Live Events Discussion

Good evening,

I've been doing some reading on the live events that have been performed in the past and they all seem to suffer from both a lack of dynamism and lack of manpower available on CCPs side.

I feel both can be solved by allowing CCP to hire player corporations as mercenaries in these live events. Why? Well apart from the obvious increase in ship availability it would allow the event to be dictated primarily by a fleet fight between two player coalitions which would yield the dynamic nature we so desire as well as having the battle be a lot less stagnant.

A more subtle bonus to this is each event would need many less CCP actors, allowing for a greater quantity of live events to be held with a lot less effort on CCPs part.

I feel this could be relatively easily accomplished simply by offering a corporation or alliance a paycheque and whether or not they accept is up to the corporation. Alternative reward schemes like loyalty points could also be set up, and it would essentially function as a corporation wide mission.

How the Caldari prime event would work in my minds eye under such a scheme:

A few weeks prior to the event, corporations 'aligned' to the Caldari or Gallente state are contacted (could be dictated by standing) and a mercenary deal is negotiated between each.

The event begins to proceed as normal, the primary difference being that now the Caldari fleet is escorted by a preliminary fleet of players. ( roleplay corps would fit fantastically for this kind of thing)

As the event unfolds and combat begins, both sides light cynosural fields and call in the remainder of the player reinforcements. Each corp would control themselves unless they orchestrate some kind of greater communication scheme, and devs and players alike could use their fleets to full effect (such as firing doomsdays). I would recommend having a Gallente titan as well and titan-crashing effects for all three possible titan death possibilities for an event of this scale. (both titans crashing would be beautifully pyrrhic).


Fleet compositions could be decided ahead of time, such as enforcing an all-caldari ship policy to help the Caldari NPC fleet.

Eve has an amazing playerbase dedicating a lot of time, not exploiting this fact is an absurd notion.

Not really

The players contracted into assisting CCP would essentially replace the majority of an NPC fleet, or assist what NPC fleet exists, any third parties attending the event would remain free to do as they please; if they desire to assault both fleets then so be it.

If no third party attendees get involved, then a live event of the sort that would include a capsuleer fleet would end up as a team vs team brawl regardless.

In regards to the standings idea, the system doesn't have to work like that, just I was thinking in terms of the Caldari prime event as an example, a nation would not recruit pirates to escort its flagship. However, I suppose its possible that an NPC corporation may turn to the lawless if other options are exhausted.

Isn't this what CCP is currently doing with the declare yourself thread?

People who posted there were contacted in advance of a live event and given information about what was coming up.

How would this be any different?

I don't follow since the result is the same.

People who declared themselves got contacted in game.

What the Krict is proposing would have corporations who make the list be contacted in game or am I missing something?

Problem I see with this idea is that it opens doors that already went bad with Aurora. Not saying corp payment is the same as giving t2 blueprints, but it opens a complex door: which corps get contracted and get paid for the event? Why others present aren't paid? How much are they paid? Etc.

I don't see why it would be needed at al.

At lumunaire TiDi had to be activated because there were thousands of players there, and thousands waiting outside ready to jump in. That's also half the point of live events is for the players to be doing everything.

It would have been nice if the outcome hadn't been predetermined, but that's another matter entirely.

Actually, despite the clear problems with CCP 'paying' players to be in their live events, the basic jist of this idea is actually pretty good. Obviously many players feel a certain 'loyalty' towards a certain faction, not even counting the fairly sizable RP community in EVE. If a group of players demonstrate themselves to be consistently loyal to a faction, they should be allowed a greater amount of credence and cooperation with factional actors. ISK or other rewards isn't needed here; the fact that they are recognized should be enough since they are doing it purely for enjoyment. This would encourage 'meaningful' participation in a live event and mildly discourage random pew pew for the killmails, which tends to suck all of the fun parts out of live events. (blobbing, meaningless killing for the luls, more devoted players being drowned out by more numerous trolls, ect.)

If loyal players are allowed some advantages, (like being allowed to organize prior to an event so they are equally as prepared as a huge nullsec entity that just heard something was going down an hour ago) I think live events would become much more intense. Again, no rewards are needed, just word of mouth and fun, meaningful fighting.

Have a bidding system: best bid wins. That solves the "not knowing" problem, since everyone who was interested had a chance to bid.

As for the "being shut out" problem, just because you didn't get the "faction navy contract" doesn't mean you can't still show up... and, perhaps, even "display your dissatisfaction" with losing the contract.


Paradigm shift: you're not "staffing" the event with contractors, you're "providing players with an (semi-official) role in the story." If they want to "break contract" and do something else, they can (and should be expected to), but with "consequences" (muhuwahahahah).


Turn this idea on its head. Instead of CCP paying random corporations with fat wallets full of ISK, have interested corporations front collateral (perhaps based on corp/alliance size, like war-decs). Corporations who are able to (and invested enough to) pay the collateral and who then also fulfill the terms of their contract for the event are then refunded their collateral and rewarded appropriately (could be with LP, ISK, Modules, Ships, Faction, or specified in contract, you name it). If you, as storyteller, really want them to do their job, just make the collateral really high or restrict the contract to "trusted" (i.e. RP) organizations, who have shown a history of reliability.

*edit: Furthermore, If there are two contractors with competing goals, collateralizing also solves the "ISK Faucet" problem, since someone will be losing their collateral, essentially paying for the victor's prize (depending on how the contracts are specified).