Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Loyalty points should only be available to Faction Warfare upon destruction of enemies, similar to the bounty system. It should be set up in such a way that it does not become productive to make an alt, have him join a rival faction, and destroy his ship so you can gain loyalty points. The Acquisition person can make the decision when to make a faction-only Blueprint from a newly released ship available on the loyalty market, and set the price. In this way, ships that are not widely released will be a rarity, and ships of a superior design that are not commonly released will be something to be feared.

Soldiers would be able to "moonlight" as privateers, but could not take missions against their faction, faction warfare, or allies, without being kicked out of the military... (more about allies later). They also could not use their faction gear to moonlight.

There should be 4-5 core world systems that are not conquerable (we can come up with a good enough reason at some point), but all other highsec worlds should be conquerable. This ensures that newbs always have a playground to get acquainted with game mechanics, and no one faction could ever be completely wiped out. There should be a mechanic such that a faction that has been beaten back will get the ability to fight back, ensuring that an organic boundary forms that can fluctuate but never be completely overrun.

To that end, we need to start sectionalizing highsec. Choosing to be a Gallente and wandering into Caldari space should be cause for concern. More than just factionalized warfare and gateguns if you have low standings. You should have something on-screen that indicates you are being eyed with distrust. Getting access to another faction's equipment should be difficult. People should go "what is that Condor doing in our space?"

Another idea I have toyed with is having bonuses that would encourage nullsec corporations to ally themselves with highsec factions. Either by having higher tax rates for those that are not allied, or being able to run embargoes forbidding trade in a station against certain corporations or players (imagine two ships meeting outside to swap containers and money because one of the traders has been banned from trading in an Amarr station, or the transaction would be taxed 30% due to the reputation of one of the participants.) This would change based on periods of peace and war between the factions, as well as the financial needs of the various factions...which leads me to my next idea:

Eve Politics. Let's think about what makes Eve different from another MMORPG that rhymes with Morld of Morcraft...If you joined, oh, let's say, "The Morde" and you are fighting with "The Shmalliance", and you dedicate yourself towards that end, are you EVER going to see The Morde triumph over The Shmalliance and take over territory? No.

In Nullsec, we have shown to wild success, what it looks like when you buck that trend: You can gain and lose territory, so people fight with vigor and tenacity.

So let's talk about highsec in that light.
Why are the factions static during gameplay?
Why are the Amarr not scheming to take back their former slaves?
Why are the Gallente not trying to figure out a way to force the Caldari under their benevolent Democracy?
Why are the factions all in a somewhat static cold war against each other?
The answer is there is no active politics.
Which begs the question: Why can't players be involved with that?

We already have three positions for each faction (quartermaster, logistics, and acquisitions).

There needs to be more people to negotiate treaties with both players and non-players, demand planets, and play politics such that the provocation to war is an option. Due to the nature of taxes and whatnot, there is an economic consideration as to whether to declare war, so it's not just "yay! war!"

So you have to be asking yourself, "how would we implement putting people in these positions?" The answer is surprisingly simple: You assume your players are going to try to game you, and you take advantage of that by organizing the rules to each faction to take advantage of it. These are just notional examples of how people might be appointed to the 2-3 political appointments that would represent player-run politics:

Amarr: Nepotism nepotism nepotism. People are appointed by the higher-ups, resulting in an extreme "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" system. Some of the more pious will attempt to expose corruption. If it reaches the ears of the GMs (who aren't identified as such), they role-play in such a way as to maintain order, cover asses, and keep the Amarr viable.

Caldari: GMs monitoring players. If nepotism is found out, it is immediately rooted out, and the player removed from politics. (This reflects Tibus Heth's inclusion of spies when he re-organized the Caldari civilization into a meritocracy).

Minmatar: Haven't figured out how to implement their system, but we could figure it out.

Gallente: Voting. It's a Democracy, so it has to do with popular vote. We might want to have GMs mimic a voting population.

Speaking of population, here is something else to think of:

In the face of an oncoming enemy, there should be a need to evacuate a population from planets. There should be bonuses for populated planets inside of a faction system (improved production? tax money?). This would mean that if an enemy was approaching, it would be a necessity to ensure a way of removing a given population. This came about from the story of the legendary sacrifice of Yakiya Tovil-Toba. I realized that in the current game mechanic, there would be no need for him to do what he did. They would just withdraw and shrug their shoulders, letting the invaders have the system.

Great ideas, but they need to be suggested in the forums of some other game.

I think you forgot to actually write your comeback...

Interesting. While I too think that the game would be more interesting if the empires actually did things, this would basically be another game unto itself. I gather from your proposal that you want capsuleers to be able to enter and leave the soldiering world, but someone who has been flying as Unit #47 and is the best stealth bomber pilot in that empire is still not going to do very well outside of the soldiering world. The hierarchical fleet structure you propose is just plain odd compared to how fleets actually work. You also seem to be discouraging cross-training, which will hinder anyone leaving soldiering for the rest of EVE.

Further, you want people to look askance at "oh what is this not-my-faction ship doing in our space"? This will just give you headaches. People who aren't involved in this soldiering business will fly whatever they feel like flying wherever they want to fly it. Nullsec and w-space dwellers won't care about empire politics. A fair amount of lowsec won't care, either.

The idea sounds grand on paper, but when you think about meshing it with the rest of EVE then it just sounds like an entirely separate game that everyone else has to fly through.

1) It would tempered by investing into it. You would have to participate in ops in a faction in order to gain the "trust points" necessary for the big "official" stuff. It should be a sufficient amount of time such that throwing it away would be meaningless, as you should be able to do it in non-highsec way much easier and faster.

If you sell or otherwise lose it, you would get immediately booted from the militia. There should be a mechanism for the SHIP being able to tagged as an open target (this would be like the cops flagging a cop car as being stolen). With the new bounty system, it shouldn't take long before some highsec corp kills it just to get on the killmail. (and from the people willing to suicide gank tengus, this shouldn't be a problem)

2) Right...think of this as an outlet for those that want to be part of a role-played progression of the game. Just like pirates are an outlet for griefers, this would be an outlet for people that like being part of in-game roleplaying stories.

As for the iron-handedness, if you read the books, you see that most of the factions are really terrible. It's like New Eden was settled by assholes. And the militias are not NPC...the current "Faction Warfare" are the militias. I'm talking about setting up Military Regulars as playable characters. But it is difficult to make people playing faceless hordes fun, this is a way I think would attract players, and would not unbalance the game.

3) The same kind of people that join serious nullsec corps then spend 30 days at a time camping gates or POS-bashing. At least with this, if the faction is active (which it can be with GM prompting), they can be scheming fights in highsec, the same as a nullsec corp. This isn't something for the casual player to be sure.

4) CONCORD rules still apply. nullsec corps can't get involved in highsec affairs.

5) Yep. Rather than now, where race is utterly meaningless. And it would be easy to do: Subtract 4 points from standings for rival factions. You would have to seriously prove to a rival faction that you were willing to fight for them to gain standings, at which point your standings with your "born" faction would drop. You in effect become a traitor.

6) You are right. That is why each faction has their defense contractors. Sukuuvestaa, Ishukone, Roden Shipyards, etc. sound familiar? And Caldari would not trade with Gallente, their sworn enemies, but they might work something out with the Amarr or Minmatar corporations. That is where the role of "Acquisition Officer" along with the player-run politics comes in. Just like in real life. The government says "you are cleared to sell F-16s to Taiwan". So Lockheed says, "ok" and sells to them.

7) I'm not saying we should do away with the sandbox at all. If anything, I'm saying there should be another consideration to the game to make it more rounded and realistic. The mythos of the game should be a player-run component as well. If you read the chronicles and books, the various factions have capsuleers as well. However, with Eve the game, the various factions are relatively static. It would be awesome to make it more dynamic, with the results of a Caldari vs. Gallente highsec war affecting nullsec markets and vice versa.