Well, it’s been a packed couple of weeks, so strap in guys.
First of all, apologies for not posting properly in Week 23. There was certainly enough to cover, but I was waiting on a particular devblog, that took me into Week 24. As such, I’m going to cover this in a vaguely chronological order to make sure I fit everything in.
First off, we had a roundtable with a section of the Hisec Wardeccing community, talking to them about the issues that affected them, and also the issues that affected their targets (as presented by Mike Azariah, Ashterothi). You can listen to it here, though bear in mind I always try and take the most direct opposing viewpoint in these roundtables to try and eke out the most funadamental reasoning possible, so don’t read too deeply into it. I really think it was a productive discussion, and I look forwards to keeping in touch with them. Shoutout to Toxic Yaken for organising it, and if you wish to discuss a topic further, feel free to contact myself through any means you find easiest.
With that over, we got our first look at the numbers behind the changes to Industrial Command Ships (or Mining Foreman Ships as they’ve now been rebranded). Feedback on these ships have been relatively mixed, with the Rorqual both being hilariously broken, and completely useless, depending on who you ask. We have been talking with many miners to help solidify our knowledge here, and Sullen Decimus’ Capital Industrial Roundtable has proven to be a great resource for keeping the pulse on this. I’d really encourage anyone wanting to write up feedback to post it on the official threads here (Porpoise, Orca, Rorqual).
Speaking of Boosts, we also got another iteration of the boosting mechanics added to Sisi at around this time (complete with a package of skill injectors and modules in redeem queue), and whilst – at time of writing – they’re testing out the alpha clone state, getting a feel for how they work was very worthwhile. I’d definitely suggest taking a look on Sisi at some point if you’re interested in how these changes are going to affect your gameplay.
The monthly economic report was also released, which is a nice way to remind yourself how hilariously big and uncaring the universe of EvE is compared to whatever money you’ve personally managed to amass.
We also had the long awaited Industrial Citadel devblog drop, being a rather exceptionally long and information filled one. I won’t talk too extensively here on it, as if you’re interested, you’ve probably already read and digested it better than me. I’ll also note that I have very minimal experience with the Industrial processes of EvE (I’m more on the demand than the supply side of the equation), but am still very interested in hearing people’s opinions and bringing them up with CCP and the rest of the CSM, who have been discussing the details and problems that have been brought up already. That said, this will obviously be a huge change to people who’ve been building for years, but bear in mind that PoSes won’t be going away just yet, so you’ll have plenty of time to transition over.
An iteration on the pre-Phoebe jump range changes was also announced by CCP Larrikin here, increasing the range of Capitals to 7 LY, and Supercapitals to 6 LY, from their current reach of 5 LY. This was partially as a result of our feedback at the summit, and I’m glad to see more attention being paid here as a result of our discussions with CCP, as it has been long enough for the issues to become readily apparent, and no solution developed from within the community. Once again, I’d suggest that people give their feedback in the thread, or directly to us, though caprisunkraftfoods has a great ‘overview’ on the change’s impacts regarding chokepoints here.
An update on how Clone States would function was also released, which went over a lot of the changes and thoughts that the CSM had presented at the summit, such as preventing the usage of an alpha alongside an omega, having the option to safety lock Alpha’s ready, but wait and see how the game adapts to it. It really just showed how much I felt we were able to be productive with CCP at the summit, as both sides came into it with an open mind and eager to make the best possible state for the launch of the feature, whilst preventing potential abuse.
Now, for the real meaty change that hit, the EULA changes that were announced late in Week 24, that acted as a serious revision to the game’s stances on many things, but most pointedly the complete banning of gambling. I’d like to re-iterate that the CSM had no more warning than any member of the public here, as it was such a sensitive change. And, needless to say, we didn’t bring about this change. The announcement of the change was then followed by a heat of the moment meeting with CCP, where we talked out a lot of the implications and nuances of the changes, and how they would impact both the game, and various community resources. We hope to work with both CCP and the community going forwards to find a way to keep the better parts of what gambling sites provided, without quite as much of the bad parts.
One point that stood out to me in the EULA changes however is the noted “90 days of inactivity” clause. This is something I brought up in the meeting, and was effectively just a revision to the previous 6 month clause in the EULA in preparation of a potential high volume of alpha accounts. In essence, it exists to allow the ‘Trial account’ purges that have occasionally happened in the past to clear names for active players, and any change to this policy is not expected.
And, to top that off, we had a new iteration of the character sheet, incorporating feedback from the community and the CSM on the usability of it. Assuming the functionality that we saw in our hands on at the summit stays the same, I look forwards to having it in the game.
So, it’s been a pretty crazy fortnight for the lot of us, and we’ve been discussing a lot of it internally as well as talking directly with you guys on the various platforms we all inhabit (Twitter, EvE-O forums, Reddit, Tweetfleet Slack, In-game mail, etc). So please, keep that communication up. As I’ve said before, we’re here to represent the community to CCP, and doing that requires us to know what people’s thoughts are.
Unfortunately however, I will be taking a short break in these updates, as I am going on (an admittedly rather ill timed) holiday for 2 weeks. So, expect the next update from myself on week 27, where we will also get the second quarterly review started. If you have any suggestions for questions, feel free to throw them at me, though we obviously can’t touch anything NDA.
See you guys then.
Weeks Ending 09/10/16 & 16/10/16
Attendance Sheet Here
