Eve Online - Fly and Die with F13's own Bat Country In Eve Online [recruitment]

[Phildo]

Wasn't the whole point of Incarna to basically be a tech demo for the Vampire MMO that CCP is also working on?

[Reg]

My guy may be Space French but there's still no way you're getting him into a dress like the CARBON toons were wearing!

[Sir T]

Wasn't the whole point of Incarna to basically be a tech demo for the Vampire MMO that CCP is also working on?

It wasn't working on Vampire 5 years ago when they were first  talking about Incarna. I'm sure Incarna and Vampire will share the same tech though.

[UnSub]

Wasn't the whole point of Incarna to basically be a tech demo for the Vampire MMO that CCP is also working on?

It makes sense if you think that CCP (and MMO companies in general) are trying to extend the life of their custom dev tools / engines through using them in different titles. Without humanoid models, CCP is limited to titles involving spaceships, boats and cars. I'm sure a Thomas the Tank Engine MMO would be a unit shifter, but I don't see it fitting with CCP's output.

Human models were a popular idea back when they started on it, but the work has since led to the options of Dust and WoDO. It might be a waste of time within EvE, but it certainly gives CCP more flexibility.

STO ship interiors, OTOH, were a massive waste of time until something like hostile boarding becomes possible.

[Kageru]

They may be learning from that, judging from the changes and development of PI from the last patch that are currently on Singularity for testing.

At a guess I would suspect that has more to do with them needing to evolve it as a part of the framework for DUST. Also possibly due to them discovering people have produced PI bots, thus the add more clicks.

Incarna will be as useful as the new gameplay options it brings... and so far I've not heard anything on that front.

[Endie]

I don't see how this is supposed to revolutionize the game or draw in new customers. If "this will not be a full-blown new game inside EVE with 10,000 hours of content," how the fuck did they spend three years on it? Right now, Incarna is filed in the same folder* as Star Trek Online's ship interiors.

* The one labeled "pointless wastes of development resources."

The full sentence, including the first half you edited out, does rather explain that:

In closing, Olaffson reiterated that Incarna's release next summer will be a beginning rather than an end: "This will not be a full-blown new game inside EVE with 10,000 hours of content," he said.

CCP have been pretty open for some time that they want Eve to be a sci-fi simulator, not just a spaceship simulator.  At some point, that means getting out of the spaceship.  That's a pre-requisite, not a destination.

[Morfiend]

Just wanted to say that after about a month of playing I have come to the conclusion that EVE has the worst, most confusing, assbackward, least customizable UI of any MMO.

How hard would it be to have a select nearest ship keybind? And the overview, my god, trying to get the overview set up the way you want it is a nightmare of confusing, unintuitive menus.

[TheDreamr]

Did you use the import feature for overview settings with a nicely made preset?  Probably no consolation to yourself but before that existed it was huge pain getting the overview "right" (ie. not showing people you shouldn't shoot) even if you knew what you wanted, now it's a few clicks to get from fresh install to ready for small gang hijinks.

[Kageru]

Just wanted to say that after about a month of playing I have come to the conclusion that EVE has the worst, most confusing, assbackward, least customizable UI of any MMO.

There can be no possible debate on this.

[tgr]

Oh, you began fiddling with PI then?

[Gets]

After learning to configure my ovierview on the fly after many settings resets from patches I can configure my overview on the fly quite easily. As far as the UI is concerned the only thing that ticks me off is whenever an opening window pushes and existing window somewhere. That really should be an easy fix.

[birdsguts]

As far as the UI is concerned the only thing that ticks me off is whenever an opening window pushes and existing window somewhere. That really should be an easy fix.

That "window pushing" thing drove me crazy when I used to play. I eventually found out a little trick to get it to not do that with the windows I was worried about. Basically the problem only comes into play when you have a window "snapped" to an edge and you enter an area that calls up another window to populates that same space... when you enter a station or leave a station for example. To avoid it you just make sure the misbehaving windows are slightly under-size and not "snapped" to the UI component the offending panel usually locks to.

This might not work depending on what windows you are referring to but I figured I'd try and help you out anyway. Regardless you are correct, they really should have had a fix for that or a "disable UI snapping" feature a long time ago.

[Endie]

I have taken the reins for a bit.  Things are pretty active right now, with operations at the weekends, lots of PvgPing activity and stuff like that...

[Endie]

For currently-unsubbed vets: CCP have announced that learning skills are about to be removed and that - probably in the next few weeks - al skill points which had been invested in them shall be refunded for you to spend how you like.  Instead, all players will get their base stats increased by 12 to each.

Most people who played for any length of time will therefore suddenly have something like a couple of months' worth of skill points to instantly distribute as you like.  Obsessives like myself will find they might have more like three months to blow.

So if the idea of being instantly able to fly something that seemed ages away from you (whether that be HACs or carriers) appeals, then you should probably check out this blog: http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=824

If you are applying to get back into Bat Country with the other F13 posters then be sure to include your F13 name in your application, and PM me on these forums to confirm.

[Amarr HM]

Think my main character has 2.7m in training, so look forward to that.

[Endie]

We've invaded Fountain in order to draw our enemies, IT Alliance (née Kenzoku, née Band of Brothers) off from saving their southern allies, Initiative.  We are gutting their pets, and have already broken their logistics network in a key hub, forcing each of their fleets to jump through unsafe space for another half hour each way to reach us.  We have engaged in fights with their fleets on four occasions and utterly destroyed them each time.  If you like PvP then this is a fun couple of weeks to be in on.

Do you like 0.0 PvP? As a corporation, in the last week we have killed over 300 ships, while losing only 16 (our own killboard still has to catch up with the latest 60 kills as of this post).  We're in third place in the alliance for kills this month, despite being a fraction of the size of most other corporations, and only the two biggest corporations in the alilance are ahead of us.  We have 10% of the alliance's all-time top 30 killers, and I hope to add another by this month.  Last month, the top two killers were both in Bat Country.

[Special J]

For currently-unsubbed vets: CCP have announced that learning skills are about to be removed and that - probably in the next few weeks - al skill points which had been invested in them shall be refunded for you to spend how you like.  Instead, all players will get their base stats increased by 12 to each.

Most people who played for any length of time will therefore suddenly have something like a couple of months' worth of skill points to instantly distribute as you like.  Obsessives like myself will find they might have more like three months to blow.

I just caught wind of this now, that would finally get me into an Arazu.

Hmmm. 

[Stormwaltz]

Huh. I just received an email telling me I have 1,325,255 unspent Skill Points.

[TripleDES]

They've removed all learning skills and are reimbursing you the spent skillpoints.

[Engels]

Its been so long since I played Eve, I don't think I'd know how to reallocate my skill points. To be honest, this move by CCP is a disincentive for me to get back into the game, since at least I had my character set up to play before, and I could relearn along the way. Now, I'd have to do graduate school level of studies to not waste skill points before I could do my first pewpew and that prospect will keep me away. Possibly forever.

[Special J]

Its been so long since I played Eve, I don't think I'd know how to reallocate my skill points. To be honest, this move by CCP is a disincentive for me to get back into the game, since at least I had my character set up to play before, and I could relearn along the way. Now, I'd have to do graduate school level of studies to not waste skill points before I could do my first pewpew and that prospect will keep me away. Possibly forever.

How could it be a disincentive?  You still have all the skills you had before.  You only get refunded SP from skills under the Learning category.

And as I've discovered, you can keep those points banked and still train normally until you figure what you want to do.  Which is what I've done.  You may not care to play again at all, but I fail to see why free SP would be the reason.

[Engels]

Well, your post assumes I'm not a complete idiot that didn't read the email other than the subject line. 

You're right, this reimbursement is fine, since it doesn't mess with the character build other than the learning skills modifiers.

In fact, I'd say its a good move, now that I actually think about it, since one of EVE's major disincentives to the average player is that it is too fiddly. If this simplifies the functionality of the skill tree, then that's a good reform.

[TripleDES]

Reassigned all my skillpoints from learning into Trade skills. Figured, I could try to waste my five free days into looking to mess with the market. Takes more attention than playing the game otherwise. 

[Phildo]

I have a character in Jita with perfect Trade skills, and I basically use him to set up courier contracts to 0.0 when I need a new ship.

[Stormwaltz]

I have no idea what I'd even spend the points on. The game I left in 2004 was significantly different.

I tried to be a researcher/manufacturer back then, and when I left they'd just made Tech II acquisition based not on having research/industrial skills, but on grinding faction with repetitive missions. As someone with only rudimentary combat skills, I was pretty much shut out, and gave up after a couple of months. I don't even know what the relevant skills are these days for someone who wants to follow the high-tech route.

[Numtini]

I've spent a lot of time training for the Fit O The Month and then having it change just as I trained into it. At the moment, by some strange quirk of fate, I'm sitting pretty with perfect training for the current paradigm of my alliance. So I'm just saving my points for the next time there's another paradigm change and we're all using blasters and rockets or whatever.

[Slayerik]

I've spent a lot of time training for the Fit O The Month and then having it change just as I trained into it. At the moment, by some strange quirk of fate, I'm sitting pretty with perfect training for the current paradigm of my alliance. So I'm just saving my points for the next time there's another paradigm change and we're all using blasters and rockets or whatever.

Training for suicide ganking pays off! ;)

[Endie]

I have no idea what I'd even spend the points on. The game I left in 2004 was significantly different.

I tried to be a researcher/manufacturer back then, and when I left they'd just made Tech II acquisition based not on having research/industrial skills, but on grinding faction with repetitive missions. As someone with only rudimentary combat skills, I was pretty much shut out, and gave up after a couple of months. I don't even know what the relevant skills are these days for someone who wants to follow the high-tech route.

Your 1.3 million skill points would be enough to get you into a fleet drake, and might well be enough to get you into a T1 fleet maelstrom, which is a 250-million ISK battleship that we hand out free and reimburse when you die.

I'd heartily recommend that you fly drakes first, though, until you get back into the swing of using the overview etc.  In 2004 you didn't find yourself in 400-per-side (or more) fleet fights very often.

[Endie]

Also, we (the f13 corp) have killed 700 enemy ships so far this month, woth 108 billion ISK, for the loss of 40, worth 2.7 billion.  Converted into real money via timecard rates that is 4,900 dollars' worth of ships killed for the loss of 122 dollars' worth of ships between about 60 of us, not counting alts.

We have various competitions: the top three killers in the corp get almost half a billion of ships in prizes each month.  The person who turns out on the most ops gets a free plex (that is, a month's subsscription: they play free for the month).  Stuff like that.

[Engels]

Anyone else get the feeling that there's something seriously wrong with ISK valuation when a corp can hand out 250 MILLION and reimburse it if the newb blows up in the first week? Can we knock off some zeros there? Maybe six of them to start with, work from there?

Its worse than the Italian lira.

[eldaec]

It only works like that in the 0.0 end game when you have a 4000 player alliance supporting you.

In Empire ten million isk is still actual money.

Otherwise people wouldn't continue to exchange $1 for 20 million isk.

[Endie]

We just siezed our first station in Fountain from IT Alliance, home of Sir Molle and a massive, bloated version of Band of Brothers.

[WayAbvPar]

How was the ductwork?

[Kitsune]

We think there may be a mold infestation, and they refuse to come fix the leak in the roof, instead complaining that we've let the lawn die.

[Sir T]

Well done.    The excuses will be flying in the cult of Mollie.