Ecliptic Rift

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

Like most everybody, I’ve evolved my playstyle over time. In fact, I haven’t stopped evolving my playstyle.

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It’s done. I’ve closed the Back Alley Trading Company and set up in Ecliptic Rift again. I’ve opened another office and this week should see me starting to get my operations moving.

Watch this space…

Due to various business and personnel reasons, the Back Alley Trading Company [BKAT] will close up shop and liquidate. This process has already begun and communication has been sent to all current employees.

At this point, most of the pilots have moved out to W-space as part of the Syndicate Special Operations Division [SSOD], a corporation within the same alliance (United Trade Syndicate, [TRAMP]) as the Company.

Why will the company close?

I won’t discuss every factor here, primarily because several of them have to do with the private and personal matters of other pilots. Out of respect for their privacy, then, I’ll set those aside, except to say that plans didn’t work out for them as well as they’d hoped, either.

But in general, when BKAT joined TRAMP, we split the combat wing and most exploration off to a new corp, SSOD, under the leadership of Chainer Cygnus and a team he assembled. As it turned out, most BKAT pilots went there, leaving only a few in this corp. Most of the remaining pilots have not had the opportunity to fly as much as they’d like, dealing with planetside issues. Rather than try to rebuild the corp in this particular state, then, I decided to close it. Only one other pilot owns shares, and he will receive an appropriate payout for their value.

I may write in the future about additional lessons learned, but not right now.

What does this mean for you?

I don’t have any intention to retire, certainly. I have short-term plans I will announce once BKAT fully closes, but I intend to remain in Republic space for now and will continue many of the same activities in which I have participated for some time. These plans do include continuing to fly with the United Trade Syndicate.

However, I do not intend to rebuild a new industrial corp right now and will fly solo (in the context of a corp). In the long run, who knows?

I count every single pilot who’s flown with BKAT as a friend and look forward to future operations with TRAMP pilots, including those in SSOD.

We frequently see corp or alliance identities in EVE revolving around larger factions. The Amarr have CVA, the Minmatar have Electus Matari and Ushra’khan, not to mention innumerable militias in factional warfare for all four of the primary factions. Smaller, interesting factions (Angels, Thukkers, Intaki, Sansha etc) also inspire a number of corporations and even alliances.

I know, we already have the NPC corporation, but nearly everybody in EVE knows why NPC corps stink. I don’t know whether bloodline NPC corps obviate any need for (or interest in) player-managed bloodline corps, and that could present an issue. But what would a player Sebiestor tribe corp look like? First, the bloodline description:

Widely respected as being among the most innovative thinkers of the cluster, the Sebiestor are an ingenious people with a natural fondness for engineering. For the last millennium, they have been pioneering advances in applied sciences despite laboring under chronic material shortages. Sebiestor engineers believe they can build anything, with anything, out of anything. Veritable masters of deriving solutions from impossible circumstances, they are most commonly found working in shipyards, assembly lines, terraforming projects, outpost construction, and aboard starships.

So maybe this hypothetical group could take the form of an industrial corp, based near Eram (the tribal HQ system)? Manufacturing and invention, in particular, make sense for Sebiestor pilots, and perhaps reverse engineering to support strategic cruiser production. Pilots could also participate in mission running, especially with the aim of gaining high standings with the tribe and perhaps the Minmatar Republic itself. The corp’s industrial focus could even turn to supporting the war effort by providing supplies and equipment to militia corps working with the Tribal Liberation Force in Metropolis. Alternately, salvaging, trading, and smuggling seem to fit the feel of a hard-scrabble, inventive group that turns junk into the most advances devices humanity has ever known…

This thinking doesn’t necessarily mean I’d leave the Back Alley Trading Company, of course. Right now, I’m just thinking out loud and musing on ideas, since I have always loved planning corp or guild concepts and organization in every MMOG I’ve ever played or even closely examined. This particular concept has a lot appeal for me, no doubt, but I have to weigh that against all the other concepts and game play that interest me. On the other hand, I wouldn’t quite rule it out, either.

Also, this marks my 200th post on Ecliptic Rift. My geek identity means I really look forward to the 256th post more, though…

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves, “What Now?” What will I attempt next? What haven’t I done so far in EVE? Was it out of fear, funds, or knowledge? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

Destination : Future by gilderic

I’ve had a rough idea of how I would like 2010 to go (EVE-wise) for a while, at least in some senses though not necessarily others. So let’s take a look…

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I felt like I wanted to freshen things up a little bit, so I updated to the Station theme for WordPress. Actually, this site and the front page for the Back Alley Trading Company swapped themes for various thematic reasons (and that one will continue to undergo heavy work for a few days). I’ve also added a favicon and a new header graphic, simplified a few widgets, and taken care of other minor administrative updates.

Let me know if you notice anything wrong or broken, and of course I’d appreciate any of your feedback and constructive criticism…

Image credit The Shane H

The intricacies of power politics never cease to confuse me. I spent some time out in Syndicate this week, conferring with the Intaki Bank offices in TXW-EI (and a few other corporations) to clear up some confusion from a few months ago. An agent had asked me to remove a troublesome Minmatar Republic convoy, and I had trouble. We exchanged some heated words and evidently he filed a report indicating that the Syndicate couldn’t trust me. I’ve got it all fixed now, or nearly so.

But during this renegotiation process, when Louis Stiers, another agent, had asked me to deal with some police surveillance squadrons and listening posts, an odd request came up. Interspersed with various assignments focused on the Khanids, apparently working with the CONCORD Directive Enforcement Department (DED), and, to a lesser degree, the Republic and even the Gallente Federation, I received a nudge to hit a Thukker convoy. When the agent transmitted the contract to me, I immediately turned it back around. Not only did the Thukker tribe have traditionally good relations with the Syndicate (if a little strained due to Maleatu Shakor‘s political efforts), but they have a station in the same system. I may not mind starting all sorts of violence among podders, but I’d rather stay out of an underworld war against two large groups with whom I really like working, particularly where Back Alley has an office and various business interests.

For a bit, I wondered if they not might have just tried to test me. I thought this because, as soon as I rejected it, the agent immediately gave out an assignment to deal with some regular scum who had made the mistake of falling behind on rent payments for their pleasure hub location in the next system up the pipe.

Yeah, right...

At any rate, the Bank has assigned me another agent for now, one Guispon Meganier. He understands how to use my abilities a little better, so I’ve done some discreet deliveries and even inserted a marine detachment into a Syndicate station whose guard commander had gotten a little corrupt (well, independently corrupt). Unfortunately, I lost my Prowler to a Nighthawk underneath the station while I argued with traffic control to let me back into the hangar.

So I clone-jumped back to Oursulaert for a few days to attend to business there. In the meantime, I consulted with my old friend Eran Mintor, who seemed equally troubled. Wonder if I should go talk to somebody back at the Tribe about this?

Image credits josh.liba and america.gov

NB: This post largely derives from thinking about what my good friend Escoce has written at least twice on the subject of alts, some time ago in relation to a Blog Banter on metagaming and then again recently with a HTFU tone.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that, like most EVE players, I have several alts (some public, some not). Generally, I try to use them for alternate play styles rather than directly supporting each other, but that hasn’t always happened for any number of reasons. I just can’t resist the temptation to reach into the toolbox when I know I have a screwdriver in there already. So I end up using an alt for additional trade orders, or research slots, or to get around other skill restrictions.

By staying alt-free, then, I can accomplish several desirable results:

1. Provide more opportunities for other players. Instead of trying to do four different things myself, I can work with other players to get what I need and thus create additional relationships and social structures (a valuable play style in itself).
2. Strengthen my own corporation. As a consequence of the above, rather than try to use alts for (say) extra S&I slots, why not recruit additional engineers and scientists? That has a follow-on networking effect, as these players interact with the other members, thus strengthening BKAT. Then they bring in friends through word-of-mouth recruiting
3. Focus specifically on the character I enjoy the most. Not that my other characters don’t have their appeal, but in truth, Casiella gets 90% of my time in-game. I don’t think the other 10% really provides enough value for the effort. And when I do play them, I spend a lot of time feeling that I really should get back onto Casi to accomplish something there.
4. Save cash. Maybe CCP would like me to have a lot of alts, for obvious business reasons. But I don’t have an obligation to prop them up, and in reality, if I can help other players stay engaged and connected, then I’ve helped CCP just as much as I would have, while still taking it easy on my meatspace wallet (or my in-game wallet, if I pay with PLEXes).

If CCP does in fact revamp factional warfare next year, I might re-activate Ghost Outrider, of course, because experimenting with wholly different play styles in ways that don’t interact with Casiella holds a bit of interest for me. But apart from that, I plan to stay alt-free in 2010

Image credit elvis_payne

Anybody interested in chatting out-of-game with Back Alley Trading Company members (or just amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic ) can come check out our webified room.

Hotness.

Yesterday, I asked on Twitter, “Tell the truth: does the station model (graphics) factor at all into your decisions regarding where to open offices?”

This came up because I needed to open up a new office or two for Back Alley Trading Company and a new operation (since I wanted to position some assets for the pilots who’d participate). When I went to the systems in question, I remembered how much I hate some of the Caldari models.

In reality, I consider location and price foremost, plus services depending on the purpose of the office. But the station design matters a great deal, too, though I won’t go to another system for it and I won’t pay too much extra for a nice design. I really like Gallente 7 (the orbital wheels) and the Minmatar mining station (with the asteroids).

My question got some interesting responses.

@Novon_: Factors more important 2 me include; monthly cost, standing, facilities, sec status, distance from trade hub, graphics r secondary

@starryeyedpod: Yes. It even influences my decisions on agents

@evewarrior: The one that pays the most for the minimal effort of the overall process (including sellin loot buying shtuff).

@jrmerson: Not so much the model as how you undock. I drive orcas a lot and because of that I do not like stations you drop out the bottom.

@escoce: tell the truth. No, location 1st, then standings 2nd… Nothing else to consoder

What about you? Do you take them into consideration? Which ones do you prefer?

Image credit Wotlankor