New features coming out in Odyssey

Hello everyone,

Today's rant is not one directed at any one person, it is a rant direct at a LOT of people. I made this video at fanfest that goes over a few of the new features that will be coming out in Odyssey. The Dev you hear talking is CCP Soundwave. This video is just over 11 minutes and gives you a little sneak peak in what to expect in the next expansion. This video was on the HD stream for those that purchased it.

Now if you read one of my past rants you will have read why I think that the changes to Ice mining are a GOOD THING. The new scanning system along with the Ice belts respawning every 4 hours after depletion is a GOOD thing for us hard working miners and a bad thing for bots :-)

Now for those folks out there that are saying that CCP has never done this before your wrong. I will take you back to 2006...

I generally don't announce roleplayed news on the forums, but there are times when attention needs to be drawn to them. Some ice fields in high security, high traffic systems will deplete themselves over the coming days, as they were not intended to be in these areas. There are other fields that will suffer the same fate in the near future.

This will have an impact on the ability of smaller corporations and more advanced, new players to generate ISK, but this will also have a (hopefully) major impact on some of the RMT strip mining operations in high-sec space.

Due to caching, some of these depleted ice fields will continue to appear in the client right-click menu. This will be patched out in the near future, but it can also be resolved by clearing your cache. Be warned, clearing your cache can have other effects on your client, such as removing all sorting of bookmarks and other personal settings.

kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online

So you can see that was step one way back in the day...

I have also said several times in previous blogs that my corp GetCo have been Ice miners since Eve brought Ice to us as something we could interact with. We view these changes as a GOOD thing and so should you.  Ice mining is a way to obtain necessary and useful things from our Eve sandbox. Without mining, POS life and capital ship battles as we know it would not be possible. Too many of the things we must have come from the Ice belts. Isotopes and Liquid Ozone are particularly high on the list. The list goes on....

Who's this CSM member?

He said that he would be watching CCP closely while he is a CSM member. What he did not do was look behind him! We will be watching you too! :-)

I am glad that you made it to CSM8 and I look forward to the energy that you bring to your blogs taken directly to CCP's front door. Good luck to you sir and may you make Eve a better place for all of us!

...and if you screw this up I am gonna be the first to blog about it :-)

As Chicken little would say: “The ICE is falling, the ice is falling”

Actually, as Chicken little SHOULD say: “The Sky is falling, the sky is falling”

For those that do not understand here is a link to the reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_is_Falling

To help the reader along that is not in GetCo and not in our current alliance I will let you know that GetCo offers everyone an "Ice Purchasing Scheme" for their benefit. We pay our members Jita Market prices without having to take all of their products to Jita to sell them. Saves them a lot of time and money in all of the logistics involved with it.

That being said, GetCo was also at this years fanfest. GetCo also spent a lot of time talking with many CCP developers, some of the CSM 7 & 8 members in great depth about the new Ice Mining changes.

Why did/do we do this?

Because we knew that everyone would go into “panic mode” on wide “market speculations". We wanted to make sure that we fully understood what this means to you, how much ISK you can make, and what the REAL bottom lines are. So, in no particular order I will address the things that we see in GetCo as being the GOOD benefits of these changes.

1)    Ice Mining will be twice as fast. This means that you will be able to mine more in the same amount of time then you were before. Bottom line with this? You make more ISK per hour. In the simplest terms. YOU MAKE MORE ISK PER HOUR! THIS IS A GOOD THING!

2)    The belt respawns after being depleted. SO WHAT!!! Ore belts already do this. The difference with the Ore belts is that once they are depleted they do not respawn till after downtime. The ice belts will do it after four hours. THIS IS ALSO A GOOD THING!

3)    The changes they did to the ice mining system by moving it from the static belt to the new scanner system is that it will make it more difficult for ice botters to mine their ice. The changes that they will do will make it easier for CCP to track and then ban them. THIS IS ALSO A GOOD THING!

4)    Ice prices will go up right now and then as everyone figures this out they will go back down to where they were before all this panic started. There is no need to panic and if you want to cash in on all the crazy speculation then be all means be our guest. We will not be taking part in all the shenanigans.

So for those that were TL:DR

GetCo will most likely start the operations again for all of you on July 5th. That is when we believe that the markets and the silly speculators will have finished with their silly willy ways.
…and before you say “but how can you be sure of all of this”?

GetCo has been mining ICE since ICE was introduced into Eve online. It is what we do. Between what we know and when we spoke to CCP Developer Dr. Eyjólfur G. (EVE's chief economist) he confirmed it. You can see ROCK MELTER asking him (and the CSM members) questions to that and other questions on the recorded fanfest streams.

Missile changes REV 3

ok, time for a different direction for a rant today. This is a topic that my corp GetCo and I will have once every quarter it seems. We always start talking about it and by the end of it we are all somewhat mad at how things have progresses on this topic. If I get positive feedback on this rant it will become a regular feature.

So what made me decide to write about it today? Well I was over at Poetic Stanziel reading the latest blog and nodding as I was reading it. Usually do when I am reading over there. You should follow them if your into that internet spaceship reading and stuff. Anyways, here is the snippet that really caught my attention.

It has annoyed me to no end that CCP has refused to release the voting numbers on a day-by-day basis, as they did last year. I'm not sure what the fuck CCP's problem is with releasing information like this, but every year they get more secretive and stingy with information they used to be free with.

Remember when they used to release their quarterly reports? And then they stopped? Remember when they used to tell us subscriber numbers, and now when they tell us, it includes China. Now it's the voting numbers that are sekrit importunt numbers, and all we get are coy and frustrating remarks from CSM reps who have seen the numbers (and hint that they're promising.) I would be surprised if CCP gave us the percentage of voters to subscribers this year, because that does tell us subscription numbers.

And CCP Dolan is downright frustrating as well. For a dude that is managing the CSM project, a player-represented project, he should be more available to players via Twitter and the forums. If the dude is being given a community representative job, then he should make himself available to the community to answer questions. He did a fucking great interview with Xander, don't get me wrong, and he seems like a nice guy, but beyond that he's been the invisible man.

So at least you know what got me on today's path :-p

1. CCP being more secretive with the numbers is something that the CSM should address and get us a solid answer on.
2. Quarterly reports are something that my corp would have light meetings on. What to plan for the next quarter, what we all see as the trends. It needs to be back more often.
3. CSM being cryptic is something that we need to get them to stop doing NOW.
4. I bet your right. We will only get the percentage of voters and not the actual numbers.
5. CCP Dolan as the community representative makes as much sense to me as CCP Unifex leaving to go to the mobile decision. I just don't think either one of those decisions were very well thought out.So those are my thoughts on what they wrote. What about our thoughts over here at GetCo? Well I'm glad you asked!

Since everyone seems to be happy about the new cruise missile changes I just wanted to let you know something. GetCo isn't happy! Why you might ask my young eve player? Because this is going back to what they game used to be like in 2005! Behold the "COLD WAR" edition!

That is when they first seriously nerved the Raven. They promised way back then that they would be tweaking it later. This is 8 years later! Damn CCP! This is where they did their first serious nerfs to the missile system. Here is how they put it:

Missile Warfare: Faster flight times, target-velocity to payload-ratio-damage-output factoring, introduction of new skills to specialize in missile usage proficiency

This totally took the Caldari battleships out of the PvP arena and you have never seen a Raven in PvP since. They continue to use today's ideas and mechanics on the Future's missile designs. I am telling you CCP has no idea how missiles work in real life or in Eve. That was Rev 1.

Their second attempt and tackling this problem and nerfing it ever more was obvious to us when they tried to pass it off as a fix - buff.  [Winter] Missile Rebalance 2.0 2012.09.18 Google doc with numbers for the affected missiles. This also was a very poor attempt at fixing the root problem. To the best of my eve notes, docs, pdfs and everything I have created over the years this is still not even close to where the game used to be EVEN after including the new cruise missile changes in Rev 3. I know this for a fact since I use to run the old school plexes in Pure Blind in a Raven when I ran the NEC Alliance. 

ROCK MELTER, you done and gone hit your head on dem rocks your a melting one to many times. I have not read ANY dev blog on any cruise missile changes.

What the hell am I talking about? WHAT THE HELL AM I RANTING ABOUT?!?!?

It is not in a dev blog. It is in the official forums. You will have to be logged in but you can read all about the changes here. Go ahead! I'll wait, need to refresh my drink anyways...

Yes, NOT in a Dev Blog. How nice. How quaint. We have already discussed in the past how less then 20% of the people that play eve read the forums. So lets post some game information that people might find useful where 80% of the people don't know it exists. Brilliant!

You know, CCP wants us to write about the last 10 years of the game. I don't think they understand what they are asking here. Today's post is just one of at LEAST a hundred that I can talk about on how CCP keeps micro managing the game, breaking it and then taking in this case 8 years to try to address the problem. Do they really know what they just asked me to do? I seriously doubt it, but now that the genie is out there will be more blogs like today's. I can't wait to see how this pans out with the CSM or even if it gets mentioned.

<As ROCK MELTER walks away shaking his head he can be heard mumbling something about wanting his Mission Raven back>

Executive Producer for the second decade of EVE Online

OK, time for a prediction!

In today's Dev blog we hear about CCP Unifex leaving the position of Executive Producer and heading to the mobile division. This does not sound like a promotion to me but what the hell do I know? I'm a miner! So on with the facts that I do know.

The following are CCP Unifex CSM Winter Summit notes starting on page 3. Happy James315? I am quoting things just like you are now. Not to bad for the care bear miner you want to kill right?

"It wasn't until Exodus that Unifex personally felt “we really had a game” but that it was still a game that appealed to hardcore players who could look past the flaws to enjoy the experience. In fact, the hardcore will always look past flaws. Despite that, “we're a different company these days”, one that Unifex describes as finally in a place where they can build to a vision, essentially building the game “the way it should be, not the way circumstances forced it to be”. Pulling this off has required some shifts in focus and procedure, Unifex explained, adding that they're taking the time to write a new roadmap for helping them build EVE through the next decade."

"There are some things that I hope never change in EVE – It is a dark game; it is a game of consequences; it is a game of tough choices and social interaction. It is a game of pain; it is a game of joy; it is a game of extreme emotions. I would never change EVE from that. But that doesn't mean that it has to have a spreadsheet UI, it doesn’t mean that EVE has to be what it's been the last 10 years. There are certain things that we need to maintain what EVE needs to be, and if we were to all sit down I think we would find ourselves in violent agreement about what they are."

"If we don't have a goal, if we don't have something that is aspirational, there are competitors out there that are going to challenge us. There are players who will say, ‘you know what? You're no longer shooting for the stars’. One of the things that has become clear to me throughout Crucible, Inferno, and Retribution, is that it’s not the way we have done our best expansions."

Now we will switch over the the transcription of the PAX video where he was ranting from the heart and off script. What is the PAX Video you talk about?

Well Jester was on the ball on this one and here is a quote from his blog that gives credit where credit is due.

"So, sirunidan was on-the-ball enough to take pictures of the display screen at PAX East during CCP Unifex's presentation on what we can expect from Odyssey.  Here's the first six pages.  Here's the second six.

Now that you have caught up on the past news I want to center on a few things that BUST CCP Unifex on what he said in the CSM Minutes.

If you go to the 2 minute mark in the video he says:

"eve is not supposed to be a about a place of equilibrium it about people fighting other things"

and at the 5:30 mark he says:

"we don't want to be where we are right now, we want to make a step change".

Then there is another PAX East video you can watch that has some good info at the 5 minute mark. CCP Unifex says:

"How do we change the resource balance across the world? ...we want to cause ripples..."

So there is more proof if people were looking for it. More proof is always better :-)

Final quote, an oldie but a goodie.

Posted - 2011.03.27 20:37:00 - [2]
Edited by: Cyaxares II on 27/03/2011 20:47:01

as an update to my previous post:

In July 2008 CCP had to publish an overview of its finances as part of a bond offering.

    Quote:Major Shareholders

    At the date of this Prospectus there were 97 shareholders in CCP. The ten largest shareholders owned a total
    of 97.9% of the CompanyFs issued share capital.

    NP ehf 33.99
    Teno Investments S.-.R.L 17.21
    Reynir Har=arson 11.37
    Arion safnreikningur 5.60
    Matthfas Gu=mundsson 3.72
    Hilmar Veigar PTtursson 2.82
    Novator ehf 2.56
    Frosti Sigurj=nsson 2.44
    Fri=rik +rn Haraldsson 2.42
    Gu=mundur Kristinsson ehf 2.39
    Ten largest 84.52
    Other 87 shareholders 15.48


NP ehf & Novator ehf belong to Mr. Bjorgolfsson who is broke and has agreed to forward any dividends/proceeds from his CCP shares to a consortium of banks which he owes money.

A little more up-to-date information on CCP shareholders is found here: http://www.dv.is/frettir/2010/10/16/eve-online-malar-gull-fyrir-ccp/ (Google Translate)

The fact that CCP did not issue a dividend does of course imply a strong desire to grow (and puts some pressure on CCP to make sure share value does indeed grow appropriately).

So what does this tell you ROCK MELTER?

Here are my thoughts along with my prediction.

First, CCP Seagull is being fully supported by CCP's shareholders on her current tasks as head of product development. Since the summer of rage CCP has learned that if they screw ip it can cost them dearly. This is why they had the layoffs, this is why we have had cut backs in the game and this is something that CCP wants to avoid at all costs.

Second, CCP Can not be subjective. He says in the Retribution was not a good expansion but in the videos he does. He is just like CCP Soundwave in that regard and can never stay on script. There are more but I digress.

Third, he has not done a good job as Executive Producer. From what I understand about corporate life at CCP this is a normal thing for them. You do a job one year, you move to another job the next year, life goes on, have another beer. I do not see it like that. Mobile division? Even with Crest API coming out this is still a demotion.

Fourth, he mentions a little here and a little there that there are going to be changes. Specifically that the next 10 years will be different.

Prediction:

Alliance will run from the bottom up model The days of the GSW State of the Goonion message are going to be limited at first and eventually in a perfect world destroyed.

Moon mining REV2. It worked for POS's right? There are several theories on how this will work. Final implementation will be seen in Odyssey.

Local destabilized in Null to work the same way as the current wormhole mechanic

Finally new corporation UI that will allow all of us Enablers and Instigators that CCP Seagull loves to help CCP make this game that much more of a hook for those that have not played it yet.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I am a LURKER! I am also an enabler and instigator. That is the one group that she needs to understand better :-)

Finally SOME honesty from James 315

Time for another rant. This weekend is proving to be a good one for them. Fasten your seat belt because this one comes from James315. You can read the 3 page post over at TMC but you will most likely get bored with the same old same old from him. It was the end of page 3 that caught my attention.

It's true that emergent gameplay is created by the few, not the many. And there will always be more carebears than risk creators, because as easy as critics say piñata-bursting is, it's far easier to PvE. However, EVE does not exist primarily for the purpose of allowing people to mine and run missions in highsec. In my humble opinion, PvE is merely a facilitator for the more interesting and unique aspects of the game. This is still the case if carebears flock to the game and push PvP'ers into the minority. As the PvE-only population grows, that opinion be increasingly elitist and politically incorrect, but not less true.
James 315
MinerBumping.com

So lets cover this point by point:

1. It's true that emergent gameplay is created by the few, not the many.This is 100% true James. What you have always failed to realize is that you are not in the emergent game play division. You sir are 100% griefer
2. There will always be more carebears than risk creatorsThis is also 100% true James! There have always been more care bears in Eve and there always will be. They are the #1 subscription base in Eve Online and where CCP makes their money.
   
3. PvE is merely a facilitator for the more interesting and unique aspects of the game.Again, your 100% right! PvE weather it is mining, mission running, exploration or industry is what makes up the bulk of what people do in Eve Online. Very interesting indeed!
   
4. This is still the case if carebears flock to the game and push PvP'ers into the minority.Ahh, you got this one wrong though James. PvPer's have never been in the majority. You show me a successful null sec alliance and I will show you a group of people that either have a ton of their own alts working back in Empire to support their needs or a ton of renter corps that are doing the same High sec stuff they need. The PvE'ers have ALWAYS been the dominant force in Eve and now that CCP Seagull is tasked with getting eve subscriptions up you can guarantee what you said next is going to happen.
   
5. As the PvE-only population grows, that opinion be increasingly elitist and politically incorrect, but not less true. The PvE population has already been there since the beginning of the game James. I should know, I have been there with them. Watching all of your PvP'ers go around stomping your feet always making a ruckus. You complain on the official Eve forums. You complain on your own forums. You make taken to creating websites like yours and blogging to whomever will listen to get your message out there.
   
   The truth behind it James is that your are the minority. Your the 20% the reads the forums, blogs, writes for himself, your website and even TMC. You have never been the voice for people out there and you will never be.
   
   SAY IT ISN'T SO ROCK MELTER!!!!
   
   Not only is that the truth, I am and always have been in the 80% group of PvE'rs. We are the bread and butter of what makes CCP's game work. So much so that as you always like to quote "If you read the CSM Minutes"...blah blah blah you see that CCP is now seriously looking at ways of increasing those numbers. I mean lets get real here ok? After the Summer of Rage scared the hell of our CCP who could blame them right?

So in the end of this blog your improving James315! Your at a 60% approval rate with the ol' ROCK MELTER here. I wouldn't let you join my corp but there is still hope for you in the future :-)

How does Eve Traffic Control Work? Part 1

Durin­g peak travel times in Jita, there are about 5,000 pilots in the system every hour. This translates to approximately 100,000 ships jumping in and out of that system each day. How do these ships keep from colliding with each other? How does gate traffic move into and out of an system or across the region? These are questions GetCo has sought the answers to ever since Concord lost control of everything when their station was destroyed in Yulai.

The task of ensuring safe operations of commercial and private ships falls on concord controllers. They must coordinate the movements of thousands of ships, keep them at ­safe distances from each other, direct them during decloaking and landing from gates, direct them around bad nodes and ensure that traffic flows smoothly with minimal delays.

When you think about Concord traffic control, the image of men and women in the control room of an gate probably comes to mind. However, the Concord gate traffic control system is much more complex than that. In this article, we will examine air traffic control in the Yulai system in the region of Genesis. Since GetCo has an office in this station and we were there when they were attacked we decided to do a study on this to learn what Concord would not tell us. We'll follow a ship from departure to arrival, looking at the various controllers involved, what each one does, the equipment they use and how they are trained.

Empire High Security Space Traffic Control

­Concord High Sec space is divided into 22 zones (regions), and each zone is divided into many different systems. Also within each zone are portions of space, about 5000 miles (8046.72 km) in diameter, called TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach CONtrol) spaces. Within each TRACON space are a number of control towers just like the one in Yulai, each of which has its own space with a 50-mile (80-km) radius.

­The traffic control system, which is run by CONCORD, has been designed around these space divisions. The traffic control system divisions are:

• Space Traffic Control System Command Center (STCSCC) - The STCSCC oversees all traffic control. It also manages traffic control within centers where there are problems (solar storms, traffic overloads, Sansha Incursions).
• Space route traffic control centers (SRTCC) - There is one SRTCC for each center. Each SRTCC manages traffic within all sectors of its center except for TRACON space and local gate space.
• Terminal radar approach control - TRACON handles departing and approaching spacecraft within its space.
• Space traffic control tower (STCT) - An STCT is located at every spaceport that has regularly scheduled flights. Towers handle all docking, undocking, and ground traffic thanks to all of the DUST 514 mercs.
• Flight service station (FSS) - The FSS provides information (weather, route, terrain, flight plan) for private pilots flying into and out of small spaceports and rural areas. It assists pilots in emergencies and coordinates search-and-rescue operations for missing or overdue spacecraft.

The movement of spacecraft through the various space divisions is much like players moving through a "zone" defense that a basketball or football team might use. As an aircraft travels through a given space division, it is monitored by the one or more space traffic controllers responsible for that division. The controllers monitor this spacecraft and give instructions to the pilot. As the spacecraft leaves that space division and enters another, the space traffic controller passes it off to the controllers responsible for the new space division.

Some pilots, Mercs mostly, of small aircraft fly by vision only (visual flight rules, or VFR). These pilots are not required by the Concord to file flight plans and, except for FSS and local towers, are not serviced by the mainstream space traffic control system. Pilots of large commercial flights use instruments to fly (instrument flight rules, or IFR), so they can fly in all sorts of weather. They must file flight plans and are serviced by the mainstream air traffic control system. Your normal capsuleer does not have to deal with these problems so far.

We have explained what we have learned so far from the current system In the next post in this series we will discuss what we have learned and explain what they all means since the dawn of the Empyrean Age.