EVE General Discussion

The truth of the matter is that if mining begins to require more interaction, ore prices will go through the roof as the current miners leave the game or go do something else. In the meantime though, mining will begin attracting other kinds of players, perhaps missioners, who like interaction. Prices will then go down, but not to the point to where they were before, simply due to the fact you probably can't get as many players doing it as before, when it was an activity you could easily set and come back to some time later.

You can watch Netflix, use vent/team speak, troll the forums, and read stuff while doing almost ANY pve activity in eve.

Source: years of watching Netflix and trolling the forums while exploring in lowsec, wspace, and even while hunting for amarr in factional warfare.

it's not that miners will leave the game, it'll just make multiboxers get rid of a few accounts.

the reason people don't multibox more than a handful of accounts for combat is the diminishing returns of splitting bounties and having to pay so much attention. on the other hand mining can be scaled infinitely, to the point where people can and do have 10+ accounts. should mining be a more active activity then without flat out botting it will not be economical to run that many accounts.

hence, accounts will become inactive/unsubscribed. it won't cause players to quit, but it will lower the number of active accounts.
not to mention, for the same effort you can get more isk/hour ratting, doing missions, masturbating etc then people will do that instead leading to even lower supply and thus increasing ore prices.

**** that.

I think you may be swapping cause and effect here. People who mine do not want to interact with the game as little as possible so they can do something else, they want to do something else while getting something of use done in Eve. For example, ice mining lets me make a little ISK while paying the bills, catching up on reading, or watching the latest Dr Who. If not for the current ice mining mechanic I might as well log off while I pay the bills.

Current mining has a mechanic that lets a player be involved with the game at least peripherally while the player spend time doing something else. If mining took more effort players would not stop the other activity, they would log off.

Remember this is an MMO. The "O" stands for On-line. A change in game mechanics that encourages players to log off most likely is not a good one. The player would not see if a corp mate needed help, or a roam was going to start, and so on.

I remember a dev of an inde multi-player game saying that he would watch the lobby for his game. A player would log in, see no one else, and log out. A minute later someone else would do the same thing. No one hang around because there was nothing to do in the lobby. Well Eve has something to do: Mining.

As for the economy, there was a rumor that the speed of the miners were to be increased, so even with less mining the economy would be fine.
Edit: What I would like to see:
Basic "activate and wait" mining yields amount X.
Active mining can get up to 1.5X depending on how well you do it.
2 miners cooperating can get 1.7X each.
Adding more miners cooperating gets more yield, with diminishing returns.

I've got no problem with requiring miners to do something other than sit on an ever-widening arse and chat on EveVoice for hours on end. What I want to see is someone actually leak something credible from what the CSM was allegedly shown, but NOOOOOO--- they're afraid of the almighty NDA.

*bah*

Edit: oh, and more frequent occurrence of bigger and meaner rats in belts. No more puny frigates that are inconsequential outside a noob ship. Frigates in 1.0, dessies in .9, cruisers in .8, and BC and BS in .7 - .5. Ships are tougher, the rats should be, too. Earn your supper, b!tches!!

I assume you mean "interacting with other players while mining is nothing but detrimental". Mostly true. Very very occasionally you see "x up for free orca boosts". But paranoia limits even this level of interaction. And if you were to make the offer it does help others strip the system of ore that could otherwise be yours.

AFK ice mining is really no different from botting

That is not entirely true.

Botting will get you banned.

AFK ice mining will just make you look bad.

Right now I am sipping on a red cabernet sauvignon listening to Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3 e-flat major and ice mining.

Sadly, it's not.

I've had the dubious pleasure of interacting with someone who loves mining, identifies himself as a miner, and couldn't be bothered to do a damn thing in the game beyond that. It really blows my mind.

Knowing that also somehow made it more fun, when he managed to royally **** me off and I opened fire on his Exhumer.