Crime & Punishment

Highsec is the center of the game. The vast majority of the subscription base lives in high sec.

The state of highsec is the state of the game.

If they nerf wardecs like you propose, they will have dropped the vast majority of the game's pvp structure (I would argue that they already have).

It may not matter at this point. They've already screwed up high sec so bad that new players aren't having fun.

CCP really thinks their NPC content is enough to sell noobs on the game. It's not. They need the player generated chaos that drew so many of us... But they've outlawed it.

The current trend has one ending and every one of us knows it.

You are right, what I meant to say was. Is it the PVP you want so much that you're willing to quit the game over for?



How would you know? EVE has been dying for how long now?



This game is considered a sandbox right?

PvP is still not optional, it just means that now concord will kill you for awoxing. Instead of going through the trouble of joining a corp, you can do so now from step 1. Have at it.

If I had to pick between say, two guys shooting each other in t1 frigates in a FW complex and someone suicide ganking an AFK hauler and choose which was the more "important" kind of PVP I'd choose the latter every time.

The reason is simple, basically every MMO that exists has PVP where the participants are entirely willing and are engaging in that PVP willingly, it's extremely common, the outcomes matter to basically nobody except the parties involved in that specific fight and there are basically no effects beyond allowing the two competitors to see who is "best".

Suicide ganking is much more of a unique thing, it's not a contest between willing participants, it's an attack carried out for an ideological or profit motivated reason, it's entirely likely to elicit a significant emotional response from both parties regardless of whether it succeeds or fails and the effects it has on other players depending on the potential loss of goods can be huge.

The ability of someone to gank an untanked hauler or awox a mission runner is infinitely more worth quitting the game over than 1v1 gudfites.

Thread title: Awox Nerf Fails to Boost EVE Numbers

Suicide ganking is not awoxing. They haven't taken that away yet have they?



And you can do this 24/7 in all the other three areas of space that do not have police/concord on it. The only difference is that the victim might shoot back and win. The Horror!

Wardecs used to be limited, now they aren't. Hyperdunking now exists. Warp changes make it much easier to get ahead of large targets.

This has never been an exploit.

Prove it. Show me all the statistics you have on whether or not newer players are joining corporations. You don't have them, you are talking complete rubbish.

I don't see an answer to this yet Vimsy.

I have challenged you to a 1v1 thunderdome match.

Do you accept or decline.

Yes.... or Holysheet1 No??

Victims are welcome to shoot back in highsec as well. In fact, they're encouraged to do so with limited engagements.

I'm pretty awesome

Great work as always Sasha.

CCP Rise has made pretty clear that internal CCP analysis pointed to social factors and being exposed to player interactions like PvP are the major factors associated with player retention. I am not sure why CCP was fixated on this change as something that would get new players into corps as it was obvious to anyone that highsec awoxing was a negligible threat and was not the sole factor keeping new players out of corps: rather they were shunned also as potential spies, thieves or just as "noobs" who offer nothing to the bottom line.

All this change amounted to was an attempted bribe by CCP to induce highsec corps to take new players, but in true Eve fashion these risk-averse carebear corps just pocketed that safety and didn't bother to accept any. Why go to the trouble to train, engage with and help integrate new players into Eve when they could just be out maximizing their ISK/h? These fat highsec corps now get to fly even blingier ships, safe in the knowledge that it is now 100% impossible to lose them unexpectedly except to a suicide gank. Now there is even less reason for them ever to start generating content, so they will continue to just sit in highsec in near perfect safety, doing the same repetitive no-value-added activities of mining and missioning in near isolation until they bore of the game and quit.

And none of this is to mention the nefarious and incompetent highsec corps this safety enables and stabilizes that will increasingly suck-up new players and show them only their twisted, ISK-obsessed, Eve-is-a-single-player-missioning/mining-simulator world view of the game. Most of these poor souls after suffering through that for a few weeks will rightly conclude that Eve (as shown to them) is an antiquated bore-fest of a game and quit, never even getting a chance to experience the parts of the game where Eve shines.

And this removal had no effect on the good, competent highsec corps that were already accepting new players. They dealt with the minimal risk of an awoxer just fine before the nerf, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of them keep friendly fire enabled as a point of pride and to help train their new players through the intra-corp sparring it allows.

Well, CCP made a bad call on this one - they removed actual game play that generated content, conflict and player-driven stories - for no obvious benefit at all. But hopefully they learn their lesson and stop removing things from the game that make it interesting in the quest to make it more accessible. I am all for changes that help integrate and retain new players, but ones that will actually do this and do this without making the game more boring would be preferred.

From day one I supported this change to corp mechanics not because I had any notion as to the impact it would have, but because I see giving CEOs more control of their corps as a good thing. You want to turn off friendly fire to attract new players? Fine. You want to leave it on to facilitate webbing freighters into warp or, you know, AWOXing? Also fine. I see more options as a good thing.

I have seen no data one way or the other to suggest any impact on new player retention or corp growth that may have corresponded to the change. But that's the impact of the choice; I still think the choice was the right one to make purely on principle.

[/soapbox]