Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As long as I can remember people have been asking for a true PVE environment in EVE and always it has been flatly rejected. The reasons for it could fill a book and have caused countless arguments across the forums for many years.

Well - maybe now its time to start looking at a PVE environment. PVP across all games, not just EVE, - the interest for it is simply waning. Quite a number of games are seeing drastic and dramatic declines in PVP populations and certainly EVE has also seen such declines. Since EVE's heyday it has lost nearly half of its active playerbase. I used to log in at peak times to see well over 50k players.....be very lucky to see 30k at peak anymore. Thats a huge decline. So maybe its finally time to take a good look at a PVE environment for EVE.

Disclaimer - This is a high level conceptual discussion of what PVE integration might look like. It will be short on details purposely.

Some rules

A pve environment cannot or should not interfere with the current PVP environment.
A pve environment should provide areas of space that are free from pvp as well as griefing and general harrasment.
It should allow for all aspects of EVE online to be available to everyone regardless of SP - PVP being the only exception.

Now how would it be possible to integrate PVE into EVE without adversely affecting PVP?

My answer --------- make the areas of PVE only " variable and competitive".


Imagine an American football field.
If the first 10 yards represents Eve as it is right now, this very moment, then allow exploration out to the 50 yard line.
From the 10 to the 50 yard line is open to everyone and there is no pvp. players are free to explore, setup bases, build infrastructure, discover new races, discover new techs and do all that Eve has to offer without pvp interference.

Now lets say, just as an example, we have 1000 players that rush in and start running missions for different factions within this space. And lets say that those 1000 players are running missions between the 10 and 20 yardlines. Some will be running for "Unsecure" factions and some will be running for "Secure" factions.

A score will be kept between the Secure and Unsecure factions and given x amount of time a check will be made. Whichever side has the highest score will push the security of this section of space in a direction. Example - Unsecure has a higher score when the check is made so the security of the space drops from "No PVP" to High sec. If unsecure manages to later on again keep a better score then the security is further pushed down to low sec. Now if Secure has a better score on the next check it will push the security back to highsec.

Now lets say, as another example, if you want to get all those goodies from all that conflict free space back to market you have to get into the inzone so you can "score" and get all your goods on the market.This means your going to need safe routes to get inside the 10 yardline and into whatever market you want to sell to. So itll be the mission runners that keep the lanes open and safe or closed and full of hostile activity. It doesnt have to be limited to mission running, being creative one can imagine a number of things that could affect the score of each side allowing everyone to participate in a way they enjoy and are comfortable with.

If you have this competitiveness going on in several areas with chokepoints then you can bring in pve players to a "type" of pvp, one in which they are comfortable with and can realistically be expected to participate in.

Something along these lines would allow for pve integration and a pve pilot project to be implemented without really disturbing the community. One can inject any number of rules and restrictions to keep things from getting out of hand and still have an incubator and test area to see what a real pve environment would look like. The big thing is that the number of players would skyrocket benefiting everyone.

Its time for PVE integration.

Personally, I'd like to see a little bit of Dev support for this thread.. A 'harrumph' or two would be nice.

You are aware that integration and segregation are antonyms, yes?

Nah, its easily done. Im not asking for a game, its integration, picking up players CCP would otherwise looose. Its about increasing the playerbase while minimizing disturbance to the current community and allowing for a style of play that has been blacklisted for many years.

While those statements may sound contradictory, they are far from it. One just has to be a bit creative.

I don't know, will it?

Some posts are just so pointlessly awful that it's hard to do much more than roll your eyes at them. This is one of those posts.

The only way to completely segregate a PvE environment from affecting PvP is to have it make no ISK.

Christ, this again?

'pvp across all games is waning'

Lol Wat?

If you want to play in your own little world play on the test server. You certainly seem to live in your own world.

This cannot end wel...

I shouldnt light a spark...

But it would be funny...

GO

BACK

TO

WOW!!!

Well, i almost didnt do it...

I'm sort of in the opposite camp. Eve doesn't have enough PvP, and that's a problem.

What I mean by this exactly is control. I hate that there is such vast amounts of territory that cannot be claimed. And that the "safeness" aspect also feels like it severely impacts on the potential dynamics of the game.

Not that I have the answers though.

But...
If players could become mission agents.
If players could run stations (Maybe Citadels take over?) and somehow influence their own system security status.
If players could "hire" or run concorde somehow. (So big corps/alliances become factions unto themselves).
If more players felt a part of the territory and resource wars and actively seeking corporate/alliance protection. (Imagine the impact on tax :D)

I feel the unyielding NPC aspects of the game actually have a negative effect on Eve's true potential. And the PvE environment must be completely influenced by PvP interaction. That is true integration and that would make the game more immersive for me. You might find, counter-intuitively, that this enriches PvE play as well - because it becomes more meaningful.

i.e. A Corp Mission Agent wants belt rats removed and creates an official mission oriented mandate, via mission agent platform, with incentive for players to take it up and also boost standing with the agent and corp). So this makes the standings more meaningful too.

I could be wrong, this is just what is running through my mind lately.

TLDR: Less NPC, more control.

I dunno. It's just that the point to eve kinda was and is so that nobody is safe.
I can agree it's limiting and menacing however the excitement is part of the game.
It makes it exciting.
If you run semi-bling mission runner probably nobody is going to care.
So why make it pve only? Did you make someone angry at you so much that you need to change the game?