BB74 — Fanfest Nerdboner

The Most Important Reveal at Fanfest Was……

So when this Blog Banter goes live Fanfest will be over. Hungover geeks from around the world will be departing Reykjavik after a five-day binge of important internet spaceships and partying. Whether you were there in person, watched the streams or read the dev blogs on your mobile hidden under your work desk there was probably something in there that gave you a “nerd-boner”. What for you personally was the most important thing to come out of Fanfest 2016?

CCP Ghost

CCP Ghost introduced himself to us through his fascination with the workings of the human brain, in particular his own. This fascination has led him on a curious career path, which you can learn more about through his presentation. He has been recruited by CCP to help keep new players onboard. In his own words, he studied the mechanics and community of EVE and realised, “Holy Shit!” This was an amazing opportunity which he decided he couldn’t turn away.

[OOC] Fanfest 2016 Calendars

Here are a bunch of calendars for you to subscribe to. Copy the URL then subscribe using your calendar application. They aren't clickable because clicking them doesn't achieve much.

Art Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/1rabl908tr9cai8l0h6lddt1lg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Community Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/9hfro3daqfpq635cjkr9fkbpks%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

(Third Party) Developer Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/080i7hr7jdbi8casvn0te7og04%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Development Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/mqb5ghn14q1fudor3ni56egjd4%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Engagement Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/qqv78o6po09fstlpv9n2d8kul8%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Official Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/1qfhkspvc0oag5mfkpmj1f1uls%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Player Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/20is2ncnjfv274orv9r7khimcg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Special Events: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/hq9juqptg0stlh4k8q3p8eosuc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

VR Track: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/jf045n1mhm0kbl0mubpdpv1820%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Biomass

What is the difference between a mortuary and a cloning facility?
Gotcha! It’s a trick question. In that last couple of decades, the process of cloning has had to be optimised significantly in order to serve the richest, most prolific and most demanding customers - Capsuleers.

BB#60 Metrics

Jakob Anedalle of Jakob’s Eve Checklist blog asks:

With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now out, and more of CCP Seagull’s vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term to see it through. What do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they’ve succeeded? What outcome will we see as players? Is it concurrent player count or something else?

My take on this is simple: if we're having more fun, the expansion was a success. If there are more folks in nullsec having honest-to-goodness fights, blowing up capitals and super capitals, if there are more people from hisec poking their heads into lowsec, nullsec and w-space, if there are more people deciding that losing ships isn't the end of the world, then it will be a success.

Encouraging people to venture into danger is as much about controlling the negative PR (the toxic atmosphere of starter corps where people are told horror stories of perma-red gate camps on every lowsec entrance, PL hot drops on frigates doing exploration, and other such nonsense) as it is about providing something interesting to do.

Which means that it's really down to the players to encourage other players to join them in lowsec.

What are you doing to make this expansion a success?

Me? I'm heading out to lowsec for exploration and hauling.

Blog Banter #58 — Money

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!" - Jerry Maguire The SOMERBlink fiasco from last summer and then again this summer (link: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=367505), resulting in the service's ultimate shutdown has opened the floor to the discussion or monetization of services once again. Do you think CCP was right in its reaction? Was SOMERBlink justified in trying to monetize its service via plex sales kickbacks? Was it true RMT or grey area RMT? More generally, where is the line to be drawn when a service attempts to monetize in order to offset costs and/or make a profit? Is asking for donations in Real Life cash too far (I realize CCP considers it unacceptable right now)? Selling non-EVE trademarked goods acceptable? Asking for money to pay for efforts in setting up EVE meetups? Should these all be scrutinized? And should you want to dig deeper, should players be allowed to reverse redeem plex for cash? Does this already not exist in programs like Plex for fanfest packages or video cards? Is it right?

The film Jerry Maguire starred Tom Cruise, famous for being a crazy person who plays shallow, selfish characters in movies.

Catching up on the Forums

CCP Mining Operation

CCP held a mining operation for rookie pilots. The folks from Snigwaffe paid a visit and performed a fail-gank to help relieve the boredom. TheMrFunday posted some pictures of the event via Reddit.

Genolution 'Auroral' AU-79 Reminder

Just a reminder to folks: if you unplug the Genolution 'Auroral' AU-79 implant, you lose it forever.

Does EVE Need New Players?

The perennial complaint about hisec wardec corps not picking on people their own size resurfaces for the entertainment of us all!

Rubicon 1.2 Issues

The Rubicon 1.2 issues thread has reports of the following:

• unable to log on (a fix is suggested)
• (fixed in Rubicon 1.2.1 ) courier contracts, asset window, and distribution missions were reporting bizarre distances and lowsec warnings due to a change in CCP's route-finding code
• some people are having problems with shortcut keys for flying in space commands such as orbit, approach, etc
• some asteroid belts have moved around due to a correction of map data, so a bookmark to asteroid belt 4 might actually take you to asteroid belt 2: it's the belt that has moved, not your bookmark
• waypoint display is adding extra symbols for systems that are waypoints in a longer route
• missile smoke trails are still missing

The Mythical Social Wall

This is a response to Ripard Teg's "Prepare for Staging"

I suspect the "social wall" is an imaginary construct created by an economist to explain psychology which he doesn't understand.

As a casual gamer (sure, I'm logged in to EVE for several hours a day some days, but I'm rarely at the keyboard for three hours nonstop) I play in fits and spurts. This is anathema to forming lasting social connections: the best WoW guilds and EVE groups I've been part of had a core of social people with a retinue of coconspirators who would provide the necessary "social inertia" to keep the group running when the core were temporarily away.

My main examples of "overcoming the social wall" are casual and hardcore raiding guilds from World of Warcraft: you'd start conversations with people in the area that you were questing, people you were running PUGs with, or met through other means. Then you'd find that you have a similar interest and playtime, so you'd start looking for them the next time you played. Eventually you'd end up recruiting them for your guild.