As I've continued in Eve, I've always had some next goal for my character to help train my next skill. Sometimes it might be something simple like "get better at interceptors", gradually progressing to "learn t2 crusiers" to finally things like "get recon V and AWU V for that build you wanted."
This method has worked well up till now, as I've progressed through two races and cap ships for both. But now I find myself in new territory...I don't have a next goal. Yeah, I could work on getting those cap ships skills to V, but its not like I'm ever going to use them in the Uni enough to make it worth while. I could train Titans up for laughs, but thats a few months and I'm back to the same point. I could add another race (minnie), but I don't really have any desire to fly minnie ships right now. Lastly, I could spend a few months getting some of those supports to V, but how much am I really going to need t2 weapon specs to V?
What do you guys do if you've run out of short term goals?
Me
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Multiple Personalities and Eve
I've found that as I play different characters, my personality in eve will actually change. My playstyle for the character in some way dictates how that character interacts with others. Azmodeus/Irjuna are much more helpful than my PVP alts, and not nearly as ruthless as some of my trading alts. (Some of my trading alts get some interesting hate mail, and in one case, a "I'll hunt you and burn down your house.") In many cases, people know multiple of my characters, not knowing they're all me behind the keyboard, and have very different opinions of each character as a person. Azmodeus/Irjuna are probably the closest to me in real life, as I have to do a variety of tasks and they aren't as focused as other alts.
Do you find that your different characters have different personalities in game? How does your playstyle effect your characters personality? Are any of them really you, are just isolated parts of you?
Do you find that your different characters have different personalities in game? How does your playstyle effect your characters personality? Are any of them really you, are just isolated parts of you?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
My Job History
I had a request to post on my job history in the Uni, and how I got to be Logistics director. I'll try to summarize as best as I can without loading up my chatlogs from 3 years ago (yes, I do save all my chatlogs. I'm weird). Dates will be somewhat approximate, as I'm trying to reconstruct this from memory as best as I can.
I first joined the Uni in Sept of 07. For the most part, I just hung around in forums, chatted with people, and wrote a few short guides, covering areas such as types of tanking, how a passive tank works, etc... As time passed, I tried my hand at a few other jobs, such as mentoring some people. That spring, I was approached by a director named Acacia Incana.
At that point, there wasn't the same type of organizational chart for the Uni that we have today. People didn't necesarily have defined job duties, but she was in charge of the hangars and most tackling 101 classes. She had been put in charge after series of industrial people had left the uni, such as kodell and finrear. I'm not sure who was exactly in charge of what previously (and I'm not sure all the directors even knew). She hired me as a hangar officer, which was an interesting job.
I was given a set of screenshots and told "make the hangars look like that." Apparently, hangar officers (meaning just Acacia and Dlar) had simply just compared what was in the hangar to a screenshot, then pulled modules from our sorting hangar to refill it. This was extremely time consuming, and not exactly user friendly, as the same hangar might be in 2 different screenshots from where she'd had to scroll down to get all the mods. Additionally, there was no monitoring of backstock except by eye. A lot of times, we'd be completely out of a module before we noticed we needed to restock our backstock, let alone our front hangar supplies. The hangars lacked any sort of overarching organizational scheme, and frankly scared me quite a bit at the thought of having to deal with it.
I did some work to make hangars a bit easier, and got some assistants. I had the idea of using API pulls to automatically generate stocking reports and production requests (turhan would implement and surpass my idea later), but lacked the coding skills to really implement it. I did put into place some procedures to try and make things easier than just looking at screenshots, and to simplify how to order new items when our backstock was low.
That June (i think), acacia moved on to Bob and I was promoted to full hangar manager (not director). Dee Carson (Director of Ops under MM, who had just replaced kassie that winter) had begun organizing the Uni into something that looked like an organizational chart. During the summer, the Director of Logistics job was either unfilled, or filled by Sabre A (a pvp guy and director who had been in and out of the Uni several times). Sabre A left the Uni once again, the position was unfilled for a while, and I was promoted to Director of Logistics at the end of the summer. I had only been in the Uni for less than a year, and hadn't even been playing eve for 2 years. I now had a staff, and managers underneath of me (as a sidenote, one of my managers was Irdath, who's mining classes continually started wars). Turhan got my old job, and I started trying to figure out the other divisions and integrate them into a collective unit.
Since that time, we've completly revamped how every one of the divisions under logistics works, added new programs like copying services, refining services, byom, freighter production, and pyos. I've added an entire new division (marketing - Pyos), and am looking into future expansion into a transport division. We've redone our entire hangar structure (got rid of some hangars, retasked others, changed what was stocked). I've seen Dee, Acacia, and Sabre (along with some other directors from my time as a student) move on in EVE, and Keld (then the Diplomacy Director) get promoted to Director of Operations, and eventually CEO when Morning Maniac stepped down. Its not always been a smooth transition, and sometimes change took longer than it should have, but I think the current Logistics Department and Uni is much better than what we used to have, and think it will continue to improve.
Its been a lot of changes during my time in the Uni, with each individual I've mentioned (and many more) all changing the Uni and leaving their mark. While some of the names are more remembered for the drama when they left, they did have positive effects during their tenure. If I ever leave the Uni (I really don't want to. I like my job), I plan on learning from what I've seen with them and leaving quietly, so only my accomplishments and not the drama are remembered.
I first joined the Uni in Sept of 07. For the most part, I just hung around in forums, chatted with people, and wrote a few short guides, covering areas such as types of tanking, how a passive tank works, etc... As time passed, I tried my hand at a few other jobs, such as mentoring some people. That spring, I was approached by a director named Acacia Incana.
At that point, there wasn't the same type of organizational chart for the Uni that we have today. People didn't necesarily have defined job duties, but she was in charge of the hangars and most tackling 101 classes. She had been put in charge after series of industrial people had left the uni, such as kodell and finrear. I'm not sure who was exactly in charge of what previously (and I'm not sure all the directors even knew). She hired me as a hangar officer, which was an interesting job.
I was given a set of screenshots and told "make the hangars look like that." Apparently, hangar officers (meaning just Acacia and Dlar) had simply just compared what was in the hangar to a screenshot, then pulled modules from our sorting hangar to refill it. This was extremely time consuming, and not exactly user friendly, as the same hangar might be in 2 different screenshots from where she'd had to scroll down to get all the mods. Additionally, there was no monitoring of backstock except by eye. A lot of times, we'd be completely out of a module before we noticed we needed to restock our backstock, let alone our front hangar supplies. The hangars lacked any sort of overarching organizational scheme, and frankly scared me quite a bit at the thought of having to deal with it.
I did some work to make hangars a bit easier, and got some assistants. I had the idea of using API pulls to automatically generate stocking reports and production requests (turhan would implement and surpass my idea later), but lacked the coding skills to really implement it. I did put into place some procedures to try and make things easier than just looking at screenshots, and to simplify how to order new items when our backstock was low.
That June (i think), acacia moved on to Bob and I was promoted to full hangar manager (not director). Dee Carson (Director of Ops under MM, who had just replaced kassie that winter) had begun organizing the Uni into something that looked like an organizational chart. During the summer, the Director of Logistics job was either unfilled, or filled by Sabre A (a pvp guy and director who had been in and out of the Uni several times). Sabre A left the Uni once again, the position was unfilled for a while, and I was promoted to Director of Logistics at the end of the summer. I had only been in the Uni for less than a year, and hadn't even been playing eve for 2 years. I now had a staff, and managers underneath of me (as a sidenote, one of my managers was Irdath, who's mining classes continually started wars). Turhan got my old job, and I started trying to figure out the other divisions and integrate them into a collective unit.
Since that time, we've completly revamped how every one of the divisions under logistics works, added new programs like copying services, refining services, byom, freighter production, and pyos. I've added an entire new division (marketing - Pyos), and am looking into future expansion into a transport division. We've redone our entire hangar structure (got rid of some hangars, retasked others, changed what was stocked). I've seen Dee, Acacia, and Sabre (along with some other directors from my time as a student) move on in EVE, and Keld (then the Diplomacy Director) get promoted to Director of Operations, and eventually CEO when Morning Maniac stepped down. Its not always been a smooth transition, and sometimes change took longer than it should have, but I think the current Logistics Department and Uni is much better than what we used to have, and think it will continue to improve.
Its been a lot of changes during my time in the Uni, with each individual I've mentioned (and many more) all changing the Uni and leaving their mark. While some of the names are more remembered for the drama when they left, they did have positive effects during their tenure. If I ever leave the Uni (I really don't want to. I like my job), I plan on learning from what I've seen with them and leaving quietly, so only my accomplishments and not the drama are remembered.
What is it like to be a Director?
I've found that people don't really understand what directors in the Uni actually do, so I decided I'd try to help shed some light on our job. I can't speak for other departments, as they have drastically different areas of responsibility, but I can sort of help people understand what my normal day is like as a logistics director.
First, I tend to set my alarm to wake me up 15-20 minutes early each day so I have time to log into the forums and read whatever has been posted while I'm asleep. I will admit I don't read every thread (Hi&Bye forum, I'm looking at you), but I read all the ones posted to common E-uni areas. In addition to the normal areas that students see, there are several forums that are only available to directors/managers. There are actually 3 levels of leadership forums, one for directors only (And Korr), one for directors and managers, and one for all staff. This is in addition to the forum section specifically for my department (other departments have their own forum section as well). Also, there is a forum section for student records, where it is posted when people have broken a rule (get popped in an orca during wartime), the consequences, communication logs with the person, etc... I comment in any of these forums if I feel its necessary. I usually only post in areas that are directly logistics related, are industry related, have something to do with Uni policy or changes to it, or seem like humor threads. I rarely post in the student records forum, as there are directors much more suited to this role than me.
Next, I'll check forum PMs and evemails to respond as needed. These could includes status reports or requests from my managers, questions from students, logistics requests from the ILN, or requests directed at a uni program I directly administer (Byom, copying, refining,etc...). I'll log in to process any refining jobs or BYOM jobs that have queued up overnight. I'll check the Uni wallets for any changes overnight, and occasionally review hangar stuff through our automated reporting program (turhan is a genius). Logging in by itself is an interesting process, as I have 2 main characters devoted to Uni duties (Azmodeus and Irjuna Valar), along with 4 supporting characters who are tasked to helping the uni (2 x OOC hauler, OOC producer, and ooc scout/prober).
Throughout the day I may check on my eve blog, or look at the google docs we use to administer several uni programs (work blocks the e-uni forums and eve gate, but not these). When I get home from work, I usually repeat the entire process listed above, and do it again before I go to bed (my wife is a very forgiving person). During this time I'll also spend some time logged in chatting with management/directors about anything that is going on, hanging out in the ILN channel, logistics channel, or chat.e-uni making the occasional really bad joke, or just answering questions that pop up. I also spend a lot of time in the logistics channel plotting world domination with my staff.
Now, these are just the normal daily activities related to my job in the Uni. As a director, I have additional duties that pop up. Once a month I prepare a financial statement for the other directors, summarizing income, expenses, finacial projections, etc... I also will have to look at the director's forum section and comment on any policy or rule changes being proposed. We also have the occasional fires to put out between students, or between directors. We have official meetings where we discuss what is going on, any changes that need to be made, recap the time since the last meeting, and prepare for the future. Contrary to poplar belief, the directorate is not a unified front on many issues. We debate some things back and forth each meeting (or in our forums), before deciding what direction the Uni should take on an issue. Even if we lose an argument (and I've lost several in the past), we accept it and move forward, supporting whatever the official uni stance will be. Part of being a director is being able to put aside some of your own personal wants in order to support the Uni.
The most interesting part of this, is that I actually enjoy it. Yes, its a lot of work, but for some reason I have a psychological need to help people (i blame my mother), I enjoy the challenge of running some of these programs, and truly enjoy leading my department. When i was first named logistics director, we'd have something like 4-5 people in that post within the previous year, with no established procedures, and no real hangar organization. In fact, the sorting hangar deeply scared me when i first took over. Organizing the chaos was not easy, but it was somewhat fun. My staff is quite honestly one of the best groups of people I've ever had the opportunity to work with. In fact, I really wish the people I worked with in my real life job were as dedicated and competent as my managers and staff in the Uni. If they were, my real life would be a lot easier.
Being a director isn't easy, and it is very time consuming (at least my department is), but it is rewarding for me. There are some aspects of my job I wish I didn't have to deal with (freghter runs of minerals...), but its been great helping the Uni for the last few years, and I don't regret my decision to take the job. Its been an honor working for the Uni, and I look forward to more great years to come.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Blasters, or how I learned to switch to Amarr instead of dealing with them
When I originally started training, I focused almost entirely on gallente. I loved the idea of ships that went straight intothe enemy, opened fire, and just tried to kill them before they killed me. However, the game has changed a little since I first started, and one of the biggest changes was to webs.
Now, a change to webs doesn't seem that major, but it had profound effects for blaster ships. Blasters are purposefully created to have high damage but very low range. Blaster ships depend on getting ships into the killzone and pounding them. However, changes to webs made it harder to hold ships in place once you had them in close.
Secondly, blasters have very poor tracking as a result of their low range. While the tracking numbers look fairly good when you just compare the value to other weapons systems (lasers), factoring in optimal range shows a very different picture. Now, you see that it takes very little transversal inside of blaster range to mitigate the damage, as opposed to the amount of transversal required to escape damage from a BS using scorch ammo.
These factors have a huge effect on actual dps applied in a fight, as opposed to theoretical dps. In a long slug match against bigger ships, gallente ships can be top damage dealers as they can actually operate in their optimal range and tracking. But in quicker fights, or more more evenly sized or smaller opponents, lasers have a huge advantage. They can start applying damage much more quickly, as they don't have to burn into range, and don't lose much time switching targets, as there is a good chance their new target will also be in range. These factors, combined with their fairly high level dps, make lasers a great weapon, and made me train Amarr.
I still have a soft spot in my heart for some gallente ships (Taranis, I'm looking at you), but think that blasters could really use some extra help. A lot of ideas have been thrown around on forums, from a huge increase in damage, or tracking, or some combination of the two. I have another possibility to throw into the mix, split webs the same way that scrams/disruptors are split. Have a 40-50% web that reaches to 14k (t2), and a 80-90% web that reaches to 5k (t2), as one example. Now, we have a layered set of disruptor, weak web, scram, strong web that an opponent has to consider. Also, now when a blaster ship manages to get you in kill range, you're going to feel it for a long time. However, with the agility of gallente ships, you also have a good chance to use a war of manuever and a long range web to stay out of their optimal.
What are your suggestions?
Now, a change to webs doesn't seem that major, but it had profound effects for blaster ships. Blasters are purposefully created to have high damage but very low range. Blaster ships depend on getting ships into the killzone and pounding them. However, changes to webs made it harder to hold ships in place once you had them in close.
Secondly, blasters have very poor tracking as a result of their low range. While the tracking numbers look fairly good when you just compare the value to other weapons systems (lasers), factoring in optimal range shows a very different picture. Now, you see that it takes very little transversal inside of blaster range to mitigate the damage, as opposed to the amount of transversal required to escape damage from a BS using scorch ammo.
These factors have a huge effect on actual dps applied in a fight, as opposed to theoretical dps. In a long slug match against bigger ships, gallente ships can be top damage dealers as they can actually operate in their optimal range and tracking. But in quicker fights, or more more evenly sized or smaller opponents, lasers have a huge advantage. They can start applying damage much more quickly, as they don't have to burn into range, and don't lose much time switching targets, as there is a good chance their new target will also be in range. These factors, combined with their fairly high level dps, make lasers a great weapon, and made me train Amarr.
I still have a soft spot in my heart for some gallente ships (Taranis, I'm looking at you), but think that blasters could really use some extra help. A lot of ideas have been thrown around on forums, from a huge increase in damage, or tracking, or some combination of the two. I have another possibility to throw into the mix, split webs the same way that scrams/disruptors are split. Have a 40-50% web that reaches to 14k (t2), and a 80-90% web that reaches to 5k (t2), as one example. Now, we have a layered set of disruptor, weak web, scram, strong web that an opponent has to consider. Also, now when a blaster ship manages to get you in kill range, you're going to feel it for a long time. However, with the agility of gallente ships, you also have a good chance to use a war of manuever and a long range web to stay out of their optimal.
What are your suggestions?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Group vs the Individual
EVE corporations frequently have to decide their philosophy on group dynamics. Which takes precedence, the needs of the individuals, or the needs of a group as a whole? EVE corporations all make this decision, and their answers are scattered across the entire spectrum of possible answers.
E-UNI is a corporation with a specific state goal; the education of new players in EVE. Unfortunately, commitment to this goal makes us continually have to choose what is best for the majority of our students as a whole, and not what is best for each individual pilot. Our wartime SOP is a group example of this type of decision. We have a strict set of rules to limit wartime losses and encourage aggressors to go elsewhere for fun. However, this constrains the actions of everyone in the corp, not just those that are incapable of taking precautions and continuing their play during wartime. By getting wars over with a minimum of losses, we hope to get back to normal operating procedures as quickly as possible so we can get back to educating students.
Another example is our ROE. We have set policies for who we can aggress and why, not because we are worried about annoying group X, but instead because we want to keep as many doors open for students in the future as possible.
An unfortunate side effect of our goal-oriented decision making is that players will outgrow the uni, and find that they are no longer comfortable within our rules structure. This is an expected outcome. The problem exists when players feel that the Uni should grow to suit their new needs, instead of that they should move on to explore EVE how they want. This causes frequent drama (usually every 4-6 months) as players realize that they want to see more of the sandbox that what is permissible within E-UNI's rules. We always regret when this type of drama occurs, but we have to stay dedicated to our goal of educating new students, both current students, but also students yet to come.
In a perfect world, we would be able to set up an institution that not only did the best job possible helping new players learn eve, but also provided a corporation where all of them could grow and explore EVE for the rest of their time with no problems. However, we have yet to find a way to accomplish both goals in the same corporation, and must always decide towards staying operational for new players. No matter where you decide to go after leaving E-UNI, we hope you remain part of our larger community, stay active on the forums, pop into the public channel from time to time, and most of all, enjoy EVE how you feel it should be played.
NOTICE: This blog post is designed as a conversation about the ideas and conflicting pulls on our corporate focus. It is not intended to be a discussion of specific people. Comments naming specific people will be deleted.
E-UNI is a corporation with a specific state goal; the education of new players in EVE. Unfortunately, commitment to this goal makes us continually have to choose what is best for the majority of our students as a whole, and not what is best for each individual pilot. Our wartime SOP is a group example of this type of decision. We have a strict set of rules to limit wartime losses and encourage aggressors to go elsewhere for fun. However, this constrains the actions of everyone in the corp, not just those that are incapable of taking precautions and continuing their play during wartime. By getting wars over with a minimum of losses, we hope to get back to normal operating procedures as quickly as possible so we can get back to educating students.
Another example is our ROE. We have set policies for who we can aggress and why, not because we are worried about annoying group X, but instead because we want to keep as many doors open for students in the future as possible.
An unfortunate side effect of our goal-oriented decision making is that players will outgrow the uni, and find that they are no longer comfortable within our rules structure. This is an expected outcome. The problem exists when players feel that the Uni should grow to suit their new needs, instead of that they should move on to explore EVE how they want. This causes frequent drama (usually every 4-6 months) as players realize that they want to see more of the sandbox that what is permissible within E-UNI's rules. We always regret when this type of drama occurs, but we have to stay dedicated to our goal of educating new students, both current students, but also students yet to come.
In a perfect world, we would be able to set up an institution that not only did the best job possible helping new players learn eve, but also provided a corporation where all of them could grow and explore EVE for the rest of their time with no problems. However, we have yet to find a way to accomplish both goals in the same corporation, and must always decide towards staying operational for new players. No matter where you decide to go after leaving E-UNI, we hope you remain part of our larger community, stay active on the forums, pop into the public channel from time to time, and most of all, enjoy EVE how you feel it should be played.
NOTICE: This blog post is designed as a conversation about the ideas and conflicting pulls on our corporate focus. It is not intended to be a discussion of specific people. Comments naming specific people will be deleted.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Problems with War Decs - Part 3
This week I'll be doing a series of posts about some of the problems I see with high-sec warfare in EVE. I would like to make it perfectly clear that I believe war decs have a definite purpose, and that they should not be removed from EVE. High sec should never be a perfectly safe place. However, the current mechanic and implementation has some drawbacks.
Part 3: Cost
Simply put, the costs associated with a war-dec are obsecenly small when compared to the ease in which isk can be gained in eve. Wardeccing a corp is a few minutes worth of work for a single mission runner, and the funds to dec an alliance can be raised in 2 hours of missions. The base cost for a week of war needs to be dramatically raised so that it is a decision of some import.
In addition to the base cost, I would prefer to see several other changes to wardecs. First, the way that war-dec costs scale with additional wars is far too exagerated. I can understand the need for an increasing cost for each additional war, but would be much more comfortable with 20% to 50% higher for each war, instead of the current pattern. If an organization wants to have 20 wars going simultaneously, it should be economically taxing, but possible.
However, I would like the changes in escalating costs for additional wars combined with several other factors. First would be a size difference multiplier to the base war cost. The sizes of both entitites (aggressor and defender) are compared, and used to change the war dec cost. If the size difference is a factor of 4, you'd pay twice as much. A size factor of 16 would be 4 times as much, up to a hard cap of 10 times as much (factor of 100 difference). This would make wars between dissimiliarly sized wars possible, but encourage wars between more equally matched adversaries.
Additionally, I believe war decs should have an escalating cost factor for each additional week of war. This would help focus wars on actually being fought, instead of being maintained for easy ganks week after week. War deccing corps could choose to pay the higher cost, or just move on to a new target. When a war is ended, a timer is begun that is equal to two times the war length. A re-dec during the time causes the war to start back at the same price point it would have been. If the war was 1 week long, a re-declaration within 2 weeks will jump in with the same escalating cost as if the peacetime hadn't occured. If you wait longer than 2 weeks, war costs would reset to the base cost again. A 4 week war would have an 8 week cost cooldown, etc...
Any thoughts on these suggestions?
Part 3: Cost
Simply put, the costs associated with a war-dec are obsecenly small when compared to the ease in which isk can be gained in eve. Wardeccing a corp is a few minutes worth of work for a single mission runner, and the funds to dec an alliance can be raised in 2 hours of missions. The base cost for a week of war needs to be dramatically raised so that it is a decision of some import.
In addition to the base cost, I would prefer to see several other changes to wardecs. First, the way that war-dec costs scale with additional wars is far too exagerated. I can understand the need for an increasing cost for each additional war, but would be much more comfortable with 20% to 50% higher for each war, instead of the current pattern. If an organization wants to have 20 wars going simultaneously, it should be economically taxing, but possible.
However, I would like the changes in escalating costs for additional wars combined with several other factors. First would be a size difference multiplier to the base war cost. The sizes of both entitites (aggressor and defender) are compared, and used to change the war dec cost. If the size difference is a factor of 4, you'd pay twice as much. A size factor of 16 would be 4 times as much, up to a hard cap of 10 times as much (factor of 100 difference). This would make wars between dissimiliarly sized wars possible, but encourage wars between more equally matched adversaries.
Additionally, I believe war decs should have an escalating cost factor for each additional week of war. This would help focus wars on actually being fought, instead of being maintained for easy ganks week after week. War deccing corps could choose to pay the higher cost, or just move on to a new target. When a war is ended, a timer is begun that is equal to two times the war length. A re-dec during the time causes the war to start back at the same price point it would have been. If the war was 1 week long, a re-declaration within 2 weeks will jump in with the same escalating cost as if the peacetime hadn't occured. If you wait longer than 2 weeks, war costs would reset to the base cost again. A 4 week war would have an 8 week cost cooldown, etc...
Any thoughts on these suggestions?
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