blood on the sheets

Last week the EON presses starting rolling – a little later than usual due to Fanfest appearing earlier in the calender. We’d originally planned to have the issue on sale at Fanfest as it seemed that publication dates and the big Iceland meet were meant for each other, but it became abundantly clear a few weeks ago that such a feat wasn’t possible due to CCP devs being busy writing their presentations and myself embroiled in wedding arrangements. In the end it worked out for the best, as it meant the last few days of frantic writing and editing weren’t as fraught as we’d become accustomed to and I could enjoy my honeymoon in relative peace in a very hot country as opposed to a very cold one.

Lot’s of people to thank this issue; CCP Shanghai for creating a blood-soaked cover image that is a little different to those we’ve run in the past, Static Zero for agreeing to snap Fanfest for our Dust feature, LaVista Vista for his insights into EVE’s credit crunch and to the EON Fiction Gang for getting stuck into some new scenarios.

The issue should be up on sale in the EVE Store soon, and I will of course get full details up here over the coming few days.

tour of duty

As someone who’s been to a number of game development studios across the years (yes, even Blizzard’s), the chance to win a tour of CCP’s recently completed offices (though, sadly, not their old ones) is not a competition I’m all that interested in entering. Don’t let me put you off as it’s all for a good cause, but you have to understand that I’ve been through CCP’s new fish hut enough times already. For instance, I know by heart the warning that’s taped above each lavatory should visitors be tempted to improperly dispose of paper towels.

Hilmar, CCP’s CEO, will be giving the guided tour, which will certainly make the wandering a worthwhile investment should you be as keen an aquarium buff as he is. However, aside from the Fanfest-friendly date and the fact that the winner will enjoy the undivided attention of CCP’s Great Leader (which itself is worth a small fortune), not much is known about what stopovers are planned for the tour. For the asking price, a raid on the EVE Store is a sure thing, but I also hope there are planned pauses at two of CCP’s most popular and worthy destinations; the coffee machine down by where I think the GMs live, and the crow’s nest dining room.

Now I’m not a massive coffee fan, but that machine makes such a good brew I swear it’s sentient (a possibility backed-up by the mechanical marvel being on Facebook). As for the food at CCP, let me just say that it beats the fare offered by any establishment I’ve ever worked at… and I work from home. In a country that can’t seem to make a decent sandwich and where a fresh tomato is rarer than fish legs, it’s quite a feat that so many fresh ingredients can be found in the same room, let alone combined and cooked to such great effect.

My advice to those keen on bidding is to insist you get coffee and dinner. Also, when going through the Art Department, don’t let Hilmar whisk you too quickly past all the desks. You can be sure than if you look carefully enough you’ll see some designs for new ships, or discarded designs for old ones. Elsewhere on your adventure, if you pass a whiteboard be sure to read what’s on it as you’ll probably glean many development secrets. Don’t make it look like you’re reading it too intently though, or you’ll be taken out and shot as a spy. If you survive all that, don’t forget to email me if you find anything interesting. Finally, of course, don’t flush paper towels down the toilet. It’s bad for the hamsters.

the long night

So it appears we are at the end of another production cycle for another issue of EON. Achingly close to the end in fact, but not there yet, as I’m waiting to get some information out of CCP in order to make sure the cover feature isn’t a six-page cluster of blank pages.

We have one day to go until we miss our print schedule, which doesn’t leave much time to write and design what is supposed to be the centrepiece of the magazine, but I’m hopeful CCP will come good at the very last minute, even if it does mean I’ll have to pull an all-nighter in order to get everything written up. As we all know, CCP are last-minute kinda guys, and a deadline isn’t much of a deadline if it doesn’t involve some last-minute panic and at least one night of both-end candle-burning.

young woman star

Clones are not real. Not yet. None of us live forever. We can only hope to continue beyond this life via the memory of others, whose lives, in turn, we have touched in some small way. To that end it shined a bright light into the dark corners of my soul when I read this post on the E-O forums, asking that CCP graciously honour the memory of the recently-departed “Taera”, by creating, in EVE, a monument to her earthly accomplishments.

Laura “Taera” Genender worked at CCP, albeit briefly, yet it was the very beginning of a promising career for a 23-year old who started as a journalist at MMORPG.com and who seemed to make friends wherever she went. Her ambition whilst at MMORPG was to move into games development, and, as someone who has harboured similar ambitions, I can jealously proclaim that it was an incredible accomplishment to have started that career at CCP.

I’m pretty sure I never met her in my travels (I can barely remember the faces of my old mates at PCZone), but reading what others have said, it saddens me that when I get to Fanfest in November, she won’t be there to politely say she loved reading EON.

I do hope that CCP create something inside New Eden as a testament to her memory. I also hope they change their policy and allow monuments to lesser others who are no longer able to fly across New Eden due to extended downtime in the afterlife.

We should remember that EVE is a real universe where real friendships are forged. These are friendships that persist solely in - and because – of EVE, and when players have their clone contract terminated prematurely, the loss is felt across EVE. It is therefore only fitting that players be allowed to honour the memory of departed friends through the medium of the game that brought them together in the first place.

For myself, I’d much rather have my name on a planet in Amarr than a park bench in Woking. Not that I’d care if I’m dead, but maybe …just maybe, others might.

Thanks Taera. Fly safe, wherever you are. Hopefully I’ll see you in EVE one day.

if we don’t fight, they’ll kill us both

Sadly there hasn’t been much news from CCP on when or where the next Alliance Tournament will appear. I’m reminded of asking since it was this time last year that we headed over to Iceland to prepare for and broadcast the fourth of EVE’s inter-Alliance PvP contests (this was back when EVE TV was kicking its hooves in the tiny MMM stable).

Being a rather large and expensive logistical exercise, it’s not one I myself am keen to be involved in again, although I remember it with great fondness… as do the hundreds who took part and the thousands who watched it live. For the sake of that and for continuity though, I’m curious as to whether November’s Super Ultimate Eve Online Mining Tournament of Awesomeness is a welcome re-imagining of the Fanfest PvP Tournament, a financially necessary re-branding of the bi-annual telethon, or a conjugation of both?

Whatever the future of the Alliance Tournament, I do hope it continues in some form. Even if it means getting all the alliance leaders into a bear-pit and arming them with lirpas. (Daa-da dah dah da-dah…)

wizards and warriors

No-one knows how long an MMO will last and even as new generations of them appear in their shiny new suits of armour, the old games still manage to survive. It’s easy to see why when you see just how much content is swilling around inside the likes of Ultima Online, EverQuest and, yes, EVE. (Hard to believe it’s almost five years old.)

The elders among the MMO fraternity are like the wise old wizards, with the newcomers the brave knights on their fresh steeds, keen to find favour in the imaginations of the great unwashed. Some will fall early in the battle, others will ascend to command vast armies, and yet, the old ones hidden amongst towers of books seem not to care. With so many games surviving to a ripe old age and new ones arriving almost every month, we have to wonder where all the players are coming from… EA-Land, perhaps?

It’s hard to imagine EVE Online ever disappearing. It’s five year mission thus far has been singularly unique and having enjoyed sustained growth throughout that time, and with such impressive investment in the game’s infrastructure (Christ, I sound like an accountant), the next five years promise to continue along the same trajectory. I do wonder where it will end though. In an interview that completely missed my eye, CCP’s co-founder Reynir Hardarson said “MMOs do not have to age. The nature of a game like EVE is that there is no need for sequels – why shouldn’t it run for fifty years?”

Indeed, why shouldn’t it? Whether there’ll be anyone left alive in 50 years is neither here nor there, but if we humans do happen to survive the great surge of methane that’s apparently simmering under the polar ice caps, EVE is probably the best-placed MMO to ride out the wave of obsolescence that will surely engulf Ultima Online and EverQuest and certain other old wizards. EVE may be nearing its fifth birthday, but Trinity gave it a new suit of armour, one that though perhaps not needed, will stand it in good stead for a good while. Wizards in shiny plate may not be standard issue in MMO Land, but when was EVE ever a standard game?

let the muck-raking begin!

The MMM team (at least, those with passports and without criminal record) went out to Iceland last week for discussions with CCP about various things that are actually rather mundane and not very exciting (making EON better, making the EVE Store friendlier for those that have to endure its bizarre ways in order to buy the mag, etc etc), but of course being at CCP means you bump into a few old faces, some of whom remembered your’s truly from previous visits, and with whom I managed to exchange a few pleasant words before collapsing in a heap due to exhaustion, illness and excessive beer ingestion the previous night (a bothersome threesome of afflictions it must be admitted).

One of the people I exchanged words with was GM Xhagen, who of course is co-responsible for the redevelopment of the new Council of Stellar Management, and who was on the day of our encounter going through all the applicants to make sure they weren’t evil-doers – lapsed or otherwise – or lacking in the necessary documentation to make the trip to Iceland in June (should they be voted in). I should add that I received no insight about this process, nor did I offer much of my own beyond my slow transition from skeptic hopeful to hopeful skeptic. What we did briefly chat about was whether it would be a fun idea to put the weight of EON behind any of the hopeful candidates: It’s fairly obvious that many print journals have political affiliations, so why not EON? Of course it was quickly agreed that to openly back any of the candidates would be a bad idea, not just because EON is kind-of an “official” EVE publication, but because not many people would care anyway… since the next edition of the magazine comes out after the candidates will have already been sworn in. It was a mindless suggestion in any case.

Since our return from northern lands, the full list of candidates has been revealed and I’m very happy to see all the names on the list, some of whom I know little about, some of whom I’ve stood toe-to-toe with over a beer or two. Most revealing of all is that the usual fears and preconceptions are already being manifested and dirt has already begun circulating. As a political entity, the CSM may end up as toothless as some detractors have already argued, but for entertainment value the political process in EVE is already proving to be very diverting. For most of us in the Western world, politics is entertainment, of course, but the good news is that this particular pretense at democracy will have at least been decided upon fairly soon… which will coincide with my next visit to Iceland to cover the first CSM meeting, and so enjoy more chats with new and old faces alike.

pity about the april fool

The most important day in the gaming news calander passed by yesterday with the usual round of bare-faced lies, diabolical jokes and half-truths. I won’t relay them here, but most were reliably unfunny. Eurogamer have provided a nice round-up of the best pranks played upon MMO gamers by their benevelont fee-collecting masters, which is notable by the complete absense of any mention of CCP’s April Fool’s effort from Lead Designer Hammerhead, which is probably for the best to be honest (sorry Noah). Try harder next year please. Something boot.ini related perhaps?

the politics of fun

After mulling over, asking questions about and writing a few words on CCP’s plans to “re-imagine” the old Council of Stellar Management, I’m still rather undecided about whether it’s going end up as something new and wonderful, or whether it’s just a Trinitised version of CSM Classic. Aside from the fact that council members will be voted for by the community rather than by CCP and that meetings will also be convened in Iceland, fundamentally there is little that differentiates what will be in 2008 from what was in 2003. Or is there?

The voting process itself is a difference of course, one that was originally seeded as a move towards what might have been be the first virtual world democracy. More recently the term “democracy” has fallen foul of ambition and the New (virtual) World Order that was prophesied as being a first for MMOdom a year ago barely survives as a buzzword. Even so, despite the reservations that some might have, the fun has already started. Some of the names that have put themselves forward – respected veterans Hardin and Omber Zombie among them – bode well for the future of the CSM. Even if the processes that may facilitate their elevation to public service is flawed, even if CCP’s motivation for resurrecting the CSM was deliberately skewed as some have suggested, it’’s difficult not to see this whole process as ending up as anything but fun to watch and commentate on. If a “fun” part of EVE is all the new CSM ends up being, that’s good enough for me.

cast aside

Sadly, I never got around to mentioning EVECAST in the mag. …Or rather, I did, but after some necessary deadline-day re-jiggery just before Xmas, it was decided to make room for another story and mark a mental note to make good the decision in another issue. Unfortunately EVECAST has since gone the way of EVE TV Weekly, which it was doing a decent-enough job of replacing. Rather less tragically it seems that after just four irregular episodes, tribute in print will elude the fledgling game station a while longer… a mention here in the blathering online footnotes of the real thing will have to do for now:

Hosted by the immobile VampireZIM, EVECAST.TV seemed to pretty-much do what EVE TV Weekly did; namely put together news, interviews and regular bits into the tried-and-tested TV magazine format. Some of these it did very well and some of these it didn’t, but considering it had a couple of big and very expensive shoes to fill, it’s perhaps not so surprising that the dark-glassed host (and director / producer / pretty-much everything else) had to call it a day.

Premature endings are not exclusive to TV broadcasts (insert Firefly reference here). The EVE community is littered with the half-built skeletons of fan projects that didn’t quite get off the production line. EVECAST got further than most and for that deserves much appluase. Mr. ZIM managed to hit the nail on the head however in his video eulogy when he said that crafting the show was a little too much work for one person (which perhaps explained the need to shade the eyes). Frequently, no matter how many people you enlist, it is always one person that drives such projects, especially when the good-intentioned volunteers drop back into their real lives. Ambition is a great motivator, but one big TV show is a beast of a project, and without the resources to fuel it, the tanks will quickly run dry. Perhaps a number of smaller shows might have worked – we may never know. I’m borrowing from my old EVE TV notebook here, but how about “The 0.0 Show” or “Carebear Corner” – shorter pieces that wouldn’t have needed a host to read to camera, or that could have been as irregular as real-life permitted.

I still hope to see a regular EVE videocast being made, but it may have to come directly from CCP in light of the work and costs required. Given the talent that has passed by both sides of the cameras to end up there, it would be remiss of Iceland’s top codeshop not to make use of the resources that it has so diligently acquired. Still, at least there is the Alliance Tournament to look forward to…. which is where EVE’s TV ambitions originated, after all.