Yup, CCP Zulupark opened an interesting thread on the EVE forums last Friday, where he was willing to answer every question the community wanted to ask him.

So, where are things going?  I won’t steal his thunder here, I will simply tell you that you should read his thread:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=905941

Some items that you way wan to note and look for updates to be released at Fanfest:

• Ambulation updates
• Changes to Local Chat in 0.0 and in general
• Tech 3
• New Ships
• Changes to Sovereignty

I am even more upset that I will not be able to attend Fanfest this year, it sounds like there will be a lot of really interesting stuff.  To those of you who will be going this year, keep me updated!!!

This whole thing has become a huge drama fest and to be honest, I have been hesitant in commenting on this, however, people are complaining in the fashion I have not seen since the NGE hit Star Wars Galaxies.

That being said, I am going to venture forth, with my asbestos suit on, and chime in here.

I feel that Ghost Training is an exploit and I support CCP in removing that exploit from the game.

I don’t feel that CCP handled it well at all.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me support both statements with some dazzling language and thought.

I feel that Ghost Training is an exploit and I support CCP in removing that exploit from the game.

There is a great article on MMORPG on this issue, http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?feature=2349%2FGhost-Training-Interview&game=14&bhcp=1.  In a nutshell, It was not a bug, it was a game feature that was being abused.

So, the question remains, should ghost training be allowed.  Well the quote from the article sums it up.

“I truly hope that people still realize that we’re just gamers like them, trying to make a game and making a living off of it. It was not out of pure money, greed or lust that we did this. It was a balancing act and a fairness act toward us as a company moreso than the gamers, but I honestly can’t think of any other company that allows you to skill up your character when you’re not even paying for it.”

It takes money from the game, according to the article, 4 percent of all subscribers were using it at the time of the announcement.  Four percent may not sound like much, but it’s money that’s not coming in to maintain the servers, pay the devs, etc…  CCP strives to continually balance the game and I must applaud them for their efforts.  It’s not fair that some people were taking advantage of the situation and advancing their characters for free.

I don’t feel that CCP handled it well at all.

Want proof?  Look at the EVE Forums.  It just exploded with commentary (I am being kind here) on this change.  To quote from the MMORPG.COM article::

“We announced it as a bug, which it was to a lot of us old devs, but as it turned out, our website listed it as a feature because we had outsourced the writing of our career guide to someone who was not knowledgeable about the code itself, years ago back in 2004… It was like a virus waiting to get out and nobody had really given it much thought until it was pointed out when the whole debate started.”

Now, you have to ask, how could you have missed that one?  Put simply, they didn’t think to check.   Always do your research, even on your own product.   The worst thing you can do to a gaming community is lie, even though CCP’s explanations are sound, the appearance of dishonesty is something that many gamers will rage upon to no end.  I am more willing to believe that they screwed up rather than lie, however, the whole situation makes CCP look like they did lie and that is just horrible.

Normally, they announce a proposed change, put it on the test server and let people test it for them.  The Speed Balancing went on the test server and after much commentary, it was pulled, revamped and redeployed.

You have to ask the question, why did CCP make the changes to Ghost Training without first announcing that the change was coming like they always do for patches?

Again, look at the public outcry about the change.  There are many people who feel, myself included, that CCP knew this was going to be a rough issue to address from a publicity standpoint.  If they had announced the change, let people generate feedback and then go make the change anyway, they would be accused of simply ignoring the player base.  That was the way Sony Online Entertainment ran things when I played Star Wars Galaxies.  So, do you look like you are ignoring your players or do you play it as if it was a bug that needed immediate patching and deal with that PR damage.  You do the latter, as CCP did in this case.

Now, how could this drama fest been avoided?

Quality control on a product, including it’s documention, is vital.  This should have been done when the documentation was finished by their sub-contractor years ago.  If they had done this, they could have corrected for this long ago.  If they had, there would have been no valid public outcry as it would not have been sold as a feature.  Not having this as a feature makes it easier to claim it was a bug.

I suspect that if this feature had not been listed in the documentation, they could have simply fixed the bug and when the public outcry came out about Ghost Training was not working anymore, a simple forums post announcing that a bug had been found and fixed could have been released.  It would have been an easier issue to difuse and thus there would not be so much “commentary” concerning the exploit.

I have just finished listening to the recording of the live dev blog as I was not able to attend due to work obligations. For those of you who do not know about this issue, let me give a quick explanation.

Speed tanking is fitting out your ship with overdrive and nano fiber modules as well as poly carbon rigs in such a way to attain speeds where you outrun missiles and the turret tracking speed of any ship.  As a result, you could fit out a HAC (Heavy Attack Cruiser) in such a way that no one could hit you, yet you could hit them and essentially be able to fly around in an almost “God Mode”.  Now, certain ships are meant to be fast, such as frigates and their tech 2 variations, inteceptors.

The argument is that certain ships should not be able to move very fast as there is no way to counter this using in game modules and tactics.  A battleship should not be able to move at close to 10 km/s and to be honest, I have to agree with that, it’s insane.  Now to be fair, speed and mass had been adjusted for battleships so that you can no longer make the infamous Nano-Domi or Nano-Phoon.

However, HAC’s are still viable as nano ships under the current game mechanics at this time.  You can still easily fit one out in such a way that you can maintain speeds to outrun missiles and drones.

Now most of the arguments for this speed balancing that CCP is proposing is that there is no way to counter a speed tanked ship.  You can kill a speed tanked ship if you are lucky enough to hit it with a Neut module and get a series of webs on it, but the chances of that happening are very low, hence the whine fest on the EVE forums about nano ships.

That bring us to present day.   Speed balancing changes were first deployed to the test server some months ago and removed shortly afterwards.  There has been a lot of discussion concerning the proposed changes in manner of ‘nerfing rage’ (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=890745). Honestly, I am welcome the proposed changes as nano ships are just not what was intended in the vision of this game.  EVE is not real life, but most of the game mechanics do follow a logical progression from real world technologies and ideas as if they evolved over time.

Real life has balances for everything and CCP has worked hard to create a game that mirrors that reality in it’s fantasy creation.

Below are some of the hightlights from the latest live dev blog question and answer discussion:

• There are new changes to what was originally proposed and those changes will be part of the next expansion.  When they deplpoy the speed changes, it will not be in a staggered manner as many of the changes affect many other items, so, it will be deployed in one fell swoop.
• Inteceptors will no longer be able to outrun missiles, however, they will take less damage as they will still be able to outrun a good part of the explosion from the missile.
• Ship speeds, agility, ship mass will all be changed at the same time.  Webs will be changed.  Stacking penalties for fitting more than one web is being considered.
• Medium drones are being considered for changes as the devs feel they are too efective against frigates.
• Missiles are being considered for a change to their damage formula.  They are looking to change the explision radius to take into account the signature radius.  The smaller your sig, the less damage you take.   A test version of this change is planned for the test server very soon.
• Agility will be having some changes, MWD will not decrease the agility as much as it currently does.
• Warp scamblers will scamble all warp drives AND micro warp drives.
• The fastest speed that you will be able to maintain will now be 8 km/s.  That being said, all ships will be slowed down across the board by adjust ment of base speeds and masses.  Battleships are being slowed down, cruisers are not really being hit, frigates will be faster.
• They are looking at making some changes to defender missiles, perhaps having them shoot down missiles that have been shot at a gang member.
• The speed implants will all now use the same slot, so you you can’t stack them for increased speed.  When the change hit, those implants will NOT be lost, they will simply be unplugged and placed in your ship’s cargo hold if you are in space or in your station hanger if you are docked when the changes are deployed.
• Black ops ships are looking to have some changes, such as fuel bays for jump drives to use rather than use the cargo hold.
• Will assault frigates get some love with these changes to speed?  Yes.  Frigates and assault frigates will be faster.  With webs being less effective, AF’s will be able to get in closer and more useful.

So, look for these changes to be applied to the test server in the near future.  I would recommend that everyone take the time to play with these changes before they hit Tranquility.

I always get into these ruts, where I just don’t add to my blogs and they become stagnate. For instance, I have not really updated anything substantial here except the theme as a change was much needed.

I have been very busy IRL and playing EVE. I’ve not spent a whole lot of time on the next episode of The Bleeding Rose. Thank you to everyone who has read what I have written so far and thank you for your words of encouragement as well as your constructive feedback. I am working on the next episode. The problem is that I have so much I want to tell, I keep end up writing about 3 to 4 different stories. I need to focus on one item. I also wanted to move more away from the typical gank story as all the previous episodes focused on a PvP battle. I’ll figure it out.

I have done a few things on my checklist from last time. I have finally gotten up to date on the major postings on the EVE forums. All the rabble on the upcoming nano changes led to a lot of “passionate posts”. Yeah, I’m just gonna leave this one alone. As many of you already know, I am not going to go into a rant on the upcoming changes, mainly because I am in the Pro-Balance camp so to speak.

I must admit, I do have a few ships that I have used in a nano-gang. The most fun I have had has not been with a nano-HIC or a nano-BS, but with a nano-Logistics ship. Yup, me and my corp mates would load up, me in my Onerios, others in Scimitars and we would remote rep each other while wreaking havoc. Now, I do believe this will still work, we just won’t be able to outrun the missiles anymore. That’s fine, with decent logistics skills, this will still make logistics gangs a reality and still much fun.

Will this kill the game?  No, it will not.  All ships will fall in line in respect to speed.  Will this make solo PvP die?  No it will not.  I engage in plenty of solo PvP without using a nano ship.  Hell, I still engage in belt piracy.  It’s a question of hunting a kill down and working for the kill.  Piracy is not easy, otherwise everyone would do it.

Changes to warp disrupting will make things interesting. Afterburners will be more popular as if you are warp scrammed, you will not be able to use your MWD. Well, think about the name of that class of moduel, Micro Warp Drive.  Makes sense if you think about it.  Does this boost gate camps?  Well, yes it does in a way, but remember, the gate campers will have to decide whether to fit a MWD now as well.

I am looking forward to these changes hitting, will make people realize that there is not a single “god mode” way to play the game.  It’s an MMORPG, a social game where you have to work together.  That’s the point.  It’s not a first person shooter, it’s not WoW.  It’s a smart person’s game, time that the game met the standard of intellect of it’s player’s.  This is a step in the right direction.

As many people said on the forums, “Adapt or Die”.