There goes that plan. A quarter of a billion ISK for an office for TCS? Nope. Just no. Office prices get so insane.
Wex had been politely prodding me and today I crawled out of bed after a forty hour work weekend and decided to start tackling what I have been avoiding. Moving. I figured that if I went chunk by disorganized chunk I could get it done. I'll start with TCS and my industry and maybe tack on a carrier jump just to get my assets moving. With my gameplan roughly fleshed out in the dark reaches of my mind I gathered together left over salad and cold fried chicken. Braced with a mug of dark, fragrant black tea I was ready to meet the day.
Moving isn't pleasant. I have too much stuff. I recently sat down, looked at my assets, and started to par them down as I did my accounts. I was not selling things off but stacks, and stacks of hulls that I have not touched in what is going on years I dismantled and sent to storage. I also shut down alt accounts which had the side effect of breaking my cyno chain. This means more repositioning characters and moving things around.
I need to stock the new stations with supplies for cynos. I feel as if I leave little pools of cyno supplies all over the galaxy. Every time I do this I think about how people tell me that my logistics are too easy and they wish to make it harder. Not being able to jump within docking range of a station is a popular suggestion. It will make things more balanced for jump freighter pilots I am told. That will be the day that I shut down logistics and no longer run a market.
For now, I have started to scrape the tattered remains of TCS back together. I've moved items and will start relisting them tomorrow. I have no idea if my new market location will work. One nice thing about moving is that I get to test out various climates and situations. Each effort lets me learn a bit more about how the ebb and flow of items and the need for these items works in Eve. It may not be exciting battle recreation but I am fascinated by the pulse of the game.
I admit I've been avoiding this particular bit of work. Sometimes the moving and cataloging and moving and shifting is amazing and other times it wears me out. Not having had the most restful few weeks I find myself slow of motion and low on energy. I'll get there anyway. Although, never before have I longed to have someone else do my in game work for me as I have this latest move.
I think people that want to nerf jump freighters have never done logistics and have no idea how markets get stocked. Making it less safe to move a 6+ bil ship would cause low sec markets to grind to a halt.
ReplyDeleteCan feel your pain. Just spent over a week consolidating my high-sec assets.
ReplyDeleteNot as in depth as having to use cynos but still included jump after jump after jump. Picking up from one place then finding a mid point, darting off in another direction to collect stuff from another system.
Now working on my null-sec assets. All you can do is smile and enjoy the view.
@Orson. You have never played eve before jumpfreighters. Jump fatigue and projection nerf hit was hard but still acceptable.
ReplyDelete@Sugar. Here's my "moveout" story. I held 2 market hubs - about 30% of Huola market and 70% of Amamake. It all started as 20 orders and then ended up with 2 wholesale 5 toons.
About a month ago I felt bored and decided to clean-up assets. Eve mentat assured me that orders accomodated about 5 millions m3 of goods. Even hoarding that stuff to nearest highsec station and setting up courier contracts to red frogs seemed too boring. So I set up all sell orders at the verge of self-cost and waited for couple of weeks. The sell out was fantastic - I ended up with only ~500 m3 of stuff (1 red frog contract), ~20kkk isk (I would loose one third of these isk if just pulled items to jita buys) and about 5k m3 faction and dead space loot.
So, my advice would be - move only module sell orders, leave ammo and other fast moving orders. Make a garage sellout event for couple of weeks. Don't push yourself, take your time.
Pashko Morgan @ siebestor tribe
Same here, the day I can't do my logistics in relative safety (and I've had the rhea in deep structure after some PL jokers sieged dreads on station as I was aligning to warp for highsec) is the day I move back to high sec and just base from there.
ReplyDeleteLogistics is incredibly unfun and tedious and there's a limit to the amount of that I'm willing to suffer just so I can go out and do something I actually enjoy. My leisure time is a limited commodity, being "hardcore" is all good and well but I'm not enough of a masochist to spend a large chunk of it doing something I frankly hate doing.
(This is Rob, replying on another computer)
ReplyDelete"Every time I do this I think about how people tell me that my logistics are too easy and they wish to make it harder. Not being able to jump within docking range of a station is a popular suggestion. It will make things more balanced for jump freighter pilots I am told. That will be the day that I shut down logistics and no longer run a market."
I'll break this down.
1) Logistics are too easy.
2)They must be made harder.
3) This will make the use of JF more balanced.
I'll address this from (my) the hunters' perspective.
1) It is possible, via intelligent positioning of cyno-ship and choice of station to almost completely mitigate the risk of losing a JF in low-sec. The abundance of stations and JF Jump Range means that would be hunters are forced to rely on Titan Doomsdays and JF pilot screw-ups for their kills.
Looking at EveKill, it becomes apparent that more jump freighters die in high-sec and null-sec than in low-sec. (Considering that JF pilots can and probably should always have exit cynos online, those pilots that die in highsec are pretty foolish). This is frustrating, because risk is an integral part of EVE, and the fact that it can be mitigated that far has an unbalancing effect on the game.
2) That JF logistics are so risk-free suppresses the place Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports should have in the low-sec ecosystem. I've seen JF runs where there's only very little in the cargo, sometimes even less than what would fit into a T1 industrial! It is easier to use a 7 billion isk ship to ship something, than a 1million isk ship, because the risk is so low.
So yes, I think JF logistics should be made more risky, or have a lower bound for risk above where it is now. CCP has already made 'garage door' cynos impossible, (which was just as risk free), so the principle is there. I would like to get to a place where JFs are 'big deal' ships, and ordinary low-sec logistics is carried out solely by T1 and T2 industrials. However, removing cyno-station mechanics is not the way forwards.
3) That way won't work, but I have my own suggestion. Jumping to a cynosural could require a 60 second spool up time in a Jump Freighter. Therefore people bringing logistics to null-sec are more vulnerable, and people bringing logistics to low-sec have to weigh their cargo on the 'amount vs risk' scale.
Stocking a market hub in low-sec becomes more a matter of 'what do I need to bring'. Will it be easier to RFF it to a nearby high-sec system and BR or DST it in? Could I get some friends together to help me bring it in?
In short, JFs are the least risky and most efficient way of shipping things anywhere outside high-sec. I'd like that to change.
Rob K.
(And didn't this post ramble on!)
These suggestions would absolutely make it easier to kill logistics ships... which isn't a good thing.
DeleteWhat would be the effect of making logistics harder? Fewer people would do them. Prices for everyone would increase not because of market forces (increased demand, reduction of supply), but because it's not enjoyable. That's an artificial restriction on the market, which offends me as a capitalist.
As a PvPer, I have to approach it from two angles... first, shoot someone who can shoot back... problem solved. :)
But more deeply and seriously, I WANT logistics to be easier, because it lowers the barrier to entry for PvP. Eve is not a game of annihilation, it's a game of experience. We (PvPers) want forever wars in Eve, we want enemies coming back time and again to provide us with a steady drip of PvP. I don't want to discourage people from being able to easily reship. Otherwise, I have to spend more time flying around waiting, waiting, waiting for pilots in space to reship.
Killing ships that cannot fight back isn't exactly thrilling PvP, nor is it particularly skillful; as you say, the enemy target has to screw up. Wouldn't you rather shoot someone who has the ability to kill you? Logistics are the building block that enables that.
It's one thing to kill a target of opportunity - do that all day long with my blessing; it's quite another to petition that it become easier to kill the defenseless.
Basically what that would do is not lead to more dead JF's but to people living in "shallow waters".
DeleteI'm not jumping my 7 billion Rhea to a station I can't then dock at or sitting it exposed for 60 seconds 'spooling up'. No amount of convenience is worth that, because I literally can't think of anything that justifies me taking a 8-10 billion ISK risk (depending on cargo). At that point I'm better off webbing a charon or bowhead into warp to get it one jump in. I'd have to mess up 2 or 3 of those to justify even one rhea and the window of exposure would be much smaller. And even a couple Talos would have very little issue killing a rhea in 60 seconds. Or even just living in border highsec would be better the cost of a single rhea loss buys a *lot* of security tags.
Also pretty much everything Talvorian says above me.
And that is where you completely fail to understand why I run a market in low sec.
DeleteIt is not about "what you need" to bring. It is about "what do people need to have?" it is about "what can I give people to allow them to live and thrive here." It was to bring low sec out of the spot where it was a cheap, second class citizen where the residents could not even find the very basics they needed.
Your view is one sided. From the stand point of a predator. It is narrow. "I want to kill it. I want to always have a good chance to be able to kill it if I see it."
Is there nothing more than this? Is the idea of someone providing supplies to low sec so that residents can equip and undock to fight with you and live in space so horrific that it must be destroyed least the unfairness of 'risk free' jump freighters shatter the game and consume every bit of sanity?
I know that it is unpopular to think beyond the kill mail but that is what I do. That is what drives me in Eve. I don't care about this kill. Through hard work I can make many more kills happen. I can become part of the structure that supports people. I can do all of this.
And the ability is utterly fragile. And the potential can only be created through hard work and dedication. And along the way I will be laughed at and mocked for doing it. But it gives you the predator more than the loss of my single jump freighter and the moment of excitement that comes with it.
(Rob again)
DeleteI think you've raised two issues here, so I'll address them separately.
1) "Fewer people would do them. Prices for everyone would increase not because of market forces (increased demand, reduction of supply), but because it's not enjoyable. That's an artificial restriction on the market...."
I honestly can't agree with this. It seems to me that you've taken a very one dimensional view of logistical work. Logistics get harder, perhaps. Logistics get more risky, yes. Risky =/= harder. There will be ways to mitigate that risk and ways to exploit it. Such is EVE. (Some people like a challenge :P)
Treating it as an artificial restriction on the market seems somehow paradoxical in an artificial video game. But really, isn't a decrease in the number of JF runs a reduction of supply? That the reduction is due to mechanical changes makes it no different to the player response to Jump Fatigue.
I would argue that people don't do logistics because it is enjoyable, but because it is necessary. Ships are required for fleets, modules and ammunition also. Perhaps GSOL really enjoys the look of the Rhea, and the sound of a jump drive, but I doubt it. If they enjoy logistics, I believe it is because they enjoy the challenge of it, not the ease of use (as a global idea, not just JF runs)
I also think that this change would provide meaning to logistics in a way that hasn't been happening recently (since the JF was introduced). Tying logistics to PVP activities more directly means a appreciation for it that it currently lacks. This change creates the possibility of interdiction of logistics in low-sec that is not currently possible.
And finally, wouldn't this significantly induce the number of null-sec industrialists to produce locally? Price rises, and the null-sec industry buffs, mean a much higher incentive, especially if multiple freighter runs to Jita are no longer common. (That the CFC doesn't run a Gila or Rattlesnake Fleet at significantly subsidized costs surprises me.)
2) Unfortunately, you've not provided an easily quotable bit to reply to, so I'll address it more generally. So, in no particular order...
Yes, I don't really enjoy shooting blingy targets for the PVP challenge, but I do enjoy taking part in meaningful gameplay, which is what I hope this change would create. By being able to interdict an alliance's logistical backbone, I would feel more involved in EVE than I might do just by indulging in meaning-less (comparatively) PVP.
To pick out one example. Yesterday, over 2 separate battles, DT (the alliance I'm in) killed roughly 16 Guardians. This was a reasonably significant victory, and they were both really fun fights. They didn't however, have a very high impact on the ability of our enemy to fight.
If I knew that every guardian I killed was a significant impairment to the enemies ability to form fleets, then the fight would have meaning above and beyond 'Lets kill these guys'. As they're only a JF run from Jita, what might be a 2 or 3 day replacement time became a hour.
Killing a defenseless JF isn't very engaging. Killing a JF with the material (sans fancy accents) for war is far more so.
So yes, lack of logistics can provide a barrier to engagement, but it isn't a wholly negative force. You and I would enjoy a forever-war, but only as long as it has meaning. Meaningless war is not an attraction: that's why we all dislike high-sec PVP!
And finally, I think that if you make logistics easier, ship losses begin to cease to have meaning. Fleet fights rely on having enough ships to form a critical mass of DPS and Logi. If you could just teleport ships from Jita to your home station, would it create meaningful gameplay? Sovereignty Wars would become ISK wars in the most basic sense.
Rob K.
PS: One of my frustrations with actually having ISK, is that now my ships mean less and less. (Oh CCP, how well you described immortality!)
Rob. There are so many things wrong with the economics and reality of your argument from any perspective that I don't even know where to begin.
DeleteLets start at the very basic level of economic theory. Money is a reflection of effort. Yes? I know this no longer holds true for a lot of real world markets, but in general, the harder it is to make something the more expensive it is and the more you can make off it, right? So it holds, the more effort intensive something is, the more ISK it'll cost in Eve. This does not just hold for actually acquiring raw materials and paying the many build fees, but also the sunk cost of shipping said goods to market. Anything that adds effort to an endeavor before the point of final sale increases costs. The more effort, the higher the cost.
Historically, though in the real world this is no longer the case, distance from manufacturing to the point of final sale was the #1 cost added into a product. The first multi-national corporation was born in shipping to handle the stratospheric costs at the time. The British Empire, the first true world empire, was paid for on shipping taxes. I'm telling you all this not to impress you with useless trivia, but to try to point out the long term consequences of what increasing shipping costs can mean.
Eve's had a good thing going that started after I joined in that shipping costs went down. Considerably. High end Nullsec logistics used to be done with Titans. Titans would bridge groups of freighters across the map back to their base. As Titans started to become more common, for the time, you started to slowly see Titans ferrying things into lowsec as well. It was a massive cost in capital to build a Titan and gave organizations that could afford them an edge which no one else could match. Oh, and a bunch of Titan pilots also complained on the forums that they'd become ferry boat captains instead of battle pilots because alliances figured out the real worth of Titans wasn't a DD, but their bridge ability in moving other ships. So CCP decided to fix it by democratizing logistics, enter the Jump Freighter. JFs dropped the price of entry so much throughout New Eden that the game we play now would not, in any way, be possible without the ease of shipping currently enjoyed by us.
Here's the point where I'm going to spitball and say some crap a bunch of people are going to say I jumped the shark.
Cheap shipping is responsible for current fleet sizes. Before JFs a small gang was 3-5 ships. Now it's 10-20+. A medium gang was 10+, and a large fleet was 100. The ease of shipping you hate created that. Players no longer had to personally move every single ship they wanted around. They could spend more time shooting stuff instead of moving stuff.
It matured the game.
So make it harder if you like, cry for it from the ramparts if that floats your boat. But the game will be a lot more dull in things going on if you make it harder to ship things.
You're overlooking one big thing Rob, people tend to chose the path of the least resistance.
DeleteAnd some of what you say might hold up for deep 0.0 but in empire space, there is literally no reason for me to live in lowsec *at all* to do what I do. Other then it's currently convenient.
Give me 1 reason why I would even live in say Agoze if I can just as easily live in Stacmon? And do exactly the same thing I do now everyday without risking a shiny JF?
I posted a reply, but it has disappeared =/.
DeleteIf you see it, please call this number: 0118 999 88199 725 3
Shame, it was a long reply in the end.
Basically: time-to-fight in Agoze will be lower than in Stacmon, though only relatively. There will also be no faction-police interference in Agoze vs Stacmon, and much better ratting!
I only know that you solo-pvp and formerly ran a reaction farming. Both of these activities are focused in low-sec, not high-sec. But, then again, neither of them force you to stage in low-sec. If you're content to rat up (or tag) to keep your sec status, who am I to judge? It does require significant time or ISK investment though.
There are, however, things that require you to stage in Low-sec. Capitals, for example. You need capital ships to maintain control of valuable moons. Considering Phoebe's jump range nerf, basing out of high-sec and maintaining moon control seems somewhat counterproductive.
Rob K.
If you think anyone would want to do any sort of reaction farm without a JF or Rorq you're nuts :P Or you've never dealt with any large amount of towers :) Cause trust me you really don't want too! So if you nerf them most people that do such things would stop doing them I bet.
DeleteAlso if you don't pod it's quite hard to go flashy even if you just casually run the occasional 5/10 or 6/10 :)
Oh, I've done a little. I guess scaling up requires much larger sizes. I was actually watching a Rhea set up a farm last night, but I figured that that was just for the PoS modules. I don't really mind using their ships in space. :P.
DeleteAs for sec-status, I'm a naughty pirate. Fleet fights tend to absolutely demolish your sec status. I lost two whole points yesterday. :(
Rob K.
People who want to make jump freighters easier to kill in lowsec would change their mind quickly once the JFs they rely on are killed. And make no mistake, if you live in lowsec and are part of anything substantial, you rely on JFs.
ReplyDeleteOr, on the day they decide to buy one themselves.
Lots of replies!
ReplyDeleteI'll reply down here because 3 people in one chain of comments is going to get very confusing.
So, to Kaeda:
1) I was saying that not allowing JFs to cyno within docking range was a silly idea, not supporting it :).
2)The 60 second spool-up time would be only for using the jump drive, not warping to gates, or anything else. Honestly, 60 seconds was just the simplest number I thought of at the time, and sounded reasonable. It can be raised or lowered (probably lowered), depending on CCP's opinion.
3) The attraction of the jump freighter is the jump part, right? The ability to avoid gate camps and being scouted and killed. Right now, using a Charon is a reasonably rare case (I've seen it done once), but escorting capitals around low-sec isn't totally impossible. You just need to make sure you won't be intercepted.
and 4) I've always lived within 8 jumps from contiguous high-sec. For 70% of my time in low-sec, I was the only one moving my stuff in. So I don't believe that it would be impossible for people to live further out. People will live in whichever position suits them strategically and economically. I don't think that will change, and I don't believe this change is significant enough to force that.
Rob K.
It won't help gate campers at all. Anyone sane/competent will just wait for a convenient K-K hole from highsec and move a DST that way. If they can be arsed to live in deepish lowsec at all at that point.
DeleteI already get around by K-K holes at least half the time when I do any traveling or shipping or shipping, I moved billions in blueprints in a viator the other day from Molden to Verge Vendor in a single jump via wormhole completely avoiding all the dangerous highsec pipes and any lowsec.
The idea of more dangerous hauling is a wish dream vOv
I have to ask, how do you get around using the k-k wormholes? Do you scan everything in your local systems? Do you have outside help?
DeleteWe, as an alliance, have a couple of dedicated scanner, but I've not been able to corral them into one group. This means lots of wasted scanning time. We're also scanning 90% for personal profit, and only 10% for travel routes. I guess that's another difference of attitude.
As for more dangerous hauling, that depends entirely on CCP. Everything else is just words :).
Rob K.
I scan the surrounding constellation normally and then a little more as I go along and I have the screen free. Scanning is pretty fast with dedicated scanner.
DeleteI just share my bookmarks in corp BM's and I use siggy. I feel like going to 0.0 I either scan a 0.0 exit via a WH chain or check if I have thera entry nearby.
Reply to Sugar.
ReplyDeleteWell, if there's ever been a time I regret putting words other than 'my perspective', its now! :p
"What you need to bring" was meant to be referring to the volume of stuff you ship. The volume transferred by a Rhea, (base line level 5 capacity, no modules, according to EVEUni) is 180km^3. This is the same as 3 Bustards (roughly). Rhea: 7.5 bil, 3 Bustards: 600mil. Risk of losing a Rhea atm, very low, Risk of losing a Bustard, slightly higher.
For shipping stuff in low-sec, I'd prefer to see 3 Bustards than a Rhea. To my mind, JFs are meant to be for shipping to null-sec, not low. That's what the rather inelegant change I suggested was meant to do. (Perhaps we should have a discussion of what exactly the purpose of JFs is?)
As for 'Why you run a market in low-sec', that's your decisions :P. I think you've done that and more for low-sec, and I'm very thankful for it. I don't think that I have the ISK making skills to be able to start my own market, but I've shipped in some stuff myself to help alliance mates, so we're agreed on that aim.
As for "I want to kill it. I want to always have a good chance to be able to kill it if I see it." That's not really what I meant (or what I said, I hope). I said hunter, not executioner. I want there to be a way to kill a Rhea that doesn't involve 110 billion ISK of Titan and Titan pilot, or a frankly catastrophic cock-up on the Rhea pilot's end.
At the same time, I want the Rhea to be able to mitigate most of that risk, themselves or with other pilots (hurrah teamwork!). I know I expressed it rather poorly, but I want the mitigated level of risk to be higher than it is now. The (whatever the length) spool-up time was a way of trying to create some sort of risk to null-sec logistics. (Perhaps the spool-up time should be relative to jump distance!)
I feel the tiniest bit hurt by your accusations that I may be an unthinking killmail addict. Haven't you met Talv? :P
I'll just state it for the record. I don't want *the killmail* at the expense of living in a wasteland. I want to live in a low-sec where logistics is more nuanced than 'contract it to me in Jita, we'll ship it down later'. (On a group level.)
Rob K.
A Rhea when fit for cargo hauls 373K meters, not 180K. So it'd be seven Bustard trips.
DeleteYeah, it can. I felt that skill level 5 and no modules would be a more productive match up, because it left fitting to the individual person.
DeleteI do recognize that a Rhea is more likely to be cargo fit though. I don't have a copy of Pyfa on this computer, so wanted to stay with easy to estimate numbers.
Rob K.
ReplyDeleteSo make it harder if you like, cry for it from the ramparts if that floats your boat. But the game will be a lot more dull in things going on if you make it harder to ship things.
To Halycon
Well, now you have to tell me everything I did wrong! Isn't that what the internet is for? :P
(I might disagree with your assertion about the British Empire, but that's neither here nor there in a internet spaceship discussion!)
As an aside, I can't find the bit of Sugar's blog I was going to cite, but nevermind. Take this as what I remember of reading hundreds of blog posts...
I think, with no malice, that your memory of how logistics used to be carried out is somewhat non-chronological. Though maybe I am talking about the low-end of high-end logistics.
First of all, JFs started off as mostly useless. They were significantly outmatched by suitcase carriers (and even dreads!) who had very large cargo holds (even with stacking penalties, a 3% gain on 100km3 isn't too bad). Then CCP decided that they needed a cargo hold buff and dreads and carriers got fleet hangers and cargo hold nerfs. I believe they also got a jump range buff at that time.
From what I've read, titan chains were never that common, and their weakness to interdiction was massive. There is (somewhere on the internet), a battle report of a freighter op where 20! freighters were destroyed. We can't do anything like that right now, and that's frustrating to me as a big player in a small pond, staring at the lake next door.
As for 'maturing' the game, I think it may have done the opposite. low-entry, cheap and easy shipping created a class of whiny, entitled players that demand content and activity all the time. People who have to move all their own stuff, care for that stuff. People who have things handed to them, care less. (I believe this is another reason Rixx is against Warp Core Stabs.)
Honestly, I think that those fleet sizes you talk about sound really fun, and hope that CCP aims to keep fleet sizes smaller, and not as large as possible. You might disagree, I don't know, but I think there is a real demand for smaller fleets in a larger galaxy.
Finally, my question is this: why would things be duller, if shipping is harder? Old EVE manage perfectly well at engaging players with *no* jump freighters, freighters, or capital ships. Why should New EVE struggle?
Rob K.
(who is expecting there to be a whole load of replies to catch up on :) )
And honestly, I really would like to know how I'm wrong. I stand by my points though. (Until you show me how I'm wrong, of course!)
DeleteRob K.
Titan chains were very common. During that era I lived in Syndicate & Fountain. We'd see massive jump ins of BoB and NC fleets of freighters nestled around a titan moving supplies for the war efforts back and forth. At the time, that was about 100 ships. I remember it vividly because back then a jumpin that big froze the game for 5-10 minutes as Eve processed such a massive move, when the game resumed our sleepy little backwater of nothing wars had more people in them than all the corps and alliances there combined. All for a logistics move. Every now and again we'd even get Red Alliance moving things to the northern front of The Great War. In fact the first Titan I ever saw was an RA Titan far from home on the complete opposite front of their battle lines on a logistics op to Fountain re-enforcing Bruce(defunct alliance).
DeleteYou're right that JFs didn't come into the game whole and complete, there was a birthing issue. But it didn't actually take too long for the speed Eve moved back then in development for them to supplant everything else for cargo hauling. The rest of the changes I outlined were long tail trickle downs. JFs have been so good at what they do they've revolutionized the face of Eve.
Where you're wrong is when you state it won't change the cost of things to make logistics harder. It'll absolutely make things more expensive across the board.
It'll also probably kill local and regional markets in the fallout. Jita for as long as I've played has always been king, I'm not quite old enough to remember Yulia. The regional markets of Amarr, Rens, and Dodixie are sorta new. They existed as regional tradehubs before JFs, but they really didn't compete with Jita till a few short years ago after JFs made shipping an actual profession. Their stock was pitiful of everything but minerals and seemed to only exist as convenient way-stations to feed local industry which in turn was shipped to Jita. Now days they are vibrant places, with markets rivalling what Jita was when I started the game.
I can say all this happened because of JFs because from my perspective as a mostly industry player, they revolutionized the game after they came into their own. Almost over night I went from runs to Jita with a small shopping list of skill books & odds and ends moduels I could fit into an inty, to moving massive amounts of m3 around. The constant runs to Jita by everyone to buy ships to run up the pipe almost stopped entirely. Suddenly 1 person could supply a small nullsec corp all by himself with everything they needed in a weekly or twice weekly run. I saw first hand fleet participation go up because not everyone had to spend 10 hours a week to get their ships from Jita back home. You put in an order, and they just showed up.
As to why Eve would get duller.
Easy shipping made the game more fun for more people because so many people hated fighting the pipe. People went to extraordinary lengths not to lose ships back in the day just so they wouldn't have to spend 2-4 hours personally flying to Jita, buying a ship, fitting it, and then dodging camps to get back. And when I say extraordinary lengths, I do mean that. Logoffski happened for T1 frigates. Ships that cost a half a million isk to buy and fit logged off to avoid battle because no one wanted that run to replace it. It just wasn't a worthwhile proposition.
Ironically, in a way.. yeah. JFs did kill the game for me. What I enjoyed doing disappeared as group sizes exploded. I've not done any sort of PVP outside of RVB in years. I miss the ultra small roams. JFs killed them. I do wish there was an area of Eve that catered to the type of gameplay I loved. But, it was better for more people.
I've moved on. I sit in a station in HS, build things, and rarely undock.
Agreed with almost everything you say here Halycon. Ultra small roams are alive and kicking however I regularly roam with just 2-6 people.
DeleteBack in 7-2 we even did battleship sundays for a while where we roamed with such numbers of battleships and got fights.
However any of the arguments rise or fall - it is a given that sooner or later fatigue at 100% to will be applied. It will be the stick for null industry player investment/development after the carrot of the minerals/ores buff.
ReplyDeleteAs recently proven by a couple of meaningful PL engagements and possibly connected to the "defection" of Corbexx; K2K-WH logistics will be FotM coming soon™. As per the "CCP business standard" of ... well since day one, Low will be short sighted for the squeaky wheels of Null and/or High.