EVE General Discussion

There's nothing little about you...

That is true, as long as all areas of the game are open to conflict. There seems to be a movement in CCP to reduce the level of conflict in highsec to near zero.

Do you have any other actual proof of that, besides that one change regarding wardecs?

ohgod...you just opened pandoras box

Your basing your whole conspiracy theory on the fact that EVE is bleeding subscriptions, but there is no truth to that. It has grown year to year with all time high in 2011. And yes there are variations over time (winter is prime time) and yes EVE lost some this summer because they ****** up. But EVE is not bleeding. CCP was in financial problems because they tried to develop three games at once. They seem to have corrected that now.

Tinfoil hat on and more drama is sure to come.

The Executor of BoB didn't have the - er-hem - political strings that Mittens has. Remember, Goonswarm's main goal is to ruin any game they play. The fact that they fell in love with this game when they started playing it shows the danger of what can happen when one becomes enamored with the target.

Second, remember Monoclegate. Hilmar didn't pop up once during the entire fiasco. He only "did right" by the players after he called our bluff, and the players replied: Challenge accepted. It wasn't a challenge that should have been made lightly, but at the same time I don't think the response during the entire ordeal would have been as massive as it was had the mail not been leaked.

I do agree, however, that this is a test of wills. Mittens - and I give him credit for this - has always advocated that the Sandbox not be messed with. This game is all about that much. That whole "Butterfly Effect" video has been a very good way of explaining what can happen in this game. One person can have a massive impact on the gaming world, and that is what Mittens is trying to show.

At the same time, the Sandbox according to Mittens and the majority of the CSM should be found only in null-sec space, where you can PvE to your heart's content and when things go wrong, deploy the supercaps! As much as people have said high sec is for carebears, there are many credible arguments (dismissed out-of-hand as "ludicrous" by many null-sec denizens) that you find far more carebears in null sec. Tell me, where are the majority of botters? In null sec, because the risk vs. reward there has been rather acceptable for them.

On top of that, Mittens is now looking at a possible shake-up come next CSM. We are either going to see the CSM completely changed with a "cap" on the power blocs (maybe a 3-person per "area" CSM), or we're going to see a lot of nothing. I say this, because if Trebor is to be believed (and I admit I see where he is coming from), after this CSM in particular he [Hilmar] is tired of having to explain himself to the players.

Hilmar has made it clear he is upset with us. He is upset with the people who have sided with the players since before Monoclegate. He sees us as "cutting in" to his profits. In truth, walking-in-stations is delayed because of us, the players, and World of Darkness is most certainly on the back burner.

This expansion, in my honest opinion, will make or break EVE. The players are annoyed with having to deal with the greed of Hilmar, but at the same time they're tired of having things ruined for the sake of a small portion of the players. Every form of easy ISK making is going to be moved out of high sec, to either low sec or null. The pirates want it moved to low sec, but if history has taught us anything, people flock to null sec rather than low in cases like this.

There needs to be a major change, not only in the way the CSM is done, but in the way this game is looked at. I agree that in many instances, there is little risk in high sec. Maybe missions should be looked at, as should mining. But the Incursions are not something one can simply say, "Change the payout so high sec is pointless." Incursions are not missions. You can not fit up an AFK Dominix/Rattlesnake and do your usual routine. You have to be at the computer. You have to wait for the areas to open, and in many instances you have to fight other people to claim the rewards.

I'm getting off-track, though.

In closing, I have seriously considered running for CSM this time on the "high sec" platform, with some faction warfare tossed in. Having played in three of the militias, I have seen some of the problems plaguing it, and I don't think this expansion will fix them. I do think I have some good things to bring to the table with regards to this, and at the same time I have been quite the vocal critic of "pay attention to the players" since Day 1 of Monoclegate. Time will tell, and this CSM meeting will definitely be what decides for me.

Ah, I see what it is now, you're new here. It has been public knowledge for a while now, much longer than The Mittani has been a CSM rep, that CCP has been unhappy with the wardec mechanics, and that it was basically just a grief for pay system. I would say then that their new policy on wardecs fall into that context more readily than the one you have provided.

As to the tweets, really? Your founding a grandiose conspiracy on tweets? /facepalm

A CEO communicating with his Senior Producer. That it was on Twitter invalidates the conversation?

That conversation might have amounted to nothing. It might have amounted to a meeting the next day, and then a directive to change CONCORD. We don't know. Should we wait until it is too late? Both of them obviously think its a good idea (or they did at the time.)

Why wait until we have tonnes of hindsight, when right now he was a little foresight?

??