A couple of weeks ago, as I mentioned, I started playing EVE. It is a very different sort of MMO, but I think I’ll save the game analysis for when I’m feeling a bit more intelligent. Still, I thought you might be somewhat curious as to how I’m getting on.
Quite well, as it turns out. EVE’s learning curve is famously steep, and it is very easy to find yourself wondering what the heck you should do next. Fortunately I have enough experience with previous true sandboxes, mostly old school Ultima Online, to not be too disorientated by that.
I signed up for the 14 day trial, but that did not last terribly long. Trial accounts can’t take the Industrial ship skills, even though you receive a couple of ships needing that skill during the tutorial. Well, a wannabe tycoon like me wasn’t having that, so clearly the thing to do was to subscribe! As there is no charge for the game itself, it was just a matter of 20 Euros, including a one-off signup charge. Within my current funds, just about! Impressively, unlike most trials, the remaining trial time you have is added to your subscription, so you don’t miss out on gametime by subscribing before the end.
I started off as a Gallente citizen in the Verge Vendor region of space, and completed all the advanced tutorials at the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Clellinon system. The advanced tutorials are extremely generous with gifts of skillbooks and ships, not to mention wisdom, and this gave me an excellent start. On finishing up there, I decided to base myself in the nearby Luse system, setting up shop in a starbase belonging to the Federation Customs corporation. In retrospect, they weren’t necessarily the best Corporation to concentrate on, but they were local, and have looked after me quite nicely. I ran missions for the local corps for a few days, before deciding I wanted to explore a little more of the universe.
So off I sped to the the Amarr and Minmatar tutorial zones. I had discovered that you can go through the advanced tutorials at every system that offers them. Completing each series gives a decent chunk of standing, so it seemed worthwhile from that alone. What I do is simply leave all my gear where it is, get in my Gallente Shuttle, and buy the cheapest frigate available when I get there. It has been extremely useful in learning how the other races ships and weaponry work, which I am sure will be useful in the future.
I’m still in two minds whether or not to go do the tutorials in Caldari space, as they are the sworn foes of the Gallente, my primary faction, and my Gallente standings would take a serious knock. I’ll probably save them for if the Caldari start looking like they really hate me. Doing the odd bit of work for their allies, the Amarr, should keep that from happening any time soon.
So far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be any limit on how much stuff I can have. This is a major boon to a pack rat like me, but I can see that I will have an epic time of it trying to keep track of where everything is, even with the useful Assets window. I have a base of operations in each of the three Empires I have so far visited, each with its own pile of ships, loot, and general junk.
The other reason for me visiting the Amarr is that different areas offer different loot and salvage, and the capacitor related salvage I seek is most easily gained from Amarr’s local pirates; the Blood Raiders, and Sansha’s Nation.
My relationship with the Federation Customs is standing me in good stead as I prepare to move my Gallente operations to the Luminaire system in the Essence region. They have a couple of starbases there, so I arrive already having access to level 2 missions, and a good tax rate. I’m mostly moving to be a little more central, as it is a lot quicker to get into the other Empire areas from here. There are a heap of drawbacks to being in a busier area, but travel is far from trivial in Eve, and it’ll save me a lot of time in the long run.
Currently, I’m poking about the Luminaire area, seeing what’s on offer, and building up my standings with the local Corporations. Some are the same as over near Luse, but there are quite a few that are new to me here. Slowly building up my resources, skills, and standings. Patience is key.
For anyone interested in my current build, it’s coming up after the leap.
Brewday, the thinly veiled St Patrick’s day celebration, has returned to Norrath. All the quests from previous years are back, along with some holiday harvesting and crafting. Here, Maltheas is modelling his new craftable Brewmeister Backpack, along with the cheerful looking Carpet of Clover quest reward. The carpet is a handy bit of kit for any newer player, being a 35% speed mount. It’s not quite so useful for older characters, but it is so jolly that I think Maltheas will ride it for a while anyway.
Pink elephants. That wasn't lemonade though.
Maltheas follows the teachings of Rodcet Nife, the Prime Healer, diligently. So it is that he never drinks alcohol, except for when he must assist Snoogle in tracking down a number of very odd creatures. They can only be seen while inebriated, so for half an hour every year, Maltheas staggers about the land squinting at things, and wishing Norrath would stop spinning about so much. In the above picture, he has just managed to track down the elusive Pink Elephant.
The Avatar of Brell, god of Crafting. Here seen asking Maltheas to get a round in.
Brell, patron god of brewers, is tromping about Antonica as he is wont to do at this time of year, forever in search of a selection of fine beverages. This year he is giving out the recipe for the Brewmeister Backpacks as one of his reward options, so Maltheas decided it best to indulge him. You would never see Rodcet Nife engaging in such embarrassing behaviour.
Just heard on the BBC that Corey Haim has died, at the age of 38. While there are no details yet, it seems likely that his long-running battle with drug addiction might have played a part.
He was a major icon to any guy growing up in the 80s, and he’ll be missed. Here is what I consider to be his finest moment. The “Death by Stereo” scene from Lost Boys, a movie that I have watched an embarrassingly large number of times.:
Sorry for the small size. I couldn’t find the right scene on YouTube.
I’m not dead! Just in the throws of a cycle of seasonal depression, so it has been hard to drum up posting enthusiasm. Like my more famous Norfolk resident, Stephen Fry, I’m thoroughly bipolar, so these things are wont to happen. Full service shall resume presently.
In the meantime, I’ve submitted to blogger peer pressure, and decided to give EVE Online a try. Folks are not kidding when they talk about the brutal learning curve, but my days in early UO have left me fairly well-equipped for survival in such a universe, and the numbers geek in me is having a delightful time analysing everything. I’ll write more on EVE when I’m feeling a little more zestful.
The Gallente Catalyst Destroyer. Currently my mightiest vessel.
Elsewhere in deal-altering news, Alganon Online has just announced that they will be going with a subscription free model where you buy the game, but going forward there’s no fee. There will be an shop selling things for real world money in a similar way to Allods and its F2P friends.
But wait. They’ve been selling subscriptions. Presumably those are going to be refunded?
Right now we know you are thinking: “What about those of us who pre-paid? If there isn’t a subscription what did I pre-pay for?”
Well we’ve worked out a special for you. All Subscribers are being converted into Citizens and because we want to thank you for your show of support for Alganon, we have worked out a deal where what was paid will be converted to Alganon Tribute, a new in game currency system. Pre-Paid quarterly players will get 839 Tribute, semi-annual will get 1,559 Tribute and annual will get 2,878 Tribute deposited into their accounts after the April launch. We realize these numbers mean little without something to reference them against, so we will release more information on Tribute numbers as it gets closer to the Official Launch.
The Tribute Market System (TMS) will serve as the foundation of Alganons new real-dollar transactional framework. This market will support three categories of purchases: Items, Boons, and Services.
* Items include Pets, Mounts, Equipment, Access Keys, Potions, Boxed Collections, Tokens and specialty items that will be available through the Market.
* Boons are specific to studies and allow the purchase of study-time. This provides the player with options since the study system directly relates to access of advanced game content and systems. A player could purchase a year of studies right away or use the studies system in real-time; boons simply let the player accelerate that time.
* Initial Services offered will be character transfers.
So the money you paid to subscribe is getting turned into Alganon Tribute. Without asking. That is indeed “Special”!
But what if you don’t want to buy anything from the shop? Maybe you’d like to be the one who decides when it is that you buy Alganon Tribute, instead of having, in the case of an pre-paid annual subscription, a considerable amount of money converted into Tribute without you having any say on it. Once again, an MMO company is simply altering the deal.
This is not something that should be encouraged. I’m no lawyer, but it does sound like it might brush up against some sort of law or other. It certainly does not make me feel particularly good about trusting them with my credit card details.
Strange things have been afoot at Cryptic, and they bode somewhat ill.
For a time, Atari.com displayed a new offer. Star Trek Online’s price was dropped by 10 dollars, and it came with an additional 60 days of playtime, adding to the 30 days you’d normally get, for a full quarter of a year of playtime.
It was an excellent idea, in my opinion. 90 days would give Cryptic long enough to prove that they intend to do great things with STO. It would have let folks like myself pop in from time to time to see if things had improved. Unfortunately, this great deal was only for people who had not bought the game yet. As many pointed out, it punished anyone who pre-ordered, or bought the game at launch.
You don’t do that. You don’t punish loyalty. Certainly not if you want that loyalty to continue.
After the storm of annoyed players hit, Cryptic quickly realised their mistake, and the deal was pulled from Atari.com. Apparently anyone who signed up for the awesome new deal will now not be receiving the additional 60 days they were promised.
You don’t do that either. You don’t unilaterally change the conditions of a contract after it is signed.
Atari.com Customer Service in action.
There is only one honourable way to deal with this problem. 60 days should be given to every account, whether it signed up under the short-lived new deal, or one of the older deals. That is the only way you don’t either breach a contract, or anger your existing players. Aye, it’d be an expensive proposition, but they should have thought about that before offering it to new players.
It is clear that such a deal would not be put on the table unless Cryptic, or Atari, were seeing poor retention. A month ago, they were charging 300 dollars (on top of box price) for a lifetime membership. Now they’re willing to throw in 90 days with the box. The number of people, myself included, who have decided not to subscribe is obviously sending ripples of panic through the accounts department. When you throw your own game into the bargain bin within the first month, it is an admission that all is not proceeding according to plan.
Was the new deal the work of Cryptic, or their publisher, Atari?
Later, this pseudo-apology was posted on the Star Trek Online forums:
Hi everyone,
First, we respect the time, energy and passion the community has put into their opinions regarding the promotion that ran this weekend on Atari.com, offering 60-days of free play.
Like many companies, we are actively trying to sell games we are very proud of in an extremely competitive marketplace and we are always testing new ways to get more people using our products. The weekend promotion at Atari.com was one of those experiments. In the case of a game like Star Trek, we believe a larger number of players is a benefit to the entire community.
We will continue to look at the best ways to add new users to our game in a competitive marketplace while keeping our current players happy. Your feedback – good, bad and ugly – is extremely helpful and appreciated.
We won’t always get it right, but we’re always trying to do the right thing by you.
We do apologize and we appreciate your patience as we continue to do our best to make Star Trek Online the best game possible.
In the airless void around Uranus, Jack and his companions have finally discovered a weapon that might defeat the Qaxorian invaders. But as they prepare for take off it seems that Mordred has intercepted them once more, maybe for the final time.
