14/06/10 11:39 PM
| Jaspet | 47.03 |
| Omber | 47.14 |
| Hemorphite | 55.62 |
| Pyroxeres | 57.70 |
| Hedbergite | 66.18 |
| Veldspar | 66.67 |
| Kernite | 70.01 |
| Plagioclase | 72.02 |
| Scordite | 75.25 |
| Spodumain | 80.33 |
| Dark Ochre | 98.81 |
| Gneiss | 100.86 |
| Crokite | 185.46 |
| Bistot | 232.34 |
| Arkonor | 288.02 |
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Crimsoneer, over at Pods And Pills has let fly with a recent article following up on some forum posting about the efficacy of the learning skills in EVE. I had started initially to comment on it, but decided that given the sheer length of the comment and the thoughts I had, it was worth of a post in and of itself in response.
tl; dr; The game is full of choices. Everyone thinks their choices are right. Everyone else is wrong.
To begin with, full disclosure – I have all of my learning skills maxed. It was and is something I chose to do, fully cognizant of the the time, effort and results of such a decision. I have another character that doesn’t have the learning skills to find his way out of a wet paper destroyer. Both of them are more fun than a Minmatar in a leotard in a traveling Gallente circus. Ok, on with the show…
There is a lot of posting and controversy and heated words flying around about the status of carebears, game changes, felt/perceived needs and I really have to sit back and chuckle. The same people who routinely say, “It’s just a game, lighten up.” also seem to want everyone to “HFTU” at the same time. This is not directed at Crimsoneers article, but applies in the sense that we all have preferences about how we want thing to be.
In response to Crimsoneer, it seems a bit of fallacious to say on one hand,
No matter which tough choices you make, who pops you, who you get scammed by, where you get your PLEX from, every choice is designed to promote you having fun.
and then turn around and say:
Forcing you to make the choice between training your learning skills now, and thus boring yourself to death now, or training your skills later and getting bored then, isn’t a choice between option A and option B: it’s a choice between sucking now or sucking later.
It seems then you want there to be hard choices in EVE, but you don’t want there to be hard choices. I realize you said hard choices and ’suck(y)’ choices, but ultimately isn’t that a matter of perspective? To play the advocate for a moment, how exactly does choosing someone to pop me or scam me promote me having fun? Isn’t boredom a relative concept as well? To me it seems like the learning skills fall squarely into that hard choice category. Thus you end up asking yourself the difficult question, “Am I willing to do this? Is it worth it for that extra skill point I earn?” If the answer is no, move along, nothing to see here. However, some people might actually think it’s fun to train the learning skills. Sure, they’d take them free if you were giving them away, but the same could be said about Heavy Assault Cruiser level V.
There is nothing to force you into training those skills. No guns against your head. If you wanted to just ignore them, you are certainly able to. Heck, it will even save you money so that you can buy another cruiser or four.
I can understand that it might seem/feel/be boring to train something that doesn’t seem to/feel like/be able to give you another ship or module or combat edge in space. I am worried where reasoning that such-and-such skill is boring will lead to. What about Science skills, will they be next? Many of them only let you earn datacores more quickly from agents and are a legacy to a former time. Is it really worth it to have them in the game? What about social skills? They only increase the rate at which you increase your standings or loyalty points with a corporation. Surely they should be eliminated too.
How about we replace it with two skills that are mutually exclusive [if you train one the others are blocked]:
Then we still have a really hard choice and you don’t have to mess with anything that doesn’t make the game fun for you.
A different point of view, a different type of experience, so you will have to excuse some of my disagreement with the idea that pilots’ ships are not worth the emotional investment.
I find there is a bit of a logical fallacy in equating a ship to a screwdriver. While they both serve a function and they both are tools, I doubt you would feel as cavalier about your neighbor coming over and taking his precious screwdriver to your car’s paint job. There is also the relative cost involved in losing a ship. I’m rather cavalier about Tech 1 frigate losses by the dozens in large part because I can manufacture or buy them by the hundreds or even thousands. On the flip side, losing a command ship is quite a bit more painful.
In many ways the emotion that a player develops toward her ship is connected to the very fact that they might have built it from scratch. They put a lot of time, effort and energy in to make it. It’s closely akin to the way classic car collectors/builders feel about their machines. It has become more that just metal. It has become a representation of the energy put into the creation of the ship. It is the same devotion that many pilots have to shooting other ships. Couple this creative energy put into the ship with any subsequent scenarios of survival and there is further emotional connection as the pilot has succeeded in yet another endeavor in said ship.
I don’t expect you to understand or even agree, but do know this, that the rage a pilot feels after losing a good ship, that has carried her well, or been through many times together will alway, ALWAYS have some emotional attachment to it. I understand your point of view that many pilots are too connected to their ships, and for the most part would agree. But I also understand that EVE has as many aspects to its play style as it has systems, and we are all likely to approach it from different places.
And so it happens. There is the past that is always with us. There is the present that is always running away from us. And finally there is the future that never quite manages to get here. There will always be another ship to build, another system to swim, another skill to train, et cetra. From my past I have trained to be a good scientist. For the present I am working on a few small projects, but the future draws my eyes to the misty veil of time. What then shall I do and where shall I go? Do I need this or that skill to get it done and how best to proceed in that direction? The future is always full of questions.
One of the things that has changed radically within the universe that we all swim through is the way new capsuleers join us. As technology has improved and the cloning and pod-pilot technology matured, we arrive at our current place where not only can you improve yourself towards any desirable end, you can also improve and train in what would seem like no direction at all. Now a pilot can not only improve her ability to learn skills that improve her ability to pilot ships that improves her ability to learn/earn/kill/thrill, but that same pilot can utilize the new technology available to rearrange the very fabric of the brain to enhance certain basic attributes or reduce others.
The veil around my own future has grown quite thick, and I am left without real pictures of what it will look like. There have been some things that I have always wanted to do, but given the lack of direction, I let them wander. I also know that sitting here in this present and expecting to get a clearer view of the future will never cause the past to go away or said future to become clearer. I have decided then, to walk off into that veil of mist. I have been to the new technology, and drank deeply of its mind altering draught. I am now as balanced in ability as any and only break down and cry a little about my slightly slower skill training in science on days that end in “Y”.
Greetings from the past. I have arrived here to continue what was begun with a previous post on perspective. I wanted you have some background as I looked back at some of the things that have been going on lately, as well as what will happen in the future.
To some extent, we are all fellow time travelers. We do not exist here and now, independent of our previous self or actions. No matter how much we would like to be unassociated with what we might have done, or reconnected to a prior success, we are temporal creatures, bound by our own definitions and limitations of time. Now that was an incredibly long way to say, we can’t change the past and must proceed to the future while living in the now.
I have made some questionable decisions in my past. I live with the ramifications and know that my ships will someday all swim with a captain that has made those same mistakes in her past. But the ships all keep swimming. They have no mistakes made, no past memories, no baggage brought forward. Her Abbadon swims in the same space that her Burst does. Thankfully your Typhoon doesn’t regret not getting the mission time bonus any more than my Drake does.
I studied long and hard to learn how to invent things and do it well. I managed to pick up a few ships along the way, but not nearly like others have done alongside me. Most of my corp-mates can fly battleships [and a few of them even know how to fit them], while I am very happy in a battlecruiser sized hull. I don’t have much ability to deal damage, but most every ship I fly can soak a lot of it up. I have a lot of my training invested heavily in science and I have loved every minute of it.
From an early age, listening to my parents wax eloquent about the physics behind their Micro Warp Drives and the best way to insure success when inventing various tech 2 ships, I was hooked on science. I received my first home-datacore set when the rest of my playmates were still tinkering with frigate models. I was far from the only Achuran to be born to in Inventor enclave, nor the only one to like science and pursue that as a career. But on the other hand – I also had a great passion for the way the universe was knit together and was determined to understand it all!
I quickly graduated with advanced degrees in a broad range of science fields related to capsuleer endeavors and knew that to continue to learn and explore I would need to get out of Saisio and be able to visit the stars. I managed to barely scrape through training and prepare for the transition into the life of a “pod-pilot.” Don’t let anyone lie to you, the necessary pseudo-suicide, transneural burning scan to jump into the waiting pod-clone was painful [and it still is]. However, now I was free to swim through the stars in a super-massive space fish.
My parents, through good investments with and years of working for the megacorporation, Lai Dai, had managed to accrue a significant sum of interstellar credits and fitted me with a modest Bantam frigate and some direction to pursue. I headed for the stars and began working toward my dream as a free-lance inventor. I left the construction details to various station-side facilities, sales were done by other representative and I left the ship in the care of the knuckle-draggers. I knew how to fit a mean scanning ship or mine with the best of them, but even the thought of combat was something that was endured as a means to an end. To that end, I was spending every last ISK that I could generate on buying the skills to train and learn.
In a recent press release, CCP has announced that they fully intend to add the ability to actually get IN spaceships and fly them around the New Eden galaxy. No longer will players be limited to walking around in stations or duking it out over planetary resources, but will have the opportunity to see uncharted realms of nebulae and stars, wormholes and anomalies. Finally, a space based MMO where you can assume the role of a slick combat pilot or a disenfranchised trader. You could be a great merchant tycoon, spreading your wares and influence over hundreds of systems or a puny, low-sec pirate, camping a lonely gate in Aunenen. . . .
Personally, I’m very excited to be able to fly spaceships. As I look back to why I started playing EVE in the first place, it was so that I could fly a spaceship. Science & Maths, PvP & PvE, Research & Industry were all just icing on the cake as I get to fly a spaceship. So maybe in my excitement and desire to fly a spaceship, I missed the memo that said I would like flying spaceships more if I could only get out of my spaceship and walk around in a station or shoot other people on a planet. Shoe-horning the sovereignty mechanic on top of this seems like a poor and somewhat tenuous connection to flying spaceships.
If I really wanted a walking avatar, I would have probably not chosen EVE and a game designed around flying spaceships. Maybe it’s just sour grapes and disenchantment over the lack of any real science and industry features being delivered in the Quantum Rise patch [hardly an expansion] or perhaps it is just “old-timers” disease whereby I cannot embrace the inevitable changes that happen to things you love [they grow old and die]? I just cannot ken the path CCP is charting and what I can see does not really impress nor intrigue me.
In reality, if I was really desirous of shooting people from a first person perspective, I would have stopped flying a spaceship some time ago and bought and played a first person shooter. Maybe even something like Dust 514 where I hear they are going to add “Flying In Space” [FiS] Soon™.
This is one of those posts that doesn’t write itself. It doesn’t leap from your hands to the page [or fingers to the keys] with synaptic firing of ideas and thoughts that must be recorded quickly. It is quite frankly, the hardest post I think I have ever had to sit down and commit. It would be far easier to just walk away from it and try to ignore it, the pain and passion stuffed under the covers. Hot chocolate, ice cream and bon bons can only go so far before it must be dealt with. And dealt with is must be, or else there is no future and nothing more to move on to.
Lou Ferrigno died.
It was quick and painful. The Manticore uncloaked off the after impeller drives and locked and pointed my valiant Hulk. Almost immediately his friends were dropping out of warp, locking and firing. It was over before I could really do more than announce it on our com channels. Our hauler had just warped way, one other Hulk pilot lost his life as well as his boat and a third got back home easily.
A quick jump into a combat ship [any combat ship] and return warp, but they had already salvaged the wreck and cloaked or moved on. We chased the ghosts of combat past around the yard for an hour or so, never quite connecting or confronting our losses. It was probably for the best, as the taste of blood was fresh in my mouth [I bit my lip] and I was likely to have made even more mistakes and lost more ships. I am not, have never been, and likely won’t be a combat pilot of much renown.
And so it ends, the faithful friend of over a year, passing into the night of stars. There were many happy moments we shared together and I am choosing to remember them as well as the loss. I have already purchased and refit another ship in Lou’s absence. It’s not a replacement, but in time I will grow to love it just as much as I love my other children. I’ve been out and active in both the wormhole [WH] system we’ve set up in as well as flying around high security space. I’m coping and manage to contain my crying to the cargo hold of Luxury Yacht.
.On a related note, I’m learning Russian… Там будет кровь.
We successfully dismantled the POS from our little corner of wormhole space and got everything moved out and back into high security space. There was one little hiccup as a bunch of fuel was exported to an island [group of high-sec space surrounded by low-sec/0.0 space] that required a bit of scouting to extricate.
We’ve learned a lot about the whole procedure and how to approach wormholes which makes the operation an overall success. The main drawback was the initial investment was probably overkill for the returns, but in terms of knowledge was likely priceless.
Personally, I have a very low wallet and need to seriously rectify that. As we are also looking at moving into more permanent tech three (T3) production, the capital investment costs are still accumulating [labs, reactors, component bpos, reactions, skills] and will need to be factored into the final evaluation. We saved all of the salvage from our time in the ‘hole as a precursor to production, but are considering putting it up for sale as a support for future wormhole expansion.
I found myself mining some ice to fuel our wormhole tower. As it was an off-peak time, there wasn’t anyone else from the corporation, so I was flying back and forth. The Hulk can hold three cycles with the cargo optimization rigs, so every 13 minutes or so I would make the round trip.
As I was getting several dock/un-dock cycles, I was able to catch one of the persistent display issues I’ve been having with my camera drones. A couple of them seem to have gone rogue and I get some very odd views. The net result was the following picture:
The effect is more interesting that upsetting. Any adjustments to the cameras’ vector, and they immediately self correct.
While those in the western hemisphere are busy getting some rest and the little island of former Vikings is busy patching the universe, I am finally taking the time to get caught up on some of the little things that needed doing around the universe. Not the least is a bit of formatting help for the industrial spreads that I use for mining, manufacturing and invention. I have been a little bit like the hermit crab sticking an anemone on my shell. Picking of bits and pieces of useful information from here and there has resulted in a very useful, but somewhat unorganized spreadsheet.
I was also thinking this would be a good time to get some extra rest and take a long nap. This plan worked well until my boss decided that sleeping on my desk was not really the professional approach to time management. So it’s ok if we play FPS or EVE and such at the office, just not sleep.
Other agenda ideas for the downtime included going to the dentist, getting the car washed and waxed, semi-annual visit to the gym, window shopping for a new computer and finally sending Mum an email. I’m still hung up on the nap idea personally.
So what do you all do during the long patches. I especially like browsing the forums after they come back up and reading all the “OMG I forgot to set a long skill”, “Why is the game not up?” and “Can’t they hurry up! I need to log back in so I can idle in the station and whine about CCP never improving things!” posts that invariably occur with an extended downtime. It never ceases to amaze me how many times GMT confuses people. If they’re going to already confuse people, let’s make it complete and use @internet time or some such to thoroughly bamboozle them.
Ok, off to work on catching up with myself.
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