Crime & Punishment

Manifesto II - How Highsec miners threaten EVE, and how we can stop them.

James 315's closely argued evisceration of the real threat to EVE. The links take you to the relevant SoundCloud file. New files are initially linked from the MinerBumping Forum by my MB Forum alt, Klaus.


If you'd like to discuss the content of the following audio files, I entreat you to do so in a mature and reasonable manner.

The Accusation
The Carebears Killed Nullsec PvP
The Carebears Almost Shut Down EVE Completely
The Endless History of Nerf Demands
The End Of All Danger In Highsec
The Culture Of The New Carebear
Lessons From An Orca Hunt
The Conflict Of Visions
How We Can Stop The Carebears and A Call To Action

Can't say I completely agree, it was an interesting listen however. I have no doubt the bot miners are lobbying for a reduction in PVP in highsec and more resource types put there.

Personally, as a primary industrial player, I don't agree that high sec mining is 'killing eve.' I imagine some day I'm going to get killed again, probably will tick me off, but that's the game. It keeps me in money to train skills I need to move into more violent pursuits...

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'highsec miners' are the issue. It's a pretty broad generalization used to target a bunch of loud people. Also you guys are starting to get pretty creepy with your role play.

I think a more accurate way to state the problem is, "Mining is a broken mechanic, but it is so central to the economy of Eve that CCP doesn't dare fool with it much". In hindsight I think CCP understands that mining really needed to be a passive rather than active mechanic -- in fact, I think they applied the lessons they learned with mining to the PI mechanic.

Mining combines the worst aspects of all resource-gathering game mechanics: it is a mechanical, repetitive task that takes place at fixed points in the game world and requires little skill but much time to perform. Eve's mining mechanic cries out for automation -- extensive use of alts and outright botting are inevitable. Tedious, un-fun, but absolutely essential to the game: that's Eve's mining system for you.

Why has such a lousy gaming mechanic persisted for so long? After all, Eve's central mining mechanic is little changed since Eve's launch a decade ago. We've gotten better ships, but essentially the game is the same: warp to belt, point lasers at rocks, then stare with glazed eyes at the screen as your ore-hold fills up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Year after year people complain about how boring and dumb mining is, and year after year CCP does nothing about it. Why? Because Eve's economy would collapse without a daily influx of huge amounts of asteroid ore. Huge amounts. There aren't enough human miners in the game to keep up the flow of ore needed. So botting, while never actually sanctioned, has been more or less accepted as a necessary evil -- as long as the botters don't make it too obvious.

I'm not sure what to propose at this point. If CCP were going to fool with the mining mechanic, they'd have done it by now. I think they're afraid of totally wrecking the economy if they try to change mining too much; any substantial change to mining risks interrupting the flow of ore, which in turn risks interrupting the flow of minerals for ship-building. If I had my way, I'd make mining more like PI where you set up your arrays, turn them on, and let them run.

I dislike botting because it's actually an indicator of a broken game. I don't have any huge moral beef with it apart from the way it disadvantages players who don't bot. But Eve's mining mechanic is so dreadfully tedious and un-fun that automating the activity is the only way to engage in it without going insane.

tl;dr version: botting is the only sane way to deal with Eve's horribly broken mining mechanic. If CCP wants to end botting, they need to change how mining is done, at a fundamental level.

Some people actually enjoy mining because they find it relaxing or they like feeling as though they're contributing to something or they're stoned. Who are you to imply that they're insane for not botting?

Motherfucking boom.

also large space because weird forum controls and extra swag

Yeah that's like the one saving grace.

I defo think ice belts should be a random spawn in hi sec anywhere in each region of space. Would **** over the is boxers are setup in each ice system with a couple t down timer from the time the last roid was popped.