EVE General Discussion

I wil make this real simple.

High-sec is for casual game play.
0.0 is NOT casual game play.

One thing I'm thinking about, but not entirely sure about is this: Putting bounties on drones instead of minerals. Mining used to be a viable way of making money in nullsec, but the increase in available minerals has driven the price down. I'm wondering if putting bounties on drones won't give mining a bit of a revival and put some life back in 0.0.

This may sound strange coming from a highsec player but since you asked, I will tell the truth----and the truth shall make you mad: dedicated highsec players will not feel the need to carve out chunks of low/0.0/WH space for themselves or even go there until there's something they want that they cannot get in empire.

And since everything can be bought from someone if you have enough isk---basically if you spend enough time farming or buy PLEX---creating this want is only possible by nerfing PvE in highsec into the ground. You know those pesky belt rats you have to kill every twenty minutes or so when you mine in your hulk? And how the measly 200K, assuming it's a 0.5 belt, you bring in after an hour in the belt is barely noticeably next to the massive ore haul?

That measly 200K per hour would have to be the average income of a highsec player to sufficiently motivate them out of highsec.

A handful of asteroids depleting in a single cycle per belt, lukewarm incursions that can be done with a bunch of frigates, PI only capable of spitting up the cheapest resources at the slowest rate, and missions only going up to level 2 (please withhold your raging till the end of the post, thank you). Farming highsec belts in a hulk would have to be as pointless as ratting there in a T3 cruiser.

But the problem is, it's too late to do that. People are comfortable where they're at and they've had it that way for years. If CCP did just come out and say, "yeah you can solo in highsec, but you're going to be dirt poor, and we mean so poor that even a cruiser will be like a ferrari to you" they'd lose more subs than they did with Monoclegate because they would tearing down an entire way of life. We're well past the "reward vs. risk" incentive and there's no going back.

Move ice to null? Please, my two hulk alts mine veldspar all day and I don't own a POS so why should I care?

Reduce the loot/salvage of mission rats? I don't bother with the wrecks unless I see a ninja, then I shoot them with my marauder.

Better rewards in low/NPC null? Uh, I don't want to get ganked unless I'm at Jita. And besides, I have everything I need in highsec. Look at my shiny faction BS.

CCP, in their benevolent attempts to promote player interaction and cooperation inadvertantly added more ISK-printing options like lvl 4s and Incursions and because they're worried about losing lots of subs (which they should be) have nerfed the ISK-printing machine too slowly and not enough to really make a difference. As a result, empire and nullsec have grown further and further apart with each passing year and each expansion because they're essentially two separate games that cross each other's paths once in a while.

Highsec is essentially independent of nullsec which, in turn has become dependent on the goods flowing in from highsec when it should be the other way around. Nullsec players can't do squat to change highsec, and CCP won't risk losing the subs of their largest playerbase. Highsec controls both of them.

Case in point: whenever the goons declare war on miners, everyone yaps and cries that they're going to kill EVE as if such a thing were possible. They rampage around, pop some exhumers, cause a little mayhem, but when they finally have shot their load and call it a jihad, the highsec farmers go right back to what they were doing and a week later it doesn't seem like anything's changed at all except maybe a few hundred players have learned not to ignore rookie ships idling next to them.

Why is this? Because they're already wealthy enough to replace their losses from highsec PvE, and if not, they soon will be. Events like Hulkageddon and the Ice Embargo are like throwing rocks into a lake. You disturb the water and make some ripples, but come back an hour later and it's the same lake as before. Throwing in more rocks will not change the lake, you have to build a dam or drain it.

You may now rage.

Yes please, but not only in nullsec of course.