Dominion | The Wandering Druid of Tranquility

Threadnaught has entered “siege mode”

22 Comments »

Oh my. I’ve not seen a forums thread filled with so much venomous anger since I played Star Wars Galaxies and SOE had just released the NGE.

THREADNAUGHT

I can’t say I am shocked by recent events. I called this back when I was posting about how Dominion was potentially an NGE event. It seems that the quality of EVE Online has fallen since that expansion considerably.

Many people are angry and want answers but more importantly, we want accountability, honesty and ultimately our beloved game fixed.

So, am I going to rant about it here? No, I just can’t bring myself to rake them over the coals. I can’t. If an army fails to take a beachhead, who is to blame? The generals who were leading that army.

Good leadership and organization comes from the top down and that’s who you blame when the advance fails. The soldiers may be smart, but they have to follow orders and when those orders are faulty, objectives are not achieved.

Look, if CCP is to succeed and find a way out of this mess, they need to realize that they have bitten off more than they can chew. They need help. It’s obvious that they simply do not have the resources to fix the current game play issues and release the Incarna/Dust expansions that they need for cash flow.

CCP, you have a time honored tradition of doing things differently, perhaps it’s time to get back to those roots. You need help from both a business standpoint and a technical one.

Let us, the community, help you. We are one of the greatest gaming communities out there and we are so angry because we are eager to continue be part of something that we together have spent many years building.

The CSM has people who are very business savvy. Mynxee and her in game friend Venom Orchid have collectively forgotten more about how to run a business than you will ever know. Talk to them, listen to their words and do what they are telling you. They have more to offer you than you can see.

At the FanFests, you are always telling use how impressed you are with the multitude of third party applications that exist, such as the EVE Dev billboards, EVEmon and Capsuleer. Obviously you have a number of technically capable people who like to spend time coding on EVE related applications. Get these people to sign an NDA, send them the code and let them have at it. It might surprise you what they can produce.

Thoughts?

Tags: CCP, Dominion, SWG:NGE, Threadnaught, Tyrannis

Around and around she goes, where sov will land, well, the TCU doesn’t know…

5 Comments »

I caved into pressure, here is the Friday post.

I twittered last night that I was not making a Friday post as I was very frustrated with the game breaking bugs dealing with sov. I said I did not want to make the post because I really did not want to rant. I also received many emails, both in and out of game, for a summary of the situation. So, I broke down and wrote the post. I am still frustrated and I will try not to rant, just convey the situation and then get on with the normal Friday post stuff.

There are a few blogs that have discussed these issues with the two systems in question. Those systems being Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where bugs with the sov mechanic have broken game play:

The following thread on the EVE forums sums up the issue:

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1270539

In short, there are two systems, Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where sov can not be obtained. The TCU goes online, you are awarded sov and then 20 to 48 minutes later the TCU goes offline and you loose sov. Bringing a TCU online again and 8 hours later, the same issue. U’K and AM have been dealing with this bug for literally days now with TCU’s going online every 8 hours and dropping sov less than an hour after that point.

Petitions have been submitted and CCP’s response to date has been less than stellar. I am not going into the responses, I don’t want to rant. CCP is really dropping the ball on this one. You would think that Ushra’Khan may be just ranting here, playing the COAD games, but that’s not the case. Our enemies are supporting us on EVE Forums posts concerning this issue.

So, for all those people who were on the fence when Goonswarm made their claims that Dominion and it’s new sov mechanic was still in the Alpha level of development and not worthy of even being called a “Beta Test”, you should take note of this issue.

For all of us who saw this same issue on the test server prior to Dominion going live, well, it’s very familiar and at the same time disappointing. You would think that code from the test server would have been resolved before being rolled into production. I have to say at this point and I can’t believe I am about to write these words, I agree with the folks in Goonswarm concerning the new sov mechanic. Nullsec warfare is broken to the point that it’s simply not playable.

Please understand me here, I don’t agree with the Goonswarm position that the new sov mechanics are bad. I think the new sov mechanic is a great change for the game and I want to see the new sov mechanics be used in game. My issue is not with the mechanics themselves, my issue is that the testing on the test server showed obvious game breaking bugs with the new sov mechanics that needed further testing and tweaking. These same issues were obviously not resolved when Dominion was brought onto Tranquility, hence the current issues.

I hope this was not too much of a rant. Ahem, now that is out of the way, on to more items of note:

Bugs notwithstanding, the ProviWar feed continues to grow with more material.
Rooks and Kings had a great kill in the past few weeks of a Goonswarm freighter with a 155 billion isk price tag.
Someone in my corp shared a funny TeamSpeak recording of a EVE pilot making a phone sex call. It’s made the rounds, but I had to share it again. WARNING, NSFW. Enjoy the lols, but do take note that the lovely lady made one heck of an effort to keep the call on track.
George Allen Miller wrote an interesting article, Star Trek Online Versus Eve Online revisited, comparing Star Trek Online to EVE Online. He states that “…but STO was doomed from the start…”. Go read the entire article, it’s a good one.
Shameless plug for the folks over at EVE Development Network. They have been working very hard on EDK 3.0, the newest version of their very popular killboard web application. I recently upgraded to their new version and let me say, it’s a dream. The built in support for a single pilot killboard was a major feature I was looking forward to using. I’ve been using their application for years and I have to say, they have outdone themselves. Good job guys and thank you for all the hard work!
As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues. Head over and see who we added this week!

See you out there!

Tags: 3D-CQU, AM, CCP, Dominion, EDK 3.0, EVE Development Network, EVE Forums, George Allen Miller, Goonswarm, killboard, Petitions, ProviWar, sovereignty, Star Trek Online, Timezone, U'K, Z-REF3

EVE Online is suffering excessive lack of server stability

6 Comments »

If you delve into the EVE forums, I am sure that you will see many threads discussing the current problems with the Dominion expansion. Many people complain about the new sovereignty mechanics…

…NODE CRASH…