A Relic of AT Past

As I was watching some of the matches today, I remembered some of the older bits and bobs I had picked up along the way from previous tournaments.

As such, I would like to present the alternative commentary of a match from the first Alliance Tournament. This one did not have EVETV coverage, and even the official coverage was audio only, broadcast on EVE-Radio.

Al Haquis was a legend, and the community was lessened by his departure.

I have more from him in the second Alliance Tournament, where he was (perhaps mistakenly) invited into the EVETV studio as an expert. I’ll save that for another entry though!

theimportanceofreadability

Thisisprettytrcikytoreadwhenitstartstogetlong. Right? Readability is very important. It can make a concept easy to understand, or utterly bamboozle the reader.

But it’s not just something for words. Lets take an example:

  1. 227,690,938
  2. 227690938

The first one has a comma separator to break up the number into easier-to-read chunks. Its easier to scan the image and know roughly what the value will be. It makes counting the digits a very quick and painless process. In some countries, it’s replaced with a full-stop; the point is, there’s always something to denote large figures. The second one does away with that nonsense and goes with the cold, hard number value. Both are perfectly acceptable number formats.

In fact, both would be accepted to paste into a numerical field in EVE. At least they were until Escalation to Inferno hit in April of this year. Once this pre-expansion hit, the game would no longer accept comma-separated values in numerical fields.

So? What’s the big deal?

Well, the thing with EVE is ISK is king. Missing a digit because its late and there’s no commas for you to easily tell the difference between derping your market-empire away while you doze and awaking the next morning to being filthy rich, is kind of a big deal.

I’ve been working with separated numbers in all my spreadsheets since the dawn of time. It makes it very, very easy for me to quickly see if something doesn’t look right; I can quickly see if I’ve made a stupid error earlier in the process because the number looks incorrect. Without the commas, it’s a little tougher.

Sure, I can still use the comma separated values in my spreadsheet, but I cannot copy-paste them into the game. It just won’t let you do that any more. I’m going to have to create duplicated value cells for totals that just strip out the commas purely so I have a visual aid and a value I can paste into the game when I need it.

It’s a small thing, but it makes a hell of a difference!

Nine Years In

About a week ago, I passed my ninth EVE-anniversary. Its be a long, strange trip on various Internet Spaceships. I’ve seen big events ranging from the Amarrian championships and would-be player-driven revolutions to alliance tournaments (all 8 so far that were broadcast visually) and all those crazy miner-ganking Hulkageddons.

I made a post about this sort of thing a couple of years ago. It was probably more inspiring than this one, but that’s not for me to judge.

I’ve watched corporations rise to fame and then fall to pieces leaving just an empty shell, and alliances burn brightly only to be decimated by subterfuge or be utterly ruined by years-long wars.

People I met in the early day have left and come back again. In some cases, several times. Some of the friends I’ve made in space have gone through college and university. Others got engaged, married and settled down with kids.

It’s really quite astonishing to think about playing a game for so long. The prospect of playing an MMO for more than a few months seems preposterous these days – with big development houses building massive marketing hype, fuelled by gamers’ desire for the “next big thing” – so I really do surprise myself sometimes when I think about how long I have poked around in the void.

But what’s left to do? What’s left to train? Nothing. I have (for several years now) been sitting docked, socialising with people I know and respect, and tentatively prodding promising newbies, fostering a new generation of awesome spacefriends. My skill queue consists primarily of items ‘just because’ rather than ‘wouldn’t it be nice if…’; things that I’m training to level five for the hell of it, and to stay competitive on pointless things like eveboard.

So why stick around?

That’s the big question. Everyone I know leaves. They almost always come back, but for the most part, space is a lot more empty for me than it used to be. I still enjoy the company I keep, though. I have met some truly inspirational and beautiful people in this game, and as long as it keeps delivering on that level, I’ll probably never leave.

So here’s to more Internet Spaceships and the Internet Spacefriends they bring!