EVE General Discussion

If I may take the liberty of of paraphrasing the delightfully always angry Kaarous:

- It's all about me and what I want.

i assume the tl;dr is that it's easier to add concord to corp on corp violence, rather than fix the issue that repping corp on corp violence doesn't trigger suspect flags?

You're welcome.

"Quick question: how do you know what an API is, and how do you provide a full one? Where did you learn that? [Not anywhere in game! "
Back when I was a wee nubbin I applied to join a corp and was asked for a full API. I didn't know what an API was, so I asked about the what, how and why. The recruiter explained it in great detail, providing links to setting one up and links to OOG tools that use the API to track and plan character progression.

"How do you balance that with the opposite concern, that the joining player doesn't entirely trust the corp he's joining and, for whatever reason, wants to maintain a certain degree of privacy at least initially?
I can see where you're coming from but trust works both ways, and in a game like Eve trust is a valuable commodity.

I think of an API as a Résumé or CV. Would you refuse to give a potential employer a copy of those because you're worried about privacy?

"I mean, if you reduce corporate recruiting to a choice between making every potential recruit strip for a full colonoscopy and losing everything to some alt with a glint in his eye, isn't that a little broken by itself?"
In a world where shooting your competitors in the face, or using deception and devious tactics against them are acceptable business practices I would say no, and Eve is one of those worlds.

"Is it any wonder that most of the people who stay in this game are people more like me, who knew exactly which people from which out-of-game community they were going to play with when they came in?"That's a hard one to answer. Certainly there are a lot of players who come from outside communities, but there's just as many that don't and still stay, I'm one of them.

"If you're someone like me who prefers to learn by doing how and where do you learn to run a corp? "
I feel that anybody who is running a corp that is looking to recruit others should at least have an understanding of game mechanics before they consider recruiting those who do not. In short, learn the game first, then progress to running a corp.

"How tolerant should the game be of mistakes, given that most players learn from mistakes?"
I could argue the toss on the latter part of that statement , there's many that refuse to learn by their mistakes and expect CCP to wrap them in cotton wool instead.

"I'm asking questions because I'm not going to pretend that they all have clear-cut answers, or certainly that I know the answers there are. But they're real questions that CCP has to find answers to."
Agreed, on all points.

"I'll just say that I have great confidence in the ability of EVE players--certainly including new players!--to be diabolical little bastards, and I mean that in the best way possible."
So do I


"OK, you're a total newbie. You just joined cold because you liked the tagline in the EVE web ad. You don't know anyone. What do you do?"
Ask questions, chat with people. While there are many asshats in the NPC corps who will tell newbies that "gankers are evil", "lowsec is evil" "you should mine or mission" etc; there are just as many who will encourage newbies to explore ALL of the possibilities open to them and to find something they enjoy. I'm friends IRL with a guy I met on my first day of Eve, we spent the first couple of weeks exploding hilariously in lowsec or dying to Concord.

CCP could certainly do a better job of pointing newbies to decent information sources, both in and out of game. It comes to something when CCP staff use the Eve Uni Wiki over their own (which is hilariously outdated)

"The part I've highlighted is a very serious issue with the NPE"
Indeed it is, I think the NPE should make it very very clear that Eve is an extremely competitive and cut throat game, where losing your ship and stuff at the hands of others is a very common occurrence. They should also make it just as clear that highsec is not a safe zone, that Concord do not protect you, and that you are responsible for your own safety.

"But here's the rub: you learn what EVE is from other players. So the sooner you put new players in touch with existing players, the sooner they learn what EVE is, one way or another."
Agreed, the "corporation lite" idea that's been floating around wouldn't be a bad way to instigate this. One thing that needs to be done though is to discourage older players from discouraging newbies from exploring ALL of the possibilities, that in itself is griefing IMHO.

"The current mechanics place obstacles between new players and existing players."
They do, and they don't. It's hard to explain why though.

*I had to edit a lot of your post out, and some of the questions, you managed to hit the maximum word limit

As a "Raven leveler" I would just love that CCP gave me tools to play EVE my way. FAI, I would gladly sell and buy NPC services to and from players via LP and status.

Those NPC services could affect other players (so "Raven levelers" could become "enablers") and would allow witty people to twist the game in different unforeseen directions (becoming "instigators"), without adding to the already endless list of "blow player stuff" activities.

Call me when they suggest the complete deletion of how you play the game.;

No, but it is the only aspect of awoxing that is modified by the proposed change.

First the Mittens quote, now you're paraphrasing Gevlon. These people don't want a vastly enriched sandbox. They want highsec NPC corp titans and supercarriers to ponce about in. And end boss content. And gear. Seriously, these creatures deserve to be ganked, awoxed and slapped about until they either flounce off or see sense.

Can I just point out that the King of the Nerds wrote that piece you keep linking critiquing CCP's NPE (which is indeed crap) but offered solutions which are really not that significant. The amusing bits were the jabs at CCP (Iceland is cold and dark), management make 'boneheaded' decisions (I thought that was the purpose of management, everywhere?) oh and 'gamers tend to make for awful businessmen'. That's a real shocker.

I'll take the slightly inept but nerdtastic CCP over EA any day of the week, tyvm. Some of us play Eve because it's run by gamers for gamers, rather than a mainstream commercial FTP (take my wallet). If we're seeing the edges of a desperate trend here to retain subs at the expense of the spirit and integrity of the IP, it'll backfire badly.

The issue with concord is that it exists in the first place.

You not so good at the thinks.

Most Goons are carebears. Just like the rest of null.

Mr Epeen