Assembly Hall

Hi All!

Though this is not a concrete proposal I believe this forum is the right place for this thread as I do want to propose something.
I want to propose that the CSM and CCP think about the following philosophical thoughts for a minute or two whenever they judge future proposals or changes to eve.

I am a rather new player (about 18 Months active playing now) but I have already seen a lot of eve.
My main is living in 0-Space having a lot of fun PvP fighting for CFC but I also enjoy cearbearing in high sec with my alts at times.

Recently I have been reading in this forums a lot and I got the strong impression that there is a never ending tug of war going on between cearbears and pvpers.
As I am a bit of both I can understand both sides arguments.
However there is one thing I could not disagree more about in the argumentation of many pvpers.

To give at least some concrete example I will stick to the discussion on the local chat in eve but please remember that this is not meant to be a discussion on this topic but more a general philosophical discussion on "where do you go, eve?".

In that mentioned and over and over recurring discussion here in the forums the "remove local chat" faction constantly argues:
- it cuts my freedom to hunt down caerbaers whenever and wherever I whant
- it is unrealistic
- it violates the sandbox nature of eve

All of you agreeing with these statements I would like to invite to think about the following quote by the Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau:



So to transfer that to the example lets assume the local chat is being removed without substitution.
That would leave the caerbaers with no chance to effectively avoid PvP and force them to do what is against their will thereby confining their personal freedom.
That is in my opinion how we should think about freedom and not the other way that simply means anarchy.

Speaking of realism many people do argue that if eve where real the universe would be harsh and full of pirates and there would be no such thing as a local channel.
Is that really true?

Of course there would be no such thing as a local channel but in reality the caerbaers are the vast majority in all societies and they would find other ways to protect them efficiently from pirates.
Maybe a mobile sensor array that constantly scans the system querying transmitter codes from all ships and warning the owner if some ship does not send a code or sends a hostile code and even monitoring gravity to tell if there are cloaked ships present somewhere in the system.

In a real new eden there surely would be lawless outer space regions (as we have it with 0 and low) but in the more civilized regions (high) the billions of caerbaer dads would definitely find a way to prevent pirates effectively from killing their kids on their way to shool. There would be some Super-CONCORDE not only finishing off a criminal immediately after he committed a murder but also imprisoning him and taking away all his belongings (they can get hold on) whenever he enters their territory thereafter in a new clone.

Almost as unrealistic are the consequences of the wardec system.
No civilized region in space would tolerate corps or alliances at war shooting at each other all over the place.
Too much risk of collateral damage ...
Civilized regions would realistically be regions where most of the time it is highly unlikely (though of course not impossible) to be shot at.
Corps residing in civilized regions would use espionage, economy and jurisdiction to fight each other and alliances at war in outer space would block each others logistics at the borders of lawless regions but they would not be allowed to fire at each other in civilized space without any consequences by the local authorities.

So arguing pro-anarchy with the realism argument is a farce in my opinion.

EVE is a great game and not least because it is a sandbox.
And after all I know sandbox stands for whatever CCP wants it to stand for but my believe is that sandbox is not equatable with anarchy but with freedom and maybe one should think twice about what type of freedom we are talking here.

There will always be plenty of opportunities for us pvpers to do what we love as there are plenty of other pvpers in the universe.
And after all to me it is the real fun to compete with someone who is a worthy opponent and not shooting at almost defenseless miners or ratters. I love my freedom to pvp whenever I want but I also concede to everybody who does not want to pvp the freedom not to do so.

The majority that think local should go, don't advocate a simple removal. They know and understand that this change, should come as part of a package of changes.

This will mean you will have to work a little harder to gain your intel, rather than simply seeing that hostile.

Also the removal of local works both ways. An enemy jumping into a system will have little or no information on what awaits him and the home field advantage may in fact increase. But then that would require people to actually do something to protect themselves. Not unlike the current situation, which is rather funny as quite frankly self help and protection seems alien to many.

CCP have wanted to change local for years. But as and until they find a route through this particular maze, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Anyone can do whatever they wish, but this will mean that everyone else can try to interfere with their attempt. Welcome to the sandbox.

Also I'd like to point out that PvP includes, but is not limited to ship combat. Almost every aspect of Eve is PvP. So much so, one could argue ship spinning is included. Although it's been some time, since I've seen a high score thread on these forums.

@Mag's:

I am absolutely with you.
Do not misunderstand me I am pro local removal - if it comes with an adequate replacement that does not involve hitting the dscan button every few seconds distracting me from focusing on the rats in an anomaly making ratting less efficient ... in the end its all about efficiency.

But as I wrote in my first post this is not meant to be a discussion on the local chat.

More a campaign for more tolerance to other playstyles than ones own.

As in the quote:
Freedom is not to be understood as being able to do whatever I want.
Freedom is not being forced to do what I do not want to do.
The EVE sandbox should give everybody every freedom - as in the second definition and not the first.

That is part of my concern ...
There are PvPers and PvPers.
There are those who fight in PvP battles against each other for money, for territory or just for fun.
I count myself to these.

And then there are those who shoot sitting ducks "just because".
What if they have driven away all the ducks one day and there is no one left to fuel the alliance wars ?

Protection for the ducks ! :)

That is where I disagree.

I believe that we can have both:
- The ganker of course should have the freedom to attack the carebear any time and anywhere
- But the carebear should also have the freedom to escape and avoid battle

Many people argue it is against the sandbox to admit that freedom to the carebear.
That argumentation in my opinion is ridiculous.

Rather opposite it is against the sandbox not to give that choice to the carebear and it is forcing him doing things and it does confine his freedom.

We may of course talk about their chances to achieve their conflicting goals.
They should be at least 50/50 if we want to keep the sandbox really neutral.

But my personal feeling is chances should be rather 70/30 in favor of the carebear.
Why? Because the ganker is the aggressor and being the aggressor should always have a price.
And after all it increases the thrill of the hunt for the ganker.

That is exactly the point :)
The game should not be rigged in anyone's favor if it wants to be a real sandbox.
But in fact it IS currently rigged in favor of one playstyle over others.



What is currently happening in High Sec with all those broadband-never-ending wardeccs ?
I do call that anarchy and almost unplayable.



A neutral sandbox that is not rigged in anyone's favor.
With as little rules as possible but enough rules to prevent anarchy.
And ... rules is even the wrong word here as I am talking about giving the players choices.

Maby a concrete proposal will demonstrate my intentions better:
Introduce a complete new type of slot on all ships called ACM-Slots (Aggression Counter Measure).
These slots should be reserved exclusively for defensive pvp modules like warp core stabilizers, target breakers etc.
So a miner would be able to harden his ship against pvp attacks without weakening its mining capabilities or a ratter would be able to do the same with his pve-fitted battleship again without weakening the ships efficiency in shooting rats.

This of course is just a very ill-conceived idea I had while writing this post so there will be plenty of space for criticism.
The main goal of the idea is to illustrate what I actually would like to say.

Right now we have the situation that the moment I am pointed and webbed and I am sitting in the wrong ship (or wrong fitted - not meaning bad but for another purpose than pvp) i am basically out of options.
As a pvp pilot in a pvp fitted ship however I do have options in most cases.
This situation has to be ended.
In the described situation all pilots should have the same options, cards to play regardless of the hull they are sitting in.
Fitting a ship specially for PvP should only affect its offensive PvP capabilities (point/scram, web, ewar ...).
Defensive PvP capabilities should be fittable equally by all ships not influencing their capabilities in the main role they are fitted for.

If that could be achieved I would be the first to claim: remove local chat without any substitute.
And it would guarantee a fair game in many other situations as well.

Ok you made the point, Mag's :)

My failure was I totally - really completely - ignored the 'working with others to succeed' aspect.

Of course I am aware that this is an MMO and actually that is one of the main reasons why I do play it.
And I am flying around in fleets and gangs for pvp a lot.

But somehow when it comes to activities other than pvp in my corp everyone does his own thing alone ...
So in my head it was always: PvP = Group Content, PvE = Solo Content.

So I would say yes, the game is rigged against solo-pve-players (in contrast to solo-pvp which is a viable playstyle).
But I agree that's tolerable considering working with others - if you have the luck to find some ;)

EVE = Everyone Vs. Everyone.

With that said, best to assume everyone hostile until otherwise proven. Removing local without something to replace it would not go well. Unless you want to hear bleating carebears for months on end, I'd say let CCP figure it out.

bump