EVE General Discussion

Though it is a slightly different topic I think the main problem null faces is that alliances can't build a vertically integrated industrial base where money flows from the bottom to the top for other alliances to attack.

What I mean by this is you want people mining + ratting + manufacturing + trading in null, making everything they need (maybe importing 1-3% of the materials they need) and able to live independently of High Sec if they so choose.

This would give other alliances a great target to attack and would really liven up the game, causing more people to subscribe for *awesome-timez*.

Currently High Sec has such a vast advantage in industry this is not possible, so High Sec may need nerfing to cause this situation to be possible. It's not up to me, it's up to CCP, I enjoy the debate.

But the fact that they "can't" do that isn't a restriction of game mechanics. They can, it's just more profitable to do otherwise. Right?

while I'm more on the opposite field to Tippia in regards to this (it's not hisec that is too good, it's losec/nullsec that isn't good enough, imho), truth is, I agree with Tippia that it's quite hard to make it so without making the entire economy going bonkers.

in all honesty, nullsec space should be better, BUT with the caveat of being able to do something about the ability of moving huge amount of **** thru half of EVE in the blink of an eye.

nullsec would be better if it was based around the "extremely rich and totally isolated self-suficient islands" thing. Easy to defend, easy to hold, bit hard to take over, pain in the ass to move **** about from and to empire.


but then you crash into another thing. In the end of the day, the most sure-fire way to invade something is to have more people than the defender, so defender needs more people.

needing more people needs giving them a slice of the nullsec riches, which means that, all of it being a fixed ammount over time, means that giving some to one guy, you need to cut out a tiny bit from everybody else. doesn't seem much at first, but as soon as numbers start to escalate further, sooner or later, your big slice of nullsec riches is divided thru a huge number of people due to them being in your alliance, being from some blues you brought in to fill the ranks or many other things that might've transpired. since the start of a war.




in the end, the only way I can see nullsec to be worthwile is to actually adding more space. and not 1 region or two. I'm talking about doubling, or even tripling the total amount of nullsec space we have currently. new "buffer" null like syndicate and new true null like the fringes we have today, but simply more.

Even still, I can see this also ruining economy, or ending up stale as it is today, since there is no "good" way to solve this predicament, because in the end, us humans, want to have the whole cake and eat it, and doing so while sitting in a confy chair with said cake being hand-fed by a very sexy nurse or waitress or whatever fancies your sexual orientation.

Is there any chance we can get harsher penalties for violating the civility in this thread? It might help keep it civil .

There is a reason for that. We fought hard for the space and we defend the space so why should anyone not with us be allowed to use it? We can't be sure that the neutral in system has benign intentions. That previous statement is one of the reasons AFK cloakers can be so devastating (as well as complained about), no one knows what that person can do so they either do not use the space or use it sparingly. So it isn't so much "ghetto-thinking" as it is we are not willing to risk the security of our space and that we are not willing to share with people who have not helped us before.

In highsec this is not the case. Anyone can move into your mining system and mine. Anyone can go to your trade hub and trade. Anyone can explore in the system you live in. Anyone can run missions in your system. This is acceptable too because you did not fight for that space, NPCs did and they allow you to share their resources.

Most of the post is fairly fine and I agree with it to an extent, but I have to disagree with number 4. No area of null should ever be (almost) completely safe, no matter the amount of effort invested into it, else you enter the danger of monopolized market such as what happened with technetium. There should always be an option of raids into defended areas or of ninja harvesting without the threat of instant retaliation. Proposals have been made in the past to achive that.

There have been nerfs to hi sec income (L5 missions moved to low sec, datacore farming, PI taxes, Incursion nerfs) and they've made little to no difference in the player population distribution between the various secs. I'm all for "adjustments" to hi sec incomes for the sake of economic well being, but the "nerf hi sec to buff null" logic is clearly flawed, all too clearly mindless ranting and becoming rather boring tbh.

Plenty of players cling to the "risk vs reward" arguement in the debate around sec space income, with zero facts. In another thread, I at least attempted to quantify risk, with the data that is readily available, which seemed to indicate it was low sec that was most risky. In that thread Tippia made the valid point that ISK should be factored in to produce a viable metric. I challenge the OP of this thread to undertake such an analysis, say for VFK-IV, Amamake and Jita and then come back and argue their case.

Until the fundamental issues surrounding sov null are addressed by CCP, it will remain the place for the mega alliances/coalitions and remain an unattractive proposition for any player or small corp/alliance looking to establish a foothold. Sov null needs work on game mechanics, not simply a buff to incomes as this would inevitibly just make the mega rich even richer, but to give the sov null residents something to do other than participate in forum wars.

Blob is great. Grind is pretty meh.

For me personally, and I think CCP as well, Incarna(geddon) really showed how fragile the game is. I can't find the official post, but I think they stated 13-17% sub loss? That's pretty high for an old and stable game. And it happened virtually overnight (within weeks, perhaps a month). And I maintain that CCP did an amazing, stellar job at arresting the fall. Currently another game, GW2, is crumbling because the devs can't even begin to comprehend what needs to be done to save their game, never mind actually act on it with any degree of success.

But back to EVE. The population drop that steep is actually one of the side-effects of having few actual players, but each player running multiple subs. With this setup, the game's stability is a lot lower. A loss of a single player in another MMO, where players to accounts ratio is 1:1 is felt a lot more keenly in EVE where average player to account ratio is closer to 1:3. When one player in another MMO leaves, you lose 1 account. But when a player in EVE leaves, and he has between 1-8 accounts, the avalanche effect happens. For each pissed off person, you get not 1 but 2-8 account closures. Which I think is what happened with Incarna. And it scared CCP silly.

And the problem with niche market of EVE is that this niche may be tapped out. Look at server population. We hit the record a year or so ago at 65k concurrent users? We didn't beat it yet. Didn't even come close really (57k peak after Retribution hit). We got to 450k subs a year or so ago, and didn't get to 500k yet. EVE might be growing, ever so slightly, but it can easily be attributed to GAMER numbers, in general, growing MORE than ever so slightly. Some sources estimate the number of "gamers" doubled in the last decade, though many of those players are consoleers. It could also be attributed to alt propagation, as chars get older, many feel they need a second account for convenience.

And I think CCP is well aware that their niche market may be tapped out. Hence, Dust, and trying to branch out into the console market. Because they got all they can out of the PC market and the EVE's niche specifically. So they're branching out into FPS genre and consoles.

My point is, when you have a niche game, for a niche market, you CANNOT **** off your customers! For any reason. Because if they do go away, there's no guarantee new players will fill in the void. In fact, based on past performance, there's a virtual guarantee that the void will NOT be re-filled. I personally think we still have not recovered from Incarna(geddon) even 1.5 years later.



Eeeeeh, yes and no.

I actually feel WIS is essential to the game's survival, and blame Incarna fiasco primarily on botched release (just one room, closed door). But more importantly, I blame the fallout on the cash shop they added, and the leaked internal memo. Without these two last pieces, it would have gone much smoother, and the game might be further along now.

This comes around again to the "tapped out niche" state we're in. People who wanted to try EVE, already tried EVE. Game's been up for nearly 10 years. There's virtually nobody out there that wanted to try it, but didn't. Those that did, either stayed and are here, tried it and quit, or it wasn't a game they like to begin with. We're "tapped out". Which is why the new player experience and all that stuff they've been working on is a bit of a joke. You can make the experience as good as you want, but if there's no new players coming in, and those who come in quit because of the way the game stands for and what it offers, no tutorial is going to cut it, no matter how amazing. Though I have to say the new tutorial and the whole "pointers in space" thing is amazingly well done and I sincerely wish they'd re-do EVE's entire UI to be in-space and more intuitive, but that's just me dreaming.

Bottom line, I feel EVE reached a point where WITH SPACESHIPS ALONE they can't do anything else to increase the population. They can add new hulls, new modules, whatever, but this will not translate into significantly more subs. As I think Retribution showed. And considering that players do drop out (burnout, boredom, life issues...heck, average EVE gamer is old, could be health issues and/or death!) and not really being replenished at a good rate, there's just one possible outcome.

But WiS has the potential to tap into a whole new niche - players who are into Sci-Fi, but who could not accept the ship as their avatar. With avatar gameplay (exploration, perhaps pew-pew PvP in stations?) for them. This is what Dust should have been, but being for consoles eliminates any chance of that happening. Though it may pay off in the long run for CCP, if they guessed right and manage to tap into another niche - console FPS bunnies who like Sci-Fi with a little more brain than brawn.

As for null and space operetta? You have to remember that a lot of folks don't want to be a part of the "blob", a part of a huge alliance, just another kog in the machine. As such, they will NEVER go to null, never be a part of that, nor care about it, and it would be a conscious choice on their part. This game won't live by null alone.

In closing, I still feel EVE isn't in a place where CCP should **** off people on a whim. The game simply can't afford another Incarna-like event.

What happened to the famous HTFU attitude? Shouldn't null players be able to adapt to anything?

That's what null-bears need to remember! That this thing cuts both ways! You'll quit when null turns into a rigid, forced system like high or low sec? Well, guess what? The hi-sec carebears will also quit if hi-sec turns into a shadow of what it once was! And then what will you do? Gather around in null, hold hands and sing kumbaya until you get bored of that and quit too?