It was very disheartening to find out that I could only choose one of my characters per account for my video year review.
A very large part of the EVE community has two or more characters per account. Many also have two or more accounts with several characters on each that are built for different purposes.
1 Main character, 1 trader, 1 Miner or Industry character is not at all an unusual setup for many players to have on 1 or more accounts.
I really don’t see a reason why this setup should be limited to only choose just 1 character per account or even 5 different categories since last year you just connected all accounts and characters to their respective e-mail and made a total review of that which everyone loved. This is also the reason why I and probably many others changed their E-mail addresses in 2020 so that they would all line up with the yearly review video.
These review videos are something players are proud of and they spread them everywhere so even if it puts a bit more strain on the server I think it’s a very worthwhile investment into marketing.
That’s because you have no idea how much database crunching is required to pull this off.
You also have no idea how much number crunching it requires to render the video for each character individually.
You also have no idea about the amount of bandwidth the videos are eating through when they’re being downloaded/watched.
From the perspective of someone who doesn’t understand anything …
… everything which looks easy also is easy.
I managed to generate the video for one character on an account then download that and go back and create a new video for another toon on the account instead.
Seems there are some things broken tho as it always seems to say the Isk value output of my production jobs is 0 isk and the same with the value of my hacking results
I agree, all the stats on accounts associated with the same Email address should have been included in the video, just like how it was done last year.
I mostly use this character on this account. However, all the characters on my other 3 accounts have helped contribute to the stats listed in the video for this character.
Having players select 5 different category stats to be featured in the video is not a good option either. Players may forget to include categories with positive stats. Last year the video listed the top stats from various categories based on percentage amount, if there wasn’t any stats or if the percentage was below a specific amount, that category wasn’t featured in the video.
I agree that it’s nice if the whole account is included in the stats. I also agree with Solstice that probably time, available staff and cost are a factor. I see that they further limited this years videos by saying you have to be Omega subbed just to create the video (which they didn’t do last year, if I recall).
That said, there’s only so much work you can expect from a company during difficult times if it isn’t beneficial to the bottom line.
Do you think people are buying more subs so they can have the video? Should players be able to pay $10 extra for a “full account” video token? Would anyone want to?
Now I don’t see this (other than cost maybe) since the stats / vids will be generated by a script presumably this is all automated and all the wrok (creating the script / db queries) was done LAST year.
It’s entirely possible. I’ve seen database scripts that run fine, en masse, and generate good results. I’ve also seen database scripts that run mostly fine, generate a base result, then need to be tweaked a bit by hand to create the final result. So basically, it depends on whether you think CCP did a thoroughly professional, top-notch, automated job; or slapped together a routine that pulls the basic data and requires a few minutes work to plug those into the video generator.
The sheer number of videos makes me believe it’s an almost completely automated task. The past history of CCP production efforts makes me think it probably needs some hands-on to manage creating them.
Either that or CCP has decided once again to take a crowd-pleaser, make it less useful and accessible, and charge you an Omega sub to even have a look at it. Also entirely possible.
How do you know how much effort is required to pull this off?
I did mine and it took seconds. I could really care less about the video, but your fanboi sucking up to CCP is the your most glaring character flaw, and every post is a showcase of your total lack of objectivity.
Database crunching? Probably not, because if it’s the case, then CCP has already stored all those numbers for all accounts in an little table (36 counters / Char) with no stress at all on the DB.
The video encoding and the network bandwidth are perhaps indeed an issue.
In all case, if not in the video, I would have appreciated to have those 36 (12 categories x 3) counters for all my accounts as well as the corresponding top percentage.
I’m now totally frustrated because I missed my initial choice. Of course being able to see the numbers before the video will have broken the surprise effect. But at the end, I would have preferred an automated “no-choice” video with the most noticeable numbers (as in the 2019’s video) and than with access to all numbers the possibility to have a single regeneration of your custom video.
The over-the-top video would have been the possibility to concatenate multiple accounts figures and choose your top 5 screens for those.
Clearly CCP is planning on removing the second and third character slots, right after they remove PvP from high-sec. The “Your year in Eve” is just how they are judging which character you’ll keep if you aren’t active in the game when they force the change.
They did the exact thing I’m asking about last year and it didn’t crash the server so I’m pretty sure it couldn’t be that bad.
The number-crunching is already done for all categories and all potential characters in the game, otherwise, they couldn’t have given us a choice to choose whatever character we want. So that doesn’t make a difference either way.
I understand that they could be worried about “peak overloads” on the server but they could have just put a cap on the number of people that can produce the videos at any given time of the day.
I wouldn’t have had any problem with waiting a few days or even weeks if there are too many people that click the “create video” button and I think most players would understand if they had a cap like that and would happily wait.
I think this would be the best solution. As you say, all the numbers are already crunched. Why even make players go through an interface and request their video in that case? Just produce the videos during slow times and mail out links to the video as they’re ready, with a “Please be patient” email sent out up front.
It takes a company as service-blind as CCP is to implement a feature that was near-universally enjoyed, and then start putting artificial roadblocks and barriers and limitations on it to make it a source of frustration. Really, it’s like they pay someone to invent ways to sabotage themselves.
As for Solstice, yes his manner is abrasive. Just keep in mind that for some people, using the game and the forum to constantly attack and belittle easy targets and then pat themselves on the back for being better than everyone else, is a necessary sop to their fragile egos. I think your gentle reminder to please show common courtesy is an excellent approach, one I should try a bit harder to emulate (I can be a bit abrasive myself at times). Thanks for setting a good example!
