Familiar Circles

This entry includes both an ‘in character’ and ‘out of character’ perspective on my decision to reunite with some old friends.

A few minutes after warping into the complex,  I see the tell-tale flicker on my sensors of another ship dropping out of warp behind me.  It is of course my old brother is arms Starcasher joining me in his Thrasher.  I had in turn responded to his call for back up a few minutes earlier as our small fleet spread itself across the warzone hotspots.  In Egmar we skirmish against pirates and later on we re-group in Dal to fight the pilots of the 24th Imperial Crusade.

As I drift a few kilometers off the acceleration gate in Dal, a hostile Maller warps in 50km or so away.  I bring the nose of my destroyer around and gun the engines.  As my speed begins to pick up I kick the microwarpdrive into life and close the distance rapidly, locking on and immobilising the cruiser’s warp core with my disruptor as I unleash the first of my howitzers and settle into a wide orbit.  I put out the call to my fleet for support, relaying the position of the target.  I soon start to take hits despite my speed and am forced to warp off and hope that my wing mates can land in time to take over.

The fight around the acceleration gate is escalating.  As the Maller’s tank finally begins to give out under our bombardment, more hostiles begin landing on the gate itself, luckily for us the fight is nearly 60km off-gate, buying our frigates and destroyers time to finish off the Maller as more hostile cruisers spill into the fight.  Explosions ripple across the hull of my dying target as I detect target locks being acquired against me.  Time to bail out, I activate my warp drive and get clear.

Discussion bounces back and forth as the fleet shifts positions and moves to attack or secure yet more facilities in and around Dal.  The Amarr have had us on the backfoot for awhile now, but here and there we press at their defences.  I listen to the familiar voices around me, and I allow myself to hope that this is the humble beginnings of how we begin to turn it around again.

And the OOC bit…

Back at the start of the year I parted ways with the Ushra’Khan as I decided not to join them in heading back out to null sec.  That was a hard call for me to make as for the vast majority of my (almost 9 year long) EVE career I had been a die-hard member of that same alliance.  I just really did not want to go back to null sec and needed to go do my own thing for awhile.

So I started up my Brutor themed corp, Jotunn Risi.  Starting up a new corp isn’t easy and tends to work best if you are starting out with a small core of pilots that you bring with you from someplace else.  Some corps basically get lucky, such as Brave Newbies, and get just the right exposure at the right time and see recruits pouring in out of nowhere.  Most don’t stick around long term of course, but unless the CEO completely blows it they have picked up enough people with which to build a solid core.  Most corps don’t experience this and have to rely on other means to draw in bodies.  In the case of JORIS, growth has been very slow which I put down to three things.

Firstly, the Brutor-only policy excludes most potential recruits straight off, I always knew this was a case of hamstringing myself but it is the point of the whole exercise.  I could have just joined my friends in TRIAD otherwise, which I very nearly did do instead.  It would have fit all of my other criteria in sticking with FW and people who ‘get’ Minmatar RP stuff as well as being PVP nuts.

The second issue is tied to the third.  I have been lazy about pushing recruitment, which is at least partly because I have actually been enjoying the quiet life after years of alliance theatrics.  Doing my own thing on my own timetable has been a guilty pleasure, but I do sometimes feel a bit guilty about not having progressed the corp more by now.

An MMO however, is not intended to be a solitary experience.  I am a firm believer that playing EVE solo is missing the point.  While I have been keeping in contact with people socially, my actual play hasn’t been.  I have spent very little time in gangs over the last few months, and in truth I probably haven’t been as engaged with EVE at times.  I think EVE Hermit hit the nail on the head with this piece, if you are not playing the game with a decent group of people then you drift away from it a bit.  I still very much enjoy EVE, but I do need to continue adapting how I approach it.  Right now that means get back to flying with friends and making new ones.

Ushra’Khan returning to FW is something I have approached with caution.  Leaving was a difficult decision but one that had valid reasons backing it up.  I simply hadn’t been happy with how things were going for a long time in null sec before U’K joined FW in time for the Inferno expansion.  Then I was really not comfortable with the decision to abruptly go back!  What I don’t want to do is go through rejoining only for the alliance to switch direction a few months later and end up quitting again. It would just be frustrating.

But I have assurances that isn’t going to happen this time around.  Ushra’Khan is committing to stability and sticking with FW for the next year at least.  To be fair, that is about as much as I could ask for and a year is a long time in EVE, except for when it really isn’t.  What will be going on a year from now is really anyone’s guess, but for now I’m going to enjoy flying with old friends again.

And maybe I’ll even get to grips with this recruitment thing.

 

Presenting Dust514

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to talk about the latest Dust514 trailer.

So, a new trailer is out.  There are two things that struck me about this one so I thought I’d talk about it briefly.  First up, I don’t think that that this is CCP’s slickest work.  It doesn’t pull off any nifty camera work or really go for the ‘wow’ factor, unlike the Origins trailer premièred at Fanfest:

So yeah, this new one isn’t so slick by comparison.  In fact, most of the fancier shots featured are recycled footage from previous trailers, so this was probably done on the cheap.  The thing is, I’m fine with that.

I think this new trailer is actually the message that CCP need to put out about Dust514.  They need to highlight the game mechanics that set it apart from the herd of other FPS titles out there.  I regard Dust as a competitive product, but I would hesitate to call it a market leader in terms of polish or accessibility.  In fact, as I have said previously, my first impressions were underscored by confusion at first as the game doesn’t do very much to introduce new players to its quirks.

That is what I think CCP have tried to tackle here and it is very good to see them tackling that angle.  This might not be the shiniest of video’s, but it is pretty good functionally.  I hope that they follow this up with other videos showcasing different aspects of the game such as planetary conquest or the factional warfare connections.

The depth of the EVE universe is most certainly Dust’s competitive edge, that really needs to be tapped into and explained to the uninitiated more than it has been.

Gettin’ Dusty

This entry has been written from a ‘out of character’ perspective to discuss fighting a few battles in Dust514.

My last entry focused my first impressions of Dust514′s between-battle ‘management’ gameplay, so I thought I would follow it up with my first week’s experiences with some of the more combat-oriented bits.

Getting into a fight through the instant battle finder is simple enough, it just drops you into an open slot.  Instant battles take place on planets in high sec and see you fighting on behalf of an NPC corp.  You have no control over which faction on whose behalf you will be fighting but I suppose if you are not a roleplayer then you probably won’t care about that bit anyway.  One team will be fighting for an NPC corp from one of the empires while the other will be fighting for a pirate faction.

All battles are currently 16 vs 16, although CCP are working up to raising this.  Which is a good thing, as currently the maps sometimes feel too big as you can at times be running around for up to a couple of minutes at a time without sighting a hostile.   Once the team sizes are increased then obviously this should become less of an issue.  I wouldn’t call it game breaking as things are, but there can be lulls in combat that make the game feel less intense than other shooters with more confined level design.

I am also wondering if the small selection of vehicles currently implemented is a factor.  Or maybe, the lack of players who have invested precious skill points into being able to use the vehicles.  As yet, I have not seen anyone using a Dropship, which seems a shame given they paint a cool picture in the trailers!  The reason is probably that the Dropship, and to an extent all of the vehicles currently implemented, is a team vehicle.  The vehicle’s pilot (obviously) drives, but to get any firepower out of the thing requires someone else to man the gun.  That can be hit-and-miss unless you are playing with friends so I wouldn’t expect to see something like a Dropship in an instant match.

Which is where we move into low sec for ‘Mercenary battles’.  These are the Factional Warfare battles so take place on the low sec planets of the FW warzone.  The influence of organised groups is pretty clear too.  It is typical to see groups from single corps cropping up in the player lists and those units clearly make their presence felt in making concerted pushes on objectives.  And yes, vehicles do seem to be more commonly used at this level although still not to the extent I’d have thought.

As you may know, the locations of FW battles is determined by Capsuleer plexing activity in EVE-Online.  If one side starts to offensively plex in EVE, then a Mercenary battle will be created in Dust514.  I have found that there can be (fairly brief) times when there are no Merc battles available to join, which I assume comes down to lulls in plexing activity.  But I have also found that battles fill up extremely quickly meaning that if you want to get in on the action then you need to be quick off the mark.  I do wonder how that will scale as Dust’s player base grows, although as the match player cap is raised that will obviously increase capacity.  I guess it is a matter of wait and see!

Oh if you were wondering, I have seen orbital strikes being used quite regularly, more so than I expected.  My suspicion is that there are players out there with their PS3 sat next to their PC calling down their own strikes, but I suppose it could equally be the EVE players offensively plexing peeling off to provide strikes once the battle starts.

In Dust, each time you spawn in battle one of each item used in your Dropsuit’s loadout is consumed (including a Dropsuit).  This means that you need to restock your equipment between battles, spending your hard-earned ISK.  Or you can use one of the four ‘Starter loadouts’ which are free and infinite in supply, but use Militia-issue gear which is the most basic stuff in the game.  To begin with, that is exactly what I did.  As I have started to gain confidence and suck a little bit less, I have been upgrading to standard ‘tech 1′ gear.  Still not fancy, but it is a bit better and costs me ISK each time I die.

Like EVE, items in Dust have a Meta level, with ‘named’ gear increasing in power (and cost) along with the meta level.  I haven’t stretched to the more advanced kit yet as much of it requires higher skills than I have, plus I still suck too much to pay the cost premiums!

Speaking of premiums, lets talk Free To Play.  Dust is a F2P game supported with microtransactions, and my feeling is that it is entirely possible for a reasonably skilled player to get by fine without giving CCP any money.  When you are killed there is a screen telling you who killed you and what equipment they were using to do it.  As far as I’ve noticed most players are killing me with items bought with ISK.  OK, many of them are using superior kit to mine that I can’t even use yet, but I’m ok with this.  I am aware that as a newbie I’m at a disadvantage, but it doesn’t feel insurmountable.  Any F2P shooter will court the danger of being branded ‘pay to win’, but I am cautiously optimistic that Dust has not (yet) fallen into that trap.

On which note, I decided to fork out for my first microtransactions today!  Well done CCP, you have started to extract more money out of me, thanks for that.  I have bought the Mercenary pack, which is the starter bundle aimed at gullible individuals like me who come back from Fanfest brainwashed into buying a PS3.  Probably.   It is actually a pretty good package containing a fair chunk of Aurum (microtransaction currency), an 30 day ‘active’ training booster (boosts SP gain from battles), a bunch of premium items like fifty anti-vehicle grenades, pistols etc and finally a Blueprint Original for both a medium Dropsuit and an Assault rifle.

BPO’s work differently in Dust, they simply provide an infinite supply of the item rather than being used in production.  You can buy BPO’s of most militia-grade items for Aurum, but with this pack I now have an unlimited supply of Assault armour and rifles which will cut down on my restocking costs nicely.

What am I going to spend the Aurum on?  Haven’t a clue yet, but I’m open to recommendations!

First Impressions

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to discuss my first impressions of Dust514.

I have had time to play a bit of Dust514 now so this is probably a good time to give my newbies perspective.  The bottom line?  I’m enjoying it but can see some areas of improvement.  I think that it is a decent (and fun) shooter and can deliver on expectations, although my first impressions are that it isn’t quite as polished as I hoped given that it is now live.

Being not just a Dust newbie but a console noob, part of my challenge in getting to grips with the game has been my (very) limited inexperience of control pad controls. I’m getting there.  Slowly.   Something i am trying to avoid is comparing Dust too closely to my experience of shooters on the PC, CCP deliberately chose to make a console shooter to tap into a different market, so arguably Dust’s primary target audience will be approaching the game with a control pad in hand.

The area that I really think CCP need to concentrate on improving ASAP is not actually the shooting part of the game.  Its the tutorials and the Mercenary Quarters, the between matches stuff which separates Dust from Call of Duty of Battlefield.  My first response to the game was bewilderment!

Once you create a character in Dust the MQ loads showing your avatar standing in his small room (smaller than EVE’s Captain’s Quarters, which from a lore perspective is a nice touch).  You are then bombarded with information.  I suddenly had a sense of deja vu taking me back to when I first started out in EVE and the game hurled walls of text at me expecting it to all make sense.  After that initial torrent of not entirely useful information, you are on your own.

In this respect, Dust is much like EVE.  Or maybe I suspect, like EVE used to be before CCP put a lot of effort into improving the new player experience.  It is hard for me as an EVE veteran of almost 9 years now to evaluate EVE’s NPE today in the same way, but I suspect that Dust is currently lagging behind here.

A new character starts out with a pool of 500,000 unallocated skill points and I think 250,000 ISK.  The problem I had at this point was that I had no idea of which skills were important or if I should spend my ISK on skills or equipment.  A new character starts with pretty much no skills at all so just about anything you might decide to train first requires that you buy a skillbook.  While this is also true of EVE, I think Dust takes it a step further.  Also, EVE’s tutorial missions lavish free stuff upon the player including many of the basic skillbooks they will need.  Not so in Dust.

As a result, I really haven’t got a handle on Dust’s skill system yet as I’m struggling to decide what is actually important to be training at this point.  The good news is that Dust’s training system has a significant difference to EVE in that rather than spending time training a specific skill, skill points earned simply go into a pool that can be used to unlock a skill once enough SP has been earned.  You don’t commit to training something for 3 days only to realise that you would have been better off working on something else 2 days in.

There is also some obsolete info in the tutorial wall of text blurb.  Prior to Uprising (the launch build), characters were created with a specialisation choice that predetermine some starting skills.  Specialisations were removed for Uprising (you just get the unallocated skill points), but the tutorial text has not yet been updated.  In fact, a lot of the tutorial stuff feels like a placeholder or otherwise in need of updating and polish, which is a problem.

I think that as I become more familiar with the game (and the PS3!) I will settle into it and enjoy Dust for the long-term.  I am working on getting some of my PS3 owning friends to create accounts and try it out so I hope to build up the core of a squad and expand my experiences in the EVE universe.  My concern is that players who are entirely new to EVE may bounce off what can be a baffling first impression of the game given before you even get into your first match.

I wonder if the introduction of the game should be flipped around, with players encouraged to get into an instant battle before the game starts pushing them towards the skill tree, markets and dropsuit fitting.  Players are approaching the game as a shooter first and foremost, only to be shown a wall of stuff and stats without knowing what any of it really means.

CCP, don’t scare the newbies off with masses of detail before drawing them in with explosions.  Entertain with the fireworks first, draw them into the depths of the EVE universe afterwards.

House Keeping

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to ramble about my week in EVE a bit really.

I heard a big piece of news the other day (important in my world at least!) but I’m not sure its quite time to talk about that yet.  Soon though, so consider yourself teased.

What I have been doing is a bit of getting my house in order.  I have an alt who I use to supply the low sec market of the system I base out of, which for most of the time I’ve been in FW is Eszur.  I relocated for a bit while Ushra’Khan was operating out of Isbrabata but once U’K decided to exit Fw for a return to null sec and I parted ways, production was shifted back.  I have been a bit lazy with my small-scale industrial inkerings lately though so have set about gearing back up.

The market has been looking a bit shabby so I set about filling out the T1 frig/dessie gaps along with the rigs supply.  My approach is to manufacture locally but with limited capital (I am far from being a wealthy player so don’t have a large pool of ISK for this) and low volume hauling.  I don’t own a jump freighter and taking something as bulky and vulnerable as an Orca deep into low sec would be smart without a strong escort, which I don;t currently have.  So my approach is the occasional blockade runner filled with minerals to supply what I can’t buy locally.  As such, the stuff i build can’t be too mineral intensive as volumes quickly become unwieldly.

I find that T1 frigates and destroyers can be made in large enough numbers to meet local demand without having to spend too much time hauling.  Occasionally I branch out into some ammo too.  Rigs on the other hand are ideal for this setup as salvage components take up such a small amount of space that its easy to move enough parts to make large numbers of rigs.

the Eszur market is already looking better to my eyes.  The main reason I do this (other than turning into a bit of a bear in my old age) is to help out with the militia war effort.  Bolstering the supply lines a bit can only help our boys fight the good fight so I consider it a part of doing my bit for the Minmatar cause.  It isn’t a money maker as the effort going into the project is fairly high for the profit margins I make on sales.  Then i tend to just plough all the ISK back into buying more stock and expanding my range of sell orders so the profits vanish anyway.

In other news, I’m preparing Ugleb for the arrival of Odyssey which really is not far away now.  I recently realised that my exploration related skills frelect the amount of time I have put into this area of the game in the past.  Hacking and Archaeology skills were both sat on a measly level 3 while my probing skills were similarly low, so i have been taking a bit of time to get this skill set a little better fleshed out.  Exploration is an area I have always intended to get more involved with but found the mechanics a bit underwhelming and never liked the idea of needing to switch between a probing ship to find the sites and a second ship for actually running the sites.  Hopefully Odyssey will deliver on its promise of alleviating those issues.

Last night that PS3 I bought off ebay turned up, so I have spent the afternoon tinkering with it.  this is the first console I have ever owned so I’m muddling through a bit and getting used to the controller and menu layout.  Mostly I’ve been finding that everything I press requires that I download an update or new content.  Right now the Dust514 client is patching up to the current Uprising release build then I’ll have just enough time to make a character before going to bed. Guess I’ll play the game tomorrow.

Interestingly though, Dust does have a player counter on it.  Currently there are just under 8,400 players online while the Aura app on my phone reports 49,000 playing EVE.  I have no idea if that is typical but I guess at this point of launch week the Capsuleers still outnumber the Dust bunnies around 5 to 1.  Not bad though as I think 49,000 makes this a fairly busy Saturday for EVE, although I’ve not been keeping a close eye on it.

What I have done a bit today is play the Slay mini game available in the Event Horizon Lounge, which is Dust’s virtual lobby area as part of the Playstation Home thing.  PS Home is a sort of hybrid social media/virtual storefront system where PS3 owners can wander about playing mini games while being not-so-passively marketed at with posters for other stuff they might want to splash their cash on.

The Event Horizon Lounge has a merc Recruitment officer NPC who tells you a bit about the EVE universe and backstory as well as telling you that there is free stuff to be had by watching the videos on show in the lounge and by winning games of Slay.  Slay itself was originally developed for Incarna and is one of the few parts of the project that saw the light of day.  At heart it is similiar to the Risk boardgame but with a sci-fi spin and a few more rules than it is easy to take in at first.  I’ve played a few single player games and I’m starting to pick it up, although I’m at little risk of actually winning a game yet!

Well, the patching is done so I guess I’ll fire up Dust for the first time and see what character creation is like.  More first impressions later…

So they broke me…

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to ramble  briefly on a couple of things.

I’ll keep this one short-ish and spit out a few things.

Firstly,  for the first time in awhile that I’ve noticed, the Amarr miltia is making a push on warzone control!  Very happy to see that happening as it shows signs that FW remains alive and well.  The Minmatar have been sitting strongly up in tier 4 for awhile now and recently became the first faction to reavh tier 5 post-Retribution, so its good to see some fight back although I’ll admit to not knowing the cause.  Some speculate that organised LP farming remains a thing in FW, so it could be that the farmers have shifted focus allowing Amarr to push back.  Or its something else, who knows.  As it stands Amarr are a sliver away from breaking into tier 3 as the Minnies are down to tier 2.

Second thing, I’m going to blame Fanfest and CCP’s marketing frenzy for this, but I just went and bought a PS3 off eBay.  Interestingly there seems to be plenty of people out there buying PS3′s despite the PS4 being officially announced and maybe 6 months away, so expect to pay about £100+ for a slimline version or £80+  for the older ‘Piano’ style.  Curiosity finally got the better of me and I decided to go check out Dust514 for myself, I’ve been toying with the idea for awhile and it has just been getting more tempting.  I found CCP’s plans for the future intriguing so I expect I’ll get my moneys worth out this thing over the long term.  Or I can try to resell it for peanuts a year for now.

Finally, I realised that I didn’t get around to talking much about Fanfest’s EVE keynote.  It was nice to hear about the CCP 10 year ‘journey’ of course, although I had heard a previous presentation a few years back so it wasn’t all ‘new’ to me, my wife hadn’t though and won;t be the only one ofc.  then we had CCP Unifex doing a year in review bit which had some nice observations in it, including of PVP in low sec about doubled post-Retribution and looks to have stayed at that level, which is great.  It is pretty much proven in every way that Retribution has been the most successful expansion in a long, long time both in new attracting new players and an upswing in player activity.

So the new stuff.  ‘Colonisation’ is set to be the thematic word around EVE development for some time to come as it will be CCP’s theme for the next ‘several’ expansions.  We are going to be able to build ‘super stargates’ that will lead to completely new areas of space.  I am so glad that CCP didn’t surprise me and declare that we would be able to build stargates between existing systems.  The players would wreck the map inside of a year linking every system to everywhere else!  So no, it will be building doorways into new systems that CCP want to be unlike any currently in game.  In fact, they are deliberately not doing this straight away so that they have more time to ‘develop their ideas’ on what this new space will be.

That is the part that makes me optimistic about this direction.  CCP really do want to bring something wholly new into EVE through this feature, more of the same just isn’t going to be enough.  My concern of course is that they won’t be able to come up with something that meets this lofty goal, but here’s hoping they do!  I don’t expect to see any of this stuff until Winter 2014 at the earliest.  Winter 2013 is probably going to be a further industrial revamp with maybe some new mining mechanics if the prototyping presentation was anything to go by.  More industrial shake-ups are coming most likely.  So going into 2014 I guess we’ll see something being done with the sov mechanics, but I get the impression that CCP are hoping null sec industry buffing will bring more targets into null for small gangs to prey on.  Will that be enough without tampering with the sov grind?  Probably not.

EVE Occulus Rift thingy then.  EVR is an interesting prototype, a dog fighting version of EVE fighter piloting using the Occulus virtual reality kit.  This would be pretty damned amazing if it became linked into EVE, but I don’t think that is likely any time soon.  We will probably see this turn into a standalone product that CCP puts out at some point, if it leads anywhere.  My impression is that Hilmar thinks its a cool thing to show off but that he is not sold on the business case for it, if there actually is one.  Styill it drew a great deal of media attention and got a lot of people excited.  Ultimately its market will be determined by how many people buy the Occulus Rift I guess.

So interesting things, if deliberately a little light on specifics in places.  CCP are clearly getting more ambitious with the EVE vision and plans again, which is a very welcome attitude to see again.

True stories – upvote time!

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to talk about my entries into the True Stories competition.

Voting has started for the True Stories competition so that makes it time to talk about what I submitted.  There was one story that I felt really had to be told, and that is the tale of Unity Station.  Or at least, part of it.  Unity Station was the Ushra’Khan’s home in Providence and the second station ever constructed there.  We fought a big assed war against CVA for it which has gone down in history for those of us old enough to remember it as one of those defining ‘I was there’ moments of our EVE careers.

A huge amount of stuff happened to, around and because of our building Unity Station, the thing was a total drama magnet for many years.  I only had space to talk about one chapter of its history so I expended the entire character limit talking about fighting CVA for possession of it and how those events shaped Providence for years to come.  I’d appreciate a few upvotes to see this chapter of EVE’s history formally recognised.

The other story I submitted is you might be relieved to hear much more concise.   It is also a much more obscure event.  It is about a PIE Inc. starbase facility that was known as Port Redemption.  I chose to talk about this as it was a player run story that was embraced by other players and took on a life of its own.  It is a wonderful example of players role playing without CCP or any out of character discussions going on behind the scenes, all playing out in game with stuff exploding as a consequence.  To me this is how EVE’s RP scene can and should work, so please take a moment to enjoy this little anecdote of player content.

Hope you like them!