Assembly Hall

as a ganker myself I do tend to partially agree with the OP, While we are being hammered by CCP in every way, ganking gets harder over time and we find new ways BUT...

I personally dont do it for tears of new players but there are a LOT who do it simply to harrass new unsuspecting players. So saying that ganking benefits the market in anyway is just plain bs.. ganking is a form of harrassment and it is there for ragers to blow steam that is all. No market and no benefit to Eve whatsoever.

Here are a few thoughts:

I dont agree with empire space 100% safe, I do agree that it needs to be a lot harder than what it is right now. Ships that are capable to suicide gank should be nerfed and brought in line, making it a LOT expensie


Reduce concord response time to be a lot quicker than it is. 10 seconds in 0.5 sec space and about 3-5 seconds in 1.0 Giving gankers less than 10 seconds to gank. This would require a lot more ships to gank, making it harder and more challenging and more fun to gank.

Concord needs to deal simultaenous damage to all gankers at the same time, including drones.

I'm a relatively new and I think that ganking is a problem, but IMHO not the worst one.

1. Make the career agents mandatory! You can opt out but with a strict warning.
2. Fix the fitting tool! Fitting a ship is a mystery to new players and because you can't play around with it, there is almost no way to really learn how to except to find some outside web sites. Give them some fittings with reasons why this ship was fitted this way.
3. Bring evelopedia back! If just one game need a manual it's EVE.
4. Make it possible (optional) to trade from and to a ships cargohold. When you are collecting modules for your ship it's frustrating to forget them in station.
5. Give a warning if some trade gets you into low/Null.

Kal, you aren't hurting anyone's feelings or offending anyone so stop with the appologies.

Carebears, and casuals are already leaving the game in record numbers along with some vets that don't really agree with the changes or have real life things to take care of.

The Carebears and casuals that do stay hang out in NPC corps. Nothing wrong with it, everyone enjoys the game how they choose to enjoy it.

The games you are talking about that have gone to waste lands are? I'm just asking because I did play UO for 3 years (still play on a shard from time to time with friends). EQ for 4 years, FFXI for 7 years, FFXIV for 4 years, Guild Wars for 3 years (talk about a PVP oriented MMO). Lineage II for a couple years. Lots of other MMOs out there but usually they died because the Devs couldn't keep up with the hardcore players and provide them with enough content. This is the problem with a game has Dev driven content and not player driven content.

The Spreadsheets alone usually drive off players, I've tried to get a few friends to play over the course of many years I've played. Some of them just couldn't get past the learning curve. Others did and went off to do other bigger and better things in the game only to quit when a change came out that they didn't like.

A game is only as good as its player base. If the player base is obsessed with harassment of other players. Most players will leave a game because it isn't fun to them. Those that are doing the harassment have fun until they get harassed themselves or run out of people who are easily harassed.

This this after all a sandbox and players consent to PVP by simply undocking from a station. There are many things that are broken or missing in this game. Some players want it to remain as is because they are getting enjoyment out of it, others who aren't participating much in it see the problem but don't feel a need to make changes to it because it doesn't effect them. The last group is the group that feels they are getting harassed by the first group.

Honestly I'm glad there is a war dec system in the game, I just believe it needs to have more added to it and needs to be modified to create more dynamic content. Currently right now all the war system has is Pew Pew. Why not add in Economic war fare? Toss in the ability to charge a tariff on a target, or give the ability to pay off a faction to not allow a war target to dock at their stations? Or why not give the ability for a corp to pay off a faction and not allow a war target to jump through a gate? Lots of possibilities that haven't really been realized that could provide so much content and so much conflict. It would allow some of these big "indy" corps that have no experience with pew pew to fight back. It would allow rich corps to smash competition in an area. You could end station games, create ways to blockade high sec systems from a select group. Thousands of possibilities.

The more content you have and the greater the interaction with players new players have the better your or anyone else gaming experience will be.

A specious argument to a far more complex problem than many care to admit.

CCP continuous efforts to 'Improve', The game are failing to attract and hold new players in numbers that outweigh those that no longer play the game which as an aside is of greater concern than a constant stream of so called 'Carebear' tears, I really hate that term tbh as it degrades the contribution that that facet of the player base actually contribute to the games health overall but why do they feel that way in the first place.

This is were the crux of the problem is in the opinion of many, expectation, When I joined Eve in it's original Beta form the game was attractive to me because of it's complexity, The famous vertical learning curve cartoon still makes me chuckle because it really did epitomise the game as it was then meaning you really did have to spend the time and effort learning how it worked, even getting out of the station was not obvious to many and simply moving around the place, unless you were very astute meant that you required the help and advice of others and your experience there often set the mould for your future in the short term in Eve.

Career prospects in the game came next on the list, I can move around but what do I do with this new found knowledge and it was very simple to trip onto the easy track and start mining, it gave you ISK built your bank account and gave you time to sort out Eve, at that time in the three years I did it I never got ganked once in Lonetrek, even when I moved to mission running, the same rules applied, I used what I had taken the time to learn and avoided getting into problems, 5 plus billion later I moved into Null Sec and never returned to Empire with that toon again.

The thing is that it took time, not only to learn the mechanics of Eve but to build the confidence and experience to use those to your best advantage, Since then CCP has made it plain they want to reduce this workload and tbh it has not been in the best interest of players, That well meaning helping hand from the Devs has meant that players do not have the time to gain that experience, learn how to play the game and worst of all not had the time to fully understand that Eve is not a nice place even if you do follow the rules, it can at times bite you just when you thought things were going well.

I don't have an answer the ganking issue, if there really is such a thing in the game, but I do know this much, what ever course CCP are currently on, the player base is having a problem with it, admit it or not, overall there is less reason to join Eve and stay, and of far more concern is it is far to easy for players to find they have nothing invested in the game and leave than it used to be in times past.

In the end the real world market will dictate how the game is played. If EVE can not attract and hold new players that equals no new subscriptions, a loss of future revenue . If EVE can not hold on to existing player base a loss of current revenue. Then the game will have to change whether those who drink cups of Care Bear tears every day like it or not, change will happen. Care bears the soloists, indy's don't like constantly getting griefed, then who will the griefers grief? This game runs on dollars, Euros, pounds, francs, guilders, krones, pesos, dinars, and Rubles, not your ability to gank every living thing in a high sec system. Change or the RL market place will change you. For better or worse, money will do the talking......

Its been clearly stated by CCP that they are having a hard time retaining new players. That cannot be argued based on their own key notes.

I have been playing Eve since Beta and have done just about every aspect except lived in a Wormhole...

I dont see any good reason to not make Hi sec a PvP safe zone unless you are in a wardec or agree to a dual.

Will the population stats change locations from null sec to hi sec. Maybe a little. Alts will go up of course.

but to alleviate it a bit they need to make things less lucrative in hi sec versus low sec to null. This includes Incursions or any other new Isk making element. Population may shift for a bit but as with any MMO the people will be able to take larger and larger risks over time and move to the other areas where the isk pays out more.

It will balance over time, but more importantly I think there will be more players in eve - maybe not PvPers right away, or maybe so, but eventually everyone will try pvp or they wont - it doesnt matter.

perhaps if ccp actually advertised more there might be more people.

who knows.

I am the braun part and Chea Elohe is the brains part of my gaming accounts. Our human counterpart is a 62 year old old fart a previous gamemaster for D&D, Omega Project, Star Fleet Battles (Campaign) Morrow Project, Tank Commander, ... I turn of the discussion to him as he is human and can best communicate to you. I Steven Wilkinson am a 15 year USAF Veteran from 1973 to 1988. During this time I was an active supporter to the Gaming Clubs at each of my assigned location. For those few who dedicated the time to play I learned as much as I gave in terms of game plots that I staged to test and practice tactics and strategy. You see in the military gaming was not and is not just considered an for fun activity. It is the only on base club that did not have the strict non-fraternization rule. In my last two assignments, my commander gave me the responsibility and access to the command post so that we could use sand tables and extended maps to layout the games for our participants. I invested my weekends to support the gaming activities. In Korea the club was tasked to provide exercise for Law Enforcement to review and act upon during exercise activities. As a member of the team who created these exercises I can attest that we enjoyed ourselves and the organization commanders appreciated the challenges we added to the training exercises. In Korea our gaming organization included 125 active members from all organization on the base and a very wide range of enlisted and officer grades. Every new member had to go through me for their briefing and my recommendation as to their acceptance in the gaming organization. This was a voluntary club that played in order to learn strategy and tactics. We were obligated to present any game that built up the individuals who were part of that organization and to keep our behaviour in such that it properly represented the USAF and the many organization to which we were assigned. I left active duty March 1988 have worked training military personnel in the Middle-east since August 1988. On my own time I have continued to participate in gaming (computer based and table top) activities.
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My briefing to my gaming partners is that gaming can be extremely addictive and we who play must take every effort to ensure that our day to day lives are not compromised by our gaming activity. Our policy for our married members or members who have family responsibilities was that they limit their gaming to 8 hours in a week and less if military obligation interfer.
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I have given you this information so that there is a foundation to what I am about to recommend. "Eve Online" is a civilian game and is a commercial enterprise. From my experience I can testify that games that have changing plots in which the players are give parts to play produce the most active and committed participants. In this I am referring to Role Playing and depends on activity as part of a team. All games loose when it is left to one person. Now lets talk about PVP vs PVE. PVP is a drag to some individuals. PVP is counter productive if there is no balance between the individuals. Eve Online has a basic design that if applied permits new individuals / teams to be developed. I suggest the following to increase participation and membership. These changes will make more money for CCP and more fun for the members.
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A CCP Fleet Auxiliary Organization and Acadamy be added to the game. This organization is committed to enforcing law in high sec and as membership, skills, budget and resources are made available by member participation they are committed to bring that same Law Standard to Low Sec and beyond.
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The CCP Fleet Auxiliary Organization and Academy provide computer based support to expand membership to each time zone and team development in each of these time zones. The members must spend 4 days (96 hours) training in each vessel with fleet exercises provided and required for the training of each level 5 mastery. The goal is to introduce teams that live in the same time zones and can organize with each other to develop fleets that are qualified to compete with those who demand to have PVP as an obligation. The difference is that PVP is limited to low sec and below else they meet the force of both the CCP AI and the CCP Fleet Auxiliary. Old member can choose to become part of CCP Fleet Auxiliary and this has the impact of raising their security rating and all high sec locations protect CCP Fleet members. Yes ganking organizations can choose to attack high value targets but the value of those targets will depend on the success of the CCP Fleet Auxiliary doing its job of interdicting low sec individuals and fleets who take such action in high sec. As the plan proceeds that will be a natural conflict between those who want the wild wild west in nul and work whole space and those who are committed to enforcing High Sec Law in the rest of Eve Space.

I am totally in favor of helping new players.

perhaps first 30 days immune to pvp unless they flag selves.

or some sort of mandatory training quests to get acquainted to game and the rules.

Lots of new players come in and its overload.

perhaps more hands on from some volunteers.

People need to be told hey man thats not wise and let them accept the advice or reject.

Iam sure ccp knows what new players dont like maybe some compromise or more of a penalty when people gank.

such as more lower security rating

like4 ganks and you get a - 10 and your off to low and have to repair status.

that may be to severe but as people say more support for new people is needed.

No.

The only way to wage war now is to camp pipes and trade hubs. Other forms of war are now defunct...thanks to CCP.