Getting Set Up with Zwift

With the coming of the pandemic and the now seemingly permanent working from home situation, what passed for an exercise regime with me… I worked at a nice campus up in the hills in a forest, so I went walking every day… fell apart pretty quickly.

So we bought an piece of exercise equipment.  A Schwinn 270 recumbent exercise bike.  I am going to throw my wife under the bus here and tell you that she chose it because she thought the seat it came with would be more comfortable than a bicycle saddle.  And I suppose it was, but only marginally so.  But that was what we had so I made use of it, trying to make at least the minimum government definition of “exercise,” which is working out for 20 minutes at least three times a week.

I kept at it, but it wasn’t fun.  I am not a big fan of exercise.  Hard work pays off in the future while laziness pays off right now, right?

Eventually my wife got around to using the bike… about a year later… and she didn’t like it.  She wanted to work out with her buddies who all had Peloton bikes and used the Peloton app and all that.  The 270 came with Bluetooth connectivity, but only with the very lame and limited app from the company.  (I think Bowflex owns the Schwinn brand for exercise equipment.)

That and the fact that the seat wasn’t all that comfortable got us on the search for a new exercise bike.  Her friends pointed at another Schwinn model, the IC4, which is billed as a Peloton compatible, fully functional with their app and several others, for less than half the price.  It had good reviews and the local sporting good store had one on display for us to sit on, so we went with that.  We even managed to fob off the 270 on my brother-in-law, which is what brothers-in-law are for, right?

The Schwinn IC4 in our house

So my wife was now happily pedaling with her pals and I had an opportunity as well.  It is a “bring your own screen” device, but it has a spot to put your iPad or other tablet above the handlebars (which I managed to put on backwards initially when assembling the whole thing, yet got everything to work) so your app can use it to connect to the bike.

I had heard from Potshot about Zwift, a training app for bicycles.

Ride On!

After his April Fools post about the app, I asked him about it and we tinkered about a bit trying to get the old 270 running on it, but it was not to be.  This is where I learned about the limitations of its Bluetooth and app compatibility.

The Schwinn IC4 was said to be fully compatible with Zwift, but you never now how compatible until you get there.  I didn’t know that much about Zwift when I started out, and I honestly don’t know all that much now, but I did learn about the whole power meter aspect of its connectivity.

I had played around with a cadence counter back with the 270 and actually got myself hooked up to the Zwift app, but counting how many times the pedals go around isn’t enough.  I could pedal for all I was worth and maybe break 7 MPH because there was no power meter output.

The power meter is what measures the effort you’re putting into pedaling.  Without one the Zwift app assumes a static, and very low amount.

If you have a smart trainer, which is one of those things you mount as the back wheel of your bike in a static setup, it measures your effort, translated into watts, which can be adjusted via your gearing and the amount of resistance the smart trainer is applying to your effort.

My power output and speed… going down a 6% grade

The Zwift app lets you ride around in a virtual world… I probably should have mentioned that earlier, though I suspect you might have guess that… and the connection with a smart trainer lets it change the amount of effort required as your avatar goes up and down hills.  It can be quite realistic as I understand it.  But I haven’t owned a bicycle since my last one was stolen when I was 13.

The Schwinn also has a power meter, or at least feeds effort information that lines up as power to the app.  I do not, however, feel any change in effort when heading uphill or down.  The only way I feel a change is if I adjust the resistance dial on the bike itself.  When I dial it up, by power output for a given number of revs goes up as well.

I am honestly not sure if this is an advantage or disadvantage.  As soon as I am going uphill my speed slows down because my power output and cadence remains the same.  So hills are not actually more work for me, unless I make them so.  But they do reduce the distance I travel.

The bike itself knows nothing about it and has its own tracking method for distance, which uses resistance and cadence to calculate speed, which multiplied by time gets me a distance traveled.  But that is completely flat terrain based, so the bike and the app can give me some different results at the end of a ride.

The two do not agree

So I have gotten myself setup and riding.  I have met or exceed my minimum weekly minimum exercise goal with Zwift so far.  It does the things I want it to, like showing me my individual workouts and keeping track of my overall effort.  And it even has levels and achievements.

That pizza icon for calories is a little on the nose for me

Meanwhile, the IC4 is also frankly much easier to ride than the 270 ever was… take that recumbent bike zealots… so gets used more, and takes up less space as well.

So you can find me pedaling around a virtual world.  Next time a bit about where I ride and what keeps me going.

Eight Weeks of World War Bee and the July MER

As I have mentioned in the last couple of posts, I was out of town for most of last week, so I do not have much in the way of personal observations to add.  Then again, it doesn’t seem like much happened while I was away either.  The weekend PCU capped at 35,650, down some from last week and the big move op.

A picture from the week before just because

If you’re looking for something to read, Asher Elias, founder of Reavers and one of the key Imperium FCs, wrote a long post on Reddit about Goons as the “Good Guys” in null sec and how, in his view, Goons and the coalition have changed over the years.  If you don’t agree with him, I am sure there is something in the comments to your liking.

Northern Front

The invaders spent some time moving their supers and titans from FAT-6P, where they hand languished a mere four gates from Imperium space for weeks, all the way around to I-CUVX Fountain in order to assail the two remaining Imperium Keepstars in the region.  Kind of a long way to go, especially since they felt the need to lay down Keepstars for every step of the journey.  But both Keepstars will die to that onslaught without a doubt.  The KVN-36 Keepstar will likely be dead before this post goes live. (There it went.)  The Y-2ANO Keepstar, however, has no timer set currently.  PandaFam also cleaned up a bunch of structures we had left in Fountain.  When will they gate those supers and titans into Delve?

Southern Front

Going through the continuous update thread on our forums, Querious remains a place of skirmishes.  Neither side is keen to drop fresh ihubs in the eastern side of the region, and the western side remains in Imperium hands.  Lots of skirmishes, but nothing that changed the landscape.  Period Basis and Delve remained as they were.

My Participation

I did get into a couple of fleets once I was back on the weekend, so added a few kill mails to my list, but nothing spectacular.  I did not lose any ships either, so my loss total remains as such:

• Ares interceptor – 9
• Atron entosis frigate – 5
• Drake entosis battle cruiser – 3
• Malediction interceptor – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Ferox battle cruiser – 2
• Bifrost entosis command destroyer – 1
• Cormorant destroyer – 1
• Purifier stealth bomber – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1

The July Monthly Economic Report

Since I don’t have much else to say about the war, I might as well use this post to look at a bit of the July MER.  I will write a longer post later about it, but I thought the destruction numbers might be interesting.

As a baseline, the top ten regions for player ship and structure losses in June were:

1. The Forge – 3.06 trillion (High Sec)
2. Lonetrek – 2.40 trillion (High Sec)
3. The Citadel – 2.19 trillion (High Sec)
4. Sinq Laison – 2.17 trillion (High Sec)
5. Black Rise – 2.15 trillion (Low Sec)
6. Domain – 2.02 trillion (High Sec)
7. Delve – 2.02 trillion (Imperium)
8. Metropolis – 1.60 trillion (High Sec)
9. Vale of the Silent – 1.15 trillion (mixed small groups)
10. Fountain – 1.09 trillion (Imperium)

A total of 45.67 trillion ISK was destroyed in June across all regions.

That includes a bit of the pre-war warm up, but the war did not officially kick off until July 5th, so if the war is/was/will be real, we should see a rise in numbers in some regions.  The top ten for July were:

1. The Forge – 3.60 trillion (High Sec)
2. Fountain – 2.53 trillion (Imperium)
3. Lonetrek – 1.89 trillion (High Sec)
4. Delve – 1.61 trillion (Imperium)
5. The Citadel – 1.31 trillion (High Sec)
6. Metropolis – 1.06 trillion (High Sec)
7. Providence – 1.02 trillion (Provi Bloc falling apart)
8. Domain – 981 billion (High Sec)
9. Heimatar – 962 billion (High Sec)
10. Sinq Laison – 944 billion (High Sec)

The Forge, home to Jita, saw a 500 billion ISK rise in destruction, no doubt some of it due to interdiction efforts by both side.  And Fountain, the main front for the first phase of the war, was a near 2.5x increase in destruction.

However, a lot of regions, including Delve, were down when it came to destruction.  The overall count was 36 trillion ISK, down over 9 trillion ISK from June.  So I figured I would look at the regions where the war should be happening to see if at least destruction is up in those areas.

There are, I think, nine regions where the war is being waged.  Here are the June to July numbers for each:

• Aridia – 688 billion to 516 billion
• Catch – 801 billion to 723 billion
• Delve – 2.02 trillion to 1.61 trillion
• Esoteria – 717 billion to 1.31 trillion
• Fountain – 1.09 trillion to 2.53 trillion
• Paragon Soul – 118 billion to 668 billion
• Period Basis – 418 billion to 1.01 trillion
• Querious – 350 billion to 1.19 trillion
• Stain – 558 billion to 148 billion

Looking at places where destruction was up, it seems like the war in July took place in Esoteria, Fountain, Paragon Soul, Period Basis, and Querious.  I will have to see how that develops when we get the August MER.

Addendum:

• INN – World War Bee Week Eight

Crag Boar Rebellion

The instance group had been discussing a guild on Discord for a few days.  Well, we knew we had to make a guild, but we had to resolve the primary question when it comes to guild creation: The name!

Various ideas had been pass about, things like “The Nethergarde Choir” or “The Candle Takers” or “Blood of Heroes,” the last being a reference to everybody’s favorite Plaguelands death trap.  But none of them were really clicking.  And then Ula came up with “Crag Boar Rebellion.”

It is difficult to explain why that stuck.  I guess it is kind of snappy and sounds impressive when you first hear it, but becomes somewhat silly when you think about it.  Also, we had been slaughtering many crag boars out in Dun Morogh, which I am sure added to things.  So, while we did not have a majority around to consider it, the guild naming steering committee decided we should just go ahead and pull the trigger on Saturday.  It was time to make a guild.

And then came the awkward part; who was going to go buy the charter and ask people to sign it?  We gathered together outside the bank in Ironforge and both Skronk and I offered up half the cost of the 10s charter, opening up a trade to hand over our half.  That went about as well as you might expect.

Enthusiasm!

Nobody wanted to be the one holding the charter.  But I wanted a guild already, so I ran over to the Ironforge Visitor’s Center and bought the charter, resisting the temptation to name the something else.

Then it was back to the front of the bank where each of us signed the charter.  However, there were only three of us, which meant we had to collect seven more signatures.  This is the part I always dread, asking strangers for things.  I didn’t feel too bad about it, as I had already signed a couple charters for other people, including one random, no ask spam request.  Still, I felt we had to have a plan.

That always works!

Unfortunately, we were a bit on the poor side for bribery, the 10 silver representing not an inconsiderable percentage of our combined wealth.

So I stood outside of the bank and, when I saw a few unguilded people about… you can’t sign a charter if you’re already in a guild… I would ask aloud… not shout, not whisper, but just say… if people would please sign our guild charter.

And it seemed to work.  We were up to six then eight and then nine signatures before too long.  People were very nice about it and seemed to generally want to help us out.  It was indicative of the behavior I have seen for the most part on the server.  In my experience retro servers like this tend to be friendly as most people really want to be there and have a good time.  On top of that, RP servers tend to be the most chill of servers.  So we were nearly there.

With one more signature needed I just started spamming some passers by with signature requests… and somebody signed right away.

And with the 10th signature I got up and ran back to the visitor’s center and registered the guild.  I have learned to be quick.  I recall one guild registration fiasco where I got the signatures down on Goldshire then had to run up to Stormwind, during which time two people signed another charter… people I had paid no less… which took them off of our charter.  So I was taking no chances.

Guild successfully registered, I thanked everybody in guild chat and said they could /gquit.  Most went right away.  A couple had logged off before we were done, so I kicked them.  And so we had a guild.  I made people officers and we logged in all of our alts and got everybody in the guild.

Alts in the guild… or is he a main?

So our guild is set.  We just have to wait for everybody to get back from their Labor Day excursions to get them on board.  And if they don’t like the name… well, they can stand outside the bank next time.

Honest Game Trailers Battle for Azeroth

Honest Game Trailers is back with a stab straight at the heart of World of Warcraft and the Battle for Azeroth expansion.

Honest Game Trailers tends to hit a little harder than the movie side of the house, but this one hits hard enough to leave a mark.  Still pretty funny, but oh so very honest.

EVE Online Lifeblood Expansion coming October 24th

CCP put up a trailer for the upcoming Lifeblood expansion that will see the new refineries that will be the moon mining platform going forward.

There are a few more details on the Updates page for the Lifeblood expansion, along with some other items that will be coming up, including a rebalance of ships popular with Alpha clones and updates to the event framework we know as The Agency.

Coming Soon – Empires of EVE History Lectures

As I mentioned in my look at the audiobook version of Empires of EVE, the author Andrew Groen was looking for a way to continue telling the tales of New Eden.  Yesterday there was an announcement as to how that might go forward as a podcast.

Coming Soon…

The idea is to tell the stories of EVE Online in a more dynamic way.  As I noted about the audiobook of his work, Andrew Groen reading his book is not as engaging as Andrew Groen talking about the game in front of an audience.  The hope, I gather, is to try to capture some of what is special about seeing him speak in a podcast.

The details were shared as an update to the Kickstarter page for the book.

There is already an Empires of EVE area over on SoundCloud, which I have dutifully followed.  I am sure it will be available via other sources as well.

I am really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.  The stories of EVE Online, the player made lore of the game, is one of the most interesting aspects of the game, so I am always keen to see somebody learning it to save and re-tell.

CCP and the Elephant in the Room

I’m feeling a bit wrung out on the video game front this week, and it is only Thursday.  We had Daybreak slip in a great subscription deal I had to seriously consider.  There has been the World of Warcraft Legion expansion launch and all the attendant excitement and new things.  And then there has been CCP, which has seemed determined this week to occupy every last free neuron in my brain with its announcements.

First CCP hit us with the dev blog about how fleet boost would be changing with the coming November release.  The boring, old “park your boosting alt in a safe” method is being replaced with an area effect method that will put boosters on grid and in harms way.  This made a lot of people very angry, and you could certainly tell who was invested in the status quo.

Then, yesterday, CCP announced that EVE Online was going free to play.  Sort of.  Certainly, free to play made the headlines, though the plan itself is a lot closer to WoW’s unlimited trial than, say, Rift’s up-until-now, you’re not in Azeroth, everything is free method.  (Trion decided they needed to charge for expansions, which sounds fine for me.)

The free accounts announcement, the Alpha and Omega clone system, seemed to get a favorable response.  The implications of this proposal on the game are huge, and most people seemed to accept that CCP’s first problem was going to be containing the current player base to keep it from abusing the system for their own ends without locking Alpha clones down so much that nobody would want to play them.  It is going to be a balancing act, and only the naive think it will be easy.

This Alpha clone plan will have two big bonuses right away.  First, it will attract lapsed players back to the game, and lapsed players with friends and such in game are likely to resubscribe from time to time if they are allowed constant access.  Second, unless PCU remains stagnent or drops even further, it will have been effectively removed as the favored “EVE is dying” metric… for a while at least.  I expect that the PCU will go up significantly for months after Alpha clones become a thing.

But the real goal of the plan has to be to bring new players, fresh blood and/or meat, to New Eden.  And, on the surface, this seems very likely.  Free is the best price point at which to get people to try your product, and we have seen spikes in the PCU when CCP has free weekends on Steam. (See the weekends of May 6 and August 19 on the EVE Offline new character creation chart.)

Unfortunately, here is what you do not see after those free weekends: Any significant change in the PCU.

This is the elephant in the room,  the long time problem for the game, the failure to convert trial players into paying customers.   Some of you likely remember this chart from the New Player Experience panel at Fanfest 2014. (video here, chart comes up at about the 16 minute mark.)

New Player Trajectory

That chart is actually more grim than it seems.  Half of the players who get through the new player experience and subscribe, cancel and leave the game before their first subscription cycle is up.  40% solo mission for a bit, then leave.  And maybe 10%… that seemed to be the optimum number… found some experience they really liked in the game and stuck around to become a bitter vet.

The thing is, that chart, as noted in the presentation, only talks about people who made it through the trial and the new player experience and decided to subscribe.  I would have to imagine that, were the chart to run from the start of a trial account, the percentages at the end would dwindle to insignificance.

During the previous Steam free weekend, approximately 20,000 new characters were created in the game.  Did the PCU shift by much?  The next weekend was a little better.  It broke the 30K mark, which is back to being the benchmark for a “good” day, literally the same situation the game was in back when I started in 2006.  But there wasn’t anything dramatic after the free weekend, neither in August nor in May.

So it would be tough to call that free weekend a rousing success, at least when looking at the longer term.  CCP threw 20,000 new characters onto the ramparts of the current new player experience in August (and 26,000 back in May), and the NPE held them off.  Solid is the bulwark of the NPE, and it will deflect all but the most determined capsuleer.

Basically, on top of the learning cliff that is EVE Online… or maybe it is at the base of the cliff… damn metaphors… there is a new player experience which is indifferent at best.  As I wrote in the past, it is a toss up as to which kills the game harder for new players.  I lean towards the NPE being more critical.  If you could get people engaged and enthusiastic, they might ask in the help channel or go out of game to figure out the more obscure bits.

I am sympathetic to CCP on the NPE front.  It is easy to sit and yell at them that they need a better one.  But actually creating one, a fun and engaging experience that will draw players into the game, but which isn’t too rigid, and which moves at just the right pace… the right pace for everybody… is a very tall order indeed.

And it isn’t as though CCP hasn’t tried.  The NPE has changed drastically a couple of times since I started the game.  My first experience was guided but flawed back in 2006.  That was replaced by a much more closely guided and mission orientated experience.  And lately, we have the much more free form opportunities, which I watched my daughter struggle through, and during which she asked me the magic question, “How do I warp to something?”  NPE fail.

CCP has even tried to hold classes to educate users directly.

As I said, they have been trying.  We’re just not there yet.

However, at Fanfest earlier this year, as part of the keynote, there was a passionate talk by a new member of the team, CCP Ghost, who gave us a vision of a better NPE. (Video here, CCP Seagull introduces him at about the 52 minute mark.)

My hope is that we are not done with announcements about the it-so-needs-a-good-name November release.  My hope is that CCP has at least one more thing to share with us, something about a vision for an engaging NPE that will retain new players better than the attempts that have gone before.

Because without that, I don’t think the Alpha clone idea will make a big enough of a difference.

I know I will be logging in any unsubscribed accounts I have laying around to start training up alts to their five million skill point cap come the November release.  What would be the downside of that?  I fully expect the Imperium to have an Alpha clone doctrine.  I expect that a lot of current players will take advantage of the Alpha clone idea and that, far from any sort of “filthy casual” response to 5 million SP pilots, they will quickly be accepted as part of the ecosystem and the game will adapt to them.

But unless Alpha clones attract new players, players who become invested in the game and end up subscribing, there won’t be a whole lot of upside for CCP as a business.  And to get there, I think we need the NPE vision that CCP Ghost was trying to describe to us.