Interesting week

This week has been pretty interesting. there has been the usual feedback with devs. But one thing stands out.

The previous week CCP Larrikin asked if I would organize a jump fatigue sounding board. This isn't something I'm that into. I guess I use them a bit in goons but I've never had a issue with it. When it came out every character I had was in w-space. So I never really had to worry about it. Now with the help of other CSM we sorted a sounding board. You can find it here.

I've organised a fair few of these and the feedback from players and devs has always been positive, if it wasn't I wouldn't waste my time and others on them. But now its a null issue and its interesting seeing peoples responses. I guess null people don't like them but we'll wait and see.

It got linked to reddit, with some interesting comments.

This comment here caught my attentions

It's a bit of a dig at me since I don't personally think jump fatigue is as bad as people think. But then I'll also admit I've never really used jumping that much so in that case i'm not a expert. Good job that for this sounding board my job will be to just make sure it runs ok and moderate it. Not put my personal POV across.

But now lets look at some other stuff in much more detail. This line by Elise "I'm sure the CSM that brought us a wormhole nerf to "promote local content" will have some really great input on jump mechanics."  Hahaha the fucking irony.

This leads in to alot of things concerning the CSM. I think we should be more accountable. Sadly some don't, some will happily post ballshit on forums or reddit or other places. which is totally at odds to what they say in private. In short they hide behind the NDA, as they don't want the people who voted them on knowing exactly what they said in private, even if it is for the better of the game not there allaince.

It gets worse when you have CSM nag others on CSM to take statements back so it doesn't paint them in a bad light, even if its stuff they have said. At the end of the day we are accountable to who voted us on and people should be prepared to tell them exactly what they have said.

Structures 2

The last three weeks have been pretty manic in regards to structures.

I've been working like mad to get feedback from different groups. I've managed to hit up 38 groups now spending over a hour talking to most. The last week has been pretty rough I've alarm clocked several times at 3 in the morning, to speak to some west coast Americans and then in the same evening speaking to some eu tz groups.

These have been really useful and I've had some great feedback which I've passed on to CCP. It's finally got to the point where I'm not hearing much stuff that's new now. So I probably won't be going and speaking to any more groups. If you have a niche specialty you want addressed and you feel I've missed you, bring it up, otherwise I won't know about it.. At least till we get a lot more information to talk about.

I organised a sounding board for w space people on citadels, It got derailed a couple times, but these things always do. On the whole I was pretty happy about the results.

More information can be found here for the sound cloud recording. Or here for some transcribing of the meeting.

Big thanks to both Ransu Asanari for doing the transcription and recording and Steve Ronuken for converting it to sound cloud for me.

Once more information is out I'll start going and doing this all over again.

I do have some concerns about some of the stuff. The no auto defenses I still have a big issue with. No one wants this at all and while some points are raised that it wouldn't be as much of a issue as thought on the sounding board, people still have concerns.

There are concerns about the changes in loot dropping. The feedback has been very mixed. Semi off topic here. But one thing I have found is you can't take whats on the forums at face value, you generally only get the people who are angry posting while the people who like the change don't post. The forums can be a very toxic place and a lot just don't like speaking there. If you want people opinions you have to go and speak to them. The fact that in general if people are happy with stuff they don't mention it on the forum, highlight how important it is to go around and chat to people.

There is concern about how you will know who is in these structures. Information regarding how you will find these. Although a much more minor one and probably one that's much easier to fix.

You may not have seen me playing much the last few weeks. Keeping on top of this subject has been a huge workload, I don't get as much time to play as I used to but last few weeks have been really bad so. Short of some huge issue like Somer Gate, I'm hoping to take a bit of a break and actually play the game.

C5 and C6 space.

I said a while ago that I'd write something up about the state of C5 and C6 space.

I've had some concerns over this area of W-space for a while, along with a few others who have spoken to me about various issues around it. A lot of people have complain that this area of space is dead or dying. The problem atleast in my eyes is that part of the problem isn't a mechanical issue. Getting more people in to C1 to C4 space was fairly easy a big increase in the value of blue loot lead to a lot more people in space, combined with C4 getting dual statics and a lot of PvP groups moved in to them.

Some of the problems can be shown in a mail I got, I get quite a few like this and skype messages about the same. (I've blanked out names)

bringing up the point of bringing more people to w-space, until cap escals are delt with vary few groups will move to repopulate high class space out side of farming and even then it is currently dominated by **/****/***/****. Almost every other c5/6 you find will have a alt corp owned by them, and they will defend them i remeber when i was still in rainbow that **** once asked if anyone wanted to help kill caps which turned out to be someone trying to evict their farm corp. 
lowering loss is a good first step but wormhole need to loose the massive profit of owning many holes or those mega wormhole corps will continue to dominate the rest of w-space without challange for a long time.

What can be done? Getting more people in to C5 or C6 isn't that easy, with capital escalations its very easy to make huge amounts of isk in a very short time in a pretty safe manner. Whats worse is that you are disincentived to bring more people since this lowers your isk/person. Your much better having 10 groups of 5 people running cap escalations in 10 different wormholes than 50 people in one place farming.

CCP Bettik mentioned at fanfest that they are looking to potentially change this lowering the isk from cap escalations in some manner but giving you a bonus for finishing the site to compensate.

This would hopefully encourage groups to farm stuff in their static and get more people in space, more people in space is always good.

The non mechanical issue. The whcfc, now while they aren't always together, they often we're/are and this leads to people always assuming they are regardless. In NoHo we're had multiple times when we're had 3 groups all come in together and it does get to the point when if you see one you just assume the others won't be far behind.

Whats worse is it doesn't stop there. People don't want to engage them and just blue ball, due to either not having enough people or expecting other groups to be with them. This then leads to evictions due to "they never fight must be carebears". Then you have even less people to kill. It's a simple case of over fishing.

Now even if these groups do stop teaming up the problem is people will often assume they are together and so still won't engage. I've spoke to a few people about this and I just don't think this can be sorted by any mechanical change.

If people have ideas and suggestions I'm more than happy to listen to them.

Structures.

A Dev blog came out a bit ago.

Alot of the stuff is pretty good, How ever there is always concerns.

From a wormhole POV I have three main concerns

1) No auto defenses. I have several issues here, You have to set the vulnerability time for your prime time (ok you don't have to, but you'd be pretty crazy not to). So when its your best time to be on and playing with your mates, some one has to stay back to man the guns. This to me is terribly counter intuitive.

After that you have the issue that without a hp threshold anyone in any ship can potentially reinforce a pos meaning that cloaked ship in system could easily reinforce a pos if your not about.

2) Loot not dropping. This isn't strictly true some minor stuff will drop, but it won't be how it is in w space where everything could potentially drop. Its one of the main reasons people invade for loot and without this its likely to not be worth the hassle.

3) Just how will we find these new structures and get intel on who is inside. This is probably the least impactful and easily solved of the three, a lot has already be discussed regarding this.


Station games and linking.

I've had a lot of people moan about wormholes getting docking games and this simply isn't the case. It basically comes down to a couple things, people not reading the feedback thread and CCP not explaining it really well.

Here is what it will mostly be like.

you will be docked, you will be able to see the grid outside. So can see if anyone is about. You undock and enter a linking phase, while in this linking phase you are invulnerable, can't lock people or be locked yourself. You will how ever be able to fly around the citadel to a certain distance. This will act as a pseudo force field.

As for feedback, I've gone and spoke to nine different wormhole groups so far for approximately 11 hours. I've had some really great ideas and feedback along with a lot of good questions that need to be asked, three A4 pages of wormhole questions and notes and another 1 page on general stuff. Which I have posted on to CCP's confluence. I've also been speaking to CCP Nullabor alot about issues regarding citadels in w space (500 plus lines of convo in the couple days before the dev blog coming out) So much so I feel pretty confident that he could now actually plan a semi decent wormhole invasion on his own.

One of the main things I got from people was overall its a positive thing although its still really early, and we need to wait for more information. Which I totally agree with, We had a meeting with CCP this week to get a better feel for there overall ideas and will be getting more info to read through soon, which will be nice, I raised a few issues (number 1 to 3) and also mentioned how some stuff just wasn't explained all that well, which they are hoping to sort in the future,

I'm pretty optimistic at the moment although its very early in the development at the moment.

PS. I'm looking to try and find some tiny wormhole groups 20 max players to chat to about this.

Concerns sent in.

I recently got mailed in some pretty good questions by Selto Black of The Desolate Order, so figured I'd answer them here as there probably concerns alot have.


What affects do you believe the new structures will have on j-space?

I'm hoping it will make life in W-space easier, although there are issues. Trying to balance everything for all different spaces, Isn't going to be easy

Do you think that the window of vulnerability will work in j-space? 

This is where it gets tricky, firstly its worth remembering that just because the vulnerability window works one way in sov doesn't mean it has to work that way for everything. CCP are building in as many knobs and buttons so that things can be altered and changed as much as possible as easily as possible. My guess is yes it can work although. I'll be pointing out issues and concerns as we go along I've posted alot of feedback already on the confluence page and as well raised them in our slack group and to CCP Nullabor, we're hoping to have a meeting soon where we can get some more information about general things to help give us a better overall idea of what will be happening.

What is your view on the new shattered holes?

If you mean in general I still have some things I don't like, I'm still not a fan of forcing people to go armour in them with the Wolf Rayet effect, although I can see why they did it. If you mean will they allow POS's in there, my guess at the moment would be no. They probably want to keep it how it is.

How do you feel about Wormholers jumping into null just to entosis station services to provoke fights?

How do you feel about Wormholers Reinforcing Null-Sec structures just for the shits and giggles.

I'll answer both these together I'm not sure these will get fights I can see small groups going out and saying "hey fight me or we start knocking your services offline" But the majority of people who don't want to fight will just stay docked and try to put them back on afterwards when noone is around. I think its potentially going to be a griefers paradise. Which has me concerned on some levels. Its one of these things that's not to much a issue for big groups but will be a huge issue for smaller less organised groups. Sadly that's nearly always the way regardless of changes but this will definitely make it harder for smaller groups that live in null. Alot of this will depend on just how much people use there space, and how big the vulnerability window is.

What is your view on the blue bagel renting out C6 space?

I don't really like it, sadly its hard to stop, its a player driven issue. Not a mechanical one. I must say I find it funny when Hidden Freman (CEO of lazerhawks) moans there isn't enough pvp in w space when he's part of the blue bagel going around kicking people out. I'm hoping the changes to capital escalations will help in some way although I doubt it will be enough. The other issue is should CCP even do stuff to alter players behavior as its a sandbox after all. I think the only way you can say yes here is if its in the interests of making the game better as a whole. Then it gets subjective on whats best for the game.

How would you go about making Poses in Wormholes "Fair" (with respect to not being moon locked, How to make them findable without having to reveal that you're there)under Fozzie structures?

With the first part if that happens in W-space, as stuff can change. You have to look at what issues it will cause, the main one being full moon coverage being a defense of system mechanic. When I did all the POS survey last year nearly half of the people who filled them in said they covered all moons. It also wasn't just people in high class wormholes that did this. loads in lower class wormholes did as well.
If your going to take that away you need to add something to compensate. If we can't have full coverage we need something else one way would be making it so POS are a real force multiplier. They will need teeth and a much better way to affect the battles around them than they do now.

On making them findable and I think you definitely need to be able to find them without revealing that you are there. Having them appear on the overview tab like stations, is probably the simplest way to do it. another option would be to maybe have some probes you can launch while cloaked that are cloaked as well but can only scan structures. Although that to me personally seems needless complex compared to the first way.

Slacking

I've been pretty slack on blogging, whats worse is I have a fair few things to write about.

I'll keep this one more to bullet points and go back over them in more details in separate posts.

C5 and C6, Had a couple bring this up and it was something I wanted to work on much more anyway as I think it needs some help. I'm lucky in that CCP Fozzie is good enough to sit down and give me 15 to 20 mins on skype for me to go over issues and check on stuff. I'm planning on seeing if I can sort another call with him in the near future.

The CSM is finally really kicking in. We all have nice shiny emails, We've moved over to slack, which has some good and bad stuff. Good its alot more organised, and easy to keep track off. Bad it's not used as much outside of work hours, like skype was. We've had six meetings now. I've managed to make them all.

I've been playing a fair mix of eve. Fair bit in w space on alts, some manufacture. and a little in null normally either hanging out with some goons in w space or the newbee's of karmafleet, If I rat, a couple of them will often follow and salvage. its surprising how much really new players can make doing that.

I've also been playing a couple other games, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Stardrive 2. I only got Starcraft cos I wanted the kerrigan wings from the collectors pack (a shout out to CCP Affinity for telling me about them). This has now lead to all the people I play Diablo with getting them.

Had a few people who are still moaning about me being in goons, I've had a pretty good laugh about this and with some people I speak with often, I'll be including a load of quotes from various people about it when I write this one up. I also love the guy who sent me a notification message with some hate on it, I funny thing about that is I actually have a alt in that corporation that the group doesn't know about.

Real life

So I figure if I am going to blog more often I might as well blog about some more general stuff. Real life I've decided to set myself a few goals. Its something I should have done long ago, but didn't finally commit till I watched one of my fave channels on youtube.

Abroad in japan

He talks about alot of interesting stuff about Japan, from teaching them how to swear, to some of the sights to see.

Its a great watch some really interesting stuff, but to the point of it. He tried to lose 10kg in 10 weeks. And as some might know I really need to lose weight so, I figure I'll see if I can do this. I used to be pretty active, did alot of gym stuff a small amount of martial arts and stuff, But owing to a slight case of Chronic fatigue syndrome its not as easy as it used to be.

I've set myself a few goals not only do I want to lose 10kg in 10 weeks but;
I'd like to run 5 miles (I've ran half marathons before but 5 miles would be a huge goal in 10 weeks).
I'd like to hit a few gym goals 350-400kg leg press and 100kg bench press. I'm pretty confident about the leg press, not so much bench press.

I'm not sure if I will do weekly or monthly or hell even any updates, I'll def do a 10 week review on how I did though.

First few days

Four days back from fanfest, and things are starting to come together.

CSMX wise, NDA's have been sent out to all the new members, It seems like most people are getting these sorted fast. Sort Dragon's already has his done since he was at fanfest. A CSMX skype channel is already up and running everyone's in there already. Its been fairly active and everyone is speaking, No one is afk yet, which is always a good start.

Once everyone gets confluence access I can see a lot of ideas being put up on there.

GRR Goons, I've been in corp two days now. I haven't bothered moving ships, I just intend to buy them in Deklien. Getting registered and set up with admin was pretty simple, even for me who most people know, a techno noob. I got a travel interceptor sorted as well ratting ship (cant be corbear without a ratting ship). That being a Gila, first time I've ever used one and they are really fun, I rarely use drones but, holy shit Gila drones kill stuff fast.

I also spent a evening chatting to a mate, Porkbutte who is the CEO of Karmafleet, Its a super newbee friendly corp that by all accounts is doing really well. I said I'd help out where I can with basic stuff and once stuff settles down I'll do a weekly chat about w space  and maybe even take them in to w-space if I can find handy wormholes. The time I do spend on GSF mumble its normally hanging out in the karmafleet channel helping where I can.

My alt is lined up to join its first wormhole corp and spend a couple weeks playing with them to see what they do and if they have any issues. I'm really looking forward to this. There is some interesting stuff on the forums especially about structures, a fair bit of panic with people jumping to conclusions.
Hopefully I'll have the first sounding boards for w space on this topic sorted soon.

All in all its been a fun week and probably the most excited I've been to play eve in ages

Fanfest 2015

Fanfest is over and its been a blast.

I met up with some mates at the airport, On arrival we topped up on duty free beers and spirits. A must for anyone going to fanfest as alcohol is heavily taxed in Iceland. I was lucky enough to see Ali, a taxi driver CCP often uses and said hello to him, He was nice enough to sort us out a cheap taxi that took us right to our apartment.

The apartment itself was super nice easily sleeping 10 people it had a really nice kitchen (which we didn't use) and a couple of shower rooms. The only down side is we couldn't seem to turn the heating down or open the windows in bedrooms. It was also seemed great value as well, you can see pic of the place here. I'd highly recommend it to anyone going as a big group its about a 5 to 10 min walk to the harpa, with plently of pubs along the way.

There were a couple none wormhole people I really wanted to meet Noizy gamer and Neville smit. Yes I now know Noizy is in thera so not really a none wormholer. I was lucky enough to bump in to Neville at Nora's and we got to have a good chat about stuff in general. Noizy was slightly harder to track down but luckily Sugar just sent him a message and asked if he wanted to meet up for food.  I didn't realise he was going to be doing a presentation but was good to chat to him and hear some stuff on RMT and Isboxing It was also really cool to hear he was in Thera and the stuff he was doing. When I get time I'm hoping to put a alt in his group to hang out with them for a couple weeks.

I got meet up with alot of wormhole people, It was great to meet Proc and Bernie in person, as well as the Artic light guys who are all batshit crazy. At the charity dinner I got to meet a few more and have a natter about general stuff, atleast till it turned in to api/crest stuff. At that point I called Steve in to help.

It was also nice to meet up with the other CSM in person Asay, Mangala, Gorski, who I have never met in real life all were really nice. Its one of them funny things we argue alot on CSM. But everyone is super friendly and chill in person. Its especially true for corebloodbrothers, we argue alot but he's one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

What else happened, Well the CSM panel happened more on this later, I'll be doing that in a separate blog. I managed to get to both the wormhole workshops and they were really good, I won't lie, they had alot of really good and interesting ideas. I spoke to a couple CCP Devs about it and they felt they were productive as well. I made it to all the keynotes and was well. For the last keynote on day one with the CSM announcement I was sat with CCP Masterplan and Sugar. I won't lie we'd both been worrying if we would get in. So was really nice to see we did, only to have CCP Masterplan giggle about it. Looking at the numbers now sugar WTF owned it, and justifiably so.

I got asked to do a few interviews with media, Its pretty strange as its not something I am used to. First Sion and I got interviewed by a Chinese reporter. Then I got interviewed for a German PC gamer magazine and then TMDC. The last one was by Cassandra Khaw who wanted to speak to me about wormholes. Turns out she had interviewed me along with several other people two years ago. Which surprised her when i remembered. We spoke about a few things that had changed and then I mentioned BOB. She was amazed that a god/religion had been created in game. She was amazed and asked me loads of stuff, how it all started, what people did, who followed it, the history. I had a few answers but it was obvious she wanted to know more, and luckily both Proc and Asay were at fanfest. I left saying I'd return later with more knowledgeable people. I found them both sadly Asay had other stuff he had to do but Proc was more than happy to come along.

They sat down talking with him explaining the history, she couldn't believe it, I had to laugh when at one point we pointed out how people often sacrificed exotic dancers to BOB, She seemed very shocked even if it was just a game. Proc sent her a whole load of info, which apparently has been recorded by a BBC radio journalist.

The party on top of the world was great fun, had alot of laughs I don't think my shirts offended to many people. By the end of the event I was super tired.

CSM Ballot

Below you'll see my ballot along with a brief comment on why people are there.

1. Myself - So I'm biased.
2. Sugar kyle - Incumbent lowsec hardest worker on the CSM.
3. Ariete - Wormholer
4. Steve Ronuken - Incumbent, hisec industry, 3rd party stuff.
5. Sion Kumitomo - He'll get in so you can leave him off but this is where I'd put him. So feel free to leave him off.
6. Cagali Cagali - Brave NPE
7. Chance Ravinne - Newbie wormholer.
8. Ashterothi - Wormholer and podcaster.
9. Bam Stroker - Eve down under organiser.
10. Khador Vess - RvB fc.
11. Psianh Anyvander - Noir Academy
12. Jayne Fillion - NPSI 
13. Manfred Sideous - Null sec rep
14. Endie - The left hand to Sions right hand. 

Sugar's been the hardest working CSM, She's not affraid to speak to people and on a personal level and will happily listen to anyone. She has her monthly chit chats on eve uni mumble, where people can come ask her stuff. She blogs loads to let people know whats happening. Hell tbh if I had more sense I would just guest blog on her blog since I really don't blog enough to warrant my own. She's that good I've actually put her ahead of my wormhole second choice, she pretty much a shoe in.

Ariete joined late in the race but is the best wormholer  running on a wormhole only platform, after me.

Steve if you live in hisec, do industry, 3rd party stuff you need to vote for this guy. He's a god damn legend, My only issue is he should let people know more about the stuff he does.

Sion, probably a surprise to some to see him this far up he'll get in, so as I said feel free to level him off. But he deserves to be on the list. I share alot of his views on general stuff. His null understanding is second to none. He's also not afraid to speak his mind with stuff thats controversial. I'll be honest I'm surprised more people haven't put him on their list my guess is probably because they, know he will get on, and secondly GRRR Goons.

Cageli, I've known him for several year, since I first started donating to brave dojo and chat to him often, I'm super glad he's running, I nagged him loads about it. He's the godfather of newbies and really understand them and the issues needs they have. His down under presentation was excellent. 

Chance, Is really enthusiastic has alot of interesting. He's also a wormholer so got to give him credit for that.

Ashterothi. A podcaster and wormholer, I don't know him super well only spoke to him a few times, and I'll be totally honest I'm not that in to media types, I agree with Funky when he says about them not making good CSM reps. But #wormholer #yolo.

Bam, I haven't actually got to speak to this chap yet. However a couple people I really trust have spoken very highly about him and there is nothing bad about him I can find at all, yes I did look.

Khador, Is my hisec of choice.

Psianh, very knowledgeable, If it wasn't a wormhole ballot I'd almost certainly put him higher.

Jayne, with corp and alliance roles being looked at this is a good time to add a NPSI pov in there to help out there and he's the logical choice.

Manny. he's a given to get in. But is really needed for his nullsec knowledge and ability to think outside the box even if his ideas hurt his own allaince, He's also super helpful, I've spoke to him several times to get more info on various things, null sov and T3's in null. he's always been happy to give up time and chat about issues.

Endie, quite simply you don't get to be super high up in Goons unless your really good. Love them or hate them, their leadership knows their shit. If he is half as good as Sion, he'll be a asset to the csm.

Wormhole report 2. NPC Kills

Following on from the previous blog post, I'm looking at NPC kills.

I'll be looking at from Cruis to today.

C1 Increased from Cruis to Hyperion, then dropped the same amount to Oceanus. Only to rise again and then stabilize around rhea at approximately 50% higher than Cruis.

While the pos's in C1 did increase it was in no way anywhere near as much as npc kills, meaning there is a lot more ratting happening now than before.

C2 Had a slight dip leading up to Hyperion and a bit after. only to start increasing again sharply to Pheobe and then continued at a steadier pace up to today, showing a overall increase of nearly 100% npc kills.

Whilst looking at the previous blog we see POS's increased by 10 to 15%, The increase in npc kills is probably do in some part to C4's having the extra static as well as the sites being coming a lot more profitable, encouraging people to do them. C2's seem a lot more active now than Hyperion.

C3 At Cruis C3's had more npc than any other class. They showed a slight rise just after the expansion but then dropped before Hyperion, which continued to Oceanus, this was a fairly significant drop of about 20 to 25%. It gained this back by Pheobe and then slowly increased to Proteus where it dropped slightly. Although its still slightly higher than it was Cruis.

As the POS's stayed pretty stable throughout this whole period its fairly safe to assume the drop in npc kills leading up to Hyperion and a bit after was down to people being concerned at just how safe it was to run sites in the time. But the increase in income coming up to Pheobe encouraged  people back to killing red crosses.

C4 Between Cruis and a bit past Hyperion C4's took a massive drop in npc kills (about 30 to 35%). It stayed at this leave through Oceanus to Pheobe, then picked up with increasing pace to Proteus where its dropped slightly. But still finishing at the same level as Cruis.

The huge drop in npc kills happens a month or so before the very slight drop in POS in C4 space. I'm not sure if this is people panicking or super active farming groups packing up. The increase in npc kills is also a month or so after when POS's pick up although its a much, much steeper increase than the POS increase. I'm hoping its just the delayed time in people packing up moving out and new people moving back in and setting up.

C5 Saw a steady drop npc kills through Cruis in to Hyperion, the drop was about 15%. It then rose sharply come Oceanus to Pheobe where it dropped a small about, before bouncing back at Rhea to a all time high today. The total increase from Cruis to now being close to 35 to 40%. They now also  hold the title of having most npc's killed of any class of W-space.

While there was a slight drop in POS's around Oceanus this doesn't fit in with the npc kills, which were increasing. There was a small increase POS's over the time from Cruis to now but nothing what so ever like the increase in npc kills. My guess is that a lot of these npc will be capital escalations. But I need to check on that.

C6 From Cruis to Hyperion the number of npc's dropped a small amount  only to bounce back by Oceanus, although its slowly dropped since to were it is today. The drop from Cruis to today is about 10 to 15%

The graphs for both POS's and npc kills are very similar. C6 are the only class that is lower than at Crius, so a bit gutted there.

Total npc kills from Cruis to today has gone up. Its hard to say exactly how much, although my guess is approximately 15 to 20%. I'm pretty happy at this, especially as this is just npc kills it doesn't include people doing the null sec data and relic sites, which I hope to get some info on soon.

C1 to C4 seem a lot more active than Hyperion. It's also worth remembering that the data and relic null sec sites in C1 to C3 don't show up in this graph, I'm still trying to get some numbers on them. C5 and C6 show some interesting stuff. People probably expect most npc kills in these wormholes will be from capital escalations. While C5 npc has gone through the roof, in C6 they have dropped. On checking with CCP Fozzie it appears that while some of the increase in C5 npc kills are from sleeper guardians the greater part is from other sleepers, Showing that its not all from cap escalation farming but other PvE as well.

Wormhole report

I know alot of people have been asking for some graphs and figure's for wormhole changes for the last half year or so.

I finally have some. Its worth me explaining a bit about some of the figures and info CCP can give the CSM (and potentially the player base).

1. Basic simple numbers from Evemetrics. This tends to be fairly simple stuff, like kills in certain areas, amount mined. This is fairly easy for Dev's to find for us as its a simple check. The down side is it also tends to be rather basic info.
2. SQL requests. This is where they actually have to go and run a search for a specific queary and can take a bit longer than just looking up simple stuff from Evemetrics. An example of this might be something like, characters logged off in a C5 space.
3. Lastly you have the Analytics Department. These are the guys and gals who can sort pretty much anything out and do it in great detail with fancy graphs and tables as well. The down side (atleast to CSM) is we have to put requests in then have it checked by various people on the way. So it can be along wait (fact there often stacked with work doesn't help) An example might be ship kills by ship class in a percentage manner for each class of wormholes.

So what do I have.

We (the csm) got some super sexy graphs, on some stuff I have been asking for a while, Sadly I can't show you them (I did ask). So what I have tried to do is put as much info below as I can, I'll also be writing up the next graph for next week, it just takes a while since I have to get it okayed by alot of people.

One of the basic ways to see how many people are in W-space is to look at total pos's. Its not ideal but it gives a indication.

From C1 to C6

C1 Didn't seem to be affected by hyperion at all, with POS numbers slowly increasing since Oceanus where Blue loot was wanted to decide in what order T3 destroyers would be released, and then the follow up increase in blue loot value. So pretty happy here.

C2 There had been a slow decline in POS numbers from Cruis through Hyperion and Oceanus, Then picking up from Pheobe onward, ending up about 10 to 15% higher than at Crius when they started dropping. The slight dip may have been from the mass/distance change being annouched although its very hard to tell. POS wise C2's are better than ever. With them being significantly higher than any other wormhole class (40 to 50% more than the next highest).

C3 POS have been pretty stable with a very slight drop around Hyperion, Although coming back up to slightly above that level today. Not much to see here at all.

C4 Had a slight drop at Hyperion, but have steadily been raising since. probably due to alot of pvp groups moving in for all the lovely connections they now have. A rough guess would be maybe a 20% increase in pos's since Hyperion. Looking at purely POS numbers C4's are looking really good.

C5 Didn't change around Hyperion although they did drop around ocenaus. This could be people moving from C5's to C4's its hard to tell, however in the last month or so there has been a slight increase in POS's taking it above Ocenaus level when it dropped. Pretty good news.

C6 No change at Hyperion, a nice increase around Pheobe and then a slow decline taking it back to Hyperion levels, Its hard to say which way it will go from here but could be either way.

Summary for POS.

While there has been some small declines in POS's around Hyperion its most likely down to people shifting around from wormhole classes. Total numbers of POS's in W-space is Alot higher now than Hyperion, with C2's and C4's really shining, This could be down to people wanting them for pvp due to multi statics or also the fact that C1 to C4 saw a big increase in income due to blue loot income and Null data and relic sites being added. Good news,

Its out

I mentioned in my last blog i was really excited to see the results of the dev blog. Its out and holy crap is it good.

If you haven't seen it yet you should check out the trailer HERE.

Its my fave trailer now, while I'm a bit biased since NoHo is in it (1.19 baby) should be mentioned it was a new FC and that was his second time FC'ing.

I waited up for it to be released, and was glad I did, I messaged CCP Prawn saying how great it was, it was 1 in the morning and he was up thanking players who had helped with the trailer. So huge respect to him. I know there team has been working there arse off to get this sorted, so really glad it went well. They deserve so much credit for this.

NoHo has a new video out The Defense of Polaris. Great video of the main fight when we got invaded (will cover this in another blog).

On other news, was the wormhole townhall today. I had split it in to 3 sections, which I don't think is necessary. So will alter it next time. Asay going boss mode recorded it (cos I'm a techno idiot) and you can get a download here.

Last week was also Sugar Kyle's eve uni mumble chat which was really fun, the early one had me and Asay there, with a guest appearance from a freshly awoken Sion to answer nullsec political questions, Which was really funny. he sounded so tired. The evening one being just Sugar and I.

I'm hoping to sort doing these townhalls more often along with the "sounding board" ones. The feed back I have gotten has been really useful.

Its not all feedback

Most of what we do on the CSM is feedback on various stuff so its nice once in a while to help in a different way.

A couple months ago CCP Falcon posted a Dev blog. We knew a bit more about it. I was super excited about this. CCP wanted videos and some of the best videos out there are wormhole fights. They often have various class of ships from cruisers up to capitals, but being small to medium scale you can zoom in and get a real feel for the size difference between sub caps and capitals, you can see all the effects happening and whats going on, rather than it be a view that's super zoomed out with just dots.

After a couple hours I managed track done the CCP Dev (CCP Prawn) who was working on this and have a chat to him about it on skype. I sent him a load of links for various videos of our fights as well as a link to the W-space PvP videos thread.

We spoke a bit about what sort of stuff he was looking for as well formats and stuff, I suggested about some wormhole PvE since (while boring) its pretty cool for new people to  see capitals and subs used to kill red crosses, It turns out thats also something he wanted to try and get filmed.

A quick chat to NoHo and it was all sorted. Both CCP Prawn and CCP Zond 3 moved themselves in to Polaris cloaked, We started to run sites and they recorded it all. Was a few funny things CCP Zond 3 decloaking, and the our scanner trying to scan him down straight away.

CCP Prawn asking me if it was ok to thank NoHo in local, showing great wh etiquette.

I put a post up on the wormhole forum and while it didn't get as much response as i'd have liked. I did get loads of skype messages asking about it and if CCP wanted to come and film them while they did stuff, so that was pretty nice. Its also worth mentioning just how important getting a blue post on the forums is as that hugely attracts attention, its something I always try to take advantage of and something I think CCP could make much better use of. In this case CCP Zond 3 was good enough to post on it.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the end results from the CCP Dev blog.

Phoebe

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited about Phoebe.

Some of the small stuff, the unlimited skill queue, multiple sell orders and new notifications are pretty sweet.

The we have bookmarks on the overlay. This is awesome, want to know exactly where your snipe spots are around a wormhole or a gate you can see exactly where they all are.

I had a little fly a round on sisi to see how it looked for myself and was really impressed. I'm sure people will find some interesting ways to use these.

Next we come to the big one, Long distance travel. I'll be the first to admit I've been quietly giggling away about these changes. Will it affect me in W-space, a little getting caps in and out of W-space will be a bit more of a pain in the arse. but its nothing we can't adapt to, I can see groups that might start building there own caps in their wormhole now, It may lead to more mining in some wormholes or even enterprising groups offering to let small mining groups share the wormhole in return for cheap minerals.

Apart from that the rest is all really good for wormhole space, There will be alot less chance of you being hot dropped, Encouraging people to go via gates will mean more targets in space. Ooh and the null tears are all pretty epic as well.

I've had some interesting chats to some people from nullsec. With several memorable lines.

the first being. "You live in a wormhole wtf would you know about logistics"

Now I'm the first to admit I'm not up on nullsec logisitics. I don't live there, On the CSM there are people who understand that stuff much better than me like Mynnna, Sion or PGL. So I defer to them on this. 

But it got me thinking what is wormhole logistics like. NoHo is one of the biggest wormhole groups out there, We have 50 plus pos's in our wormhole all large. Its a crazy amount of fuel we need. We use capitals all the time to run sites which means we go through alot of stront which is pretty large m3 wise. Like wise all our ammo has to also be hauled in. So what is it like for us.

Well if we get a exit near to a trade hub we'll start hauling 4 or 5 freighters to the hisec wormhole from there often 10 to 15 people in hauler will then ferry it in to our home system often through 5 odd wormholes, With a support fleet keeping a eye on all the wormholes along with checking for new signatures. Doing this on your own would takes ages, but with everyone helping there often done in under a hour. Some times we get lucky and get a direct hisec from our home system and we can bring freighters straight in, but these are rare.

Now what about ships. In NoHo we don't really build anything in the wormhole, So every ship is brought in, I'm sitting on 52 ships in my pos most of which I flew in on my own, If its a expensive ship like a 3b bhaalgorn I'll also ask for scouts to check the chain for me.

This is where I think alot of the issues come from. I've chatted to Sugar Kyle quite abit about this since she does a fair bit of hauling for her group in lowsec. We both sort of agree alot of it comes down to play style and how groups work in there area of space. In null or lowsec if you rat you normally do it on your own. In high class wormholes its nearly always done with a group (or multiple ships being multi boxed). Wormhole space heavily encourages group work even for boring crap like hauling, most people muck in to help. In lowsec and null, hauling is often handled by a few dedicated people, maybe 2 or 3 for small groups up to 50ish for hauling and 150ish for logistics, in the case of Goons.

Using the earlier case where we have 15 hauling and 15 support ships that's probably 75% of the people online helping. This just doesn't happen in low or null.

The second line I remember "I use jump bridges 40 to 50 times a day"

Well there's your problem your literally relying on them for everything you do, When I ask why he just can't use gates he tells me it saves him three or four jumps. My POV is that jump bridges should be for strategic and tactical use, Not for everything you need to do.

On some more general stuff.

I posted up a simplified version of my C1 to C4 pve results, which got some decent feedback, Sadly with remote reps now working again this are probably not quite as accurate now, So I need to go and redo the C4's at the very least to see how much has changed.

The CSM has submitted the minutes to CCP so they are on schedule, 

Sugar was on fire doing 9 minutes, me, Steve and Xander 3 each, Sion 2, Ali, Mangala, Mike and Mynnna each doing 1.

I've started doing some POS research, I was hoping to interview everyone who replied but had so many posts in that thread mails in game and tweets. I'm not sure I will get around to doing that so I sent out a questionnaire (100 plus sent out so fair) I've also posted the questions here so other people in W-space can just get them without having to contact me.

I've had 20 plus replies so far so pretty happy with how its turning out at the moment.

The little things project is still going well, CCP karkur  recently got the probe scan and D scan windows separate and its now on sisi.

So I'm really happy about that. I'm hoping she can work her magic and get more stuff done as well.

Prediction

Hyperion has been out a week now. I've posted already on how its affecting the different corps I'm in. But now its time for me to try and predict just what I think will happen over the next couple of months.

I've been getting a fair few mails and skype messages from players and a fair few from people in lower class wormholes saying they are having similar issues to my alt corp in the C4.

One of the issues with wormholes is if you have had enough and want to leave. Its a fair bit of work you need to do, unless you just want to lose everything in your wormhole. You have a crap load to pack up, ships to move out, spare ammo, mods, any sleeper loot you have. Then your pos and the pos modules. 

When Aharm moved out of Nova they had 120 million m3 of stuff to move out over 3000 ships a 100 capitals and over 50 pos's. They expected it to take 2 months but managed to get it done in 3 weeks.

Small groups won't have anywhere near that amount of stuff, But then they won't also have the manpower to help either. Either way it will probably take a while to move out. What this means is that some stats just won't show up for a while.

Anyway on to the prediction.

In the next 2 to 3 weeks alot of smaller groups in C1 to C4 will find that with the new frig wormholes and the fact that closing statics is alot harder they won't be able to farm anywhere near enough to cover loses they have due to losing stuff rolling or running sites. They'll move out stubborn ones will stay. While others go to hisec to farm incursions. (its worth noting low class income is pretty terrible anyway and what with the new risks will make it even worse)

The next month will see the bigger groups start to maybe not feel any isk pressure. But they will notice alot less people in W-space. In NoHo we have HUGE chains due to the frig wormholes, there all well and good but if all the wormholes are empty, whats the point?

Some of them might run in to issues when connected to bigger groups they cant fight. I can see some corps/alliances merging.

Some due to lack of content and stuff to fight will leave and join null or lowsec groups.

At the 3 month point I see things settling down people who haven't left at this point won't, you'll have the die hard of wormhole space left, that's it. Lower class wormholes will be a barren waste land due to the fact its just not worth the risk to live in, combined with there being much better income else where like highsec incursions. The larger groups that are left will probably spend most of there time doing nullsec roams for pvp.

By this point I can see anywhere from 20% to 40% of the wormhole population gone. Which is dire. I really hope it doesn't get that bad, and that CCP make some changes. The issue is changes might already be to late. People are leaving and once they have left the chance of them coming back isn't great. 

For all the people who have sent me mails/skype messages of support and thanks, its really appreciated.

Mother of Bob, Hyperion changes.

Hyperion has been released, Alot of it I am fine with, in fact I really like the majority of it.

Sigs keeping ID over down time is great. +1
Wormhole effect balance I'm happy with Black holes are no longer the leper of w-space. +1
Bookmark copying increase. +1
K162 spawning when you jump in. +1

The next few things will be from the POV of my small alt corp that lives in a C4.

Some thing I think is good for wormholes in general is the second static for C4 wormholes. However it does come at a price, One I'm willing to pay though even if it really sucks for me.

Second static.

My small alt corp I have that makes T3 also has a C4 wormhole it had a C3 wormhole and was a really sweet place to relax, It had perfect PI me and 4 of my mates could easily run sites in there and pvp in the c3 if we wanted. The down side is with the patch we got our second static that was a C5. Now this sucks combined with the mass/distance change and the frig wh. we are basically screwed. As a small corp we really struggle to close the C5 with assuming we could all use orcas which we can't it would still take 2 rounds to close it, with battleships 3 rounds, If there is any big group in that C5 we basically have no way at all of closing it safely.

Frigate wormholes.

These seem cool on paper but for my alt group we cant collapse them at all. If we want to do anything we have to bubble and leave a scout on them to run sites. Even this isn't ideal a group of interceptors could easy just fly through a bubble get tackle while other frigs burn through to come help kill us.

Mass/distance jump mechanic.

This just plain sucks, it makes it so hard for us to actually collapse our new C5 safely, using Orca's takes one guy at least two trips which gives who ever is in there plenty of time to find us. Using battleships isn't much better. That would be three rounds needed to close and while we would be closer to the wormhole. But would need three rounds so 10 minutes at least.

These three changes combined have basically made it impossible for us to live in the C4. Which really sucks as it was a great wormhole to relax in. Now alot of this is down to the fact we have a C5 as our second static if it had been a C1 to C4 we'd maybe have been ok.

We've not the only ones having this issue. So are others and I see others leaving. However while some move out others will hopefully move in as its potentially a decent PvP wormhole for small groups. This is why for the dual statics I'm happy to pay the price for this change.

Now for the NoHo POV.

Frigate Wormholes.

These are pretty sweet for us, We already have a frig fleet comp. So we can pretty much take on most small groups running sites in lower class wormholes. Caps in a escalation site is probably a bit out of our league for the current fleet set up but we're working on that. If we connect to anyone running sites in C1 to C4 i'm totally confident we can kill them no problem with our frig fleets. The slight down side is even after being toned down, these things still seem to be bloody everywhere, While we appear to have a huge chain, in reality 85% of the chain is off limit for anything but frigs/destroyers. So this is mixed blessing, if you love frig fights your in luck. If you don't, sucks to be you.

So for us great. smaller groups it potentially sucks.

Mass/distance jump mechanic.

We are currently up to 100 pages on the main feedback thread, with a extra 36 pages on a earlier feedback thread. Again this really isn't going to affect NoHo, rage rolling will take a bit longer. Our (NSFW) Bhaals deep fleet, needs a few tweaks but is otherwise not really affected. But then we're one of the largest groups out, Smaller groups will certainly be feeling this. Especially if they connect to us or we connect to them. Its going to be really hard to close any wormholes that were active in, Yep I said it ANY wormhole, not just our home system. Yesterday we caught our first cap trying to close there static that had connected to our static. They made a bounce and warped there dread there and in that time we managed to get Dictor to the wormhole and bubble up. I'm not sure if people will keep doing this, I feel that just slow boating back is much safer than making a bounce, especially if you have a nano cap.

This is also worse in lower class wormholes as you can't use caps so actually need more people to roll a wormhole (or more trips) as shown below.

C5 to C5 you need 1 dread, 1 orca and 1 battleship.

C4 to C5 you need 5 (potentially 6 if its a plus mass wh) orcas. or 10 or 11 battleships

C4 to C2 you need 4 orca trips or 7 battleships.

Again putting more pressure on smaller groups in lower class wormholes

I just don't see anything good coming from this change at all. People are happy with a certain amount of risk, But this will most likely end up being a unacceptable amount of risk, leading to people not rolling.

there are already several threads about people not getting any new sites in there system. Which could well be a indication that there is less people running sites now. Which isn't good at all. I'm hoping to get numbers in the next few days from CCP and hope these will provide more information.

My own view this this mass/distance change is probably one of the worst things to happen to wormhole space so far. I'd realy like this rolled back and the number of frig wormholes lowered considerably again.

Annoying stuff, If you have read any of the threads on wormhole forum you'll see alot of people (normally out of corp alts or nullsec people) post about changes that really don't know what they are talking about and while I don't go quite as far as The Mittani I do some what agree.

I've used one of his paragraphs a couple times now in the thread.

Here's the hard truth: If you don't live in Wormholes, and you've never lived there, your opinion about how wormholes should or shouldn't be is worse than irrelevant: you are the virgin offering advice on how to get laid. Like a virgin, you probably genuinely believe that your opinion matters and that the mere fact that you have no personal experience on the topic shouldn't invalidate your opinion, while everyone else listening to you is quietly shaking their head.

What is worse than people talking about stuff they don't know, Is people talking about stuff based on stuff they think they know that's actually wrong. This frustrates the hell out of me if people don't understand the basics of how to roll a very simple wormhole how the hell are they ment to comment on how this will effect wormhole space. Now one of two people can easily be ignored on the wormhole forum. But what about when this is happening on actual podcasts with, so called wormhole experts. This to me is way worse you have people listening to these assuming they are correct when in fact there "expert" is talking total shit, basic stuff like, "closing with two dreads and orca" highlight the point they don't know how to roll wormholes. Then getting basic facts about the changes wrong (caps will now spawn up to 50km from the wormhole) when its stated clearly in the dev blog exactly what it is.

Anyway rant over. Alot of good changes, some quality of life stuff and huge pants on head change, that drowns out most of the other stuff.

Ooh Huge thanks to Robb from Ixtab and Angelues from NoHo for helping me with C3 testing I managed to get 80% of the testing done in one day thanks to them.

Little project not so little.

When I ran for CSM there was a few things I really wanted to do and try and sort. One of these was trying to sort the income of lower class wormholes. The slight issue here being there is alot talk about what you can earn but no hard data. I've heard so much different stuff, for instance I've heard in a C1 wormhole you could make anything from 25 million a hour to 150 million a hour. That's a huge variance.

Some people I know did manage to give me alot of good information, Fits they use to run stuff rough idea of what they make a hour, what sites they run, how they run them. I got alot of great hints and tips. The down side is there is alot of people who talk out their arse. Just looking above you can see some of that 25 million to 150 million some one has to be terribly wrong. It probably doesn't help that this sort of thing is a pet hate of mine.

So with that I started to test what you could make, isk wise in wormholes. My first idea was to do a hour of farming in a couple different ways.

1 dps ship on its own then swapping to salvage after.
1 dps ship with a separate person salvaging.
2 dps ships and a 3rd person salvaging.

This gave me some rough ideas of what sort of isk I could make. I also got to work out correct percentages of salvage. 99% of all isk from salvage was from melted nanoribbons. I knew they made up most the income but didn't expect it to be that high. It also gave me a rough idea of what sort of percentage of the isk froma  site was from blue books and what was from salvage. Both C1 and C2 had a huge percentage from salvage, about 70% meaning they are incredibly reliant on the price of melted nano's.

The slight down side was due to melted nanos being random and my sample size being fairly small I wasn't sure how accurate they would be. I asked if I could get hold of the loot table so I could work out some exact numbers, which I was told was very unlikely. Its worth noting, to date this is the only thing I have been turned down on since being on the CSM. All other info I've asked for I've been told.

Part 2 of PvE testing.

I'll say now I don't do much PvE, nearly all my income comes from my T3 indy corp. I occasionally help out in NOHO with sites if there short, but that's not all that often. What I will say is when you live in a C6 magnatar stuff dies really fast to dreads, by comparison stuff seems to take ages when your just on your own in a Tengu.

I decided to do a much more accurate test. I'd run all combat sites (think small first then, relic and data sites after) 10 times, yep that's right 240 sites from C1 to C6 space. With another potential 240 from the relic and data, This isn't including Ladar and Grav sites, which would take it over 500. Holy shit what had I got myself in to.

I do all my testing on SiSi so I don't have to worry about being ganked. The down side is on SiSi its often harder to get faction mods which I wanted as they are often used in wormhole space. Combined with the fact finding wormholes is alot harder on SiSi. Luckily CCP devs are super helpful, a quick skype message and normally some one can come spawn me faction mods, more ammo (not joking even loading my Noctis and Tengu full on ammo I'd had to ask for a ammo pit stop) Find and move me to wormholes I need and in the case of testing C4's give me a couple million skill points to get marauders 5. Without there help I simply wouldn't be able  to test this stuff. So Shout out to CCP Leeloo, Affinity, Fozzie and Nullarbor, who have all helped.

When I do the sites I record how long they take, how long salvaging takes, and travel time. I record the isk from blue books and how many melted nano's I get. This allows me to work out a isk per hour for each separate site. I do this twice once including all 10 sites of melted nano's and once where I ignore the lowest and highest 2 sites of melted nano's, this allows me to get rid of any spikes I might of had where I got really lucky or unlucky. Thanks should go to our maths guru in NOHO, Faye for helping me out here with advice.

I can then use these numbers to give a average of all combat sites in that class of wormhole or use just the best site, as most of us like to min, max and only do the best sites.

The down side is this takes alot of time. I average about 3 to 4 hours on sisi 4 or 5 days a week I finished C1 last week and that probably took 20 hours. To make it worse, is as I get in to the higher class wormholes its going to take longer. Ideally I need to get this done before the summit which is in roughly 6 weeks time.

With this in mind I'm probably going to ask for some help off people to do C3 and C4 wormhles.I'll do each site a couple times, so I can record the time it takes and then I'm hoping to get a whole load of people in to help me blitz all the rest of the sites super fast. Hopefully I can get them done in a day and not a week. C5 are a bit of a issue. but I think I can sort them and C6 I can get most the stuff from NOHO accounting site.

That should then be the end of wormhole PvE, I should have a fairly accurate set of information on what can and can't be earn't.

Other stuff that's been happening, some stuff got added to Sisi (jumping through wormholes lands you at a distance depending on mass of your ship), and people spotted it. Needless to say it was quickly put on reddit here. Then it spread to the eve forums here. I managed to let some of the Devs know and CCP fozzie posted here. Keep in mind it was a Sunday and he replied within a couple of hours, on his day off.

There will be a Dev blog out soon (tm). Then I will try and organise a wormhole town hall for this weekend. I've been keeping a close eye on the thread and speaking to people about it in mails as well as on comms. I'm also happy to come chat to anyone else about it if they want to mail me there contact details.

CCP Falcon has also been helping me sort out getting some devs sorted for a couple podcasts as well as some other minor community stuff. It's surprising just what you get asked by players. So a big thanks to him and the devs coming on the podcasts.

Quick update.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a bit, been really busy. This might well also be a bit random.

With Kronos coming out, there's been loads to check. Both before and after. I've spent alot of time on sisi testing some stuff. I'v had a couple friends from NOHO come and help, Big thanks to Blackish Person and Murashj as well as all the people who have given me input on best way to run different sites.

So fair I've pretty much finished with C1 to C3 space. Just started on C4's now and am half way through the grav and ladar sites. There's a pretty crazy amount of sites to check, some where over 60. So I guess I'm half way.

I should probably also say a huge thank you to CCP Fozzie, CCP Leeloo and CCP affinity, who have helped with mods, moved ships, found me sites and wormholes I need. Acted as a ammo store for when I'm running low. I really dread to think just how long it would have took me to find all the wh's and sites on sisi without there help.

The CSM is up to about meeting 26 now, I wasn't expecting us to be kept in the loop as much as we are. Sugar kyle has started doing a Q and A twice a month for eve uni one in Eu tz and one in US tz, I tagged along both times (Mayor JSilva came along to US tz one as well) It was really interesting hearing what people thought on stuff and answering any questions they had, We got asked some really random questions from "what's your fave ship" to "can we get a newbie only zone". A lot was taken on board and it was really enjoyable.

The slight down side of all this is I'm just not getting as much time to play. I'm still trying to get on NOHO comms every day and trying to at least get something done.

I did get to have some great fun suicide ganking last week. I was speaking to another wormhole alliance, Trapped and they said they were going to suicide gank some mission Tengus in hisec, and asked if I wanted to come along. I've never done suicide ganking so I said sure, podded myself out to hisec and headed to there system. There were really well organised and it was really interesting, seeing exactly how they went about going after people. I'd say half the people we went after we caught. The others managed to warp before we tackled them so we didn't lose anything but time. What I will say is its pretty crazy 6 (5 if you take in to account I didn't actually get any damage on it) thrashers can kill a 2.3 billion isk tengu. In total we used 19 thrashers at 11million a pop and got 1.25billion isk of loot in a hour.

Dealing with CCP.

I need to be a  "Angry salesman." I need to keep on nagging any dev I can get to listen to me about what I want to do.

My plan, first I'm going to start spamming then with skype messages every few minutes or so. As some devs are in few channels this will help as they will get multiple skype messages. I'll also be hitting the forums hard  posting exactly what I want sorted.  I figure this is pretty standard and probably won't get me the "angry salesman" title. So time to think out side the box. Maybe some leaflets left in pubs in iceland. I could also send the devs some business card I get made up with exactly what i want done on them. Maybe some billboards outside CCP's office. Maybe some big signs off the side of boats in the harbour. If we're going boats maybe a plan towing a sign with what I want done.

This all seems pretty reasonable and I doubt it would annoy CCP at all.


I've had alot of people mailing me or convo'ing me in game, asking "WTF I hope your going ballistic over the npc api date."

Now yes I guess I could have gone thermonuclear on CCP FoxFour. I could have made a huge post, calling him all sorts of things. Just what good does it do yelling and screaming. Normally when I have people like that screaming at me, I just think man that guy is a A hole, then just ignore them. This is the last thing I want the devs thinking of me. A much better approach is to be polite.

I'm reminded of a old classic film here Road house. Dalton the head bouncer is chatting to the other bouncers and basically say.

Ask him to walk but be nice. If he won't walk. Walk him but be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you will both be nice.

This works much, much better than ranting and raving. Another example of how ranting and raving could go wrong.

There was also a slight issue the other day with mass on freighters. It got pointed out to me and I had a quick look. I'd actually missed this as well, so first things first. Check all the data, Its right there could be a issue with freighters in W-space. I mail the guy who pointed it out thanking him for his good post (more on these in another blog).  I received a nice mail in reply (which is a nice break from the norm). I post on the forum to let everyone know I have seen it and am on it. I then let the rest of the CSM know about it. Post on our internal forum to let CCP Fozzie know about the issue, along with the facts mass of wh's, mass of freighters. Why this would be a issue. I also let him know on skype. Its a sunday but within hours its sorted. Simple miss type. Everyone is happy posts are made to let people know its a mistake tweets sent. jobs a good one.

Now what would of happened if I went full retard on CCP Fozzie, I'm sure it would have got sorted. I'm also sure he'd think I'm a total prat and it sure wouldn't help in the long term. This I hope shows why being nice and polite works much better than going full retard for stuff that in this case turned out to be a tiny honest mistake.