Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Absolutely, you have every right to play your corp independent or however you like.

But because this game is actually designed to force you to interact or cooperate with other players then you're going to constantly come up against challenges to your play style.

One of those will be in lowsec.

Don't ask for the game to be changed to suit you, just learn to play your solo style better.

Exactly. So hiring live-body mercs rather than some stale and predicable code is pretty much spot on for the theme.

In what way? How is paying one party to protect you a scam, but paying another party to do so not?

Who said you can't stay independent or have to sell out? All anyone is saying is that what you're asking for is already in the game, and CCP is not likely to steal a job players can do and give it to NPCs.

You pay people so they can play the game as they like it and you can play it as you like it. Everyone wins.

Never not dual box

If NPC's are available for hire & they are worth anything, the corp with the biggest pockets would win. Larger corps tend to have more resources available to begin with, so it would make them even more dominant.

In some far distant future, where the entire background universe is simulated, and the AI can make player like decisions (such as to betray an employer in the middle of a battle, or declare war on a corp on their own), such a thing might be doable.

In this game, now, it's not. It would just result in more entrenched power than currently exists.

So you want to hire NPCs so you can go kick someone else's butt.

Im sure you'd be all for equity in the hiring of NPCs, which could just result in the other Corp hiring their own NPCs too.

So players and NPCs against players and NPCs; and NPCs have a difficult time kicking anyone's butt.

In the end I think this would just reduce to the current situation of players against players. If you want to take on a numerically superior opponent, you either need better support, force multipliers or more numbers.

Because NPC hire would be open to anyone, this feature wouldn't solve your problem. For the ISK, hiring players would gain you much more capability than AI provides.

NPC escorts for hire...

Already exists, they're called drones.

Completely agree with you, NPC or AI should be a big part of any sci-fi Universe, especially MMO. Capsuleers aren't even taking up 0,1 % of the entire population of New Eden anyways. Many things just can't be done involving the players only... it would just end up being boring and wouldn't make sense. There s a right step in the next direction with the teams though which brings some parts of the lore and goes in tact with the EVE Universe more. More things like this will definitely make things much more dynamic and fun, it won't ruin anything cause players will always control the main systems of the things anyways. It just all needs the underlaying activity and life that is in the end happening all around us, we just don't see it enough. Anyway we really don't control entire market everywhere, we just control what we sell or make and that is just a part of the market even if the scale that we live in is large. Within the EVE Universe, the markets work kind of differently, are run by anyone, including capsuleers ...

Lack of space Pimps

So you basically want NPCs to babysit you because you are bad at the game, this is a sandbox not a themepark. Everyone is put in the world and is equal, if you can't deal with the world you shouldn't be given NPC protection just because you are a weak link.

You know how you can cut through hundreds and hundreds of NPCs, but if you try that same thing with just 5 other players... even just a dozen week-old noobs... you get really dead, really fast?

Yeah.... I have some really bad news for you, mate.... those NPC's are going to be really expensive speed bumps on the way to your killmail. And not even very effective ones, either.