EVE General Discussion

Heh, you're not necessarily wrong, it could be an abbreviation of slang.

Grrrrrrrrrrr goons
Grrrrrrrrrrr PL
Grrrrrrrrrrr NC.

Posting is the one true endgame.

ELITE PEEVEEPEE

These threads are an important part of the cycle of EVE. Enough time has passed without serious upset that people are starting to seek something big to change. Personally I want to crush the Russians. Everyone versus the Russians who scourge our game.
You know for fun and not racism or anything. Just cus Grr Russians. Besides they love to be the bad guys.

CCPs position, cynically, in all this is difficult.

If they enxourage war between the blocs, it might result in the fall of a bloc and hudreds/thousands of lost subs as understandably upset losers fold out of EVE.

If they dont encourage more warfare, they stand to lose hundreds/thousands of subs of PvP oriented players discontent with the lack of conflict and ship destruction.

Erto, I encourage solutions/thinking along the lines of encouraging internal fracturing in large blocs, such that the larger they are, the harder they are to hold together.

Thats a good question.

Do you have a suggestion?

As I indicated earlier, my view would be to pursue mechanics that encourage fragmentation.
I dont have anything more specific than that at this time.

Yes Blocs are game external agreements and integrations of Corp/alliance leaderships/members into "informal" (as in uncoded) frameworks, which use various ingame mechanics such as blueing to facilitate those external agreements into the game, and pursue their mutual interests .This is ofc entirely legit in EVE, since it is readily recognized that players are also people, and in the sandbox can agree/contrive anything they want as long as it doesnt violate rules or law. This is true not only for huge blocs, but also agreements/contrivance between individual players.

As you point out, there is no rational way to restrict that, nor would it be conducive to the EVE sandbox experience, and especially not to the unique culture of player interaction within and without that this game and its community offers.

Im talking more about an impetus towards ingame incentives/mechanics to encourage more fragmentation rather than consolidation. As I pointed out in my previous post, the dynamics of interaction (including informal agreements made outside of the coded framework of EVE) are multiplicative the more fragments there are, and dramatically reduced the less there are.

If there are 2 blocs, the dynamics of interaction are very simple. If there are 3, these are far more complicated. If there are 10, we are talking about orders of magnitude more interaction between each. At 100 the complications between interests become extremely complex. This complexity creates opportunity and content.

There are some relatively simple changes that can indirectly encourage fragmentation (although not complete solution in and of themself)

For example, removing Local in NS would be a reasonable start.
Sure, Blocs will argue we can utilize this to greater opportunity, but they may also suffer more permeability on their other fringes.

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Much of the debate on changes to encourage more fragmentation/granularity in NS is vetoed by Blocs, with the statement "if you change this, we will use our greater power base to exploit it harder than our smaller neighbors".

Probably they are correct in most cases. If they would even bother to capitalize on it, or be able to mobilize forces to do so.

Its an inverted Sword of Damocles position, where instead of the power itself being at threat from the sword over their head, (which is analogous to the weight of great power with commensurate responsibility) they posit that weaker powers are the ones the change will hurt most. Pragmatically, the powers have far more to lose, than their weaker neighbors/antagonists. It is harder to hold a great co plexity together, than a smaller one.

Blocs dont like change. Blocs have ironed out the situation at great expense and effort inorder to become a Bloc.
Bloc likes to sit there and be a Bloc. Bloc is happy being a Bloc. Bloc is stable

Quite possibly, and I would argue given the nature of EVE, that their congenial compromise inorder to arrange/align the blocs multiple constituent entities, is not as stable as some might think. Many of them might just be looking for a crack of opportunity to deliver on old grudges or capitalize on opportunity.

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Realpolitik:

Im not entirely convinced that changes which superficially may benefit a great power more than minors, would pan out that way.

As an earlier poster pointed out, these Blocs have their own immense internal logistics, politics and motivations to worry about in especially in regards to other great powers. Any weakness invites aggression. (albeit most major battles have historically been the result of "accident" or unexpected escalation rather than deliberate aggression, whixh is telling of the nature of Blocs).

As another poster pointed out, these Blocs are based in informal agreements, without actual in-game concrete structure. This, inversely, means there is no ingame mechanic to prevent fracture at any time. Break from the informal structure is possible at anytime. Any, and all, Corps/Alliances under an Bloc umbrella, can break free and rebel at any moment.

Its entitely possible that more numerous smaller neighbors could capitalize on such even small indirect changes (like no NS Local), piece by piece, and change the balance of power in its totality. As well as fragmenting the informal agreements/equity between the corps/alliances which constitute the Bloc. Financiers and industrialists may change allegiance for profit from emerging market. PvP core may change allegiance to a more hawkish and thirsty faction. Bloc constituent Corps may decide they are tired of being dictated to and paying fealty/royalty/rent to their suzerain Bloc overlords.

And as this fragmentation occurs, enemy powers weigh their odds, manipulate and encourage it with their own vast wealth , assets, politics and influence.(As participants in a proxy war, supporting insurgents and economic interests so as to weaken/divide their Blox enemy).

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The fall of an empire is not only from total war against another empire.
It can also be from smaller neighbors chipping at the periphery, to weaken their integrity.
It can also be from fracture within, as elements grasp opportunity to profit, gain independence, or settle old grudges.

Thats the kind of EVE we all want, right?

The blocs were formed to get over the hurdle that small group struggle with. If you add struggle, they will team up again to share the additional load. People banding together is what happen when you limit them. They play as team because team > solo. Large team > small team because you amplify the good side of a team to a greater level.

If you want large group to stop being a thing, you have to limit how effective ti is to cooperate and to be really honest with you, this would be extremely Anti-EVE. Even if you were to make it unproductive to work as a team through game mechanics, people would also work around it by establishing out of game mean to cooperate without using the limiting framework of the game.

I mean we had this thread 6 years ago, nap fest, blue doughnut, stagnation, ect...