Do we need null sec space AFK’ers? The answer is No! Let me explain why this particular tactic is detrimental to the overall wellbeing of the game and how it could be eliminated. First let me explain what I mean by a null sec space AFK’ers. AFK’ers are players that travel to a particular enemy system clock up in a safe spot and walk away from the game. The presents of that red or neutral player in a system causes everyone to limit their actions until that actual or perceived threat leaves. Now when that person does not leave and stays in the system for weeks or months at a time it makes the game loose it’s fun and appeal. Now you may play the devil’s advocate and say its EVE any tactic is a valid tactic but you would be wrong. The reason this tactic should be stopped is because there are no mechanics to curb its use in the game. There are a lot of things you can do in the game to make things very annoying to the enemy forces but in all of these situations with the exception of this one there are things you can do to counter that behavior. In the end any tactic that encourages inaction by the players is a tactic that should be discouraged preferably through gameplay mechanics.
When players login to the game and cannot do the things they like to do it begins to erode the amount of fun that player experiences in the game. Eventually that player will leave the game not because they didn’t like it but because other players made them leave through game mechanics that they could not counter. The problem here is the clocking device, it is un-doubtfully a very necessary, useful and effective tool in the game but it can be used in ways that ruin the game for everyone. The one use I am talking specifically is Null Sec AFK’ing.
How can this tactic be countered without nullifying the clocking device? It is very simple, CCP needs to implement a ship or POS module or a new scanner probe type that can do a scan and scan down clocked ships. Now this module or a probe would take a very long time to scan let’s say for the sake of argument 2 hours and would only pickup clocked ships that have been in the system from the beginning to the end of the scan. Also any clocked ship could get a timer indicating a scan is in progress to inform them that they need to move or log out. This type of module or probe would eliminate AFK’ers but would not affect any other uses of the clocking device.
Now what would that do to the game? It would move the game play from inaction to action. Instead of players huddling in their POS’s they would actively search and destroy players that AFK in an enemy systems. It would force players that use this tactic to start being active again. This would create more fun, more fights and it would help drive the economy. Players wouldn’t feel helpless and leave the game resulting in better profits for CCP. This would be a win-win for everyone.
This is going to be one of these blogs where I venture into wishful thinking that Eve Online can be a better game. I have played Eve for many years and for most of these years been involved in the industrial side of Eve. Over the years CCP has introduces many new features some of them great and some of them bad. The one thing that CCP did wrong was how they implemented Tech II and Tech III. Not all of it is bad but there are a few things that make the game less enjoyable for many.
Currently when manufacturing tech I items you are able to purchase a Blueprint that you can research and use over and over again to manufacture your goods. This turns a blueprint into a valuable commodity something the player invests time in and for those of us that love to make stuff this is a lot of fun and adds value to the game. With tech II and tech III CCP opted to change that system and basically take the rewarding aspect of manufacturing outside of cash money away. The reason people make tech II and tech III is to make cash. I would like of go over the current system at high level and then describe a system where I think it would fit better into the game and bring back the fun aspects to manufacturing.
As it stands right now with tech II and tech III is you cannot get BPO’s for any of these items. With tech II you are forced to use low run and low productivity BPC’s to make your items. This creates unnecessary complexity in the system and increases the level of entry for the player. Tech III is a bit different but also unnecessarily complex. The complexity comes from the system inconsistencies. When you start the game and get into tech I production you are doing well. You progress through the game and decide to move into tech II production and realize that the entire process is completely different. The same goes for tech III. This inconsistency and the difficulty to entry is why players lose interest in the game because they feel some things are not achievable.
The change I propose would be to make the BPO (Tech I, II and III) a player created item through Invention. This way even more things would be player driven instead of seeded by NPC’s. The invention process would stay similar to the way it is now except it will not use a BPC in the process and it would do two things. First would be to reverse engineer an item to create a BPO. This would require a substantial investment in skills and items to help the invention process. The result would be a BPO with a varying degree of ME and PE efficiency more often than not negative. The second option would be to invent a BPC. Now this BPC would have some special properties depending on skills. The BPC will have limited runs but much better ME and PE efficiency. This would give longevity to the inventor profession since BPO market is limited in volume the BPC market is an unlimited one. The benefit to creating a BPC would be one over what could be done with researching a BPO. So a max skill inventor could create a BPC that was 5% to 10% more efficient over a BPO researched to very high levels.
This would give manufacturers more choice to buy a BPO and research it or to buy a BPC to get that extra profit margin on high demand items. Another interesting aspect to this is when CCP releases new items/rigs/ships they just need to seed a limited quantity of that item on to the market. The players will take it from there creating the BPO’s and BPC’s for these items. Finally it would keep the process consistent where you have a BPO for every item in the game tech I, tech II and tech III. Some BPO’s might be very hard to make but there will always exist the possibility of someone making one.
The BPC system could eventually be taken even further where the invented BPC’s could make ships with small variations. With proper skills an inventor could create a ship with resistance bonuses that are 5% per level instead of 3% or the armor amount is 6000 vs. 5200. These special BPC’s would allow the player to name the ship so if they improved a Drake they ship crated from that BPC could be called My Corp Drake or anything Drake. This would allow players and corporations to have their own specialized lines of ship and modules. Finally eventually you could have even completely customizable ship where you can improve one aspect of a ship for another so extra low slot for armor amount or an extra high slot for lower speed and higher signature radius. The possibilities are endless and the inventor profession would be one of the most popular professions in eve.
I think this system is superior over the current one where you need to invent tech II BPC’s with bad ME and PE. And in tech III where you have to hunt down Sleepers to get your BPC’s for ships. The current system can even stay so instead of seeding the market with tech III items you just start adding BPC’s to the sleepers for all the modules that will be tech III like maybe Cargo hold Optimization III anyone? These seeded BPC’s would be very inefficient but their purpose would be to get a BPO and from there to get a BPC. The sleeper hunters will get the BPC sell it, someone will make the item and someone else will take that item and invent a BPO or a very efficient BPC for it.
Recently there has been a lot of talk over the pricing of virtual vanity goods on the Eve Online market and the NeX store. What CCP seems to be missing is what micro transactions mean to their players or anyone who used the internet? I would like to show how CCP’s course of action is one doomed to fail. I will also propose a possible solution that might still save this feature of Eve Online before it even rolls out in full.
I would like to start in illustrating where CCP has gone wrong. Let’s begin with a look at very successful companies that have implemented a micro transaction models. Let us start with Facebook which offers a number of virtual goods most for $0.99 or less and is making over a billion dollar per year doing so. Another extremely successful company Apple has made billions of dollars selling non-virtual goods (if you can call software non-virtual) in the range of $0.99. And finally Zynga which sells virtual goods for larger values then a single dollar but their impact in the game is proportional to that of the cost.
As you can see these companies have made fortunes selling literally nothing (i.e. Virtual-Good). Now comes in CCP with their take on virtual goods sales. I will indicate three places where they have made grave errors in judgment that need to be corrected in order to salvage this feature.
First, all virtual goods in Eve Online are said to give the player no advantage over players not participating in the program. This right off the bat lowers the actual and apparent value of the item. Zynga unlike CCP sells the player an apparent and distinct advantage over players not investing their money into the game. Other examples could be World of Tanks and future release of Diablo III. As CCP stated they don’t want to ruin the game with paid content and I tip my hat to them for that. But that means they cannot charge more than a couple dollars for top tier items.
Second is the price, CCP is planning four tiers of item sets. A set is composed of bunch of items you can wear like shoes, pants, shirts etc. The first tier will cost about $19.95 the second between $52 and $70 and finally tier three will be even higher. This is unheard of pricing for something that has no bearing on gameplay what so ever. As a regular player of Eve I speak with many players and can tell you that everyone I have spoken to thinks this whole NeX is a joke. Everyone is short of cash and no one wants to pay a year’s subscription for a skirt.
Third is the perceived cost difference between items in the game world. This is the biggest indicator of the items apparent cost. Now for 2 PLEX ($34.99) the player can get about 640 million isk, the in game currency. For that money the player can buy a number of battle ships or even an industrial capital ship. These ships are equivalent to something like a Ferrari or a 747 in the real world. Now any reasonable person would think that a pair of pants that cost as much as a Ferrari or a 747 is insane? This discrepancy is what is causing players to perceive an expensive vanity items as exorbitant. CCP gave us the reasoning that these vanity items are special designer items for rich players that’s why they cost so much but no player even one with disposable cash is going to buy a pair of pants over that of a Marauder. It’s also feels like a CCP’s way of giving the less fortunate players that made the game what it is today the finger.
Finally if CCP is serious about making money on this feature it has to reevaluate the pricing structure. If they keep the current model they will sell maybe 500 to 1000 items per year that’s a profit of $35,000 to $70,000. Now if they price the items between $0.99 and $2 then players will be much more likely to buy these items so they might even keep whole wardrobes of items. For a sake of argument let’s say there are 650,000 active characters in Eve and each character buys 10 items per year which is a conservative estimate. Any player can afford 10 bucks per year so most will spend more and at the low prices not feel cheated. This will yield a conservative profit of $6,500,000 to $13,000,000. I don’t know what CCP is thinking but I am sure their current course of action will lead to calling the first iteration of NeX a failed experiment. Come on CCP listen to your players!
I would like to take some time to make a plea to Google. Please implement SSL for AdSense. In today’s dangerous Internet site owners want to provide extra security to their users but if they are using AdSense that extra level of security creates a very unpleasant user experience. So Google please do the right thing and implement SSL for AdSense!
I have this major pet peeve about user registration forms. I have yet to see one that makes me say the person that designed/developed this form actually thought about what they were doing. To make it clear the part I have an issue with is the password fields. What’s so wrong with the password entry on most websites you say? Well let me tell you what I think is wrong with most of the password entry on the internet that I had the displeasure of using.
First of all is the limit on the length of the password. With the current state of technology there is no technical reason for limiting the length of the password to absurdly short lengths. Let me give you an example. I bank with Scotia Bank and CIBC and both of their online banking sites limit the password length to fewer than sixteen characters. To add insult to injury they don’t allow spaces or special characters. The worse site I have used in this regard is the BMO Credit Card site which limits me to a six character password. This is frustrating, unsecure and absurd practice that should be fixed immediately.
Users are becoming more and more sophisticated; they use password management software that allows them to create very long passwords without the worry of forgetting them. These tools allow the user to have a unique password per site which limits their exposure in case one of the sites is compromised. The one tool I use and recommend is KeePass Password Safe it is a free open source tool that is easy to install and use.
What would a good password form look like? I can give you a few examples but first I want to refer to my previous post on use of OAuth and OpenID. If your site does not deal with financial or medical information I would strongly encourage you to outsource the authenticaWhattion and the password management to an OpenID provider. I would go as far as saying that I trust myOpenID more than my six character password on my BMO Master Card. So please consider using OpenID or OAuth instead of rolling your own solution.
I added this screen just to show you that sometimes developers don’t really put any thought into their designs. I found it amusing how every field on this form must be longer than six characters even the name of my childhood friend. When their core business isn’t security they will not dedicate the necessary resources to these kinds of features. Remember software is like an iceberg.
Now here we see a well-designed form for entering your password. We have three of five elements that should be present on this type of page. Password minimum and maximum length is specified. The minimum length is important for users who use the same password on every site and need to know if their default password is long enough. The maximum length is important to users who use password management software so that they can create the longest password possible. In this case it a pitiful ten characters. The password rules are important so that we know how many of each required character we should use. The unsupported character list is required if you are not allowing certain characters but best practice should be to allow all types of characters.
The second password textbox is not necessary. I find it that if there is only one box provided for a password I am more careful when typing it in and as a result of that I am more efficient with filling out the form. Now with the use of password managers I copy and paste the password in so the extra validation box is not necessary. The last thing that is missing is the password strength indicator. It is good to inform the user if they have provided a weak password and should consider changing it to a stronger one.
Here are some more examples that have one or more elements of a good form but none of them have all five elements I think are necessary.
Now you might say that I don’t know what I am talking about and that I am overly critical. All I can say to that is…
