BB#56 No Reward Great Enough

With Kronos and the upcoming industry changes following 6 weeks behind it, things are set for a vast upheaval in the coming months. Before he packed his bags and left Mord Fiddle asked some interesting questions

The common wisdom in EVE Online is that, beyond the odd high-value moon or Faction Warfare scam, there's little in low sec or NPC null sec to the attract ongoing attention of the big-dogs of null sec, with their large fleets and super cap doctrines. It's assumed that NPC space simply isn't worth the bother of controlling even if one could control it. 
Is this about to change? 
The shift in industrial inefficiencies from high sec to NPC low sec/null sec has begun, adding value to NPC space outside of high sec. In the recent B0TLRD accords CFC claimed two NPC null sec regions, Branch and Syndicate, as part of the CFC sphere of influence. 
What is the future of low sec and NPC null sec as the economic center of gravity shifts from high sec toward null sec? 

Also, you can take this banter as a chance to discuss the ramifications of the style of play in low sec and NPC null sec if it does happen that major industry shifts there.

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Let's establish some ground assumptions real quick.  Null sec alliances are power blocks who have more than enough minions to do their bidding.  They project the image of power and control and with their resources the ability to enforce their rules where they will.  CCP is in the process of "changing" various areas of the game.  While altering things based on what the players could do is not the best of decisions, doing it in a vacuum when there is plenty of historical history which helps give an idea of the consequences is downright silly.

A Year Of Frost

Been awhile since I've posted or updated anything really, but I thought I'd do a sort of year in review since I started this blog.  The whole blog thing was quite fun and I didn't necessarily "quit" but more along the lines of having too many things going on that it fell to the wayside.  Even though the condition of this blog is not where I'd like it be, I am proud of what I accomplished with the time I have spent on it.

Funnily enough the blog is on my mind constantly as I play Eve and participate in various activities because I think of stuff which would either make a good blog post or would be fun to write about.  My time though has been constantly demanding other things.  I'm finishing up my Bachelors in Software Engineering, dealing with illness which keeps rebounding (it's not cancer, just a body showing more age than it should XD), large projects in Eve e.g. my Exploration and PI guides, as well as Captaining the Stay Frosty New Eden Open II Team.  There are also an assortment of other things which creep up.

From the start I have written 72 posts relating in some way to Eve Online.  I have written 2 guides, 19 "Signals in the Void" story sections, participated in 6 Blog Banters, performed 4 "Ransom Adventures" worth writing about, and an assortment of odds and ends.  Not too shabby for a first attempt (imo).  While others may scoff at the numbers; I've had ~12,500 page views during the year with my top posts being A Slice of PI, Odyssey Exploration Guide, and BB#50 The Harbinger Is Coming.

A Slice of PI

You know you always wanted a piece of it.

A Slice of PI
PI Spreadsheet

Ransom Adventure #4

So there I was sitting in space cloaked having just scanned the system and getting ready to run over and run a combat site since the system was empty when all of a sudden, dun DuN, DUN!!!!!  Real life called and I had to step away for a little while.  I return to the system to discover people in local and probes on scan.  But what's this?  There's an Astero on scan!  (Not to be confused with the Stratios which is what I did last time.)  Grabbing my trusty vengeance I zoom to the site I had scanned down previously.

[ 00:34:52 ] (notify) For initiating combat your security status has been adjusted by -0.0073.
[ 00:34:54 ] (combat) Warp scramble attempt from you to Astero

BB#53 Tin Cans Sharing Tables

Today's topic comes from a tweet from @erlendur in a conversation he was having with a pilot about having multiple overview tabs open in separate windows:

So that is the topic this month:  The Overview.  Is it sufficient?  If not how can it be improved?  Is there some way to replace it?  Does it give too much information, or not enough?  Please be creative and specific as the overview currently is the heartbeat of the GUI.

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Strangely enough the topic of the Overview has been on my mind a lot the past couple months.  Eve is one of those games which looks awesome, and really goes to the effort to make things look good.  But it is also a game built on calculations, equations, and having the necessary intelligence available.  I find it striking one of the questions offered in this month's blog banter has to do with the Overview giving too much information.

I'm not sure how many people think the Overview shows too much but I for one find it to be a very sadistic piece of work.  As I mentioned Eve works hard on providing a beautiful playing experience and then you have the Overview allowing you to do stuff and interact with the universe.  One is a table with columns and characters, the others is a depth inducing background with little cans floating in a sea stars.  (I know graphics aren't everything, I do play Dwarf Fortress.)

Now I enjoy tables and columns as much as an accountant but I want my star sea full of cans as well.  Unfortunately Eve makes it quite difficult to have both.  The art of positioning your Overview in a way which allows you the use of its vital information and not consume your whole screen is something everybody is still struggling with today.

Ransom Adventure #3

It's not all the time you flutter about your system and see a Stratios on scan several times.  Deciding to try my luck I pull out some combat probes, mark the Stratios' location and hope he missed my quick scan.  I decided to for-go my Legion in favor of my Vengeance because I though a legion would be a little overkill.  I also thought this was the Astero and not the Stratios XD

Landing close I begin targeting only to have him cloak, thinking fast I start clicking frantically at his last known location.  Getting lucky I de-cloak him and start my target lock once again.

[ 2014.01.20 21:44:21 ] (notify) For initiating combat your security status has been adjusted by -0.0085.
[ 2014.01.20 21:44:22 ] (combat) Warp scramble attempt from you to Stratios.

*Shooting commences*

*His ECM drones break my lock and he warps out*

Mostly Deleted Ramblings

I think Sugar brings up a subject which is interesting in it's own aspect.  Even more so when specific parts are analyzed and brought to the forefront.  Her post and the comments section got me to thinking and writing which ended in the following post...

I'd like to first start out my response by separating a few distinct words.  My goal with this is to separate some common misconceptions that have oft been presented as fact or as a reason to do something.  Depending on which or combination of these words are used, causes great confusion and leads to horribly bad decisions being made.  Some of the examples I present will probably not be well received...meh.

BB#52 Steady As She Goes

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 52nd edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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Go to the always useful EVE-Offline.net and take a look at the All Time (weekly average) graph for concurrent accounts logged in.

For the past four and a half years, the graph has hovered around that 30,000 mark; it is, for all intents and purposes, a plateau. But everything must come to an end sooner or later and that is what this blog banter is about.

What's on the other side of that plateau? 

Is there any path for CCP to follow to raise those numbers upwards for a sustained period, or is EVE going to enter a decline to lower logged in numbers from this point? How soon will we see an end to this plateau? Months? Years? Or will you argue that 'never' is a possibility? Or you can look at the root causes of the plateau and tackle the question if it could have been avoided or shortened if CCP had taken different actions in the past.

I see this plateau in a couple different ways.  I see it as stagnating in terms of expansion, the question of how many of those accounts are unique to one owner, and I even see it as a good investment.  For a video game like Eve, which has a niche type play-base.  It's amazing to see that it's stuck around for 10 years, four and a half of those years have it hovering around 30k concurrent accounts logged in as a weekly average.  While it may seem somewhat disconcerting that it hasn't gained in popularity; on the flip side it hasn't really lost either.