New editions, old additions | EVE Online

New editions, old additions

2008-10-02 - 작성자 Zapatero

Back in February, almost 1400 players took part in the E-ON Alliance Survey. The survey was conducted to research the nature of alliances, 0.0 conflict and the capabilities of alliances or coalitions to ever mount a serious challenge to the entirety of 0.0 space. The goal was to gather data to support an editorial feature centered around the results.

In the context of when the survey was opened, the conquering of 0.0 seemed more plausible that it does today; this was back when EVE was very much split between the "Axis of Evil" and the "Coalition of the Willing" (apply those subjective terms to whichever side suits your outlook), but today, with many pilots having defected to Factional Warfare - however temporary their stay - and EVE's politico-topography rather more fractured, the question seems a little overblown.

In the end, the results for the survey were only considered as a grounding for the subsequent features in E-ON ("One Alliance To Rule Them All", E-ON #011 & #012), which became a rather more nebulous beast than was first envisioned: the interpretation of the survey results were represented in the feature largely by distorted shadows of real people from Earth's history, which to some might have been bizarre, but I loved it, as did Greyscale (the red Macaw).

Anyway, the raw survey results have pretty much been sitting on my hard drive not doing anything, which is rather wasteful of me since there are, I'm sure, many in the EVE community who would enjoy analysing the results for themselves, and I did say I would make the results available. To that end I present to you two versions, a summary report (pdf), and the full spreadsheet version for doing complicated things with (xls). Do with them what you will. Enjoy.

Ooooh, I should probably use this opportunity to plug something, and the second edition of the Empyrean Age EVE Strategic Maps book (ESM) that's being sent out to buyers seems suitable for this occasion. Fixes and tweaks are highlighted on Serenity Steele's blog, but it's worth pointing out here that the book will features a full system index (which will be available for Edition 1 buyers to download), much improved symbol readability, colour adjustments, grid lines, and a Station Services legend on every page. Particularly noteworthy is that the ESM 2nd Edition ships with an A1-size poster of the low-sec regions to aid Faction Warfarers. This is likely to be a big hit, so the poster will also be available to buy from the EVE store (for a low price, I’m reliably informed) in both folded and rolled versions, so those who have a copy of ESM 1st edition can get ‘up to date’.

Ms. Steele has also been hard at work creating an in-game minimap that projects your location and ESM grid reference onto a thumbnail map via the in-game browser. It’s like GPS for EVE. Check it out by visiting minimap.eve-maps.com . It's of course free for all to try out, although those with the ESM book will most likely find it more useful than those without one.

Tying this blog up neatly, let me just close by saying that the hard-working Serenity has also kindly offered to put together a "Quarterly Alliance Report", that will be part of E-ON starting in the next issue (#013, out October 4th). The first iteration of this report will be quite modest in size, but over time I hope this will become something of a de-facto running tally of alliance goings on. The format will be similar to the Outpost Alerts that some of you may be signed up to, but will focus more on different alliances and regions in each issue.

As for the rest of what will be in the next issue of E-ON, that will go up soon.... if it hasn't already. Did someone say "Winter Expansion"?