CSM X Members and Scylla Patch Notes

Congrats to the members of CSMX, as reported by EN24 and TAGN.

• Manfred Sideous - Pandemic Legion
• Cagali Cagali - Brave Collective
• Sort Dragon - DARKNESS.
• Jayne Fillion - Sanctuary of Shadows
• Steve Ronuken - Fuzzwork Enterprises
• Chance Ravinne - WINGSPAN Delivery Services
• Gorga - Nulli Secunda
• corebloodbrothers - The Volition Cult
• Thoric Frosthammer - Get Off My Lawn
• Sugar Kyle - Snuffed Out
• Endie - Goonswarm Federation
• Mike Azaria - The Scope
• corbexx - No Holes Barred
• Sion Kumitomo - Goonswarm Federation

It looks like Manfred and Sugar (both bolded here for emphasis) secured enough votes to be the guaranteed travelers next year to Icelandic shindigs.

All four of my endorsements (Sugar Kyle, corbexx, Mike Azariah, and Jayne Fillion) made the cut, so I am reasonably happy!  Good luck to all of them.

EDIT:  If you want an overview of the FanFest keynote, check out the summary at massivelyop.net (which is the successor to Massively).

The Scylla patch notes are now available.  I've done a quick scan for Anomic content and found only one correction of a typeo (meh).  Otherwise I don't see much groundshaking changes in terms of PVE and agents.  That being said, there is some content being added to the "Opportunities" system, which is the new player experience experiment.  I suppose that this framework could be expanded in time to include more content for legacy players, perhaps in the same dynamic way as suggested in my last post.

One Wish

Fighting a case of really nice weather here after a pretty crummy February.  It's pretty hard for me to stay focused on the PC when the sun is out and the birds are chirping and it's finally warm enough to venture outside minus the parka.  What a difference a few days make - not awful long ago I was layered up in my Carhartt's plowing snow.

As I mentioned, I have given a little bit of thought to what I would change if I could fix one thing in PVE.  Fanfest is around the corner, so I'll publish this (no doubt will be way off the mark) and see what unfolds.

Here's my wish:  I'd gut the lvl4 system and chuck it in the bin.  Then I'd burn its corpse and dance on the ashes.

That's probably an odd thing to say for someone who's basically a mission runner full time.

I think the game DOES need an agent mission system.  I think it's vital, actually.

I do want a little more depth, and maybe agents that force you to move around a bit.  On the other hand, I do not want "quests" in the way that the SOE arc and the old COSMOS system sent you on.

My replacement system would be a dial-a-difficulty dynamic agent provider.

Example:  If I want to do Battleship Combat, I click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I have a tech2 equipped Golem active and generates two missions for me to choose from - Silence the Informant and Worlds Collide.  I choose one and run.  (Said another way: No real change to current lvl4 mechanics for those that like humping around in Golems and Tengus and saving the Damsel)

Example:  If I want to do Frigate Combat, I click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I'm in a Kestrel with low meta modules.  Agent generates a few starter missions with appropriate difficulty and payout.

Example:  I pimp out a tech1 cruiser, and decide I want a challenge.  I ask the agent for 'hard' work and it kicks me over to expert mode and tries to kick my ass.

Example:  If I want to run a courier mission, I fit a Bestower and click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I have the Bestower and offers a reasonably large-cargo courier.  I could, however, ask for Courier work in my Crow and get a smaller cargo haul of perhaps more hops.

At the core of this system would be a parametric encounter generator that would generate the enemy ships and triggers somewhat randomly.  I say 'somewhat' because the same encounter accepted as a Maller would by necessity be scaled down from the version I would accept in a Bhaal.  And likewise if I continue to run with the Maller, repeat visits to save the Damsel would result in a slightly different kill list, spawn points/distances, mix of target types and sizes, and perhaps a chance at a few named guys.

I don't claim that this would eliminate the grindy grind that missions are.  No way that's possible.  But by fostering a system where more ships are more viable in PVE, we can at least open the flood gates to new fits, new metas, rewarding risktakers doing expert mode missions, and the ability to fly a ship because it looks cool and not because "it's the best."

Flashbacks

As we get close to the CSMX election results announcement (and FanFest), I thought I'd put some text down about what kinds of things I'd like to see in the PVE-realm over the next many months.

When I got started, there were really 2 posts that I wanted to get written and published.

While sitting on the airport this week, I started thinking about what I'd change in PVE if I could just change ONE thing. This led in a few tangential ideas, which I'll hopefully be posting over the next few days.

But as a stepping stone, I wanted to rehash a couple ideas from these original posts.  Burners are very VERY similar to my Expert Missions proposal, but don't line up in a couple of important ways.

1. Manifesto
2. Expert Missions

I'd had these sentiments bottled up in my head for awhile, and I began this blog with full intent of working the ideas out into something presentable.  So I wrote, put them out there, and felt better.

And then a funny thing happened:  Burners.  At the point I started this blog to ramble about PVE, our friends at CCP were already well on their way to implement some frigate PVE, and a few short weeks after I set up shop here the content was being released.  Timing, as they say, is everything.

So queue up the flashback sequence....

Jump Fatigue IRL

Okay, I'm back from from a business trip that consumed most of my week so that I could attend 6 hours of meetings on Wednesday.

The place I was visiting is approximately a 9 hr drive from my home.  It's located in a reasonably large metro area, but happens to be in a part of the country that is surrounded by large airport hubs, and is overshadowed by them, i.e. there are very few flights servicing the exact airport I needed to get to/from.  The corporate policy I deal with ties my hands on travel, resulting in wasted time and energy for the sake of appearances.

To be clear - as a mid-level manager in my organization, I have almost free reign over programmatic issues.  I can make million dollar decisions with a phone call, and my daily responsibilities include making decisions that can take human life (in a very dramatic fashion) if there is ever a failure of our product.

Yet on the administrative side I am hamstrung by one-size-fits-all policies that (for example) include a large bias towards NOT driving for routine travel.  The corporate goons can't and won't ever understand my programmatics, and therefore don't even try to intrude (thank God).  But they will argue with me about $50 decisions to take Airline X vs. Airline Y (even though with bag fees it's cheaper to fly Airline X).  Or they'll tell me by edict that I can't possibly drive 9 hours and that it "looks better" if I simply conform and spend 12+ hours in the airport to reach the same destination.  I can't, (again by edict) fly into Las Vegas (because of "appearances") even though I can get a direct flight there and drive (total door to door time of 6 hours), vs. being forced to take a connection and THEN drive from a less provocative airport (total door to door time of 12 hours).

So, on Tuesday, we spent about 12 hours getting to our destination instead of driving for 9.  On paper it looked a lot better - I should have been onsite by 2 in the afternoon.  But, first flight was delayed 20 minutes, meaning we missed our connection after a mad scramble from gate C24 to gate A1-G, through tunnels, up escalators, down escalators, and even a friggin' train.  We missed our connection by 5 minutes.  Instead of waiting for another 8 hours for the next flight (or hahaha, taking another flight that sent me to Dallas and THEN back to my destination), I grabbed a rental and drove the final ~120 miles to the endpoint.  The additional rental car cost was $177 to add the 1-way route, and I fully expect to get reamed on Monday over it.

Yesterday, likewise, included every dumb thing an airport can do to you and I spent a tad over 12 hours fighting airports, mechanical delays, missed connections, TSA shenanigans (complete with squad cars and a men-in-black suburban surrounding our embrair commuter plane just before we pushed back).

Bonus points was the redneck 3 rows away from me with incredible body odor (dude, you may be wearing full camo so we can't SEE you, but we sure as hell can SMELL you).

This is a rant, I know. I really started typing to try to explain why the posts here have been quiet.  The meetings themselves were productive, and I got to spend quality time (i.e. schmooze, hobnob, brown nose, pick your verb) with one of our offsite bigwigs that sends us $$.  Had I to do over, I would still attend the meeting.

And I really love my job.  I do.  Apart from some arcane admin policies, we're not that bad.  We have a great local team and the things we do have lasting impacts.  We do cool things on a cool product with very little adult supervision.  It is by far the best job I've had in a 15 year career, and it's a job that I hope to retire from in another 15-20.

But dammit, I'm about to go to my doctor and complain about an "inner ear condition" so that I can get a note that lets me drive instead of fly.

So yes, this ... this is what Jump Fatigue looks like in real life.  More posts to follow, I've had plenty of down time lately to ponder topics to write about.

Hooray for Daylight Savings

It's Daylight Savings clock changing day here in the U.S.  No idea if it's a worldwide clock changing day or not, but I got up, walked to my cell phone and realized I'd lost an hour.  Such a silly tradition.

A few things:
- There are a few days left to vote for CSMX if you somehow haven't.  Most of you have probably already run to the polls and done your thing.  If not, this link will take you there.

- I'm reading the Sov dev blogs again.  I'm not a Sov guy, so I'm keeping my opinions to myself.  It's going to be interesting to watch, at least from a game-philosophy-standpoint how things shake down.

- Mrs. Durden humored me and played a pretty good game of X-Wing miniatures (tabletop) on Friday night.  It's not her thing, but she'll play me once a week or so just to get me to shut up.  At the moment I'm testing a tournament list (squad roster) and trying to practice my maneuvering before I go to the local game store for nerd fun.  I'm proud to say that my wife kicks my ass most of the time; my win ratio is less than 50% at the moment.

The weather finally broke, so I've got stuff to do outside.  Enjoy your 23 hour day!

Fluency

I read a fair bit, but I don't have an extensive library.  Said another way:  I tend to reread my favorite series every few years, and that scratches my "reading" itch and I don't have more time to pick up new series.  I've talked before about a couple of other scifi series that I've read.

I don't much like disposable pulp fiction.  I like deeper stuff, with a little more character development.  I like near-future scifi stuff, in that awkward phase of (assumed) human development where we're still bound to the solar system and warp drives and such haven't been invented yet.  I like having a culture that's somewhat familiar, and having time, distance, and technology a limiting factor in the storytelling (compared to say, Mr. Data or Mr. Worf saving the day once again by shooting a tachyon beam out of the main deflector, ugh.).

Anyway, I picked up Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells on Amazon last week.  It's a quick read - I think I did it in 3 sessions.  At face value it checks a lot of my boxes - near future, our solar system, and not a straight-to-paperback format.

It's a scifi tale set basically in present day, based in and around a derelict alien ship that's been found in our asteroid belt.  The Americans find the ship in the 1960s and base their entire NASA program around the goal of sending a secret mission to investigate the thing.  There's references to the UFO that crashed at Roswell, which brings a little bit of X-Files vibe to the start of the book.

I enjoy the writing style; each character has his own vocabulary and way of thinking.  As the point of view shifts between the two main players, we get a good deal of character development.  Some of the other crew seems a little more cardboard and less fleshed out, but less so than some of the pulp sci-fi that's out there.

Much of the story is groundwork and background as the mystery surrounds the ship unfolds.  There will no doubt be another book (or five) to follow.

It's an aggressive story, in terms of the amount of story that there is to cover, written in a no-nonsense fast paced manner.  Some bits felt a little rushed and I wished that some parts would have been developed a little more.  It could have been easily double the length, and I'd have read every bit of it.

So, if you need a good distraction as Winter continues to taunt us, I think it's worth the time and effort to track down a copy.

Ominous

There's a pretty good dev blog (yay for charts and graphs!) that's been available for a few days but somehow slipped past me.  It's worth a read.

The dev blog ends on an ominous note:

We are really enjoying watching all the creative ways you have come up with to interact with the new NPC AI and we look forward to seeing how you tackle the next phase!

I see folks complaining that Drifters are a waste because they drop no loot.  This quote seems to confirm my quiet assumption that CCP is dabbling here, poking and prodding ... and they aren't done yet.  Thanks to the quicker release cycle, hopefully we can see some improved PVE options in the near future.

Mentally, I've tried to map Drifters into current PVE features (Drifter Burners Missions? Drifter Incursions?) and came away with a pain in my frontal lobe not unlike a brain freeze.  Ow. Ow. Ow.  I decided that as much as I love doing work for my SOE agent, I hope it's something new entirely.

Monday Madness

Things have been slow here, so let's do a random ramble post of all the minor topics I can think of:

• Things in general for me in EVE have been slow.  Unlike years past, this doesn't mean that I'm off playing some other game; I just haven't been that active at all on the PC lately.  I'm still logging in nightly to check evemail and market movements and chat a bit with the crew.  But I've rarely undocked over the past 10d and need to correct that.
• The lowsec alt I mentioned is now training happily on my 2nd account.  I'll be checking into lowsec in another week or two.  More to come on this topic.
• If you haven't read this post over at the Nosy Gamer, you should.  Jammers and fireworks.  Hahaha.
• If you're a fan of Star Wars and you're not watching Star Wars Rebels on XD, you're missing out!  It's an animated series that takes place 5 years before the first Death Star was destroyed.  It's the prequel that makes me love the original trilogy all over again (compared to the drek that Lucas coughed up for episodes I-IIII).  For a kid's show, it's really really good.  I'm hooked.
• We're having a very cold late winter here.  There are a handful of things that I should have done in February that I will now be doing in March.  I'm concerned that we could also have another late (or wet) spring like last year, which will make life difficult for me. I always struggle in the Spring to get chores around our 10 acres done and train up for the spring bike and triathlon series.  On the plus side, the cold weather has allowed us to spend more evenings at the gym on the spin bike.  I'm hopeful that last season's back pain has been banished, and I feel like I've regained the stamina I lost by taking so much time off last year.  So, it could all work out, but I'm still nervous.
• I mentioned in passing recently that I hoped to hit EVE Vegas this year.  I flew in/out of Vegas last fall for work, and was itching to stay longer for personal time (wasn't in the cards that particular trip).  I was thinking about doing FanFest this year but couldn't justify the costs compared to other things we intend to do.  However, EVE Vegas seems workable right now.

Guess that's it for now.  Happy Monday!

CSMX Endorsements

I told myself I wasn't going to get caught up in the CSM endorsement deal.  But here we are; I'm writing this post and you're reading it, so I guess we better get on with it.  :)

My ballot will include;  Sugar Kyle, corbexx, Mike Azariah, and Jayne Fillion, not necessarily in that order.  I'll do more reading and may flesh it out more, but my ballet may stop with those 4 names.

I look at big pictures.  I'm looking for candidates that represent the under-represented areas of the game, even if those areas aren't places that I spend a lot of time.  Sugar is lowsec, corbexx is WHs, Mike is missions, and Jayne is NPSI roams.  Meanwhile, I assume that the null blocks will do their thing and get their candidates in - the candidates above fill out the council and provide some counterbalance.  That's not my entire criteria, but it's where I start.

I don't know corbexx, Mike, or Jayne except by reputation and what I read on the internet.  I don't listen to podcasts.  I do read Mike's blog.  I read the minutes, and forum posts.  And I'd like to meet some of these guys if I can make it to EVE Vegas this fall, assuming they're there too.

Sugar will be my #1 vote on both my accounts.  I'm not the only blogger to say that (see here and here and here), and I'll try not to repeat what others are saying (even though I agree with them).  Sugar's the exception to my roster because she's the one candidate that says hello to me when I login.  She's listened to me ramble on more than one occasion with patience and good grace.  To be clear, I'm an old highsec carebear and not her target audience.  But I've always felt welcome and not a "lesser" player because of the career path that I take on.  And months after a random chat with her, I see things I said showing up in her meeting prep notes or my questions being asked in the meeting minutes.  Everyone says she's a hard worker (and I think that's true).  But there's more to it:  She's organized. She pays attention.  And she listens.

Don't overthink your vote.  Don't assume that Sugar is a "lock" and put her lower on your list.  If she's truly your #1 or #2, then make her #1 or #2.

The magic of transferable ballot math will take care of the rest.


GO VOTE.

Changing Tempo

When the new unlimited skill queues were added to the game, I did what I think everyone did and loaded up all my characters with a big crazy wish list, and then let it run.

I go back into Aba's from time to time and optimize and re-prioritize, but for the most part it's been a hands-off part of the game.  (Whether that's a good or bad thing could be a whole 'nother post).

For my primary alt (that I call 'M' here), the skill queue consisted mostly of things that will be useful in supporting burners.   She has a great foundation in engineering and navigation, plus perfect squad boost skills, but was missing some of the basic frigate combat skills.  Over the past many weeks, that's been corrected, and she's now on par with Aba for most burner-sized things.

Around Christmas, I made another pass at her queue.  The idea was to try to get ahead of the game and position her to assist with Cruiser-sized burners, should they ever be added.  The good news is:  I think she's nearly done - she was already strong in HAC and BC skills and the combat support skills for frigates of course translate up the list.  February has been about making some minor adjustments.  Her skill queue ends on the 28th, and as I was looking through things last night I realized that she might be "good enough" to let sit idle awhile.

And that means I can get back to training up my lowsec alt on that account for some lowsec shenanigans.  I had him on yesterday running (of all things) courier missions in low.  Was pretty fun slipping in and around the Saturday afternoon roam fleets; I expected to land on a camp at every gate (I should be more careful, but was betting on speed and a disposable ship rather than discretion).  So it's time to fire up his queue again; he's a few days away from interceptors, and then a few more days for cloaks and then it's the long soak for recons.  Should be pretty fun.

From there, I'm actually thinking about doing lowsec PI on him, but I'll admit I'm pretty ignorant on whether that's a good idea or not.

This is all a little silly; I could do all of these things with characters I already have.  But a) I like building characters, it's an aspect that fades a bit with time in EVE and b) I like having guys pre-positioned to save travel times.


What's Playing:  TOOL, Aenima

Creating Monsters

Chores.

I hear other players talking about them.  There are a lot of little things in the game that are semi-passive and fully-passive income generators.  Things like Planetary Interaction, running your own POS (i.e. BPO copying, Invention), mining, industry/building, and R&D agents.

Over time, I've marked many of these off the list.  A couple years back, I was a mission runner (and sometimes Incursion runner) and I thought "I should set up some PI, it won't take long and it's passive income."  So I did, and I ended up hauling once or twice a week.

A little bit after that I said "Wow, I still own all these capship BPOs and stuff; I should set up a POS so I can fire up the copy printer."  So I did, and I ended up hauling fuel, or jumping back to manage the output of the process once or twice a week.

For awhile, I was doing a bit of mining, and was using the output to fuel a factory.  By filtering the mining yield through one of my capship component part BPOs and selling the resulting parts, I could add on 3-10% on my mining yield for very little work.  But I still had to go buy the higher end minerals to fill out each order, so I ended up hauling mega and zyd here and there.

I'd like to say that this entire empire ran itself and I loved every minute of it.

But no, I was quite an idiot about this.  The PI system I chose was different than the POS system which was different than my mining/building system.  Each system was chosen for various reasons (moon PI composition, proximity to ice belts, number of asteroid belts, proximity to trade hub, proximity to 0.4 space, etc.) but it was horrible from a comprehensive point of view.  Very quickly I'd log in each night, realize I had a chore to take care of, find a different ship, make 6-20 jumps in a slow Impel or Orca, and once done I'd need to logoff instead of completing the instead of the mission or joining the Incursion I'd wanted to do.

EVE had become a job.  I was making decent isk for very little time logged in, but I was locked into a schedule.  It was a monster of my own creation, sure, but was still a monster.

I write about it because I'm still amazed how easily the chores list sneaked up on me.  Each addition was small, but the total impact to my play time was huge.  

This went on for a few months, and then the POS came down and the PI went untended.  I briefly considered consolidating my operations (duh) but I was tired of the whole "chores" aspect of it all and went off to find some red icons to shoot instead.  If real life ever settles down (haha) maybe I can try again and make it work.  Until then, I'll intentionally keep my schedule free.