Captain's Quarters - Potential Never To Be Realized

Way back in 2012 I posted an imaginary backlog overview for Team Avatar about the future direction of the Captain's Quarters had the Summer of Rage had not occurred and scuttled CCP's plans for walking in stations:

Story #22317 - Sharing Space
Description - As a user I want the ability to invite another user into my captain's quarters.
Conditions of Acceptance - Provides the other character is in the same station and online: a user can send an invite to them. If accepted, they appear in the user's quarters (transition method can be immersion breaking for now).

Comments - I know there are some technical hurdles to overcome but social interaction in a shared space is fundamental to Incarna and its pivotal we get there even in a baby step. If we can have the new character walk in through the door, that would be awesome, but I'll settle for a teleport at this stage.

Story #22318 - Sitting Down With Other Character
Description - As a user I want to be able to sit down on a couch that another character is sitting upon.
Conditions of Acceptance - I can sit on a couch that already has a character sitting on it.
Comments - Would be nice if the couch in captain's quarters had two-three sitting spots you could pick from, and you can't pick a spot currently occupied by someone else. This is story is to allow players to have their avatars look comfortable while socializing.
Story #22319 - Add prototype Tic-Tac-Toe Minigame
Description - as a user whose character is sitting on the couch, I want to click on the holoscreen and choose to play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe (our prototype minigame for testing and development purposes)
Comments - This story is to develop the infrastructure for launching mini-game interfaces. Assume the user can pick from multiple mini-games.
Story #22320 - Allow two players to participate in Minigame.
Description - As a player with a visiting player, I want to play the minigame with the visiting player instead of against AI.
Conditions of Acceptance - The resident player (i.e. the player who owns the captain's quarters) can start a minigame and allow the second visitor player to take the position usually played by the game AI. The player avatar names are listed indicated who is who on the minigame interface, and the winner is obvious in a screenshot.
Comments - Once we have two people in a captain's quarters and a minigame interface, it makes logical sense to allow the two players to play again each other.
Epic Story #22321 - More Minigames
Description - As a user I want to have a choice of multiple minigames
Conditions of Acceptance - Mulitple minigames are added to the interface to choose from.
Description - This epic is going to be broken down into stories for each of the minigames we are developing such as Sec Wars, Jita Hold 'Em, and Rogue Drone Invaders.
Story #22322 - Gambling
Description - As a user playing a minigame against a visiting player, I want the ability to wage bets on the outcome.
Conditions of Acceptance - The bets can only be in ISK at this time. There must be a confirmation after both players have made their bets and hit OK so that they can make sure they were not cheated in the betting by a last second edit by their opponent. The winner wins the total pot of the bet. A draw will see the bets returned to the players. A forfeit through quitting or logging off will count as a loss and thus the other player wins the bet.
Comments - Eve players love to gamble, let's give them the ability to. NOW Incarna will have the compelling content to encourage players to use it.
* * * * *
We're way beyond what we can fit in this release (and maybe the next!) but let me through up the future epics to give you an idea of where we are headed.
Epic Story #22323 - More Visitors
Description - As a user I want to be able to invite and host up to 5 other players in my quarters.
Epic Story #22324 - Persistent Quarters
Description - As a user I want to be able to rent a permanent Captain Quarters in a station such that I can decorate it and furnish it as I see fit.
Epic Story #22325 - Upgradable Quarters
Description - As a user I want to be able to upgrade my quarters to a larger and more luxurious model so that hosting 5 other players does not feel crowded.
Epic Story #22326 - Furnishings In NeX
Description - As a user I want to be able to purchase furnishings for my rented permanent quarters,  to decorate it to my tastes.
Epic Story #22327 - Establishments
Description - As a user I want to be able to leave my captain's and go to a station's public establishment where other players docked in the same station might also go.

I really believe there was room in the EVE universe for this vision or something like it where gameplay, even just of the casual sort, could exist for players NOT in a spaceship. I say 'was' because today CCP announced they were retiring the feature entirely to save on maintenance effort:

The Future
Taking usage metrics and development time need for maintenance into account, along with the fact that captain’s quarters uses older middleware and technologies that slow down or block discussion of future engineering efforts, we have decided that the time has come to retire captain’s quarters with the August release.
Retiring captain’s quarters frees up a significant amount of development time that can be used elsewhere to focus on preparing the EVE Online client and the graphics technology used within it for a long and visually stunning future. This allows Team TriLambda to dedicate more of their time to the core of gameplay in New Eden – spaceships, and space.
[...]
Bringing captain’s quarters up to a standard that would reflect current graphics technology would take roughly 6-8 months of development work, which we feel for the percentage of players utilizing the feature, is not a sensible investment of development time that could be used on furthering the visual side of core gameplay in New Eden.
As explained earlier, the current condition of captain’s quarters means that the underlying infrastructure would need to be stripped out of the client and rebuilt from scratch.

 In other words, we fucked up the initial implementation so bad while ignoring space gameplay that players got mad so we stopped all development and support for new features for years and thus players didn't adopt it so we have no reason to continue supporting it. 

At least they recognize that they assassinated their own stillborn child and at least have the decency to bury it.

What If...?

Back in June of 2011 CCP released the Incarna expansion for EVE Online and instigated the Summer of Incarnage where massive player revolts and cancelling of subscriptions caused CCP management to step back in horror, look deep inside themselves to find the fault of hubris, publically apologize and reversed course by pouring development back into spaceships and the environment they exist in. The avatar gameplay and environment has since languished in the 6 years hence excepting a few new clothing and accessory options.

In hindsight we can see that the ambitious plan for Incarna and beyond was doomed to failure and its easy to forget the excitement and anticipation for walking in stations content that reached a high point after the character creator was released in Incursion expansion 7 months before. So let's play a game of "What If?" in the tradition of Marvel Comics...

Imagine, if you will, that instead of delivering a single captain's quarters with graphics that melted video cards, that CCP delivered all four captain's quarters with Incarna release. In addition, the quarters also gave players options to make minor changes and add decorations, some decorations that were rare and could only be found in exploration sites and missions or purchased from other players on the market?

* * * Alternate Universe Sequence of Events * * *

Jun 2011 - Incarna releases to mixed reviews, some players happy with the player quarters in stations, many still frustrated with lack of development of spaceship gameplay. CCP vows to dedicate some more resources to in-space content but will continue forging ahead with in-station content as well.

Oct 2011 - More content for customizing quarters are released including large quarters that players can opt to lease via a monthly ISK payment. Demo of two players in single quarter (i.e. occupant and visitor).

Dec 2011 - Concourse release - The captain's quarter door opens to an elevator that takes players to an instanced version of a station concourse (only one version for now based on Caldari designs but more planned). Each instance allows up to 10 players to interact, with a bar and a dance club to attend with simple attractions like having a drink or dancing on the dance floor. Or you can simply go to the concourse observation lounge and look at the station window which actually shows the station's system (but not real time with ships in space, static view only). Players rejoice at finally being able to interact outside of ships.

Feb 2012 - Players allowed to have 1 visitor to quarters, new minigame added to players quarters and concourse bars based on simple Slay game. Minmatar concourse released. Concourse instance player limit increased to 20.

Mar 2012 - First Slay championships run by players held in Jita.

Summer 2012 - Periculum expansion released which brings in game gambling to EVE. Players now have the option to go to an instance of the station casino where they can wager their ISK in NPC run gambling games with other players. Also, players can arrange private games of a poker-like card game with other players where the stakes can be ISK or other in game items. Gallente and Amarr concourses released, the former with tattoo parlour where players can get custom ink and the latter with a Chapel. Caldari concourse gets Mindclash arena where players can participate in battles of Mindclash with other players or NPCs, while the Minmatar concourse gets the Bazaar where unique items such as quarters decorations and avatar accessories can be browsed and purchased. In station game play activity begins to compare with in space activity as subscription number increase of players looking to participate in sci-fi roleplay.

Winter 2012-2013 - Player Owned establishments added to game that allows players to rent space on a station to set up their own business, one of bar, dance club, casino, or Mindclash arena. These can be customized with decor, minigame consoles (along with the Slay analog there are a host of 1 and 2 player minigames now), and extra facilities for more gambling, space, etc, all cost ISK. The number of players joining EVE that no longer do any in-space gameplay except for moving from one station to another represents a full one third of the EVE playerbase. Wars to drive players out of null sec stations to set up their own establishments in high traffic areas become a regular occurrence.

Spring 2013 - Corporate Offices added so that corporation can rent space on stations for housing a corporate office that players can visit for recruitment information, and member players can visit to join private corporate meetings which can be as simple as minigames, poker games, small mindclash matches, or use the holo-map control to discuss war strategy.

Fall 2013 - CPP releases Legion, new gameplay which allows avatar-based combat. Instanced zones on planets added to the game with similar functions like station concourses and hosting player owned establishments, along with new "laser" combat games similar to paintball courses.

Summer 2014 - Assault release brings full on station combat via avatars in null sec player owned stations. Players have to assault a station and try to take control of its vital systems (engineering, security, command, etc) in order to take control, while other players resist the station assault. Whole new class of player arises that specialized in avatar combat and needs to work with space combat players to get close enough and drop shields to launch assaults. When station is taken over, hostile players still stuck in the station lose access to concourse and are limited to their quarters only.

Meanwhile, development of tools to allow player run Mindclash tournaments has increased the quality of play to the point where CPP runs an Alliance Mindclash tournament where the prizes include new Elite level quarters, unique decorations for quarters or establishments, and new unique avatar accessories.

Summer 2014 - Avatar gameplay in EVE has surpassed spaceship gameplay as the number of features has increased. Avatar-based exploration being the latest feature, where players can search abandoned ships and stations for valuable artifacts or data while watching out for NPC rogue drones, traps laid by NPCs and other players, and other players themselves.

* * * * *

What if...? Well, we'll never know.

Attitude

I've covered my opinions on Incarna frequently in the past; good idea with a poor implementation. Its easy to forget in the heat of the the fury of Incarna's sloppy release (single room, single avatar, overheating video cards, $70 monocles, "18 months", etc) that there was a broad and deep enthusiasm for Walking In Stations and the new avatar creator unleashed a lot of experimenting and artistic renditions that was indicative of the desire to be more than a spaceship in this grand space opera that is EVE.

Incarna destroyed that enthusiasm and made anything to do with "space barbies" toxic in the general discourse for a while, but it has not been ground down completely. You can see it peeking out from requests for hats or different coloured outfits, and excitement for new tattoos and cybernetic enhancements for the avatars. Its still there, still deep and wide, but traumatized from the botched introduction of its first time on the centre stage.

So when the minutes were out and I was reading the art session and saw this line I physically groaned and rolled my eyes.

Xander said that he would officially like to be documented as protesting any art time going to avatars instead of spaceships.

I know there is a section of the EVE population that is vehemently Spaceship-Only. I get that they probably stood up and cheered at reading that line in the minutes. But imagine if in a session about wormholes someone stood up and said "I would like to officially be documented as protesting any design time going to wormholes instead of null sec."

That's a big "screw you" to all the players who enjoy wormholes and want them iterated on, right?

I understand that Xander is speaking for players who want only spaceship development of EVE, as shortsighted as I think that is. But the grandstanding Black-and-White-No-Grey viewpoint of it in the middle of the art session was not the time to forward that opinion. That is something that should go into general planning and long term thinking of the game where everyone can represent the factions they feel strongly for equally.

The CSM is a body that should understand and respect other viewpoints besides their own, even if they strongly disagree with them. Knowing when to speak up about your position is an important part of respecting differing ones.

Incarna - Second Chance

Before I get to the point of this post, let's review to how we got to where we are.

Fanfest 2008 CCP released a video of walking in stations and people were excited. (NOTE: You have to go to the site to see the embedded video, feed readers like Feedly might not show it.)

People were more than excited, they were chomping at the bit. Imaginations ran wild with people talking about setting up bars, gambling dens, poker games, customizing avatars, etc. There was definitely enthusiasm for moving Eve beyond "just spaceships" into actual Sci Fi simulator. CCP leadership got caught up in the enthusiasm and over the next 3 years poured more and more developers into developing this tech demo into actual content.

Somewhere along the line, though, CCP got tunnel vision and decided they had to create the ultimate avatar experience. They threw out all the code and started over; they forsook space ship development for avatar and environment building, including the underlying architecture. Grumblings about this diversion of effort increased as major and minor features that had been delivered in questionable states were left in disrepair: Factional Warfare, wormholes, sovereignty mechanics... When asked about when they could get iteration on these features they were told there was no resources for the next 18 months, and that became a powerful bitter-vet meme in of itself. :18 months: CCP was running out of time to prove its vision.

When the Incursions expansion hit, it included the new character creator and players got their first taste of Incarna. It was amazing. People loved the sheer customization and fidelity of the avatars they could create. Everyone was playing with it for hours, space politicians, pirates, null-bears... everyone agreed it was pretty amazing and overall some hope for Incarna was restored. But not CSM5. They kept asking "What's the plan? Where's the gameplay?" and got no good response.

Then, in June 2011, three years after that initial tease, Incarna was released. The great promise delivered... melting video cards... single uncustomizable quarters... single player only... no gameplay.... station doors that won't open.... reports from video card makers that the technology to support more than one avatar at a time was years away...

And on top of that there was the NeX store with clothing items to customize their avatars. Hordes of people looking to get cool clothes, tattoos, implants for microtransactions instead found a limited supply and prices an order of magnitude higher than expected. What do you mean $70 for a monocle?! When the outrage poured into CCP they posted a dev blog in which they tried to defend their pricing models with the most tone deaf and defensive tone possible:

Assume for a short while that you are wearing a pair of $1,000 jeans from some exclusive Japanese boutique shop. Why would you want to wear a pair of $1,000 jeans when you can get perfectly similar jeans for under $50? What do other people think about you when they see you wearing them? For some you will look like the sad culmination of vainness while others will admire you and think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whichever it is, it is clear that by wearing clothes you are expressing yourself and that the price is one of the many dimensions that clothes possess to do that in addition to style and fit. You don’t need to buy expensive clothes. In fact you don’t need to buy any clothes. Whatever you choose to do reflects what you are and what you want others to think you are.

From a certain point of view, I can see what they were trying to do. After all, your average veteran player has thousands of dollars worth of assets so pricing them in the range they picked didn't see unreasonable, but for players expecting to pay at most $10-$20 for luxury items it seemed like a cynical money grab.

Then came the leaked internal CCP memo called Greed Is Good in which two devs debate microtransactions and their philosphy for them. Regardless of the intent or limited audience the memo was meant for, the playerbase read it and were aghast at the philosophy contained therein.

The Summer of Rage followed this trifecta of idiocy and players rioted on forums, in blogs, and even in game. Three years of planning and development and players were not logging in and quitting accounts in droves. Then, on August 5, less than two months after Incarna release, CEO of CCP, Hilmar Pétursson posted a dev blog that basically apologized to the entire playerbase:

Somewhere along the way, I began taking success for granted. As hubris set in, I became less inclined to listen to pleas for caution. Red flags raised by very smart people both at CCP and in the community went unheeded because of my stubborn refusal to allow adversity to gain purchase on our plans. Mistakes, even when they were acknowledged, often went unanalyzed, leaving the door open for them to be repeated.
You have spoken, loudly and clearly, with your words and with your actions. And there were definitely moments in recent history when I wish I would have listened more and taken a different path.
I was wrong and I admit it.

The end result was Crucible expansion. Although we got the other three captain's quarters for our avatars, from that point on Incarna was for all intents and purposes abandoned.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

The Point!

Its time to consider giving Incarna a second chance.

Incarna, that is to say walking and interacting in stations, is in of itself not a bad idea; indeed players were clamouring for it after Fanfest 2008. It was just CCP's poor planning and implementation that were bad.

It feels like CCP got their fingers so burnt by the players' ire that they have overreacted and virtually abandoned any Incarna development. I've thought about how to rescue Incarna and the NeX Store before, listing out a fake product backlog of features that could bring gameplay content and interaction into the current structure and got a lot of positive feedback. Players do want walking in stations, they do want customizable avatars, they will accept reasonable microtransactions for cosmetic enhancements, they just do not want it at the cost of all in-space development and feature iteration.

I fear its too late now that with Rubicon CCP is heading on a new 3 year plan that by all indications does not include any Incarna related development (updated character creator notwithstanding). There is an opportunity here for a competing sci-fi MMO to step up and fill the need of combining space ships with avatars (and no, Star Trek Online is not it).

TL;DR - It's time to give Incarna a second chance.

Team Avatar Feature Release Planning

Come in, come in, Team Avatar. I'm your new Product Owner (PO). What? You didn't get the memo? I'm sure Hilmar or John just forgot to forward it.

Today we're going to go over at a high level the stories and epics I'm putting together for the next release to familiarize yourself with what I'm thinking for the future of Incarna and the NeX store. Shall we get started?

Noble Exchange

Story #22314 - More Items In Noble Exchange
Description - As a user I want access to more character personalization items in the NeX at varying price ranges.
Conditions  of Acceptance -

Comments - I know I need to break this one out into many different stories to cover the various items we can develop and add to the NeX, but I thought one story to start with to cover the commonalities would be useful. I want more clothing options, more exotic choices (visors, cybernetics, dresses, robes, etc), more tattoos (arms, body, more exotic colours, etc) more accessories with more variety (nose-to-ear ring, dangling earrings, RINGS, collars, bracelets, etc). And I want the prices to vary from cheap to expensive in terms of Aurum (but not Monocle expensive).

Story #22315 - Ability to Transfer Aurum
Description - As a user I want the ability to transfer Aurum from one character to another.
Conditions of Acceptance - Character A can give Aurum up to his balance amount to Character B. This transaction is logged both in the player journal and internal servers.

Comments - Originally it was planned to keep Aurum bound to a character (and thus an account) as a prevention measure from hacking, RMT, and legal issues (since Aurum actually have a measurable real money value) but player advocates on the CSM have convinced management that its an acceptable risk for the convenience of being able to use Aurum as an actual secondary currency in game rather than an obvious microtransaction gimmick. The legal issues can be sidestepped with the usual "all in game items and values belong to CCP" as usual our lawyers have assured us.

Story #22316
Description - As a manager I want to be able to add ship skin blueprints to the NeX store.
Conditions of Acceptance - An application that a CCP manager can use to add ship skin blueprints to the NeX store and set their Aurum costs.

Comments - As the art department finishes each custom ship skin model, Team Elite Hackers has built a tool to package the new model into the right objects in the database. I need a tool to get that object in the NeX and set the price so the delay from "art assets complete" to "available to players" is the shortest cycle possible.

Incarna

Story #22317 - Sharing Space

Description - As a user I want the ability to invite another user into my captain's quarters.
Conditions of Acceptance - Provides the other character is in the same station and online: a user can send an invite to them. If accepted, they appear in the user's quarters (transition method can be immersion breaking for now).


Comments - I know there are some technical hurdles to overcome but social interaction in a shared space is fundamental to Incarna and its pivotal we get there even in a baby step. If we can have the new character walk in through the door, that would be awesome, but I'll settle for a teleport at this stage.


Story #22318 - Sitting Down With Other Character
Description - As a user I want to be able to sit down on a couch that another character is sitting upon.
Conditions of Acceptance - I can sit on a couch that already has a character sitting on it.

Comments - Would be nice if the couch in captain's quarters had two-three sitting spots you could pick from, and you can't pick a spot currently occupied by someone else. This is story is to allow players to have their avatars look comfortable while socializing.

Story #22319 - Add prototype Tic-Tac-Toe Minigame
Description - as a user whose character is sitting on the couch, I want to click on the holoscreen and choose to play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe (our prototype minigame for testing and development purposes)

Comments - This story is to develop the infrastructure for launching mini-game interfaces. Assume the user can pick from multiple mini-games.

Story #22320 - Allow two players to participate in Minigame.
Description - As a player with a visiting player, I want to play the minigame with the visiting player instead of against AI.
Conditions of Acceptance - The resident player (i.e. the player who owns the captain's quarters) can start a minigame and allow the second visitor player to take the position usually played by the game AI. The player avatar names are listed indicated who is who on the minigame interface, and the winner is obvious in a screenshot.

Comments - Once we have two people in a captain's quarters and a minigame interface, it makes logical sense to allow the two players to play again each other.

From Ten Ton Hammer

Epic Story #22321 - More Minigames
Description - As a user I want to have a choice of multiple minigames
Conditions of Acceptance - Mulitple minigames are added to the interface to choose from.

Description - This epic is going to be broken down into stories for each of the minigames we are developing such as Sec Wars, Jita Hold 'Em, and Rogue Drone Invaders.

Story #22322 - Gambling
Description - As a user playing a minigame against a visiting player, I want the ability to wage bets on the outcome.
Conditions of Acceptance - The bets can only be in ISK at this time. There must be a confirmation after both players have made their bets and hit OK so that they can make sure they were not cheated in the betting by a last second edit by their opponent. The winner wins the total pot of the bet. A draw will see the bets returned to the players. A forfeit through quitting or logging off will count as a loss and thus the other player wins the bet.

Comments - Eve players love to gamble, let's give them the ability to. NOW Incarna will have the compelling content to encourage players to use it.

* * * * *

We're way beyond what we can fit in this release (and maybe the next!) but let me through up the future epics to give you an idea of where we are headed.

Epic Story #22323 - More Visitors
Description - As a user I want to be able to invite and host up to 5 other players in my quarters.

Epic Story #22324 - Persistent Quarters
Description - As a user I want to be able to rent a permanent Captain Quarters in a station such that I can decorate it and furnish it as I see fit.

Epic Story #22325 - Upgradable Quarters
Description - As a user I want to be able to upgrade my quarters to a larger and more luxurious model so that hosting 5 other players does not feel crowded.

Epic Story #22326 - Furnishings In NeX
Description - As a user I want to be able to purchase furnishings for my rented permanent quarters,  to decorate it to my tastes.

Epic Story #22327 - Establishments
Description - As a user I want to be able to leave my captain's and go to a station's public establishment where other players docked in the same station might also go.

Good luck team Avatar, I'm available for questions any time, just drop in. :)

CCP and The Just-Don't-Get-It File

On January 27th in a dev blog discussing community events at Fanfest (still so mad I can't go) CCP Navigator gave this piece of news when talking about the prizes for the poker tournament:

The first in-game Ishukone Scorpion skin will be awarded to the overall winner as well as having their name added to the in-game description of this ship.

 Excellent! I've been waiting for any vanity ship customizations since Incarna was on the drawing board. Then he had to ruin my excitement with the next paragraph (emphasis mine):

This leads on to another question, does this mean we will be seeing ship skins for sale in the NeX store or by some other method? That is currently not the plan and is not in development so the short answer is no. The Ishukone Scorpion was already created as the first prototype and Game Design plan to release it to everyone at some stage. The winner of this event will just be granted the first one, before anyone else has ever owned it, along with the bragging rights of having their name in the lore.

 The one bright spot about the NeX store for most pilots in Eve was the thought of being able to spruce up the hanger with various different ship skins. The technology is there, the NeX store is there, this is a no-brainer to push the cart over the finish line and at least get some useful mileage out of the debacle that was Incarna and you are not going to do it?

Sirs, I am disappointed.

Seriously, disappointed.

(Not Your) New Captain's Quarters

So the remaining captain's quarters are finally out on singularity server and the reviews in terms of asethetics have been mostly positive. However a few people have expressed consternation on twitter (and maybe even a blog post, I can't recall) that the type of quarters you get when docking is tied to the station type you docked in (i.e. Amarr station == Amarr quarters) instead of your character type (i.e. Minmatar character <> Minmatar quarters).

Some people have argued it would be nice if you could choose so that it was always the one you liked, a first baby step to personalization.

Well, stop being silly. They are not your character's quarters.

Only 300 ISK per night for non-capsuleers

They are special "Captain's Quarters Suites" every station added to the capsuleer docking levels to accomodate the Mark IV capsule's ability to allow for self-decanting at minimal facilities, such as the balconies we see. The suites are provided as a convenience to capsuleers in the hope they will lounge while their ships and cargoes are taken care of and perhaps spend a few spare ISK on the latest Gallentean holo, a special meal from a restaurant, or perhaps even visit the promenade to partake in some gambling or other services.

That is why the type is not picked by you or customizable. Every time you leave the suite is cleaned and set back to standard setup for the next capsuleer. Hell, you don't even get the same one every time you dock at the same station.

Huge Back Yard!

Eventually CCP will give us our true quarters, apartments for rent on stations whose look and feel we can customize to your liking (save up your Aurum folks!). For now you are stuck with the generic suites.

Fear the Ocular Implant OF DOOM!

MUHAHAHAHAHA!

Take That CCP!

 One Monocle + One 6 Inch Brass telescope + shipping and handling = ....

I say old chap!

Actual Working Telescope.

... still cheaper than Eve's virtual monocle which in truth a player doesn't even really own, they just have the right to display on their avatar (until CCP takes said right away).

I mean I suspect I know what CCP is trying to do with the ludicrous NeX prices on the items, but there is still something terribly off on their prices.

I'm just saying...

The Goggles, They Do Nothing!

So last night I bought some goggles from the noble exchange:

For flying fast to avoid space dust.

I bought two pair, I'm having a lottery for the second pair. 

This is a lottery for one set of GDN-9 'Nightstalker' Goggles purchased from the Noble Exchange store. They are located in Gallente high sec, Stacmon system in Placid Region. See my profile image for an example.

EDIT: Winner will receive contract of goggles and have two weeks to redeem.

There are 40 tickets and can be purchased for 10,000,000 ISK each.

To purchase a ticket send ISK to Kirith Kodachi with a reason of "NinveahLottery7" to be tracked properly through SOMER's Lottery service. Link to lottery site can be found here.

The winning number has been secured using Chribba's locked dice and a link to the roll can be found here and on the lottery page.

If you have any questions I can be evemailed or reached on twitter at kirithkodachi.

If you want to try and be cool like me, think about buying a ticket of two in the lottery. ;-)

Well hello there handsome!

Wait and See

I admit to being shaken by the events of the past week.

- The insane price of items in the Noble Exchange

- Reports from others of hardware issues due to captian's quarters

- The supposedly leaked internal CCP memo listing possible future micro transactions for standings, ammo, ships as "convenience" (read: advantage)

Of the three items, the hardware issues worry me the least in the long term because I'm willing to be there are programming solutions that CCP is working on right now. The high price of the vanity items is offputting but if that is there business model than whatever.

But the internal memo is the most disturbing because it starts to go against the line that players have been insistent upon from the start: vanity items only. If they start to offer "convenience" instead of just "vanity" then we've gone too far down that slippery slope we've heard the doomsayers talk so much about and I'm not happy about it.

This is assuming that the memo is authentic and reflects the opinion of the product managers driving Eve's development.

Right now I'm using the wait and see option. We're watching, CCP; your move.

Incarna - So Far, So Good

Back in the beginning of 2010 I tried out Star Trek Online and had this to say about the avatar part of the game:

I was disappointed with the character controls. The camera was annoying, turning in the direction I wanted to move instead of facing a single direciton... unless something was targeted which I didn't get at first. The animations looked... off. During one fight watching the NPCs bounce around like jackrabbits with springs in their boots to get over obstacles was very offputting. And I ran everywhere; dude slow down! It didn't look like a Triple-A game from 2010 in my humble opinion.

Then again, I just came off of finishing the awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum last week so maybe I'm just spoiled and STO is following MMO standards that I'm not used to because of Eve being so different. Also, I understand MMOs have to make allowances for network latency but still... I think they could do better.

So last night when I logged into Eve with the new Incarna build I was comparing Eve's version of an avatar to that in my head to start. Note: I did not try Captain's Quarters on Duality or Serenity.

Overall, I was impressed. The visuals were nice, the avatar was more lifelike than the dummies at STO, and the controls seemed natural to move around so far to a newb-to-avatars like me. In the ten minutes I putzed around I had no problems (i.e. bugs, lags, etc).

I need more time to give it a real workout but so far I'm giving Captain's Quarters an A for effort and a B+ for execution (the lower score reflecting the lack of things to do in this initial release).

Here are some screenshots.

Ok, I can do stuff while it loads...

Oh! There I am! Handsome devil...

Where's my ship?

Oh... there it is... jesus! Its HUGE! (That's what she said)

So pretty... *sniff*

Heroic Pose Wallpaper!

As for the Noble Exchange and the crazy prices, I've heard rumours that they did the prices high on purpose to prevent a run on PLEXes and crazy price hike for them. I'm going to believe that because otherwise the prices are outrageous and unfeasible. Encourage people to buy many small inexpensive items, not big wallet-hemorrhaging items!

Eve-olution

Today will be the day people look back and say "that was the day Eve changed".

Incarna. Walking in stations. Avatars. You are no longer just a ship, you are a person. Actual immersion for roleplaying can begin. Like Clear Skies movies? How about with super detailed avatars instead of the Half Life stand ins? This is a game changer and while pretty limited right now, if CCP sticks to the plan for Incarna then this is only the first step.

Eve is changing. In the podcast community people are doing more parody songs, and they are starting to do more dramatizations and projects beyond the "what I did in Eve today" podcasts. Clear Skies shows conclusively that the community has an appetite for this kind of Eve, an Eve where Internet Spaceships are Not-So-Serious business.

Make no mistake, Eve has been changing for a long time already. Learning skills? Gone. Mission Agent Quality and hordes of social skills? Gone. Improving new player experience, certificates to guide skill training, Incursions for more advanced group PvE play, micro-transactions for vanity items... Eve is changing.

There are going to be many who hate the changes and rail against them. Many have already left, feeling the game that they loved is already gone and this new one is unrecognizable or at least unlikeable. They feel that the spaceships have been abandoned and the game is flawed in many areas that are not addressed in expansion after expansion. Sometimes they are wrong, many times they are right, but CCP faced a choice to support a relatively static player base for hardcore internet spaceships or work to court a larger audience that is not so hardcore for PvP spaceships and more into a "complete sci-fi experience". In the end money will win out and Eve is changing.

Will the gamble pay off? Can they deliver enough station walking experience in the next year or two to pass the gap between old bitter vets leaving and new bright eyed newbs arriving? Time will tell. Will the DUST 514 gamble pay off and add a layer of sophistication to null sec wars unheard of now? Time will tell. Regardless, Eve is changing.

The Fury, It Warms Me

I made the mistake of going over to Failheap Challenge after the latest dev blog on vanity items for microtransactions:

So how will it work?
There will be a store, and it will have all kinds of stuff for sale: clothes and accessories for your character, custom paint jobs or logo placement on your ships or a fishtank/stripper pole for your Captain's Quarters. You'll browse through the list of items available and, when you're ready to make a purchase, you'll use a new currency called Aurum (AUR).
Where can I get some Aurum?
Aurum is created by breaking up a PLEX. Each PLEX gives you a bunch of Aurum that you can spend in the virtual goods store. If you don't want to spend Aurum on these vanity items, you can always wait for someone else to do so and then buy it off them for ISK. Oh yeah, I should have probably mentioned that earlier. Items bought in the virtual goods store will be transferrable between characters, just like PLEX is today.
The below image demonstrates how Aurum will be acquired and used:

On Failheap there is not one, not two, but THREE threads of people mostly complaining about this, usually going with the "slippery slope" catchphrase as if this wins all discussions on the topic.

The most (only?) interesting concept to come out of the spewing in these threads is that someone who uses real money to purchase ISK legally through plex and gets something is better than someone who pays money directly to CCP to have them spawn it. For example, a Titan bought with ISK needs to have minerals mined, blueprints purchased, space owned for the assembly array, etc, while one spawned by CCP simply pops into existence without the follow on effects. I agree that this is bad.

On the flip side of the coin, CCP is not doing that. They are spawning items which the players cannot make nor can they make analogous items to. The closest this discussion comes to CCP competing with player producers is ships with special visual markings / skins and it has been stated that a base player produced ship would be required input to produce the purchased item.

Basically, while my trust in CCP has been shaken due to recent game changes and the lack of changes in terms of balancing supercapitals, I think they are on the right track for implementing microtransactions in Eve and people who continue to rail against the thought, still to this day, are pissing in the wind. Its a reality of the marketplace that they are coming, we had best use our energy to make sure the PvP balance is maintained in what it proposed instead of raging against what might be in the future 2 years from now. This is the time the foundation is made and being an angry sarcastic internet "expert" is not going to help.

* * * * *  

Also, "slippery slope" arguments only really work where the event A (which may be acceptable) leads to event B (which is not acceptable). Selling vanity items does not mean selling useful items is a fait accompli. If they were selling something useful, no matter how inconsequential, then "slippery slope" arguments come into play.

However, you can argue the case of temptation for more profit in which event A leads to B because it means expanding revenue.

* * * * *

All that being said, it does make me think that the possibility of player designed and produced clothing in the future of incarna is dead, and that makes me sad. Time will tell but I suspect that CCP would not allow players to compete with them for coin.

Also, I agree that Aurum is a bad name. Too elvish sounding. I prefered microplex or something more original.

Obligatory New Avatar Post

Click for 512x512 goodness!

Since its all the rage...

I tried to keep the same feel of the new Kirith Kodachi, an angry man who is slightly broken and haunted by his past. I also found some time to do Korannon and Korneilia but don't have the images here, probably post all the rest of the crew once complete.

I find it amusing how much people are enjoying making characters and the variety of avatars even with the horribly limited number of clothing options and extra options not available yet. I miss Kirith's big scar for example, or the metal face implants Korannon has.

Oh well.

Also, got two of Korneilia's four extraction planets reconfigured, hopefully do the rest tonight. I upgraded the command centres to hopefully increase extraction rates. MOAR ISK!

Incarna - The Razor's Edge

You have to admire CCP's daring if nothing else. A moderately successful space combat game and they are going to open up the completely unfamiliar interior of space stations with new technology, environments, and no actual game play? Very daring indeed.

They have a hard spot here. On one hand, they can't develop it into a full free standing game or feature because they are only building the basic architecture for the first iteration. On the other hand, you just know they are going to be pilloried for releasing a feature with limited game play and/or no relation to the current game. Their protestations that they are going to keep coming back to it fall on ears and hearts hardened by numerous areas of the game seemingly left in disrepair for years with no sign of revisiting.

They are walking on a razor edge with disaster (or at least bad press) on either side. Fail to release because they want to add more content and its a failure all round, but release and have the community pan it and they have to work extra hard to get good press.

I do not envy them their current position.

On the upside, the avatars in the new character creator are gorgeous so as long as Incarna has a bare minimum of functionality, such as a bar and some mini-games, it could hold water. But its a razor's edge, and a long climb back up if they fall into either side.