122.925.............

Through the haze of a fading dark, the end of a long, unbearable night, sparks cut like electric knives. The musk of fresh ozone fills the air as the transponder crackles to life. Static, sweet static. Communications are back online.

Commander Firstly to Ground Control. Ready when you are.

It's a Show About Nothing: BB41

BB41: Director’s Cut

The universe of EVE is not without its drama and epic stories, both in and out of game. Imagine a publisher, movie studio or television network asked you to prepare a pitch for a new brand of EVE-flavoured entertainment. This could be your big break, what would be your synopsis to bring New Eden to the wider audience?

Imagine a program in which you watch people tell stories and take part in them. They involve group drama, schadenfreude, comedy, bumbling idiots, triumphant moments, blatant irreverence, myopic world views, and endless ironic snobbery and elitism.

Yep. It's "Seinfeld" in space, y'all.Welcome to EVE Online.

This really is a game about nothing. Oh sure, there are spaceships and planets and stations and ermagherdlazors. But at the end of the day, nothing happens in this game unless we make it happen. The game itself is literally about nothing. Ok, that's not quite fair. The "game" is about us. We the people, capsuleers across the heavens. Moreover, it's about our adventures. So I guess the game is at its heart about the adventures we create.  And some of the best parts of creating your own stories and having your own adventures are sharing them with your friends. Usually over coffee or some other beverage. I'm not sure about you, but it happens to me in EVE all the time.

"So I almost tackled and killed a Harby last night."
"What happened?! You didn't kill him?"
"Nah, I had a long point fit so he pulled range and got away."
"He got away?! Why didn't you have a short point?!"
"I don't like the short point."
"Why don't you like the short point?!"
"It's too short."
"Too short?!"
"Too short. They should have a medium point. You could call it a mid-point."
"You can't call it a mid-point. Other things are already called mid-points."
"What if I called THIS my mid-point and called other things 'other things?'"
"What if I called YOU 'other things?'"
"How would I know? I wouldn't know you were talking to me..."

You get the idea. Seinfeld. Space. The neat thing about this metaphor is that it already gets the ratio of men to women right, when you factor in all of the side characters and Elaine. And the characters are already familiar. Every corporation has a Jerry. Every corporation has a George and a Kramer. Most alliances have at least one Elaine. It's sounds like a terrible idea until you consider it's based on one of the most popular American television shows of all time. Which in turn was based on, well nothing.

We'd fly together. We'd fight. We'll be doing this anyways. We need  to do it. Otherwise, we'd have nothing to talk about.

A Day of Thanks

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my brothers and sisters-at-arms, my friends, my internet spaceship family. I know that a relative few of you are actually celebrating the holiday with me, as it is an American tradition, but that doesn't prohibit us from sharing the meaning of the day. And within New Eden, I have much to be thankful for.

I am thankful for my alliance, Li3 Federation. 9 months ago I was adrift in a sea of stars, plumbing highsec for its treasures but searching for direction more than anything else. Li3 has given me the opportunity to experience EVE on more levels than I could have imagined, and allowed me to forge some incredible friendships.

I'm thankful for Jade, who took the time (LOTS of time ;) ) to talk with me late one Spring evening, who has challenged me to think about this game in new and exciting ways, and who gave me the chance to become the pilot I am today.

I'm thankful for Patrick, our alliance XO, who has become one of my best friends in-game or out. Even though the package never made it to Canada (trust me, that's code for something) I look forward to talking with you every time I log into EVE, and to sharing many more Tengu-Ares kills. Please give Christy and Stephanie my best today.

I'm thankful for Shooter, my exploring partner in crime. I wish you, the missus, and Bubs all the best and I can't wait to talk to you again when I get back.

I'm thankful for Thrace, my trading mentor, who taught me the ins and outs of being a successful station trader, and freed me from having to spend my time grinding away ISK rather than enjoying myself in fleets looking for trouble.

I'm thankful for all of my friends in Li3, who have given me the support network I desperately needed but didn't tell anyone about these past six months. Your humor, relentless ball-busting, and keen debate has been a continuing source of enjoyment and entertainment. You lads and lasses are amazing and are truly the reason I log in to the game. Also, thanks for not blowing up my faction-fit Proteus when I fell asleep at the gate.

I'm thankful for Mat Westhorpe aka Seismic Stan for taking an interest in my humble essays, and supporting me at every possible opportunity. You have extended the warmest invitation to be a part of the blogging community I could have possibly imagined, and for that I am eternally grateful. You continue to be an inspiration, my friend.

I am thankful for Marc Scaurus for his continued efforts to not only coordinate the blogging community but to celebrate it as well. I've never won an Ebee (but I got nominated!) and I've never been selected to the BlogPack, but these initiatives continue to motivate me and give me something to shoot for. Though I haven't gotten to do an official post about it, Marc, I hope that whatever the future holds, you continue to play a huge part in the coordination of our community. Your efforts are often invisible, but never unnoticed, and are always sincerely appreciated.

And last but not least, thank you to CCP Games for creating this wonderful, beautiful, maddeningly marvelous spaceship game. It's been quite a ride over the past few years but you continue to design, improve and innovate upon the greatest gaming experience ever created. You have my eternal gratitude, and USD30 every month. Thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. And thank you. 

Irrational Fear

Last night, after I had turned in my entry to Blog Banter #40, I went to bed wondering about the state of the EVE blogging community. I had taken a brief break from blogging as I had become hyper-immersed in-game and needed to step back to tend to RL business.

I hate stepping away from the game and from writing, but I took solace in the fact that I would be able to keep up with current events thanks to EVE's robust meta-game. One of the reasons the EVE community in general (and the blog-o sphere in particular) is so strong is that when two or three or four of us take a break at the same time, there are still over 100 hundred blogs and EVE-related sites out there providing new content for our EVE-hungry brains.

What got me thinking last night was the arrival of TheMittani.com. and what sort of impact it would have on the Blog Pack. If you haven't seen themittani.com yet, please do go explore. It is an expertly produced source of EVE news and opinion, though as the name of the site might suggest, one that risks running afoul of editorial bias in the stories it runs.

My thought webs traveled roughly along the path of, "I wonder if Scaurus ever got around to putting up the August and September Ebees. Oh man, A Scientist's Life in EVE and Nash Kadavrr are retiring. That's two more legacy blogs on the Blog Pack stepping down. I wonder if some day this blog will become as well known as theirs. I wonder if we need the blog pack anymore, now that we have theMittani. Why go to 30 sites when you can go to one?"

I felt threatened by this thought when I had it. It was a fear that upon reflection revealed itself to be irrational.

In the end, I went to bed feeling positively encouraged about the state of the blog-o-sphere. Which was hilarious, because when I woke up this morning and starting reading over the blogs in my own particular feed, I found this at EVEOGANDA which had been inspired by this post at Malefactor.

Go ahead and read'em. I'll wait.

Now THAT'S a little spooky! One of the criticisms levied at the EVE blogosphere is that at times it resembles an echo chamber in that we all tackle the same topic at roughly the same time and that we all more or less agree with each other. It is true this happens occasionally, but the diversity of content and opinion occurring on our blogs daily pretty much renders the term "echo chamber" useless. Still, it is highly coincidental that there were at least two other bloggers thinking about this very topic over the last day or so.

There is a tendency in our community, and really in human nature, to be threatened by change. Over time we naturally settle into a comfort zone. We become comfortable because we become familiar with our environment and learn how to survive and thrive in it. Change is unfamiliar. A changing environment brings unfamiliar challenges, and even though we rise to meet those challenges time and again, their unfamiliarity makes them scary. Our greatest fears always stem from the unknown. I went to bed feeling good about the EVE meta-game landscape and my place in it, so what did I know?

Two things.

First, no matter how well done themittani.com or ANY site is, it will never be enough to satisfy the appetite the EVE community has for content. I can typically read through all of the content themittani has to offer on any given day in 30 minutes or less. I can then spend another 30 minutes sifting through all of the updates on the Blog Pack, and if I'm feeling REALLY desperate for more, head over to EN24 to see if there was anything else I had missed. I regularly visit evebloggers.com, and that's just for reading. If I know I'm going to have some extended downtime, I can download Lost in Eve, Podside, and other podcasts for listening while I'm away from the computer. It sounds like a lot, but I highly doubt I'm even half as voracious as many other members of the EVE community in my search for content.

Secondly, the issue of bias is one that every editorial site will be forced to mitigate, be they an aggregator or a solo endeavor. TheMittani has it, I have it, EN24 has it. We all have it. The only sites that can avoid such bias are those sites that have no editorial component to them whatsoever and instead are merely feed dumps such as evebloggers. In the quest to understand an issue, motivated readers are going to seek multiple viewpoints from multiple sources. For editorial sites that typically only run one piece on a particular issue at a time it means your visitors will come to you for your insights, but they're going somewhere else as well.

None of this touches on the competitive aspects of producing or hosting content, or the degrees to which new bloggers will be inspired to pick up their pens by the shifting metascape. These are yet further reasons to feel confident that the number of content sources aren't going to evaporate any time soon.

I take great delight in the fellowship that writing about and discussing EVE creates. And I find sweet relief in knowing the "One Ring" we feared was coming never will.  

Glory Hole: BB40

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Not So Fast

You really didn't think I was going to let October draw to a close without saying anything, did you? Shame on you...  :)

This entire month finds me in a place familiar to much of New Eden: a period of transition. How thoroughly apropos that it occurs coincident with the arrival of the American autumn.

Under ordinary circumstances this is my favorite time of year. The brilliant explosion of colors in the leaves, the brisk snap of chilled air at dawn and dusk. Heralds of the holiday season to come, a season spent in the warm company of family and lifelong friends.

This particular year, it marks a painful transition. One that has taken me out of the game for more time than I care to acknowledge.

Sparing you the gory details, suffice it to say that RL requires my attention. Which is absolutely devastating, because I've come to realize that my day-to-day interactions with my alliance-mates constitute a support network that is deeper and more complex that I had previously considered. These are my friends. My brothers (and sisters)-at-arms. My sounding board. My purpose and my satisfaction.

Yesterday, after not having logged in to comms for well over a fortnight, I signed in. I was greeted with the old familiar cheers, my mates celebrating my return with a healthy dose of ball-busting and good spirit. I could feel the rush in the back of my jaw, my pulse quickening, my eyes dilating. Like a heroin-addict deprived of his sticky brown sugar uncovering a long-forgotten score. I was home.

Logging into the game would have proved dangerous so I deferred, instead catching up with my friends and lobbing barbs as they were lobbed towards me. I never responded to BB39, asking us to define our home in New Eden because I never could answer that question to my own satisfaction. Consequently I never published an entry. Yesterday, I found out why. My relationships with these men and women may have begun with Eve, but they endure without her. Game or no game, it is within my friends that I make my home.

This isn't one of those grand, "I'm leaving the game. X up if you want my stuffs..." sign-offs. I will return to New Eden when my affairs on Earth are settled. The meta-game, and my participation in it, will go on. Eve...heh...she stays with you. And I miss her, after all. But if I'm really being honest, I miss my friends even more.

Terms and Limits

Well, here it be September and I hadn't said anything yet. Let's get to changin' that, shall we?

A thought occurred to me as I was preparing my post on the CSM minutes released several weeks ago. Ok, check that; a thought occurred to me while I was at work and thinking about what further editing I was going to do to my post on the minutes. I've actually had it written for a few weeks and have sort of let the whole thing simmer. Getting the BB37 Review and then my response to BB38 up in a timely fashion had something to do with that as well, but I digress...

No, I was considering the various viewpoints expressed by our delegates during the summit, and how each area of game-play had one or two corresponding representatives weighing in more often than others. The transcript format made this especially apparent as it highlighted which delegates became more vocal during sessions addressing specific aspects of game-play and which voices faded into the background. I found this extremely interesting and actually encouraging, as it demonstrated that certain entities representing certain power blocs weren't dominating the conversation as was previously feared. Well, ok, maybe a little, but not nearly as much as the doom-and-gloomers would have you believe.

As I was considering why this was so encouraging to me, I had to boil it down to the function each CSM was performing during the summit. In the end, these player-elected representatives are sent to Iceland and tasked with providing CCP the player perspective on all of the various elements of EVE. It was a task that most of the CSM performed admirably. In most cases, no one was "blatantly" pushing an agenda to the exclusion of other viewpoints, nor were they reluctant to raise an objection or voice an opinion when the situation called for it.

The thing that got me thinking was the experience driving each delegate's perspective. Well, that and the fact that somebody (not naming names) described 16-17 titans as "not that many." Despite the fact that the summit was largely agenda-less, that didn't prevent different delegates from honing in on some of their hot-button issues. And at times, these issues were beaten into the ground in discussions.

Again, in and of itself, that's not a big deal. It would be unreasonable to expect someone to accurately and fairly represent every single issue within the limited amount of time available during the summit sessions. There is a practicality issue there, to be sure. But two things worry me about the trajectory  these examples suggest the CSM to be following. The first is the idea that next year, the same people will be beating the same hot-button issues into the same ground. And that is something that nobody wants. Not me. Not CCP. Hopefully not you, either.

The second is the fact that while we have several different playstyles and arenas of expertise represented, there is one that is noticeably absent: the itinerant, inexperienced capsuleer.

I spent my first two years in EVE bouncing around from opportunity to opportunity. I was in a highsec newbie corp, then moved to a major nullsec alliance. After a brief break from the game, I returned to the sov nullsec arena before leaving for a solo journey. From this solo journey, I (re)joined forces with some of the friends I had made from my very first days in New Eden as a scattershot corp based in highsec but with excursions into lowsec and nullsec. That lasted until I discovered my current corporation and alliance, and returned to sovereign nullsec where I am still flying today.

I was a gypsy for a long time in EVE before I found my home. I suspect it is the case for a lot of players out there as well. The wanderlust life appeals to many of us, no doubt, but nowhere is that style of play represented on the CSM. Sure, there are several reasons for this that have nothing to do with the way the CSM is run, most notably the fact that players who operate in relative isolation have a hard time consolidating enough votes to make a serious run for the council. But not only are these players not represented, the people elected to represent the rest of us are drifting further and further away from the "new player experience." And I'm not talking about the introductory tutorials.

One might make the case that having someone like Kelduum Revan on the council, someone who interfaces and works with new players everyday, would go a fair measure towards easing this disconnect. But I don't believe that goes far enough. Because in the end, you'd still be talking about someone who is years down the road from anything resembling the type of player he was elected to represent.  

So, how do you prevent these scenarios from happening going forward? With regards to the first issue of a stagnant CSM, the obvious answer is term limits. And not just for players, but for the alliances they are a part of as well. It is the only way to ensure that the CSM does not become the personal sounding board for a particular player or alliance year after year after year. That's not to say players or alliances couldn't sit on the council for more than one term, but having that input and opportunity to interact with CCP for many years can only do more harm to the integrity of the CSM and EVE at large than good.

Now, there are two arguments against limiting CSM terms that you're likely to hear in any sort of debate on the matter. The first is that limiting terms prevents council members from accruing the experience necessary to have a meaningful impact on CCP during the delegation cycle. There are several reasons this is pure bullshit, but I'll only mention two here.

Firstly, there were a couple of stand-out delegates participating in this year's summit who had never been elected before, but who did an excellent job of giving feedback and input where necessary. Clearly experience was not necessary to deliver on what they were elected to do.

Secondly, one thing that jumped out at me from the first 30-ish pages of the minutes was that in several instances, some of the experienced CSM delegates were basically asking CCP to tell them what to do. In fact, there are a number of times when CCP Xhagen tells the delegates that what the CSM is asking CCP to decide for them is up to the CSM themselves! Experience, it would seem, is not a guarantor of wisdom.

The other argument that you're likely to hear regarding term limits is the idea that limiting terms somehow removes accountability from the delegates. And while logical on its face, this argument turns out to be yet another steamy mass of manure. Here's why:

First and foremost, CSM delegates do not act alone. They act in concert with one another to achieve aims and ends decided upon in advance of the summit. And they are accountable to one another. If a CSM acts in manner inconsistent with either the purpose of the Council or the code of conduct of a delegate, he can be removed by other Council members.

Additionally, even if a delegate went rogue and pursued a selfish agenda, 19 times out of 20 that selfish agenda is still going to benefit that delegate's constituents. And though it might not be the most productive way for a council member to proceed, it would still be performing the task the delegate was elected to accomplish. 

So now that the veterans are sorted, what about the newbies? How do we ensure they are fairly represented and their voices are heard? The answer, again, is a term limit. But a term limit of a different sort.

Determining what constitutes a 'newbie' in EVE is fairly subjective, but it would be fair to say that any player with under a year's worth of game time would qualify. And that one-year mark would be where I would draw the line for anyone intending to represent the "new" players of New Eden. Anything over that and your "new pod" veneer has already begun to wear too thin, your veteran stripes emerging to the fore.

I do believe that a 'day one' player would not make an effective Council member. The issue isn't that they're not well-versed enough in EVE's idiosyncrasies to weigh in constructively. It's that they're not versed at all. A player with less than three months in the game is simply not going to know enough about EVE to be able to contribute on a meaningful level. So you need a lower bound as well as an upper one. A player with no fewer than three months in game and no more than one year strikes the right balance between freshness and depth of perspective.

These are opinions, of course, and as such are open to debate. And I invite you to participate in that debate, both in the Comment section of this blog and in the broader community. Because as EVE matures and the CSM grows in responsibility and stature, these issues are going to become increasingly important. And that is why we as a community need to start having the debates of tomorrow today. Else, we risk a problem we'll be unable to solve on our own terms.