A science-fiction boardgame
At the Fanfest, my friend Felix and me bought copies of the boardgame EVE Conquests. This game designed by Pétur Örn Þórarinsson is set in the same universe as the massively multiplayer game (MMO) Eve Online. After one missed opportunity at Nils's place, I managed to actually try the boardgame at Felix's place yesterday. We were six players and formed two tables, one with four players (Felix, Björn, Dani and Rüdiger) and the other one with three players (Christoph, Dominic and me).
Playing a game of EVE Conquests is not necessarily easy. It thrives on complexity but at the expense of clarity. The game is huge -the board needs a real table.
While the MMO allows you to pilot your own personal space ship and do whatever you want with it, the boardgame addresses the strategic scale of the war to end all wars: a conflict where you play the role of one of four interstellar empires bent to conquest.
Games played
The first group finished first. Apparently, Dani had positioned her empire in a corner of the star cluster, and by pure chance she was able to claim high value regions there. The other empires were not even adjacent to hers and were not able to attack her quickly enough. Björn suggests the randomness induced by the 'political landscape' mechanism (claimable regions) is a tad excessive. It nevertheless guarantees replayability and provides dynamic tension. Players need their empires to be central and close to any potential target but also to protect them and their assets.
Our group finished one hour later. Dominic chose to play the Amarr slaver empire, I picked the Gallente cheese-eatin' surrender monkey empire and Christoph settled with the Minmatar rabble. Dominic quickly claimed two core regions which gave him a slight headstart. Christoph began to expand in the East of the star cluster while I headed for the North. There I was able to claim two high-value regions, including, ironically, Deklein, current home of the Tau Ceti Federation (a French-speaking Eve Online player alliance). At this point, my opponents felt threatened. Christoph attacked first and took a few regions, stealing one of my region cards. The Amarr Navy soon joined the fray on my southern flank. By chance, I was able to stop the advance of both invaders and even prick them here and there. The decisive moment in the game happened in the second semester of the third year of the war, when I used a special card to postpone the logistics turn of Christoph by one month, thus becoming able to attack him first. I recovered one region, put an outpost over it and claimed another pair of regions, which widened the victory point gap to the point where I just had to wait out a couple of months to win the game. Long live the Gallente Federation!
A fun game, but
Overall, we had a lot of fun and I recommend EVE Conquests to players who like ambitious boardgames and/or Eve Online. Playing in the same setting but on a different level is refreshing and fun. We are all Eve aficionados except Björn, Dani and Rüdiger, who are "mere" boardgame geeks.
Both Christoph and Björn like especially the calendar-based turn mechanic. The dice-based battle system is also popular.
Somebody suggested that the boardgame could be converted into a web application but I do not see the point. The laughs we had and Felix's bolognese could not be electronically emulated.
Now, to the "but".
The resource tokens, though easy to use, add a layer of rules I am not endeared with. After the first year or so, everybody had enough outposts to fund wars until the end of time. I heard a comment around the table about the Eve players of the Pandemic Legion alliance and their R64-made warchest worth trillions of isk. At that stage, resource tokens become irrelevant. A bit later in the game, you hit a second wall when your number of units reaches 60 and the only way you can build more is by losing some first -but that limit is meaningful and helps the endgame be battle-heavy.
The color scheme is a source of confusion. I call it "the rainbow of pain". In EVE Conquests, colors are associated to one of three phases: development, production and logistics. Our 'National Seals' (used in the calendar system) are of three different colors, and so are our outposts. It contradicts my habits both as a boardgamer (to every player his color) and as an Eve player (golden Amarr, greenish Gallente, etc). What is more, the colors of different components do not seem to perfectly match each other. The fact that colors are also used to differentiate the four empires, the four nebula of the star cluster and the three rows of the 'political landscape' does not help either.
The rulebook is obscure. Spending the first two hours stumbling over various issues and wondering how to play the game, after reading the manual, is not a good sign. The other table had it easy, Björn is a boardgame mutant who feeds on arcane rulebooks. Reading the manual again, I just discovered that there are, in fact, page numbers... grey on black, smallest possible size letters are, for practical purpose, inexistent.
The thing is, game authors may not be the most adequate persons to write the rulebooks. Rulebooks should be written for gamers who want to play right now, by the guy who did the demo at the gaming convention. This guy has thirty seconds to convince the passerby to play and just a few minutes to pitch everything: the setting, the victory conditions and the mechanics that make the game tick. The pitch gets polished like a rock in the middle of a river. Right now, the rulebook tastes too much like brain soup.
EVE Conquests Rules For Dummies
I may or I may not be a dummie.
In a 'Revelation' game of EVE Conquests, you want to be the first to reach a set number of victory points. Victory points are earned either by claiming regions (you appropriate the cards and score the numbers on them) or by destroying another player's outpost and stealing a card from your defeated enemy. To claim regions, you need them
a) to be available face up on the 'political landscape' section of the board
b) to have outposts of your own
c) to be connected by your units and
d) to "match" (same part of space or same letter/color on the 'political landscape').
You want to claim regions and to destroy outposts from players who have claimed them!
Beware, you cannot destroy your own outposts, so each one you build is a potential target for the other players.
The regions which can be claimed are different each time and change each time regions are claimed. Every empire's army will probably focus their attention to different places on the board during the war.
That's for the grand strategy. You want to build outposts and destroy outposts.
Outposts allow you to do more actions because, each time you build one, you get a resource token which can fund additional actions. Outposts generate resource tokens of the same type (orange logistics outposts generate orange logistics tokens).
Each empire has three 'National Seals', one for each turn (development, production, logistics), which you will move on the calendar. If, for example, we are in January and your development National Seal (the blue one) is the closest to the center of the calendar, it's you turn to play. On a development turn, as displayed on the empire card, you can always do at least one development action and your next development turn happens then two months later (move your National Seal to March). If you choose to spend one extra development resource token, the empire cards indicate that you can do three development actions and your next development turn is four months later. Etc.
You still want to build outposts and destroy outposts.
First of all, you can build units in your headquarters and in your outposts during your production turn. Three max per region per production turn.
To build an outpost in a region, you need units of your own in all regions connected to it. Expand into the region you want and all adjacent regions. That happens during your development turn. If some adjacent regions do already belong to another empire, just plant an agent (a spy!) - a unit which does not give you access to the region but who stays dormant until you attack there or are attacked from there.
The logistics turn allows you to move stacks of units to any connected point in your empire and to destroy enemy outposts by attacking the regions they are in and killing all units guarding it.
Go forth now, align the stars, build outposts and destroy outposts. Pretend to be the innocent carebear and attack the other players. Make alliances and honor your word or resort to devilish backstabbing. I intend to play the game more in the future, now that I have managed to get some sense out of it. I just need to find myself more Germans!
EDIT: After reading the rules for the fourth time, I think I am making some progress and the resource tokens system does now make sense, at last.
Tl;dr
EVE Conquests, good.
Clone monologues 14
Hello, me.
I have spent one good month fighting the State Protectorate and the 24th Imperial Crusade by raiding enemy high-sec space, and I feel happy about the number of ships I have destroyed. Those ships will not be used against the interests of the Gallente Federation. Destroyers are very efficient vessels to use against miners, haulers or young pilots who forget they have enlisted in a CONCORD-sanctioned war effort. Overconfident interceptor pilots are also fair game. The difficult part is escaping the enemy Navy.
I must say I felt a strange sensation the first few times I podkilled capsuleers with one or two days of pod experience. I got in touch with a handful of them with advice to leave this war or, failing that, to be more careful for the sake of their crews. However, after encountering this type of prey day after day for weeks, I began to lose my qualms. I don't see myself in them anymore. Their corp left the Amarr militia. I would have killed again. Have I become a monster?
If I am, and if you read these lines, I am a dead monster.
I have spent one good month fighting the State Protectorate and the 24th Imperial Crusade by raiding enemy high-sec space, and I feel happy about the number of ships I have destroyed. Those ships will not be used against the interests of the Gallente Federation. Destroyers are very efficient vessels to use against miners, haulers or young pilots who forget they have enlisted in a CONCORD-sanctioned war effort. Overconfident interceptor pilots are also fair game. The difficult part is escaping the enemy Navy.
I must say I felt a strange sensation the first few times I podkilled capsuleers with one or two days of pod experience. I got in touch with a handful of them with advice to leave this war or, failing that, to be more careful for the sake of their crews. However, after encountering this type of prey day after day for weeks, I began to lose my qualms. I don't see myself in them anymore. Their corp left the Amarr militia. I would have killed again. Have I become a monster?
If I am, and if you read these lines, I am a dead monster.
Confidential report
This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to him. The thirteenth topic comes from Zargyl, the Sebiestor Scholar, who asks us: "On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. What kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arcs? What would be the story told by it?"
Let us imagine what could be a epic mission arc using the Incarna 3D station environment. The idea here is to have the PC (player characters) meet shady fellows and work off the book. I describe only the first mission, then I summarize the rest of the arc.
1st mission - People die (Level Two)
Everything begins in a bar, on a space station. One of the NPC (non player character patrons) is a "fixer", an underworld agent operating outside CONCORD's laws. The capsuleer can discuss with the fixer. The conversation begins with innocent chit-chat:
- Howdy my friend. Care to join me for a brandy and an honest conversation?
- Cheers mate. [/drink] I have some business opportunity you might want to hear about. I am currently looking to hire a captain on a temporary basis. Good pay.
- Hey pluggy boy... Death in space means nothing to you. As for taxes, no need to pay any. For the record, this conversation is between you and me. That is how I operate, and if you want in on the payroll, please make sure to play my way.
The player can choose to make himself available for missions with this fixer.
If he does so, other npcs get new dialogue lines. For example, the barman adds a new rumor to its list:
[take tip] Have you heard about this convoy who arrived from [one solar system, randomly selected and located close to the current location of the player]?
[take tip] They got attacked just after they jumped here. No [local pirate type, e.g. Serpentis], but unmarked ships is what I heard about.
[take tip] How do I know all of that? Well, a ship managed to escape and bring the news back here. I spoke to the pilot. He is around and hiding. He just won't undock.
[take tip] Thanks mate. I'll stay on the lookout for you.
Back to the fixer:
- Look, let's be honest, I know you are the shit and everything, but I do not have a casino to rob tonight. I have this guy, though, a bit desperate, and he's looking for safe passage to [one solar system, randomly selected and located close to the current location of the player] with the requirement that he does not appear on the passenger list. This captain recently ran into some kind of trouble with unspecified characters of dubious morality who might still be around and he won't take chances and undock with his own ship. I would suggest you use a ship big enough to take an extra passenger in comfortable conditions. My cut is 30% of the one mil reward and I will ask you to kindly deposit a 100,000 isk guarantee, which will be refunded to you if you don't mess this. Are you in?
If the PC agrees, he loses 100,000 isk and the fixer says:
- Good choice. I'll send the man your way.
If the PC does not accept:
- My disappointment, your loss.
The next time the PC accesses his personal quarters on the station, a man rings at the door. He is a big guy with shifty eyes and a strong Gallente accent.
- I am Captain Cabroc, but please call me Marcel. Our mutual acquaintance told me that you had room for an extra passenger on your ship, no questions asked. The sooner we leave, the better. I can upload our destination in your nav system.
A deadspace mission beacon appears in the system in question (not publically). Its acceleration gate allows all ships.
Cabroc, when the PC's ship lands on the gate: This is a safe place. Just activate the old acceleration gate and fly ourselves to the dock.
A dock with a Thorax is located 15km away from the warp-in point. When the PC's ship gets within 3km, the mission is listed as completed. Captain Cabroc enters the Thorax, which begins to power its engines, without moving. A few seconds later, the dock is shaken by a violent explosion. The Thorax is instantly destroyed. The player's ship takes 500 EM damage. The exact amount can change; it is designed to kill frigates in case the player did not get the hint in the fixer's speech.
Cabroc: A bomb! I'm dying... Could have been rich beyond... Remember these names: Grygore Dan Riak and [static]!
Three unmarked ships with Gallente hulls arrive then 20km away from the warp-in point and begin to attack any ship present into the deadspace pocket. One of them warp scrambles, another one webs and the last one uses remote sensor dampers. If there are multiple ships, the unknown enemies select the closest one and try to dispatch it before attacking another. When no PC ship remains in the pocket, the hostiles pop Marcel Cabroc's Thorax's wreck.
If the capsuleer's ship is destroyed before it reaches the dock in the pocket, the dying passenger still drops his line about Grygore Dan Riak, and the mission is listed as failed, which does prevent the player from recovering the guarantee or getting paid.
If the PC loots the wreck of Marcel Cabroc's Thorax, he finds an item called Cabroc's damaged logs. The description reads:
The data seems irretrievable. A specialist of data recovery might get something out of it, but it is far from certain.
Getting back in touch with the fixer allows the PC to get its guarantee back, plus 700k as promised.
Marcel Cabroc's lost words (not a mission)
In which the PC manages to locate a good data recovery specialist in a station, and gets him to recover some data from Cabroc's damaged logs. The data includes a fragmented record of the second name Marcel Cabroc screamed before dying: Sophie.
Approaching Mr. Dan Riak: Naira (not a mission)
In which the PC tries to get in touch with Mr. Dan Riak, an extremely rich individual with properties in both Amarr and Gallente space. Nobody knows much about his past. Mr. Dan Riak does not accept calls from people he does not know. His bio lists Naira Dan Riak as his sole heiress.
The PC can get to meet Mr. Dan Riak's daughter, the beautiful Naira, in a station, after reading her bio. Naira shares her time between three stations, one in Amarr high-sec space, one in Gallente high-sec space and the last one in low-sec space. The PC may need to check one or two stations before finding her.
Naira lives a life of entertainment and luxury. She likes both men and women and has many pretenders she occasionally shares a bed with. The PC can date her provided he or she can wear clothes flamboyant enough to get past her bodyguards, "Mr Dan Riak's secretaries". Naira can talk endlessly about her overprotective father, nicknamed the "Ogre". She's a good-natured foxy lady and will not be dragged into talking about serious business.
If the PC presents her with a rare gift (such as an Exotic Dancer), she will invite her to a party held by her father.
The party (not a mission)
The private party is held in a station. The entry fee for the uninvited is 1 million isk. It is a masquerade and masks are distributed at the entrance. The PC will want to talk with Mr. Dan Riak, but the magnate will speak with only one person during the party. He is disguised like every other guest so the PC needs to interact with NPCs to find out which one is Dan Riak. If another PC gets to talk with him, he will have the option to receive a very lucrative mission. It is thus important for the PC to be present at the party as soon as possible; his advantage is the fact that he knows exactly when the party will begin. Mr. Dan Riak continually organizes new parties and lists the location of the stations where he holds them in his bio. The party lasts until next downtime or until Mr. Dan Riak has finished conversing with a PC.
If the PC manages to speak with Grygore Dan Riak, he can choose to accept a mission.
2nd, 3rd, 4th mission - A dead past dying
Grygore Dan Riak begins by showing a document to the PC: a complete record of his past activities and current assets. He wants the PC to know that his private spy network did their homework and that he could crush him whenever he wants.
"You're a fool, but not a silly fool, and I'm not un-generous."
He worries about his daughter and suggests that the PC stays clear of her from now on. He says he does not know Marcel Cabroc but that he recognizes a bold adventurer when he sees one and he would thus like to hire the PC for a mission off the book. He wants to know his past, because he lost his memories of everything which happened in his youth.
Dan Riak asks the PC to investigate and ask people about his own past. The people that the PC can meet are mostly retired criminals and smugglers living in deadspace strongholds. The PC will fly to their resting place, fight off random pirates trying to hassle these criminals, and get to speak with the grateful retired thieves. These people will each time provide the PC with a document that he will need to give to Dan Riak, and which will lead to the next step in the arc, the next witness of Dan Riak's past.
But when another PC, uninvolved in the epic arc, manages to speak with Dan Riak at the masquerade, the billionaire will ask him to go and kill the witness involved in the first PC's, former mission. That is because Dan Riak is not amnesiac; he is just trying to locate and eliminate everyone who knows about his nefarious past as a smuggler in Caldari space.
If the PC bookmarks the location of his former mission and comes back there, he can potentially intercept the other PC bent on killing the witness. Doing so allows the PC to loot documents that can be used to one-time blackmail Dan Riak.
If the PC does not go back to the deadspace pockets where he met the witnesses, he stays in the dark and keeps providing Mr. Dan Riak with the information he needs to clean his past by removing any witness of it.
Rich men's fate
The story arc can conclude one of multiple ways.
- The PC and Dan Riak can part in good terms.
- The PC can gather proof against Dan Riak, by recovering items in other PC's witness kill missions and by deciphering the logs of Marcel Cobrac; he can use these items to
(Bad) blackmail Dan Riak for a good amount of isk or
(Good) give them away to a police corporation for some big one-time standing gain.
In every case, Mr. Dan Riak's status will not be damaged; it is assumed that the billionaire will buy off every corporation agent blackmailing him.
I would like to thank Mr. Orson Welles who helped with the plot. Which, if you have not guessed by now, is a complete rip-off from Mr. Arkadin -very simplified but this post is wall-of-texty enough.
I would like to conclude with a "Georgian toast" straight out of the movie:
"I had a dream. I found myself in a graveyard where all the tombstones were marked in a curious way - '1822 - 1826', '1930-1934', always like that, always a short time between birth and death. In the graveyard was an old man. I asked him how it was he had lived so long when everyone else in his village had died so young. But no, he told me this: 'It's not that we die early, it is just that here our tombstones do not count the years of a man's life, but rather the length of time he has kept a friend.' Let's drink to friendship."
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
Let us imagine what could be a epic mission arc using the Incarna 3D station environment. The idea here is to have the PC (player characters) meet shady fellows and work off the book. I describe only the first mission, then I summarize the rest of the arc.
1st mission - People die (Level Two)
Everything begins in a bar, on a space station. One of the NPC (non player character patrons) is a "fixer", an underworld agent operating outside CONCORD's laws. The capsuleer can discuss with the fixer. The conversation begins with innocent chit-chat:
- Howdy my friend. Care to join me for a brandy and an honest conversation?
- Cheers mate. [/drink] I have some business opportunity you might want to hear about. I am currently looking to hire a captain on a temporary basis. Good pay.
- Hey pluggy boy... Death in space means nothing to you. As for taxes, no need to pay any. For the record, this conversation is between you and me. That is how I operate, and if you want in on the payroll, please make sure to play my way.
The player can choose to make himself available for missions with this fixer.
If he does so, other npcs get new dialogue lines. For example, the barman adds a new rumor to its list:
[take tip] Have you heard about this convoy who arrived from [one solar system, randomly selected and located close to the current location of the player]?
[take tip] They got attacked just after they jumped here. No [local pirate type, e.g. Serpentis], but unmarked ships is what I heard about.
[take tip] How do I know all of that? Well, a ship managed to escape and bring the news back here. I spoke to the pilot. He is around and hiding. He just won't undock.
[take tip] Thanks mate. I'll stay on the lookout for you.
Back to the fixer:
- Look, let's be honest, I know you are the shit and everything, but I do not have a casino to rob tonight. I have this guy, though, a bit desperate, and he's looking for safe passage to [one solar system, randomly selected and located close to the current location of the player] with the requirement that he does not appear on the passenger list. This captain recently ran into some kind of trouble with unspecified characters of dubious morality who might still be around and he won't take chances and undock with his own ship. I would suggest you use a ship big enough to take an extra passenger in comfortable conditions. My cut is 30% of the one mil reward and I will ask you to kindly deposit a 100,000 isk guarantee, which will be refunded to you if you don't mess this. Are you in?
If the PC agrees, he loses 100,000 isk and the fixer says:
- Good choice. I'll send the man your way.
If the PC does not accept:
- My disappointment, your loss.
The next time the PC accesses his personal quarters on the station, a man rings at the door. He is a big guy with shifty eyes and a strong Gallente accent.
- I am Captain Cabroc, but please call me Marcel. Our mutual acquaintance told me that you had room for an extra passenger on your ship, no questions asked. The sooner we leave, the better. I can upload our destination in your nav system.
A deadspace mission beacon appears in the system in question (not publically). Its acceleration gate allows all ships.
Cabroc, when the PC's ship lands on the gate: This is a safe place. Just activate the old acceleration gate and fly ourselves to the dock.
A dock with a Thorax is located 15km away from the warp-in point. When the PC's ship gets within 3km, the mission is listed as completed. Captain Cabroc enters the Thorax, which begins to power its engines, without moving. A few seconds later, the dock is shaken by a violent explosion. The Thorax is instantly destroyed. The player's ship takes 500 EM damage. The exact amount can change; it is designed to kill frigates in case the player did not get the hint in the fixer's speech.
Cabroc: A bomb! I'm dying... Could have been rich beyond... Remember these names: Grygore Dan Riak and [static]!
Three unmarked ships with Gallente hulls arrive then 20km away from the warp-in point and begin to attack any ship present into the deadspace pocket. One of them warp scrambles, another one webs and the last one uses remote sensor dampers. If there are multiple ships, the unknown enemies select the closest one and try to dispatch it before attacking another. When no PC ship remains in the pocket, the hostiles pop Marcel Cabroc's Thorax's wreck.
If the capsuleer's ship is destroyed before it reaches the dock in the pocket, the dying passenger still drops his line about Grygore Dan Riak, and the mission is listed as failed, which does prevent the player from recovering the guarantee or getting paid.
If the PC loots the wreck of Marcel Cabroc's Thorax, he finds an item called Cabroc's damaged logs. The description reads:
The data seems irretrievable. A specialist of data recovery might get something out of it, but it is far from certain.
Getting back in touch with the fixer allows the PC to get its guarantee back, plus 700k as promised.
Marcel Cabroc's lost words (not a mission)
In which the PC manages to locate a good data recovery specialist in a station, and gets him to recover some data from Cabroc's damaged logs. The data includes a fragmented record of the second name Marcel Cabroc screamed before dying: Sophie.
Approaching Mr. Dan Riak: Naira (not a mission)
In which the PC tries to get in touch with Mr. Dan Riak, an extremely rich individual with properties in both Amarr and Gallente space. Nobody knows much about his past. Mr. Dan Riak does not accept calls from people he does not know. His bio lists Naira Dan Riak as his sole heiress.
The PC can get to meet Mr. Dan Riak's daughter, the beautiful Naira, in a station, after reading her bio. Naira shares her time between three stations, one in Amarr high-sec space, one in Gallente high-sec space and the last one in low-sec space. The PC may need to check one or two stations before finding her.
Naira lives a life of entertainment and luxury. She likes both men and women and has many pretenders she occasionally shares a bed with. The PC can date her provided he or she can wear clothes flamboyant enough to get past her bodyguards, "Mr Dan Riak's secretaries". Naira can talk endlessly about her overprotective father, nicknamed the "Ogre". She's a good-natured foxy lady and will not be dragged into talking about serious business.
If the PC presents her with a rare gift (such as an Exotic Dancer), she will invite her to a party held by her father.
The party (not a mission)
The private party is held in a station. The entry fee for the uninvited is 1 million isk. It is a masquerade and masks are distributed at the entrance. The PC will want to talk with Mr. Dan Riak, but the magnate will speak with only one person during the party. He is disguised like every other guest so the PC needs to interact with NPCs to find out which one is Dan Riak. If another PC gets to talk with him, he will have the option to receive a very lucrative mission. It is thus important for the PC to be present at the party as soon as possible; his advantage is the fact that he knows exactly when the party will begin. Mr. Dan Riak continually organizes new parties and lists the location of the stations where he holds them in his bio. The party lasts until next downtime or until Mr. Dan Riak has finished conversing with a PC.
If the PC manages to speak with Grygore Dan Riak, he can choose to accept a mission.
2nd, 3rd, 4th mission - A dead past dying
Grygore Dan Riak begins by showing a document to the PC: a complete record of his past activities and current assets. He wants the PC to know that his private spy network did their homework and that he could crush him whenever he wants.
"You're a fool, but not a silly fool, and I'm not un-generous."
He worries about his daughter and suggests that the PC stays clear of her from now on. He says he does not know Marcel Cabroc but that he recognizes a bold adventurer when he sees one and he would thus like to hire the PC for a mission off the book. He wants to know his past, because he lost his memories of everything which happened in his youth.
Dan Riak asks the PC to investigate and ask people about his own past. The people that the PC can meet are mostly retired criminals and smugglers living in deadspace strongholds. The PC will fly to their resting place, fight off random pirates trying to hassle these criminals, and get to speak with the grateful retired thieves. These people will each time provide the PC with a document that he will need to give to Dan Riak, and which will lead to the next step in the arc, the next witness of Dan Riak's past.
But when another PC, uninvolved in the epic arc, manages to speak with Dan Riak at the masquerade, the billionaire will ask him to go and kill the witness involved in the first PC's, former mission. That is because Dan Riak is not amnesiac; he is just trying to locate and eliminate everyone who knows about his nefarious past as a smuggler in Caldari space.
If the PC bookmarks the location of his former mission and comes back there, he can potentially intercept the other PC bent on killing the witness. Doing so allows the PC to loot documents that can be used to one-time blackmail Dan Riak.
If the PC does not go back to the deadspace pockets where he met the witnesses, he stays in the dark and keeps providing Mr. Dan Riak with the information he needs to clean his past by removing any witness of it.
Rich men's fate
The story arc can conclude one of multiple ways.
- The PC and Dan Riak can part in good terms.
- The PC can gather proof against Dan Riak, by recovering items in other PC's witness kill missions and by deciphering the logs of Marcel Cobrac; he can use these items to
(Bad) blackmail Dan Riak for a good amount of isk or
(Good) give them away to a police corporation for some big one-time standing gain.
In every case, Mr. Dan Riak's status will not be damaged; it is assumed that the billionaire will buy off every corporation agent blackmailing him.
I would like to thank Mr. Orson Welles who helped with the plot. Which, if you have not guessed by now, is a complete rip-off from Mr. Arkadin -very simplified but this post is wall-of-texty enough.
I would like to conclude with a "Georgian toast" straight out of the movie:
"I had a dream. I found myself in a graveyard where all the tombstones were marked in a curious way - '1822 - 1826', '1930-1934', always like that, always a short time between birth and death. In the graveyard was an old man. I asked him how it was he had lived so long when everyone else in his village had died so young. But no, he told me this: 'It's not that we die early, it is just that here our tombstones do not count the years of a man's life, but rather the length of time he has kept a friend.' Let's drink to friendship."
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
- CrazyKinux's Musing - Your Mission, should you decide to accept it...
- Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance - First Blood
- The Elitist - Guristas Invasion
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - ...It's another episode of Design Star: EVE Style...
- Level Cap -Epic Battles
- Roc's Ramblings - The Cave of Time
- Aether - Teach a man to fish...
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Mission: Tangled Webs
- Adventures in Mission Running - I can haz spaceship?
- Nuke Thoughts - EVE Blog Banter 13
- Diary of a Pod Pilot - Distressing The Damsel
- Guns Ablaze - Dynamic Missions
- More to come...
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