My Loot, Your Tears

So after being back in EVE for a couple weeks, mostly bearing it up for standing to access pretty locators all over the place, I finally decided that enough was enough, and I needed to do something other than mission. I wanted to kill something.

I had been missioning for Gallente for the past couple hours in Dodixie, and the agent I was using kept sending me to Botane. So I decided to start my shenanigans there. I had a Cyclone I’d been dying to get a kill with and figured why not. I’ll use it and see what I can do.

I started scanning with an alt, and warping to hits with the ‘clone. Yup, that’s right. Looting in a gank ship. It’s not quite as bad as you might think. All in all I’ve been shot about as many times flying a hurricane with a salvager as flying a vigil. Most of my hits though turned out to be duds. One or two had really long ass burns I didn’t feel like doing over multiple rooms, even with an ab.

Others had people just finishing and warping out, and yet others had my favorite type of bear – the instablue bear that abandons everything the moment you arrive.

About 20 minutes after I started scanning, I got an odd hit. Brutix, Prophecy, and Raven. Huh. Groups always feel more cocky and therefore shooty, so off I went. Jumped into the first room with the Cyclone and started looting and salvaging, with both BC’s and the Raven sitting random ranges.

After maybe the third wreck, the Prophecy yellowboxed me. Ah, good sign. The Brutix followed suit and so did the Raven. I started to feel like I was in the line of fire of a firing squad.

I just kept looting, minding my business, and soon enough the Prophecy opened fire. Woot. In what was probably a bad call, I rushed over to him to give him some hail as the Brutix now opened fire as well. Brutixes usually have crappier tanks, but hey, it was the heat of the moment and I had already started burning, so I went with it.

I stuck my neuts and everything I had on the Proph, and he tanked well. The Brutix then got into range and started pounding my shields with Antimatter, which wasn’t fun. To make matters worse, the Raven, now 40km off, was pelting me with cruise missiles. I went into armor as the Prophecy went into structure. I just wanted a kill, and then to bugger off and maybe return.

Then, my damage suddenly all but stopped. I wondered why… My neuts had turned off too… Awwww… Stupid me.. I had left overheat on and promptly burned out all my highs. With my armor draining away and the Proph regaining his, I took my defeat and warped off at 2% armor.

But, this was FAR from over. I called in Ninja Dojo for assistance and Urian Kandor responded. He had no RR available save for one rep drone on his cane. But, he was a jump out, and perhaps they’d try to shoot him too, which would give me a little breathing room.

I docked in station to repair my poor modules and stock up on some more hail with a 15 minute agro timer running on Xisevals, and 8 minutes on his corp. I undocked, and told Urian Kandor to jump in system with me. We then went to his mission, and went through the first gate. If they came in, they’d end up right on us, which is where I wanted them.

I told Urian  to keep watching dscan, as was I. After about 5 minutes, Urian announced that Xisevals was now in system once again, and shortly thereafter, his friends were too. I looked up at my timer – 14 minutes on Xisevals, and corp aggro had gone. Perfect. Urian had stolen, and therefore had corp aggro, and I hoped we could bait them all into shooting us, because if they weren’t all dogpiled on me at once I could handle the raven, and then them.

However we didn’t know what they were bringing, and I told Urian to get to around 30km away in case they had brought some points. I was prepared for a 1v1 as his corpies could not interfere. But they could all kill Xisevals, so I didn’t want him where they’d land till we knew what was up.

Seconds later they all landed on dscan. Proph, Brut, Raven. Kay…. Generally when this happens, the bear has either assumed you’ve lost aggro, or has come back with what he THINKS is a PVP fit, which usually means a point and little else. I was betting on the first one.

I was right. They all ran in together, apparently oblivious to us being there. I was confused for a moment as the Raven wasn’t red to me, but about 5 seconds later he went red and started blinking, exactly as he should :)

I immediately locked him up and started everything going. The two BC’s locked me but they couldn’t do a thing but watch their Raven die. I love it when that happens. Wensley over at Rifter Drifter has said many times that he enjoys getting a kill while the enemy’s friends are forced to watch, helpless. I think I have that same enjoyment.

Urian reported aggro from one of the BC’s, but I never saw shots, so I dunno what happened there, but I was merrily tearing into the Raven, who was tanking me quite well. I kept having to redirect my drones to his as they were slowly killing me. What was more insulting was that they were hobgoblin I’s. He just kept spitting them out. I have no idea where he stuffed them all, but it felt like he brought out 50 of the damn things one at a time.

However, I finally got through them all, and directed my drones and everything I had on him. I overheated at his peak, careful this time to not push my guns too far, and he hit armor as I hit 10% shields, at that point I overheated my invuln and forgot about it, which ended up burning out….. But Xisevals lost his Raven a few seconds before that, dropping a crappy 6.1 million ISK worth of modules, for a 100m loss.

It’s okay though. Xisevals  was apparently confused as to what I’d done, which made up for the drops. He didn’t seem to understand how the timers worked, and considered Urian to be some funky shenanigans played by me, thinking he had played a role in the kill, while in reality, he really only kept the BC’s busy for me, though I wish the Raven had shot him, so he could have gotten in on the kill as well.

Here’s the chatlog from local:

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:04 ] Captain Charismatic > I think

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:12 ] xisevals > why he could agress me?

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:25 ] Captain Charismatic > What?

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:43 ] xisevals > it doesn't make sence

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:56 ] Captain Charismatic > Sure it does

[ 2011.07.24 23:35:59 ] Captain Charismatic > I extended aggro

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:02 ] Captain Charismatic > past your corp aggro

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:08 ] Captain Charismatic > your friends couldn't do fuck all

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:10 ] Captain Charismatic > you died

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:13 ] xisevals > yea but that doesn't give you killright on me

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:28 ] WeeDv2 > Myrmidon

[ 2011.07.24 23:36:41 ] xisevals > anyway petition

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:02 ] Urian Kandor > Ha

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:03 ] xisevals > also nobody in fleet was capable of fifghting

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:10 ] Urian Kandor > Learn2EvE

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:18 ] xisevals > explain me the mechanic then

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:27 ] Urian Kandor > Go read the Eve Online MOTD

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:37 ] xisevals > lol

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:41 ] LT Alter > lol, xisevals.  If you shot him after he took the can and he waited 15min after he took the can but not 15min after you shot him he has aggro on you and your corp lost the aggro from the can.

[ 2011.07.24 23:37:58 ] Urian Kandor > Ronin you gunna shoot me or what?

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:02 ] xisevals > well a corp mate took from him, defended him, we waited 15 min

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:05 ] xisevals > we went back

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:17 ] xisevals > and urian which wasn't inviolved in the first fight starts shooting me

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:23 ] Urian Kandor > I never shot you

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:24 ] Urian Kandor > But ok

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:24 ] xisevals > after the 15 min

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:37 ] Urian Kandor > CHeck the killmaill my friend. i am not on it

[ 2011.07.24 23:38:41 ] xisevals > ow hang on

[ 2011.07.24 23:39:05 ] xisevals > ow the same guy

[ 2011.07.24 23:39:13 ] xisevals > altho timer was gone for me

[ 2011.07.24 23:39:13 ] Urian Kandor > Wha?

 

Yes, he petitioned me cause he doesn’t understand aggro extension.

So what did I learn from this… Well, first, pick the weaker tank of a group. Even if it means waiting a few moments for them to engage, I need to not be so quick on the trigger. The Proph was doing NO damage at the range I was at before I burned at him, and I could easily have gotten under the Brutix, who was most likely rail fit (I never saw him blasting, and he had no AB). Second… L2OVERHEAT. Damn. I failed pretty hardcore burning out my entire rack of highs, and then a mid later. I need to practice and figure out how much things can actually take before I need to stop. I also need to pay attention to them after I overheat, which I’m not doing enough.

All in all though it was a great fight, I honestly prefer fights like this that take some engineering to accomplish rather than the dry bait/switch that nets you billions in faction mods. Yes, richness is nice, but knowing you outsmarted your opponent(s) is always a better feeling, in my opinion.

I’ve vowed to myself to start getting more kills. I want my stats to be a little better than they are. There are a couple small changes coming around that should help me do that, as well.

Anyway, I like blowing up smaller, more fun kills into posts like these. Tell me if you guys like this length too. My fraps should be fixed now, before it was crashing my clients every time I started it. So expect some good footage from me in the future. Fly safe :)

I followed the results of the CSM Summit in Iceland as well as hitting the high points of the community response in my RSS reader. I would have kept blogging throughout the whole process, but on the first of the month I formally took possession of the game store I've purchased. What followed was two 12-hour days followed by three 16-hour days. I completely renovated and re-stocked a failing board/card/video game store, continued to deal with lawyers, accountants, and vendors, and generally worked my ass off.

I won't go back and document in detail the events of the last week. There's other people who followed that more closely and did better writeups of it. I will give you the TLDR version from my perspective.

1. Leaked information from inside CCP seemed to indicate that they were intending to spring Pay2Win microtransactions into Eve.
2. Rather than immediately address the leak and concerns of the community about Pay2Win, CCP indicated, both intentionally and unintentionally, that it was either unaware that Pay2Win was the real problem, or aware of the rage but unconcerned about it.
3. Riots, mass unsubs (including your humble griefer), and a freighter full of bad/amused press coverage followed.
4. CSM called to Iceland. Silence at first, then some positive tidbits, then the CSM stating that it believes CCP's statement that the rage against Pay2Win is acknowledged and that there are not plans to implement it.

Was it really just a big misunderstanding? The intentional and unintentional communications from CCP seemed to indicate otherwise. After all, why even toy with the idea of Pay2Win in a company newsletter if it was already the position of management that it was unacceptable?

Either CCP made the mother of all communications screwups in the wake of this PR disaster, or it was really planning to turn Eve into a Pay2Win game? Ultimately, we'll never know and it doesn't matter. One way or the other, CCP was concerned/frightened enough about the united actions of the playerbase following the scandal to fly delegates into Iceland, print a very blunt statement from the CSM on the game's homepage, and release a video in which the Senior Producer states that Pay2Win is a bad idea and there are no plans to implement it.

Could it all be a lie? Sure, but at this point there's no better reassurance possible that it isn't. I suppose that they could work up some sort of legal framework that would make them liable in civil court for such an action, but they'd be stupid to sign such a thing. The fact that CSM is satisfied and will be acting as a watchdog on this issue from here on out is reassuring to me. In fact, I'm guessing that this becomes the primary CSM focus from here onward.

CCP heard the player base loud and clear on this one, and I hope that they remember the events of June 2011. CCP has created the most profound gaming experience in history, in my opinion, and as long as the community remains united in its support of that game, CCP will be able to collect our golden eggs for many years to come. It's not a bad relationship to have.

To the haters who said "Stop whining and just go away": That's not how this works. If Eve was a game that didn't mean anything to us, then we wouldn't be upset when it showed all the signs of making a terminal mistake. If nobody cared enough to make some noise to get CCP to stop and re-assess, then we'd soon lose part of what makes Eve amazing. I will laugh at all tears posted below about my return.

So there you go. I'm downloading the Eve client again and praying that my settings remained intact. I know that I lost my Evemon and EFT settings when I uninstalled those programs, but that's not such a big deal. Optimistic tail-wagging may now continue.

While the Incarna/NeX/MT event rages, I've been occupied with a new ISK generator for me, which involves moon goo production. One of the reasons I haven't departed from the game, stage left, is that I accepted a large sum of ISK from investors for this project.

It's been wildly successful. So much that I now have FIFTEEN pos towers doing production for me. Managing the fueling and reactions has become a major time sink and tracking headache. I have my own custom spreadsheet apps for this, but they are not 100% to what I want.

So I say to the industrialists among you: Is there a good API-driven tool for collecting POS tower information? What good reaction tools exist? What other tricks and tips do you have?

A lead that makes my life significantly easier (my call on that) will get some sort of reward from me. And since Paul gave me all his stuff, I can promise it will be a nice reward. :D

From the Dev Blog:

The tone and demeanor of my blog on Friday did not correctly portray my emotions towards the community and player base at large. I love and respect EVE and its community on a level that's hard to really do justice in words. However I let my frustration take charge of me, fueled by emotions that had built up due to a breach of trust we at CCP have been experiencing over the past few days. I know that sounds ironic considering those are the exact same feelings you have been having towards CCP.
For that I am sorry.
Having cooled off a bit and taken a solemn look at the situation, I see it's clear we need to strengthen the deep mutual trust and respect that's been so unique and descriptive of our relationship. There are certain questions you want answered and there isn't room for more error in our communication on those topics or our perception of the root causes.
Therefore we have asked the CSM to join us in Iceland for an extraordinary meeting June 30th and July 1st to discuss the events of past week, to help us define and address the real underlying concerns, and to assist us in defining and iterating on our virtual goods strategy.
The result of this meeting should be mutual agreement of how virtual goods and services will evolve in EVE. Other issues may be brought up and we urge you to contact the CSM with your comments and concerns so that they may be addressed at this session.
However, just to prove the point of the Fearless newsletter and give you a further understanding of what it is then there are no and never have been plans to sell "gold ammo" for Aurum. In Fearless people are arguing a point, which doesn't even have to be their view, they are debating an issue. This is another example of how information out of context is no information at all.
Due to the volatility of the topic we want to refrain from any further comments on this matter until after meeting with the CSM.
Thank you for your patience,
Arnar Hrafn Gylfason
Senior Producer of EVE Online

Emphasis mine. Note that no promise was made that Pay2Win would not be considered in the future.

I've already quit. My clients and helper programs are all deleted. Want to win me back? Give an unequivocal written pledge to never offer for real money any in-game advantage or ex nihilo non-vanity item. When possible, vanity items should be transferable and destructible.

That's it. That's my only demand. I don't care how much space-barbie jeans cost, or whether you do anything with Incarna or not. Those things aren't important to me or can be forgiven. Answer the question of Pay2Win once and for all.

Mittens made his response to the latest Dev Blog on the forums:

This blog is a promising but much-delayed first step. The events of the past few days have left me feeling skeptical of the entire situation, since the May Summit itself went peachy, yet then these issues with the NeX prices cropped up, undiscussed, out of nowhere - not to mention the Hilmar mail, Greed is Good, et cetera.
Mark me down on the 'actions not words' end of the scale - In Reykjavik, I'm going to want to see exactly how the NeX prices were decided upon, how they were drafted, and which suits where were behind this nonsense - and who chose to not mention this to the CSM. Perhaps most important is understanding the degree of financial motivation behind this, and why it came from CCP like a bolt from the blue, and thus how likely similar bolts from the blue might be in the future.
I don't have much more to say beyond what I've already said on Eve Radio and in my CEO Update, which is crossposted on Kugu and Failheap.
We'll see how Reykjavik goes.

I've always liked Mittens, and I admire all of the CSM more than ever for being willing to go out of the country on short notice for a video game. It's my belief that the future of the game depends on CCP's position on Pay2Win. Keep Eve hard.

My first attempt at meme work. What do you think?

Until we hear something, I'll continue with Perpetuum. It's not bad!

Watch the video below and see if you don't find similarities to Eve Online.

I created an account and created the in-game channel "Eve" for Eve refugees. Come join us.

http://www.perpetuum-online.com/

Hey CCP Hilmar: You said you would judge us on our actions rather than our words. How are we doing so far? Hope those 52 Monocles were worth it.

Since CCP has been deleting threads on the Eve-O forums about it:

— Email Starts—-
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:16:54 -0400
To: riverini@gmail.com
Subject: ccp ceo global msg sent today
From: evewatch@hush.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”UTF-8″
Message-Id: <20110623221654.CF1E76F438@smtp.hushmail.com>
sent by hilmar to ccp global list-
(strt)
We live in interesting times; in fact CCP is the kind of company that if things get repetitive we instinctively crank it up a notch. That, we certainly have done this week. First of we have Incarna, an amazing technological and artistic achievement. A vision from years ago realized to a point that no one could have imaged but a few months ago. It rolls out without a hitch, is in some cases faster than what we had before, this is the pinnacle of professional achievement. For all the noise in the channel we should all stand proud, years from now this is what people will remember.
But we have done more, not only have we redefined the production quality one can apply to virtual worlds with the beautiful Incarna but we have also defined what it really means to make virtual reality more meaningful than real life when it comes to launching our new virtual goods currency, Aurum.
Naturally, we have caught the attention of the world. Only a few weeks ago we revealed more information about DUST 514 and now we have done it again by committing to our core purpose as a company by redefining assumptions. After 40 hours we have already sold 52 monocles, generating more revenue than any of the other items in the store.
This we have done after months of research by a group of highly competent professionals, soliciting input and perspective from thought leaders and experts in and around our industry. We have communicated our intention here internally in very wide circles through the Virtual Economy Summit
presentation at the GSM, our Fearless newsletter, sprint reviews, email lists and multiple other channels. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Currently we are seeing _very predictable feedback_ on what we are doing. Having the perspective of having done this for a decade, I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say. Innovation takes time to set in and the predictable reaction is always to resist change.
We went out with a decisive strategy on pricing and we will stay the course and not flip flop around or knee jerk react to the predictable. That is not saying nothing will change, on the contrary, in fact we know that success in this space is through learning and adapting to _what is actually happening_ and new knowledge gained in addition to what we knew before and expected.
All that said, I couldn’t be prouder of what we have accomplished as a company, changing the world is hard and we are doing it as so many times before! Stay the course, we have done this many times before.
(end)

Ban my accounts if you want, CCP. I've already given my assets away.

(In case that doesn't do it, I'd like to remind you that you can DIAF, too. Free Helicity.)

After more than 24 hours of silence and 70+ pages of rage in the threadnaught related to CCP's goal to deliver Pay2Win microtransactions, CCP Pann has made a post in General Discussion asking that we bear with CCP while it figures out WTF it's gonna do.

Hi, everyone
Some of you who have been around for a while may remember me. I was the original community manager for EVE. These days, I oversee the PR and Community teams. While most of what I do happens behind the curtains, I am still aware of what’s going on front and center. I would be lying if I said that what’s happening now didn’t make me sad, but I’m not here to ask for your sympathy. To be perfectly honest, I’m here to buy time while we try to sort things out. No sense in lying about it so I'll call a spade a spade.
It’s clear that many of you are angry . There’s a lot happening, things are changing quickly and we haven’t been as forthcoming as you were used to in the past. I’m willing to step out front and take a lot of heat for that since I was the one who made the decision to hold off on responding for a while to see if things cooled down once the new wore off.
I was wrong to do that and I apologize. We should have said something much sooner. We should have done more to address your concerns and be forthcoming, even if we weren’t going to be able to immediately give you all of the answers you were looking for or the answer your questions in ways that will instantly turn those frowns upside down. To be even more candid, I cannot answer all of your questions, either, but I am working with the people who can to start getting those answers for you. Again, I know we’re doing this past the expiration date of your patience but I hope you’ll bear with me.
I know that, with very few exceptions, most of you don’t know me from Adam. I haven’t earned your trust or respect; therefore I have no right to ask anything of you – but I am going to try, anyway. Can I please count on at least some of you to help bring the pitchforks and torches down a few notches?
Like I said, I won’t be able to answer all of your questions tonight, but I promise we’ll start getting some info out tomorrow. As I see it, the chief complaint is regarding the high cost of goods in the Nobel Market. Second, many people are unhappy about the Captain’s Quarters. Third, there are some performance issues with Incarna. I would appreciate it if you would confirm my observations or tell me what I’m missing, but I do ask that you do it in a productive way. I will remove posts without prejudice if they are counterproductive to the conversation I hope to have with you.
If you’ve read this much, thanks for staying with me. If you have something to say, I’d like very much to hear it.
Humbly yours,
~P~

Allow me to re-quote the most important part of the post:

As I see it, the chief complaint is regarding the high cost of goods in the Nobel Market. Second, many people are unhappy about the Captain’s Quarters. Third, there are some performance issues with Incarna.

This is WRONG, and the comments so far on the thread reflect that wrongness.

If the $60 monocles, letdown of the FAMC (Forever Alone Minmatar Closet), performance issues, and game-breaking bugs were all that the community was raging about, do you think that I'd be threatening to leave the game I love? The game that I currently know of no replacement for? Frankly, I wouldn't have given the patch a second thought if that were the case. "Oh, another crappy expansion release." I'd say. "It's hardly the first. They'll fix it up soon."

This is about the promise that you made to us that real-money transactions would be for vanity items ONLY. You started breaking this promise at some point since then, and may have been lying to us from the beginning.

And now you make a post saying you'll address our concerns, and completely ignore the one item that will cause the greatest exodus from your subscriber base. Forgive us the pitchforks, but we're feeling used and betrayed here.

Where's the butterfly effect in this? What's the point of being in a game where the individual's actions matter, if those actions can be counterbalanced by someone willing to open their wallet and have you create something out of thin air?

As for what can be done to restore our trust? I can't speak for everyone, but for me nothing less than a top-down shakedown of your organization will do for me. I'll need a written pledge not to sully the game with Pay2Win MT, and a reiteration of the earlier pledge to introduce MT for vanity items only.

This probably is too much to ask, as it appears that a large part of your business plan now revolves around this suicidal attempt to squeeze more cash out of your subscriber base in exchange for in-game advantages. What I expect you'll do is issue a half-assed "we're sorry you're upset, we promise we'll be careful" non-apology apology. No personnel changes will take place, and the only lesson you'll have learned is that your betrayal of your customers should be more carefully concealed until you decide that you don't need us anymore.

Frankly, I've been depressed since this came to light. Eve was and is the greatest multiplayer game ever produced. There is no place to seek refuge for players who want a true sandbox MMO once you go down this path. I am sure that a large portion of the folks claiming that they will terminate their accounts over this will be unable to resist the draw and come crawling back.

I'm not one of them. Sod the content-poor walking in stations, and the dreadnaught-priced monocles, and the FAMC. They're either fixable or ignorable.

If you do not dramatically reverse course on Pay2Win, I will walk away from this game. I'll be grieving as I do so, but I will walk away.

It's been only two days since Incarna went live, but a lot has happened. Here's a summary of what's been going on.

Vanity Item Prices Spark Outrage

The Noble Exchange Store features six new cosmetic upgrades for characters. The price on these ranges from 1,000 to 12,000 Aurum for the 'Monocle'. With Aurum being converted from PLEX at a 1:3500 ratio, these items cost 0.3 to 3.4 PLEX. This coverts to 120m to 1.36b; or $10 to $70.

Player outrage against these prices are strong, pointing out that these items cost as much as a faction battleship or a dreadnaught with no actual in-game advantage. Player perception leading up to the availability of these goods was based on CCP describing them as microtransactions. With expensive items costing as much as several months of account time, it is difficult to call these 'micro'transactions. Player sentiment is that this these prices represent a cash-grab by CCP. CCP has not commented on this issue yet.

CEOs Protest Vanity Items By Banning Use

Starting with Alice Celadon of Pandemic Legion, CEOs of corporations are protesting the prices of vanity items by removing players who have purchased these items from their corporations and refusing to accept new applicants who have purchased vanity items. The impact of this on vanity item sales remains unknown.

Leaked CCP Memo Describes Future Pay-For-Items Model

Download here, password: 'dominixevenews24'.

First reported by Evenews24, this internal CCP memo, titled 'Greed is Good?' extensively covers what may be the future of the virtual goods market in EVE.

This document was initially confirmed to be authentic by CSM member Myxnee. At this time of writing, theFailheap Challenge site discussing the document was offline.

Page 1 of the document compares EVE players to golfers, and suggests that EVE players may enjoy spending more money to enhance their game experience. "[Eve players] might even go as far as buying a $500 leather jacket that matches the one their avatar is wearing. And all of these expenditures will actually improve their experience of the game and make them feel better about it and about themselves."

Page 2 of the document contains opinion pieces by two CCP employees about virtual good sales. Kristoffer Touborg writes in favor of virtual good sales, and includes a proposed virtual good: "Right now, you can store 50 personal fittings on our servers. ... Why not be able to add more storage space for a small amount of money?". John Turbefield writes against virtual good sales, noting that other games with virtual good sales, such a Lord of the Rings Online, do not charge a subscription fee: "It is worth pointing out though that they made almost everything microtransaction based and at the same time removed subscription fees. ... Making our customers feel like they are being 'double billed' to be able to play on the same level is just a step too far.'

Page 3 contains an article by Scott Holden discussing how virtual good sales would be implemented, along with examples. Items discussed include: "'nano-paints' that allow one to customize ships"; "new items, ammunition, ships"; "faction standings". One interesting note is that in sharp contrast to the high prices of current items, Holden suggests that, "No pair of pants, no matter how cool, should cost the same as a new Maserati."

Page 4 is written my Eino Joas and covers virtual goods sales in DUST514. The article suggests spectator viewing of DUST514 games will cost money: "To offset the cost of 'freeloading spectators', DUST will have a nominal cover charge". Virtual goods in DUST514 are also planned to degrade over time and require repurchase: "In the real world, light bulbs are engineered to last for a thousand hours and fashion cycles get people to buy new stuff season after season. If we are in this for the long run, we have to be thinking in similar terms regarding virtual goods."

Page 5 covers World of Darkness; I will not go over it here.

Player reaction to this memo has been strongly negative, with suggestions that CCP is 'selling out' and breaking game play balance by offering performance-enhancing items for cash. Most comments suggest that players do not have issues with non-functional vanity items at reasonable prices, but are opposed to being able to buy performance advantages with real cash.

Noteable Eve Players Cancel Subscriptions

Several well-known Eve players have canceled their subscriptions, including Paul Clavet and Ecliptic Rift. The Failheap Challenge website contained a thread where several other noteables, including Mxynee and Helicity had canceled their accounts, but that site is now offline.

Removal of Classic 'Station Spinning' Causes Protests

While in station, players in Incarna my elect to use the new Captain's Quarters, or disable it; disabling it provides a static picture of the interior. This has angered many players, who are requesting that the classic view of one's spaceship in the hangar be returned.

Captain's Quarters Causes Graphic Cards To Overheat

Numerous reports of graphic cards overheating while CQ was being used were reported on the EVE Online forums. CCP has responded to the issue by issuing a request for details. Players also report very poor performance in CQ even with modern hardware.

Pirate Faction Implants Broken

Players reported that pirate faction implants would disappear after Incarna, or only appear intermittently. A fix for this was included in downtime for June 23rd.

Damage Bonus Modules Stop Working

Players reported that damage-enhancing modules such as heatsinks, gyrostabilizers, and ballistic control units were no longer functioning; that is, they no longer provided any bonus. CCP has not commented on this issue.

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It might be. At least for me.

Leaked newsletter reveals that CCP intends to offer cash-for-performance advantage.

Get in there and have a look. Several folks have mirrored the leaked file. I had my hopes up that it was a fake intended to troll the bittervets, but Mynxee seems to believe it's for realz. If there's anyone I trust in this game, it's Mynxee.

CCP Soundwave stated on his Twitter feed that he's watching the thread, and yet nobody from CCP has posted on any forum thread in hours.

I guess now I see why TeaDaze left just after joining the CSM. It must have been agony for the CSM delegates to sit on this so long while gagged by a NDA.

I just don't know, at this point. It appears that CCP is taking for granted the revenue stream coming from Eve enabling them to work on other projects. Even if they say "OK OK OK, this isn't our official position and we're not going to do it" then I'm just not sure I can trust them anymore. The we-must-monetize-performance attitude takes away exactly the reason I played Eve. We've gotten a glimpse into CCP's new corporate culture, and no matter how THIS incident turns out, it's just a matter of time.

I've cancelled all my recurring subscriptions. If this isn't all revealed to be a gigantic hoax, I'll be donating all my assets to the next Plex-for-Good charity event, and uninstalling the game. It's their game and they can run it how they want, but I'm not obligated to play it.

We at MyLootYourTears love content. We, by far, are not the only people who play as we do in EVE. There are many blogs, pilots, corps, even alliances who have some, if not many, of the ideas that we have.

Sometimes, posts of our own come slightly slower than we'd like. Of course, we have real life, and other hobbies we all enjoy, and thus, sometimes we just don't have the time, or the effort to do something postworthy of our blogs. However, personally, I think all good content deserves a read - the blog pack is a testament to this. In that light, since I'm going into exams this month, my own eve time is limited, and because of that, I'd like to share some mail we (Paul, Khalia, and myself) got today from a reader.

I'll fly with virtually anyone when ninja salvaging, or playing with war targets, but some people I fly with a fair bit more. One person, and fellow ninja that I've flown and ganked with many times is Clantyn, member of Ajo Heavy Industries. This mail comes from a corpmate of his named Xanral, who was introduced to MyLootYourTears by Clantyn. Now Ajo Heavy Industries is, as I understand it, much like Jerks. Deccing carebeary targets for fun and hilarity, and of course, enjoying a good fight, if they care to put one up.

The mail I got from them was about a particular incident, where, apparently, a carebear named Roshwi runs into the guys from Ajo, and dislikes them so much, he actually created an entire BLOG (according to the mail about 4 blogs total) to bash Ajo. Apparently Roshwi has some fun threatening Ajo with the destruction of their corp, etc. You know, the usual carebearish pufferfish reaction.

Ajo responds by finding their wormhole corp POS, blowing a whole bunch of stuff up, and calling it a day, losing one bomber to the entire fight. Not a bad tally.

After this, Roshwi gets a bit paranoid thinking the Ajo boys are still in his wormhole, and tries to blackmail them with the ninja tears he believes he's harvested. Ajo then proceeds to go blow up that wormhole pos  POS, which completely pisses off our friend Roshwi, who begins to think Ajo are specifically after him, or perhaps are hired mercs, and apparently, he even starts thinking the guys in Ajo wish to hunt him down IRL.

Yeah, that's some paranoia.

For the full story, here's the link to Xanral's post about the whole thing, and here's Roshwi's.

It's always fun to see a carebear virtually crap his pants over our or fellow ninja antics, but fearing us in real life? Why? All we do is annoy people in a game we all love. Real life is majorly different from EVE. After all, EVE is just_a_game.

If I've misunderstood anything here, anyone in Ajo is free to correct me, just either comment it or mail me in game.