EVE General Discussion

Make no mistake. If you've been playing this game long enough you already know the outcome. The whines are getting louder and more frequent. CCP will again nerf hi sec. It will happen.

My prediction:

The hardcore zealots will calm for a few months claiming victory for the nerf.
There will still not be a mass exodus of targets into lo/null sec.
A few months/years later the "nerf hi sec" whines will begin to slowly ramp up again.
Rinse and repaet.

This is a bit too rosy of a prediction.
All those civilians would provide some great taxed income but very little if any PvP power / prowess / capability.
PvPers would still be crucial for that entity to survive and the directors should be open minded enough to even try it.
Expecially the latter seems to be quite difficult to see in EvE and would require some prior changes to null sec to begin with: ability to *support* the influx of civilans with factories etc, adding (imo) some NPC guards inside the empire to let PvPers focus on the perimeter and so on.

Hear me out. I posit that the central problem that stifles the development of nullsec is that it is culturally imcompatible with high sec, and therefore only attracts a small fraction of the player base. The whole vast region of nullsec is dominated by fleet engagements and merit is given mainly to pvp skills/stats. It literally is one big battlefield in which the only opportunity is to fleet and follow an FC's lead on an alliance op of some sort. There is no space for the growth of a community in which diverse interests can be pursued. There is an atmosphere of peer pressure, elitism, and disdain for "carebears" that stifles the development of any competing vision. All these things are fine of course. That's one part of the game, one area of player interest. There are also other areas however. Every different "career path" that someone can engage in in EVE is a vital part of the economy and community life. High sec provides the opportunity for the pursuit of most of those careers and offers the player the chance to control their own destiny, write their own story. This is an important fundamental for most players. It's ironic that, though 0.0 seems naturally to be the place where players who want to "be part of something" and play with more of the sandbox should gravitate towards, a large number of players who look for that out there return disappointed. There simply is no place in nullsec (that is secure enough) where a player can go and simply be themselves and play the way they want to play. An alliance that focuses on providing the security and freedom within its borders for carebear types to go about their business will attract massive numbers of high sec players who want to earn more, do something different, and be part of something that they can get behind. Such an alliance would immediately become a target of a bloodthirsty alliance seeking to prove that might is right. If it could weather that storm such an alliance, establishing itself as its own high sec out in 0.0 would attract an entire segment of the player base from Empire, most of whom would be able to fill a vital role. The first alliance to really focus on attracting carebears and providing them an environment to thrive in will gradually see its population, internal economy, and military ranks swell beyond anything the other alliances can manage. Missioners and incursioners will stream in to farm npcs and engage in "good guy" pvp. Miners and industrialists will stream in to have access to better ores, more production slots.Tons of "bittervets" who see something interesting and new happening in the sandbox will throw in their lot. Such an influx of players will quickly create the need for more living space, which will give pvpers wars to fight. Pirates would be attracted too to an accumulation of care bear types in null sec. Playing cat and mouse with alliance security would provide a lot of challenge and fun for both sides. Whichever alliance jumps on this train first will take a quantum leap of evolution that will cause it to transcend, through sheer numbers, the machinations of even the most extreme power players to burn it down. By then they'll see that the prudent move is to follow suit. This could lead to chain reaction exodus of players from high sec into null, while still leaving plenty in high. I'm talking about the formation of actual communities in null with all elements of the player base represented. This would be good for everyone, especially for players who have already commited themselves to living in 0.0. If any devs are reading this I'd like to offer a suggestion as to how this process could be stimulated. Create a means for players to learn more about what is going on in 0.0 and a means for nullsec alliances to attract carebears. Perhaps the captain's quarters could be an interface for this. Alliances that want to reach out to high sec residents need a means of mass communication.

We also have to pay upkeep on them.

So the problem would be solved if you could build station en par with those in hisec, maybe paying huge amounts of ice or what ever to hold them ? If so .. and I think THIS might be a solution to make nullsec more attractiv, it should be rather simple to implement that .. though these stations should still be attackable ..

*sigh* This again.

Look. Nullsec players aren't quite the idiots you seem to take us for. There are in fact good reasons for the things that we do (or don't do)

Your basic hypothesis - that developing a local industrial base will lead to a huge advantage for the first adopter - is not some incredibly subtle insight that only you have been smart enough to think of. It is in fact how 0.0 used to be. It is in fact an idea that is regularly tried. It always fails. Not because nullseccers "hate" those who do industry, R&D, trading, mining, missioning etc. - Virtually all nullseccers engage in those activities. They mostly engage in them in hi-sec, because hi-sec is a significantly better place to do them. It's so easy to supply a 0.0 alliance's material needs directly from hi-sec trade hubs, and 0.0 industrial facilities are so inferior to hi-sec, that it's simply a waste of effort to try and build much stuff locally. This being the case, why waste effort and resources building up and protecting local industry?

(Not to mention the additional security overhead)

That's pretty much the drum I've been banging, yes.

In fact the player built stations need to be quite a lot better than NPC ones, because we can only have 1 per system. So they need to be potentially upgradable to be as good as NPC sov systems with 8 or 10 or 12 stations in like Nonni or Sobaseki.

So you're saying, "Yes, come rat in our home system so we can casually blow up your shinies, that we import, and sold to you at a profit" is all that it would take to fix nullsec?

heh.

People don't want to come to Null in a system full of blues, why would they want to come face absolute uncertainty. In this game of risk-aversion we all play, you really think your proposed idea would see any change whatsoever?

Why do you nullseccers want so desperatedly isolate from the rest of the eve?