After returning from picturing Fanfest V in the latest EON, Postcards from the Edge is calling out again for in-game images to adorn its pages.
Reading over my previous call for images I’m reminded that I never made good on my offer to send magazines out to those who had their’s published. As I admitted in my previous post I suck at credits, more than I realised. Time to make amends…
24 hours after returning from Fanfest (the MMM “Pub Team” like to drag things out for a few extra days), I find myself somewhat refreshed and reinvigorated, as I always do after coming back from the annual EVE pilgrimage in Iceland
As ever it was great to meet the real faces behind the pretend names who I’ve come to rely on to help me with the magazine: CrazyKinux has become a close ally and it was great to catch up with the Blog Pack leader as he launched himself from one presentation to the next like some fevered journalist (he was probably the busiest guy in the building). Yoshito Sanders was another EON stalwart it was good to be reacquainted with, who at least seemed more alert than when I last saw him, crashed out on the EON sofas at Fanfest last year. Fellow fictioneer The Cosmopolite offered a hand in friendship, which I was happy to shake, and, In fact, over the course of the three-day EVE extravaganza (of which I lazily attended two) it was a bumper year for name-checking: Alienhand, LaVista Vista, and Reiisha… just a few of the many legends I spoke with.
Sadly not everyone could come to the party, and given the 250,000 players who might have turned up, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t (although I suspect the economy would have embraced such a delegation). Notable absentees include the elusive Winterblink. Likewise Urban Mongral’s non-bounding about looking for his podcasting other-half also made the halls seem a little emptier …although my bar tab was lighter as a consequence. Thankfully there was an off-the-leash Midnighter happy to pick up the slack. An abiding memory of Fanfest V will be a vision of him, drenched in RoXoR love and cheap beer, clutching the neck of a smashed guitar. I trust he managed to get it back through customs.
It wasn’t the most hedonistic Fanfest, nor the busiest – American attendees seemed particularly thin on the ground, but from an EON perspective, it was among the very best. Aside from catching up with contributors, there was some big announcements – all of which are by now well known, but need careful pondering. For the next month, that’s pretty much what I’ll be doing.
After letting things fall into wrack and ruin on this blog for far too long, I’ve at last managed to update a few things about the place. I’ve put up details of the latest issue (which is about to be sent out), updated the back issues accordingly, added a few names to the About Us section and gone over the advertising side of things.
It’s worth pointing out here that whilst fundamentals of advertising in EON won’t be changing, those keen to promote themselves or others should be aware that there has been a clamp down on ads that go to CCP for inclusion as splash screens: Basically, there can be no hyper-linking or any mention of a URL in these ads in future, even if the service being promoted is for a service that is purely in-game. It’s a move that is unfortunate but totally understandable. On the one hand some sites have started realising the commercial potential for EON ads (a 250,000 captive audience is a good market, especially if the ad cost nothing to air), and pimping out of game services that CCP have no control over – especially commercial ones, is not something this service was ever intended for. On the other hand these sites potentially take people away from playing EVE, which is never a good thing.
Basically, while we are happy to publish ads in the magazine for anything and everything related to EVE, until further notice only ads specific to alliances, corporations and in-game services offered directly by players will be allowed to air as splash screens. Websites and third-party applications may of course advertise with EON, but their ads will only be accepted for inclusion in print. I’m sure there are grey areas, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to get in touch.
EON#013 is done. It was actually done a couple of days ago, but other MMM duties required me get stuck into them immediately. For the wicked, it appears, there is no rest.
Of course it hasn’t all been ceasless toil and back-breaking work over the entirety of the last few days. A couple of weeks ago during a short period of downtime I rolled up a new LOTRO character. I played the game very briefly at launch and enjoyed it, but never really had the time to fully immerse myself in Turbine’s version of Tolkien’s fantasy blueprint. Truth be told I’m not much of a fantasy fan at all, but if I was to start lording about in a game with orcs, I may as well play the real thing rather than some cover version like World of Warcraft.
What I like about Lord of the Rings Online is how relaxed it is. Levelling up is just something you do as you go from place to place reading boxes of text. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the ultimate Tolkien experience, since having tried and failed to get enjoyment from the books, if LOTRO was true to the source as I recognise it, I would have thrown it on the fire long ago. Fellowship of the Ring really is the most tedious bit of fiction I’ve ever encountered. (No, I’ve not read the Bible.)
Rather more recently I bought and installed Warhammer Online, and though I used to like Warhammer back in my school days, the 40K universe was more my thing. In the realm of GW fantasy, I far preferred the battle system to the role-playing one.
Now WAR is quite a different beast to LOTRO and one I’m not fully sure if I like. Having picked a Dwarven Engineer and toyed with a Goblin Healer, the classes feel quite unique, but I can’t help but feel like I’m playing a bad version of Team Fortress whenever I get into any RvR. As for the public quests, most are frequented by morons, but then most new MMOs are full of such beasts. The server I’m on lags most nights and the graphics are not too great, so I’m hardly having the time of my life. However it’s too early for me to call a halt to my proceeding with the game, but I seem to have returned to the Shire to learn the ways of the carrot farmer, at least for the time being. I seem to find planting vegetables near Michel Delving more interesting than planting my spanner in orc faces.
Of course I will be back in EVE over the course of the weekend, but I always take a week of extended downtime after finishing an EON, just for the sake of my sanity. In any case, I’ve missed two successive mining ops and I fear I shall be kicked out of my corp unless I make amends quickly. But these carrots are sooo crunchy…
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.
Whether it’s the way the light skims off a golden hull, a vast armada of warships striking through warp, a POS under seige, or just the serenity of a quiet planet nestled in a off-route system, EVE is full of stunning views. In EON every issue we try and capture some of them as part of Postcards from the Edge, but we need your help. We need your screenshots.
If you wish to have one of your EVE pics included in a future edition of the magazine, all you have to do is email to me along with your character name, the name of the system the screenshot was taken in (if known) and a brief description of what is going on.
Please note that we can only accept images taken with Premium Graphics content enabled, and please ensure that no interface elements are included (ALT-F9 toggles the UI). Those who have their images published will recieve a free copy of the magazine, and, ever better, my eternal gratitude.
I can’t believe it’s been almost three months since I last attempted an entry here, and I feel a slight sense of shame that it has taken so long to be roused from my blogging slumber. That said it has been a busy few months: Another EON has been and gone; there was the Council of Stellar Management meeting in June, some other deadlines in July that corresponded with a trip to the US (where I saw a drive-in movie for the first time) and loads of other personal stuff, including moving home, filing a very late tax return and a few less pleasant chores even than those.
…All of which kinda leaves me back where I was three months ago; rushing around to complete another EON. Whilst I and others get on with that task though, I shall endeavour to blog a little more often and update all the things on the site that need updating.
Since most people have now received their copies of EON#011 I will just list the winners of the recent EON Awards, as voted for by the EVE community back in February. These were of course the second annual awards, and, as with last year, the Goons have collectively won the lion’s share. Some have complained that they have done so due to sheer weight of numbers rather than out of merit, which is certainly half true – logically so, given these are decided by a public vote and GoonSwarm are the largest player-entity in the game. That said, the number of total votes cast was significantly lower than the GoonSwarm membership, so it wouldn’t have taken much effort at all to have rolled them over. Congratulations to the Goons I say for mobilizing their drones. And congratulations too for their achievements during 2007. The bees done good. Also a few hearty slaps on the back at last for Verone, who wins his first award after having so many nominations across both years, and to Chribba, who is EVE’s pin-up boy for the second year in a row.
Congratulations and thanks again to all the winners for making EVE just about the most interesting and engrossing alternate reality in existence, as well to all the nominees, plus all those who voted online, offered nominations in Iceland and attended the Award meets in Philadelphia and London (what an international bunch we all are).
As for the laser-etched trophies, they are currently being made up and as soon as they arrive in the office, I will be contacting the winners in-game to get their details so we can mail the things out. They are impressive things to behold (and damn heavy too). Before next year we need to think up a name for them. Given that they have a little EVE guy sitting in a pre-Trinity pod, maybe we should call them the Adams? EVE… Adam… geddit? Ok, bad idea.
Final note: The awards procedure will change a bit more drastically for the third awards, but I’ll reveal that another time. For now, let’s allow the winners bask in their well-deserved glory!
Hopefully most who have received the latest issue will be enjoying it. It was quite a tough one on account of the cover feature being an absolute bitch to illustrate, consternation over which managed to cause a few tensions within the EON ranks. Originally I had asked Svenstaro, famous for his 3D EVE ship wallpapers, to put an image together for the cover, but as the text came in it from Nate it seemed that what I wanted was either going to be impossible to do in the dwindling time we had available before deadline, or it just wasn’t going to fit with the theme of the cover feature itself.
After flip-flopping and prevaricating about the place (as only I know how) the calvary appeared on the hill in the form of an image CCP had created as a extra for the Testflight article – which ended up working far better than I hoped, thanks to the work of EON’s Art Editor “Wee” Jamie who toyed about with the in-game map elements. As ever, it all worked out well in the end, but i do feel a little bad for Svenstaro having had done all the work I had asked of him with nothing coming of it… If he ever makes it to Fanfest, I will have to buy him a beer.
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.
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