There's No Place Like Home

 Recently Dunk Dinkle and Rixx Javix have shared their thoughts on the current state of EVE and what it may portend for its future. Find Dunk’s piece here and Rixx’s counterpoint here. They have different points of view but they are extremely experienced, passionate and knowledgeable pilots whose point comes from long years of experience and from a genuine desire to make EVE the best sandbox it can be. 

I support a lot of points both of them make, I feel they do not address a fundamental problem with EVE that is not solved by merely reseting the server or finding a way to make do with the tools we have at our disposal. 

Dunk maintains that since EVE players have min/maxed all game loops in EVE there is little in the way of compelling content to keep old players around and the challenges facing new prospective players are so great that many of them will quit soon after taking their first steps never to be seen again.

Rixx’s position is that EVE being a sandbox, you make the EVE you want to see and that you have to figure out how to get there and make your own fun.

Both have a point. What I feel they don’t do is to address a fundamental problem with EVE: we do not have the tools to do more than wage war.

EVE is an amazing place that allows for many new experiences if the pilot can bestir themselves to give them a try and become good at the content of their preference. Though this is true, there are other considerations that have not been adressed and of which I feel they are material issues with the sandbox that have sofar not been adressed.

1. It’s all work and no play

Mostly, all activities are geared towards enabling the next war to take place. All industrial activity is aimed at producing the capital assets required to wage wars. Which will sit well with the crowd that maintains that EVE is a PvP game and that making war is the whole point of the place. This means that most of what people do in EVE is geared towards waging war, at whatever scale and price point is comfortable for any given party. There is no room for those who do not need to be engaged in forever wars to give their own expression of the sandbox.

The sandbox is supposed an expression of everybody’s best idea of what happens there, but what happens there in actuality is that people wage wars. War should be the rare occasion where conflict is resolved through violence. 

Speaking from my own experience, not nearly as illustrious as Dunk’s or Rixx’s, but after that same amount of years: I’ve been in corporations that were in alliances and those alliances switched allegiances so often and so fast that it was impossible to keep track of who we were at war with in any given week. Leadership was not responsive and it was near impossible to keep track of what to do (other than pew pew). As an industrialist it was extremely hard to ply my trade because there was no telling who was going to come after me. A single war would be a manageable situation and easy to fit into the daily reality of a capsuleer’s life. Run on wars made it impossible to update the mental map of where we were war-wise at any given time. I’ve been in Brave, Pandemic Legion, the Goonswarm and other alliances. Often out of my conscious control, but as a result of decisions made at the alliance level I was not privy to. But the kicker is: I don’t need all that much war, I can happily live without it and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. 

2. There’s no place like home

I have been voicing a concern for quite a number of years now that the pod pilot in EVE, at the top of the New Eden social stratum, does not have their own address. We are the ship we fly in, we may own a station, we still do not have a home. And that station? It may not be there anymore the next time you log in. The Captain’s Quarters were the closest approximation for pod pilots to have a home in space and as homes went they were sparse, uniform and they were to cozy what a meal ready to eat is to gourmand dining.

The point is: there is no personal home for the pilot to connect to, no place that serves as a hook to lure the pilot back. What could be a perfect environment as a third place does not allow the pilot to carve out their own niche in space and call it home. This home could take all kinds of form and be subject to the conditions that make New Eden the place it is, with some special conditions applying. Logging in to New Eden should be a way to come ‘home’. There is no upper limit to the shape and size that could take, some homes would become a rich source of lore in their own right. How amazing would it be if we were able to build our own cities in the sky and festoon them with all manner of goods and services sourced from all over the cluster.

3. Lore versus them

New Eden is based on a large body of lore. Lore that many people passionately enage with. The lore round table at Fanfest is typically one of the most densely packed rooms. People crave story. What better way to give them story than to make their choice of faction have deeper meaning, have a stronger impact on what they can and cannot do but with the added benefit of having privileged access to that lore that is tailored to their faction. Stories would be told, culture could be established, nurtured and broadcast to the wider world. 

Lore would serve as the cement of New Eden, explaining why things are the way they are and serving as the driver for all manner of interaction. Be it war, working or weddings. Everything under the suns of New Eden would happen because it had a foundation in lore. Customs and culture would drive interactions, would serve as a genuine casus belli and would give the player a reason to study the culture of New Eden and the best way to interact with it.

Pilots have already established that lore is the driver for some of the most meaningful interactions they have in New Eden. The important thing would be the possibility for a pilot to establish new culture that could be adopted by the wider community. And once established would serve as a cultural reference, establishing yet deeper identity, a new compelling reason to log in and join the tribe.

Many such expressions already exist and are widely followed and enthusiastically acknowledged:

• the statue to Katia Sae recognises a grand endeavor
• the memorial at Titanomachy 
• the statue to Chribba celebrates one of the greatest personalities in New Eden 
• the statue at Molea is our hope that are fallen friends find their way home 
• the celebration of John Bellicose’s life is one of our finest traditions
• the shot up statue at 4-4 commemorating the Summer of Rage 
• the exquisite pod pilot license created by Greygal establishes a deeper identity for us as pod pilots 
• Bob as the god of wormholes 

The list goes on. 

What New Eden needs is the tools to express more than a desire for yet another war. We need tools that help us build things, that help us create new methods and technologies and find an expression for the ideas that live within us and that inspires others to so engage with the rich opportunities New Eden has to offer that it may even become a reference outside of the client.

It would be beyond min/maxing because it is not about extracting the most value out of a cultural idea; it is about using the tools of the sandbox to build sandcastles of the imagination that stand as monuments to our desire to express ourselves in our preferred third place and that weave the culture of New Eden into the rich quilt of ideas and customs that we can establish, build and nurture.

In so doing we build a stronger identity for ourselves as pod pilots, the nec plus ultra of the best New Eden has to offer; we answer the question: what keeps you logging in; we can show new pilots: this is why you want to be here, this is why EVE is the best place on the internet and, by all means: do carve out your own place and make a name for yourself.

EVE can be forever when we have the tools and the means to make the sandbox our own.

Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions

An environment as intricate and complex as EVE Online places great demands on the people who are enamoured with the idea of being an immortal space-faring super being, which capsuleers are, but who are perennially at odds with features in the environment, the true function and reach of which eludes them because they don’t know how a lot of what is going on actually works.

And who can blame them. EVE is a constantly evolving universe where rules change, where the environment changes, where new features are introduced and old features change their function.

To make matters worse there is something like ‘the meta’, rules of the game that are not encoded in the game but that play a large and very important part in how the game works. They are not features of the game, they are emerging facts from the game that come about by how people interact with the environment.

How are new players to learn about all these features?

Through videos on YouTube.

A repository of videos on YouTube could be established that explain a feature, not a range of features, a single video for every feature, instructing the budding player and the veteran alike, who may not be familiar with function and reach of a specific feature, about how the game works.

It would require an angelic mind and too much patience for one person to generate all these videos by themselves, but luckily this is the era of the internet and we are humans: we can collaborate!

How do we achieve this feat of strength?

We start by creating uniform content. Uniform content is:

- use a naming convention for video titles such that it is clear that this is a video on EVE Online, that it is an instruction video and that it explains a named feature / process / method.

e.g.: 

EVE Online - Tutorial - Fitting Interface - [date]

EVE Online - Tutorial - Wormholes - [date]

EVE Online - Tutorial - Mining Lasers - [date]

EVE Online - Tutorial - Ship - Avatar - [date]

EVE Online - Tutorial - Planetary Industry - [date]

Uniform naming conventions will more easily return actionable results without wasting time. It will establish over time that this is the way one looks for relevant content with regards to features. It does not matter who generated the content.

Uniform content is talking about the feature, and about the feature alone. No editorialising is required, but if there is a known bug associated with the feature that would certainly merit a mention. Start with “Today we are going to discuss [this feature].” And then get right on with that.

Uniform content means the user will be clearly shown what the creator is talking about. The creator will show where the feature is (don’t zoom in on the feature to the point where it’s not possible to find how that location relates to where all the other features are), visual cues that stand out come to mind, and how it can be accessed and whether conditions apply to being able to access the feature “I can’t find where I can assign roles in a corporation!” That’s because you’re not in a corporation or on a level where you could do that. Clearly showing where the feature is, and how to interact with it, will avoid confusion and frustration. 

Uniform content means a certain level of quality will become expected of the video with regards to clarity of explanation, display of content, a voice speaking with conviction and authority and to set the right expectation of what a feature will do and what it won’t do if applicable.

Uniform content means the content creator will put their credentials on the video so they can get the credit for the video. “Hi, I am <name>, this is a tutorial video on EVE Online, discussing <feature>. Edit: after an exchange with Greybill it bears pointing out that users will not enjoy having to sit through any length of introduction, they will want to see the feature explained well. A credit at the end of the video is a better idea because it allows for direct connection to the content and it still gives the creator a credit for their work.

Uniform content does not mean hastily slapped together videos with nebulous explanations about this or that feature or phenomenon. The idea is to take any feature and make a genuine effort to explain it clearly, carefully and completely. Some videos will take more effort than others, they will obviously be longer for features that merit more clarification.

The creator will refer to the feature by its actual name to avoid confusion. The creator will not make shortcuts with regards to explaining a feature. “Oh, everybody knows that!” That’s the point, they don’t know it, that’s why they’re watching the video. Assuming they do know it will only cause confusion and frustration.

Creators will find out how hard it is to actually convey information to the uninitiated. It will be a skill that once acquired will serve them well in the blue room.

The [date, e.g.: 16-Jul-2022] part indicates at what point in time the content was relevant to the environment. Because there are so many frequent changes this will tell the user that the content was relevant to a certain time. When a feature / process / method has changed a new video will be created documenting the current state of affairs. Insofar as the creator is aware of pre-existing material referring to how the feature used to work, they can link to an earlier video below, so that the user can verify and compare how this feature used to work.

Over time this will build an institutional memory that everybody can tap into and use to become familiar with how this wonderful environment presents itself and how it is expected to work.

The author is unfamiliar with content creation on YouTube to the point where content could be ‘assigned / transferred’ to an account that was responsible to receive all these videos, and whether that would be preferable.

Creators are free to make videos in their own language although for uniformity’s sake creating them in English will help most of the demographic in EVE as English is the lingua franca of the game. 

Creators who want to create videos in their own native language, using the idea of uniform content, are obviously more than free to do so.

This way the burden of documenting a phenomenally complex universe with lots of moving parts could become a shared experience, deepening immersion, expanding an understanding and appreciation for the features, techniques and technologies used in the game client.

ISK versus Reward

Among the very many wonderful features the EVE client affords the intrepid capsuleer is the shareholder component of the corporation interface. This part of the interface has seen the dawn of the ages and little development since.

It is time to make better use of this feature, even though in its current form it serves little to no use, the proclivities of certain capsuleers curtailing its potential.

Consider:

- each type of activity within a corporation or alliance carries a token

- there is no fixed amount of types of tokens, we do not know what kind of activity will be important to a corporation / alliance that is not covered by the templates offered in the interface

- a token can be assigned to a pilot [it can also be revoked, in some cases the reasons will be blindingly obvious] or a corporation within an alliance

- each pilot can have more than one kind of token when they engage in more activities that benefit the corporation / alliance

- when the executor alliance assigns a token to a corporation, the corporation can assign a child token of that token to its eligible pilots

- each corporation can have more than one token assigned to it

- the corporation can either issue alliance-level tokens and/or their own to pilots in the corporation

- pilots will receive EVEmail to indicate they have been awarded a token, this will see a graphic representation in their toon’s character sheet

When the time comes to award groups of pilots in recognition of a job well done, the following occurs:

- the executor [either alliance or corporation] assigns an ISK amount to a group of pilots that are holders of one or more tokens

- the ISK is distributed equally to all token holders

- the executor will be able to provide a message to all recipients indicating what the reward is for

- an email will be sent to recipients so they can have their own record of when that money came in and for what reason

- the pilots’ wallet will have a tab in which a log is displayed indicating at what time they received a reward and what the size of the reward was

- if the executor is an alliance, it can award every pilot in a corporation or send ISK to certain groups of pilots within that corporation

- a log will be generated to document the event [which corporation was awarded how much ISK, for which type of pilot, which pilots received how much ISK when and for what reason]

- executors will be able to export logs of awards to a csv file using the new add on for Microsof Excel

Benefits:

- alliances / corporations / pilots will be able to distribute and receive rewards for activities

- the modified interface for shares within a corporation will now be put to good and active use

- adequate reporting will provide clarity to all pilots, corporations and alliances of where monies are distributed and for which reason

- greater ease of use to distribute rewards [maybe group medals could be awarded likewise?], incentivising rewarding pilots contributing to the success of the corporation / alliance

- CCP will find a way to make this interface both gorgeous and functional, incentivising its use to reward pilots for their contributions

- a deeper immersion into the inner workings of alliances / corporations

Costs:

- a rework of the shareholder interface within the corporation

- a potential for misunderstandings if improperly implemented / used