Here Be Monsters

Due to my shitty internet connection, I didn’t buy ME3 on the Origin store, I waited for a retail store to have it in stock. Finally last week I managed to get one of the last 4 copies in a store.

Eager to fight the reapers, get it on with Miranda and continue the good fight I started playing.

First enjoyable twist was EDI being made mobile in a captured robot body thing. Wonder if Tricia Helfer also did the modelling for the base shape for EDI, and not the voice only.

I ended up using her on quite a few of the missions. Her feelings for pilot Joker comes to the fore, and you start seeing her AI reaching some sort of humanity.

As I kept playing, I marvelled at the story, and how well it was done, same as the previous two ME’s. Some new characters appear, and new twists in the plot. Some of your previous love interests are sacrificed for the greater good. Some decisions are hard. And some are not…(yes the one with the reporter  on your ship)

This was the Mass Effect I loved!

Finally, I’m on earth, struggle to get to the end goal and then…I discovered why everyone was so unhappy at the ending. Yes I knew Sheppard dies..but..

Dear Electronic Arts..what were you thinking?

In October, RAGE was released, highly anticipated first person shooter from ID software (you know those guys known for making awesome titles like..erm..Doom!). Well, locally in the shops it was expensive, and online reviews were giving it a hard time (texture loading etc). Thus, I decided to skip it and during that time I bought BF3 and MW3.

Last week sometime, I spotted RAGE on Steam for $29.99, about half price of what it was going for locally and decided to buy it. At 21gb download it took forever (remember, I live in the 3rd world, the land that bandwidth forgot!). Also, while it downloaded, I went reading up on how to optimize my dual GTX460′s for the game. Turns out RAGE doesn’t support SLI, but one card seems to run fine at 1920 x 1280 with 4xAA etc. The card hits about 74′c under heavy load, and I don’t experience any of the texture loading delays that plagued the console releases. As a reference BF3 at full tilt makes the one card cry at 86′c, and the 2nd card about 76′c.. (yes I have a really good HAF case and upgraded fans).

So playing the last few nights has me happy. The campaign is rather long, unlike some games which end up being finished in 4 hours, and entertaining enough. Sure, most missions are ‘go fetch!’ or the odd ‘kill shit’, but thats mostly par for the course. What I do like, though I suck terribly at it, is the racing section of the game, and the car combat. The game certainly doesn’t have the diversity of say, Borderlands, but then it was never meant to have it.

The enemies are fairly unique, with the mutants, petrol heads etc. Each faction moves differently and requires different weapons and ammo to kill. I’ll get to the weapons in the next paragraph. Every time I face the mutants with their jumping and dodging, I keep thinking of the line in ‘Priest’ when he shoots the vampires aiming for point B “Point A, meet fscking point B”

The weapons are the usual run of the mill, and in true ID software tradition you’re a walking arsenal, instead of the usual carry only two weapons. The fun part is in engineering the different ammunition types. At one stage last night I was having endless hassles going through the power station, until I remembered the explosive arrows. Suddenly the level was easy as pie. There is just something about shooting someone with an explosive arrow and hearing the character go “oh shit!” *whoompf!!* While some of the weapons can be upgraded, I would have liked to see more options earlier in the game, and more overall options for modifying the weapons. One example would have been a red dot sight or some such for the shotgun.

Since I haven’t finished the campaign yet I can’t comment on the ending, though I’ll probably have it done by the weekend. For now, I’m really enjoying the game at the reduced price, and after they’ve issued various patches to fix problems that occurred in the beginning. I am a bit disappointed in the the lack of SLI support, as I would have liked to up the quality even more, but at the level I play I’m quite happy. So, if you see it on special on Steam, grab it, it’s good fun for a few hours.

..to find that as much as Eve has changed over the last four or five months that I haven’t been subscribed..it hasn’t changed much. I renewed one of my accounts, after a friend said that the game is now ‘cool again’ and that CCP has definitely changed a lot of stuff. Sure, engine trails are back, and I looked at the tier 3 BC’s, but apart from that, what has really changed?  I logged in, found my Tengu as I left it, opened the mission agent, declined shit missions until I got Gurista Extrav, and proceeded to do it. The one person I knew that was online had wife-aggro, and left minutes later. So I ran the mission, as I did the last months before quitting, docked, handed it in, and logged off.

My question, with all the changes, all the promises, all the improvements..has Eve changed? Tonight I’ll hop back on, see if I can make contact with my mate and possibly get to 0.0 for some ratting and then pvp. If this doesn’t work out, what else is there to keep me in Eve? I need serious suggestions, as I don’t have much assets left (I gave away 18bn before I quit), so I need to probably either make isk via incursions or ratting, and I probably need to join a corp that doesn’t have its head in its ass..

Oh and what a let-down to discover none of the new tier 3 BC’s have a drone bay…

** Correction, I have just been told the Talos does have a drone bay on the #tweetfleet (I just scanned over the ships, so it’s entirely my fault for missing it). Thanks Liang Nuren for pointing it out to me

Apologies for not blogging in months. I’ve moved cities with the family (1500km move), started a new day job, AND had to have a thesis proposal handed on 30 November for the 2nd part of my Msc degree.

Now that we’re settled, the wife has her dining room table and fancy curtains it was time for daddy to spoil himself again.

One of the local online retailers had SSD’s on sale and I bought a cheaper OCZ Vertex Plus 60gb. Not sure how good the drive is, but it was not expensive at all, and if it turns out to be a dud I’ll find some use for it elsewhere.

I’ve been reading Jester’s Trek with some fascination the last few weeks. @RipardTeg is one of the better bloggers that I follow in Eve, and from the start I would like to say I have great respect for his blog, and for his writings. Now with that out the way, I need to comment on parts of the posts the man has made the last few days.

Everyone and their dog has read the Eurogamer interview with CCP’s Hilmar. A lot of the people, including Jester, seems to feel that the apologies of Hilmar are real and that he is proverbially falling on his sword. I don’t agree. I’m more on the side Trebor of the CSM’s view on the matter. Those that made the shitty decisions are not the ones who are taking the fall.

One particular part of the interview that has me worried, and that is the basis of this uneasy feeling I personally have, is regarding this part of the interview, where Hilar states: But some of my concerns right now relate to whether the CSM is maybe focused on a particular aspect of the game and I’m starting to get feedback from players that they worry the CSM is too pre-occupied by a certain playstyle. 

I’ll admit, previously the CSM has been seen as a paper tiger, almost helpless in getting CCP to pay attention to changes that were desperately needed in the game. How many times did I see the question on the #tweetfleet “Hey, can someone actually list anything the CSM has accomplished?” during the CSM election time. Seeing this, The Mitanni (whom you may loathe or love) stepped in, manipulated the votes, and started getting the ball rolling to save ‘Flying in Space”.. as he himself writes here, CCP cares about two things, their subscription numbers, and their media image. Without being able to directly influence the subscription numbers, they went after the media image.

So, to cut a long story short, I suspect Hilmar doesn’t quite like the current CSM, because they weren’t a paper tiger. They hit where it hurt most. Did this possibly force his change of direction, and thus the CSM will pay the price in the long run. Will there be a CSM 7? I don’t know, but I will be watching this space to see the answer.

Looking at the hype around the winter expansion, we can see that CCP is really going all out to try and appease the masses that are still subscribed, and enticing those like me that have let their subs lapse. New ships, and a list of items that have been asked for for years are suddenly being paid attention to. The bloggers like Jester are all really happy to see this happen, and I’m glad for them. My concern is just the last statement Hilmar made in the interview.

Hilmar Pétursson: We are back in the spaceship business.

Why did you leave it in the first place, and when will you leave it again? I don’t share Jester’s optimism. I suspect the players of Eve will get a really good winter expansion, and then the rot will set in again. Twelve months from now, there probably won’t be a CSM, the numbers will have climbed, and suddenly dwindled again as players realise it was a once off ruse to get them back in the game again. Why do I say this? I myself (and note, I don’t speak for anyone but me here), held on for over a year hoping that CCP would fix the game before letting my subs lapse. I paid for three accounts, hoping each patch note would bring fixes to problems. They didn’t. It took me a year to realise that the problems weren’t getting attention. Now those problems and issues are being paid attention to. Those who renew subscriptions again, might hang on (and give CCP a breather) for another 12 to 18 months before lapsing subs when CCP fails them yet again.

…but how long before Hilmar steps out of the spaceship business again? 18 months? Or much sooner based on the above?

I’ve been reading a lot of the blog posts relating to CCP firing 20% of their staff, and there are some distinct differences in the way people see it, with the common theme that people are really sorry for the staff being affected. In my previous post I commented that it does have a hint of “you, as our customers, caused this!” in the new article.

I think the collective outrage at CCP regarding this has actually got quite a bit to do with the deep seated rage that the player base has had in the last few years. We all know that Eve players are a hardy bunch, passionate about their flying in space game. The game is like no other. I was there, I loved it..in some way, I still love it. When the 18 months bullshit plan was announced, the playerbase said that CCP better re-focus on their game, else there was going to be shit in the universe. CCP didn’t listen. Expansions offering nothing came, and the playerbase cried out. CCP didn’t listen. We got “frying a video card” aka “walking in stations’, and didn’t want it. CCP didn’t listen. Then they tried to do the whole Nex thing, and the community said “get that shit out of our game”.. CCP didn’t listen.

The final thing, after the protests was what some 4500 subscribers, including me with two accounts did. We unsubscribed. I use the word “we”, because I too rage quit. I will admit, I had a $30 a month (two accounts) stake in someone going home yesterday to his family and saying “I was laid off, sorry honey..” Now, while Hilmar has fired 20% of his staff (but still pulling a huge CEO salary), spins the story of “we are sorry”, and “we will focus on flying in space” and “WoD will take a back seat”. The rage in the community, in my opinion, is not about CCP finally admitting their mistakes, it’s because they did not listen long ago, when the players told them to listen. Now the players are shouting “if you listened, people would not be without their jobs you asshats!!”

Personally, I’d like to use this quote from Serenity:  -The Operative - “You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.” Where is Hilmar, and why has he not thrown himself on the sword yet? I bet is that he is probably sitting in his office wondering “Why the fsck did they have to unsubscribe!? Stupid Eve players!” (A opinion which might have some truth if you follow Helecity’s tweets)..

You will remember that in my previous post, I compared Hilmar’s act of a ‘open apology’ to the CEO of another company that is not doing that well (my former employer). Today, in a text book move, Hilmar announced that CCP is shedding 20% of the work force. Not surprisingly, the same move was done by my former employer when they started hitting problems. Here is one article on it: http://www.businessday.co.za

I really feel for the employees who are losing their jobs. I don’t feel one inch of sorrow for Hilmar or CCP. Remember the ’18 months’ bullshit? Guess what, 18 months later, your player base was right, you were wrong, and your stupidity not to listen to your customers are now costing people their jobs. Some of these people have families to feed, mortgages to pay, and kids to send to school.

Now, you may ask why I don’t feel sorry for Hilmar (or the other CEO I listed). Trust me when I say that if CCP closes its doors tomorrow, he has made enough to be set for a very long time, and won’t have 10% of the financial worries that the grunts have. So no, I don’t feel sorry for Hilmar.

PS: Someone on the #tweetfleet mentioned that the article also sounded very much like a “you didn’t support our ideas, you unsubscribed, and thus you are to blame for this!”.. interesting point..

It’s interesting that CCP’s CEO released a dev blog yesterday with an apology and a lengthy statement on how CCP lost the way and how they are going to focus on fixing their core game (flying in space) etc etc. If you’re reading this blog, I bet you’ve read the dev blog, and have read at least a dozen people’s blog posts on how this is a good thing, or how this is just word play.

My approach is slightly different, due to personal circumstances. On Monday I resigned from my job, a large retailer here in South Africa with a near 35 000 work force. During the last two years the company has not done well. For the second time in a year, the company has released a ‘earnings warning”, article here. During the last earnings warning, the CEO did almost exactly the same as the CEO of CCP; that is, released a open letter to the customer explaining where the company has failed, and where the company is doing good, and what the company plans to do to get more in touch with it’s customers.

While I have no doubt that both CEO’s feel passionate about their businesses, the similarity of the approach to a crises in the organisation reeks of “we learned to do this in MBA school”. I’m not saying either is good or bad. That is open for personal interpretation.

I’m not planning on re-subscribing to Eve any time soon, so Hillmar’s blog makes no difference to me any more, but I did find the similarity of approach interesting enough to blog about.

Watched the Blade trilogy this weekend with my other half, then yesterday this gem arrives via email.. (she’s a big Twilight fan)..

Last week with the new patch released, my Eve stopped working altogether. I would log in, and the client would crash within a minute or two. We went away for the weekend, and when I logged in tonight, I found the client crashing before the station UI got loaded. One characters training queue had finished. I can’t start a new skill, since the client crashes.

So, unwilling to just rage-quit I tried several solutions. I changed screen resolutions, swapped between full screen and windowed mode and some other in game changes. This didn’t help. Tried to run the game in compatibility mode as Windows Vista SP2, and even XP sp3. None of this helped.

I think my tiredness with CCP and their shit finally just caught up to me, and decided “fuckit”. Logged in to the website and cancelled both my accounts.

To use and adapt one of the coolest quotes by a space ship captain ever: “Final report of the Tengu class ship HMS Jennifer, Captain Serotta Ortot reporting. My Eve client isn’t working. With a little luck, CCP will one day give a fuck about flying in space again. All other assets and cargo are packed and secured in storage. This is Serotta, last survivor of HMS Jennifer signing off”