People like talking about money?

Yesterday, people were joking in one of the Uni channels that the directors must be getting rich off of all the money we're making in taxes.  This led to an impromtu talk about how the Uni manages its finances, and how money is directed to projects.  Luckily, I'm the perfect person to give the talk, since I'm the guy in charge of managing our iskflow and generating a monthly budget report.  This is a somewhat involved process, as I use an api generated log to review each transaction and wallet journal entry and classify them into the appropriate categories.

I decided to use this blog post to briefly talk about some of the things I covered in that discussion.

What suprised me was that students had a wildly inflated view of how much isk the Uni makes from taxes.  To put it in perspective, we'd need students to do a total of 335 hours of level 4 missions at 20m/hr (from bounties and rewards, not salvage loot) in order to meet our bill just for the skillbook wallet program (almost 500m a month).  When you start adding in other programs, such as ship replacment or our hangars, the number of hours of mission running gets significantly larger. The Uni does not support that large of a number of people collecting 20m an hour in bounties. A lot of our students are still doing L1, L2, or L3 missions, with a decreasing number for each higher level.  While it only takes 335 hours of an experienced level 4 missioner to meet our costs for 1 single program, it would take tens of thousands of hours of l1 or l2 missioners. This just won't cover all our bills.

Our income for the University is only partly based on taxes.  Taxes are a somewhat predictable source of income, once you factor in what percentage of time we expect to be at war for a given month.  War heavy months are less income, but peaceful months are higher. Over the long term, it averages to be a more constant value.  Donations, however, are much more unpredictable.  Some months show huge amounts of donations, and others are almost nothing. But, we do depend on donations for a large part of our funding.  They help make up the difference that taxes can't cover alone.

Right now, the income/expenses of the University are fairly well balanced, and we are in a sound financial position that I anticipate will continue for some time.  I am highly conservative financially, and insure that the university always has a sufficient contigency fund for any emergencies that arise.

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If you're interested in more information, or have specific questions, feel free to comment and ask them in this thread.
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Also, the directors make no direct income from their position. I audit the transactions each month to see what corp cash is being applied to, and question any expenditures that aren't obviously tied to a program. I have yet to see any directors or managers appropriating funds since I took over this duty.

Gambling can be fun

I have to admit, I was initially fairly wary about using Somer Blink. 

I was wrong.  This site was incredibly fun all weekend.  For those of you that haven't read about it, you transfer funds (isk) into your account.  Then, you can use those funds to bid in Blinks, which are fast paced lotteries.  Each one can be from 8-almost 60 tickets, and the ticket price can be from 70 isk (promos) to tens of millions.  The best part is, the lottos are usually over in minutes, and if you don't see the item you want up for grabs, you can start a blink and bid to get a chance to win that item.

Once you win an item, you can arrange to have it dropped at a hub, transported to a station you want, sent as straight isk to you in-game, or sent as credit to your blink account. 

I originally put in 500m, then dumped another 500m in a bit later.  However, that 500m won be a few recons, logistics, an archon, macherial, scorp navy issue, and a set of +4s in game.  The best part is, even if I hadn't won as much, I would have still had fun.

Returning to Normal

Our recent spate of wardecs has come to an end, and the University is making its way back to normal.  People are rejoining, income is starting to flow in (the University makes no tax money during wars due to SOP), and we start to get back into the flow of peacetime.

However, this situation is not without drama, not without those who attack the opinions of their betters, spread misinformation, and sully the very world with their presence.  I speak, of course, about the Recruiting department.  This group of 30-50 players has thrown the gauntlet at my division, Logistics, threatening us and challenging us to a duel.  Of course, my division, all 15 of us, expect to handily wipe the floor with them.  We will show them the power of teamwork and coordination, backed by the greatest minds and industrial might of the Uni.  Our greatest challenge will be concealing our strength and power in order to get them to actually take the field against us.  For if they truly grasped our magnificence, they would be reluctant to undock from their stations, let alone approach our ships with live weapons.

We plan on crushing our enemies -- watching them driven before us, and  hearing the lamentation of their women.  We will tear their shields, rip holes through their armor, and send their weak pods scurrying away back into the darkness from which they came.

We will field a team of talented individuals in impeccability constructed wholes, purpose fit to coordinate efforts to demolish our enemies.  We will employ ingenious tactics, superb target calling, complementary fits, and unprecedented pilot skill to dominate the field.  Or, we may just purchase a MS and hotdrop it on them.....its still up in the air. The rest of the department wants plan A, I want plan B.

No matter what happens, rest assured, that the greater side will win. Logistics will rule the field of battle.

(If you couldn't tell, this post isn't meant seriously.  The ROs really aren't bad guys, and dueling each other is just a fun way to blow off steam)

Why I Love Eve

If you've been reading my blog, you'll recall that I previously blogged about someone who had decided to form an alliance, dec Eve University, and welcome anyone who wanted to join in their war. 

I have to admit, I was wrong in my original post. I had assumed that the 1 person corps forming their alliance were their own alts trying to make it look more successful than it was.  However, a recent post on C&P makes it seem like one of the great people in that channel saw an idiot and decided to take advantage of them.

I've done some looking into it, and my sources are relatively certain we've identified the person behind it, and I'm pretty impressed. Using a few disposable alts and a couple of million in isk to form some alt-corps, this person managed to take away the alliance someone else spent 1b on. 

This is why I love Eve.  Someone can use some planning, a tiny bit of effort, and completely capitalize on the stupidity of others.  If someone forms an alliance and doesn't understand alliance mechanics, you can use that. If someone forms a corporation and doesn't understand corp mechanics or security, you can use that against them.  Its a land of possibilities where planning goes a long way.

Its also why I love reading C&P, though it seems to not be quite as much fun as it used to be.  The poasting isn't living up to old standards.

I may have a problem

I posted in the Uni management section this week to say that I would be out of town for part of November for my delayed honeymoon.  I commented that I probably wouldn't be able to get in-game, as the laptop I was taking might not handle eve, but that I would still be checking forums daily.

Some of the other people said that if i was checking Eve on my honeymoon, something is wrong with me. I reminded them that I had actually logged in on my wedding day to deal with some issues....  I think I may have an addiction...

Also, my wife is very understanding.

Corporate Identity and Large Numbers

The Ivy League is a very interesting case for most alliances, as it has 1500 members, all but probably 5-10 of which are in a single corp (EVE University).  This leads to some strange dynamics.

In a lot of other alliances, individual corps can be much smaller, allowing them to form very tightly bound associations within the corporation, and a much looser loyalty tie to the alliance, and a looser one still to the powerblock of which their alliance is a member.  This can frequently be seen when corporations stay relatively stable and just switch alliances whenever alliance drama hits.  It usually takes significantly more drama to make an established corporation collapse when its alliance collapses, unless it was the central entity of that alliance.

Ivy League alliance is fundamentally just EVE Unversity, with a few support chars (very few) in associated corporations.  This alters the normal alliance/corp bond, as the two are interchangable entities.  However, it can still be seen to some extent even in E-UNI by the number of pilots who only identify themselves as E-UNI pilots, not IVY pilots.

In the University, this leads to some interesting social dynamics.  With 1500 people, we have too large of a community to allow more personality based leadership styles to easily function. Dunbar's number helps explain this to some extent, especially when combined with the global nature of the alliance and the fact that no central leader will ever be equally present in every TZ.

This causes subgroups to form within the University.  Sometimes they are groups of friends that share a same TZ, or other groups that share a central activity they enjoy (missions, PVP, wormholes, etc...). Some of the groups are established by the University to organize students (such as ILN battlegroups), while others are formed by the students themselves.  However, the University has to insure that all of the subgroups that form are always oriented towards the central goal of the corporation, which is to educate students.  This can cause some drama from time to time (see D6 - just an example...love you guys).

In my opinion, any organization of 1500 people will never be able to prevent unoffical groups from forming.  Its just trying to stop human nature.  People have a much easier time bonding to a close group of friends than to a 1500 person entity organized around an ideal.  However, as long as we can insure that the groups that form are inclusive, not insular, and that the groups continue to contribute to and participate in the University community as a whole, problems can be avoided. The largest problems develop when groups become closed off and develop a them vs us mentality.

Without mentioning specific groups or individuals, just discussing the concepts, what are your thoughts?

-----Warning: Comments on specific people and/or groups will be removed------

Drakes - Suddenly overpowered?

Anyone reading the Eve forums has probably seen mention that CCP is going to be looking at the drake and seeing if it needs to be balanced.  We've always known that it was a spectacular mission ship, but only recently has it been used in large number in PVP.  CCP seems to be seeing that as signs that it should be nerfed a bit.

However, I completely disagree with their reasoning.  Drakes are seeing a lot of use because they function well against AHAC gangs.  The sudden proliferation of Zealots didn't seem to make CCP post about Zealots should be nerfed.  Drakes just happen to have some characteristics that work well in high-lag situations, such as weird capacitor issues, missiles hitting in huge bursts, and a decent buffer for logis to rep up.

Not too long ago, sniper BS gangs were what everyone was using, and I didn't see anyone complaining that the commonly used sniper BS were overpowered.  A few mechanics changed, along with some lag situations, and sniper BS just weren't a good choice anymore.  If lag clears up at all, or something else changes, drakes will once again be relegated to a decent PVE ship without CCP intervention.

Nerfing the FOTM this quickly is rather new for CCP, and seems to be strangely applied in the Drake's case. When was the last time you saw a CCP employee posting about nerfing the dramiel, and thats been FOTM and definitively overpowered for its ship class for quite some time.

But don't fear, once CCP nerfs the drake Caldari pilots will still have their great lineup of large-medium fleet ships, such as the .............