EVE General Discussion

A game that elicits the kind of physical reaction that I have felt in Eve is a very rare thing. It is perhaps CCP's greatest achievement, and perhaps one of the most important dynamics ever developed re computer simulations.

This feeling must be respected and encouraged and fostered by the player base.

Perhaps I'm wrong about bears and their frozen fingers locked around the keyboard, good.

What is obvious is that some people don't like it, even if they do like combat missions. Is there some mechanic that would be fun for those players that would allow them to engage in ship PvP?
They like building things and planning skill tree's and ? How could those activities be applied to PvP?

How can we make you like mining?

People just like different things. A lot of people, like myself, are here simply because they like cruising around in space, and attacking other players isn't very appealing to us. I'm somewhat different than your average 'carebear' because i don't shy away from risk, but i'm starting to think i've given enough killmails to the PvP community.

I think you're being the hugest carebear ever. not my chair, not my problem. that's what I say.

related: myotonic goats

Too many people equate insta-gib with PvP.

Not all PvP is good PvP. Or even PvP for that matter.

Well, there's a TON of valid reasons why people don't PvP.

Like you said, some just "freeze up" due to the sheer novelty of it. Which is fine, and can be easily fixed by a "holodec" dueling system. This is something I saw done in Pirates of the Burning Sea (2008 MMO), and it worked beautifully. Basically you take your ship and everything you normally would have. And you set up a fight with one or more people. Then you duke it out. But in the end, nothing is lost (or gained), it is considered a practice match. I believe there was "this is a dream" explanation for it? In EVE, it could be a "holographic training simulation". A few days/weeks of that, and you'd have competent pilots who don't freeze up any more, without hassle of re-shipping or third party interference while doing so.

Some people just CAN'T PvP physically. Their reaction to stress, even mild stress, is just too severe. Hands shaking badly, tunnel vision, inability to think, etc. Really no amount of training will help, it's just a severe physiological reaction. Which is why I get mad when people sneer at carebears. Just like some get seasick or are afraid of heights or have vertigo, some people just can't PvP and making fun of them is just rude.

And of course some simply choose not to. Call it pacifism or whatever. I myself spent a goodly amount of time carebearing it up in high-sec. Just spend a quiet evening semi-comatose, running L4s and chatting with folks in the Missions channel. It was simple, calm, relaxing and yet profitable enough to keep me plexed without taxing me physically or emotionally. At the time, my real life was MORE than stressful enough for me to add to it in my "entertainment" time.

Further, I would go as far as to say that general unwillingness to PvP in a videogame is actually more common than PvP-bloodlust. Perhaps even prevalent enough to be called "the norm". Do you know what the best-selling PC game of all time is? The Sims 2! A game that has no PvP in any way, shape or form, and very little stress. Think about that for a second. WoW had 13 million subs in its heyday, and that game had PvE servers where PvP did not exist unless you purposely flagged yourself. Meanwhile, games with non-consensual PvP like EVE, Ultima Online, Mortal Online, Darkfall, etc., at some point struggled to break 250k subs. If PvP is so good, why are games that are PvP-centric doing so poorly?

There are solutions to some of these. And some of these are not even problems. If someone is careabering it up in high sec, that's their choice, and the game IS supposedly a sandbox and their choice is as valid as anyone else's.

Great post, good ideas, TY for taking the time to do so. I had begun to loose hope. I edited down your post a bit for space, its all good though.

Re Carebearing being OK; I'm with you there to, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just seems like there's a lot of pent up energy in highsec, it would be interesting to see what would happen if that energy had a destructive outlet other than RT simulation combat that many people do not like.

I couldn't even describe to you my first PVP experience, my adrenaline was rushing and it was over so fast.
One minute jumping through a gate, next the alarms are screaming, shields, armour , hull bars disappearing ...pod in space...now its the station..what the hell...was that PVP, what happened????!!!!
But it gets better as you get used to it. Its still exciting though, but now I have a better grasp of what is happening around me at least.

I'm not totally adverse to PvP I just find that it is counter productive to my main goal in eve which is to get as rich as possible .

LOL. Got anymore ideas? They already do this and it still doesn't work.

I don't rly understand why people kill other people in the first place :(((( why fight when you can hug \o/ <3 <3