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Please push for eve gate kill boards and war reports asap! : D

Looks like a good system, but seems rather inflexible, and doesn't really give the participants many options, si it really feels more like a feature than a tool.

Two things might make this system better:

(1) Allow for variable-length alliance contracts. There should be an option to set whether the alliance will last one week, several weeks, or until the end of the war. That will give both sides more bargaining power. Mercenaries won't have to worry about being tied up a war they no longer want, and defenders won't have to worry about paying a huge sum up-front for services that may never be rendered.

(2) Allow for recurring weekly payments to complement the above system.

Griefer tears are best tears?

But in a slightly less troll-y vein, the war system has flaws in both sides of the equation, I agree. It is, however, definitely more critical to fix the problems with the defender's side first. Until it is possible for a defender to win a war, wars will never be meaningful.

Atm, the one thing they are adding that will help this, is the mutual-lock on the attacker. If the defender is willing and able to do this, it might actually ruin the attacker's day. If the attacker is not just alts, or just as willing to corp hop as the defender when a proper fight is given.

Personally, I'd be in favour of preventing the attackers from corp dropping unless they disband - and the defender gets to keep the attacker's corp/alliance name if they do. I'd just love the competent defender corps to have a pile of vanquished foes (Corp names) to show off.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did the blog not say that by declaring the war neutral, all merc corps are kicked from the war?

I think you are looking at this incorrectly. Dont think of it as a game where they try to promote Wars, instead think of it as if it were real life. The goal is to stop corps from war declaring for the hell of it. Highsec wars will be more in line with nullsec in the sense that you cant just carelessly attack anyone without any risk of losing. If a nullsec alliance invades another groups space, the defending nullsec group will rally up all the help it can get! Why should highsec be any different?

So in the past where one corp would war dec 10 industrial corps for easy kills, in Inferno they will actually have to fight for those kills. Granted wars will become more rare as they are more risky, but I doubt wars will become a thing of the past. Corps will start wars because they might gain something of value (that is worth the risk), and not just for senseless fun.

If anything, CCP have made wars more realistic and in tune with human nature.

Honestly, I don't really see this as being that good or helpful until pretty much all the things you listed under "Future is Not a Dirty Word" get implemented.

For people to effectively be Mercs there contracts need to be finite with conclusive goals/conditions. Setting time limits for the duration of the contract is one, but another is conditions for payment. Right now the only condition is loosely that the war end. But there is nothing that enforces that. There is nothing to stop an "ally" from agreeing to help, taking the cash, and doing nothing. While I can acknowledge that it might not be EVE without the ability for this type of abuse, since there isn't really an official way to rate a corp/alliance or look up their combat history, the defender has no recourse. If they were looking for help with a defensive war in the first place, chances are they probably don't have the resources to hunt down someone who griefs them via this "help" system.

Also, why not have contracts that don't get paid to the incoming ally until they are completed. For example "get aggressor to retract war" or "cause x amout of ISK damage to agressor" or "destroy x number of ships". Even more sexy would be a renewable contract that basically allows the ally to get paid for every week that they fulfill the specified goal. Maybe something other than ISK could be offered as rewards, or bonus rewards, tiers of payments. There is still a possibility for 2 corps to collude on this but if the person setting the contract prices it right, it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

That's a cute idea.

Preventing people from dropping corp though forgets that people are individuals (well except for the alts) and may not want to hang with the CEO. Trapping people in corps will have lots of nasty unintended consequences.

That said, corp names and tickers as trophies is an interesting idea.

I think I agree with the idea that the "holes" are just ways for corps to try and scam each other, and are part of the game. After all, if you find yourself in a war that you just want no part of, you can drop to an NPC corp. But if it just becomes a big mess, without us players learning how to sort it out I see two additions that would help:

Defenders can fire a useless ally. But any payment is still gone.

Allies can return payment and drop out. (After all they can drop out WITHOUT returning the payment by dis-banding).

The other thing that helps is to insure the war record is clear, concise, and provides the information needed to allow for a defender to make an informed decision on hiring any given ally.

Also, I foresee the biggest use of this system is to hire as allies members of your coalition, that is people you know and are friends with. For example, someone in your coalition makes the 1 pilot corp for setting up a POS. It gets decced. The one pilot corp brings in the PvP elements of the coalition as allies.

The not being able to drop corp has been used as for griefing in the past:

Corp recruits new players.
CEO gives them roles.
CEO uses them for target practice.
Members drop roles to quit corp.
CEO assigns them new roles before the 24 hours is up, trapping them in corp.

CCP fix: once you drop roles, new ones cannot be assigned to you.

If a war dec in any way trapped players in a corp, similar actions would be possible.

AFAIK this is one of the few things classified as "griefing" that is not allowed. My understanding has been that if you petition something like this, the GMs will take action.

That being said, not being allowed to drop corp is a bad idea. Just make the war follow corp droppers and/or give them the blemish discussed at fanfest. The currently proposed idea of not letting them rejoin for a set period of time is laughable.