EVE General Discussion

The answer to this question is pretty obvious.

3) The big: ‘Why?’ – I think one of the most important questions being asked right now by a player who is both knowledgeable about 0.0 and considering a move out there is “why should I?” At the moment, if you are earning 1B+ ISK in high-sec per month, have the option of PVP roaming (I’ve noticed the massive rise of “Kil2 style PVP”, solo pvpers in cheap-ish ships starting in Jita and going roaming in null/low sec) when you feel like it, the ability to conduct industrial activities safely, etc. Why would you ever move to null?

Well, there’s the massive fights that most EVE players love (even if only to read about), there’s moon mining, and there is ratting/WHs/exploration (PVE). So let me take a moment to examine each of these points:

a. Alliance scale warfare – there is one thing that virtually every EVE player agrees on; the current sov grind sucks. Slowly grinding structures and waiting on timers isn’t the most fun or immersive way to fight with internet spaceships and while the old POS based version of sov wasn’t much better (anyone remember the battle for FAT-6P way back during the first part of the great war? POS spamming and remote doomsdays FTW! T_T ) The one point of disagreement is whether grinding structures is worth it to potentially bring about a meaningful fight. Obviously this debate has played out in public recently but it’s hardly surprising. While I agree with people like Shadoo that grinding sov sucks, I don’t know that a Thunderdome with a few tech moons or whatever as a side bet is going to be a whole lot better (the current plan at least as publicly reported). I obviously can’t speak for their pilots but I, for one, am not exactly salivating to join up with one of the participating parties to get in on some “gudfights”.

On top of all of this, the interesting and unintended consequence of TiDi has been that when a big fight happens somewhere, all of the null ends of having a chance to join in which obviously makes things very unpredictable. I can only imagine this will be worse when a massive battle is planned for a system or region and this information is available in advance. Big fights are good but TiDi to the point where it crushes your soul isn’t much better than the old lag filled mid-sized fights (but is definitely better than the old strobe-light giant battles).

b. Moon Goo – The holy grail of industry, as any major manufacturer that’s been involved in the Tech2 production cycle knows; Moon goo is one of the main driving forces of the EVE economy. Unfortunately the static nature of the moon mining system, the issues with the current sov system and the null-sec geopolitical situation have basically made it so that profits from moon mining are really only seen at the alliance level. Different alliances do different things with this income (whether financing cap fleets or paying their FC’s mortgage) but at the end of the day it does nothing to create opportunity for the individual industrialist, in most alliances I find it’s easier to just buy goo from Jita rather than try and get the Alliance to provide it for production purposes (often even if that production is intended to benefit the alliance!). In other words, it does nothing to increase the attractiveness of 0.0 to the average player.

c. PVE in 0.0 can be very profitable, even back in the old days of running 10/10 complexes it has always been profitable, that said, there is a major disparity between PVE income and industry income for two reasons; first, there is PVP risk involved in PVE activities which makes it possible to lose more than you earn (a scary thought for many industrialist types), second, it’s not an extensible activity that can have its profitability multiplied by plexing alts. The ability to add an alt, pay for its plex, and still make a profit by expanding your current operation is one of the major reasons why industry is so popular. Especially given the semi-passive nature of the income, it’s obviously considerably harder to apply the same approach to PVE since I doubt most players could effectively run 5+ characters in PVE and I think the point of this argument is self-evident. The one additionally relevant point is a player can move a character to 0.0 participate in PVP and PVE yet have high-sec industry going at the same time via alts. The question then becomes is that fair or excessive that the player in question is allowed to do both? Since I don’t see a for-profit company (CCP) deciding that their customers may only buy one of their product as opposed to many, I doubt the policies regarding the fundamental principle of multi-accounts will ever be changed for that reason.

In a perfect world I’d love to be able to agree with people like James 315 and find a way to get everyone out of high-sec but it’s hard to take a pacifier from a baby that’s already had one and to continue the analogy you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. High-sec industry is fun, why not make low and null sec industry more fun as a way to bring people out instead of simply making high-sec not fun. At the end of the day I think changing the Sov and POS systems to make null more fun for everyone would do more to bring people out then a major change to high-sec industry and regardless I think it makes sense to try that first.

TL;DR High sec is fun, so is Null but it’s hard to get established. Making Sov fun, lowering the barrier to entry for Null and creating industrial incentives would be far preferable to nerfing high-sec industry.

From what I've read, this has been a problem for quite some time, most likely predating the "blue everything" (quoted for obvious reasons) yet this issue has been known before all the sov was taken right? Before dronelands got changed, and before tech and moongoo were what they are now.

Yet still null was taken. And NIP/NAP and coalitions were still formed, knowing industry in null sucked.

People still used highsec alts. People still flew down to harass and terrorize highseccers.

People still made alts to awox and gank and wreak havoc.

Jita was still scheduled to burn.

I'm starting to see the trend that industry is now the new "target" and not really being a priority to "fix".

I don't see where this change to null industry happened only AFTER you decided to take and live and try to make sov null flourish as you think it does.

Highsec should not be in that calculation.

But you COULD gauge out your eye on POS costs, therefore the easy and nearly-free slots in highsec are A-OK.

Checkmate, null zealot.

Who says they aren't?

The game mechanics?

What if they removed the free station slots and you had to use high-sec pos slots? Would that change your opinion? I know a lot of people that do most of their manufacturing in PoSes for a number of reasons (proximity to trade hubs, etc). Again this would create an issue for new players looking to learn manufacturing.

Which game mechanic? The tax? or the seed costs?

A higher risk should always give a higher reward.

So you're saying that highsec is the pillow you bit all night in your frustration? I don't understand what you're trying to mock. You clearly made decisions knowing the cost and the risks and I'm only seeing poeple cry about them and look to blame others for it.

Sounds like you and yours have some serious issues with frustration. I mean, we can only read what YOU post right? Not MY fault if your information giving skills suck ass.

And I do live in nullsec. We in fact recently moved systems in the same region. Perhaps you should do some research as well. You know, to stay informed.