Blog Banter 80 - A Voice for All Players?

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 80th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are please visit the Blog Banter page.

Blog Banter 80 - A Voice for All Players?

CCP Seagull ecourages you to get involved in CSM12 and put your name forward to be a Space-Politician. On his blog Neville Smit noted that CSM11 had done a good job with minimum of drama. However he said he'd not be covering CSM12 like he has in previous years as he sees no point. The power-blocs will vote on who they want and unless Steve Ronuken manages to get on CSM12 it is almost certainly going to have every seat taken by the big null-sec blocs.

Is Neville right? Is the CSM moving more and more into just a voice for 0.0? Is this a bad thing? Are the hi-sec, low-sec and WH players going to lose out badly or is it really not an issue as its the same game? Could a totally null-sec dominated CSM 12 give a balanced voice for everyone?

Banter on!

Contributors:-

Jack Jomar - BB80 - Is CSM Worth it?
I Care A Lot - BB 80: A Voice for All Players?
Neville Smit - Blog Banter #80: A CSM for All?
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - BB80 - Voices.
The Ancient Gaming Noob - BB80 - Oh That Crazy CSM Thing
Jakob's Eve Checklist - BB80: Is it feasible to have a FW representative on CSM 12?
Eve Hermit - BB80 - Who is Listening to Who?
SSAS - BB80 - Democracy in Action
Morphisat's Blog - Blog Banter 80 – Only a pawn in their game

Rust is Good on Matari Ships....

.... not so good on a player.

Things have been a struggle for a while out here work wise. I've just not had the time nor the energy for Eve. In fact I'm typing this in a break after I've done a full days work but I've got to work tonight as well. Yes things are not great but you have to put things in perspective. I mean look at the year Rixx Javix had last year. I'm having a party compared to that!

Anyway on Sunday I logged in. Drack is still in Ishomilken. I did relocate with Stay Frosty when we moved last but found my GMT +4 TZ at the new home was dead. Whilst its not exactly party time in Ishomilken, there are a few solo PvP'rs about. Looking in my hanger there were certainly a lot of cobwebs and a lack of ships. I had a few T2 and some faction frigates but didn't want to risk them. I noticed a stack of Kestrel hulls so assembled one of those, fitted it up quick and undocked.

I'd been keeping an eye on local and there were some going suspects and the odd "gf" there. A quick scan showed several assault frigates in space. There was a novice faction war plex open so I warped there and could sit there until a bro came at me. I entered the plex, set an orbit around the button, started spamming the D-scan on a 2AU radius and opened up a news site on another monitor.

Confessor. Pilgrim. You know what I'm really worried about with the Tangerine Twitler? Our comedians are not having to work for their craft currently. Its too easy. When he's out of the White House are they going to be so out of practice making good comedy that the whole genre will die? Hawk. Vengence.

Rifter. Wait....? Rifter?

Narrowing down the scan range showed he was on the gate. I checked my ammo. Whilst I had Rage rockets their explosion radius is a bit large. I decided on CN Scourge. The Rifter was likely shield tanked but you never know. He warped in and I set a 7km orbit and opened up. It started so well. My dual web and AB set up kept him out of optimal for his guns. Then he started making range. So I overheated the AB to catch up and making a noob mistake REALLY caught up. I started to make range again and rather than turning off the overheat on the AB I turned the module off. It was like we were tethered together with a space-elasticband. BOING! I forgot how to fly!

Thankfully my big armor buffer was enough as he'd already had to actively rep for too long when I wasn't derping at actually flying my ship. Also he'd made the mistake that I count on when in that fit, he'd been firing EMP into my 400mm armour plate. I was low armour when he popped. He got his pod out, "gf" in local, scoop the loot and GTFO!

Looked at my killmails. Yeah, first kill in 100 days! Damn!

BB79 - Rewarding Loyalty?

Blog Banter 79 - Rewarding the Vets?

Should CCP put more effort into rewards for loyal customers? The mystery code from the collector's edition hasn't seen much use and whilst veteran rewards have been mentioned by CCP several times at Fanfests, we have seen nothing. Wasn't there talk of a special station only 10-year vets could dock in at one point?

Is this lack of gratitude towards loyal customers alienating? Do people wish for a change here? Is it too self-righteous to expect small signs of gratitude for being a loyal customer? Is a customer purchasing half a year in advance more loyal than someone plexing every now and than probably missing out a few weeks or months a year? How do CCP place rewards in game without hurting the economy?

Or is it just a case of there is no need and HTFU snowflake?

Am I vet? Eight years is a long time playing one game and I've certainly never played any game that long. Everquest (although in '99 it was known as Neverquest), Star Wars:Galaxies, that very popular MMO with orcs and dwarfs (erm....), Warhammer Online, the list goes on. However none have gone the same length of time as Eve Online.

Should CCP reward me for this? Whilst I'm not going to turn down free stuffz(TM) I'm not that bothered.

First off is how do you classified a vet? Are you really bitter? But how do you measure that?

Is it subscribed time? Drackarn has been subbed constantly since 2008. However does that make me more of a vet than someone who played 2003 to 2009, had a months break in subscription and then subbed from then until now. However, technically in terms of continuous subbed time I'm more of a vet than them? Smeg this could get complicated.

I'll leave the defining of the term vet to others, I'm sure someone will come up with an idea. So what could we get in reward terms? Obviously CCP are a company and out to make money. Any sort of free time/plex etc would be a bad idea. Vets are the ones CCP makes their money from so you don't hurt that revenue stream. Those people who are saying vets should have an enhanced Alpha account that allows them to use all their SP really don't understand simple business mechanics. If they did that what would be the point in vets paying a sub? And if they stop paying, everything stops!

A few spitballing options:-

Access to a Special Station

I'm sure I heard at one Fanfest (note I'm generally drink throughout) of an idea to have a special station where only vets could dock. When WiS was talked about this could have been an interesting idea. Now its just "What's the point?". Also where would it be located? High-sec? Which would stop players like me who have a long-running misunderstanding with CONCORD visiting? Low sec? Which will stop many high-sec players from visiting? Anyway its a mute point as its hardly going to be popular so what's the point?

SKINS
Now this is something I think could work. A selection of unique SKINS that can only be activated by vets. Not sure if the coding is there but that could be rather awesome.

Bonus Gifts
Now we need to be careful when dealing with stuffz (TM). If CCP gave all 10-year+ vets a Wolf as a gift then that would crash the market for that assualt frigate and hurt our builder bros. However when CCP are giving out gifts they could increase the number for vets? Gnosis as a present for Yulia festival? Vets get two? Some Gecko's? Here vets have a couple extra for being so awesome!

Clothing
Similar to skins there could be specific apparel for the vets. Headwear or hats or glasses. Something that shows them as a vet. Then again if you are looking for someone to come at you (bro) do you want to be advertising the fact you probably have a lot of SP (yes they can look at your emploment history but most people are lazy). May be something special for the Matari....

So a few ideas but lets think about this. Is it really needed? Vets have put up with lag, "the 18 months", Incarna, melted graphics cards, the boot.ini, extended downtimes lasting days, more lag, balance issues, even more lag, the scammers and spammers, Jita local, traitors, betrayal, drama and all the tears.... so many tears. Yet even after all that they are still there. Is any of the above "rewards" going to make a rela difference to the vets? Nah.

Concentrate on retaining the noobs and let the vets look after themselves.