EVE General Discussion

Yup. People started crying, devs caved in, made the games "fair" and "balanced". They became boring and people left.

And here's another ninja edit for you: There are plenty of games that frown on scamming, ganking, griefing, that are fair and decently balanced. They come a dime a dozen. Why would you not go and play one of those? Since you are sticking around, there's clearly something you like about Eve that those games do not have.

Thank you OP for your thoughts, I hope CCP reads it.

So are you.

Probably. It would be less interesting, though. Can yours survive with scamming?

I don't scam and I think I'm just here because I like posting on forums.

yeah I wanted to see just how vile a player you were willing to claim to be.

yyyeahp. And my question is in broad terms, if citadel courier scams weren't allowed, do you think EVE would see a net gain or loss of players as a result.

OP experienced and tried a lot of different things, and just because you think something is harmless doesn't mean other people feel the same way. I figure the ratio of scammers to marks is pretty skewed to be mark-heavy. Purely for subscription / player retention purposes, which group should you keep?

I would think a net gain of players, Eve has an issue with casual solo players with one account, you are at such a massive disadvantage in every way, if CCP can get their head out of their rear ends and accept that this is a multi account game and make it so casuals can have an Omega and an Alpha on the same computer or do a special deal for two characters in space things will be a lot better.

This scam on citadels is an example of how CCP gets it wrong, what it enables is rich old experienced players being able to rip off new eager players with rubbish mechanics, its not just that one but bumping and loot scooping through DST's via a noob account also figure in terms of poor mechanics that favour those players.

The saddest thing about this is that this player did not get to try out what CCP does get right, which is the impreesive tactical game of fleet fights in null sec, however he would have to be an Omega to really enjoy it. The way that CCP have set up that combat now with very interesting capital ships and things like destroyers with defender missiles to counter bombers and the like is really really good, all these scamming and stupid ganking just gives people an easy way to say nope not for me.

However that fleet game is only fun as long as one of the large cash rich alliances have not noticed you, once they do, the fun dies because for them it is their fun that only matters...

so in basic - you lost because you totaly lack of expirience as eve player.
knowing how to mine, how to rat or do other thinkg is not base knowlage - basis is how to survive in this cruel world

I think the difference in player numbers would be within the margin of error/normal fluctuation. It's just not that important in the grand scheme of things.

And of course you are right - there are probably way more marks than scammers. However even the marks play this game specifically because they like it over all the other choices of MMOG to waste time on. And I believe that all the mechanics in Eve are interwoven. Change just a minor detail, and you change a big part of the game. If you take away the citadel scam, the scammers will think up something new, and it's probably not going to be any less frustrating for the victim.

Case in point: Can flipping. In the olden days, nasty evildoers would steal from a miners jet can to coerce them into a CONCORD-legal engagement. Then barges got bigger cargo holds, and the nasty evildoers had to find a new way. They opted to just suicide gank them, with no chance to fight back. Is that any better?

Case in point: Ganking. In the olden days, people would often use artillery tempests to gank freighters. They would wait on the gate, the freighter would decloak maybe 20km off of them, they'd fire, die and get insurance for their battleships. Then the insurance was taken away for suicide ganks and this was not worthwhile anymore. So people had to find a new method. They found catalysts to work, but catalysts need to be in range. This takes a while, so the freighter would have to be held in place. How do people do that? They bump the freighter around. For 5 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour? Is that any better?

Case in point: Watchlist. In the olden days, wardeccers in highsec would declare war on a handful of corporations, check who's online and hunt them down. The watchlist was removed (for a wholly different reason without thinking about what it would mean for highsec), and now the wardeccers declare 200 wars and just wait and see who happens to pass by randomly. Is that any better?

There's a decision to be made: Do we want Ganks? Do we want Highsec Wars? Do we want Scams? If the answer is "no", they should just be prohibited outright. If the answer is "yes", then we should try to keep tinkering with the mechanics involved to a bare minimum.