Inglix the Mad: Points of View from the Center of the Edge

Account Security on the Dev Blog

2010-03-09T23:23:00.000-06:00

Yeah, there's not much more of a boring blog topic than account security. This is still an incredibly important topic however. The latest Dev Blog offers the following "standard" suggestions:

Do not use the same usernames and passwords for different games

Commonly happens, but not a good idea, especially in the passwords arena.

Change your passwords regularly

Generally a good idea. Just make sure you have a way to keep track of them. I use an App that auto-destructs the data if the wrong password for it is entered one too many times.

Use strong passwords

don't just use "password" or "coolermaster" as a password. The best passwords are like "p9G$wk45#" it's random. The problem is that it's hard to remember.

Do not share your login details with anyone

This is a "no kidding"

Don't accept files from sources you don't know

Not a bad idea, but considering most of this stuff comes in via a friend or family member's computer being compromised. So it probably came from a trusted source. Granted, many people do click on the random phish.

Regularly scan your systems for security threats with up-to-date anti-virus software

This is a given, and easier than ever with free AV software. However, given the number of variants of Trojan.Vundo alone ("You are infected" "Scan now" "Fix Errors") and the number of years it's been around, you'll find out pretty quick that even having updated AV (and AS) can still leave you vulnerable. One of my underlings spends a lot of time re-imaging computers infected with variants of that bugger. Oh yeah, we have AV software on all computers, plus filtering, firewalls, et al.

Unfortunately none of this would have helped me, or my wife. In the wife's case, it used a flaw in Windows to get a logger on her computer. I've never found a bug on any computer I use to play Eve, months later. I've not had a recurrence either.

I still say Eve should use something dismissed by the CSM in the latest meeting:

One option is to sell random number generators but the CSM expressed doubt that a significant number of players would utilize that option.

First off to the CSM: Get a freakin' clue. Blizzard had those little "authenticators" (read: a Vasco random number generator) sold out for months. Go look the price history up on eBay. They were being sold for over 10 times their value because Blizzard underestimated, or there wasn't enough production capacity available, the demand for them. Everyone I know has one, because all it takes is one friend to have a compromised account and the hassles generated by that, for you to want to protect your own account.

Second off, they're optional and extremely useful.

Finally, it's almost impossible to crack such a system without the physical "key" in your hand.

If you're serious about account security, you'll consider one. I even have one for my rarely used PayPal account. I have one for WoW / Battle.net protection. I have a "Smartcard" for protecting my work. I even have a card to let me in the door at work.

Security is something that is done in layers. Usernames and Passwords are fine at first. In the MMO world, however, as your game becomes popular you need to offer more tools to protect your players from unscrupulous people. They are almost always people selling (in this case) illegally obtained ISK. Eve has been getting more and more press. Eve has been attracting more and more players. This makes the universe a bigger and bigger target.

So I would ask CCP to take a chance, the same chance Blizzard took. Offer two-factor authentication to your players. Heck, I'll get one as fast as I can if it's offered.

Evespace and Updates

2010-03-08T01:06:00.000-06:00

Well I'll hop on the train late here and here's my secondary Evespace. Mostly this is used watching my daughter so I can play with her and still use a logitech wireless keyboard / mouse. To my corpies, this is why I sometimes cannot get on vent.

Yeah, it's a 55" Sammy being fed by an Asus notebook. I only use this when my daughter isn't feeling well and I don't want to be too far from her nor have her in the computer room.

Evespace Primary

Dual Sammy 22" monitors, G13, Ideazon Merc Stealth, Logitech MX518, i7-920, MSI X58 Pro-E, 6GB Mushkin, GTX 275. I'm thinking of upgrading to a new GTX470/480 but will wait for the performance numbers. Yes I work on a lot of stuff at home. What you don't see is the server rack (in the next room, as well as 3 cisco routers, a few switches, Windows Home Server, secondary PC (being rebuilt for my brother now that I don't need it), and a networked color laser. Toss in the wife's PC (3D Vision w/ Viewsonic 120hz and Sammy 22" like mine) and her work supplied laptop.

The centerpiece being Stewie: "Mark my words, when you least expect it, your uppance will come."

Finally got done moving to null. New toys include a couple of Stealth Bombers for the main and a slow progression to battleships for him. Basically getting all the Int/Mem skills out of the way before remapping to Per/Wil

The alt is still just that. I use him to haul stuff (getting ready for itty 5) and killing minor stuff while the main mines. He can also be extra firepower on a mission, but I only PvP with one account at a time.

Oh well, off to bed.

Supreme Commander 2

2010-03-04T22:55:00.000-06:00

Okay, so color me surprised, but I loved Supreme Commander (and Forged Alliance). Why then, did Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games have to dumb down the economy in version 2 of the game so much? I understand modifying the game a bit, that's the way it goes. Supreme Commander, however, was about controlling strategic points in the game. You couldn't have a prayer of winning if you just took over 4 mass points. No way, no how. The other person would always obliterate you. The game was about strategic map control. After 6 games...

Now, not so much. After I lost my first match. No biggie, except for how I lost. The guy had 4 mass extractors and 4 power generators. My shielded, buffed (research) land units were obliterated by 4 defensive towers. Don't get me wrong, you could turtle in the old game, but it wasn't very effective. You couldn't maintain the economy of replacing units lost vs being made. You couldn't maintain your shields without power, you had to watch what you were building or your economy would crash, especially as a turtle. I had a friend who had the world's nastiest turtle in the original game, he even came in second in a number of tourneys. I'm used to killing a turtle.

The trick is, I'm used to a turtle having a severely limited economy. I'm used to the turtle having to fight harder to maintain unit parity.

One thing I will smack up GPG over is the new "research tree" stuff. I can understand wanting to get rid of the throwaway nature of units, but it's far too easy now for someone that's doing almost nothing map wise to power up their units. There is no associated rise in cost here. Bing! the units have more health, shields (don't get me started on regeneration...), with zero cost, all at once. In the old game, upgrading your units meant spending mass and energy.

I tested this theory. I played against a friend whom has won tournaments and went turtle twice. Once was a commander rush (standard tactic in tourneys, where matches are usually decided in less than 4 minutes really) and the second was a more traditional steady attack. I was able to not only hold off both attacks, and indeed even win, while holding only the initial territory from landing. The final test, well, he won, but I did nothing. I didn't even build artillery. I still managed to build experimental units and put up one heck of a fight.

Now, if you didn't play the original game, it was frentic. Many matches were decided, as I said, within 4 minutes (in 1v1) from start. The game was difficult, especially in multiplayer, when you first started. Why? The tech levels, you didn't just get them magically, you had to take time and mass and energy to get them.

Now some people might say "but you have to build research structures!" Meh. There's not much to that. I got tons of crap built while building multiple research structures. The trick is, there's only a tiny (a fraction of the original) cost to it.

Don't get me wrong. Supreme Commander 2 isn't a terrible game. My problem is that they've dumbed it down a lot. How much? Well, to the point where playing the isolated turtle is almost better (in fact probably is better) than being the expansionist attacker on many maps.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go turtle a bit for some easy wins. 3 out of 5 this time Chris.

The Swarm

2010-02-08T20:40:00.001-06:00

Yeah, I've decided to weight in on this. Couple of caveats here:

1) Goonswarm meant squat to me. I wasn't near them on the map and never ran into little bee overtly.

2) The whole BoB meta-gaming thing, meh, whatever.

3) One Goonie renter, Igneus Auctiora (or somesuch) wanted to recruit me at one point and wanted 500m ISK up front to whit I told'em I didn't have it. That was mostly true, but the 100% truth would have been I didn't have 500m ISK to lose wantonly. Personally I think it's bullsh*t to even ask for that kind of fee just to run a security check, even if you offer to give it back upon completion.

The Failswarm (as they have been called) lost Sov do to not paying bills. This was caused by, in no small part, the structure of their Corporation / Alliance. They structured it this way because of their own paranoia after they meta-gamed BoB (now folded into IT) out of ISK, Sovereignty, and an Alliance. This is, quite literally, the flip side of the coin. NOBODY really had access to the money to pay bills from the Alliance treasury itself. Wait, it get's worse. Nobody had the reserves, brains, or gumption to take care of it themselves.

Just like bees, Goonswarm was lost without the leader of the hive whom happened to be on a PLANNED vacation. This shows another flaw in their organization, no real secondary structure. Nobody stepped up. Nobody screamed across the alliance channels "HOLY F*CKING CHR*ST! WE NEED MONEY NOW OR THE ALLIANCE WILL BE F*CKED!!!" and had those below (or above) in the structure listen.

This is a failure on so many levels. Even the officers (individual non-officer characters can probably be forgiven of not knowing the bills issue right away) seemed to be blindsided by this. Talk about a lack of communication.

One person, well a couple groups, weren't sleeping on the job. IT, Sys-K, and AAA all went to town when sov dropped on the swarm. This shows another thing: spend months talking smack and you'll make more than a few enemies. This smarmy forum ninjitsu they've engaged in before this incident leads me to believe that they didn't get sh*t out of NOL. Simply by saying they did, they're hoping to get the others to let their guard down.

Nor will I place all the blame for this on karttoon. Much as the swarm would like to believe, it's not all his fault. Whom setup the structure? I'm wagering Darius J. did from his talk of karttoon getting the keys to a smoothly running setup. Pardon me Darius, should you not have set it up that way. For whomever did, you are 50 types of fail. Heck, go over to the Fail Blog and see how many people fail just like you.

Will the swarm be back? Yeah, probably. Will they be as potent as before? Well they'll have to adapt to new tactics. We'll see in about a year. I wouldn't doubt, if their leader has a bit of sense, that they'll avoid being near IT, Sys-K, and AAA at first if they make another push into null.

"Cloaky" Things

2010-01-20T19:08:00.000-06:00

Phantam apparently misunderstood what I meant by my "Industrialist with Teeth" request for a "Mimic" or "Chameleon" module.

you say you want this cloaky thing? why its a team game, if you get suicide gank'd you get kill rights, go get a combat ship and pop the fu*ker that popped you!

Precisely, it's a team game. I'm the guy on the team that fly's a Stealth Bomber so that's cloaky. What I was asking for, however, was a set of modules that would let the wolves hide with the sheep. Look, I'm a sneaky bastich by nature. I usually consider violence to be an uneconomical way to achieve an end, i.e. usually there's a better way. To quote Salvor Hardin; "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

However, I am not against protecting oneself. The trick is, for suicide ganking, there really isn't any protection, other than being in a ship that can tank the alpha. I've got some pretty good tanking skills, put me in a tanked Drake or Myrmidon and watch me soak the damage. Now how to trick the enemy? They aren't going to attack me if they see me in the Drake, and get Concordokken, because they want the defenseless mining barge they can easily blow up.

I want their tears. This let's me get them, and let's me let them do all the hard work, all I have to do is laugh and salvage.

Still, it goes further than that. Group mining ops, guy decides to steal from a JC because he doesn't see anything threatening he can't handle. I mean, it's only 9 barges, 5 exhumers, and an Orca, nothing to fear! What if he had to worry that some of those sheep might be wolves? There's no more of the dead giveaway (12 guys on the op visible, but 15 in system and there's no station) of the wolves hiding.

Of course another Hardin quote is in order here: "An atomic blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways." There's nothing to prevent the pirates from using this. Well other than the fact that if they're low enough sec status they'll still be blinky. Granted they'll have to fit it to a black ops / covert ship of some sort to lose the lock on penalty, and those ships cost more.

That's the module Phantam. It's not a cloak, it's a Chameleon. You look like you're flying a MB / Exhumer (and it even fake fires the appropriate laser based on target type, with no gathering of course), but it really just allows the wolf to hide amongst the sheep, ready to pounce.

Hulkageddon Sideline

2010-01-07T01:58:00.001-06:00

I don't have great salvage skills, sad but true. Still, while a bud tries his alt account idea, I've whiled away some time salvaging the ganker's ships and looting afk'ers. I can't salvage T2 yet :(

My friend? He'll probably become infamous to the SG's if his plan works. He set up a dozen trial accounts and got them some propulsion jamming, cheap T1 frigs, and is working on distances to pod them. He figures he'll earn a few ganker tears if they're dumb enough to fly with implants. I guess owning some domains and being able to generate however many email accounts for 14 day trials as you want has it's advantages. Oh, and he can salvage T2.

Me? I've already gotten some tasty tears by looting and salvaging before the ganker alt arrived. :)

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Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T12:09:00.001-06:00

Or Happy Hannakuh, belated Saturnilia, whatever you choose. May your holiday(s) be safe and joyful. In the real world and in Eve, good cheer to you!

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Auto-Profit for all? Not really.

2009-12-23T14:28:00.001-06:00

Someone to umbrage to my autoprofit, and flat out admitted that Suicide Ganking is, itself, autoprofit.

Cyberin said...
Why shouldn't it be autoprofit? Lvl 4s are autoprofit. Mining is autoprofit. Trading is autoprofit usually...so why can't ganking be autoprofit?...that arguement makes absolutely no sense?....

Trade, also is subject to suicide ganking / corp wars. Since I'm not a trader I won't speculate about that however. (no experience)

This is where we diverge. I'll leave the Level 4 missions (not up there yet, still a newb missioner) but on Level 1 missions it's not. Whether it's someone "stealing" your loot (or salvage) or you just get overwhelmed, yeah, you can lose money. Repairs can exceed the value of what you haul pretty quick. A good example is my newbie Caldari in a Merlin. I spent the value of two missions on repairs to finish the second of those missions.

Mining autoprofit? Since when? You are always taking a chance, from a newb that might get killed by rats (or can-flippers, but that hopefully happens early on enough for them to learn flagging in a newb ship), to the mid-level miner in a corp running a retriever getting killed in a corp war (or suicide gankers, but that's less common), to the T2 players getting killed in corp wars or by suicide ganks. There's always someone looking to blow up your ugly duckling. Then there is the profit / loss ratio. I'm in a fairly new corp, we're building up players to move into low / null sec. Some players are fully set to go, I'm about the middle (where the majority are), but we have a good many that have months of training (if they're miners especially) to go yet. Trust me it sucks to be mining Veld again, because until you get to ABC (currently, was WH stuff previously), you're not making crap for ISK.

Contrast that with the fact you can build an Destroyer suicide gank group in less than a month (conversely it takes more than a month to learn to fly a retriever if you're starting as a newb) and if you hang around .6 / .7 systems with a salvage alt or corpie you can Alpha T2 Hulks / Mackinaws in an insured Catalyst group for guaranteed profit. Heck you can wait a few weeks, delete that character and move onto the next or just open a new trial account if you are paranoid about security status. Now, admittedly, the trial account thing would be limited to those without good active shield tank skills yet. Still the fact that you could have one account and rotate the characters (to get around CCP's dislike of deleting characters with negative security status to avoid the "consequences") and make mad ISK risk free!

That's why I'll go with the Industrialist with Teeth request. A series of modules, similar to a cloak, that can mask the signature of the ship with it to appear as a ship of it's choice (or modules for different ship signatures / appearances: Retriever, Hulk, Mackinaw, Skiff, Covetor, et al)and limited to Battleship in size. Why it even fake fires the appropriate "mining laser" (gathering nothing of course) to draw in the prey. I'd call it the Chameleon module personally, same skill requirements as cloaking but a new skill in Electronics: Mimic Signature.

Another Hulkageddon

2009-12-22T12:07:00.001-06:00

First off, I'm not opposed to the idea of Hulkageddon in terms of safety. There is no safety in Eve (in theory) for players. Suicide Ganking holds no lure to me, but whatever. No I oppose Hulkageddon on the principle that it's an unrealistic, no-lose scenario. You literally can't lose money (or skills) unless you are a blithering idiot.

Where's the balance of risk CCP? There isn't any to be had here. Don't bother saying "security status" because if you cared about that you wouldn't be suicide ganking in the first place.

Money? Nope. With a cheap T1 hull and insurance you won't lose much, if anything at all. Now that's not even including the T2 salvage, which is not insubstantial itself, or the cargo! Conversely the miner has lost a T2 ship that is, in effect, uninsurable on it's own plus the modules. Way to go CCP! No lose scenario!

Skills? Not on your life, unless the ganker is an idiot.

So, how to fix it? You have to make it a risk on payout potential or the economics of the game get skewed. Make the wreck only salvageable by the victim for one hour (whom could also choose to blow up the wreck by hopping in a T1 frigate and shooting it) and remove that revenue stream. Next, let's make the wannabe pirates stand on their own two feet. No free money transfers from an industry (or ratting) alt without the alt taking multiple standings hits. The really funny part is this might dry up the bounty game, as it would affect everyone.

Finally let's have ORE release a defensive ship that can "mimic" the Hulk, Mack, et al. but is really just a bait ship, not a miner. You could also create a "Mimic" module and add a skill for it, similar to cloaking, so that you could mimic any ship you want on the hunt. The module could even let you "fire" mining lasers of the appropriate type while not gathering anything to fool others. I'd find it pretty funny if the people suicide ganking always had to wonder if their target was a real miner...

More ideas later but I like the mimic module for fun. Still, CCP needs to look at the risk/reward ratio for this issue. Suicide ganking a T2 should not = auto profit.

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RMT and it's consequences

2009-12-06T10:47:00.001-06:00

I've got a tale of woe. Yes it's about Eve, and a little extra.

First off, I've been unable to do much other than log in and keep training. Unfotunately my business partner had a heart attack, a rather major one at that, some months back. This left me running the whole show rather than my own half.

Fast forward to Nov. 27th: I see the wrong skill training. Huh? I log in and change it back, no biggie, I was tired the last time I updated the queue. I update my Capsuleer an hour later, and behold, I am broke and no longer in my Player Corp. What the heck is going on? Truth is I already knew, or at least had a good guess.

My account had been hijacked, most likely by an a$$ of an ISK seller. This jerk was too lazy to even macro his own ISK. I've seen this happen before, to my wife in WoW. Rather than farm gold, a jerk took her account and sharded / sold everything for gold, trashing her main. This is what happens when people buy much "money" for games, it hits the honest people. Whether it's inflation of the market or the hijacking of another's account, it harms the honest. This is why I consider RMT the bane of MMO's.

The question comes to, how do you stop it? CCP does a pretty good job hunting down and penalizing buyers while banning sellers. Their PLEX program also helps by giving a legal, market based method of gathering ISK quickly. Truth be told though, it's not enough to protect the honest. What's left?

Two-Factor Authentication. WoW offers it, and I believe the time has come for CCP to offer it as well. This is actually pretty simple, but nearly impossible to break. The player buys a low priced FOB, which generates a number. This, in conjunction with a password represents a highly secure system. Steal a password? So what? Without the physical device, you can't log in!

I'll post more on this later.

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Suicide Ganking

2009-10-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

Now it has been a bit since I've done an Eve related post here due to real-life intruding. That being said, today's topic will be suicide ganking.

I'm not into the suicide ganking scene in Eve. To me it just smacks of rich, holier than thou idiots killing people for a double profit, and therein lies the problem. There's no true downside to criminal activity in Eve, unlike the written chronicles. Most of the SG's try to justify it by claiming to, mainly, target macro miners. What a load of bollocks.

These little actions will not affect macroers in any significant fashion because ( in most cases ) it's their job. They don't care if they lose 5, 10, 25, or even 50 or more ships. You can't kill them all the time and they'll make the Isk in the long haul. What you do get is a bunch of people pissed that their shiny was killed in "secure" space AND the people that just commited the act lost nothing in most cases. Due to a combination of insurance and loot / salvaging, suicide ganking is very lucrative.

This flies in the face of all common sense. Therefore I propose the following changes to the aggro / loot / insurance / flagging systems. A rough sketch of this is below.

1) Insurance no longer covers criminal acts. This isn't much, but at least it means no more "free" T1 hulls for SG's

2) Insurance is scaled by security of the system. 1.0 = 100%, .6 = 60%, 0.0 = 0%. Now I know that a LOT of people will cry about this, but in the words of a pirate blogger, harden the f*ck up. This will get people used to, slowly, recognizing that their ships might get blown up at any moment. This will teach them that if they can't afford to lose it, don't buy it. One thing, this will have a drastic affect on the market for tier 2 gear.

3) Once your sec status is low enough, you'd better hope your clone is in a low-sec system. As your security rating goes down, legal jumpgates don't give you a warning, sentry guns just open fire on you as soon as you "decloak" after a jump. Now to be fair, a pirate jump-gate network will need to be put in place to even things out a bit, but using them will require rep with the appropriate faction and there will be "fees" for use. The advantage is no flagging or sentry guns plus the good guys can't follow you directly (no rep). The bad? The gates aren't always operational (limited resources), they can be knocked "out of order" by jamming gear (limited duration) and that fee takes an extra bit of time to transact. Not only that but if Concorde "finds" the gate, say because of a stupid pirate, it's closed for the day. Hey, you wanted to be a big, rough and tumble criminal, right?

4) Criminals (sec status -1 and lower) are always open targets for players and Concord. The lower the rating, the more vehemently Concorde hunts you in high-sec space. You also are flashy to every positive (.5+) sec status player in the game. Cloning a crook is illegal, you don't see the Guristas launching from pos sec stations, so you'll have to have a low-sec clone point.

5) Aggro changes will make can-flipping more dangerous, but still doable. Joe takes ore from Jim. Jim can take his ore back free of a flag, and keep mining away. After all Jim merely took his own property back. Jim can also shoot Joe, but then he is agression flagged to Joe, and Joe can shoot back. However let's say Joe decides to be crafty and brings Jane along in a hauler, well Jane earns a criminal flag to Jim too, if she takes the ore from the Joe's can. Not only that, but she can have a bounty added to her too. That necessitates another change.

6) Heaven only knows why devs think an Old West justice model works, because it never has. Placing ANY bounty on another player is just free money to that player and his friend in most cases. Player bounties should be removed from players collecting them. A new bounty service, NPC, will take it's place. The more money on a player's head, the more hunters will come a calling. Not only that but, the higher the bounty, the tougher the hunters. Still, unlike Concorde, they can be defeated and looted. Oh, to prevent abuse the player must have a criminal aggresion flag against you to place a bounty on them, Not just an aggression flag, but a criminal aggression flag. Limited to .5+ sec space.

7) Loot / salvage rights below to the killer / victim (for player wrecks) for 15 min. Any attempt to loot or salvage another player wreck gives you an aggression flag. Not a criminal flag however...

8) You're in a fleet with a player committing a criminal act, you get a warning to leave their fleet or become flagged yourself. That means if you're mate decides to get Concorded, you will be to if you hang in his fleet.

You'll note that I use aggression flag and criminal aggression flag. That's because they are two different things. I'll also note this is a rough draft being written on an iPhone. I'll add another post in a couple of days clarifying things better, but I'm done for tonight.

Fly reckless, as the saying goes...

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I'd love to

2009-10-14T13:49:00.001-05:00

Be playing Eve right now but the hotel wireless isn't good. 5 star resort?

As a side note, here's a Capsuleer in training.

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This causes flight delays?

2009-10-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

Seriously, WTF is up with that? For crying out loud it's just a little snow..,

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Flying in the US

2009-10-12T08:15:00.000-05:00

Arrive an hour early to find out your flight has been delayed an hour... Now will you make that connecting flight? This is when you really wish you were a Capsuleer...

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Ouch, time in New Eden to become sparse

2009-09-30T21:21:00.000-05:00

Real life beckons. My business partner had a heart attack recently. This will probably slow me to once-a-week (at best) updates for this blog as my game time will be severely limited by my new workload.

I'll try to keep updating on a regular basis with game related info every Sunday or Monday.

As the saying goes, Fly Reckless people.

Cosmos info, Interesting

2009-09-28T18:53:00.000-05:00

CCP Caedmon has in his blog today:

PROFILES

Profiles in COSMOS are the equivalent of character show info in-game, including bio, corporation history and other relevant information. Additionally, the profile includes the status update feed for the character. When viewing your own profile, you will also have access to limited character sheet info. Initially this will only include trained skills and the training queue, but it will expand in the future.

Now this is the interesting part to me. Will it be like Evemon where you can monitor your status only? Will it offer more? Will it be, and it is my furtive hope here, that access to the training queue would mean adjusting the training queue? I'd really like that as I fly a bit for work, and some places have crap for net access...

More info on that please!

MAIL

The mail system is implemented similarly to Gmail, using labels to organize mail just as for contacts. The first release will have simple hardcoded rules for labeling corporation mail etc. With later releases, the functionality will be extended to custom mail rules and archiving.

This will definitely be nice, again, when I am on the road.

Other than that, what other neat widgets should be planned / stuck in COSMOS? We know of the items here and the Calendar / Friends list upgrades. We know of the "Social Networking" aspect. What else should CCP do? How much interaction with the game world should be allowed?

PvP'ers need to lower their blood pressure

2009-09-25T11:50:00.002-05:00

Alexia over at Punishment has this to say about "Carebears":

One of my pet hates are carebears. We're never going to get rid of them and I understand that, because new ones always come in as the old ones leave or grow out of it.

Carebears need to harden the -expletive- up. (sorry, I try to keep my blog PG)

One does not necessarily "grow" into PvP. Quite the contrary, most people dabble in PvP, because it's not generally profitable unless you're better than 90% of the people you run into. Also there is the implication that "Carebears" grow up. One could easily say, just as idiotically, that "PK's" eventually grow out of it unless they choose to remain stunted children, and be just as wrong as Alexia here. PvP vs PvE is a choice. I'll outline the "PERFECT, FULL-ON, NEVER A CAREBEAR ALLOWED"* server in a later post. Somehow I don't think the PvP'ers would even like it, but it's a mishmash of ideas I've had since UO.

Now to deal with the rest of the erroneous assumptions by Alexia:

This is Daniel. He owns a big, shiny, fancy f*cking battleship. But he doesn't know how to change his low slots to tank anything. Harden the f*ck up, Daniel.

This is Alexia judging a guy's ability to fit his ship. The guy may have only been playing the game for six months and may not understand how to do so, yet. Not only that, but maybe Daniel doesn't have to give a f*ck yet because Daniel is a PvE player and hasn't had to really learn tanking yet.

This is Petros, and he's too scared to enter lowsec. "Ohh, look at me, I'm combat intolerant." Why don't you try a gate camp and harden the f*ck up, Petros.

This is Petros, and he doesn't care to enter lowsec because he doesn't want to find a PC corp nor does he have the time to care about learning combat. To him, Eve is simply a way to blow off a couple of hours a week and relax. He might be a high-sec miner, ratter, or just a trader. The point being he doesn't want to invest the time to learn PvP. Lighten the f*ck up Alexia, not everyone wants to bother with low-sec.

This is Theresa. Her kitten has a psychiatrist because it cries every time a Hulk is attacked. How about this, Theresa. Dr Black Claw prescribes that you harden the f*ck up!

This one doesn't bother me too much, because who cares about someone with a 100m ISK ship? Then again, Dr. Inglix prescribes:

to Alexia. PvP'ers, yeesh, not everyone sees the game through your narrow little lenses. They think Carebears are intolerant? PvP'ers, apparently, are just as intolerant.

This is Mark. He doesn't approve of people swearing on blogs. Well how about you harden the f*ck up, Mark.

Personal preference. I don't objectively swear, but I don't find it too offensive. Then again Marky is allowed his opinion, and can enforce it on his blog. However is Marky is on a different person's blog he can deal with it or get a cup of the above, and not come back. Nobody makes you read a particular blog. Even Capsuleer let's you choose which blogs to update.

This is some fool with a stupid name I can't care to type. Learn how to come up with decent names, fool, and harden the f*ck up.

I used to call one of my characters (in a previous game) Huiztilopochtli. I did it so you wouldn't message me. The name was a big sign saying don't f*cking bother me. Unfortunately "friend's lists" and such make it too easy to "add" someone and then bother them. Now that's me, some people just like odd names. In this case take your own advice and harden the f*ck up Alexia.

This is Yellow Rose. She won't join in on fleet action without taking half a dozen smartbombs with her. Harden the f*ck up, Yellow!

This is her playstyle. Then again, I would not want to be in a fleet with her because last I knew, SB damage hit allies too. Then again I won't condemn her if her corpies will tolerate it. They're the ones that have to deal with her "tactics" and if they don't like it, they'll boot her out of fleet for a bad fit.

This is Jad. He spends an hour a day trading on the stock market. He's also a DJ at a local nightclub. So why don't you ha-ha-ha-h*rden the f*ck up, Jad.

Well if he's having fun, who the f*ck cares? Lighten the f*ck up Alexia, it's a game.

This is Bevat. He owns every Tech 2 ship you can buy, sleeps with his blasters, has over a thousand kills to his name, and once cut off his own arm for a dare. Fucking spot on Bevat!

Bevat is a moron. You don't see the military awarding soldiers that injure themselves on a stupid dare rendering them unfit for duty. Maybe Bevat should get some meds so he can last long enough to get another thousand kills.

So come on, carebears. Take your skirt off, cancel your manicure, grow a mustache, and harden the fuck up.

It's a game mate, drink some Guinness, put on some music, kick back, and lighten the f*ck up.

*perfect is relative here, it's full-on, no safe zone PvP, but I don't think the PvP'ers will like it too much.

NPC Corp Taxes

2009-09-22T16:23:00.006-05:00

CCP Soundwave Devlog Link

As some of you have noticed, NPC corporations on Singularity are now being taxed at 11%.

Now this is both a welcome, and somewhat not so welcome change. I can understand why CCP did it. They outlined some of it in the dev blog posting. I won't refute what's in there, as it's all very logical. Still, I'll wager a little more was involved in it. Let me explain.

A couple types of people are in the newbie corps. Newbies of course, and that's their stated purpose. The second is the player "between" player corps, it happens. The third is the player that wants to avoid all war decs, understandable, but not really their purpose. The final would be the ISK macro resellers, revolting. The hue and cry from the PvP community was palpable on the third group to raging, (especially the fourth group) as they viewed it as "cheap." We'll forgo the fact that oftentimes PvP "tactics" are themselves "cheap."

The PvP'ers were right. Here is the CCP response. I don't know if it goes far enough, it certainly won't for the PvP people. I think it's a good starting point though. The lighthearted jokes about taxes in the devblog post are, for the most part, spot on. Gotta fund those stations folks...

I'll give it some more thought, but it probably can be improved more yet.

Yeah, I'm not a "Carebear"

2009-09-13T10:44:00.001-05:00

So I qualify as...

Industrialist with teeth
Take The EvE Personality Test today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You enjoy Eve's economic model and you find that the greatest challenge of the game lies in mastering the market. System security status is a matter of profit/no profit for you, and you always factor in the possibility/probability of PvP in your estimates. To you, Eve isn't a PvP or a PvE game. It's a simulation of capitalizm in its purest form, and a place where the savvy wins the day.

---

Pretty close except I like to PvP now and then too. I don't really care if PvP comes to me. I'm always flying T1 hulls, insured, and quite honestly: I'm bloody cheap. I've laughed and never cried at a PvP loss. I have a blank jump clone (no implants) that I use for PvP. I fly around in a bloody Atron half the time! Oh noes, you killed me and cose me billions, wait no millions, erm wait no, thousands of ISK, yeah, that's it. I is so brokes now!

I know better than to PvP (solo) in anything expensive. 1) I don't have PvP in this game down yet. 2) I don't have the skills for PvP yet. Gang runs with the rest of the corp, yeah, I can pilot a Thorax, Vexor, or even a BC semi-competently with support. Truth be told though, it makes me nervous. I can't effectively pilot a frigate in solo PvP yet. I'm working towards it now, I have my skill books, just training up the skills. I have the ISK, just waiting for the skills to pilot the ships well.

Eve as a newb is very tough. I have the advantage of coming from UO which was just as cruel.

Carebears Type 1

2009-09-10T23:38:00.001-05:00

Carebears

The derogatory, term given by PvP'ers to anyone that doesn't like to PvP. Still, players that avoid PvP can be broken into as many groups as those whom like it. Let's start with the most annoying type right here, the Type 1 Carebear.

So what is the Type 1 Carebear? This really annoying bugger might as well buy a single-player game. They want to be left alone, by everyone. Not content to simply avoid PvP, they constantly whine about people taking "their stuff" like, say, a Veldspar Asteroid in Eve. They'll complain about people "cheating them" in the market. "Go away" is the most common thing they type that's got even a semblance of logic. Why did these people even buy a multiplayer online game?

They want to "achieve" something. The problem is that they define "achievement" in a single player sense. This is illogical, inane, and flat-out annoying. They seem to think that pretend space rock is "theirs" to own. Go and take it from them and they start frothing about filing complaints, blah blah blah. One thing you can be sure of, they'll never shoot you.

This is the kind of person that pushes for the creation of "Trammel's", they push for constant nerfs, they push for "scammers" (or just smarter business people) to be neutered. In short, they are the last person that should be playing an MMO in general, or Eve in particular. Fortunately there aren't many Type 1's, but if you run into one you'll spend the rest of your day wishing that you could just shoot the prick out of the sky. Then again you can at least take solace in the fact that if you really want to ruin their day back, all you have to do is play and not listen to them.

Stupid People pretending to be PvP'ers

2009-09-02T23:31:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I hate some things about Eve. The constant baiting of newbs has got to be the lowest thing I see in-game. What's the point of hanging in a newbie area with a T3 cruiser and tossing out garbage (to you) just to hang around slightly out of range to then zoom in a kill a newb in a Velator. There doesn't seem to be any real point to it in my eyes.

You want to make the newb cry? Like that's hard. You've just killed a player with thousands of isk in a ship that costs millions of isk for the hull alone. Even with just T2 cruisers, what was the point?

Even can flipping newbs is kind of dumb. Not to the monumental level of stupidity of the first, but still. You want to initiate them into PvP by blowing them away in a fight they can't possibly stand a chance of winning? Yeah, that'll endear them to the sandbox.

Toughen up "PvP'ers" say. I put that in quotes for a reason. Most PvP people don't go around newbie areas blasting newbs all day because they've got better things to do, like play in the sandbox. I've come to realize over the years that there is a subset of PK's that's just, well, depraved. No matter what game they join, they just have to level up and go pick on newbies. There isn't any logic beyond: "I want to see / hear them cry."

I love making people cry too, at a real loss. I've played MMO's for quite some time and there was nothing more joyous in UO than slaying a PK (or Anti) and looting their corpse. These people knew how to play the game and were tough opponents and if you could make one cry out, it was funny. Ebay was tossed around a lot if some PK or Anti started wailing at their loss. On the flip side, what the heck did I care about killing a newb for? There was no point in it to me. I was GM Swords / Anatomy / Healing / Tactics / et al. There wasn't a prayer to any MMO deity that even a group of newbs could slay me, unless I was literally asleep at the keyboard.

I suppose that why I despise newb killers. Other PK's, they take their chances in many cases. Granted in Eve suicide gankers aren't taking much, if any, chance. Even they, however, are offering more of a chance than most newb killers. Most true newb killers take no chances and offer zero chance. The last can flipper I saw had two accounts. One had a T2 Gallente Ishkur (fully decked out I might add) and the other had a T2 decked out Vexor T1 cruiser. All of that for can flipping a bunch of newbs. Yeah, that's gonna be a quick fight.

"Carebear Type 1" post Saturday due to computer troubles...

Computer Glitch

2009-09-02T09:22:00.000-05:00

Apparently my Hard Disc, which was new, decided to be flaky. I'm now temporarily running again on my old Raptor 74's until I get a replacement. I should have a real post up tonight or tomorrow.

Down for the count, or at least until...

2009-08-29T23:46:00.001-05:00

I work with PC's a lot. Therein I rebuild and reload my PC's a lot. I just got done rebuilding my computer. I'm turning my old QX6700 into my Media / Home Server. I've rebuilt my machine with:

i7-920
MSI X58 Pro-E
6GB of Mushkin Memory
1TB Seagate
Samsung DVD burner
8800GTS 512MB
UCP 700w
Coolermaster CM590

Why such an old Vid card? Well I decided against getting a GTX275 for right now, as new DX11 cards are coming later this year. I do play more than Eve Online, shockingly enough, so a nice new DX11 card will be a good complement to this setup.

Well I'll have another post, this time about "Carebears" come Monday or Tuesday.

Player Killers, Type 1

2009-08-25T02:12:00.000-05:00

There are many types of Player Killers (PK's) in online games. Today we're going to focus on type 1, the Role-playing (RP) PK. This is actually the rarest of PK's. I've met them multiple times in my years of gaming. The first that made a real impression on me was in Ultima Online. The PK played a human, raised by Orcs, that hated humans, that killed his brethren. Whew! He played this very well. He only sporadically attacked miners / lumberjacks when they got to close to his "home." People wearing armor or those carrying magical gear, however, he attacked on sight. He was actually a pretty good PK, and a fairly competent PvP'er.

That's the real oddity of this PK archtype. They may not be the best killers, and their kill / death ratio numbers usually suffer because of an RP choice they made. Let's translate this "honor bound" PK into Eve, though I've only met one.

You're in low-sec Gallente space, and you're Caldari. Suddenly a Gallentean PK zooms up to you and blasts you out of the sky while ranting about revenge for unprovoked Caldari aggression. This same character may or may not "kill the Gallentean traitor" with you or may just blow up his ship while podding you. This same PK might let a lone Gallentean go by with a warning of "the rogue Caldari in the area."

There are many permutations, and part of that is from the races in Eve. This PK is probably not the best PvP'er. They aren't playing pirate for the most part (although this can be applied to a piratical character, just with a different RP motiviation) at all. They are living the story in-game. They don't get into mechanics of faction warfare per se. They like to hunt alone, or in very small gangs. They also aren't typically jerks. They're not going to gloat about "killing another unworthy n00b" or somesuch. They'll pod you, but do it with storyline style, and ironically, storyline respect. These players do not offer ransom. Their character's principles are too high to even consider it. They may even just kill a "n00b's" ship, and not pod them.

Don't count on them to give you money for a new ship though mate. They take their RP very seriously, and that would be helping the enemy.

This is actually a very enjoyable PK to play against. They're not childish jerks. They won't talk "l33t sp34k" smack talk. Heck, they might even give you a piece of the Eve story you don't know. They'll typically fight as fair their own personal storyline allows. These people won't be suicide gankers. Their code of honor is very rigid. They'll fight doomed battles, lose millions of ISK.

The truth is a little different though. They use an alt to fund this character in most cases. Playing this type of PK is very expensive to play. From some of the ones I've met in other games though, they spent small fortunes to support this character type. That's the dirty secret here, this character is generally a big money sink. You can't find a newer player doing this, because they'd never be able to afford the constant loss of ships this character will suffer.

That's not to say a player new to MMO's will appreciate this. Everyone should take care to point out the newbie that this PK is annoying when they kill you and you can't afford it. The flip side, however should be explained, this is a PK playing the story. They'll gladly get into a vendetta with a newbie, even while the newbie get's powerful enough to blow them away repeatedly. They'll die to the former newbie repeatedly if it fits into their personal story, and do it happily and with style.

Sadly this is the rarest, and most misunderstood, PK. I suggest if you find one, congratulate them even if they kill you.

The History of Inglix the Mad

2009-08-24T00:25:00.001-05:00

What I have to say will rarely be popular, and I know it in advance. I’ve never been one to care about the popularity contest in life. Heck, my current co-workers compare me to Gregory House quite a bit. I am a jerk at times and quite opinionated by my work. Technology was, and probably always shall be, a pissing contest.

I’ve played MMO’s for quite some time. Heck, I played games against others in the days of the old Bulletin Board Systems (aka BBS’) dotting the phone lines. My first “MMO” game was GEnie’s Multiplayer Battletech (MPBT) in the days of dial-up. MPBT was a bunch of people paying US $5/hr to battle (with über graphics from the original Mechwarrior game engine!) for control of the Inner Sphere. After that my friends and I started playing FPS games over phone lines / internal LAN’s and then one day my friend picked up a copy of Ultima Online. I tried it, and a couple of days later (despite my pronouncements never to pay a fee to play a game online again!) I bought the game.

In Ultima, we started small and slow. I maximize return by nature, and my friend is a hardcore seller. We got our first break when out of blue, a Player Killer attacked my friend and I. My friend bravely fought back (a doomed effort) and I hit “steal” targeted the killer’s bag and then ran. I didn’t even notice until I got back to town that I got the idiot’s boat key. That netted us some weapons, a boat, some other garbage, but (and most importantly) a full spell book.

After that, our lives became a lot easier. In any case, enough history.

I don’t have a lot of nice things to say some days. Some of my most vitriolic rants will be about Player Killers. This isn’t because I don’t like PvP. I happen to find it very enjoyable as a matter of fact. What I don’t like is when some high-level player kills “n00bs” to feel tough. I don’t like idiots that pretend there are “consequences” in a game on the internet. When two more equal players (i.e. not a high-level vs a “n00b”) go at it, great.

People crowing about tears from “n00bs”? Pahh! Of course they’re going to cry when they die. They’re ‘n00bs” so what the heck did you expect? They don’t have the resources a veteran player has sitting idle. Making a “n00b” cry is about as challenging as a little boy that makes his sister cry by breaking her dolly.

People playing should remember that for many, their first MMO will be a hard experience. Eve Online is close to the original Ultima model of play. That game model is a favorite of mine. I will dissect that model of play in future posts and expose it’s weaknesses, as well as extol it’s strengths.

Until later,

Inglix the Mad

Testing the template fix

2009-08-23T02:03:00.001-05:00

Oooh looky, fixed the blogger template all by me lonesome. Wow, and I hate HTML / XML. I'm a hardware / network geek by nature.

Initial Test Posting

2009-08-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

Test Posting

Test Post in the blog.