2012: Follow Up

If you haven't read yesterday's post yet, I would encourage you to do so.


My attempt to lay the ground-work for the course of Eve in 2012 came down to several core concepts, the details of which are not as important in the strategic sense. In the planning/idea phase you are better off keeping your attention on the big ideas, the over-arching themes, and let the details form when it comes time to develop tactics to support the strategy.


The major themes for Eve in 2012 are, in my opinion:


• DUST integration
• Subscriber growth


Tomorrow I'm planning on outlining my thoughts on building new-subscriber growth in 2012. Today however, while we are still in the strategy phase, I'd like to revisit some of the core ideas that I presented yesterday.


I believe it is time to introduce another race to New Eden. We have many to choose from, the Enheduanni, Yan Jung, Takmahl, Talocan, Sansha, and of course, the Jovians themselves.  I chose the Jovians for my example simply because they have space. Certainly the folks at CCP could give any of the races additional space simply by adding it to the universe. Which is one of the great things about LORE VS. CANON. 


Lore is the fictional backstory that supports Canon. Lore is constantly changing, being updated and manipulated to serve Canon. It doesn't work the other way around. Canon is the factual information present in-game. It is also constantly changing, but slower than Lore and usually in a more subtle way.


Whatever the Jovians, or any of the other races, may be in Lore can be altered, updated or modified based on Canon. So, for example, some lone ship gets sucked into a WH and pops out into Jovian space only to find it strangely empty. From that single sentence there are dozens of good writers that could form the foundation for getting the Jovians actually into the universe of New Eden. It's called imagination.


But that isn't even the point. A new playable race has been hinted at as long as WiS and it is time for it to happen. Personally I think the idea of a race based on Cross-trained multi-racial skills is extremely interesting and valid. This wouldn't limit the new race to only older players as some have suggested, you need to think differently. A Rookie player that chooses the new race would train skills the same way we all did, only he would choose from the skill sets from all four of the other races and his own.  Heck, I know many players that decided to cross-train virtually from day one. This is no different.


Certainly the older players would have some benefit. Which is their right, since they are older players. But it would only be an availability issue, not one of distinct individual advantage. This kind of thing exists already. When the new BC/BS enter the game in a few weeks I will be able to fly all four of the ships from Day One. (And I plan on it!) Does that give me an unfair advantage?


And then there is the aspect that I didn't touch on yesterday, which is what to do with the newly discovered or recently available new space?  My suggestion is this, since FW has been largely ignored for so long, we strive to make the new space a FW playground. Think about it for a second, newly discovered space? I think all four races would be extremely interested in taking possession of such new treasure and would fight hard to do so. So (and let's continue using the Jovians) newly opened Jovian space could be contested space.  Originally it would be discovered without Gates and only accessed by jumping to cynos brought in thru newly discovered WH. But each faction now has the ability to build and control Gates for themselves. Said Gates will directly connect to their faction space in Empire only as long as they control the Gate. 


Man, I am so full of idears. Heck, given that scenario I might even join a Faction and play in Jovian space for awhile.  Obviously we'd need something really awesome and cool in there to make all the fighting worthwhile... and that would be the missing element. The one thing you need to build Jovian tech which can only be found in Jovian space?  I dunno, I'm not as smart about industry things and anytime I try I tend to make people angry. So you guys figure that one out.


A new playable race by this time next year?

The Eve Blog Pack: Boss Level

Back in August when I first took over the Blog Pack from CK, I tried to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Any change like that is going to be problematic in many ways, so the idea was to keep it as simple as possible and minimize the bad.


This worked pretty well if I do say so myself.


Since then there have been a number of EBP Updates, changes and issues that have popped up. And, in my humble opinion, the EBP continues to be a vibrant reflection of the "best" of the Eve Blogging Community.


And there is that word. 


I thought it would be a good time to define a bit more what I believe the Blog Pack is and isn't as we move into 2012. To me the EBP is a snapshot of the Eve Community of today, not of yesterday or tomorrow. A snapshot, not an album. Other people have lists, my personal favorite is Eve Blogger for example - it does an excellent job of linking Eve Blogs. Other people also have limited lists, or Best of lists, or friend lists, or any number of other ways of linking to Eve Blogs. But none of them are the Eve Blog Pack.


I am, in many ways, honor bound to uphold what I believe to be the spirit that CK created the Blog Pack for in the first place. Not to provide a comprehensive list of Eve Community Blogs, but to provide a snapshot of the ones that stand apart and that represent a wide selection of topics interesting to other members of the Eve Community.


So the EBP is about the reality of today. Getting on the EBP is no guarantee that you will be staying on the EBP. This isn't a Hall of Fame. It is a vibrant, living list. If you stop blogging for three months and then return, don't expect to see your blog on the list. It doesn't work like that. You will be replaced with someone else.


You need to write about Eve and write about Eve often. You need to do so in a way that is interesting, vibrant and important to the greater Eve Community. If not, you will be removed. And there is no warning, no head's up. I do try to help our EBP members if they are having problems, and they all know this is true, but I am not your babysitter. I still love you, but the list is the thing when it comes to EBP.


So moving forward the list will be updated more often under slightly more stringent personal guidelines from me. 


The goal isn't to favor anyone, or punish anyone, the goal is to create a vibrant, strong, important snapshot of the Eve Blogging Community. It isn't easy to get on the list, it shouldn't be. And it isn't easy to get taken off the list. But staying on the list is more than getting on it in the first place. It isn't easy to continue to write about Eve and to stay excellent, that should also be true.


There will be changes coming this week. The first update of 2012 has been in the works for several weeks now. Already Eve A to Z has been removed due to non-Eve related postings.


More updates coming.


UPDATE: The Altruist moved his site. The Feed should have been working fine for a few weeks now, but I finally got around to fixing all the other links on here as well.

Walking In Station Pneumonia

Christmas night I got hit hard by the flu, wham-o!! This effectively knocked me out of the Holiday spirit for four straight days of misery, coughing, snot producing, shivering burning, blah blahs. But I fought, as usual, without giving a single thought to seeing a Doctor or taking actual prescription meds. For me, traditionally, the flu is like a 3-4 day misery, nothing serious, then fine.


This one wouldn't go away, even after I got better. I ain't stupid, just tougher than nails. But even I know when I need help. At first the Doctors thought I had Walking Pneumonia, but it turns out it was a badass case of Bronchitis instead. I'm on meds now and feeling much better.


I don't get sick, but when I do, I do it right. The last time was about six years ago when I was sick for an entire month. The Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, poor things. Eventually it was just killer meds, soup and time that healed me then. In my house we refer to that sickness as the "time I had SARS" cause that' was the hot sickness back then.


You know it's bad when the Doctor looks at your chest x-ray and says, "Huh, never seen that before."


I mention all this to let you know I'm back. And to give you some idea of what it takes to keep me away. My life is incredibly complicated, but it has always been incredibly complicated. Because that is exactly the way I like it. I always laugh when people used to say I could never keep up the pace here on Eveoganda. And while burn-out is always a possibility, I mean seriously, how am I supposed to know exactly how long Eve will interest me?  Writing in this blog, doing art, helping the community... in my life these are the fun things I get to do.


Heads up. There are some changes coming to the Eve Blog Pack this week. We'll be adding a few new blogs and there may be some other changes. Today I had to remove one of the EBP Blogs over concerns it may have been compromised, I'm waiting to hear from the author on that.


Happy New Year my friends. The start of the third year of Eveoganda!!!

sickness pervades

even one as stalwart and physically, mentally fine a specimen as yours truly sometimes, rarely, succumbs to the mundane, asinine, trivial failures of the flesh and creeping, swollen, cough infested malignancy known commonly as the flu. stop bah. hit me hard christmas night and hasn't let me out of its icy heat tinged grasp. stop. feeling better, must not lose hope. sweat. dripping mucus factory imbedded in my own head and uncontrolled workings. stop. mundanity.

trivial. stop. but all so repellent when it comes calling. one thinks, professionally, i shall return to full strength right soon. stop. love to mother. stop.

send iskies. stop.

Stuck in the Fridge

If I've learned one thing during the last 3+ years playing Eve, writing about Eve, drawing things about Eve and generally being so cool doing all of it, is this - sometimes even I need a break from Eve.


The past month has been, for me, a break from Eve. Although I've stayed mostly active here on Eveoganda and in other places, my in-game time over the last month probably amounted to about 2 hours in total.  This had nothing at all to do with Eve itself, in fact I couldn't be more excited about Crucible and the direction the game is going right now. This had everything to do with the usual things these things have to do with, a confluence of events both in-game and out, that crossed streams in places they shouldn't have crossed streams.  Hence causing additional stress and poo-poo crap'ola that needed to be dealt with.


Yesterday marked my general return to form as I undocked Rixx from Hevrice for the first time in over two weeks with the intent to blow something up.  Mostly I've been logging in to Ana to move stuff and buy nifty new ships. But yesterday I wanted some much needed action and explosions.


It didn't happen like that. Oh I had fun, don't get me wrong. I lucked out and logged in just as a Tusker Dessie gang was forming up. Sounded fun. I quickly fitted up a Catalyst and waited to head out. The FC was asking in fleet chat for some pilots to fly Interceptors and I volunteered, so no Catalyst for me. He wanted a long point Ceptor, so I had to scramble to find one. I have several Ceptors fitted up, but since I don't fly in Null Space much anymore, almost all of them are short pointed. Ranis, blaster/web. Daredevil, blaster/web, Dramiel, Malediction all short range killers. Maybe the Slicer or maybe the Crow. I had the Crow fitted with AB/Scram but it was easy enough to switch out.


We ran all over and couldn't find anyone to engage us. Not really. There was a decent sized PIRATES gang that was full of potential but they wouldn't engage us and kept docking up. You'd think 4-5 BCs and support ships wouldn't be afraid of a gang of Destroyers... 


I did manage to get in on a Hurricane kill. And seeing just how fast his tank melted, maybe people were right to avoid us.


One more thing. It is pretty awe-inspiring watching your home system Nebula shrink into the distance the further you get from it. And seeing Cloud Ring off in the distance, or some of the other Nebula, really gives Eve a sincere sense of location. It would be easy to dismiss this in the heat of hunting and killing, but I think the impact of this most recent level of immersion may have a lasting impact on New Eden. Very interesting.

Twitter Hats

Mockery is a powerful tool. 


Back on June 9th it occurred to me that the only real way to express my utter contempt for vanity items in Eve was to use the only visual tool at my disposal, the head and shoulders avatar. And what would I be able to do to it to express just how silly it all was? The answer, as all such things tend to be after the fact of inspiration, was obvious.  Hats.


The mere idea of our seasoned, scowl infested, tough-as-nails avatars wearing silly hats was profoundly funny. At least in my own humble opinion. 


At first I simply used Rixx as the target for the silly hats, along with my own Twitter campaign in the midst of the Incarna Summer outrage. Along with various posts here on Eveoganda, it seemed like the perfect way to straddle the fence on what I considered to be a difficult razor. On one side the obvious silliness of CQ/Incarna, Aurum, and clothes no one could see. On the other a passionate caring for an Eve gone wrong.


Towards the end of June the little protest of mockery took a turn in a slightly unexpected direction when Mark from Eve Travel requested a Dunce hat for his avatar. Neither of us can remember the exact reason why he wanted such a thing, but he started using it on his own Twitter account. And so was born the expansion of what would come to be known variously as the Twitter Hats, or the Mad Hatter, or other descriptions.


Six months have passed and almost 160 hats. And Eve has moved on from Incarna to Crucible. The universe isn't the same anymore. Many of the Twitter hatted avatars aren't even using their be-hatted avatars anymore. And it seems obvious to me that it is time to put that moment of Eve history to rest.


The hats have served their purpose. Perhaps to a small degree, perhaps more so, who can know these things. They were part of the process however, that cannot be denied, not when so many of CCP's own are proud owners of hats, even the big guy at the top with his fluffy Viking hat.


But it is time to put them behind us and move on. However, since I am such a nice pirate type person, I will still be-hat your avatar, but only on request.  And while I will still do them for free I would consider a donation to Rixx a small price to pay, since he is a poor pirate that tends to get things exploded a lot.


The hats were a blast to do and I'm glad they made so many people happy. It still makes me smile when I see one of the hatted avatars pop up on Twitter.


So thanks to all of you that are wearing or have worn your hats with pride. That was fun.

Crucible: Features List

Fellow blogger tgl3 has a running Winter Expansion "Crucible" features list over on Through Newb Eyes.  You really should check it out.  It is amazing to me just how much CCP has managed to accomplish with this expansion, and the hits just seem to keep coming.

Blog Pack Update

Please update your feed links on your blogs.


A couple of additional changes to the Blog Pack today, which will complete the current slate of changes. Hopefully these latest changes will be the last for awhile and the Blog Pack members you see today will constitute the roll for a long time to come.


First of all we welcome The Beginnings of Piracy back to the pack!  Mail Lite's excellent blog was removed simply because he was having Malware issues and those have been resolved now. So it is good to have his blog back in the Pack.


And we also welcome our newest member to the pack, The Altruist  is an excellent blog that gives extremely solid advice on playing Eve for both the new and older members of the community.  Check out his latest post on the upcoming Winter Expansion changes for a great example of this.  He doesn't post all that often, but when he does it is valuable. So it will be a great addition to the Pack.


For those of you wishing to have your own blog become a member the process is simple. Make me aware of your blog! I will add a link to your blog to the Eve Sites list in the right hand sidebar, this means you've been added to my own personal reading list. When a slot becomes available I use that list to decide who to add next.


Remember that ALL BP members should have a link on their blog to ALL other BP members! I've been extremely lax in enforcing that rule, but that will start to change. We're all adults here, so hopefully by the time I get around to you, the list is already up and running on your blog.


Thanks and enjoy the Eve Blog Pack.

Blog Pack UPDATES

It has been about a month since the last Blog Pack Update and that is way longer than it should have been. My apologies.  So today I've cleaned up several inactive blogs, added a few new ones, updated the link for another and also created some spiffy NEW badges that you can use on your BP Blogs!


There were two sites in the Pack that had not updated in over 2 months, without any word on their sites about when they might be back. I'm sorry but that is grounds for removal.  Should the blog authors in question return they can ask to be reinstated to the Pack. But the idea of the Pack is to present active, engaged community Blogs.


Marc Scaurus changed his blog from Wanderlust to Malefactor, so it has been updated on the list and the feed.


Welcome Nashh Kadavr back to the Blog Pack! When I took over the pack from CK Nashh had been inactive for awhile, but he has been back at it full steam for almost two months now and is welcomed back into the Pack.


And we also welcome Helicity Boson back to the land of the living! Helicity is a long time member of the Pack and I'm glad to see her back to blogging again.


That is it for new Blogs for today, there are several other ones that may be included in the next update two weeks from now, so keep your eyes open for those. I decided not to add them today because I am honestly not sure which of them will be added yet, so I'm going to keep an eye on them for the next two weeks to see if a few rise to the top.


As always, clicking on the graphic under the banner will take you to the Blog Pack page with links to all the sites and a link to the Blog Pack Feed.


It is amazing how quickly things change. I went thru so many blogs the past week that are gone, inactive or otherwise dark. But there are also tons of new ones rapidly taking their place. As always, I am only one dood, so if you want your blog to be considered please feel free to send me a link, leave one in the comments, or otherwise make sure I know about you! Enthusiasm counts in the Eve Community.


Keep the courage.

I hate being right sometimes

Over a month ago I wrote a series about the CSM and CCP, mostly focused on why the actions of both over the Summer were ultimately bad for EVE itself.  The series gained a lot of exposure, traffic and generated other blog posts blah blah yadda yadda. The point being, specifically when it came to CCP, I was correct.


Today's news that CCP is reducing or moving 20% of its staff and "that we are attempting too many things for a company our size." is confirmation of my basic premise - that CCP was overextended and this is bad for EVE.


At the time several sources within CCP as much as admitted that I had hit the nail on the head. Or at least had come closer than I might had thought, since I had NO inside information to base my conclusions on.  The subsequent letter from CEO Hilmar started the ball rolling ( I would suggest that letter was an excellent "monkey" btw, well done. ) and recent changes have put CCP back on track once more.


Sadly, for me, I hate being right in this case. Mostly that has to do with the potential layoffs that will result. So for everyone that is impacted by today's news, my sincere and heartfelt condolences. I hope for you and your family's sake that you find employment again quickly.


The other side of me is glad that CCP listened and is making the necessary changes to address their issues now, rather than later. This is a good sign. And as hard as it is on those affected, it means good things for the future.


I'm not suggesting that my series had anything to do with the change in direction at CCP, so don't put words in my mouth. I do know that series was read by at least 45,000 people, give or take a dozen or so. So someone read it. And maybe it had some small part to play.


Either way. Onward and upward.

One Step Too Far

Once I get on a roll regarding changes I can sometimes take things a little far. I know this about myself and freely admit it.


So, regarding yesterday's post about Twitter Hats... please ignore it.


I'll try to limit myself to one or two hats a day and continue dropping unsuspecting hats on people, those that ask and those that don't. The original goal was to be-hat all members of the Tweetfleet - so we'll stick with that goal for now and see how things go.


So, while change is good, some changes can be changed back.

Changes Are A Foot

Everything changes. In fact, life is little more than the constant adaptation to change. Accept it, fight it, whatever your choices you must face it. And so it is here at Eveoganda.


You'll notice we are sporting a new banner today. That is only the beginning of some new changes you'll be noticing over the coming weeks.


BLOG PACK


During the last few weeks I have purposefully let the Blog Pack sit and sink in. But now it is time for some changes. By this time next week we will have some new members on the BP and some of our older members will be retiring due to inactivity.  In addition, I will be introducing some Blog Pack Badges that you can use on your sites to help promote not only your own membership in this group, but the Pack in general.


More on those developments as they happen.


EVE LINKS


In addition I will be updating the Eveoganda Eve Links, adding some new resources/blogs and removing any that are no longer relevant. 


MOBILE


I finally got around to enabling the mobile design on Eveoganda, so if you visit from a mobile device you'll notice that the site is now formatted properly. It is actually pretty darn cool and I've spent some time this morning checking it out on my iPhone. Looks good and is extremely easy to navigate.


RIXX


Oh, and Rixx is now a member of The Tuskers.




More changes on the way.