Crime & Punishment

This is true - while all evidence points to no increased retention numbers or player counts, only CCP has access to the complete data. As always, I am willing to change my opinion in light of new facts like if CCP shows us some numbers next Fanfest.

But I am pretty sure they won't because as the Saviour wrote/Sasha said, there is no reason for this change to make corps more likely to recruit new players. On reflection, I am pretty sure this change was implemented only because it was easy to do. Likely after the NPE team concluded that social interactions were a key predictor of player retention, CCP had a meeting and wrote on the whiteboard every idea they could come up with to help get new players into corporations and social groups. "Removing awoxing" was probably moved to the top because it was a trivial code change. Even if they thought it likely to have only a small effect, the cost in development hours was so small they pushed it through anyway.

At least they didn't waste too many developer hours on this unproductive change.

First off, you are all welcome. RvB was part of the reason that friendly fire was an option, not mandatory. Our CSM member (may he enjoy his break) stressed the importance of friendly fire outside the realm of AWOXing and freighter webbing.

That said, we are also a prime example of how PvP leads to retention. The number of players who join a group like RvB because they are bored with missioning and want to try PvP is staggering. It's part of what keeps our own numbers up. Yes many try it, dislike it, log out one day and never return. However, many more say "this is fun" and either become life time members or branch out further from us to try low, nul, and other areas of PvP. It's that excitement and fire that fills them during PvP which gets them hooked. Can that happen from ganking? Yes. But the majority are those bored with their current pve role in eve (mining, missioning, manufacturing, etc) who rediscover the spark of what made them like eve when they try PvP that keeps them. So join us and other groups like us for some pew!

As for this whole safety switch not creating player retention, there are no facts supporting either side. Plus, given that this change did not happen in a vacuum, we truly don't know the full impact. Did the safety switch bring in enough to balance out losses from multi-broadcasting? Fozzi Sov? We don't know. So as much as people want to claim their side is right, we and possibly even CCP may never know because this wasn't the only change
. it was one of many, and unless you can poll all who leave as to why and they respond we may never know what changes were good and what weren't.

High sec is in greater danger of becoming boring than too dangerous in my opinion.

I understand your opinion. I felt like aggression from other players was a needless barrier to my ability to build a PVE corp at one time. I hated all the little war decs that used to keep me hopping.

I was a PVE player back then. However, the day came where I had tried every PVE option and was bored of them. It didn't take that long, really. Once that happened for me, it was PVP or quit.

I tried PVP and found a world of content that made the entire PVE game seem like a micro game by comparison.

The less distractions high sec has from PVE, the faster players will get bored of the PVE content and quit... In my opinion.

I always thought Awoxing was stupid. We had an AWOXer in one of my early corps. It was semi-interesting but honestly more of a bother as I had to protect newbies from him than anything else. That and wars were probably the worst content I've ever encountered in EVE.

Thankfully I fully left Highsec.

Removing awoxing was a terrible idea.

I never personally did it, but the concept was fantastic. Corporate espionage for the intent of personal gain. Piracy. Ransoming. It provided just one more thing in the sandbox. Forcing corps to be careful of whom they trusted...

Maybe it's me, but I like the danger. I like the things in EVE that make the game hard to play and make you remember your mistakes. The unforgiving nature is what sets it apart for me.

Like the change or not, that part of the game... The option to be that guy... That criminal... Is gone now (seriously what corps don't have FF toggled off). Maybe tomorrow they take something you like away. Maybe next week, something I like.

My friends, that leads to a place nobody wants this game to go.

I agree we do need a CSM rep since we seem to provide as much content as any other group in the game

Oh ye, I hated all those baiters so very much, especially can flippers. Flying T1 frig or cruiser I was constantly afraid of each and every T2 frig with bad standing, thinking they're out to get me.



Such a wonderful times really. I think most newbies will never forget that adrenaline rush from their early days. Sadly, with new mechanic all that fun is now gone.

Mo bring your antics out to hamiah ;-)

Noobs aren't usually awox targets. The whole point is to make money. Noobs don't have money.

Thank you for your kind words. Although I somehow doubt they were written sincerely I will take them at face value nonetheless. You see, I'm not as proficient in english as you apparantly are so I failed to convey the subtext.

I have no Idea why you would consider me to be somewhat dsitantly in time or space. But be that as it may. I did not listen to any soundcloud ever. You see. I was born in the last century when readin was still a thing. If I want to know something, I look it up.

I did certainly not jump any bandwagons. I was simply trying to express my thoughts. According to my obesrvations most of the bêtes noires of Eve claim to have no emotional or psycologiocal deficit.Quite on the contrary they usually claim the wish to save carebears from the dull shooting of red crosses or asteroids and lead the to the eternal light of player driven content called PvP- If this is the case, then why oh why do the selfsame people spend so much time and effort to make sure they run no risk while doing so? Because they don't want to lose as you point out. So why is this kind of risk aversion, or risk management as you prefer to call it, good, and the the other kind of risk management - switching off friendly fire - bad and the doom of Eve??? Your likeminded friend explained she would rather not participate any fight she could not cheat in, because she fears she might lose. That's your definition of risk aversion, isn't it?

I also thought the religion of eve would be the risk/reward ratio. So why do you wish to claim the biggest reward without daring to risk anything in return? That's what strikes me as odd.

Further I didn't call her a coward. I merely pointed out that there seems to be little difference in the mindset of risk aversive carebears and risk managing hardcore pvpers.

Then I would like to come back to your comparison of awoxing and participants in a contest who do whatever the rules permit in order to trash their opponents. This is not a viable analogy. Awoxing is not a contest. There are opponents. The whole idea behind awoxing is that the other party does not expect to be attacked. You might compare this to a situation where one team on the field is playing soccer and tries to score a goal below the crossbar whereas the other team secretly changed the ball, the goalposts and the rules and is playing american football with the aim to shoot over the crossbar. How can you claim to win when you are not participating in the same sport?

I hope I could further explain my confusion with these hardcore pvpers who somehow fail to adapt and HTFU.