EVE General Discussion

Noticed something curious as I watched an Incursion intel channel for a few days. I thought what I was seeing was just a local anomaly, so I went to several other incursion areas as they hatched and sure enough, the same behaviour repeated over and over like religious clockwork.

A regular Joe/Jane in anything other than billions worth of foolishness hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of getting into a Vanguard fleet.

"Shiny" rules the day.

Seems more than just a bit elitist and snobbish, tbpfh.

Seems to me there are vested interests in keeping it this way, for the "farming".

Now, I have no dog in this hunt. I make me ISK by the probe and analyzer and am damned glad and happy to do so.

I also don't necessarily disagree with what I see; EvE is, after all, a sandbox, a free-for-all, where both industry and treachery are equally lauded.

What I do see, from a strictly social point of view, is a wicked case of the "haves" and the "have nots".

As in real life, naturally, the "have nots" vastly outnumber the "haves", yet again, as in real life, fail to recognize their potential power as a cohesive group.

Imagine, for a moment, if the average Chinaman and Chinawoman figured out what the rest of the world sees; that they outnumber their oppresive "keepers" by orders of magnitude. If they were to rise up in unison, and understand that many would die but fight anyway...................

I can see the same here, but economically. And I'm absolutely certain this isn't an original idea, but oh, what fun it could be!

It would be a knee-slapping laugh riot if all of the shunned were to band together, locate the Mothership, destroy it and put to an early end the farmer's looting.

What would the "haves" in their shiny ships do? Laugh at first, perhaps, but keep that income stream throttled and the tears would soon flow....................................

I seem to recall a group of players who could do this at one point in this game..........before they got fat and lazy.

Perhaps it is time for a new "spoiler regime"?

I have me popcorn ready...............

LOL!

Vanguard farmer on radar.

What shocking discrimination! How dare these people not let you into their clique and play internet spaceships with you! You should definitely contact your local humanitarian agency and inform them of these heinous crimes being incurred upon you.

So make a fake loadout in EFT and link it.

To me it's not so much being snobby and elitist, and more about being efficient. There's only so much space in your incursion fleet, and that guy bringing a T2 fit Drake is going to be bringing down the entire team to the point that no one in fleet is going to make any money. And that's what Incursions are about, making money, not about bringing all your buddies along and having fun or donating to charity and uplifting the community.

And as for your noble intentions of rallying the oppressed masses living in poverty and squalor to drag down the rich to their level, good luck with that. You're going to be trying to convince the most apathetic and unmotivated of players into a plan that involves Godlike levels of cat herding. And if you managed to get together a group organized and disciplined enough to finish the Incursions early, surely those poor starving pilots could just... run the Vanguards themselves and not be poor anymore?

Don't get me wrong, I think that highsec incursions have a horribly skewed risk/reward ratio, and I loved all the drama last year when HTIDRaver went around running mom sites while BTL/TDF had their agreement. It's just that the cynicist in me finds the whole "horde of lower class citizens rioting and sticking it up to the rich 1%" thing laughable at best.

Here are some nice new stats to heat the oil:

In January, 27.03 trillion ISK in bounties and 4.37 trillion ISK in mission rewards were paid out for a total of 31.4 trillion ISK (which, incidentally, lines up very well with the old faucet/sink day slice). Not all of this was done by mission-runners, of course, since those bounties also include ratting, complexes, and anomalies. Still, with 176,862 characters running missions, this gives us at most 177M ISK on average per character over those 31 days (5.7 M ISK per character per day). Since they're not the only source of that bounty ISK, the number will actually be lower than that.

During the same period, 8.13 trillion ISK was paid out in the form of incursion rewards — about ¼ of what's being paid out through other forms of NPC murder…

…except that, in one single day, 302 billion ISK (and 4.7M LP) was paid out to fewer than 1,800 incursion runners for an average income of 169.5 M ISK per character for that day alone. Granted, comparing that day to the overall payouts over a month shows that Feb 1st was ~15 percent above average, but still — they make on average as much in a day as an average mission runner does in a month, maybe even more since the comparative mission runner number is inflated by other bounty-paying activities.

I can't imagine why they'd want to keep this activity contained within the confines of a very small group of people…

I won't argue this at all. It makes perfect sense. Game designs and mechanics are meant to be exploited to the fullest extent, and just as your statement above is true, so it also applies to my own profession.

The faster and more efficiently I run my plexes, the less chance and opportunity for the so-inclined to come along and spoil my fun by either ganking me or worse, stealing my goodies.

The difference that I see is that I can manage to make my fortunes with me various and sundry alts and not rely on the charity, goodwill or even remote cooperation of others in a fleet, corporation or alliance..

From my viewpoint, therein lies the disparity.

Now, I could be completely wrong in my assumptions. I don't run incursions. I have looked at the fleet size requirements for your average Vanguard site, and it seems to me to fall outside the capability of even a triple-boxer to manage, thus forcing one into a fleet-with-others mode.

Certainly, there reaches a point in exploration where the sites are too difficult to multi-box "solo", and I pass these by, but there do not seem to be any correlation between, say DED 5 or 6/10 sites that are soloable and any similar payout in an Incursion site that could be soloable.

And yes, before the harpies chime in, I get it....this is an "MMORPG" and social interaction is encouraged and even demanded at certain levels.

The basic point, however, remains, that when it comes to incursions, a few are able to completely control access to the goodies over the vast masses.......solo play is simply not a possibility.

I struggle to find any other area of EvE where this is true on such a general scale.

Certainly alliances hold the keys to specific moon assets, but they do not control the entire production line; it is simply not possible.

Certainly some have cornered various markets in trading, but they do not control the entire fiscal game; it is simply not possible.

Even Alliances holding sovereignty are subject to the likes of me sneaking about nibbling away at their assets while they laze about, unalert and not paying attention.

A solo player has NO chance, however, at anything other than the most basic, low payout ( read that as not worth the effort ) entry incursion sites.

That is why I think it would be pisser silly to watch a coordinated, repeated effort by those regularly shunned to shut down the incursions at the earliest possible moment, depriving the farmers and their elitist ( efficient, whatever ) cliques their due.

Seems to be perfect EvE play to me. Skewer the other guy, as early and as often as possible.

My best loots, my most savory conquests, come from thieving sites in sov held space. The thrill of taking from the fat and lazy hoarders is....................................... exhilarating.

I could imagine that for those who yearn to run incursions, the same feeling would be had by doing the ultimate incursion site at the expense of those who have relegated them to the dust-bin, and to do it at every opportunity.

Sadly, though, as I said earlier, while there was once an entity in this game who would jump at the chance, they have faded into posturing, blustering bravado, riding on past success and slowly dissolving away into that very "common" melting pot they used to so regularly upset.

Again, I await the rise of a new, vital organization, willing to take on the establishment and assert the will of the masses in unity anew.

I even have Kraft Mac n Cheese flavored salt ready for me bowl of popcorn when it happens.

Just import a fake fit and use that in your advertisement at the "shiny" racists, everyone does it and nobody will notice.

Yes, you are wierd.......