knows about the home of EVE: Valkyrie, Newcastle. But CCP also has offices in Gateshead, across the river from Newcastle, and Slough, about 20 miles west of central London. The Newcastle office is definitely not closing. Not only is the development of CCP's main virtual reality product occurring on the north bank of the River Tyne, but CCP moved the registered office address of CCP Games UK Ltd. from Slough to Newcastle in April. So that leaves Slough and Gateshead.

UPDATE: I may have goofed on the identification of 3 offices. After looking at a map, I found a Fletcher Road in Newcastle but not in Gateshead. The last office at the bottom of CCP's website is probably meant to read Fletcher Road, Gateshead Quay, Newcastle, not Fletcher Road, Gateshead. If so, then CCP only has two offices in the U.K.

Screenshot of offices on CCPGames.com, 5 June 15

Without having access to any lease information, I think the most likely candidate to close is Slough. First, my understanding is that office space is much more expensive in the London area than in the north of England. Next, CCP did move the registered address of its U.K. subsidiary from Slough to Newcastle. Finally, having all employees working within a few miles of each other is probably more convenient.

I think my theory contains a hole, however. What about the guys working on the servers in the London data center? Don't they need support too? Perhaps getting into a long-term lease isn't attractive if CCP decides to move Tranquility to Amsterdam or another major internet crossroads on the continent. Also, maybe CCP rents office space in the data center already.

At the end of the day, if and how CCP plays musical chairs with the offices in the U.K. doesn't impact the games we play. So if someone breathlessly announces that EVE is dying because an office closed, don't worry. Leases for office space expire all the time. And if CCP renews the lease? Then CCP's financial situation is not as bad as some fear. Or as bad as some haters hope.

I'm Not Dead, Just My Internet

My internet died on Monday before I could post my latest. I still don't have a connection at home, though. I'm writing this brief note from Madison, Wisconsin. Why Madison? I'm attending the monthly Madison meetup hosted by The Mittani and Sion Kumitomo. I had a good time last month and figure I will again tonight.

Hopefully Comcast will get everything fixed this week and I can go back to a normal posting schedule next week. Oh, and I'd like to play video games.