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[June Release] Combat Booster Legalization

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elitatwo
Zansha Expansion
#81 - 2016-06-10 13:35:12 UTC
Yes please! Now I can take a Drop of X-Tinct in Exile.

Eve Minions is recruiting.

This is the law of ship progression!

Aura sound-clips: Aura forever
Istara Erion
Eidetic Laboratories
#82 - 2016-06-10 17:05:25 UTC
Why not just allow them to be contracted and otherwise leave them as-is? Alternatively, why not make them legal to possess for personal use, but unlawful to distribute?

You could create two types of items. A drug lab would crank out a "packed booster," which would have to be smuggled or transported to the end-user. The end-user then activates the item, turning it into dosage units that expire after a short-ish period of time, I was thinking like 1-3 days. Just like actual pharmaceuticals, boosters would have a beyond use date. And we already have items in game that expire after a set period of time. A pilot carrying dosage units in their cargo would not suffer any repercussions from customs. Pilots carrying the packed version would have to steer clear of the law. You could sell the packed ones on the open market like you can with boosters now (which is inexplicable in lore terms, but convenient for players). You couldn't contract a ship with packed boosters, but could contract one with dosage units.

Unfortunately it seems like this is completely set in stone since they've already drawn up some lore for it, and doubly so because the CSM (and by extension CCP) apparently ignored the recommendations of one of the oldest and most prolific booster operations in the game. And it's happening in 3 weeks. In my professional world we would call this "arbitrary and capricious," but I know that doesn't really apply here.
Ricky Sledge
Otherlands
#83 - 2016-06-11 19:00:48 UTC
Kult Udikai wrote:
This is incredibly disappointing. I've really enjoyed the face to face interaction of my trade and flying around through dangerous space with hundreds of millions to a few billion isk worth of drugs in my hull. It was actual smuggling and drug dealing. The only real issue, in my opinion, being the inconvenience of contracts. People learned to trust the Es and Whizz name because we earned that trust over years of successful dealing.

When our CEO offered constructive input to the CSM for other options on dealing with this, we were ignored. We have competition, we aren't the only booster dealers in the game, and with our considerable experience, one would think our input would be seen as valuable. It's a real shame.

Steve Ronuken wrote:

That's it.


The only thing that's been done is an entire profession will be removed from the game. A corner of the sandbox will be gone. It's like removing rats from anoms, banning scams, or removing industrial ships. (Yes, I realize these are possibly extreme examples.)

Instead of making smuggling more interesting, CCP is just nuking it. It's not even the high sec smuggling that is going away. I seldom went through high sec. We smuggle past gate camps, roaming gangs, and trap orders. Now boosters will just be bought in trade hubs and moved via normal alliance/corp or third party courier services; just like the rest of the market items.

I do not like this change, and I do not like that the people most intimately involved in the profession were ignored while making this decision.


I have to totally agree with you corp bro, it feels a sting all round here, as a smuggler, dedicated to the smuggling aspect a lot of business just got ditched :-) and I think more than anything that annoyed me here is that they didn't say leave the strong as illicit, as some chemical mixes the authorities would likely not want to have in the community, for mental health fears or something or perhaps like strong might be reserved for imperial guard purposes only 'official use', rather than this blanket legalisation we have here.

I would have honestly just been happy the way it was with some more adverts advertising the booster business as few people know about it and we just need more users to improve demand, the dealers are dug in now after all these years, it seems only reasonable that this time in the natural evolution of the booster business in this game it would follow a similar pattern to rl, be kept on the quiet for years to the rich and the in the know only to become mainstream because some footballer likes his crash or something :-p
Skia Aumer
Planetary Harvesting and Processing LLC
#84 - 2016-06-13 16:26:38 UTC
What if CCP make skill injectors a new drug for smuggling?
Sure, leave them legal, but bring back local-only activation.
Skia Aumer
Planetary Harvesting and Processing LLC
#85 - 2016-06-13 17:15:11 UTC
Kult Udikai wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:

That's it.

The only thing that's been done is an entire profession will be removed from the game. A corner of the sandbox will be gone. It's like removing rats from anoms, banning scams, or removing industrial ships. (Yes, I realize these are possibly extreme examples.)

That's a common thing in recent CCP changes. They remove feature after feature, giving nothing instead. Or even worse, they deliver crap like daily quests. Remember they removed jump clone installation restriction? No one even asked for it.

When CCP Seagull was in charge, she said that enablers are very needed for EVE, yet they are being treated, and I quote, "like sh*t". She promised to change that and give them more love. But now CCP Fozzie is leading the way and here we go - another bunch of players are claimed unnecessary.

That being said, I support legalization. Boosters already have their built-in drawbacks and with that legality issues they are just simply ignored by most players. But give us something instead! I mean, EVE is a huge universe. Yet, logistics give so little content (other than tedium).
Seraph IX Basarab
Outer Path
Seraphim Division
#86 - 2016-06-14 01:23:50 UTC
Skia Aumer wrote:
Kult Udikai wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:

That's it.

The only thing that's been done is an entire profession will be removed from the game. A corner of the sandbox will be gone. It's like removing rats from anoms, banning scams, or removing industrial ships. (Yes, I realize these are possibly extreme examples.)

That's a common thing in recent CCP changes. They remove feature after feature, giving nothing instead. Or even worse, they deliver crap like daily quests. Remember they removed jump clone installation restriction? No one even asked for it.

When CCP Seagull was in charge, she said that enablers are very needed for EVE, yet they are being treated, and I quote, "like sh*t". She promised to change that and give them more love. But now CCP Fozzie is leading the way and here we go - another bunch of players are claimed unnecessary.

That being said, I support legalization. Boosters already have their built-in drawbacks and with that legality issues they are just simply ignored by most players. But give us something instead! I mean, EVE is a huge universe. Yet, logistics give so little content (other than tedium).



What's the point of sperging a laundry list of things you disagree with if you're only going to agree with the OP? shoo go away
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#87 - 2016-06-14 02:47:37 UTC
Skia Aumer wrote:
Kult Udikai wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:

That's it.

The only thing that's been done is an entire profession will be removed from the game. A corner of the sandbox will be gone. It's like removing rats from anoms, banning scams, or removing industrial ships. (Yes, I realize these are possibly extreme examples.)

That's a common thing in recent CCP changes. They remove feature after feature, giving nothing instead. Or even worse, they deliver crap like daily quests. Remember they removed jump clone installation restriction? No one even asked for it.

When CCP Seagull was in charge, she said that enablers are very needed for EVE, yet they are being treated, and I quote, "like sh*t". She promised to change that and give them more love. But now CCP Fozzie is leading the way and here we go - another bunch of players are claimed unnecessary.

That being said, I support legalization. Boosters already have their built-in drawbacks and with that legality issues they are just simply ignored by most players. But give us something instead! I mean, EVE is a huge universe. Yet, logistics give so little content (other than tedium).



Actually, people did ask for the jump clone thing. It was initially a bug. But people asked for it to stay.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Skia Aumer
Planetary Harvesting and Processing LLC
#88 - 2016-06-14 08:37:37 UTC
Seraph IX Basarab wrote:
Skia Aumer wrote:
That being said, I support legalization. Boosters already have their built-in drawbacks and with that legality issues they are just simply ignored by most players. But give us something instead! I mean, EVE is a huge universe. Yet, logistics give so little content (other than tedium).

What's the point of sperging a laundry list of things you disagree with if you're only going to agree with the OP? shoo go away

You dont tell me what to do, alright.
And my point was in bold and underlined.
ube smoked
State War Academy
Caldari State
#89 - 2016-06-14 11:57:52 UTC
Hyped for drugs.
Cade Windstalker
#90 - 2016-06-14 19:13:07 UTC
Kult Udikai wrote:
This is incredibly disappointing. I've really enjoyed the face to face interaction of my trade and flying around through dangerous space with hundreds of millions to a few billion isk worth of drugs in my hull. It was actual smuggling and drug dealing. The only real issue, in my opinion, being the inconvenience of contracts. People learned to trust the Es and Whizz name because we earned that trust over years of successful dealing.

When our CEO offered constructive input to the CSM for other options on dealing with this, we were ignored. We have competition, we aren't the only booster dealers in the game, and with our considerable experience, one would think our input would be seen as valuable. It's a real shame.

Steve Ronuken wrote:

That's it.


The only thing that's been done is an entire profession will be removed from the game. A corner of the sandbox will be gone. It's like removing rats from anoms, banning scams, or removing industrial ships. (Yes, I realize these are possibly extreme examples.)

Instead of making smuggling more interesting, CCP is just nuking it. It's not even the high sec smuggling that is going away. I seldom went through high sec. We smuggle past gate camps, roaming gangs, and trap orders. Now boosters will just be bought in trade hubs and moved via normal alliance/corp or third party courier services; just like the rest of the market items.

I do not like this change, and I do not like that the people most intimately involved in the profession were ignored while making this decision.


The whole point seems to be the removal of the profession though.

The only reason smuggling of Boosters exists as a profession, and a very very niche one at that, is that it's inconvenient to move or even carry around Combat Boosters outside of Low and Null. CCP decided that it was better for the sandbox to make Boosters more convenient to use (which should increase demand for them, thus driving more conflict in Low and Null) but that seems to necessitate the removal of your profession, since the only reason it exists is because Boosters are hard to carry around.

I would equate this less to the removal of a core mechanic like "rats in anoms, scams, or industrial ships" and more to the removal of the enforced Warp To 15 on gates. There was a significant cottage industry in creating bookmarks to circumvent the issues it created, and CCP nuked that from orbit too. Granted there were other considerations as well (all those bookmarks were making the servers **** bricks) but the result was definitely a net positive.

So while I can sympathize with you, after all it sucks to lose your source of income in the game and especially something you developed, I think this is better overall for the game. Every solution I can think of that might preserve your profession either doesn't sufficiently address the issues that make using Boosters a massive pain or creates exploitable exceptions that still mostly render your profession moot.

I'd say you can either take this, and what you've built, and take things in a new direction or you can rage-quit and burn what you've made. Personally I would recommend the former :)
Rob Dalvik
Profiteering Privateers
#91 - 2016-06-14 19:33:34 UTC
-1

I would love to see drugs more readily available and widely used but this proposal is at the expense of entire playstyles. I would much prefer an update to smuggling or drug distribution to increase the depth of these playstyles and give them publicity.

Perhaps only legalize small amounts of drug possession and rework customs interactions.
Kon Kre8r
#92 - 2016-06-14 19:54:31 UTC
Nex Parietis wrote:
As someone who just joined Es and Whizz, and was very interested in doing the smuggling activity they've done for years, this is a punch to the gut.

I suppose all there is to do in eve is buy items via market. Shoot players. Rinse Repeat.

Not a good choice, removing ideas from the game instead of expanding or adjusting them.


I am sure that if I did care about investing time and effort into that operation like you did I would be upset also.

Black Ops ships using Covert Jump Portals with Covert Cynos are NOT allowed to use Covert Cloaks. That makes sense.
Terminal Insanity
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#93 - 2016-06-15 01:57:58 UTC
LAME.

As someone who doesnt produce boosters, and is always in short supply of them, im sure this change will enable me to use boosters a lot more often.

However, wtf. This was an interesting gameplay mechanic. It added variation to the game. These small things you guys keep axing is what gives this game depth and variation. And now you're getting rid of it, in favor of.... nothing. Nothing new will be replacing it. Its just gone. Poof. Eve will now be a little less deep.

"War declarations are never officially considered griefing and are not a bannable offense, and it has been repeatedly stated by the developers that the possibility for non-consensual PvP is an intended feature." - CCP
Bakuhz
NED-Clan
Goonswarm Federation
#94 - 2016-06-15 09:30:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Bakuhz
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Quick Lore Break:
In recent months the CONCORD Inner Circle has started seriously considering a new approach to the issue of New Eden's illicit booster trade. Prohibition was successful in reducing booster addiction rates, but has had serious downsides across the cluster.
The illegal booster trade has enriched the great pirate factions (especially the Serpentis Corporation and their Angel Cartel partners), and led to an increase in underworld violence as local pirate bands compete for slices of this lucrative pie.
Escalating enforcement requirements have stretched the resources of the DED and the empire customs authorities to their breaking points.

In response to these issues, the Inner Circle is planning a complete shift in their approach to boosters. Booster possession, trade and consumption by capsuleers will be legalized, and licenses for legal booster production will be available to certain non-capsuleer corporations (X-Sense being the first authorized manufacturer). Booster production and research by pirate corporations and unlicensed capsuleers will continue to be illegal.
Some CONCORD resources will be diverted to harm reduction programs (mainly focused on treating addiction among non-capsuleer populations).

This change in approach is obviously good news for the X-Sense corporation, and experts predict that it will deal a non-trivial blow to the income of the Serpentis Corporation and Angel Cartel. Nobody yet knows how these powerful pirates will respond, but it's a safe assumption that they won't take it lying down.


In practical terms we are planning to legalize all raw and processed boosters in all areas of Empire space, starting in the 118.6 release at the end of June.

This change will only impact boosters (there is a similar but separate change planned that will also legalize Ectoplasm). Other illegal items will continue to have their bans enforced by empire customs officers (so if you try and carry slaves through the Republic they will continue to be cross with you).

Manufacturing and reactions for boosters aren't changing at this time, and will continue to be restricted in highsec space. CONCORD is only providing licences for booster manufacturing to X-Sense at the moment meaning that capsuleer production will continue to be prohibited by the empires. From a design perspective, we're happy with this section of industry being unique to lower security bands.

Beyond the storyline connection, we want to make this change because the current system of booster illegality is not serving a strong purpose in gameplay. It makes the use of boosters annoying for many pilots, and causes other frustrations such as blocking contracting of ships that have boosters in their cargoholds.

We won't rule out potentially making more changes to the system of item legality and smuggling in the future (including but not limited to complete reworks of the system) but we believe that this change is a significant benefit to the game by itself.

This change is on SISI now so we encourage you to give it a try and let us know what you think.

Thanks and happy boosting!


can we get an update on how this is going to work with POS tower becoming useless in the near future? how is the production going to work?
It's quite a large investment to produce drugs so a little heads up on what actually is going to happen to the production of it might be nice?

https://zkillboard.com/character/584042527/
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#95 - 2016-06-15 11:43:39 UTC
Bakuhz wrote:

can we get an update on how this is going to work with POS tower becoming useless in the near future? how is the production going to work?
It's quite a large investment to produce drugs so a little heads up on what actually is going to happen to the production of it might be nice?



For now, no changes. When the structures get round to redoing reactions, then you'll need a new structure, but until then, it'll remain in POS.

_May_ come in the Fall release, but reactions have always stood to the side of industry.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
elitatwo
Zansha Expansion
#96 - 2016-06-15 11:48:39 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:
Bakuhz wrote:

can we get an update on how this is going to work with POS tower becoming useless in the near future? how is the production going to work?
It's quite a large investment to produce drugs so a little heads up on what actually is going to happen to the production of it might be nice?



For now, no changes. When the structures get round to redoing reactions, then you'll need a new structure, but until then, it'll remain in POS.

_May_ come in the Fall release, but reactions have always stood to the side of industry.


Thank you Steve for keeping us informed Smile

Eve Minions is recruiting.

This is the law of ship progression!

Aura sound-clips: Aura forever
Cade Windstalker
#97 - 2016-06-15 14:15:04 UTC
Terminal Insanity wrote:
LAME.

As someone who doesnt produce boosters, and is always in short supply of them, im sure this change will enable me to use boosters a lot more often.

However, wtf. This was an interesting gameplay mechanic. It added variation to the game. These small things you guys keep axing is what gives this game depth and variation. And now you're getting rid of it, in favor of.... nothing. Nothing new will be replacing it. Its just gone. Poof. Eve will now be a little less deep.


It's being replaced by wider availability of boosters, which means more people making the choice of whether to use them or not and if so which ones to use and how to deal with the drawbacks. The "in favor of" here is "in favor of more people using a mechanic that has historically been so niche probably 95% or more of players never see it or interact with it except *maybe* getting killed by someone using a Booster".

This idea that things that are changed *need* a direct and equivalent replacement is a little bit ridiculous. The idea is that something is being changed because the outcome of the change is more desirable than the status quo. This is always going to involve some kind of trade-off, whether it's the death of niche playstyles or wider or more restricted availability of some good or service.

As things stand the Booster trade has a fairly limited impact on a fairly small number of people. Opening that up so that more people can be (and will likely choose to be) impacted by Boosters and their mechanics gives CCP a lot more that they could potentially do with Boosters and surrounding mechanics.
Rob Dalvik
Profiteering Privateers
#98 - 2016-06-15 18:57:11 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:


As things stand the Booster trade has a fairly limited impact on a fairly small number of people. Opening that up so that more people can be (and will likely choose to be) impacted by Boosters and their mechanics gives CCP a lot more that they could potentially do with Boosters and surrounding mechanics.


You seem to be discounting the fact that booster use and availability can be bolstered without the complete elimination of smuggling. I would wager a big reason why smuggling is performed by so few people is that it, along with customs, are poorly defined mechanics. Take a step back from eve for a moment and imagine a smuggling profession in a space sim and Im sure your mind can go wild with possibilities of experience. Now suppose you find a space 'sim/game' that doesnt involve smuggling. You probably would view that as a prime opportunity for a new, deep playstyle.

CCP's solution to this is unimaginative at best.
Skia Aumer
Planetary Harvesting and Processing LLC
#99 - 2016-06-15 19:00:09 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
It's being replaced by wider availability of boosters, which means more people making the choice of whether to use them or not and if so which ones to use and how to deal with the drawbacks. The "in favor of" here is "in favor of more people using a mechanic that has historically been so niche probably 95% or more of players never see it or interact with it except *maybe* getting killed by someone using a Booster".

This idea that things that are changed *need* a direct and equivalent replacement is a little bit ridiculous. The idea is that something is being changed because the outcome of the change is more desirable than the status quo. This is always going to involve some kind of trade-off, whether it's the death of niche playstyles or wider or more restricted availability of some good or service.

As things stand the Booster trade has a fairly limited impact on a fairly small number of people. Opening that up so that more people can be (and will likely choose to be) impacted by Boosters and their mechanics gives CCP a lot more that they could potentially do with Boosters and surrounding mechanics.

In this exact case they indeed sacrifice minority for the well-being of majority. It is sad, but I can deal with it.

What I am really against is the _trend_ of removing features that actually work and giving nothing instead. Even the best release of the recent time, Citadel, comes with a bitter pill: citadels dont have racial flavors. The gameplay behind it - poof - just gone. They do it step-by-step, in small iterations, they justify it every time: not enough dev time, used by small percent of population, too hard for new players, etc. And then suddenly - no one wants to log in, why could it be?
Cade Windstalker
#100 - 2016-06-15 19:24:12 UTC
Skia Aumer wrote:
In this exact case they indeed sacrifice minority for the well-being of majority. It is sad, but I can deal with it.

What I am really against is the _trend_ of removing features that actually work and giving nothing instead. Even the best release of the recent time, Citadel, comes with a bitter pill: citadels dont have racial flavors. The gameplay behind it - poof - just gone. They do it step-by-step, in small iterations, they justify it every time: not enough dev time, used by small percent of population, too hard for new players, etc. And then suddenly - no one wants to log in, why could it be?


This is really really *really* speculative. You're pointing something out, that pain points or things that almost no one uses, keep getting changed or removed (by your own admission to the benefit of the majority) and then connecting that to the idea that the game is dying (this isn't really well supported, and CCP as a company is doing better than it ever has been) but without any strong evidence of a connection between points A and B.

Personally, based on what I've read and the games that I've played, I think there's more evidence of MMOs dying because the devs left bad systems in place because a minority of players found them usable than of games dying because they made poor systems better and more usable.

If you have a suggestion for something to replace this without defeating the purpose of these changes then by all means suggest away, badger the CSM about it, or whatever else. Maybe push for something else to be made illegal