Is, frankly, a bad idea. Ever since the Somer BLINK 'scandal' with the...what was it, the Golden Magnates? Everyone and their mother has gone off the fucking deep end since then. We've got all sorts of idiots making 'lottery' posts with the same basic idea: Buy GTC from person's referral link, get ISK. And don't forget the-blogger-formerly-known-as-Poetic-Stanziel quitting EVE over BLINK's 1 Quadrillion prizes, then quickly sliding off the fucking continental shelf into sheer insanity.
This isn't a healthy reaction by any means. It's just not good for anyone. How does tarring yourself with the same brush accomplish anything besides make you look like an utter dumbass? Honestly. It's like protesting against terrorism by being a terrorist. Not only is it ineffectual, but anyone who would have otherwise listened to you is now deafened to everything you've got to say.
I agree that the relationship between SomerBlink and CCP is suspiciously incestuous. I don't use Blink anymore myself - mainly because it's a waste of ISK that can be better spent on PvP with KILL or some other wormholer group, but also because, yes, the buying of GTC and getting a kickback on their site that can theoretically be turned into ISK strikes a bit too close to RMT for my comfort. I've dealt with the financial repercussions of it on an alliance level: when a director takes 2B of your SRP, blows it on Blink, then 'returns' the taken money via RMTed ISK...well, let's just say that rather sours me on it.
Not to say that I was fine with it before, because RMT by its very nature is a risk I was never and will never be willing to take. Plus, selling a billion ISK for $5 does devalue PLEX, which is (along with traditional subscriptions) CCP's primary income source - and this is precisely why all the stupid lottery threads on the forums are absolutely the wrong way to object to Blink's (supposed) RMT practices. Point is, doing this kind of shit is likely to hurt CCP's already shaky finances. And while I'm sure there's a few people out there who would not be bothered by that at all, or might even want CCP to go bankrupt, I'm reasonably certain that folks like DNSBLACK or the other grognards making those posts don't actually want EVE to die. There's much better reactions to this, such as the ingame riots a la Incarna. Or do any number of things that don't involve sticking a log into your own eye to point out the splinter in someone else's.
The long and short of it is, if you don't like RMT in any form...why the fuck are you engaging in it as a form of protest?
Showing posts with label Meta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meta. Show all posts
28 October 2013
06 June 2013
Not Everyone Likes Mint Chocolate Chip
If you didn't know already, CCP hired Mintchip to be the DUST 514 Community Representative. A welcome thread was posted on the EVE-O forums as usual, and then a shitstorm ensued. Apparently the rampant misogyny and just general bad behavior got so out of control that the thread was locked with this post:
The thread was deleted shortly after, but you can find around 30 pages of it on EVE-Search. EDIT: Poetic Stanziel let me know this link is dead. Apparently Chribba used to date Mintchip and he's scrubbed EVE-Search of any Mintchip-related content. To be honest, though, you're not missing much with that thread gone.
Frankly, that she allegedly sold nude pics of herself for 190bn ISK doesn't matter. It does negatively impact her public perception, which I'd think is important for a Community Representative, but a little more worrying is the Amazon wishlist that she reportedly actively links to, and encourages her Youtube fans to buy things for her from that list.
It is, first and foremost, in rather poor taste. Secondly, it quietly implies that she can be bought. When coupled with the "190bn ISK for nudes" story, whether it's true or not, you have to ask yourself...what the hell is CCP doing hiring this woman? When people make jokes about selling pictures of breasts to get a job at CCP, or an alliance announces in a Jabber ping that it's time for the "Story of Mintchip Being A Whore" to be told in their publicly accessible Mumble, it's clear that the players of CCP's flagship product have no respect for Mintchip, and since there's a great deal of crossover between EVE and DUST players...
Who is going to listen to Mintchip without thinking she can be bought? The logic of "She's already sold her body and integrity, why not ask her to unban me if I give her a brand-new mouse?" is bound to run through more than one person's mind.
Whether or not that logic is accurate is irrelevant; Mintchip has the reputation of a whore and - since EVE players are not immune to the G.I.F.T. - it's likely people will attempt to treat her as one.
The question that concerns me most is how CCP will react to that sort of thing, whether or not Mintchip disproves the reputation - deserved or undeserved, it's there. CCP has shown they're not afraid to completely censor a thread that's gotten far out of hand, but once you start down that path it's difficult to stop. In regards to female CCP employees, I'm sure Ripley, Punkturis, and others have had to deal with creepy questions or uncomfortable jokes, but the typical sexist bullshit is far less nasty - and easier to deal with - than what I think Mintchip is likely to face.
The thread was deleted shortly after, but you can find around 30 pages of it on EVE-Search. EDIT: Poetic Stanziel let me know this link is dead. Apparently Chribba used to date Mintchip and he's scrubbed EVE-Search of any Mintchip-related content. To be honest, though, you're not missing much with that thread gone.
Frankly, that she allegedly sold nude pics of herself for 190bn ISK doesn't matter. It does negatively impact her public perception, which I'd think is important for a Community Representative, but a little more worrying is the Amazon wishlist that she reportedly actively links to, and encourages her Youtube fans to buy things for her from that list.
It is, first and foremost, in rather poor taste. Secondly, it quietly implies that she can be bought. When coupled with the "190bn ISK for nudes" story, whether it's true or not, you have to ask yourself...what the hell is CCP doing hiring this woman? When people make jokes about selling pictures of breasts to get a job at CCP, or an alliance announces in a Jabber ping that it's time for the "Story of Mintchip Being A Whore" to be told in their publicly accessible Mumble, it's clear that the players of CCP's flagship product have no respect for Mintchip, and since there's a great deal of crossover between EVE and DUST players...
Who is going to listen to Mintchip without thinking she can be bought? The logic of "She's already sold her body and integrity, why not ask her to unban me if I give her a brand-new mouse?" is bound to run through more than one person's mind.
Whether or not that logic is accurate is irrelevant; Mintchip has the reputation of a whore and - since EVE players are not immune to the G.I.F.T. - it's likely people will attempt to treat her as one.
The question that concerns me most is how CCP will react to that sort of thing, whether or not Mintchip disproves the reputation - deserved or undeserved, it's there. CCP has shown they're not afraid to completely censor a thread that's gotten far out of hand, but once you start down that path it's difficult to stop. In regards to female CCP employees, I'm sure Ripley, Punkturis, and others have had to deal with creepy questions or uncomfortable jokes, but the typical sexist bullshit is far less nasty - and easier to deal with - than what I think Mintchip is likely to face.
02 April 2013
March Grab Bag
So, to start things off, the corp and our friends have mostly moved en masse to a C5 wormhole which we've deemed Nexus. I now fly a freakin' MOROS, and I got to use one to blow up the single POS owned by the people we evicted.
During the eviction I also lost my brand-new Proteus to an instalock gatecamp manned by [RED10] on the Miroitem gate out of Rancer. Whoops. Lesson: The only time you should take a wormhole-fit T3 through frequently camped areas is either alongside more T3s to back you up or if you intend to lose it.
Anyway, we've started doing escalations in Nexus, and the sheer amount of cash we pull in, even distributed among 10+ pilots, is mind boggling. I actually spent a few hours doing things with XML and spreadsheets to make a thing that allows us to fairly distribute ISK from said escalations.
And because of that, I've basically become the alliance's bursar.
Sadly the spreadsheet isn't always accurate and I've been having to recalculate a lot of the shares once we get the actual money in for the salvage and tags, since the spreadsheet pretty consistently overestimates how much money will come in. I might do some experimenting and see how using sell orders as opposed to buy orders for the calculations works. I'd rather underestimate the amount of ISK each person gets from the loot and send a little extra to the alliance wallet than overestimate and be short by hundreds of millions of ISK.
I've done that a few times and it is supremely embarrassing to ask for the money back when I can't cover the mistake by taking it out of my cut.
Of course it doesn't help that E, our CEO and the alliance executor, now gives a couple guys in the alliance who do T3 production what he terms as low-value Sleeper salvage, instead of selling it off for ISK. I need to get a list of what he considers low value Sleeper salvage so I can either convince him that it's not low value - some of the things like Electromechanical Hull Sheetings are underwhelming in low volume but are worth a lot in high volume - or note that those items aren't counted for the purposes of sending people their shares.
We've also been juggling the different POSes we use, and my cans o' stuff seem to have been lost in the shuffle. You'd think a couple secure containers tagged with ☼ would be easy to find. However, in the search for them I did find where the low value Sleeper salvage has been getting put, so I know what stuff to remove from my spreadsheet when calculating shares for escalations. I also think I've figured out why there's such a huge discrepancy between the estimated ISK from Sleeper loot and the actual ISK we get - sales tax in trade hubs. I'll need to figure out a way to reliably make the spreadsheet factor that in so we get more accurate estimates.
When it comes to the CSM, I'm naturally in support of the "Wormhole 5" - Nathan Jameson, James Arget, Ayeson, Cipreh, and Chitsa Jason. I like Nathan Jameson the most out of those, so he got my endorsement during the pre-election. Unfortunately my alt account hasn't clocked 30 consecutive days of being subbed yet, so I only get one STV ladder this year. I think said ladder will look something like this:
During the eviction I also lost my brand-new Proteus to an instalock gatecamp manned by [RED10] on the Miroitem gate out of Rancer. Whoops. Lesson: The only time you should take a wormhole-fit T3 through frequently camped areas is either alongside more T3s to back you up or if you intend to lose it.
Anyway, we've started doing escalations in Nexus, and the sheer amount of cash we pull in, even distributed among 10+ pilots, is mind boggling. I actually spent a few hours doing things with XML and spreadsheets to make a thing that allows us to fairly distribute ISK from said escalations.
And because of that, I've basically become the alliance's bursar.
Sadly the spreadsheet isn't always accurate and I've been having to recalculate a lot of the shares once we get the actual money in for the salvage and tags, since the spreadsheet pretty consistently overestimates how much money will come in. I might do some experimenting and see how using sell orders as opposed to buy orders for the calculations works. I'd rather underestimate the amount of ISK each person gets from the loot and send a little extra to the alliance wallet than overestimate and be short by hundreds of millions of ISK.
I've done that a few times and it is supremely embarrassing to ask for the money back when I can't cover the mistake by taking it out of my cut.
Of course it doesn't help that E, our CEO and the alliance executor, now gives a couple guys in the alliance who do T3 production what he terms as low-value Sleeper salvage, instead of selling it off for ISK. I need to get a list of what he considers low value Sleeper salvage so I can either convince him that it's not low value - some of the things like Electromechanical Hull Sheetings are underwhelming in low volume but are worth a lot in high volume - or note that those items aren't counted for the purposes of sending people their shares.
We've also been juggling the different POSes we use, and my cans o' stuff seem to have been lost in the shuffle. You'd think a couple secure containers tagged with ☼ would be easy to find. However, in the search for them I did find where the low value Sleeper salvage has been getting put, so I know what stuff to remove from my spreadsheet when calculating shares for escalations. I also think I've figured out why there's such a huge discrepancy between the estimated ISK from Sleeper loot and the actual ISK we get - sales tax in trade hubs. I'll need to figure out a way to reliably make the spreadsheet factor that in so we get more accurate estimates.
When it comes to the CSM, I'm naturally in support of the "Wormhole 5" - Nathan Jameson, James Arget, Ayeson, Cipreh, and Chitsa Jason. I like Nathan Jameson the most out of those, so he got my endorsement during the pre-election. Unfortunately my alt account hasn't clocked 30 consecutive days of being subbed yet, so I only get one STV ladder this year. I think said ladder will look something like this:
- Nathan Jameson
- James Arget
- Ayeson
- Cipreh
- Chitsa Jason
- Apricot Baby (for giggles)
- Psychotic Monk
- Sgurd Battersea (unless he pulls out)
- Psychobitch
- Korvin
- Unforgiven Storm
- corebloodbrothers
- Ali Aras
- Mangala Solaris
That's about it for this grab bag post - I'll try to to more focused posts later on this month.
29 January 2013
Lights in the Sky over Asakai: Coverage Clearinghouse
This is just a quick attempt by yours truly to assemble as much of the coverage of the Battle of Asakai as possible in one place. In no particular order:
TheMittani.com
EveNews24
CCP Devblogs
The Battle of Asakai and Poinen Must Burn By The Numbers
The Penny Arcade Report
Planning for war: how the EVE Online servers deal with a 3,000 person battlePC Gamer
EVE Online’s Battle of Asakai: who was involved, the stakes, and the aftermath
Mashable
Accidental Click Ignites Insane 3,000-Ship Battle in 'EVE Online'VG247
EVE Online’s Battle of Asakai had 3,000 participants over the weekendEurogamer
Eve Online: when 3000 players collidePolygon
Eve Online players wage a massive battle with more than 2,800 involved
More will be added as I come across it or it's brought to my attention.
E: @meanharri let me know of more coverage on PCGamer, mashable, and so forth. Thanks dude!
E: @meanharri let me know of more coverage on PCGamer, mashable, and so forth. Thanks dude!
03 January 2013
Remember That We Are EVE
 |
| Simon Pegg on Being a Geek |
I ran across this today while clicking the "Random" button on Reddit. Being a self-described geek, it resonated with me a lot, and I felt like checking out the comments. Naturally, someone quoted and linked to John Scalzi's excellent post "Who Gets To Be A Geek?" It is something I think everyone should read, especially with Fanfest 2013 quickly approaching. The most important thing to take from the post is this:
"Geekdom is a nation with open borders."That's something that applies to EVE players, too - joining this throng of 450,000 people is joining a community of geeks, of people who all enjoy the same thing: Playing EVE Online. Maybe in different ways, but at the root of every playstyle from the oft-derided hisec carebear to the ~elite PVP~-obsessed Russian nullsecker lies the fact that everyone who plays this game does so because they enjoy it. And because of that, we are the people who represent EVE, moreso than anyone at CCP.
Everyone who plays EVE is an ambassador, even - yes - a stakeholder in the game. And the most important part of being an ambassador is to reinforce that whole "nation with open borders" thing - to make New Eden a place people WANT TO BE.
So I have a challenge for everyone. It just lasts until Fanfest is over. Here it is: Act like an Ambassador.
What's that mean? Well, it means putting your best foot forward when talking about EVE. It means less denigration of people who play EVE differently than you but enjoy it just as much. It means not letting the CSM Chairman make an ass of himself, no matter how drunk he is! It means cultivating newbies and fast-tracking them to the part of the game that they want to experience.
Why should we do this? Well, frankly, enlightened self interest - if the EVE community as whole makes an effort to make EVE itself more attractive to people who don't already play it, then that's more people to shoot, scam, and steal from. It means more of what we love.
And that's something I think we can all agree on.
14 December 2012
F&I: Please Do Your Homework
I spend a lot of time poking around in the F&I section of the EVE forums. While there's a lot of great ideas - Drone UI revamps, making PI optionally more complex as well as more profitable, "Pocket Dreads", the list goes on - there are many decent ideas that are hamstrung by a lack of research. And there are a ludicrous amount of simply terrible ideas like "Wormhole Stabilizers".
But the focus of this post is that middle class of F&I, the idea that is, in general, fairly good, but happens to be completely hamstrung by a lack of proper research.
Case in point: Someone just suggested an XL Shield Extender to help close the gap between the potential EHP of shield and armor tanked ships. While personally, I believe that shield tanking is just fine due to the front-loaded nature of shield reps and local recharge, it's nice to have options.
The problem with this idea is that, frankly, it's poorly researched and poorly thought out. In an attempt to be civil, I didn't say this in my post, but it's basically like the OP thought about it for two seconds then spewed out what he thought was a good idea without doing any research or consideration of how this module will be used and abused - and admit it, we abuse the shit out of everything in this game.
Really, people. If you're going to suggest something, at least take the time to consider how it compares to what already exists ingame as well as how it will likely be used by your fellow capsuleers. It's an extra ten minutes. Tops.
It'd also be nice if you at least tried to use proper English, or made a note of your inability to do so due to it not being your native language or due to disabilities such as dyslexia.
It really is hard to take people seriously when they shit out a post like they're texting their BFFs and OMG did you see her hair and ugh.
Please.
At least try.
But the focus of this post is that middle class of F&I, the idea that is, in general, fairly good, but happens to be completely hamstrung by a lack of proper research.
Case in point: Someone just suggested an XL Shield Extender to help close the gap between the potential EHP of shield and armor tanked ships. While personally, I believe that shield tanking is just fine due to the front-loaded nature of shield reps and local recharge, it's nice to have options.
The problem with this idea is that, frankly, it's poorly researched and poorly thought out. In an attempt to be civil, I didn't say this in my post, but it's basically like the OP thought about it for two seconds then spewed out what he thought was a good idea without doing any research or consideration of how this module will be used and abused - and admit it, we abuse the shit out of everything in this game.
Really, people. If you're going to suggest something, at least take the time to consider how it compares to what already exists ingame as well as how it will likely be used by your fellow capsuleers. It's an extra ten minutes. Tops.
It'd also be nice if you at least tried to use proper English, or made a note of your inability to do so due to it not being your native language or due to disabilities such as dyslexia.
It really is hard to take people seriously when they shit out a post like they're texting their BFFs and OMG did you see her hair and ugh.
Please.
At least try.
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