EVE General Discussion

TLDR version: I know that the best reason to PVP is because you like to PVP. But I've always put Eve (and a couple other games) up on a pedestal because I thought their PVP meant something more than a scoreboard at the end of a round, because I thought the PVP had a purpose beyond being entertaining in and of itself, because I thought the PVP was more than just a cyclic point/gear treadmill.

Did Eve ever have a bunch of PVP where people fought because their home was on the line, and not just because a handful of interceptors and cruisers came into their space looking to pop some inattentive ratters/miners or looking to goad the opponent into fighting back (but not with too many ships or the wrong kinds of ships!)? Does it still have a bunch of that and I just don't realize it? Does PVP here mean more than it does in any other game's PVP? Or am I just remembering Eve's past through rose-colored glasses in comparison to the WoW I played back in 2006 when I first started playing Eve?



Long version: In FPS games you just play match after match, killing the other team and trying not to die so that you can win the round and/or pad your k:d ratio... then when the match is over, you repeat. Ad nauseum. PVP in most other MMOs is basically the same. You queue up for a controlled deathmatch situation in a tiny environment so that you get more winpoints, or you queue up for a controlled deathmatch situation in a bigger environment so that you get more winpoints... then when the match is over, you repeat. Ad nauseum. Usually there's some sort of level-up mechanism where you unlock new weapons or better gear or whatever, all to assist you in not falling behind everyone else who is also doing the same thing in the struggle for more winpoints.

It's basically the same thing as themepark PVE, really, where you kill your way through encounters for new gear drops so that you are able to repeat the process in the next cycle of content.

The people who do this stuff do it because it's fun for them.


A few MMOs seemed to stray quite a ways from this formula for PVP though. EQ's PVP servers, DAOC, Shadowbane, some others. Eve. PVP could very easily mean more than just winpoints. People often did it for more than the fun of the PVP itself. Sure, people roamed around the countryside in DAOC and SB and EQ just for good fights, but the real PVP was when someone's home was on the line... when someone was trying to take spore king camp from you, when someone was trying to burn your city to the ground, etc... that's when PVP was great. When people were fighting over something that was hard/impossible to find elsewhere, instead of just for the hell of it.

And yeah, Eve was like that too. It still is sometimes, I guess? I don't really know, because the only PVP I've seen in the last few months of nullsec is random interceptors or cruisers coming through in groups of 1-8 trying to kill the one miner/ratter who doesn't warp to the POS when NEAR warns them that an enemy is 3 jumps out. Was it always like that? I feel like it wasn't.... but maybe it's just me viewing the past with rose-tinted glasses? I feel like it used to be more common that people fought for something more than the hell of it.

I assume I'll just get people posting here to tell me that since this is a sandbox, it's up to me to make my own meaning behind what I do in it... or that CCP isn't here to cater to my individual desires... or whatever. And I guess those things might be true, which would be unfortunate for my whole "viewing Eve as a game of meaningful PVP, hovering up above all the other MMOs with a halo of light around it because it's just plain better when there's more to PVP than the PVP itself" thing. Oh well.

Look into faction warfare. In a nutshell, we fight to occupy strategic systems then defend those systems from the other militia which produces an ever changing and dynamic battlefront where fleet comps are both continually created and countered.

There was an article in crossing zebras called the battle of kehjari where we defended our home for roughly 3 days against a focused attempt to take over our home system. These types of fights make fw areas some of the most active pvp areas in the entire game, sometimes making single systems more active than multiple regions.

Nowadays, for too many people, it's only anymore about their own fun and entertainment.

People remove meaning from everything nowadays, changing it all into something shallow.

Is this thread really about PvP, or actually about people?

I defend my home against evil bot-aspirants who try to pollute the environment with their unlicensed and unregulated mining.

Since the entire game is one giant PvP game and those of us who log in PvP in some way, shape, or form.... yes. Yes, there is incentive. Null-sec might be a little stagnate if that's the kind of PvPing you want, but you can go and make your own fights. You can make someone else fight for their home. I know we lost our home after a 3-4 month war. We're renter peons right now, but we still defend what little land we have. You don't have to always be boring.

If I would be immortal IRL, I would do as I like. And if I get kicks out of fighting and dying again and again, I would do it. Just like the aforementioned examples...

No..
Best reason is that something explodes on your screen

Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.

-H.S.T-

If you don't have X+1 ships before the fight, there's no motive at all.

Ego.