EVE General Discussion

My humble opinion:

The problem with the current EVE sandbox is that there are much more people in it who have fun destroying other peoples sandcastles than building their own.

The cool thing of a sandbox is that you can build something up. If now and then a bully comes stomping down one of the castles it is ok, a new one will be built there. Without it in fact it would be boring. But if there are 2 Bullies for each Castle Builder waiting at the side for the builder to flip a bucket of sand and instantly stomp it down...

This way neither of them have fun. There are too many bullies for the builders and too less Castles for the bullies.


So yes, I basically agree with the initial post: The problem lies in the attitude of most players. But can one blame another for playing a game the way they like most? Don't think so...

The interesting thing is finding a solution for that problem, as you cannot change the attitude of the majority of players.

But: I definitely do not think that the solution is adjusting the income in Highsec and 0.0
I do not have a solution, so don't ask me about it. Maybe I'd start thinking about one if I got paid for it...

And as someone will sure get me wrong: I do not think the problem is that there are bullies. The problem is that there are too many (Just look at the recruitment forums and count the number of pirate/outlaw/destructionisgreat corps).

I myself btw can have fun on both sides (in an RPG!). But as the bully team is overfull, I chose to side with the builders.

High sec dwellers are poorly organized, not as dedicated to eve, and by and large averse to competition, not just averse to risk or destruction.

I really don't think this is the case.

Players that stay exclusively in highsec are typically either too underskilled or too underfunded to frequently pvp in anything more expensive than a T1 frig or dessy, or at least have the impression if being in that position. Most people I've met do quite enjoy eve's pvp.

Lowsec pvp requires eventually grinding your standings back up, or being a "pirate" and just avoiding highsec all together...so for the majority, it's either a shortcut to another part o highsec, or a place you pass through on the way to nullsec.

Sov space equals blobs, end of. Either you're in a big alliance being herded around to enemy structures and whatnot, or you're in a small group getting a cap fleet dropped on your head. The second option is not fun for the vast majority people, and the first one is only fun for the ones that enjoy dropping cap fleets on BC gangs, and fighting blobs with bigger blobs.

Which leaves npc null as the only place where you can go pvp in anything that isn't a blob without consequence, with any sort of regularity. But, it still takes twice as long to get anywhere as it does any other area, since you have to use tacticals to avoid bubbles, you have little in the way of market items, and making a decent living is quite difficult compared to highsec missions/incursions or upgraded sov systems. And as often as not there are few-to-no fights to be found...so for a lot of people it still isn't very fun.

Highsec, on the other hand, offers the most abundant forms of solo pvp, as well as providing the vast majority of the game's pve content. Incursions in particular can actually be a fun multiplayer activity, not just grinding away for isk like with missions. You can do mostly whatever you want in relative safety, meet up with other players who aren't trying to kill you, faff about with toys too expensive to take out in pvp regularly....it really is more of a fun social experience for a lot of people.


edit: and before someone says it, yes, there's w-space, but that's an entirely different animal...

Yes your exaggeration is obvious hyperbole that weakens your post - why provide a link to a definition?

If you really want to split hairs, players in high sec are averse to forms of direct competition. They are fine with indirect competition on a market where the worst thing that can happen is buying high and selling low. It's anonymous, and nobody will know if they take a loss. It's PvP, sure, but it is a mediated form of PvP where losses are diffused and the emotional effects blunted.

The majority of high-sec players are averse to direct, unmediated competition.

For that to work people would have to have some long term trust in their land lords.

I know it's very romantic to assume that I'm some kind of demon or whatever, but try to look past your (possibly genetically encoded) PvE/PvP culture split for a second. Actually, I don't know why I hit reply on your post since it's complete gibberish.

In the fine first person shooter TF2, people hate when a team has too many snipers. It's not that snipers are bad, per se, it's that the worst players gravitate toward safety and so there is a better than average chance that snipers are just some schlemiels that want to die every two minutes instead of every minute. High-sec is exactly like that.

And you know what? It should be. There should be a much safer area of the game for people to trade in, for new players to do their thing, et ceteras. What it should not be is better for manufacturing, production (especially t2), and mission running. The reduced element of risk should provide reduced rewards. As of right now, that whole ratio of risk to reward is screwed up, and for a long time CCP has made the mistake of assuming players like you (pubbie) will come into null if only the risks are reduced. Nothing will do that, I am fine with that. What I want is for the players who are willing to brave the risks to be rewarded, and right now the math doesn't really add up that way.

There used to be an alliance a few years ago, the Interstellar Starbase Syndicate (ISS), that owned some 0.0 space with outposts and would accept any corp that could pay their membership fee. Theirs was not the best 0.0 space, but it was good enough to be much more lucrative than hisec was at the time. Joining ISS was a relatively easy route for a hisec corp to make the transition to null sec, and many took advantage of it.

The other 0.0 alliances grew to hate ISS, first because it brought too many bots, "bears" and "noobs" to the neighborhood. In response, ISS tried to reform itself by kicking inactive corps and instituting rules of behavior, including mandatory CTAs. This appeased the other alliances somewhat, but there was still a tone of grumbling dislike toward ISS for its carebearish members, who would tend to run and hide from hostile players, rather than fighting. Eventually the other alliances decided they were sick of ISS, and kicked them out of null sec. The route that ISS offered from hisec to null has been closed ever since.

Ascendant Frontier (ASCN) was another alliance of that era known for an industrial focus, leaning toward "constructive" rather than "destructive" activities in 0.0. Around the same time that ISS was being destroyed, ASCN was attacked by Band of Brothers (BoB), a more PvP-focused group and EVEs most powerful alliance at the time. ASCN lost the war and a number of forum pundits pointed to this as proof that the industrial-oriented alliance has no place in null sec.

What's the point of this little review of EVE history? It's that game mechanics aren't the reason hisec players stay in hisec. None of the above events were related to changes in game mechanics; they were all due to player culture. It's not a matter of competition for resources either. The aggressors in the above incidents already had far superior space to that held by the defenders. IMO it's a combination of hunger for battle and disdain for players who are less skilled at and less enthusiastic about PvP. Since these qualities are why many players choose to live in hisec in the first place, they're likely to attract hostility should they dare to claim an enclave in null sec, no matter how resource-poor it is. This is the primary barrier to hisec players moving to null sec, just as the OP said.

ISS was de facto politically aligned with Lotka Volterra, so they had to die. This was common knowledge to null-sec inhabitants attacking them at the time of their first ejection from null. Additionally, many other well-established members of the 0.0 population had invested in them, so hurting them was a good way to also hurt hostile some jerks' wallets at the member level.



They had bad alliance leadership. Any alliance can succeed until it is attacked, and ASCN was a paper tiger.

In brief, both of these examples were Bad At Eve, both on a member and especially leadership level. If their members had been dedicated and their leadership competent, things might have been different for them. In a way you are correct about this being a good example of why high-sec players wash out of null: their main obstacles are competency and dedication.