Phoenix Labs: The Few, The Proud, The Industrialists with teeth!

I've been a member of Phoenix Propulsion Labs for most of my EVE career. I've written in the past how important it is to quickly join the right corporation in EVE in order to enjoy the game to its full potential. Let's face it, EVE is an MMOG, a real Massively Multiplayer Online Game, one where the social element of these game is most prominent. Not that you can't play the game solo, but it's a no easy task, and doesn't provide the support a good corp will.

In my case, that corporation is Phoenix Labs. Shortly after joining the corp, I had a chance to meet these fine folks in person during the EVE Gathering in Vegas in mid-2006. Recently, I interviewed our Human Resources Officer, Isuridae, and gave him the chance to showcase this amazing corp I'm proud to be of! The interview is below.

What is Phoenix Propulsion Labs (PPL)?

PPL is primarily an industrial corp but we are trying to become more balanced in areas of PVP. We have a saying to that regard, “Industrialists with teeth.”

What sort of industry does PPL perform?

PPL is engaged heavily in T2 and T3 manufacturing of items ranging from rigs and modules to starships and drones. We also manage a good deal of capital ship production.

How Is PPL structured?

That’s a good question, I am glad you asked. PPL is a socialistic corp in that the means of production and distribution of goods is owned by the corp. All assets belong to the corp. And our Tax rate is 99%. We have a military rank system with promotions based on merit.

That sounds very restrictive for pilots, how do they make money?

The corps provides its pilots with anything they require, thus the burden of constantly grinding for ISK is relieved. Pilots are then free to pursue the activities they enjoy, rather than wasting their energies. All we ask of our pilots is that they maintain a good level of activity, and participate in corp operations when required.

Is PPL part of an alliance?

At present no, though we do see an eventual return to a 0.0 based alliance. It is our hope that with the Dominion expansion, the alliances will begin to see the worth of a dedicated industrial corp. This corp, working with a couple others in what was then FIX alliance, is responsible for the construction of most of the outposts in the Querious region. 3-FCK, I1Y, and 49U to name a few.

Why would a capsuleer join PPL?

PPL is very much a family of mature pilots that value the principles of teamwork, honor, integrity, and commitment. If you are looking for an experience greater than just being out for yourself, wish to be part of a cohesive team working towards a common goal. And want to have fun doing it. PPL may be the corp for you.

What are PPL’s goals?

First and foremost to provide our pilots with a fun and rewarding experience and secondly to be recognized as the preeminent industrial corp in EVE.

Applications can be submitted on our corporate website. I review the applications and then contact you in-game for an interview.

The NPE in Dominion - A CCP Eris Discordia Interview

I recently had the opportunity to interview the developer responsible for the New Player Experience (NPE) in the upcoming Dominion Expansion at CCP Games, none other than CCP Eris Discordia. Below is the result of my interrogation. Please feel free to comment and ask additional questions!

Enjoy

What was the main goal of the changes you brought forth with the NPE?

While the NPE is continuously evolving, the goal of the Dominion changes is to teach skills to new players that should make them valuable to any corporation as talented recruits. Aside from that, we also wanted to gain a better understanding of how the NPE is experienced by new players. To do this we added a lot of data logging in the tutorials and career paths, to identify areas for improvement. These areas are indicated by red flags in data--for example, when thousands of people read one tutorial three times we see that spike and know that the there is an issue with the tutorial. It may simply be confusing or there may be a larger problem. Once we’ve identified an area, the idea is that we then focus on it to make it better.

Write yourself to a CCP Dev Podcast Interview!

Planetary control. Mention these two words to any EVE player and you'll see the same excitement in their face as you would from a preschooler in front of a candy store or a Christmas tree. In the latest EVE Chronicle, The Ever-Turning Wheels, we had the pleasure to immerse ourselves in the events surrounding a Caldari ODST strike force; couldn't help myself to plug in Halo ODST here! We've been teased by CCP a number of times over the last few years (remember the video on planetary flight or the recent FPS teaser) and it's something that could add some interesting game mechanics to our favourite sand box.

Which got me thinking. What possibilities would planetary control allow players, corporations and alliances to do? What features would allow this? How would the CCP Devs implement this? I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get the EVE Blogosphere involved. Which brings me to the contest!

The goal is to write an article on planetary control and how that would be implemented in EVE. Your article needs to cover what features, game mechanic, game design you would like to see implemented if (or when) planetary control/exploration/exploitation becomes available in EVE.

You're required to write a two-part article. The first part needs to be a fiction piece that tells a story based on the feature (or game mechanic, game design, etc...) that you would like to see implemented, while the second part would be the actual description of how that would work in game. Each part of your article needs to be a minimum of 300 words (600 word minimum for the whole article).

I'll be judging the entries and will pick the 5 best articles, amongst which I will randomly choose the winner. This lucky blogger will get to interview a CCP Dev during a MicroWarpCast podcast, with yours truly as host! Details on the podcast will be provided to the winner prior to the show's recording.

The contest is open for submission until Wednesday August 19 11:59PM EDT. Please provide a link to your article in the comments and make sure to email me the URL (crazykinux[at]gmail.com). I'll then go over the articles and hope to be able to announced the winner on Friday the 21st. The podcast recording will occur shortly after that!

Good luck to all and thanks for your participation and feedback!

Eve Online: recent CCP interviews

EVE Online and CCP are currently enjoying a frenzy of media and press exposure. Seems that all that great work is finally paying off and that EVE is slowly getting noticed by the rest of the gaming world. Our little Icelandic secret is no longer so!

Though these are articles were published some time ago, I still wanted to post them up in case you missed them.

• GamersInfo.net - Interviews - Interview - Kjartan Pierre Emilsson
• MMORPG.COM - Interview with Nathan Richardsson
• GamersInfo.net - PC - Interview - Noah Baker

Enjoy the read!

EVE Online: Interview with Reynir Harðarson at OGaming

Head over to OGaming for an interesting interview with Reynir Harðarson Creative Director at CCP. Some great screenshots, tidbits on EON and other goodies.