Tag Archives: EVE Online

The Return of Capsuleer

Posted by Roc Wieler on

CCP Atlas posted about Monetizing 3rd Party Apps

Which resulted in this massive comment thread

I made my personal opinions known during my CSM 6 campaign HERE  and HERE

Quick History Lesson on Capsuleer

Capsuleer was the premier iPhone application for EVE Online. A clean design, a friendly UI, optimized coding and quick server response ensured a successful app. And successful it was, with over 60,000 active users within its first six months on the market.

Within those first six months CCP also took notice of the effort of Roc Wieler and PyjamaSam’s project, and invited us to Iceland for Fanfest, resulting in a discussion to develop a business relationship for developing Capsuleer into all its glory.

The meeting went well, resounding with excitement about our early prototypes for future functionality, as well as our vision for where the app could go in the future. We both left this meeting with high hopes for the future of Capsuleer.

Roles

I need to make a couple of things clear about who did what on Capsuleer.

PyjamaSam was the programming powerhouse behind the project. In fact, he had started on an unnamed version of his API application about the same time I was trolling the Technology forum looking for a EVE Online iPhone app.

As fate would have it, we got along, lived close to each other, and formed a partnership.

As for me, I did the designs, the usability, the quality assurance, the marketing, the community management, and the business dealings for Capsuleer. It was a great joint venture. PyjamaSam is the best programmer I have ever worked with hands down, possessing a brilliance and ability to learn quickly unlike anything I have ever experienced previously or since.

I like to think I did a good job with the pretty and making the application popular. I’m hoping the incredibly active community we had would agree.

The End of Capsuleer

Following our return from Iceland, we were hopeful, as I mentioned above. Those hopes were soon turned to despair as over the following eighteen months there was little to no honest communication from CCP. Every inquiry received a pat response: “We’re very interested and will get back to you within 30 days to progress this”, “We’re on vacation right now but will get back to you in two weeks”, “We’re still very interested but our resources are stretched thin, please be patient”, “We’re not sure who will fund your project; which department it will fall under”, etc, etc.

Incredibly demoralizing.

All the while Capsuleer was growing to critical capacity. We had a solid relationship with EON Magazine in place, offering only the same ads on our home screen as users would see when logging into EVE Online. We never once considered displaying non EVE related ads for profit. That was never what we were about.

Server costs, development costs, stress levels with CCP kept growing, and the donations we did receive, while appreciated, were no where near enough to offset what was needed to continue the behemoth that Capsuleer had become in our lives.

It was only this  last Fanfest that I found out our primary contact at CCP during this process had actually left the company, and nobody thought to mention this to us, or provide us a new point of contact to continue dealing with. Eighteen months and only then do I get a chance response. Lovely.

Inevitably, we had to make decisions for ourselves. Continue consuming our lives building out incredible features for Capsuleer, many beyond simple API integration, or try to take back our lives and maintain some type of work/life balance, our sanity, our marriages.

The choice was simple. Capsuleer was no more.

Community Response

The community responded poorly to the news for the most part. While those who had been involved in our forums and walked with us every step of the way understood our reasoning, the majority of the EVE player base believed that because we couldn’t get paid, we simply took our toys and went home. We both laughed at that considering almost every member of the EVE community believes in profit.

Still, it made us sad to think that the final memory of all our efforts was that we were two selfish bastards who simply sulked, left, and that was that. There were even cries to make it open source. If we really loved community we’d at least do that!

As I tried to explain several times unsuccessfully, and will probably do so again now, you simply don’t make something “open source”. There are standards, licensing platforms; a lot of work involved for a project we had just walked away from. Additionally, Capsuleer was 99% custom code by PyjamaSam in the end, having rewritten most of Apple’s framework to be more lightweight and responsive than what is provided in their SDK.

So no, Capsuleer wasn’t going open source.

CCP Licensing Announcement

At Fanfest 2011, CCP announced $99 developer licensing, though they didn’t go into the specifics. Honestly, I’m not even going to offer an opinion on the newly introduced licensing structure, as I no longer care. I am simply an EVE player enjoying a game. I have no interest in any further business dealings with CCP at all.

And that’s that.

So once again I want to thank my good friend PyjamaSam, who continues to be an even better friend since we put this behind us, for everything we went through together trying to make Capsuleer the official EVE Online iPhone application. You’re an incredible guy. What more can be said?

Thanks to our loyal community. Without you, Capsuleer wouldn’t have set the bar that others still fail to reach.

And thanks to CCP for giving us an API to play with that allowed us to reach out to so many. I still think it’s brilliant that you let us interact with the game in this way, though there is much room for improvement here.

I know PyjamaSam has not a single regret looking back. Nor do I.

We did discuss the possibility of starting Capsuleer up again just yesterday when the announcement was posted; fresh look, dulled pain. While we both admit there are certain aspects of Capsuleer development we miss, those do not compare to the joy we each get from where our lives are currently.

Finally, thank you Capsuleer. Because of you, we’ve each been involved in other iPhone/iPad/Android applications, having learned so much from bringing you to life.

TL;DR

Capsuleer will not be returning.

Rocwear

Posted by Roc Wieler on

Rocwear is an exclusive lifestyle brand with a wide range of customers launched by superstar icon Roc Wieler, retired Colonel of the Tribal Liberation Force. Rocwear has presented a bold and fresh new way to regulate the fashion industry in the creation of remarkable clothing for men’s big and tall which includes jeans, graphic tees and shirts as well as a women’s and children’s clothing line. To add to the expansion of the brand are accessories including hats, belts, lounge wear and boxers. Attention to detail and maintaining a reputation for providing intelligent innovations in fabrication and design to its customers have increased their appeal beyond the core urban customer making this brand a dynasty. Rocwear always guarantees you’ll attract every accessory you want.

How could I resist? You can download the full sized wallpaper HERE.

Never start a fight you can win

Posted by Roc Wieler on

Roc’s Rule #42 – Never start a fight you can win.

Truthfully, that should be rule #1, but as many of you know, the original 40 rules came from Schlock Mercenary.

Nevertheless, I often get asked what does rule 42 mean? Does it mean go pick a fight with the largest drunk Brutor you see at a pub? Maybe. But it goes much deeper than that.

No matter where you are in life, no matter what your level of perceived success or failure you currently envision for yourself, we’re all comfortable and complacent. Don’t confuse those two things.

I enjoy comforts. I’m thankful for the comforts afforded to my life:

  • I love my wife and everything she adds to my continued being
  • I appreciate the abundance and variety of foods, clothing, entertainment, gadgetry and what not that are available to me
  • I relish the career I have that enables me to push myself further both with corporate activities as well as pursuits abroad
  • I am blessed with a strong support network that continually encourages me to do more, to do better
  • I am thankful for the freedoms I enjoy, for being able to choose my own path, to strive for personal and community excellence
  • I’m enriched by all the advancements of the last twenty years that make personal growth so much more attainable in every aspect

It’s a positive thing to understand and appreciate the comforts in your life. If you have a healthy outlook, these can actually catalyze your personal growth and development.

Being complacent, however, is a bad thing; a very bad thing. It happens when we start taking our comforts for granted, allowing them to dictate our lifestyle instead of the other way around.

Look at your body. It didn’t get that way over night. It took years. It might’ve been how you were raised. It might be due to medical conditions or other genuine factors, but for the vast majority of us, it was part complacency, and part ignorance. We didn’t know better. We weren’t educated. As our bodies matured and developed, our eating habits, our exercise routines, all the things that should’ve grown in sync with the growing needs of our mind, body and soul, simply didn’t. Next thing we know we’re stuck in a person that depresses us, and many of us give up trying to make things better before we even start.

The same applies to our careers, our education, our spiritual lives, our personal relationships, our hobbies, our goals, pretty much everything that defines who we are. Complacency is a life killer, plain and simple.

That needs to end. I do mean now.

Nice rant, I know, but what does it have to do with the damn rule?

Never start a fight you can win.

An example:

If you could magically get in shape with a single day of colossal effort, being able to go from where you are right now to your absolute ideal self image, would you do it?

You’ve probably already said yes if we’re being honest with ourselves. That would be a fight we could win. There is no victory in it. It didn’t challenge us to grow beyond our comfort zone, or to learn any lasting life lessons. The reality is you can’t undo in one day what took years to do in the first place. It simply doesn’t work that way. Not if you want that lifestyle to last.

It takes time. Time can be demotivating. Time can become mundane, boring, tiresome, so we stop, we give up. It’s a fight that we can’t win without daily conscious effort. It takes extreme willpower, which doesn’t come overnight either. It takes dedication, courage, confidence, support, a change in mental attitude and emotional well-being as well as improvements to body.

Another example.

If I said walk to that spot 10 feet away, you could most likely do it.

There would be no victory in that win. There was no challenge. If I said run a 42.2 km marathon right now, you’d laugh, or not even bother, or think you might be able to accomplish a smaller distance, etc, etc, but you realize running the marathon is a fight you couldn’t win.

Those are the fights worth fighting.

What would it take for you to be able to run a marathon? What obstacles are in your way? How could you overcome them? Then as Nike says, just do it.

That is the essence of the rule. Push yourself to accomplish things you never dreamed you could. When you do, the immense sense of satisfaction will be overwhelming, and you will find yourself quickly creating bigger and bigger challenges for yourself. It’s a positive spiral all around. It’s a key to truly living.

This applies to all areas of our lives, not just personal fitness.

I’m not close to my brother. It’s a fight I can’t win, in my mind. So right now, while typing this, I am setting a goal for myself. I am going to make the effort to spend time with my brother, listening to him, getting to know him, understanding him. Judging him hasn’t worked. Pitying him hasn’t worked. Condemning him hasn’t worked. Ignoring him hasn’t worked. Our relationship hasn’t been enriched by any of the comfortable things I have done thus far. It’s time for me to try something different, something uncomfortable. I’m not really sure how to go about it yet, but I will be.

For that, sometimes we need help. It’s ok to ask for help. I ask for help all the time from qualified people. You’ll be surprised how many people are more than willing to be there for you, to offer up support and qualified knowledge on a given topic, whether in person or through the internet community.

Take advantage of that. Change your life. Seize the moment. Never start a fight you can win.

I’m here for you. I can’t always guarantee that will be true. None of us can. Examine every aspect of your life right now. Write things down that you want to improve, maybe things that have defeated you in the past. Post that list somewhere for you to see, to remind yourself that you deserve better, that you can do better, that you will do better.

Get equipped with knowledge. Get equipped with dedication and perseverance. Get equipped with the attitude that says “I’m going to improve my life or die trying.”

If you’ve read this far, you know I’m speaking the truth because what you’ve done thus far simply hasn’t been working for you.

So please, be encouraged, be motivated, but don’t let that feeling go away. Don’t get overwhelmed by setbacks or failures along your path. Each day is a new opportunity. Didn’t hit your goal today? Oh well, do better tomorrow. Don’t give up.

I believe in you.

Yurbuds

Posted by Roc Wieler on

As most of you know by now, I’m not your typical, muscle atrophied capsuleer. By no means should I be considered a bodybuilder, but rather a retired military Colonel that continues to pursue the ideal of “functional muscle”.

I’ve taken up distance running these last few years, as well as other forms of intense exercise to combat the aging of this body. Thus far, that war has been a success despite my learning the following:

My right ear canal is oddly shaped.

It probably doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, and it really isn’t in the grand scheme of things, but when you’re wearing headphones blaring the latest and greatest workout tunes, and your right headphone keeps falling off, it frustrating as hell. It ruins your rythmn, your productivity, your mood, your motivation. Such a simple thing with such a big impact.

It actually got to the point where I simply stopped listening to music during these intense routines, which of course led to boring and repetitive movement, and meditation during exercise only goes so far before my attention span waned.

That led to excuses as to why I couldn’t exercise on a particular day, at a particular time, blah, blah. We all make excuses.

I tried every sort of headphone you can think of: earbuds, over the ear, full headphones; and all of them either fail to stay in my ear or are so bulky as to be unusable during exercise.

Enter Yurbuds.

I was greeted by a slick website design, high quality photography, and an explanation as to why the company came into existence. Earbuds created by an athlete (marathon and triathalon, right up my alley) for athletes.

I read the explanation on the patented lock technology and was impressed.

The price was right, so I ordered the Ironman series Yurbuds.

At this point I’m starting to realize the internet hates me.

Once again, I had trouble with an ecommerce website. The irony infuriates me as I am a very tech savvy person, so maybe it’s karma screwing with me. Who knows?

Anyway, after several attempts I think I managed to order my headphones.

I downloaded their iPhone app, which actually will help you measure your ear for your custom pair of Yurbuds. It took another few tries, a few app crashes, and a few creative curses on my part, but it submitted, then wanted to place the order. Hell, I did things out of order.

So now I’m not sure if my order was successful despite the Order confirmation email I received, nor if my ear photo upload was successful for them to customize the ear piece for me.

So off to Twitter I go, messaging @Yurbuds about my concerns.

They responded within minutes and I provided my email address and order id. Not long after, they message me that they have found the order and escalated its priority, as well as passing on my comments regarding website issues.

Two days later, my Yurbuds arrive: a full set of headphones, an extra pair of Yurbuds, a slick carrying bag, and two inspirational trading cards, which are a great idea (Can you smell Roc inspiring trading cards next Fanfest?). Also included was a convenient quickstart guide.

This morning, I did my 5 km run at 5 AM, during a thunderstorm, Yurbuds in place. They were comfortable the entire time, not moving a millimeter. The sound quality was impeccable, yet still allowed me to hear everything else around me, which is a plus when your exercising outdoors.

For the price, this custom quality set of headphones can’t be beat for its designed purpose of enhancing your exercise experience.

PRODUCT QUALITY = 9/10
SOUND QUALITY = 8/10
SERVICE QUALITY = 10/10
OVERALL RATING = 9/10

VISIT YURBUDS NOW

OOC: Oh for Dust’s Sake!

Posted by Roc Wieler on

JUNE 6, 2011
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND and LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
CCP and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced an agreement to bring the groundbreaking persistent shooter DUST 514® exclusively to PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system in Summer 2012. DUST 514 is the first console game to link players in real time with a multiplayer universe on the PC, CCP’s award winning sci-fi MMO EVE Online.

My first reaction? Shit.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to waste time being an “Xbox Fanboi”, one of those diehards who thinks that the particular console they own is the only one that should be owned. If that were true, and others agreed, then other consoles wouldn’t exist, yet they do. Go figure.

But I am a geek. A huge geek. A huge geek that can probably put you into the ground in real life, and has no need to hide behind the anonymity of the internet to put my opinions out there. I’m not going to resort to calling people “XBox fags”, or use other infantile terms, because my intelligence, my maturity, my character, are greater than that.

So back to being a geek. I develop software. I tinker with hardware. My close circle of friends builds automated drones, tractors, self-monitoring houses, and other fun things to occupy our minds.

Even if I didn’t think so highly of myself, I would still be entitled to my opinion, and this is it.

PS3 only is the wrong choice for DUST 514.

Of course, saying it doesn’t make it true, so let’s dig deeper.

  1. PS3 hardware is superior to XBox hardware. It really is. Games like Uncharted, Infamous, God of War, Heavenly Sword and more are all beautiful games. Hell, even Mass Effect renders and plays better on PS3 than it does on XBox. For offline gaming, PS3 wins hands down in my books. I can completely understand why CCP liked this aspect of the console. CCP loves shiny. We all know that. But DUST 514 isn’t an offline game, is it? It’s supposed to be a MMO for the console. I’m sure CCP has done some preliminary testing. Maybe even with as many as 40 people. But it’s doubtful to me, given my experience with any form of large scale online play over the PlayStation Network, that the PlayStation platform simply cannot sustain the numbers online to make DUST 514 a success. Shiny won’t matter at less than 1 frame per second. Don’t believe me? Try playing a game like Need for Speed against other players in a full race and you’ll see why the PS3 fails online.
  2. XBox hardware is outdated some say. Yet wasn’t it just last year they released a new box? No more ring of death? No more overheating? Yes, yes they did. What has PS3 done lately for its hardware? Oh right. Nothing.
  3. Blu Ray player. You know, I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie on a physical Blu Ray. Can you? This used to be a great selling point back in the day. Remember Blu Ray vs HD DVD? Yeah, Microsoft would like to forget as well. My point is, with Netflix, Zune, home media networks, and other mechanisms for viewing everything digitally, that having one of the best Blu Ray players on the market isn’t really a strong selling point anymore for PS3, and has absolutely nothing to do with DUST 514 anyway. As an aside, I still can’t believe that all of us as consumers find it acceptable to wait 30+ seconds for a Blu Ray to load; no wonder we all went digital so quickly.
  4. Free online play via the PlayStation network. My account iz hackd! There’s been a lot of crying about the recent attack and subsequent closure of the PlayStation Network. Personally, I don’t think this will still be an issue by the time DUST is released in 2012. Many recent PS3 titles have suffered from this, notably Mortal Kombat for me, but I am confident Sony is doing everything in their power to implement the correct solution in a timely manner. I expect they will fully recover from this fiasco. If they don’t, DUST is the least of their concerns. Of course, XBox Live has a free online service as well, and offers paid content in a very similar manner to the PlayStation network. I’m going to give the edge to XBox Live simply because Microsoft continues to make great releases/updates to it every few months; something that can’t be said for Sony.
  5. Kinect. I really don’t need to say anything more there, but for you PS3 owners reading this, I will. Kinect has been, and will continue to be a game changer; literally. The hardware is far superior to any other gaming hardware out there, and there have been countless innovative uses of it. It’s an affordable robotics kit really, and many tinkerers have torn it apart and done amazing things. As far as gaming goes, according to E3 2011 (coincidentally on June 6), there is a slew of upcoming games that leverage more of the power of Kinect than any of the released titles to date. Mass Effect 3, for example, allows full voice commands for squad actions. Could that be useful in DUST? You better believe it. Or the next Ghost Recon that lets you use your hand to customize your gun in real time? Nah, that couldn’t be useful at all in a space shooter. Simply put, PS3 can’t compete with Kinect. Period.
  6. Market Share. According to Wikipedia, as of June 2011, XBox has a greater market share than PS3 by over 5 million; a substantial number of potential DUST customers being ignored.

There are other factors at play of course. Some say that Microsoft is too strict with the way things work within their marketplace, yet somehow games like Halo, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Mortal Kombat and others have always managed to get by just fine. In fact, many of those titles are even cross platform, being sold for XBox and PS3 alike. So why not DUST?

  • We all know CCP is not a behemoth in the gaming industry. Not yet anyway. Sure, EVE Online continues to do well, but as a veteran player of that game I can tell you its mostly reactive bursts of initiative to quell rising user complaints than anything ongoing and proactive to make the game better. CCP itself has made it clear that the majority of their development efforts are being spent on the upcoming World of Darkness, to honour their committed launch date to partner White Wolf Publishing. Where’s the rest of their resources going? DUST 514.
  • I am confident they have neither the manpower nor the finances to develop DUST 514 for both PS3 and XBox. At the end of the day, they had to choose whom to get in bed with. They chose Sony. This was probably done before Kinect was even a buzzword. This was probably done because CCP is new at console development and saw the PS3 as the easier platform to develop their product on. I don’t honestly know. I’m basing this on my own personal and professional experiences with CCP from a business standpoint, having been a co-developer of the now defunct Capsuleer iPhone application for EVE Online.

CCP is great at ideas. They aren’t so good at business.

There has been some debate on Twitter amongst EVE Online’s #tweetfleet about the wording of the announcement; particularly the part about “premiering exclusively” on the PS3. Some seem to think this indicates there will be a follow up release for the XBox shortly thereafter.

Doubtful.

As I mentioned, CCP has neither the money nor expertise to pull this off on both platforms successfully for initial launch. But, if the microtransactions of DUST go well on PS3, I could see CCP developing for XBox as well in the distant future. Having said that, if I look at their track record for developing new ideas for EVE Online and actually implementing them, I would expect to see DUST 514 on XBox as early as 2016.

Do I think DUST will be successful? Yes, I do. Do I think it work well with EVE Online? Yes, I do. Do I think it’s a brilliant idea? Yes, I do. Do I think I will be playing it? No, I definitely won’t be.

The only game on my PC is EVE Online. I only own a XBox 360. While I could afford it, I can’t justify spending that kind of money to play one game. No thanks.

Am I annoyed by this announcement? I would hope that’s obvious by now.

What is your opinion? Your thoughts? Please share them in the comments below, and if you come across any other good rants about this topic, please link them as well in your comment.

The Continuing Adventures of Captain Jack

Posted by Roc Wieler on

By: Jack Carrigan

///Begin Transmission///

The camera sat clearly in the midst of a twisted tree where a precariously perched Proteus-class strategic cruiser rested. The engines and thermal exhaust ports sat centered within the camera’s field of view. A man in dark attire was cutting a rope ladder which had been hodge-podged together presumably to reach the cargo bay of the stranded vessel. The tree itself had apparently suffered a cruel fate, as it was blackened and splintered, smoke still rising from where the twisted branches once constricted around the Proteus.

A communications cut-in could be heard overlaying into the recording, “Well Roc, I told you that this tree was going to get it. Nothing some low-grade explosives and some sharp implements won’t take care of. This ball has been my prison for far too long now, so I figured I’d leave the camera behind, and have it upstream until it ceases to function, which won’t be too long from now.” The cut-in also echoed the ship’s Aura system, “All systems showing 100% functionality. Engines priming.” Laughter was heard, “So this camera is about to meet a horrible fate as you can see, but I really could care less about it. See you in the spacelanes brother.”

A low whining sound began to pick up as the engines primed, and upon ignition, there was only blue fire, and then nothing.

///Transmission Interrupted – Uplink Not Detected///