EVE General Discussion

The game has consequences and is a sandbox only as long as the long term sandbox stays neutral.

As of now it's possible for 1 entity to take enough valuable "battle objectives" (moons) to basically ransom the whole game to do their whims and for as long as they want.
They create their own consequences (like i.e.: you must join 0.0 or else...), they indeed create game content but that game content exclusively suits them, the resulting sandbox suits them with no alternative.

Short of missing to pay rent nobody will displace them anytime soon.

There will be no respite, no "well I don't like their imposed sandbox but I know somebody else will replace them in 3 months and then I'll have a sandbox I like more".

Basically it's not playing "a" sandbox but "their" sandbox for a very, very long time.

Why pay for somebody else's sandbox, including disliked rules imposed on you?

Had EvE been newer, fresher and with enough willing guys to form an opposing force, it could be possible to try change The New Order. But most players with leadership quit, it's just individual or small groups, they won't reach a critical mass to try contest the new EvE owners. Even if they did, they don't have the infinite ISK coming from moons and they will be crushed.

The Butterfly effect is a fallacity: it would only work in an open universe. EvE is too small, there are not infinite opportunities here.

If you place artificial limits on gameplay, it can no longer be said to be emergent.

C.

Noone is forced to use the modules that uses the moon minerals, 'nuff said.

A new rising alliance would not care about using (or not) such modules. They would not be able to compete in the economy war that after months or years of attrition could let them win.

Plus, doing a 500 vs 500 fight where one side has T1 fit ships and the other T2 + command ships + proper logistics.... imbalance could happen.

OP,

I don't think an indefinite Hulkageddon is a bad thing. It's actually been around for nearly forever even before the first Hulkageddon was ever hosted. So far, Eve Online has not crashed and burned since then as the doomsayers profess.

Also, even the most powerful alliance is never immune to the enemy within. If you recall what happened to Band of Brothers, a once-powerful alliance that controlled more than half of New Eden in their heyday, they collapsed because of a single spy who conspired with Goonswarm (a then-fledgling alliance). Who is to say that the same thing won't happen with them? Spying is part of the game after all. It may take years to see results, but the goal is usually worth the effort.

Then stop doing 500 vs 500 fights, stop trying to own space, stop trying to make ship replacement schemes, etc?

It's quite simple really; you want to play the big boys field, you play by their rulebook (or find your own loopholes). If you can't handle that, then find your own niche or slice of the cake. Currently my 20 man corp lives in space that is 'contested', but highly active with Razor and Goons. Recently for example my CEO (alone) engaged 12 guys shooting an offline Raiden-POS, and they ran. Two of us in corp took on bit over ten Razor, fighting over an Estamel spawn in a belt too. Eventually we had to retreat, I think at the end they were 15 or 16, with logistics, combat probes, Curse, Rapier etc. We were two.

My point; stupid people want **** for free. If I can't fly t2, I will fly t1 like the early days. Like, when t2 production was monopolized (remember 150mil Cap Recharger II's? Remember 150mil Cov Ops Cloaking Device? Remember Absolutions? etc). And if I want to try to take space or moons from 9k+ people, then quite obviously they won't just roll over and let you have it.

There is more ways to play this game than one. But yah, it seems most don't understand that simple thing.

In a way, tanking a Hulk does help... in making sure only the best and determined gankers gain the fruits of their labors. Eve Online is all about natural selection anyways.

You can dislike my choice of words all you wish, it doesn't change their degree of accuracy.


That is precisely my point. We are approaching a scale that will be truly limiting and that wont sort itself out in time. The difference between cornering a market and setting up a situation where an entire sector of the game feels forced into a playstyle they may not have chosen is that market manipulations and other similar activities will, in the end, balance out and things will settle down. Adopting a "play our way or we'll force you out" rule then enforcing it with lethal force is not an open world and it pushes people away from EVE because it is no longer a sandbox game. It's a sandbox for one group of people and the rest of the players have to live by their rules or they don't play.


Which is a problem because we're approaching the point where that's no longer possible to any significant degree.


"Only if the Goons say you can"?

That's what the forums are like nowadays. In some way, the metalore of EVE could be written by the forums, and we'd all wonder how EVE died repeatedly under the goons, gankers, The Mittani, nullsec, PvPers, etc etc over and over.

No. It says in a risk vs. gain situation, since the risk of ganking Hulks doesn't come near the gain it makes a farce out of the concept the Hulkageddoneers claim is their justification. They risk nothing significant. The outcome is predetermined. There's no possibility of things working out differently - there's no RISK.

I'll draw a map for you for 100 million.