Jita Park Speakers Corner

^^ This.

How many times have we heard the complaints about EvE "turning into WoW" before?

If we're going to make a sandbox sandier, we have to abandon the old MMO paradigm of character development as a linear affair. To see the largest ships as "end game" content, or even to use the term "end game" at all, is to fall into the same trap facing conventional level-based systems. We shouldn't be surprised to end up wrestling with the issue of stat creep even in EvE, as special a snowflake as it may be.

I don't think most EvE players see big numbers as the real source of awe and excitement. As Seleene pointed out, these days Titans scale just like any other ship, and lost their appeal as soon as enough numbers appear in the game that focus fire takes away the novelty of their gargantuan size. When 1000 ships assemble in EvE, It matters little whether its battleships facing battleships, or titans facing titans. Stuff just starts popping.

The circumstances of the fight are the real thrill – the story that led to 1000 players clashing in the first place. Of all the things about EvE that change with fleet size, narrative actually transforms more interestingly than anything else. The smaller the gang the more the pilots themselves are the heroes of the story. As fleets get larger, the characters in the tale become the corporations involved, and eventually the alliances, coalitions, and megalomaniacs that make the news.

Seleene is on to something really valuable here – as a CSM we shouldn't be pushing the number or size envelope as much as we push for greater depth in gameplay. Titans should have an epic role to play in an engagement, and not simply become frontline fighters like the battleships of old, losing their sense of identity and purpose.

I absolutely agree. This is the main reason why I don’t understand why 0.0 entities don’t consider themselves role-players and even despise the term. You’ve just described the epitome of role-play.

I do however understand why the link to role-play and empire space is frowned upon. Because it is too static, It is far too rigid even in Faction Warfare. So claustrophobic in fact that Gallente wannabe role-players are stuck with a Caldari Titen in Luminaire that we know we have absolutely no hope of shifting through in game mechanics. Could you tolerate that in your sovereign space?

This game will be real for role players when Rhoden shakes my hand and congratulates me for winning the presidency of the Gallente Empire and a none-violent coup d'état is widely known as a Snowflake special.

Coincidentally enough, Mittens just wrote a column about this exact thing: EVE Born.

While I don't agree with everything he says, I think that reading the article sheds some light on exactly why some players act the way you asked about. Up until the 'community' mind-set came to EVE, there was much more of a focus on maintaining at least a minimal illusion of staying true to EVE canon. It could be argued that I 'role-played' the fist big mercenary alliance; hell, just reading some of the old campaign posts that's an easy argument to make. Players like Sir Molle & Evil Thug certainly injected a bit of 'character' into their in-game persona. All of these people are typically pretty chill in real life and nothing like their in-game actions. Hell, the last time I checked, even Mittens doesn't wander through his neighborhood randomly murdering people and crowing about it to the 5 o'clock news.



I ******* KNEW when that thing was put in there that it would be there until the servers shut down because CCP never bothers to follow through on story line elements properly. It's stupid. Another example - back in 2005, a Serpentis Admiral stole a Gallente titan (live event). It jumped through gates and did strange smart bomb stuff, but that didn't matter (there were no titans in EVE at that point). Players from everywhere rallied to kill the thing but a few folks in ATUK and the MC had other ideas - we attacked the fleets trying to kill the titan and prevent the theft. For several hours, we fended off all comers, eventually getting the Titan 'docked' up in Serpentis Prime. CCP was so taken aback by this unexpected turn of events that they had no idea how to even react or reward us. The end result was a few BPCs and hardly a mention of it in the news, not even something as simple as a permanent +10 with Serpentis or anything.

I tell this story to emphasize that I fully relate to where you're coming from and reverently hope that CCP wakes up and finds a way to resolve issues like this that tie into the actual fiction of EVE.



I mentioned in an earlier post a Mordus Legionary Admiral that smack talked me and the MC in local; I still want to blow his stations up. Is that RP? If so, then I'm an RPer.

Why Seleene, for a Sebestor you sure know how to get this Gallente chick’s attention.

But i’m not in this for love nor money, I really think there is a fundamental problem with RP in EVE. As an EVE born - as The Mittani describes it: EVE promises a new player the universe and delivers just this: nothing, nothing, lies, disappointment and then the freedom to kick at each other in a way that is completely divorced from game lore.

I remember being devastated to find that the Hacking skill has nothing to do with breaking into another persons ship so that I could hi-jack it.

I remember being proud of my EVEmon skill plan to fly a Moros built to be an efective bounty hunter only to hear, actually don’t bother mate the bounty hunting system is a joke.

I still save up mission acquired boosters in the hope that CCP will revive the smuggling mechanic.

RPers don’t play this game for anything CCP has done for them as a new player, they play it despite of the glaring holes in the game mechs.

Selene you seem to be the most concientious null sec candidate from my point of view.

Hope your CSM career continues as a result.

Adding t2 bpo's to the game for many years was considered a reasonable move, but with the advent of PI the empire POS costs went up by 20-30%, then again with fuel blocks the prices have more than doubled from pre-PI prices to run an empire POS.

Does CCP still think the t2 bpo's aren't a serious advantage when the t2 BPO holders don't require a POS to make their modules?

I can sit in Amarr and produce on the manufacturing slots right at the trade hub with only 3-4 days delay. If I were a t2 bpo holder, why wouldn't I do that?

In order to make t2 cap rechargers for instance.
The outlay for 2000 units is 490m including datacores.
The sale price for 2000 units is 1.3b. This requires 2 weeks of clickfest. EVERY DAY.
Profit 800m.
-420m for pos fuel costs for my large tower to do it all in.

Are t2 bpo's still a valid mechanic?

Is CCP going to stop nerfing newer industrial players? Or is PVP the only valid gameplay they see in the future?

What is your stance on this?

I'll be Voting for Seleene, Two Step and of course, Trebor, this year.

All 3 have done sterling work on CSM6. Please keep up the good work guys

You’re on the short-list! what would be your Dream Team?

You also got my votes for your hard work and experience !

Seeing as how I got asked about it a lot last week, I just wanted to point folks a couple of my recent blog posts:

Fighting for Industry

EVE's Industrial Revolution

Hopefully these will help answer some folk's questions. Feel free to ask more tho!