The March Update Brings Fleet Formations and Skill Rentals to EVE Online

CCP has pushed out their first big update for the month and it brings with it two features that CCP has mentioned before, fleet formations and the new player skill rental program called Expert Systems.

Fleet Formations

They are here at last.

• Fleet formation settings can be accessed via a new tab in the fleet window.
• Fleet warp will use a default point formation which behaves the same as fleet warps have until now.
• Available formations include Plane, Wall, Sphere, Arrow, and Relative.
• Fleet formations are respected for Fleet, Wing, and Squad warps.

Formations have been up on the test server for a while, so I suspect that some fleet commanders will be using this feature right out of the gate… provided that they have Leadership V trained up already so they can train up the new skills that go with the feature.  There are two:

• Fleet Formations
• Fleet Coordination

The first skill gives access to various pre-set formations (Plane, Wall, Sphere, Arrow, and Relative) with each level trained.

The second, which requires Fleet Formations be trained up to level I, impacts the size and scaling options for the custom formation, which allows an FC to set their fleet up and save the relative spacing and location so they can warp their fleet in and remain spread out.  Fleet Coordination affects the size and spread of formations allowed as well as unlocking unlocking additional scaling options with each level trained.

So to get full access to all of the fleet formation options a dedicated FC will need two skills trained up to level V.  But skill injectors have been around for five years now, so I expect any FC who really wants the skills will have them as soon as they want.

As part of fleet formations CCP has also introduce a new deployable, the Mobile Cyno Beacon.

The new cyno reality

Detail from the patch notes:

• Disallowed in: Wormhole, Pochven, Abyssal Space
• Restricted to Security systems below: 0.5
• Activation Delay: 2 minutes
• Maximum lifetime: 1 hour
• Volume: 400
• Skill Requirement: Anchoring 3
• Blueprints can be found in NPC stations where other mobile deployables are seeded.

Developer Comment: This deployable item will bind to the fleet of the deploying character upon launch. Once activation completes, it will act as a regular cyno beacon for that fleet for the lifetime of the deployable, regardless of any fleet changes of the deploying character.

After making cynos available only on force recon and black ops battleships back in September 2019, CCP has decided that maybe some new twist was needed in the cyno dynamic.  Now a fleet can bring beacons along to setup to summon in reinforcements without the need to take up a fitting slot and carry around a bunch of fuel.

I do like that “Min distance from Control Tower,” the main element of the old POS structures, is listed in the parameters.  A sign that they are probably not going away any time soon.

Anyway, I am sure people will be warping around to shoot these soon enough.

Expert Systems

First mentioned about two weeks ago as a way to help new players, the idea was met by some skepticism by some in the player base.  Those who could get past the “real world money to rent skills” cash grab aspect of the idea were not convinced that this would be a mechanism that would help, or appeal to, new players in EVE Online.

But CCP was adamant, with EVE Online Program Director CCP Rattati saying that the move was considered because CCP definitely did not want to sell skill points… two days before CCP began selling skill points.

So now Expert Systems are here.  They are accessible from a new tab on your character sheet that shows you the offerings currently available and what they get you for your seven day rental.

Expert Systems tab

The offerings now are:

• Amarr HS Space Exploration – $1.99
• Caldari HS Space Exploration – $1.99
• Gallenta HS Space Exploration – $1.99
• Minmatar HS Space Exploration – $1.99
• Core Ship Operations – $3.99
• Mining Barge Operations – $3.99

At the bottom of the window is a “View in Store” button which opens up the Expert Systems page in the secure web store in a browser outside of the game, where you can purchase your rental.

Expert Systems Web Store Page

It mentions in the patch notes that the rentals can be extended from 7 to 30 days for a price, but that pricing is not immediately visible and I wasn’t keen to pay for one just to find out.  But i would guess that four times the duration would end up costing four times the price.

CCP lists the benefits of this new system as:

• Experience and discover new gameplay and activities for limited time periods.
• Highly accessible pricing that opens up the possibility of new paths before full training commitment.
• Expert System access will be retained upon ship or capsule destruction.

That is all fine and dandy, but in addition to my own doubts that this will tempt many new players… or that they will even stick around long enough to figure out that it is a thing they would want… since these can only be purchased from the secure web store, that means any new player that wants to try them out needs to fork over a credit card number.  That has traditionally been a huge barrier in games that otherwise offer a free to play option.

CCP says that they may offer these are login rewards at some point as well.  That might have a greater impact on new players, if they can figure out where they go once you redeem them and how to activate them.  The game’s UI will ever be a burden.

Other Items

There are the usual mix of minor fixes and improvements.  The game is like an old house at this point, in constant need of little fixes here and there.  Some of them seem like they might have come to light due to current events, like the Imperium issuing war bonds:

• Fixed an issue with the wallet for entering a number into the Shares field after giving out an amount of shares once will throw an exception.

Or fixes for things that have been posted as part of the ongoing “Literally Unplayable” meme in /r/eve:

• Fixed an issue in the fitting window where a grey line overlapped over the top bar of the ammo slots.

Or items that were no doubt found on the test server as people played with the new features:

• Fixed issues that unintentionally allowed launching of deployables or the activation of Cynosural Field Generator modules inside of stars, planets and moons.

I am sure that somebody was prepared to abuse that last one somehow.

And then there are some updated and new monuments out in New Eden with this patch as well.

• The “Mekhios Graveyard” landmark in the Sarum Prime system has received a major overhaul.
• Several new landmark locations have been added to the game:
  • A new monument to the famed capsuleer Chribba can be found within the Amarr system.
  • A new memorial to the late Emperor Doriam II can be found within the Kor-Azor Prime system.
  • A new Federation Grand Prix Finish Line location can be found within the Luminaire system, in preparation for the start of the YC123 Federation Grand Prix event on Thursday 11 March.
  • A new monument celebrating the champions of the Alliance Tournaments can be found within the Manarq system.
  • A new monument honouring the capsuleers who participated in Project Discovery Phase Two can be found within the Pakhshi system.

This will no doubt give Mark726 at EVE Travel some new things to post about.

The patch has been deployed, so you can log in and see the changes.  Relevant links:

• Patch Notes
• General Feedback Forum Thread
• Known Issues Forum Thread
• Expert Systems Post
• Fleet Formations Post

Diablo Returns via GoG.com

While Valve was out making itself look bad in front of the world, Blizzard and GoG.com were conspiring to bring back a video game classic, the original Diablo.

Diablo at GoG.com

Seeing the news about this over at Ars Technica, I immediately went to GoG.com and bought a copy.

You actually get two versions of the game for your $10.

Diablo Launcher

There is Diablo (Classic), which is pretty much the original game, fixed up a bit to run, and able to get onto Battle.net.

Then there is the GoG.com Diablo, which has been jiggered to run better and scale to larger monitors.

Having tinkered with the original Diablo on Win7 a couple years back… you could get it to run, but there were some quirks to be sure… I was keen to try the GoG.com version.  And, just a ways in, I can say it sure feels like the real deal.

Wandering Tristram

I got in and went straight for the dungeon looking for an old friend.

Enter The Butcher!

The game looks and plays like it is 1997 again… which means the graphics are crap and the whole thing feels extremely primitive.  But it is true to the times.   After all, I think my phone has more processing power than every computer I owned during the 90s combined.  And it certainly has better graphical resolution than any monitor I owned.

And then there is the way the game plays.  A lot of what I think of when it comes to the Diablo series comes from Diablo II.  It took the original and lifted it, improving the game in many ways.  So I was reminded how things used to be… like there being one potion per hotbar slot.  Were there belts in the original Diablo?  Or was that a D2 thing?  And then there is the fact that when your gear runs out of durability it is destroyed.  I lost almost all of my gear fighting the Butcher, but I killed him in the end.  And a good thing too, I needed that weapon.

The Butcher Down and Me Disarmed

It is also hard to just find loot on the dark dungeon floors.  I don’t think that is just because my eyes are 20+ years older now.

Whacking skeletons with the Butcher’s axe

I doubt this is a game that will impress anybody not old enough to have played it when it came out.  Back then it was a revelation.  The Blizzard North team got a lot of stuff right.  It is sure more authentic than the Darkening of Tristram event that Blizzard put into Diablo III.

I suppose the real question is, “Why GoG.com?”

Blizzard goes on in that post I linked about not being able to put it into the Blizzard launcher because it doesn’t tie into the current back end architecture, but that begs the question.  Blizzard has the kind of resources to fix or update the code.  However, they let GoG.com do the improvements.

I mean, good for GoG.com and all.  They just had some layoffs so something that helps support them is probably a good thing.  Maybe they have the retro-restoration experience that Blizzard does not for this sort of thing.  And it sounds like they may get to do similar work with Warcraft and Warcraft II.

All of which is great, but I still want a full remaster of Diablo II.

Do You Wear the Mask or does the Mask Wear You?

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be

-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You’re not being the ball Danny.

-Ty Webb, Caddyshack

One of the problematic aspects of talking about video games is how differently two people can perceive and interact with them.  This goes double in writing, where the reader can inject tone and choose to define words in a way the author did not intend.  I’m sure we’ve all run into somebody online who defines a word in a very specific way and then pedantically defends that definition against all evidence or logic.

Take “immersion” for example.  There is a ticklish concept that I have concluded means something different to everybody.  I have had people in the comments here argue that immersion is literally not possible in a video game, or that certain things, from pop-culture references to graphic detail, prevent or break immersion universally, or that you’re not really immersed unless you’re role playing and literally believe that is your reality.

But it isn’t so easy, so black and white.

I find immersion in a video game totally possible and quite independent of a lot of things that might break it for other people.  It certainly has nothing to do with role playing in my case.  But I couldn’t tell you how I get there any more than I could say how I go to sleep.  One moment I am not there and then I slip across some invisible barrier and arrive.  And, as with sleep, I don’t even know I am there until the spell has been broken.

Or so it goes for me.  It is a fairly rare experience for me and, as with sleep, has become less likely and more fleeting as I have grown older.  But I know when I have been there.

Anyway, this all comes to mind because of an article The Mittani posted over at INN, The Masks of Cyber-Purgatory.  I saw several people praising it on Twitter and went to read it myself.

My reactions were… mixed.  There are truths in the post, but also things I found at odds with my own personal voyage through New Eden over the last decade.  For example I can’t recall hearing anybody saying that the only way to win EVE Online is to quit often enough to make that a point of universal agreement.  I’m pretty sure if it were as universal as all that people would be responding to posts on /r/eve with, “Look forward to you winning the game!”  And the whole “slave name” thing was just bizarre.  Never heard that before, would scoff at it if I had.

Perhaps that is a sign that New Eden is less purgatory and more full-on Dante’s Inferno, where each of us ends up stratified in our of circle of the alleged hell that is internet spaceships.  Because clearly The Mittani and I are in different spheres.

But I could have told you that before this article.

And then there is the whole concept of masks, the adopted identities that we use in the game.  I get that, and then again I don’t.  Or, rather, I see it, have seen it, will no doubt see it again in other people, but it isn’t me.

Among my many personal issues is a sense of detachment from things, including video games.  I almost always see the game itself and its workings, they are almost always in my thoughts and calculations.  And, as I have said in the past, when I make and play a character in a video game, I am almost always playing myself.  There is no mask, there is just me.  Me playing a video game.

Or at least me in the constructs of the video game in question.  I’m pretty sure real me would get shiv’d by the first kobold he met in Norrath or Azeroth and would never climb into that pod in New Eden.  And, up to this point at least, I have never take part in a murder for hire scheme to kill ten or a dozen strangers for a few pieces of gold.

So I never don a mask because I am never “in” the game, any game, enough for my character or avatar to be anything apart from myself in any deep sense.

Is it cosplay of just me wearing a jacket?

Going back to immersion, for me it is passing into a brief state where I don’t see the mechanics, where I am not looking at the map or planning how best to fulfill this latest task, but am in the moment in the game, doing what I am doing without it being a part of a plan or a goal.

But there are masks and there are masks.

What I think of me on my side of the screen is only universally applicable if I am playing a single player game.

Out in the world of multiplayer games… or out in the world dealing with other people in general… what goes on inside your head is invisible.  It is how others see you and their own filters and biases that turn you into what they think you are.  You can wear any mask you want, or no mask at all, and somebody else will put a mask of their choosing over that all the same and claim that this is the real you.

I am brimming with examples of this, in video games, in reactions to things I write here, and of course, in real life.

I used to sit across the way from a guy who used to get really angry at email that came from HR about company policies.

Something like that would pop up in both of our email inboxes simultaneously.  I would look at it, try to figure if it had any impact on me, and generally get back to what I was doing without spending too much time on it.

On the other hand, I could hear him getting angry, spouting expletives, and generally fuming about the email.  And, of course, he would have to call over to me for the inevitable, “Can you believe this?” routine.

He would ask if I saw the email that just came in and I would acknowledge that I had, adding the “what are you going to do?” shrug to show my indifference.  But he would have to make sure I could see his point, reading from the email in question using tone and inflection to give it the worst possible spin he could.  As he framed it, this was the most unreasonable, insulting thing they had done yet… today at least.  And I could not talk him down off of that cliff.

Of course, I saw myself as in possession of the facts and had the email in question read in a neutral tone in my head.  But that was just my own spin on it, the parameters put upon the whole thing by my own perception.  While I’d like to say I was more likely to be write, or at least closer to reality, than my co-worker, I couldn’t really prove it any more than he could.

We all put masks on other people through our perceptions, biased by the filters and experiences that are genuinely our own alone.  We all like to think we’re in possession of the truth.  I know I imagine myself being reasonable by simply not getting excited or indignant about things that seem like matters of interpretation.  But even that point of view could be wrong.

And I am prone to put my own spin on things, to apply masks to others even when I know I might be yielding to my own personal bias.  Even in humor… or especially in humor… playing to that puts a mask on somebody else.

As an EVE Online illustration… also, I made this and wanted to share it

All of which doesn’t roll up to a nice tidy point and set of suggested behaviors I suppose.  I started out here with a point to make, but as I drove along down the path, I seemed as unlikely to be in a position to give guidance as anybody else.  I apply masks, or labels, or whatever metaphor you care to choose, on others as much as anyone.  That I tend towards what I think is a charitable view of others doesn’t make them any more accurate than my co-worker who would work himself into a lather about email messages from HQ.

Anyway, this many words in this late in the evening and I am committed to this post.  So I suppose the only thing to say is to be mindful of both the masks you wear, as nobody can see the inner you, as well as the masks you apply to other people, because you sure as hell can’t see the inner reality of others.

Final Stretch for the Alola Pokedex

I have been down to the nitty gritty when it comes to chasing down the Alola Pokedex in Pokemon Sun.  I have been past the point of simply finding pokemon in the wild grass out in the field.

Trading has been a large part of getting the more obscure samples.  Last time around I found that breeding Gabite for GTS trades wasn’t as successful as I thought it would be, so I went back to Goomy.  That actually yielded me a key success in my effort.

Goomy for Vanillish

Yes, I know, a pokemon that is pretty much literally a vanilla ice cream cone.  Not everybody can be Pikachu.  Still better than Klefki, which is just a key chain with a few keys on it.

But Vanillish was one I didn’t have and did not know how to get, but once obtained opened filled in not just his slot on the Pokedex, but another for evolving him into Vanilluxe, an even larger vanilla ice cream cone, by simply leveling him up, and Vanillite, a baby vanilla ice cream cone, by breeding him.

And once I had him bred, I cranked out a few more for trades, which turned out very well.  Vanillite seemed to be in demand and got me the remaining Eevee evolves I didn’t have and even this guy.

Vanillite pays off

I actually probably didn’t need to trade for Silvally.  I had the pokemon that evolves into him already.  However, it is one of those evolutions that requires the pokemon the reach some level of “happiness” and I was tired of trying to make him happy, plus I had surplus Vanillites, so I got him in trade.  And then the one I had evolved about 30 minutes later, because that is the way it works, right?

That left me with a few evolves that required a link trade while holding a specific item.  The Porygon evolutions require two such trades, but the game just hands you a Porygon and the items if you know where to go, so it was just a matter of my daughter cooperating with her 3DS.

More time consuming was getting Scyther to evolve into Scizor.

Scyther to Scizor

Scyther is supposed to be a somewhat rare find in a wild, but I already had him.  To evolve him requires a link trade with him holding an item called the metal coat.  The game doesn’t just hand you one of those.  You can buy one with points earned by fighting on the battle tree, but that doesn’t thrill me.  Or you can find one in the wild on Magnemites.  But you can’t just defeat them, you either have to catch them and take the item or have a move that steals the item.  Also, the item is rare on them, so you could be a while finding one.

I decided to Google for the optimum path on that and came up with the info that Magnemites spawn on about half of the encounters in the tall grass off to the side of the Training School on Route 1.  So that meant a ready supply of targets.  The other tidbit I found was that if you hunt with an Exeggutor as your lead, it has the innate ability Frisk which tells you if a pokemon is holding an item.  I had one of those as well, so I had him train the skill Thief, which steals an item as part of the attack, and went hunting.  It took a while, but I finally got the metal coat.  I decided to get a second, then gave up after a bit because they do seem to be rare.  I’ll get one another time if I need it.

That just left me with one of the island guardians, Tapu Fini, who lives on Poni Island.  The only problem was that I accidentally defeated him on my first attempt, and once he faints he won’t respawn automatically.

To get him back you have to go back and defeat the Eilte Four of the newly constituted Alola Pokeleague.  That wasn’t going to be too tough, since I had done it before and, with all of this running around leveling up pokemon and such, most of my original team was past level 80 while the Elite Four pokemon are all low to mid 60.  In an interesting twist, once you defeat the Elite Four you don’t face the old champion, as in past Pokemon titles, but rather you are the champion… you won the spot to finish the main story line… so instead you have to face a challenger in the form of one of the NPCs you met along the way.  I drew Hau, my friend/rival from the main story and defeated him.

That got Tapu Fini to spawn and, this time using a bit more care, I was able to capture him.  That gave me all the island guardians.

The Tapu Family Collected

That also gave me all the pokemon for the island Pokedexes.

Gold Crowns mean Complete Across the Board

However, there was a catch.  While all four island Pokedexes were complete, the total percentage sat at 97%.

Almost complete…

As it turns out, there is a post Elite Four story line that I had not done yet that involves catching several special pokemon, ultra beasts.  So I have that to do still.  We shall see if that gets me to 100%, finishes off the Alola Pokedex at last, and opens up the horror of the full National Pokedex.

Along the way, as I was doing this, the game did wish me a happy birthday.

Pokemon Remembers

That actually surprised me as I don’t generally use my real birthday online.  I tend to put my late grandfather’s birthday (though with my year so they don’t think I am 101), but apparently in a moment of weakness I shared my real birthday with Nintendo.  While I was surprised, it was a nice little surprise.  It was certainly better than all these AARP ads I suddenly started getting on Facebook.

Anyway, now for the ultra beasts.