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Excision

Let's discuss burning Eve to the ground.

It is a rather extreme thought to cut out chunks of Eve. But, what if CCP did it? What if they cut out all the wounds in Eve? What if they just deleted Sov? What if they nuked all of the Titans? What if all the Supers were gone or at least evicted to null sec? What if freighters had to use gates again to move into low and null sec from high.

I ask for honesty. What would it do to Eve?

They are huge, improbable questions. I don't think that CCP would ever just delete huge swaths of content. Thy spend to much time trying not to take away what they have given. But, I see it suggested so often in frustration and irritation. And after trying to wrap it up in softer paper I decided to just ask.

I'm sure some people will say they don't care if capitals vanished from space. If every null sec empire crumbled there would be some who cheered in their wake. It is easy for me to not care about what happens in parts of the game I don't play. I don't think that it would be a smart path for me to take. The game is an entire organised after all. Even those wild, crazy creatures in wormhole space have some dependencies on the rest of the world. How else would they get their baths and food they have to chew if they were not forced to leave their pods? I've been listening to a lot of discussions about null and supers. It is not surprising. Summer is here. Eve is dying. Negativity is in the air. And with that comes the desire to fix things. A wish to stomp out the bad and correct it with something new.

One thing I walked away from the discussions with was a deeper understanding that the problems we face are more than simple game mechanic tweaks. Obvious, perhaps, but maybe it needs to be said again. To just cut things free and sew Eve back together may seem a simple enough answer. It is proposed often enough.

And what is excision? It is removal by cutting. It is not a kind thing. And CCP has spent the last two years fixing Eve. Strengthening its bone. Lasik to the eyes. Diet and exercise for its health. The game was not healthy under its surface and they have worked to fix that. But there are still things that will not heal. There are things that may be growing worse.

Can we improve everyone's world without causing harm? Is the boredom of a group like PL a symptom of a larger illness or the illness itself? It is after a hotdrop onto a group of cruisers that I hear, "get rid of the supers!" from someone. Are super pilots all punished? In these situations they are guilty by existence. "Grr supers," is growled and suddenly all super pilots are witches to be burned at the stake.

Whatever happens in null sec will ripple across low. After all, null sec entities control many moons in low. Supers and titans proliferate through all sizes of non-sov war corporation and alliances. And it will affect me. I'm over here two with a fleet of capital ships and a jump freighter. Every-time someone suggests a nerf to jump freighters I shudder in horror.

People keep saying they want to destroy some of Eve to save the rest of it. How much of Eve would need to be cut out to fully excise these wounds?

Comments

  1. Well, let's put this post and the previous one together into a suggestion: what if supercaps could only be alliance assets? (Maybe corp assets as well?) You get rid of the problem of supercapital account sharing by fiat. You make capital SRP easier, and potentially involve the line members in the project of acquiring a(nother) supercap.

    But if you're feeling an urge to take an axe to a fundamental part of the game, spend a good long time looking at the idea of "risk vs. reward." Because that usually translates to "known risk that I can minimize or eliminate altogether to procure this big, fat reward." That's just human nature. Anyone who actually takes risk head-on in EVE is either celebrated as brave or mocked as foolish. The net result is risk for non-veterans and reward for veterans. Malcanis' Law strikes again.

    Competition is risky and inefficient for the people involved, even if its presence promotes efficiency on a broad scale. many real world companies will go out of their way to avoid it, or failing that, minimize the risk as much as possible. That's even more true for conflict. I think the solution, as ironic as it is, is to roll out mechanics that encourage cooperation and steady, if not exceptionally huge, income. The easier it is for people to band together, the more people will. The easier it is to stockpile and recover, the more willing people will be to throw down.

    But that reduces the cost of loss, you say! Well, yes, that's the point. What makes you more likely to undock in a battleship, the fact that you have two more in the hangar and the resources to replace all three, or the fact that it's your last asset of any value? Risk implies risk management, which implies conflict aversion, which is not anyone's favorite aspect of a PVP game, right? Loss must still be costly for EVE to be EVE, but it doesn't have to be crippling.



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    1. Well isn't not having crippling loss exactly what the SRP that groups push for. It creates goals and things to do. And I don't know, I don't like sharing. I'm greedy and selfish.

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  2. Interesting question. The only game mechanic I think needs to be removed is Titan bridging. Non-black ops ships are balanced around having to gate travel and not being able to instantly move across the universe. Bridges break that. I would either remove Titan bridge or modify them in a way so that the ships bridged are disabled for a period of time that increases by the number of systems they bypassed.

    I don't think sov needs to be removed, but it does need to be revised in a way that claimed systems aren't empty.

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  3. "Can we improve everyone's world without causing harm?"

    No, the only way to truly stop a cancerous growth is to remove it completely. Treatment may halt its progress, even reduce it to lessen the impact of removal on other parts of the system, but in the end it has to be cut.

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  4. You can shrink cancers back to nothing. The mechanism for doing that is poorly understood, but the case histories are out there.

    For instance, what if you modified Titan bridging so that the Titan went with the fleet? Or made it a "pull" mechanism where the Titan was at the destination rather than at the origin? Both have been suggested often enough on the official forums by enough people with nullsec experience that I think they're worth considering.

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    1. The point I'm getting at is that with a bit of lateral thinking you may be able to avoid excision. When CCP has excised something--the old crimewatch, for instance, or the inventory system, or soon the industry code--they've always had a replacement handy. I think that's a good way to go about things.

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  5. "Even those wild, crazy creatures in wormhole space...". That made me smile. We are not that wild or crazy. Of course we have high sec alts and we feel a little bit weird with gates and people around. But we are living an experience how nullsec should be. Something is only truly if you can defend it on a minute's notice.

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  6. While I admire and occasionally partake in the burning desire to chasten the rabble by actually handing them the indiscriminate changes and excisions they foolishly demand, I suspect that, in CCP’s case at least, it may not be the optimal approach. The fickle have a bad habit of not returning for the lecture they so exceedingly deserve. Patience is difficult; being patient with the impatient doubly so.

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    1. Aaack! I’m about to respond to my own comment which greatly displeases me but, alas, there is no better option.

      Metaphors, powerful as they are, can deceive. “Let's discuss burning Eve to the ground,” though a striking picture, misrepresents the situation we are in. Not because Eve won’t burn, it’ll torch up like kerosene, but because there is no ground. We’re not in a building, we’re on a boat. A boat in turbulent seas with leaking hull and damaged deck. She’ll burn all right, all the way to the waterline leaving us to drown. Much better, I think, to replace one plank at a time, improving the craft, tacking the headwind, approaching calmer waters.

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    2. I can change that line to "lets sink Eve and see if we can swim" if you want a metaphor you like better.

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    3. Don’t change a word. I understood your entire post to be a frank examination of the casual ease with which players blithely toss around versions of “Burn it to the ground.” This led me to two small observations, neither of them intended as criticisms of your post or the manner in which you wrote it:

      1) The indifference/malevolence bound up in the "Burn it" statement. You explored this . . . “If every null sec empire crumbled there would be some who cheered in their wake.” I was further struck by how, on those rare occasions when an entity actually grants a “Burn it to the ground” request it’s still often motivated by an indifferent/malevolent desire to . . . “chasten the rabble.”

      2) Shortly after my, “indifference/malevolence everywhere, all the way down” comment I discovered your post still tugged at me. Beyond mere spite, what would lead, “People [to] keep saying they want to destroy some of Eve to save the rest of it?” You explored this too, “The game is an entire organis[m] after all,” but, still, players fail to see that snipping one fiber reverberates throughout. Well there are often numerous reasons for baffling blindness. I chose to examine inadequate conceptual tools (metaphor).

      Sugar, I won’t pretend to know what motivates you to write your blog but I will confidently state that it often reads like a tool you use to get clear about something. For a reader like me it’s a wonderful thing since it not only allows me to watch a good mind explore a frustration, aggravation or puzzlement but also tends to entice me onto similar, though not identical, investigatory paths.

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    4. My blog is a stream of conscious, Dire. Come sit on my couch and chat but instead of spamming coms and my chatroom anymore than I do the ideas, musings, wondering, and reflections go here.

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    5. This approach and technique, primary among many reasons, is why this blog is so enjoyable to read and contemplate.

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  7. And yet that is what null-sec are trying to do to wormhole space.
    Instant sig spawn made it a ratting paradise for them while removing any possible predators... .

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    1. Eh? You will have to explain this one to me a bit more.

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    2. With the new discovery scanner, signatures appear instantly when they spawn. All of them. Prior to the change, the only way to find signatures was to put out probes and scan for them. In w-space, this meant you had to have a scanning scout with a player at the keyboard and actively probing in order to detect new signatures. The reason that is vital is that SOP in w-space when running sites (or doing any sort of op in a hole), is to scan down all the sigs (relic, data, wormholes), remove the non-wormholes from your scan results list, and collapse any wormholes so that you only had your static wormholes (which you left un-spawned).

      And then you went happily to work while your scan picket watched his probes like a hawk. If a new signature appeared, that meant someone just opened an entrance to your hole and all the ratting ships and miners would warp to the POS and switch to PvP ships.

      Now, all you need do is sit there, no probes out, no need to worry if you've got total system coverage, with the discovery scanner open and if a new sig spawns, you know instantly. No skill required (player or character).

      The new discovery scanner is great for scanning in highsec, lowsec, and null. It has tipped the balance possibly too far towards the defender. And I say that as someone who relishes all the advantages I can get when ratting in my hole :) There have been other, ludicrous proposals to 'fix' the current scanner (like delaying the ability to detect K162 spawns) but all they would end up doing would be to tip the pendulum completely to the aggressor's side.

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    3. That I knew. What does it have to do with null sec?

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    4. Null-sec have been leading a charge for a long time to nerf w-space into the ground. For example, Mittens tried it when he was on CSM by trying to have ABC ores removed from w-space, claiming there was too much of it (Dr Eyjo slammed the door on that one pretty hard). I'm not sure who's brilliant idea the K162 debacle was, CCP or the non-wormhole members on the last CSM, but one thing is certain, only non-wormholers would benefit, and the most organized group of people trying to get a foothold in w-space right now is nullsec.

      I've done the sov warrior bit and from my time in sov null, I can tell you that many, if not most sov null folks are scared or wormholes, don't know how they work, and seem bound and determined to do what they can to make w-space more like null.

      No one in w-space wanted the new scanner as the fear was it would break the balance that existed between attacker and defender. And they were right.

      For good or ill, right or wrong, there is an impression that many of the improvements to the game have been pushed by nullsec. I'm trying to fight against believing that, but what I do think is that most people tend to go with what they know and most of the nullsec CSM have publicly stated they only care about the folks that voted for them, the vast majority of whom are from null.

      Why that is a problem is that, even if the null CSM members truly think they have the game's best interests in mind, they have almost no experience with w-space and so when they push for a change, or evaluate one from CCP, human nature being what it is, they are probably filtering for 'how will this affect null' subconsciously or not.

      And since CCP puts a HUGE amount of weight behind the opinions of the CSM, I think you can see the concerns. Plus, the nullsec players base is among the most vocal, and that has to factor in somewhere.

      Surely anyone living in lowsec understands being the red-haired step-child?

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    5. yo yo yo sugar asked me to reply to this (as I'm the wh CSM) yes the last few things have def made wh space safer for farming groups (be they null people or wormhole alt groups). I'm working to change this , the thing is stuff doesn't happen over night. I'd ask you to trust me and give me 6 months. But one thing alot of people assume is CSM can change stuff over night.

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    6. Nope, I don't assume CSM can change anything, really. They can push extol, advocate, but in the end if CCP doesn't want, CSM doesn't get :(

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    7. I am chuckling over the yo, yo, yo in his accent.

      I understand the above worries Heretic. It is hard to ask you to see through my eyes when I cannot show you what I see. But this particular worry I do not have based off of the two months that I have been here and the way Corbexx get's work done. That is why I asked him to post.

      I cannot promise everything nor can he but I can say that I believe the above situation is not where we are at with this CSM and CCP's interaction with us.

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  8. I've been reading these discussions as well, they make for nice topics for new blog posts. I don't know much about sov-null politics or any of that, but the situation strikes me as incredibly boring. You have two powerhouse alliances that are, at this point, almost too big to fall. I can't imagine how new corporations even try to get into the sovereignty game because of the state of these mega alliances. Maybe they don't even try.

    "Winning" a sandbox game isn't really a thing, but these alliances are as close as you can get to "winning" the game. But winning is only fun for a while, then it becomes incredibly boring. It's boring to be the winner, and it's boring to watch the winners. Have you ever watched Big Brother? Powerhouse alliances are fun to start, but once you realize that they have clear sailing to the end, everyone gets bored. That's why the producers introduce new things that turn the game upside down, and give the underdogs the ability to seize some of the power. I think it'd be nice if CCP did something like that. What, I don't know. But something big to keep even the biggest and the best on their toes would be pretty awesome, even watching from the outside.

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    1. Eve is an interesting game of watching, is not it?

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    2. For me, yes. I can only speak for myself, but I suspect that the blogosphere wouldn't be as big as it is if people weren't interested in what other people are doing.

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  9. I would propose a more radical alternative - rebuild EvE. In it's entirety. Keep Tranquility ticking along. Yoink all the sections of code you want to keep and rewrite the rest to make the game you truly want.

    Then, when ready, offer the players a chance to migrate to the new server. It would be a matter of juggling demand until you understand who wants to be where.

    Can't help but think that trying to ungibberfy (yes, it's a word... now...) the POS code, as the usual example held up, is hugely wasteful on resource and fraught with danger, when you could have clean, server optimized code right out of the gate.

    Get the balance issues right. Decide what you want to do with SOV. Decide how best to nullify TiDi. Then go for it...

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  10. Removing something from the game is fine if you can sell it as an improvement. But isn't the usual approach to change or replace a game feature?

    Perhaps doing away with sov is an option and we can turn all of null into npc space. I don't know enough to even guess as to the results of that. But perhaps it just needs a reworking, just as happened before. Maybe this time bottom-up sov is worth a try.

    (Titan) jump bridges were mentioned. I can easily imagine a game without them but then I would like more options for regions to be self-sustaining and not dependant on imports. Like making all ice variations available in all regions. Make ice belts respawn as a random type instead of fixed by region.

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  11. The main problem with EvE, as I see it, is the accumulation of wealth.

    Everything that CCP has introduced has been designed around a core of whatever it is (capitals, supercapitals, sov, T2, etc) being self-limiting by wealth. That worked great in the early days, but with players and organizations that have been around as long as many have been, wealth as a limiting factor only really applies to the smaller, newer players and entities.

    Sov Null is basically stagnant. No longer can the small-to-medium alliance try carving out it's chunk of space and make a go of it without hitching themselves to one of the huge power blocs. It's so bad that single non-blingy tengus get hot dropped by PL, or the major powers come up with these elaborate byzantine constructs designed to keep their players in pvp but without any real damage to the entities themselves.

    There are lots of areas that a not quite working because the amount of isk floating about is what's breaking them. What this means is that any attempt to fix the problem(s) that doesn't take into account the ability of the filthy rich to circumvent the mechanic is effectively dead before it makes it out of the gate.

    That said, there are some proposals that continue to crop up that I think are worth it, regardless of how deep fixes go or don't go.

    Get rid of jump bridges and change titan bridges. By limiting the amount of space that can be covered effectively at speed, there is the potential to open up areas of space as the null blocs shrink in area as they have fewer and fewer pilots willing to go 20-30 jumps for a fight. Change covert cynos so that they, too, can be jammed. You still won't see cyno jammers cropping up everywhere because it also locks friendly jump-capabale ships out, too. Leave everything else about covert cynos as is, they'd still be incredibly useful, but a cyno jammer should jam everything or nothing.

    Change the current sov structure so that activity in claimed systems is a big part of planting the flag. Doing so would mirror how things work IRL; it's not enough to simply claim an area, you must demonstrate a sufficient military presence to show that you care about keep others out.

    We also need to do serious, immediate work on the corp interface. Currently, it is a bulky, blunt instrument and is a major detriment to operating in w-space (or out of any POS for that matter). More granularity needs to be introduced to corp roles. POS mechanics are bound hand-in-glove with the corp roles, btw. Working on one without the other is a waste of time, effort, and money. As things currently stand, I either have to open my POS to the world (i.e. everyone in the corp) or lock it down so tight that a black hole would be jealous.

    Oh and scrap the discovery scanner and go back to the old method, please (or at least the old method of not knowing every sig in a system the moment one loads grid). Yes, I love how easy the new one is, but it's just too damned easy. 'OP' is the phrase, I believe.

    There's lots more I can probably think of, but this has gone on far too long already :)

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    1. I have said before that I dislike the instant sig thing as well. There are many positives to the discovery scanner but I to wish that signatures that must be scanned were not shoved in your face.

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    2. "Change the current sov structure so that activity in claimed systems is a big part of planting the flag."

      I think that's a pressing need, practically a requirement if we are heading towards a "farms and fields" model.

      Top-of-the-head idea: Buff all null-sec "system resources" by 20% -- ice, ore, moon-goo, PI, etc. But remove bounties on Rats (why should CONCORD care about null-sec?) and make full resource availability contingent on total, regular, Rat removal. Make it a sliding scale on a 28-day moving average like the upcoming "system index" for industry. Lore reason? The more you ignore the Rats the more they'll mine your ores, drop siphons on your moon ops, and so on.

      Sov holders (or their proxies) have to manage their space to get the full benefit, and that means ships undocking. And *that* means more potential pew-pew :-)

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    3. What are the line members getting out of this?

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    4. In terms of activity required for sov, we already have the bare bones of s system in place in terms of our the various Indices are calculated. Why not expand that, or better yet, morph the Strategic index from a simply marker of how long sov has been held to the actual sov, tying it to activity levels?

      I'm not certain null resources need any sort of adjusting, in fact I'm fairly certain they don't.

      The activity levels required, the types of levels required, all that is the devil in the details, but I think at this point we have got to move away from the current rent/isk-based sov to a more use it or lose it sov. This will require re-thiking, or at least re-evaluating, the requirements to place outposts, PI, ihubs, POS mods, etc, that all now require certain levels of sov.

      Unfortunately, I don't see any way of getting around the current system of alliances owning all the big resource generators - that's simply emergent gameplay that can and should be managed at the alliance level by the players. If they're okay with greedy alliance directors, cool. If not, then let the revolution begin :)

      As long as that kind of thing is not entrenched within the mechanics of the game, then how it falls out is up to the players. The real question that could cause all sorts of nasty is what happens if the players simply refuse to go along with something new and instead go with the same old same old with the result that the new system is 'broke' too?

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    5. "What are the line members getting out of this?"

      If it is "their" system they get more available resources for doing their own housework. In fact, instead of "more" make it "more valuable" -- so an hour's mining nets 20% more ISK at the high end, since ISK/hour is probably more important here.

      If it's not "theirs", they do it for similar reasons as for any other corp or Alliance op. Either from a sense of duty, or because they get paid, or because they can fly around with mates shooting things. "Paid" should be high on the list, because the "local" corps can make more per hour and so be charged more (or asked to do more in return) by the Sov-holder.

      Think player-run police units, flying around and keeping the peace. Indy corp that doesn't want to rat? Hire them to keep your system clean. Alliance wants to increase moon goo extraction? Send in the po-po or, if they're all away fighting another war, promise the locals some kickbacks if they do it for you. Want to sow dissatisfaction amongst the enemy's renters? Interdict their police actions and watch their profits tumble.

      Sov space should be managed as well as fought over. And if that management itself requires resources, especially player time, the large blocks will have to decide whether to spread themselves ever thinner or concentrate and maximise their holdings -- potentially opening up gaps for new Alliances to make the leap to sov-null.

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  12. CCP should establish some ground rules for winning Sov and then set a date on which winner will be declared and after that hit the reset button and start over - just like any other game.

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  13. The "how much to remove" is an easy question to answer. You remove as is needed, and replace with whatever is expected to work. CCP has been implementing gradual change--wisely, I believe--to steer the game in desired directions.

    While I would guess that the sudden removal of supercaps wouldn't directly affect *my* gaming, the EVE economy is a deep one, and I doubt the most knowledgeable devs could predict all the outcomes. Not a good strategy for a company whose eggs still sit in a single basket.

    Debating how much of a particular change probably isn't helpful, then. The removal of a class of ships won't ever be done suddenly, and certainly not in a vacuum (get it?), but would be a piece of an overall strategy.

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  14. I had this weird idea quite some time ago. Instead of "removal", what about disabled. Don't think of it as a cancer to cut out, but rather a broken arm set a sling and can not be used. Disable titans for a week. (if someone really needs an excuse, Titan crews are having industrial action).

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    1. A trial is an interest view - not something I immediately considered. The genesis of the thought came from disabling mining barges for a week. I think it came to me after reading an umpteenth thread about suicide ganking. It was an idea to jolt players out of a rut activity in Eve. Expand their horizons. (although that may not be the actual result).

      Would someone actually mount a challenge to sov space, knowing that a insta-hotdrop defence is not possible?

      There appears to be a growing malaise (at least from where I sit) in the player base. Every so often the monster needs a jolt from its creator. It's alive?!

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  15. The most serious issue with EVE is not something EVE haves and must be removed, but something it doesn't haves an it's costing it its future.

    EVE needs quality gameplay for those not interested in PvP, or second jobbing, or multiplayer. It needs quality PvE content, quality casual-friendly content, and quality solo content.

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    1. I agree that these areas and the spaceship game part need a lot of love and attention.

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    2. Unfrotunately the have-nots are not in a position to make themselves heard. Thus, albeit there is a development plan, it accounts for nullsec needs with a touch of lowsec love and some hot air ("hey, but we love you too") for hisec.

      I took very good note on how fixing PvE was NOT a part in CCP Seagull's presentation at Fanfest: Fix industry -> fix corps -> fix starbases -> fix sov -> add nullsec stargates to new content-> tell the other 80% of your customers to go play Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen instead of EVE -> find a new job if you weren't quick enough to jump ships while you could.

      The pretense to rather develop a PC FPS (after flopping a console FPS and mismanaging to death an MMO) than do *something* with EVE's avatars is just the icing on the cake.

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    3. To be fair, industry has had a lot less love for a lot longer than PVE. At least PVE has gotten Incursions, whereas industry has been neglected for far too long. Also POS/Corp roles desperately need reworking.

      None of that is to say that PVE needs love too. It does. I'd love to see all the missions get another pass to tweak some of the existing and add some new ones. Hell, what I'd really like to see is (more) missions not only specific to agent level, but also the corp/faction.

      The problem is that a LOT of EvE needs fixing/reworking and the excuse of we can't devote resources is wearing very, very thin.

      Surely by now, after 10 years, the bugs should have been worked out of the older content. I wouldn't put up with this kind of delay in an operating system, or any other kind of product, so why should I in EvE?

      Put another, very blunt way, if CCP fails to give me a product that meets my needs, why should I continue to invest my time and effort into them? It's far past time that CCP started introducing smart business practices to marry up with their vision.

      They ain't just a bunch of guys working out of their garage any more, and the longer they remain in business, I think their customers justifiably have come to expect less college freshmen and more adult behaviour.

      CCP have got themselves into trouble because they ignored data and have generally moved way too slow in terms of maintenance of existing systems. If they really want to change things, they need to start doing things a lot better and a lot, lot faster.

      Put another way, I, and I bet a lot more players than just myself, am tired of their excuses. They need to start delivering the performance we demand and they need to start now.

      Now this has been a fairly negative and bleak post, but CCP need to hear a bit more of this to counterbalance their All is well mantra. That said, they have been doing a lot of things right (a mostly hands off approach to player interaction, allowing unlimited character interaction on the same account/IP address, the single shard, the absolutely brilliant economic model, etc), and they need to hear that, too.

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  16. Ishtanchuk FazmaraiJuly 6, 2014 at 3:56 AM

    After years adding new stuff withotu looking back, most of EVE needed to be reworked and fixed. I think that few will object that. What is questionable is the Hallelujah Plan, which leads to very much needed new content but that content will only be accessible to a minority of the game -nullsec. Even worst, nullsec already enjoys the only viable endgame content of the game; there's people who quit and nullseccers who stay subbed for 10 years.

    CCP's reading of that is that more nullsec and a better accesibility to nullsec will increase the amount of players who stay for longer tenures, but that is a terrible decission in the fact that most new players are closer to the kind of player with a shorter tenure, and will eventually become players with a shorter tenure as reaching nullsec is either random or a decisison taken before playing the game.

    Rather than send Mohamet after that massive mountain of soon-to-be-unsubbed customers, CCP Seagull is betting the future of the company into luring enough of the mountain to where Mohamet is sitting on his fat and bored nullsec ass.

    That would be moderately wise if nullsec was paying for a disproportionate amount of subscriptions, but that is more of a legend than reality. EVE's dirty secret is that it has thrived on carebears since 2004, and without them, there's not enough people paying subs to keep CCP in the business. Specially when novices are welcome by bored veterans who pay to strangle them in the craddle.

    Incarna was a bet, and CCP lost it. They've been taking water since and now they're sinking faster than they can sort their issues. And what is killing EVE are not the big holes in the hull, but the slow, deadly intake from a thousand open seams.

    And just to make it worst, competition is coming.

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Maybe one day!

 [15:32:10] Trig Vaulter > Sugar Kyle Nice bio - so carebear sweet - oh you have a 50m ISK bounty - so someday more grizzly  [15:32:38 ] Sugar Kyle > /emote raises an eyebrow to Trig  [15:32:40 ] Sugar Kyle > okay :)  [15:32:52 ] Sugar Kyle > maybe one day I will try PvP out When I logged in one of the first things I did was answer a question in Eve Uni Public Help. It was a random question that I knew the answer of. I have 'Sugar' as a keyword so it highlights green and catches my attention. This made me chuckle. Maybe I'll have to go and see what it is like to shoot a ship one day? I could not help but smile. Basi suggested that I put my Titan killmail in my bio and assert my badassery. I figure, naw. It was a roll of the dice that landed me that kill mail. It doesn't define me as a person. Bios are interesting. The idea of a biography is a way to personalize your account. You can learn a lot about a person by what they choose to put in their bio

Taboo Questions

Let us talk contentious things. What about high sec? When will CCP pay attention to high sec and those that cannot spend their time in dangerous space?  This is somewhat how the day started, sparked by a question from an anonymous poster. Speaking about high sec, in general, is one of the hardest things to do. The amount of emotion wrapped around the topic is staggering. There are people who want to stay in high sec and nothing will make them leave. There are people who want no one to stay in high sec and wish to cripple everything about it. There are people in between, but the two extremes are large and emotional in discussion. My belief is simple. If a player wishes to live in high sec, I do not believe that anything will make them leave that is not their own curiosity. I do not believe that we can beat people out of high sec or destroy it until they go to other areas of space. Sometimes, I think we forget that every player has the option to not log back in. We want them to log

Conflicted

Halycon said it quite well in a comment he left about the skill point trading proposal for skill point changes. He is conflicted in many different ways. So am I. Somedays, I don't want to be open minded. I do not want to see other points of view. I want to not like things and not feel good about them and it be okay. That is something that is denied me for now. I've stated my opinion about the first round of proposals to trade skills. I don't like them. That isn't good enough. I have to answer why. Others do not like it as well. I cannot escape over to their side and be unhappy with them. I am dragged away and challenged about my distaste.  Some of the people I like most think the change is good. Other's think it has little meaning. They want to know why I don't like it. When this was proposed at the CSM summit, I swiveled my chair and asked if they realized that they were undoing the basic structure that characters and game progression worked under. They said th