Player Features and Ideas Discussion

No, that's not an issue at all. The fact that they have learned to work with the mechanic is not an issue. The fact that they're alts is irrelevant. What they're doing is nothing more than what some multi-national companies do today. They need product from XYZ Mining moved to XYZ Steel to be made into material for XYZ Automotive. They move the ore from XYZ Mining across the ocean using XYZ Shipping, and the steel goes to the plant using XYZ Trucking.

There's nothing wrong with this.

chaosgrimm,

Alright, I read your response while having my coffee in the morning and thought about how to answer it.

Here is how I think things evolved. The Red Frog guys early on started a corp to do hauling for profit. Once they got big/popular enough they started to attract the attention of corporations/alliances that use wardecs for fun and excitement in game.

So now Red Frog was faced with a problem: how to deal with wardecs?

My guess there were three general solutions they looked at, there could have been more.

1. Just stop hauling for profit.
2. Hire some pilots to fly escort in combat ships, webbing ships, scouts, etc.
3. Something outside the box, so to speak.

They probably did not like the first solution. The second probably made hauling for profit prohibitively expensive, but theoretically it is do-able as that is how NS alliances would move stuff way back when. They’d load of the freighter(s) and then for a fleet and escort it from NS to HS. Along came JFs and that stopped.

Now for the third option there may have been discussions about using JFs once they became available. Catching a JF when the pilot knows what he is doing is quite hard, but the problem is lack of cargo space and the additional cost. If this were the only option it would be viable, but then somebody probably came up with the following:

1. Move the actual hauling pilots into NPC corps.
2. Put an alt in RFF so that the management can keep track of things via APIs.
3. ???
4. Profit.

This was the best solution. It is cheaper than using JFs. It is cheaper than using escorts. And it is also less burdensome in terms of logistics and organization (getting a fleet together for anything is a lot like herding cats). And with OOG communications applications and the alts still in RFF you can still keep a lot of the benefits of having a corporation and minimize the problem of wardecs. In short they minimized their downside while retaining all of the upside.

While you this as a design failure I see it as a success for the game, the players and the Devs. By providing minimal structure and mechanics the Devs kicked the problem over to the players and let them find the solution. And they retain the open and classless system that allows players to come up with these novel solutions. And not just RFF, but other solutions and results as well. We don’t have too many good mechanics for things like lending ISK. If I find an opportunity, but lack the ISK, there is no formal mechanism for me to go and get what would essentially be a loan or what is known in game as a bond. But a solution emerged not by CCP, but by the players. We got third parties like Chribba, et. al. Now it is possible to get such loans provided you have the collateral to back up the bond. Grinding for standings to anchor POS’ in HS was also an annoying chore…and enterprising players came up with ways to make ISK by offering standings services. There are all sorts of things players are doing that the Devs probably had no idea they’d think up.

My point has been, and which you continue to ignore, is that your solution would damage or destroy this process and create opportunities for abuse.

There was an interesting article on John Cochrane's weblog about how Trump owns his various aircraft. It is via a myriad of LLCs out of Delaware. And he, and others, use Delaware because of the laws in Delaware mean that LLCs do not have to publish financial information nor do they have to tell anyone who owns them and if the LLC fails the owner is out only the money/assets invested in the LLC. Here is the link,

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2016/12/trump-taxes-two.html

Basically, without getting into all the stupid politics, the point of this complex myriad of LLCs is to minimize various forms of risk.

What RFF has done is not entirely dissimilar.

Is it a design failure? No, I see it as a success.

TL;DR Eve is a player driven sandbox, the tools we're given are the equivalent of a couple of spanners, a screwdriver and a big 'king hammer; how we use the tools is up to us.

And while it might fix this "problem" it would leave us all worse off, IMO.

You touched on this slightly here and in your previous posts, but there are 2 holes in this argument.

1) A "sandbox" game has a "box" to consider.
Scope is important. For example, you wouldn't consider Windows or Steam to be a sandbox game.

2) Your argument seems to elude that if the design is "sandbox" that all elements within that sandbox are automatically considered to be well designed.
Sandbox elements can be poorly designed. For example, if a new ship was released that had the combined power and tank of cap ships; but the maneuverability, sig, cost, and SP requirement of a frigate, it would be poorly designed as this ship would discourage people from using other ships in the sandbox.

The question I ask in regards to both of the above is whether or not the corp system is designed well within this sandbox. I would argue "no" as many, including yourself in previous posts, suggest that out of game tools should be used in lieu of the corp system. In other words, there is a desire for the functionality offered by the corporate tools, but many opt to use out-of-sandbox tools for the functionality instead.

---

Lastly in regards to your red frog argument, you are presenting an illusion of choice. You are presenting and misrepresenting the "lack of choice" as "choice". For example:

"Just stop hauling for profit" is a restriction of choice as it eliminates the "hauling for profit" choice. This option is prohibitive.

"Hire some pilots to fly escort in combat ships, webbing ships, scouts, etc." you describe as "prohibitively expensive", again it prohibits choice.

The only choice you offer is "Something outside the box" which is irrelevant when discussing design within the 'sandbox'

Neither are the out of game substitutes to try to replace the poorly designed corporate system. That is why replacements are not relevant to the discussion of corporation design.

You cannot both:
* argue that the corporate system is well designed for a sandbox, and
* champion out of games tools to overcome the in-game system



And the corporate tool is designed poorly.
If you dont believe so, why recommend out of game tools to replace it?
If you do believe so, please elaborate on the aspects of its sandbox design that are beneficial, please note that you'll need to be specific about the corporation design. If you generalize and just recite sandbox "pros" you are proving my prior statement:

"Your argument seems to elude that if the design is "sandbox" that all elements within that sandbox are automatically considered to be well designed."

So what of the corp system specifically is well designed for the sandbox and why?




I will let your sass slide, but you miss the point. You cannot define choice in a game via "Not X".
How would you define "not having choice" in a game? By your standards it is impossible.

Ex: a common "no choice" scenario as described by a gamer would be "multiple dialog options that do not impact anything whatsoever". By your logic, there is a choice because you can choose not to answer, or use an out of game tool like a "choose your own adventure book" to get the choices you want.

Why not?

Only idiots rely on the built-in "protection system" that Microsoft offers on its Windows platform. That is why there are a PLETHORA of 3rd party Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware systems out there.
Microsoft can beef up its defender system as much as it wants and it still will be second-rate to most of the dedicated 3rd party protection systems out there.

Steam can smooth over its platform as much as it wants... integrate chats, audio, and player group options... and people will still use forums and 3rd party audio systems outside of the platform to organize.

Why?
Because a dedicated system for one thing will generally be superior to one integrated into an already existing platform.


Actually you can.

It is called, "giving access to tools while also leaving those same tools 'open-ended' and/or 'basic' enough that people do not have to rely on them to do anything."

The game gives you basic tools for organizing. Beyond that, if you want to be more organized (like some of the larger corporations and alliances) you should look for more optimized tools that will allow you to organize the way you want to organize (of which there are countless ways of doing).

As said before, an "integrated system" will always leave something to be desired.
It will also require a lot of work and effort to maintain.

Better to keep things simple, focus on the actual game itself, and let players figure out what to do if they want more "advanced organizational stuff."

No, my primary response to you has been this is a game about emergence and spontaneous order. And we get there by having CCP provide everyone with the same set of tools and seeing where it takes us, irrespective of what various elements of the population of players want to do in game. That is, what you want to do is irrelevant. Given what you want to do you have to make do with the tools CCP hands you.

Note RFFs solution, to use both corporations and NPC corporations along with 3rd party software to solve their "problem". Further note, that if a RFF pilot keeps an alt in RFF then RFF can use all the in game tools. Email, calendar, shared hangar access, etc.



I don't even know what this means. I read it earlier in the day and thought about it off and on, and it looks like English, but sorry it sounds like a bunch of gibberish I'd call a non-sequitur. Do you walk to school? No, I carry my lunch.

Sandbox is another term for the concepts of emergence and spontaneous order. Having similar over-arching rules across groups is what, IMO, allows this to happen. Look at evolution, another example of emergence and spontaneous order. The over-arching rules are the same for most organisms.

Here, watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8

You know what else I see when I watch that video, besides the obvious? I see innovation that takes place in an economy. I see Eve Online. Everyone runs into a barrier in game...them along comes some clever guy or guys and they find a solution. Others note that solution and like a genetic mutation that "good" idea spreads, maybe even mutates again as others refine the initial solution.

That is what RFF did.

Are corporations part of the game? Yes. Are alts part of the game? Yes. Are NPC corporations part of the game? Yes. Can third party software be "part" of the game? Yes. RFF took parts if not all of these things and solved their problem.

The beauty here is not in some elegant design that lets players do whatever they want without much effort...but that as a result of player ingenuity, not developer ingenuity, a problem was overcome.

Or let me try this...the box, those are the rules. The sand is what we players create. Yes, we have simple, maybe even simplistic, rules...but they allow for these different and novel outcomes.



As was pointed out such ships do in fact exist in game, but only Devs have them and they never really use them (well okay they did once, but that was largely viewed as an error on CCP's part...or so I've read).

And now, I am not saying that the design is "good" or well designed. In fact, what I would say is that when people sit down thinking that they can come up with a system that is going to be good for everyone they will almost surely fail. CCP cannot make a system of different types of corporations that will allow the open and classless system that we currently have, IMO. To do that would invite abuse. And when you have a game that is as old as EVE and you have a player base who have spent years playing a game and always looking for an edge, even a small **** up will be abused to **** and back again and again.

Hell, some players delight in abusing a system just to rub CCP's nose in it. There was a change to the faction warfare mechanics relating to LP and some players looked at it and said..."No...they aren't going to do that?" But CCP did and 5 players did it and took advantage of it and in 2 weeks raked in around 5 trillion ISK. They then reported the exploit to CCP and CCP fixed it. But the point is, players are always ALWAYS looking for an edge. Your notions of design will be handing out edges like snickers bars on Halloween.



The only thing regarding the corp system I'd like to see changed would not address your concerns.



No, those are still choices...that you don't like them does not mean they are not choices. A firm shutting down is always a choice, for example. It is one I have to constantly remind people who are ignorant of economics about. They always say, "Oh, the firm will just raise prices." I point out, that consumers have a choice of consuming less and less as the price goes up and after a certain point, the firm can and likely will shut down.