EVE General Discussion

It sure is easy to spot the people who have never been to nullsec.

In bucket loads.

I read a book about EVE before I even knew the game existed. I imagined flying through so much empty space, trying to find where the Guristas were so that I could join them.

Ha.

I can't speak for all of null sec with this regard but the areas I was in, the economy was self contained. The alliance was self contained. It is only the odd component here and there that they sent to high sec for.

This may sound strange coming from a highsec player but since you asked, I will tell the truth----and the truth shall make you mad: dedicated highsec players will not feel the need to carve out chunks of low/0.0/WH space for themselves or even go there until there's something they want that they cannot get in empire.

And since everything can be bought from someone if you have enough isk---basically if you spend enough time farming or buy PLEX---creating this want is only possible by nerfing PvE in highsec into the ground. You know those pesky belt rats you have to kill every twenty minutes or so when you mine in your hulk? And how the measly 200K, assuming it's a 0.5 belt, you bring in after an hour in the belt is barely noticeably next to the massive ore haul?

That measly 200K per hour would have to be the average income of a highsec player to sufficiently motivate them out of highsec.

A handful of asteroids depleting in a single cycle per belt, lukewarm incursions that can be done with a bunch of frigates, PI only capable of spitting up the cheapest resources at the slowest rate, and missions only going up to level 2 (please withhold your raging till the end of the post, thank you). Farming highsec belts in a hulk would have to be as pointless as ratting there in a T3 cruiser.

But the problem is, it's too late to do that. People are comfortable where they're at and they've had it that way for years. If CCP did just come out and say, "yeah you can solo in highsec, but you're going to be dirt poor, and we mean so poor that even a cruiser will be like a ferrari to you" they'd lose more subs than they did with Monoclegate because they would tearing down an entire way of life. We're well past the "reward vs. risk" incentive and there's no going back.

Move ice to null? Please, my two hulk alts mine veldspar all day and I don't own a POS so why should I care?

Reduce the loot/salvage of mission rats? I don't bother with the wrecks unless I see a ninja, then I shoot them with my marauder.

Better rewards in low/NPC null? Uh, I don't want to get ganked unless I'm at Jita. And besides, I have everything I need in highsec. Look at my shiny faction BS.

CCP, in their benevolent attempts to promote player interaction and cooperation inadvertantly added more ISK-printing options like lvl 4s and Incursions and because they're worried about losing lots of subs (which they should be) have nerfed the ISK-printing machine too slowly and not enough to really make a difference. As a result, empire and nullsec have grown further and further apart with each passing year and each expansion because they're essentially two separate games that cross each other's paths once in a while.

Highsec is essentially independent of nullsec which, in turn has become dependent on the goods flowing in from highsec when it should be the other way around. Nullsec players can't do squat to change highsec, and CCP won't risk losing the subs of their largest playerbase. Highsec controls both of them.

Case in point: whenever the goons declare war on miners, everyone yaps and cries that they're going to kill EVE as if such a thing were possible. They rampage around, pop some exhumers, cause a little mayhem, but when they finally have shot their load and call it a jihad, the highsec farmers go right back to what they were doing and a week later it doesn't seem like anything's changed at all except maybe a few hundred players have learned not to ignore rookie ships idling next to them.

Why is this? Because they're already wealthy enough to replace their losses from highsec PvE, and if not, they soon will be. Events like Hulkageddon and the Ice Embargo are like throwing rocks into a lake. You disturb the water and make some ripples, but come back an hour later and it's the same lake as before. Throwing in more rocks will not change the lake, you have to build a dam or drain it.

You may now rage.

My point exactly. Someone starting out in that environment wouldn't know what was lost, and they would just assume that was the normal way of things. But established players would claw their eyes out and smash their keyboards against their foreheards the second they saw the patch notes.

Apparently.. it isn't.



/agree

When a sandbox game becomes linear progression.. it loses it's box.

Fixed.

I think the problem is that there's too great a gap between the haves and the havenots.

Nerfing supercaps is a good step. It'll be good to see how that plays out.

Nerfing Tech needs to happen. It creates "good space" and gives the powers that hold it an unassailable lead.


And lastly something that makes space holding less blobby. It's possible that POCOs might help this. If you have to defend a large empire you might become more reluctant to concentrate force, instead creating small roving defence fleets to stop POCO bashes.

At the end of the day a guy in a Hurricane should be able to make an impact, not be a spectator as invincible herds of super-ships stroll past.

I wish they would mix it up a bit.

More empire space but in islands seperated by null.
Trader caravans across null to another high sec would offer interesting potential.
You want people in null.. how about caravan fleets passing thru?

More null but without sov and limit what ships can go there.
Turbulence maybe.. sharks with lasers for sure.

Much much more worm hole space.
Since the intermittent availabity of access keeps it available to more people.

Well we either keep null as it is and the subsequent consequence that a lot of people dislike the specific playstyle or 0.0 has got to change to cater different kinds of players.

I have no idea if CCP thinks null is good as it is?!

I would like to have far more unexplored space though. Space feeling crowded and full, that's a strange idea.