EVE General Discussion

FYI, if you want you can reform your corp. It costs 50mil to declare war on a corp but only ~1.5mil to create a new one. You can have your tax-free status, just be careful of war decs in the future.

Thanks for a reasonable post on this - it's one of very few from "the opposition" that makes sense.

I don't agree of course, and you haven't changed my mind - but that won't surprise you :)

I'm not going to address the "being killed is educational" part of your post, because while it's sometimes true, 0.5-0.4 gate camps are a perfect example that sometimes, it's the the worst kind of knowledge that's imparted (at least for people who'd like to see more new players in EVE).s

I believe there's an important distinction based on context between many activities in EVE. I made a list of sorts elsewhere, but I'll just rework one example I used earlier in this thread. By way of introduction: as I observed in an earlier post, you can't prove anything with scenarios of isolated examples. But if you resist the temptation to pretend they are proof, they can be useful support to an analysis.


A new player in an industrial carrying 5 billion worth of stuff is "asking for trouble". IMO a fair target for "suicide ganking" or being attacking by a group or a much stronger ship in lowsec. Why? The short answer is EVE economics: the expected return to an attacker is (AFAIK) about 50% of the cargo value, so such a kill is worth 2.5 months of free play.

But what if the cargo is worth 200 million? I've seen a (claimed) "rage quit" in Rookie Help from someone who lost their entire net worth (about 200 mill) to a highsec suicide gank. 200 mill is generally considered to be under the economic "suicide gank" threshold, with good reason.

So in the first case a "suicide gank" seems to be 100% EVE-appropriate behavior, and we're not inclined to accept ignorance as an excuse. In the second case, on the evidence I'd go with bad behavior. It's equally game-legal , but you have to assume the ganker was a "fun-vampire" whose objective was to ruin the target's day, waste a lot of their **real** time (one hour of non-bot player = 1 hour of someones life), and it's quite likely the objective was the rage quit.

Let's take it a small step forward - imagine someone sufficiently menacing and capable stops you from entering a park, or a shop, or your place of employment, by blocking the entrance, just because they think it's amusing, apply that to 0.5-0.4Gate Camping, and consider the message it conveys to the naive new players (who are implied in this thread to be the only normally intelligent players caught in 0.5-0.4 Camps)


Now we're past "Some Gate Camps make good in-game sense" into "some Gate Camps have significant negative consequences". In the case of 0.5 - 0.4 gate camps, it's sends some tangible signals to new players who are caught in the camp:

• There are choke points between highsec and lowsec (not at all obvious to a new player)
• Players choose to make Gate Camps at these players, and don't hesitate to destroy low-value ships (i.e. probable newbie ships)
• And a bonus: if they were to read this very thread, they'd learn that anybody with a moderate amount to EVE experience would know where and how to check there was a Gate Camp - i.e. that they are only considered to be effective for trapping and destroying new players' ships.

I'm not sure of the OP learned about the third point, but if he asked in the Help Channel it would have been explained (more or less politely depending on whether it was a fun-vampire doing the explaining or not).


How should a new player react to the presence of significant player-managed, CCP-supported barriers to entering lowsec? They can still enter of course, but the effect you'd expect is that fewer new players bother with lowsec. For example it clearly reduces the net ISK/hour for solo players of missioning or mining in lowsec. The ISK may be there, but the risk of ship loss means cheaper (and hence less efficient ships) less valuable cargo, while the and the disruption to travel affects the denominator of the ISK/hour calculation.


I think making lowsec less accessible is stupid for CCP, for old-timers who'd like the game to attract new players, and even for fun-vampires, who could expect more (though less one-sided) fights if they weren't so keep to limit access to the areas that are designed for their peculiar style of entertainment.

I'm no expert on hauling but 200 mil in a T1 Industrial (that's the ship a Rookie would use) sounds way to much. A Nereus fitted for bulk hauling in high-sec will only have around 15.000 EHP and carrying 200.000.000 worth of stuff in it would mean a ratio of around 130.000 ISK/EHP.

I'm no expert on hauling but a more experienced player can probably tell what a good ISK/EHP ratio would be.

I largely disagree with this. Every loss is educational to those capable of examining the loss critically.
The important point is that a loss is an incentive to seek out knowledge, at least it always was for me. Nobody in Eve knows everything, sometimes in order to know what questions to ask requires a catalyst (no pun intended here).
When I first started playing ganking newbies while they were actually doing the tutorial was commonplace, it's how I lost my first ship. It was definitely an eye-opener and encouraged me to go learn as much as I could about ganking in high sec so as not to fall foul of it again. I actually appreciate that loss, as I learned a lot from it.



As mentioned by a previous poster 200mil in a T1 hauler, particularly if said hauler is poorly fit, is a financially viable gank.

Absolutely it's a harsh lesson, and I can understand why the player in question might be upset, but ultimately it's the challenge of bouncing back from a loss like that which is central to Eve.
Every "old-timer" was a new player at some point. Most of them/ us have taken a hit that we weren't expecting....but we're still here, we bounced back and learned an important lesson on the way.
Most importantly I enjoyed the experience. I love the fact that I'm playing a game in which stuff like this can happen to me...it's exhilarating.



New players are not the only people caught in camps, although in certain areas they most likely do make up the bulk of the "victims".
However, killing newbies is not the only reason to camp gates. In the past I lived in low sec and conducted business there, as did many of my friends. Protecting business interests was a prime reason for setting up camps. Mining ops, anchoring, missions etc.All these activities were "defended" by the camp. Low sec can be tricky to make decent isk in, if you have the ability to blockade (for want of a better word) a system it can become a lot easier to do.

I grant you, this is not perhaps a common reason for camping, but it is certainly viable and something I used to be involved in on a regular basis.




1) There is a warning when you jump into low sec for the first time (every time assuming you don't disable the warning). Deliberately ignoring the warning and jumping in regardless is extremely bad decision making. The lesson you learn here is not a minor one, it has bearing on many aspects of Eve (see Contract scams)....ignoring any warnings, or disregarding any information in Eve is a very bad idea. In this case a loss to a camp is a very important lesson indeed and could save considerable hardship later on.

2) Low value ships...perhaps. But you might be interested to know that cyno ships are often low value and disposable ships piloted by relatively new alts. Various organizations in low sec may have very good reason to keep cynos out. Again, not saying this is common, but it is a consideration.

3) Camps trap the unwary regardless of age and experience. Careless veterans in shiny ships are what the campers love. Everybody makes mistakes, gate camps punish those mistakes.




There are a large number of high/ low boundaries that are rarely, indeed never, camped. If the front door is guarded, try the back door.
I refuse to believe that every new player is an idiot, those that are not will quickly learn to take advantage of the tools available to them. These new players will thrive, these new players are the ones who will stay. These are Eve players.

Here you go, a nice handy rule of thumb to use to avoid being suicide ganked.

What Jonah and Akane are telling you is this: if you play imprudently it will end up costing you and you have nobody to blame but yourself because you made an imprudent decision.

Now you can say, "Blaming the victim....!!!" No. You know that EVE is a harsh place. That other players can and will take advantage of your poor decisions. Given this knowledge making an imprudent decision is entirely on you.

And remember: This. Is. A. Game.

Comparing it to real life is foolish. This is a form of escapism. After a crap day at work, listening to the stupidity on the news, and finally having some time in the evening you can log into a game and escape reality. And if you are unwilling to accept the harsh environment that is EVE....there are plenty of games out there, go find a cute, cuddly and warm game.

In this particular forum, rational, well supported suggestions just generate a cascade of denial and attempts to shut down the discussion with rhetorical "dirty tricks". IMO it's no place for suggestions.

So lets look at it another way: what actions might, given time, have a positive effect?

Posts in "General Discussion" (GD) might be on the list, but not for reasoned discussions on possibilities for motivating newer players to stay with EVE Online. In fact any use of GD has a significant potential to backfire:

• It exposes information on player behavior that you'll never see in a CCP advertisement
• Attempts to get anything done in here induce "sabotage" by destructive "forum-PVPers". "Some people just want the world to burn, even if they will be incinerated with it".

So when he asks what you suggest you whine about how mean everyone is to you and suggest nothing.

Honestly, I've never seen that happen. I've seen it happen to poorly thought out ideas or ideas with an obvious agenda behind them but decent ideas that would improve the game, even in a small way are generally well received.


That's what Features & Ideas is for.

The OP kept doing the same thing over and over despite it having the same outcome. If you kept trying to do something and kept getting slapped down...when would you stop and reconsider your approach/startegy/etc.?

I believe I pointed this out several pages ago. What does it say about Hakawai that she is still banging on the same thing again and again...?