Talk:Eve Online/Archive 17

Images
''Note: On Tuesday, April 29 this discussion was archived after 30 days of inactivity. Yesterday cncplyr spoke to me on my Talk page about this topic. I have therefore revived this discussion so that we can talk here instead of just on my Talk page. The discussion continues below. -- Aexus (talk) 23:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)''

Right, I don't check this article very much but I see that quite a few people think the images need improving. My main objection is that the screenshots are all very old, and I was thinking I would go gather some new better pictures with the shiny new graphics. If wanted I could get some like-for-like images only with better graphics and hopefully a bit clearer, except for the fleet battle one as I never participate in anything like that myself. I've been adding lots of pictures recently to eve-wiki.net(under user:Runia), so you can have a look over there for examples of what I mean. I think I'll leave all the formatting to everyone else to worry about though. Hopefully I'll get round to this later in the week? (if no-one objects) cncplyr (talk) 14:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 15:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally it's a good idea to provide the reader with Trinity Premium screenshots. The article currently has one real-life picture of a developer, the ship comparison chart and five screenshots. The total number of images is fine so we could indeed concentrate on new similarly expressive images to at least partly replace the five screenshots. However, of the 76 images you've uploaded to eve-wiki.net only eight meet the quality standard I'd like to aim for. Two of these eight images don't really fit into this article as they show a jet can and a stargate, respectively. The remainaing six very nice images are those of the Astarte, Buzzard, Cerberus, Harpy, Iteron and the Viator. The other screenshots lack quality in one or more ways, for example they lack contrast, show ships shrouded by clouds, are too dark or feature too much perspective distortion to clearly identify the ship. The six mentioned are, however, very good. Images we can very well replace are:
 * The pod for the Death section
 * Concord ships for the Security index system section
 * The fleet battle for the Combat section
 * The market browser screenshot for the Economy section
 * The Catalyst to illustrate the Background section
 * Apart from an image for the Catalyst screenshot I don't think we already have appropriate replacements. The Catalyst, however, can be replaced by one of the six mentioned images. For example the Astarte or Harpy. Or, of course, something entirely different still to be screen-captured. The other four (pod, Concord ships, market browser and fleet battle) are yet to be taken. Seeing as you don't participate in fleet battles it would be truly excellent if you took on the work on the first three images. I'm fairly sure we will eventually get something to replace the fleet battle image, too. What do you think?

-- cncplyr (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, sounds good, I shall set to work snapping more in the week. I'm not really sure how the market browser image could be improved though. Also I was wondering about the size format of the pictures. As you've probably noticed the images I used were almost all portrait style, as for the ship pages this enabled a larger picture to be used whilst not taking over too much of the writing. However for a proper screenshot a more normal landscape might be more appropriate? In any case I shall have a look around at other game pages and see what they have there, as I don't know how it would affect the formatting. Also it maybe worth considering the type of ship to replace the catalyst, for example something that is common and iconic may be better than another more obscure (but nontheless good) ship. I'm thinking along the lines of a megathron, raven, thorax, something like that? Though for me taking said pictures would be hard as I don't have access to them, at least until I get onto sisi again.
 * Oh forgot to mention I'll probably stick anything I take up somewhere else and link to it here on the talk page before we actually use them. cncplyr (talk) 00:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 07:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC) Goztek (talk) 11:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * For the screenshots I think the regular 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio is best. Maybe I stand corrected once I see the images you've taken but offhand I'd go with an aspect ratio the reader recognizes easily. As for the Catalyst replacement a more popular ship is an alternative. The Raven is still quite popular - according to the latest Quarterly Economic Newsletter it was the second-most flown ship during the fourth quarter of 2007; right after the Kestrel frigate. A beautiful Raven shot is very well appropriate to replace the not-that-beautiful-anymore Catalyst shot. Regarding the market browser image, I was thinking about that one, too. An anonymous editor above (IP address 219.108.16.214) wrote that an image from a Quarterly Economic Newsletter might give a better overview of the economy than the current image does. I'm torn. It's easier said than done to improve the market browser image. Maybe I get a clearer vision when I write down our options:
 * Leave the current image be
 * Use a screenshot of the Jita 4-4 undock as an anonymous editor suggested
 * Use a graph from one of the Quarterly Economic Newsletters as 219.108.16.214 suggested
 * Come up with an even wickeder solution
 * I dunno about you but the longer I think about it the more option 1 grows on me. At least while I don't come up with the wickeder solution. A screenshot of the market browser doesn't sound that bad compared to what a Jita screenshot and a graph can convey. Though I'd go with a market browser screenshot with the current interface. That way it doesn't look out of place among the other Trinity Premium images. Anyway, what do you think we should do with the market browser screenshot?
 * I'm not sure the Jita 4-4 undock picture would be entirely as suitable as the other suggestions, since now ships "fire" out of the station at max velocity at a random angle 0-15 degrees from the undock point as in Boost Patch.

Here goes. This is where the discussion continues. Plyr, feel free to post here instead of on my Talk page. -- Aexus (talk) 23:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization
What's the reasoning behind using all cap EVE in the title? Manual of Style (trademarks) states "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting 'official'". --24.199.97.20 (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It may be that the trademark itself requires the capitals -- Jubelum (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, 24.199.97.20. There is no reasoning that complies with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. On November 8, 2007 I changed all occurrences of "Eve" to its all-capitalized version of EVE. Here's my revision of the article. I decided it was a good thing to mimic the way CCP spells EVE Online. However, I wasn't aware of the trademarks guideline of the Manual of Style. Now that I know about it I've corrected my mistake. I don't think there's a discussion to be had since the guideline is specific enough for me. However, feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong:
 * Within this article I've changed all occurrences of EVE to Eve
 * I changed the titles of the two support articles "Spaceships of EVE Online" and "Expansions of EVE Online" to versions with correctly capitalized words, namely "Spaceships of Eve Online" and "Expansions of Eve Online", respectively.
 * Within the two support articles I changed all occurrences of EVE to Eve and I've also left a link to this discusssion in case editors disagree with the decision.
 * What I tried was to also rename this article to Eve Online. However that's currently not an option because that article already exists. It redirects to EVE Online. For the time being EVE Online will keep its name with an all-capitalized EVE. I've requested the help of an administrator to move the article. Find the request for a name change here.


 * One administrator was quick to assist in moving the article. Thanks for that! The correctly spelled Eve Online is now the main article while the incorrectly spelled EVE Online redirects to it. At least correct/incorrect in Wikipedia's terms. -- Aexus (talk) 18:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I just realized that the content of the to-do list at the top of the Talk page has been left behind in the old article. Since I'm unable to move it over here by myself I've requested the help of an administrator to move the to-do list. Find the request for a to-do list move here. -- Aexus (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keith D has moved the orphaned to-do list over here. Now the conversion from EVE to Eve is complete. -- Aexus (talk) 22:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Not yet apparently. I've missed the EVE Online category. I can't move it to the correctly spelled Eve Online by myself. I've requested the help of an administrator to move the category. -- Aexus (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 14:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keith D has pointed out that there is a special way to rename a category. I notify you that I've nominated the EVE Online category to be renamed to Eve Online in order to comply with the trademarks guideline of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Since it's a capitalization fix I've nominated the category for speedy renaming. If you disagree with the proposal feel free to discuss it on the Categories for discussion page.

Removed cfdnotice, cfd has completed. --Kbdank71 16:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yesterday Koavf has renamed the category EVE Online to the correctly spelled Eve Online. -- Aexus (talk) 10:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Eve Online Accouunting is flawed
While playing Eve online I discovered a wide spread exploit or error depending on how you look at it. While you ylace instant orders in eve online you have nothing to fear. But if you place a long term order in the eve universe you will be charged dobble for the transactions. Play at your own risk. From what I can tell it is theft in the worst way. Figures dont lye but lyers can figure. Rimonesent of fredie macs anouncement of their new accounting practices. —Preceding 71.210.33.177 (talk) 22:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe you are referring to the fact that you get a charge when you place an order and another charge when the order is filled (or partially filled). This is in fact not an exploit or an error if you create an order by right clicking an item and choosing "sell this item" then click "advanced >>>": you will see the total at the bottom is the final amount you will get, the two numbers above are the sales tax and the brokers fee. The brokers fee is taken immediately when you place the order and is not refundable, the sales tax is taken when the item is sold. If you are a new player and are selling in a station who's owner does not hold you in good standing. Both values will be 1% so I can understand how it could appear you are being charged twice. If you are still unsure please feel free to submit a petition using the this link. -- Richard Slater  (About) / (Talk) 21:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Python is not mentioned
I was just thinking in the "See also" section it has a wiki link to "Stackless Python" but it's not mentioned anywhere in the article that EVE is coded in stackless python as can be seen by. Without a mention the "Stackless Python" link in the see also section seems out of place. Sorry if this isn't to some exact standard cause it's my first time using the talk thingy. Virgil 577 (talk) 11:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 12:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, Virgil. Talking on Talk pages is straightforward - just the way you did it. As for Stackless Python, be bold! Feel free to add it to the article in any way, shape or form you see fit. Of course, you can also suggest text for a Stackless Python section here on the Talk page instead of directly editing the article. I'd say that the Development section looks appropriate for this change; maybe Python would fit in nicely between the Compatibility and Third-party applications and the Eve API Project paragraphs. You already have one important aspect of the potential new section: a valid source. I'd say go or it and write two or three sentences for starters. The worst that can happen is that editors disagree with your change, point it out and discuss how to improve it.

Publisher Flags
Personally I would remove the flags from the article as they are misleading and don't actually provide any useful information. f.ex. SSI is an "world wide" corporation however I am sure they do not practically publish world wide, for example they wouldn't have been able to publish in China or many other communist states, in fact the initial release was North America and the UK, swiftly followed by the rest of the EU. CCP themselves are allowed to publish EVE in China now, but only by special arrangement with the state so they are not truly worldwide as other communist states would most likely not allow them to publish. -- Richard Slater  (About) / (Talk) 18:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that the flags should be removed. I've done that. Here's what I think. I've had a look at ten more or less randomly picked MMO articles from the Comparison of MMORPGs article, namely Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Entropia Universe, Guild Wars, MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, Second Life, Silkroad Online, Tabula Rasa and World of Warcraft. Two of these ten articles use flags to accompany the developer's and/or publisher's name: Silkroad Online and MapleStory.

-- Aexus (talk) 18:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * While the flags guideline of the Manual of Style doesn't explicitly discourage flags in infoboxes it does say, "If the use of flags in a list, table or infobox makes it unclear, ambiguous or controversial, it is better to remove the flags even if that makes the list, table or infobox inconsistent with others of the same type where no problems have arisen." It has become controversial. So while it's a matter of taste I like the article better without flags. I've removed them. Please feel free to contradict me and suggest another solution.

Mobius Games
Not sure that Mobius Games actually publish EVE Online, they seem to provide an affiliate link, a download link and a link to buy game time. Not sure how that differs in mechanic to other sites such as Shattered Crystal or BattleClinic, both sites have had links added to the article and removed as spam or advertising. -- Richard Slater  (About) / (Talk) 18:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 18:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. It doesn't look like players actually play on another server than Tranquility when they go through this website. I could imagine they get redirected to a different server depending on their IP addresses but since the Mobius Game website doesn't seem to provide information of that sort it looks fishy. It may very well be spam. I tend to just remove the link and provoke a discussion with Aeon17x.


 * I've deleted Mobius Games from the list of publishers and I've reverted the External links section to its former state without a link to the so-called EVE Philippines home page. Like Richard I can't see Mobius Games offering more than other affiliate sites. -- Aexus (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not an advertisement. Digital Media Exchange, Inc., the parent company of Mobius Games, did publish EVE Online for the Southeast Asian countries. Here's a link to their press release. I'm bringing back the link, with a correction that it is not the Philippine homepage as previously posted, but rather the Southeast Asian homepage. Scratch that, I'm just placing the publisher info. It's the same server after all, so the EVE international homepage would suffice for the external links. --Aeon17x (talk) 15:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 13:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it can stay this way. I was under the impression that CCP owned the worldwide publishing rights for EVE Online but apparently with the release of Revelations II in June 2007 they've decided to delegate publishing business in Asia to Digital Media Exchange/Mobius Games. Whatever that means. After all, players play on Tranquility no matter what. One tangible result of Mobius Games' work may be that they do the advertising work for players in Asia so that CCP doesn't have to concentrate its efforts on that market. Ah well, I dunno. I won't change the article for now but I'm not yet sure what to make of this either.

How long would it take?
Using the EVEMon 3rd party tool, I did some calculations and figured out how long it would take to master every single in-game skill to the fifth level, starting from a freshly-made character.

A very rough estimate of 28 years, give or take. Unrealistic? I think so. PrinceForte (talk) 00:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 13:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's a fair estimate depending on the circumstances. Actually until just now I was under the impression that it was a matter of about five years to train all currently available skills to level 5. However, I just searched the forums and found for example a thread by Arlic0 calculating the total training time to be 26 years. The two-year difference between his and your calculation is probably due to different starting attributes. As for five years for all skills, I stand corrected. In Arlic0's thread nobody corrected the result. However, Saint Lazarus pointed out that 20-something years would mean "maxing out 4 races to which would be pretty pointless." Other than that EVEMon seems to do it right.


 * IIRC it would have taken about 5 years with the original skill set the game was released with. Throw in all the Lvl 5-14 skills associated with invention and carriers and titans and I could believe 26 years.  Eve-mon does include skills that aren't trainable in the game, such as jove ships, I assume those were excluded in the estimate. Mdlutz (talk) 14:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's not forget that they are adding new skills every now and often. But in the end, I think that's a good system - you can never be perfect... but after few years, you will max out some skill trees.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Bloodlines
I see no mention whatsoever in this article of the bloodlines within each faction. I consider this an important part of gameplay in EVE, not only because of the differing attribute statistics of each, but also because each has their own culture and customs within their collective societies. I feel there should be at least some metion of the bloodlines, if by nothing more than name. (Of course, I wouldn't mind having full articles on every faction and its bloodlines either, although I realize there is little more than a framework backstory provided for each.) Does anyone else have thoughts on the matter? DerekMBarnes (talk) 06:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I would tend to agree with you, especially once the new four came in last year, as the bloodlines make a considerable difference in what paths you choose. I'd also like to see something about the recent Council for Stellar Management stuff. --AlisonW (talk) 13:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Makes sense, yeah. A few lines about the bloodlines can further improve the article. Though full articles about the factions, fully covering the bloodlines is beyond the scope of Wikipedia. That's more something for example for eve-wiki.net. -- Aexus (talk) 18:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Disagreed on the point of "beyond the scope." Societies of other fictional universes are covered in Wikipedia rather extensively, e.g. the various races of "Star Trek," even though a decidated wiki like Memory Alpha is equally suited to the task. But as I've said, EVE itself provides very little to build a substantial article from, so I would agree that full articles for each faction are not a feasible option at this time. DerekMBarnes (talk) 03:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's hold off a bit and see how much new background info we get with the new expansion. I don't think we will get enough to earn the factions their own pages, but I'll probablly re-write and expand (slightly) the races section to include bloodlines and factions. We will have to find a spot to add in factional warfare as well. Mdlutz (talk) 14:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The novel should provide even more information; looking forward to reading that. DerekMBarnes (talk) 03:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Do players receive 100% of a GTC's game time on account activation?
''Note by Aexus: Acidictadpole posted the following as an item of the to-do list. Since the to-do list is meant to list doable tasks and this isn't an actual doable task I've decided to move it here so that we can discuss it properly. Here goes Acidictadpole's text.'' -- Aexus (talk) 13:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I may be incorrect about this, but in the topic about payment/cost methods, it mentions that you receive 100% of the gametime on a GTC if you use it to activate a trial account. I am 95% sure that this is incorrect, and that the first GTC you use actually has some time removed roughly equal to the $5 activation fee. Acidictadpole (talk) 03:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)(Can contact in EVE)


 * As far as I remember I got the full game time last time I activated an account with a GTC, but I'm not entirely certain.
 * And another thing that might be worth throwing in here; Game time does 'stack' when you add it, as opposed to overlapping the time one already has on the account Evil oatmeal (talk) 05:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm fairly sure it says somewhere on the website that it will deduct 30 days or so from your first GTC to pay for activating the account, yet this never happened for me. As far as I can tell I've never paid the activation fee. cncplyr (talk) 12:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * When I first subscribed (2005), there was a section in the player's guide stating that a number of days would be removed when activating with a GTC. However people activating with a GTC reported that the days were never removed and the article has since been removed from the player's guide.
 * Credit card activations are still charged the extra $5 though. *Shrug* Oni no Akuma (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Council of Stellar Management
The section on CSM needs to be updated - it has started to operate in the past weeks. PS. In a recent dev blog related to CSM there were some interesting stats including a gender distribution of the players.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 14:48, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * AlisonW has added a section about the Council that I had accidentally removed. Sorry, Alison, for the trouble. The section is back and I've added five sources to it. I've also swapped the link to the voting overview with a link to one of Xhagen's dev blogs. The former required readers to register an Eve Online account to validate the source, the latter doesn't.


 * np. I've removed the fact tag on the costs bit as, in part, I wasn't sure which bit it was querying. CCP are paying for the flight and hotel costs for the CSM to visit Iceland (this coming Thursday, in fact) and are supplying basic meals. They are explicitly not paying for an drinks (email subject to NDA states this!) nor other incidental costs, nor any opportunity costs for someone to attend (ie loss of income / use of holiday days, etc). --AlisonW (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The fact tag was asking for a source to prove the claim, "most of the costs of their visit to Iceland being borne by CCP." If you can provide a source, please do. If not, I suggest we leave the fact request in place for another editor. -- Aexus (talk) 18:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * CCP have bought the flight tickets, are paying for the hotel and most meals directly. I declare an interest as I am a member of the CSM (Inanna Zuni). That they were planning to pay the costs is, I believe, in the original PDF and/or the overview document released at the same time. --AlisonW (talk) 20:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 22:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added the CSM Summary PDF file as a source for the statement. Page 3 of that PDF says in the Candidate Eligibility paragraph: "Transportation to and from Iceland, plus lodging, lunch, and dinner will be provided by CCP. Candidates are responsible for all other expenses incurred during the trip." When you know where to look for the source anyway, next time please do so.