Regular Updates Weekly

My name is Hallan Turrek. This is my blog.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

CSM 5

You know, the last few run through I've tried to at least feign neutrality so that I could run interviews with the candidates. I think it's pretty clear that this time around, I'm not neutral at all.

I'll be voting for Mynxee, and so should you.

Her blog post.

Her campaign site.

Her Eve-O Thread.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Blog Banter: You'd Rather Be Playing The Sims, Right?


No. Not this girl. Not this day
Spike - Angel

Welcome to another installment of the EVE Blog Banter, a recurring EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux, which invites EVE bloggers to address a common topic for a period of one week. Posts run the gamut: short, long, humorous, serious, and everywhere in between, but always fun to read!

This month's banter comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks: "
What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?

70% of gamers are male. 62% of online gamers are female, and yet... only 5% of EvE's population.

Bit odd isn't it? Feels kind of sexist to go out and say "Oh but wait until Incarna comes out, then they'll have something to do," That's because it is. It's one thing to say that women prefer a social game to exploding things. It's quite another to say that they only want a social game.

Our society is how it is. Women like to talk, men like to not talk. It's ingrained in you while growing up. It may not've been the way you were leaning, but it's how you're programmed.

There are a huge number of barriers to enjoyment in Eve, but those barriers apply equally to men and women. So throw those right out.

This game has a bigger social scene than any other game I can imagine. It's ingrained into the very fabric of how we play. Standings, Diplomacy, Chat Window upon chat window, mailing lists, Eve forums, corp forums, alliance forums, leadership of corps and alliances, wars, peace, even the scams... and I could go on.

Only none of Eve's marketing mentions that.

"Take over your chunk of 0.0."

"Take over planets."

"Get engaged in massive wars on a giant scale,"

This game markets exclusively to male gamers. I enjoy pretty explosions. I've always wanted to fly a spaceship. Some chicks do too, but they're going to play the game that markets directly to them. For now, that's WoW.

Fix standings(give us a diplomat role instead of only directors) in an expansion and do a trailer about diplomacy(maybe Incarna style). Do smart marketing. Talk up the talking game. Women make up 62% of the online gaming community. That is a huge untapped potential. They'll come for the friends and stay for the pretty explosions.

I mean who doesn't love a pretty explosion...


Other Blog Banters:

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Like a Rolling Stone


Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat your friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
On that judgement day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.
One Tin Soldier



The conquest of Providence is complete. In one week CVA's entire station network was taken down. Quite an accomplishment.

Now, what does this mean to your friendly neighborhood blogger? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Are you interested in 0.0 rats or plexes? Refinery? Manufacturing? Labs? We've got one of each station and we're opening them up to everybody. Neutrals are welcome in our space, but when we're off contract we will be killing them as quickly as possible. So, then how're we going to make money?

Want protection from Noir.? Want to use our space and be blued to the neighbors? Lucky Starbase Syndicate is for you. For the low price of one hundred million a month, you can have an office and proper standings set up. All you have to do is pay up, join your corporation to that alliance, and have fun. That's right, all the joys of 0.0 at only one hundred million per corp.

Contact Asuka Smith for details. Hope to see you around my neck of the woods soon!

PS: I promise this'll be the last post for a while that's a shameless plug. Honest.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Here may you see the tyrant.
Macduff - Macbeth

CrazyKinux is running a contest, and I just had to get involved. From his blog:

Tyrannis will see some new industrial and planetary interaction opportunities like we've never seen before in New Eden. It's a step in linking EVE Online and DUST514 as well. So I need you to write what you believe are the short and/or long term consequences of this development, in terms of the new industrial capacity it presents to players, in terms of the opportunities for pirates, for industrialists, for sovereignty, etc. Surprise us!


So, industrial consequences of the Tyrannis changes. Lets see.

Planetary Interaction

I accidentally the whole planet

First and foremost are the planetary interaction changes. Those are in the front of most people's minds, and they should be. There are many methods of making money in Eve, however the only true way to extract money from nothing is to run missions or rat. The mission rewards and bounties inject ISK into the system consistently. How can planetary interaction change this?

Well for starters, if those long-limbed roes you harvested can be bought by the stations themselves, they'll provide a new influx of isk for those with a bit to much food on their hands. A new form of "isk from nothing" will have a direct impact on the value of the isk you hold in your account. But then again, "isk from nothing" isn't the only impact of planetary interaction.

You see, some of the costs of tech two building can be brought down if the specialty pieces you need can be manufactured planetside. The supply of tech 2 ships will go up... but so will the demand. Add to this the new insurance rate changes, possibly insuring a tech 2 ship up to 60%, and suddenly the investment seems a lot more feasible to Mr. 8 Million Skill Points.

Assuming he remembers to insure it anyhow.

That's not even mentioning things like Nanite Repair Paste, which can only be bought from stations. Given the knowledge of how to build it on SiSi, and the ease in which it can be done, expect prices on that to plummet. Similarly, anything widely used will be over produced until a price stabilizes and people will need to find new things to produce.

Insurance

I don't defraud the insurance industry, the fires defraud the insurance industry.

Remember those insurance changes? Right now a ship costs about 70% of what it costs to build, and the best insurance costs about 30% of the total. So you blow it up and get 100% of your investment back(give or take). The price never falls far below 70%, because the moment it does, someone is self destructing Apocalypses outside Amarr center station. What that means is that there is no real volatility. The price is stuck around 70%, with no real profits to be had.

However, in swoop the insurance changes. Now insurance payouts are dynamic. They penalize self destructive actions instead of rewarding them. Don't let anyone tell you a suicide gank isn't extremely profitable, with or without insurance. People just don't do it unless they know it's worth their time. If CCP makes it less appealing to die to Concord, there will be less suicides, but the really worthwhile ganks will still happen under the cop's noses. Changing insurance makes good sense, even if it's a stealth nerf on the gankers.

The added benefit is that it may be worth holding onto that Raven for a bit to see if it's going to go up in price or not. Real market changes will make this sandbox a bit bigger for all of us.

Mining and Loot from Missions

WTF is this shit?

So the last true bit to have real industrial consequences for our economy will be the changes to loot gained in missions. The idea is to have alot less of the minerals that make up your ships and modules come from reprocessed mission loot. Does that mean people will stop missioning and start PvPing or even worse, mining? Of course not.

The driving force behind mission running is not the loot. It's an additional benefit of running the missions, nothing more. Those who run them now, will continue to do so, only they'll be providing less of the stuff that dreams(and ships) are made of. That slack will be picked up by the miners, almost certainly, and the profession will become a bit more profitable. More people will remain miners as they start off, but people who are already running missions aren't going to switch because they lost out on a few million in minerals a day.

Expect the prices on the basic minerals to go up, and then back down. If I were you, I'd stock up on minerals sometime before the patch, or stock up on tech one ships. Dump the tech 2's, the prices are going to drop. Maybe not a lot, but it'll be worth your time to liquidate huge stashes before the next update, and then buy them back once the market stabilizes.

PvP in Tyrannis

I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.

So what's a PvPer to do with all this industry going on in my internet spaceship shooting stuff game? Where there is industry, there is money to be made, and money to be taken.

Camping a launch point and stealing the planetary goods is a start.

Establishing self sufficency in your 0.0 home system so you spend less time making fuel runs and more time roaming in your neighbors backyard.

Taking a system based on how valuable it's planets are, instead of just moons.

The list goes on and on. Pirates have a place. The imperial alliances have a place in the conflicts of tomorrow. Even the smallest groups in Eve will want to fight to protect their property.

With trillions of people looking on as their immortal overlords vie for their hearts, minds and bodies, I can't blame 'em.

Thus always to tyrants.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Providence Invasion

London calling to the faraway towns,
Now that war is declared-and battle come down,
London calling, to the underworld,
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls,
London calling, now don't look at us,
All that phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust,
London calling, see we ain't got no swing,
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing,

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in,
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin,
A nuclear error, but I have no fear,
London is drowning-and I live by the river.
The Clash - London Calling


Lets get the links out of the way first.

Our Campaign.
Prometheus's Blog. (He covers Noir's insertion op very well)
Ombeve's Blog.
Kirith Kodachi's Blog.(For a CVA friendly perspective)
Mynxee's Blog. (No updates on this yet, but I imagine one is forthcoming)

Now, onto the topic for discussion!

The Providence invasion has begun. Anyone paying attention to Providence will recognize that 3/4 or so of the station systems have been reinforced. This is, in a way, AAA calling CVA's bluff. CVA expected them to get bored, and instead got almost all of their systems sieged at once. Good job CVA.

So why is Noir involved? I'll let you figure that one out on your own, but here's some hints.

This is map of Provi with our currently occupied systems highlighted. Bonus points if you look at the map with kills in the last 24 hours showing.

Much like Daisho Syndicate, Sodalitas XX, and Agony Empire(so called "Provi Block" alliances) we are focusing on a single constellation, and we dropped the SBU's to contest the system. Draw your own conclusions.

I do know this though, the Provi Block is going to grow a bit before the week is out.

What I find oddest in all this is that CAOD hasn't had a post on this yet.

More on this next week.

Good Day.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

London Calling.

I regret trifling with married women. I'm thoroughly ashamed of having cheating at cards. I deplore my occasional departures from the truth. Forgive me for taking your name in vain, my Saturday drunkenness, my Sunday sloth. Above all, forgive me for the men I've killed in anger...
and those I am about to.
Jebediah Nightlinger - The Cowboys

Bit of a preview of my next post.