Best Keynote Ever!

@CCP_Seagull delivered the EVE Online keynote address earlier today, and hit it out of the park!

For all of you who do not live in the United States or have familiarity with American baseball, sometimes a player will hit a home run where the ball clears the playing field.  Sometimes, they have the strength and power to literally hit the ball out of the entire park, which is what this keynote did.

There were references to the new and improved release schedules, some very quality graph porn, wonderful art discussions, additional information on the new skins, and an announcement of a model which you can purchase of a Nyx...... that levitates!

There was a discussion on our alliance slack about the keynote ending, but I told the audience that it couldn't yet:

Witmer Jolith [10:53 AM] @draivsolregard: can't be.  there is no bomb dropped yet

You see, CCP Seagull has had a plan for the past 24 months, lets call it a roadmap.  We are still on that plan and have made some tremendous strides in the past 12 months as she mentioned in the list of accomplishments which were achieved via the new and improved release schedule.

Last years bomb was not so much one single item, but rather the concept of the flexible development team, releasing improved or updated code in a faster schedule than ever before.  We also have seen a huge transition in the way that CCP announces updates or functionality changes and how they gather feedback.  In a nutshell, they release information far in advance of a change, and they actively seek to gather feedback from player community, such as the recent phase two changes to sovereignty.

About 75 minutes into the keynote, Seagull returned to the stage and introduced CCP_Nullarbor to the stage.  He proceeded to discuss one of the wonderful mechanics in the game that many players have come to despise and literally become sick over, Player Owned Stations (POS).  He then proceeded to go into a summary of many of the changes which CCP plans to make in the near future (some in 2015, others later):

First, your current structures will be safe:

I could just imagine players and corporations getting very fearful of the changes which will be coming as it relates to their current structures.

Next, CCP will be transitioning the structure system to something very similar to the ISIS system for ships, which is a natural transition given the new and improved structures.

Size will become very important in the future, with new structures being over 100 kilometers in length.

A new structure management tool for management of your structures in space, which seems far superior to the current one.

A totally revamped anchoring process which is very similar to the current fitting tool.

Other highlights of the presentation on structures, but not captured in graphical form are the ability to control guns on structures, the ability to apply permanent bonuses on structures, player controlled markets, mooring slots on structures, and the ability to transfer structures from one entity to another.

All in all, I could not express this any better than was by Lockefox on twitter:

There is a presentation scheduled for 1300 GMT on Saturday regarding these structures, and I for one know that I will be waiting for all of the details I can get on these structures.

Finally, I mentioned on slack that this is honestly a perfect time for structures:

1) It goes to addressing the long time complaint from many EVE players on the pain in the arse which is the current structure system within EVE.  Improvements to actual structures and their use, new structures, anchoring and management just to name a few.

2) This more than likely ties into the sov update for phase two which is coming later this year.

3) Certainly involves the end goal of that plan that I referred to earlier with player built stargates.

CCP was onto something with the changes in Phoebe, they increased upon it with the release of the This is Eve video, and now with these changes as well as the phase two sovereignty changes in June they are making major strides at player retention and bringing that spark back to EVE which for many of us has dwindled in the past.

Bravo @CCP_Seagull!

Indices, now they actually have meaning...

Ever since the last re-vamp of sovereignty in 2009 with Dominion, EVE has had an index system within player controllable null security space.

These indices in the past lead to the number of anomolies/ore sites as well as the quality/volume of them appearing in a given system.  Military index has always been tied to ratting (killing red crosses) and Industry has always been tied to volume m3 of mining.

Certain systems have always been consistent with their indices, others have changed over the course of time.  This could be to changes in owners, level of PVE activity within the holding entity, and finally renters.

With the dev blog release on Tuesday from @CCP_Fozzie, we now see that the plan is to provide additional incentive to actually use the space that you hold.  Each system has a base timer for attacking forces to take advantage of the Entosis module.  System structures (TCU, iHub, Station) have a base time of 10 minutes.  Station services have a base timer of 5 minutes.  For each level that your indices are at, it increases the amount of time that the attacking force must spend to gain control over the object being targeted.

There is some speculation in the community regarding what will be done in the future with null sec residents.  As mentioned earlier, there are systems with high index levels, and there are some with nearly zero.

This map was taken as a screenshot on Tuesday roughly 10 hours after the blog was released.  The systems with colors in white or highlighted in green have nearly no ratting activity.  It is possible that there is mining taking place, but no matter what the residents of Tenerifis are not taking advantage of their systems.

This will be the key in the future.  The changes to sov mechanics now mean that more alliances will be able to engage in sov warfare even without having a massive super capital fleet at their disposal.  However, to maintain that space and make it as difficult as possible for an attacking force to attempt to take over you actually need to use your space, both mining and ratting.

I for one am very excited about these changes and I look forward to engaging in activities where we can turn over an apple cart or two in null sec.  A Band Apart. official has no interest at this time in taking sov space.  However, we are all about content and looking for it wherever we can find it.

Stay the Course

There recently has been some increased chatter among the EVE community regarding an old subject that has never truly died, yet also is sort of on life support; Walking In Stations.

Originally, Walking In Stations (WIS) was designed to allow capsuleers the ability to walk around inside of a station.  This was a lofty idea when it was originally announced, and CCP put in some significant hours towards the development of WIS.  However, it did not go as smoothly as proposed, and we are left with a half developed product.

Rixx Javix posted to his blog earlier this week and Drackarn posted earlier today.  Both of them address the chatter that is being circulated in regards to possibly resurrecting the development of WIS to be a much larger part of the game.

I have a very similar opinion to both of these pilots.  I agree with Rixx that WIS is in my mind dead.  Yes, I can stand in the station and see a few things, but that has no benefit to me, and there is no improved game play or advantages that WIS provide over the standard functionality of the User Interface.  Drackarn brings up the concepts of possibly some additional areas that your character can actual go to and stand.  The one that jumps out the most would be the corp office/corp hangar concept.  I could see this as being nice, but other than that anything to do with WIS is a bad idea.

Now, on to the serious side of this post.  CCP Development and the change in the development cycle has been a breath of fresh air.  Development is now coming out with releases "roughly" every 6 weeks which do not offer the same amount of changes or new content as the old model.  However, there is consistently new stuff in these releases and they are clearly showing a model of being light, agile, able to react, in tune with player requests (sorry CFC, you cannot ask for supers to get nerfed, then cry about jump capable changes).  The re-booted version of CCP Development is very similar to the United States Military post Cold War.

You see, the United States Army was a much larger force in 1992 having just finished the first conflict with Iraq in the Persian Gulf.  As the Soviet bloc countries were now beginning to move away from communism and being puppets of the Soviet Union, there was no big bully across the ocean for the United States to face in a knockdown drag out conflict.  Instead, the United States would be faced with much smaller regional conflicts.  This would require a much smaller force, able to deploy rapidly, possibly alter their TOE (Table of Organization and Equipment) based on the conflict and react as necessary.

I see very similar traits in how CCP has performed a makeover on Development and we now have the type of department which clearly is on a path which has a specific goal.  So far, they have stayed true to the path and are releasing content in small bit sized pieces.  These changes are slowly altering the EVE universe and creating content, yet they also are addressing years old issues which have made many an old bittervet come back to the game and re-subscribe.

I realize that the opportunity seems very interesting.  "What if we were to go back and look at the Walking In Stations aspect of EVE?" With all of the new bros joining EVE and many new subscribers to the game, I understand that this can be a very tantilizing prospect, but if I could I would scream STAY THE COURSE.

Do not stray from your path.  Do not consider re-allocating any development resources towards WIS.  Build towards the eventual end product you are looking for when you started this three year project.  Continue to build subscriptions to the game and increase the player base.  If you want to come back and re-visit this concept in 2017, I would have no complaints.  But do not now.