EVE General Discussion

Hello. I have one concern about the suspect flagging that I can't seem to find out about. It's been a long known bug/feature that local does not update GCC on MACs as is. (SOME PCs apparently have this, but from what I have found ALL Macs do).

So with so much "new" gameplay that will be introduced with this idea of "suspect" flagging, am I to understand that this will be the first gameplay features that are introduced in EVE that will be PC only since Mac users will never know if someone gets suspect flagging in their system?

We really like morality and all those real-life parallels, huh?

Well, okay, tell me this then: what would you do if you if you saw an armed robber pillaging your neighbor's house?

I wanted him to answer it, but whatever.

Anyway, you're correct. We phone the police. No, we don't grab the ol' Peacekeeper and plug the baddie full of second assholes; we'd go to jail for that. Vigilantism is illegal.

So why is it suddenly "morally" justified to allow everyone to shoot a can thief? And don't tell me "because it's not RL, duh" because that's the exact argument I can make to say that this change shouldn't be effected.

So, we phone the police. The police the arrives and deals with the perpetrator.

In EVE, we have CONCORD, and faction navies. CONCORD exists only for the sole purpose of mitigating capsuleer-on-capsuleer violence in "protected space." Therefore, CONCORD wouldn't interfere in a case of petty theft. Faction navies guard faction assets, and don't give a crap about what pod pilots do to each other.

So, we're obviously lacking a vital component; a player-driven police force. This force would need to be highly-selective, and clearly visible to all. I'm not going to theorize on the selection process, and rights given, because this isn't really a features/ideas post. However, having a small, selective, clearly visible player-driven police force would be a better game mechanic than simply flagging a thief to the whole universe.

Oh, and if the victim of theft makes use of this police force's services, the victim and his corporation lose their own aggression against the thief, unless the thief doesn't want them to (safety toggle switch thing).

For balance, I'd recommend something like removing sec hits for shooting these player cops in high-sec (CONCORD still comes, maybe at a slightly delayed response).

Would be fun maybe.

Edit: Oh, even better. If the theft victim uses the player cop's services, and the thief kills the player cop, then the thief can also kill the theft victim without CONCORD intervention for the remainder of the aggro timer. Think of it as changing jurisdictions.

But that is what we will have, and that's exactly what has the the criminals worried. They will be selective, against those who have the suspect flag and negative standings. And they will be highly visible when some one flips some miner's can and a white knight with a security standing above +5 pops the offender and the miner says in local "Fck yeah! Thanks Dude! Here's a million ISK for your trouble."

They will be visible in low sec, when the territorial white knights living in there camp the gates to their systems, popping interloping pirates. Traders and others with neutral standings, those disinterested third parties, will be able to visit, seed their markets, buy their products and fill their ranks.

Thanks for the response, and for clarification, and in general for listening to us players. Suspect that isn't the easiest thing to do at times.

Can see both advantages and disadvantages to allowing corp and fleet members to freely support Suspects. My thought is that corp and fleet members should generally be able to choose to support one another without jumping through hoops. But they should not be protected by Concord if they support a corp/fleet member who is flagged as a Suspect.

For example, White Knight comes along and shoots Suspect. Suspect calls in a corp/fleet member. Under currently proposed rules as I understand them, Suspect's corp member would only be able to assist Suspect through remote support, which would also give him a global Suspect flag, but which would still not allow him to engage White Knight unless White Knight chooses to do so. This may tilt the balance too heavily against Suspects, since only White Knight has the option of expanding the field of engagement.

Alternativey. When White Knight shoots Suspect, Suspect's corp and fleet members get the option to shoot at White Knight. However, when they shoot at White Knight, they get their own Suspect flags, independent of Suspect's. This creates risks for White Knight, because he is not the only one who can expannd the field of engagement, but also carries risks for Susect's friends, because they risk being engaged at will by third parties, including White Knight's fleet/corp mates.

This proposal combines two basic rules of engagement: (1) a corporation or fleet member is always able to assist fellow corp/fleet members; (2) shooting at a non-Suspect triggers the Suspect flag unless the target (i) has aggro to you, (ii) is a valid ar target, (iii) is a -10 criminal, (iv) other exceptions.

But that may be tilting the risks too heavily in favor of Suspects. It will definitely require good notifcations for fleet/corp members who try and assist Suspect-flagged characters, so that folk do not get baited. It may also result in situations where our White Knight accidentally runs into and gets ganked by a Suspect's corp/fleet members ten minutes after killing the original Suspect, although that sort of interaction was one of the arguments for made for changing jump bridges some months back, so it may actually be a positive result.

Anyways, the proposed changes are quite good even as they are, so can't complain. Just maybe an idea to consider, though you've probably already thought of and maybe discarded it.

perhaps it is better here.

as I asked there: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1043237#post1043237

Hi CCP,

did you think about a way for "limited" aggression between two persons.

e.g. arranged 1v1 PvP in Highsec (so nobody "can" interfere) (something like todays canflipping)
or:
i want to web my frighter alt, which is not in my corp. (interference from outsiders who kill my webbingalt because of a global Flag dosnt sound promising...)

thx for feedback

Set mutual +10 standing. You can now share a can/container/wreck between each other. Did that with my assisting char and never had a problem in 2+ years.

Obviously this is a problem with various char<->corp standing setups, but that *can* be done now.

I am hoping to see the response from CCP on question given in the beginning of the last post regarding all this.
Thank you in advance, CCP.

There is actually more than one correct answer. It is correct to call the police. However, my state has castle doctrine, as well as other statutes, that make it legal to defend with deadly force. I am not limited to defending myself and my property, but may also defend others if I believe there to be a threat of great bodily harm or death. So if I see an Armed robber at my neighbors house, I am legally allowed to 'grab the ol' peacemaker'.
Whether a person phones the police or shoots to kill or wound is totally up to their conscience and abilities.

As far as Crimewatch goes...I like the ability for the thief to be seen by everyone. It makes it easier to get someone that is violating the 'law'. And I would think that someone that wants to take the risk (in stealing) should be taking a risk. It's not much of a risk in can flipping, for instance, because it's unlikely that a miner can switch ships before you're long gone.

To me it simply seems they are removing a grey area and re-leveling the playing field in this type of instance. (i.e. adding a bit of risk, which should be fun anyway)

disclaimer: Apologies if this is redundant or is based on incorrect assumptions, I only skimmed through the previous 30 pages. =P

The current aggression/CONCORD mechanics create a "victim mentality" in high-sec carebears, so I'm glad that the whole system is being overhauled. This "victim mentality" is really bad because it actively pushes carebears away from PvP instead of making them more comfortable with the idea of PvP. Generally speaking, CONCORD is a joke from the victim's point of view because it provides revenge instead of actual justice, gives the initiative to the ganker, "punishes" the attacker with a very temporary probation, and provides no restitution for the victim. High-sec carebears thus have to adopt a meek risk avoidance attitude instead of aggressively working to secure their homes.

As others have hinted at, there's a big difference between security and "law enforcement." CONCORD's (weak) security just encourages increased passivity in high-sec carebears whereas we should have "law enforcement" which relies on community action to enforce the law in high-sec. (Plus, community increases sub stickiness and community PvP makes the transition to a PvP mentality a bit easier.) In other words, the current security mechanics result in "Waaaaaah! CCP save us!" instead of "Call out the local watch and round up a posse, we gots us some vermin to hang!"

As others have pointed out, the greater the high-sec carebear mentality grows, the more economic reasons that CCP has to make high-sec a 100% PvE.

Timer Length
My initial criticism of the initial crimewatch system is how short the timers are. Realistically, if someone attacks someone in high-sec there should be serious repercussions, such as a month long "kill on sight" flag against the perp where the sentry guns, faction police and deputized "player police" can attack the perp whenever they trespass in the faction or corp space where the infraction(s) occurred. Short suspect/criminal timers favor the perps over the law abiding citizens and are insulting.

Now before people whine about how "unfair" that is, it should be possible for perps to avoid or kill the sentry guns and faction police in order to gank high-sec, however, it shouldn't be easy, especially if local citizens have paid to beef up security. And even then, the perps should have to deal with player based "police" units with badges (think deputized players) that allow them to kill perps on sight. The more "civilized" the system is, the more effort it will take to gank again in high-sec. Ideally, it should take a major raid by an organized group (*cough*Goons*cough*BurnJita*cough*) to effectively attack a system like Jita 4-4 and it should be easy for the citizens to join in the defense of "their" home.

More importantly, the local high-sec community members should be able to pay into their defenses to make their neighborhoods and trade routes safer, such as buying additional sentry guns, more faction police, having faction police patrol the mining belts, etc.. It wold be an isk sink and gives the non-combat oriented players a stronger voice in the security of their neighborhoods. They should also be able to vote on how and when the sentry guns and/or faction police attack someone. For example, the Jita 4-4 community could implement a "one strike and you're banned from the station grid" rule, or that anyone with a personal sec status of 2.5 or less on the station grid is kill on sight, and/or that perps have to provide X amount of restitution to the victim before being removed from the KoS list.

Regaining security status
Tags to regain security status? Stupid, stupid, stupid. How about paying restitution instead? If CCP is going to track the amount of isk lost in a war dec, then it should be easy to track the isk loss of a gank victim. The perp can get "forgiveness" by paying off the victim via restitution.


From the RP perspective, high-sec is supposed to be "civilized" space, providing a stable environment in which to perform trade, manufacturing, etc.. It doesn't have to be completely locked down, but even in the Wild West, towns didn't allow a policy of "you can mug whoever you want, just as long as the sheriff kills your horse." Instead, the citizenry got together, hunted you down, and if they caught you, built a gallows in the town square and hung you by the neck until dead.

Crimewatch, even with its improvements, could still learn a lot about community, justice, and law enforcement from the US Wild West period.