Jita Park Speakers Corner

No there isn't. I've got an entire subgroup that you might have heard of before called "BlackOps" that specializes in killing people in highly populated systems without direct conventional engagement.



Because you say so? I mean, we can have a convo based on whatever ground rules you want to establish, but when your premise is flawed the resulting conversation is unlikely to have a viable outcome.



Incorrect: Players do that. Sandbox game, remember?



I think it's important to define terms when you use them. Like "Punish". What behavior is being punished?



You use a lot of terms in ways that aren't obvious. I don't think this means the conversation is going in your way, just that it's getting more confused. Maybe if you went ahead and posted whatever "conclusion" you want people to derive we can just put this to rest.

Maybe you do a bad job of describing what it is you're trying to get at.

If you proposal is to remove standings mechanics you'd be doing a disservice to the game in general. They're largely arbitrary tools, but I'd rather have a generic color flagging system than having to memorize tickers. It's just common sense to have them.

Players will devise the specifics of political machinations based on their own organizational requirements or conditions. Having mechanics that support that functionality are a net benefit.

I'm sorry, I had completely forgotten about this thread so i never responded to Courthouse's last post either. It flashed up now since i'm automaticly subscribed to it.

Obviously i need a TLDR:

My intention was to raise some questions and open up some perspective on sources that drive the discourse: To get away from the results they have or the trends they feed, because that is such an infected discussion. Obviously i didn't do that well enough as Courthouse pointed out. I wanted to get away from "human nature" or "don't look at us, we just play the cards we've been dealt" defense that comes with blame being put where it doesn't belong. I wanted to problematize the "net benefit" that Courthouse referred to, relate that to the cards on the table and the nature it results in.

You could follow that line of logic simply through the headers of the original post.



Let's extend that a bit again:

I wanted to point out that there are existing mechanics in the game (as in: it's there, in code) that make numbers more powerful than what can be attributed to a natural state or result of human nature. I wanted to get that discussion going as an eligable alternative to new mechanics or content that provide more objectives (ie., new space, something CSM chair Seleene recently mentioned in an interview, etc.) or discussions that revolve around artificially restrict numbers in the same manner that other mechanics prop them up.

The "blues" is one glaring example of that - yet it's not necessarily the only example - that's why it has resurfaced throughout the posts. Instead of looking to solve the size of fleets and coalitions through means of "Wormhole mass" or similar discussions that pop up from time to time: Why not look at the roots, highlight the tools that prop up numbers and question their balance, or even their existance?

Let mass be mass, let a cluster mess be a cluster mess that players can use, natural cumber - instead of arbitrarily countering an arbitrary system. I am a strong supporter of balancing what's arbitrary instead of counter-balancing it arbitrarily, in general.

The net benefit Courthouse refer to. Is it a benefit? Is it beneficial for the game at large?

Is strong function always positive? That's the question i wanted to raise: I consider the "blues" a too powerful tool.

We could analyze, and debate at length, the relationships within EVE's coalitions: wether they are "friendship", "pet keeping" or "feudal servitude". That cultural discussion is ultimately very uninteresting from a game design perspective and i'd rather see attention focused to what enable them and the things CCP can do, or already do, that affect them.

Poweful tools that help you manage a large amount of friends obviously make maintaining friends better.

It's the same principle applied to the use of Drakes: It's good because it's easy to use (in mass).
Is the issue that it's too good to sit still and project compared to moving around, or is it a question of mass and cost?

That discourse goes for almost everything in the sandbox. The price of ships impact the value of numbers too, that goes as much for the Supercapital discussion as it does for the HML changes or the overhaul of Tech I ships in general.

Cost -> Mass -> Projection -> Static objectives -> Projection -> Mass -> Cost, form a spiral.
It's not solely human nature. It's everywhere in existing mechanics and new decisions made.

That side of the discussion is where it's completely silent. It's also what pertain specificly to this part of the forums. It's after all the task of the CSM to generate feedback awareness.

It's the elephant in the room (or the pig, as Grath Telkin recently put it in a TMcom article). We've seen several recent changes where scaled impact seems to have been completely forgotten. Where is that discussion for the microjump drive for example? Where is the discussion of the relation between projection, cost and mass there? When we adress issues like the HML remake. That's as backwards as any other attempt to punish numbers through related means instead of looking at the source of the issue.

It's something we all seem to have in common, we assume to deal with the elephant-pig through circumvention.

You're arguing for Alterac Valley. I can suggest some games for you if that's your thing.