EVE General Discussion

Ganker group creates a fake white knight corp.
Ganker group creates several fake newbe corps (from alts)
Ganker group war decs fake newbie corps
Newbe corps give glowing reports of the fake white knight corp
Gankers use their fake white knight corp, that now looks wonderful, to herd a few real newbie corps like lambs to the slaughter.

Don't think it will happen? It already does. When a high sec corp gets a war dec, they also quickly get offers of assistance. A little research ( for those corps that actually do research) point to the potential allies being alts of the war deccers.

Badly formed stats that make some of us question what CCP is doing?

That can't be toppled by opinions.

Ok, so the new carebear argument is that people quit because thei expect to experience somthing they did not actually experience, because other carebears told them the game is not word playing... in the light of the new data, which shows that if you gank a newbro that it is actually more probable that he will stay in the game, is it not reasonable to assume that the carebears who spew this nonsense are the real problem for player retention?

Absolutely not! Why? Well, on the grounds that "this would not fit the narrative they hold dear, therefore your logic is invalid!".

Sorry if my translation is sloppy, I haven't had an opportunity to actually use my Carebear-ese in 7 years since I stopped playing WoW

I would hope so. EVE is a harsh sandbox (well, most of it is anyways). If the idea of ganking or scamming or loss etc puts a person off to the point where they stop playing a game, that person should have avoided that game in the 1st place.

Yea, I played WoW for 4 months 7 almost 8 years ago (after being dragged there by the guy who introduced me to EVE). I will now be committing Seppuku to atone. Anyone see where I left my sword?

You can say all you want, after doing even more in Eve. Doesn't make you right, or show you have a clue.

CCP Rise explicitely stated in his talk that the data shows that retention is higher for people who lost a ship and even higher form the 1% who lost it in a gank. Feel free to watch the video again if you still are in denial.

Now this new carebear tactic is just gold, you basically changed your theory about why people quit to something you think they can't measure. But they did.. if that was really the case it would show in the survey about why people quit. Carebears are usually not the quiet types if it comes to whining why eve is dying.

Everything they measured pointed in the direction that more interaction between players is good for retention and isolation is bad. There is not a shred of evidence that even remotely suports your side of the argument.

Thanks for that link. That explains A LOT.

I look at it this way, the true cost of this game to a new player is potentially relative to the cost they are willing to pay to PLEX. If you loose a lot of ships, and your income via PVE isn't enough (which is likely the case for newer players like myself due to skill training times, intelligent/unintelligent skill planning, lack of skill focus cause new to game, etc) then you likely see PLEX as a way to get yourself back into the game. Yet, that success of avoiding ganks or to other activities is also likely tied into two things, do you have alts and do you have the right skills? Then there comes the fitting your ship intelligently part and being able to do that with the isk while also having the right skills.

At first your options are very limited in what you can do, unless you are really good at gaming or finding creative solutions. On top of all of this we have the EVE learning curve, which I believe is proportional to isk spent in the first few months and up to the first year in EVE. If I am starting out I am likely to avoid those things that cause me to loose ships because my starting isk is low. I could by more PLEX, but I would have to keep buying lots of PLEX while already paying a sub on top of that. I won't be able to play for free like others in EVE who have mastered the art of playing for free. Thus the game can become very costly for a new player if they end up loosing plenty of ships to pve activities, ganking, and just experimenting with the various activities within EVE.

Patience is also a factor as we have to wait for those skills to train up so we can get into that really cool mining barge, or exploration ship, or PI... and so on and so forth. I think that most avoid pvp because of these things, and those it does happen to also have to face facts with the costs and limitations of their single character. Of course I could easily use another character with a bantum and a griffin to help my own characters if I wanted to feel a bit more powerful in PVP, or I could even buy a ton of PLEX and get myself a high skill point character focused on what I want in EVE. Yet, that would require me spending hundreds for just that one character, and frankly that is where it is cost prohibitive for me. I'd perhaps then have to spend thousands on just this game if I didn't want to wait to have characters specialized in various roles if I didn't care to earn isk the old fashioned way. Hell, even running those incursions seems to take several months of proper skill training plus of course the isk to buy the ship and fit it up right.

Anyway those are my random thoughts.

EDIT: Seems I went to heavily on the ganking side of things, but trying to make the point that it takes time and isk to learn this game.