Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In-game lottery system...

Set up just like you would a contract.
So we can create a lottery for a selected item / items or a pot limit.
Set entry fee. ( isk goes to an escrow, then to the person setting up the lottery once the lottery is complete.)
And option to restrict people to either one entry per person or the option to buy in on multipal entries.
Set number of entries from let's say between 20- 100.
Then once all slots are full the system automatically selects a random winner and deposit the prize in the winners hanger.
If slots are not filled in a set amount of time or if the lottery is cancelled their deposit is returned.
And of course ccp gets a tax% of the deposit amounts.
This would make for great scam free fun in game.
Even if it was restricted to corporations or alliances...
And of course make it so trial accounts can not use this feature.

Making a safe system for things like that just takes the purpose of organizing such a thing away and makes it meaningless.

In the same way ransoms should stay player enforced this too is better off in our hands.

whats wrong with the third party ones?

the fact that they can take off with all the isk with no game enforced reciprocation is why they are better.


if something can be done without the need of a game mechanic to be implemented then there is no need to implement it.

remember eve is a sand box and sand boxes work when as much freedom as possible is placed in the players hands

you don't understand its better because its done by players with out the need of a specific mechanic.

the freedom given to you in a sandbox is the driving point of the sandbox

and yes it is good for scammers but eve rewards scams (so long as they are not deemed an exploit) it is up to you the player to protect yourself from them and to punish those who commit them should you feel like it.
People don't come to eve because they want there hand held and to be protected by game mechanics they come because its one of the only games where you are not "safe" and everything that happens to you is based on choices you made good or bad. this ideology of freedom and consequence is at the core of eve.


also unless you are giving the sight your username and password they cant do anything to your account.


as far as api goes it only gives information (information that you say it can give) and can not receive information from anything other than the game server its basically a one way road.

Server->api->program

but if you want a game that protects you from those big bad scammers go play WoW

because if people are already accomplishing the goal of a feature in there own way why spend dev time making a redundant mechanic . you see a potential improvement i see a redundant feature bringing nothing to the game and even detracting from player individuality by having people do it the way its built into the game

you already have all the tools needed

Aha yes you make a good point about the laws.. ie gambling.. not sure how they would view it though because it would be technically a game where no hard currency transactions are allowed..

The reason an in game system would be preferred is because how many people can or even want to setup a third party website just to put on a lottery in a game..
And track hundreds of entries and isk/ deposits and all that crap..
I mean just because it can be done out of game doesn't make it better..

Say you had a carrier and your wanted to put on a lottery and raffle it off..
And you had a choice..
You could use a fully automatic in game system that lets you set up the lottery just like you would a contract..
OR
You could find a web host, buy a domain, put a page together and somehow code it so people can register to the website and have it track isk deposits and entries for the lottery.. then randomly pick a winner.. somehow..

Which would you rather deal with?
Keep in mind most people are not webmasters..

Also if you had a choice of playing one of those lotteries.. would you choose the convince of entering an in-game lottery or would you want to register with a third party site?

I don't think you understand what draws people to eve. I'll give you a hint it's not the super solid and amazing mechanics.

Surely then the existence of the entire contracts system is flawed. There should be an option on items, to send them to another players hangar. After that, everything should be done without any in-game systems, no courier contracts, wtb, wts or auctions. Players should have to manually send the isk across and the items across. Sov should also just be people flying in and saying "this space is mine". While we're at it, corporations and alliances shouldn't even exist, since we can just use third party systems to build lists of players, and name our ships based on our allegiance.

See the problem with using "but it's a sandbox" as a reason is that at some point a line gets drawn, and all the OP is talking about is where that line is. Building in-game systems to avoid the need to use third party sites can be a good thing, since as he points out it reduces the likelihood of security problems. It does get done too, systems do get added to replace functionality we already had out of game (such as the fitting system, which is already much more advanced than it used to be and will be a glorified EFT once they are done with it).

Just want to point out that this is basically impossible for most scammers. The best you can do is say "Random disposable alt #32461 scammed me!". Since there's no way to eject them from a station and no way to tell who their main is there's nowt you can do.

You are if you choose to be.

Incorrect. That's what malware does. That's why when you click a link on this very forum to another site you get a warning message. There's nothing guaranteeing you won't get infected using a third party site or downloaded app, and even without that you are normally giving out your IP address which is how (allegedly) targeted DDOS attacks have occurred on players during fleet fights.