Winter patch 2010

[Endie]

I've been playing for years and there have always been bitter vets evangelising about how eve was dying.  And yet the subs keep rising.  That is usually countered with a "no true Scotsman"-type argument.

[TripleDES]

Way back then they added Standing tags in local it was discovered there was a minor bug with your own character. Your character never showed up with the correct tag. You could be marked as corp, alliance, negative, whatever, totally at random. Their 'solution' was to dodge and set it so your own character never displayed a tag. Which to be fair was a nice workaround, but didn't fix the underlying problem.

That almost definitely sounds like a hard case of variable not initialized. Their code probably skips your own character while computing the standings, leaving yours uninitialized and pick up whatever unoverwritten value there's in memory to which the variable points.

Also, the new character creation looks nice. I wish these faggots would finally process the test server reactivations, so I can tinker with it.

[Sir T]

I've been playing for years and there have always been bitter vets evangelising about how eve was dying.  And yet the subs keep rising.  That is usually countered with a "no true Scotsman"-type argument.

Yeah, that's the standard response, but its overly simplistic.

First because almost all of the people who play for any length of time have multiple accounts, and that's a trend which increased markedly over time. When I started it was rather uncommon.

Second CCP made the mistake of saying once, when eve was about 3 or 4 years old, that the average length of time someone lasted in eve was only 3 months. Since many players play for years, that means that the VAST majority of people who try Eve quit long before then.

Which means that eve drives off the vast majority of players who try it, which is not the sign of an off the cuff good game. Its the years long players who never seem to leave who keeps it going. And since those can have multiple subs 2 subs, the increase in sub numbers looks more shallow.

And that's not including the isk sellers, who's numbers have increased as well. And CCP response is to take a cut.

Yep, I'm being simplistic too, but subs doubling over 5 years, when you look at those factors, hardly seems impressive. Especially when the characters actually playing at peak has only gone up by 10-15k in that time

Eve is basically a small, hard to get into and expensive to play mmo.

[ajax34i]

Actually the subs don't keep rising.  Server numbers have been in a slight decline for a year now, at least according to what I can see on eve-offline.net.

[eldaec]

Somebody make a chart please.

[Amarr HM]

The decline is being stablised by Endie alts.

[Endie]

Actually the subs don't keep rising.  Server numbers have been in a slight decline for a year now, at least according to what I can see on eve-offline.net.

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

Past month and three months show rising trends.  Past six months shows rising trend with a few outlier spikes during the big fights of winter and early spring.  Last year is difficult to read, showing a narrowing of the variation but no obvious trend, upwards or downwards.

Himo, as regards 3 month averages your problem there is that this includes all the people who never renew after the first subs period, who will always heavily skew such stats.  One of the problems CCP has is that Eve is horrible for newbies who don't have friends playing, and another is that the genre and format simply aren't for a lot of people.  A lot of the bitter vet "eve is dying" grumbling is because they keep trying to address that.

Six months ago everyone was saying that the sov system was too static and would kill territorial warfare in Eve.  Since then we have had the most fluid 0.0 in years, possibly since the first few months of 0.0 warfare.  A year before that, it was declared that the nano nerf would kill eve, when all it did was help kill an incarnation of tri.  Before that, the end of the three-year Great Wa was supposed to herald a mass-unsubscribe by sated vets.  And so on and so on...  Since most of you are goons just go and read TWR archives from any period since late 2007.

Eve has huge fucking problems, with too many old, rich alliances compressed in too small a space to allow new powers in without support, too many alliances feeling they could lose their space if not part of a bloc and too much money buying too many supercapitals.  But individuals claiming that the result of them giong through the same arc as everyone before them and that Eve is dying because they are not finding fun in the same old areas is solipsistic.

[tgr]

Six months ago everyone was saying that the sov system was too static and would kill territorial warfare in Eve.  Since then we have had the most fluid 0.0 in years, possibly since the first few months of 0.0 warfare.

Let's be fair, a lot of that territory being lost is due to Atlas and -A- dying like a pair of old arthritic grandpas.

Also, this collapse would probably not have happened 6 months ago, because the supers etc would probably have been lost hilariously at some point due to blackscreening, so CCP have at least made territorial warfare possible again.

[Endie]

Let's be fair, a lot of that territory being lost is due to Atlas and -A- dying like a pair of old arthritic grandpas.

I totally agree, and I think that that is one of the great thing about the current sov system: if you are an afk alliance you will lose your space when attacked.

[Sir T]

I totally agree, and I think that that is one of the great thing about the current sov system: if you are an afk alliance you will lose your space when attacked.

Uh that would have happened in the old system too, its just that these days you don't have stupid doomsdays twinking the balance. Hell that's how AAA held onto HED for well over a year. We were beating the crap out of Atlas in the GFFL days before we went back to deal with Tri and never came back. If we had stayed on Atlas would have imploded right there.

And in point of fact you were always saying that making it easier to defend would improve the game

Himo, as regards 3 month averages your problem there is that this includes all the people who never renew after the first subs period, who will always heavily skew such stats.

Uh Endie, that's exactly what I said, people try Eve and never come back.  People get attracted by the shiney, try it, say fuck this and leave. People over inflate the success of Eve because they have a desperate need to have one successful MMO out there that isn't WOW.

Plus, CCP are making a huge marketing push right now. I'm seeing ads for Eve all over the place. They pushed hard in Tyrannis to get people into the game. Boxed sets in shops and everything. Sub numbers didn't really rise much for all that effort. A lot of people tried eve and quit. And the fact is, the so called rise in Subs is simply not met by a corresponding rise in server numbers.

I helped out with the recruitment thread because joining an alliance like Goonswarm and a corp like BAT is one of the few ways a newbie can join Eve and have fun. That's my contribution to peoples fun. Aside from that I wouldn't recommend Eve to a new player. I could rejoin tomorrow and have a kick arse character that could beat 99% of the population in a one on one fight. That's the draw on oldies, but whats there for a newbie? (without the opportunity of the recruitment thread, that is)

[eldaec]

The best thing dominion did was forcing alliance leaders to think of new ways to piss in each other's cheerios now that mind numbing sov grinds are much less practical than they used to be.

The discussion about eve dying is making you look retarded btw, just sayin.

[Slayerik]

Weird, I logged into Eve for a sec here a work like an hour ago and there were 42,000 people logged on. That's a lot of people, dual-boxing or no.

Eve is a success, mostly just because it is the only reasonably good sandbox/GvG/PvP game.

You two bicker like an old married couple.

[ajax34i]

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility
Past month and three months show rising trends.  Past six months shows rising trend with a few outlier spikes during the big fights of winter and early spring. 

Endie, eve-offline.net charts are right-to-left.  Most recent spike is on the left, oldest spike is on the right.  As such, there's no way "past month" and "three months" show rising trends, they both show decreasing trends.  Hold your mouse over the data to see a date pop-up.

[Vedi]

You two bicker like an old married couple.

That's the recent influx you see on the pop graphs.

"Notorius Poster Marries Ten Million Alt Entity; Sudden Interest in Eve from Second Lifers"

[Endie]

I totally agree, and I think that that is one of the great thing about the current sov system: if you are an afk alliance you will lose your space when attacked.

Uh that would have happened in the old system too, its just that these days you don't have stupid doomsdays twinking the balance. Hell that's how AAA held onto HED for well over a year. We were beating the crap out of Atlas in the GFFL days before we went back to deal with Tri and never came back. If we had stayed on Atlas would have imploded right there.

And in point of fact you were always saying that making it easier to defend would improve the game

In the old system one person (xttz) could hold sov in a whole region a quarter of the eve gamespace away from his alliance merely by throwing money and logistical effort at a problem.  No doomsdays, no fleets, no fights.

The new system makes it easier to take undefended space while making it harder to take space from someone who is defending.  That is good, and entirely in line with what I have been saying.  Although I would make it even harder to take space that the owners want, in order to make people happier outside superblocs.

And you are wrong about Atlas, partly because they had active and popular leadership at that point, partly because they had allies, partly because the situation with the Russians was different, partly because of game mechanics, but mainly because of the geography of their space.  Their mistake this time round was in thinking that all those things still held, where in fact none of them did.  They were fighting the last war (again).

[Amarr HM]

One of the problems CCP has is that Eve is horrible

Ne'er a truer word spoken 

The solipsist part is a fair assumption though.

[Gets]

Let's confirm the rumors, shall we? T2 Hybrid ammo and rocket boost and fighterbomber nerf (if you could call it that).

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=809&aid=105650

The time of Incursion approaches as the shadow of the Sansha's Nation reaches across EVE Online.  Incursion is bringing a great bag of awesome and it's time to mention some of the icing on cake changes coming as well, which will interest many of you covering some timely welcome additions and balancing.

Tech II ammo getting some love

Tech II ammo is getting some love in the coming expansion.  We are focusing on the short range versions of the Tech II ammo such as Gleam, Conflagration, Hail, Quake, Void and Javelin.  We are removing various negative effects from each, focusing on the drawbacks which penalize your ship itself and also stack per hardpoint loaded with the ammo.   This means the ammo will be a good alternative to the faction ammo and, without such focused and sometimes crippling drawbacks, will be much more useful.

Rockets Power Up

Rockets have been given a power up with a focus on making them more effective against frigate sized ships.  They gain a bonus to explosion velocity and damage whilst getting a slightly reduced rate of fire.  In addition, the Hawk received some special attention with a change to its kinetic missile damage bonus to 10% per level and a little extra powergrid.

SCC approves addition of faction ships to the market

The SCC has been persuaded to relax their stringent hold on the market and will, with Incursion, allow the trade of all faction ships.  This is pretty cool for those of you looking for pimp rides to show off whilst cruising around Yulai with more bling bling.

Fighter Bombers no longer give the server a migraine

Fighter bombers and supercarriers have shot up in popularity since Dominion where they got a boost and role change.  The side effect of this is that fighter bombers are the "spawn of evil" in server performance terms. Team Gridlock who are leading the war on lag effort identified them as a major contributor to fleet fight lag as is demonstrated below.  Not only are they drones which usually come in packs of 20 per ship but they fire missiles which all have to be tracked in the inventory and physical scene within the game.

To alleviate this, we are switching fighter bombers to use "fake missiles".  In doing so, we dramatically decrease the load induced by utilising fighter bombers.  At the same time, the visual effect of the bombers attacking targets is now much more awesome whilst at the same time no longer causing as much load courtesy of our art and audio team.

Below you can see the server load graphs of 30 supercarriers deploying their drones (the first CPU spike) and then ordering their drones to attack a target for about four minutes (the second event) so we can establish the average load and then finally recalling their drones. Graph A shows fighter bombers as they are today as you can see consuming the lion's share of the server CPU.  Graph B shows the same fighter bombers now modified to use fake missiles in the same scenario and that the CPU used is now much lower.  Graph C for comparison shows supercarriers with fighters as they are today (fighters cause more load because they fire more frequently)

[Simond]

SCC approves addition of faction ships to the market

The SCC has been persuaded to relax their stringent hold on the market and will, with Incursion, allow the trade of all faction ships.  This is pretty cool for those of you looking for pimp rides to show off whilst cruising around Yulai with more bling bling.

Contract up your faction ships now, because this is sure as hell going to make prices drop.

[Gets]

Can't wait to fly Frekis on Sisi :woop:

[Kageru]

Why faction gear is not tradeable on the market is bizarre. Contracts should be for fitted and rigged ships only.

I still don't get why the fact super-carrier * 20 fighter bombers * X missiles in flight was not considered in terms of CPU cost at the design phase, during testing or during play. Considering it as a recently "identifier" issue is  

[tgr]

*ahem* 4 optional patches due to more or less obvious UI fuckery, and you wonder why they missed SCs having a high CPU usage?

[Setanta]

Does the rocket "fix" mean that T2 Amarr frigates (and the Caldari Hawk) finally become usable? I hope so, because the AF with rockets attached was pathetic.

Still no AF fix for the "missing" stats I see.

[Gets]

If it will make the Heretic go up in price we'll lose a cheap disposable dictor. If it turns into a ship on par with the Sabre however, then hell yeah, Amarr Victor.

It won't though.

[eldaec]

Even if this made rockets competitive with projectile guns (it doesn't), the Sabre would still have far greater fitting flexibility.

[Phildo]

And be faster.  And more agile.  And do instant damage instead of delayed missile damage.

[MahrinSkel]

And a better native resist profile (for what that's worth in a tin can).

--Dave

[Thrawn]

*edit* durr, need a delete key

[Goumindong]

Contract up your faction ships now, because this is sure as hell going to make prices drop.

That depends entirely on who bears the brunt of the transaction costs imposed by contracts. If its the people who have to search through stuff to find what they want(where they want it and at what price) instead of going to the market then prices will rise rather than fall since it will be easier to find things.

Note that this means equilibrium price, information obfuscation involved in the contracting system does mean that some people can hold out for higher prices when selling and vice versa for hold outs on lower prices. Those hold outs will be less possible in the open market.

[eldaec]

The first paragraph of what you said makes absolutely no sense.

[Goumindong]

The first paragraph of what you said makes absolutely no sense.

Whether or not prices rise or fall depends on who bears the non-pecuniary costs associated with the contracting system. If those contracting costs are borne by the buyer, then prices will rise. If those contracting costs are borne but the seller then prices will fall.

[eldaec]

You should stop theorycrafting. Seriously.

[Goumindong]

You should stop theorycrafting. Seriously.

Its pretty simple economics. Maybe you should get educated.

[Gets]

You should stop replying to Goumindong. Seriously.

[Vinadil]

In layman's terms... I am one of those people who NEVER shop contracts because the search system is so stupidly convoluted.  I would, however, purchase faction ships for lots of millions of ISK if they were easy to find on the market.

So, demand will increase because of buyers like me... which will increase prices.

[MahrinSkel]

If it's like other things that have moved from contracts to the market, you're going to see more volume, an overall higher price, and a much tighter spread.  Overall, for specialist market-makers this will mean more profit.

--Dave