EVE General Discussion

Bad ideas exist here.

I like you Salvos, you say good things. While EVE has many limitations that hinder mimicry of real-life institutions, the reverse is also true. If we abandon all attempts at controlling physical territory within the game, which is acceptable to me, then nothing threatens the existence of such a government from existing. We have no buildings to be stolen or people to be arrested/killed, as you would have in real life.

I think then the solution is apparent, any proposed government should keep hands off of space and focus on virtual programs and systems that facilitate gameplay. Any kind of laws or enforcement would then rely solely on access and usage of those virtual systems.

As for the question of a Bank, I have written a rough outline thats posted on the new board. I'll share it here to alleviate the complaints that I'm too light on details. Keep in mind this is a rough draft.

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Banking has been the holy grail of financially-minded players for years. Eve-Bank (iirc?), D-Bank and several others all rose to prominence only to ulitmately shutter their doors. In some cases, players lost billions of ISK. These ultimate failures have cast a dark shadow over banking proposals to the point where the very concept is largely considered impossible today.

However, I believe that Banks can be done effectively if properly planned and executed. All previous attempts at banking have failed to include even basic safety systems, something which will always undermine the process. I'm going to describe a rough outline of a possible system below:

Compartmentalization

The number one safety issue facing a bank is access. A single player, even a well-intentioned and trusted one, who has access to all of the money is an unacceptable risk. In the case of Eve Bank, iirc, the CEO and sole operator had a real-life money crisis that he resolved by selling (via RMT) all of the isk the bank held. He was banned from EVE for it, but his mortgage got covered. I'm sure he felt bad about it, but this is a prime example of why there cannot be a sole operator.

I propose creating compartments of two types: Liquid Assets and Hard Assets.

Liquid Assets are funds that are easily accessible for transfer to account holders when requested. Through careful planning and withdrawal limits it should be possible to keep the liquid asset total at a manageable number. These funds would be distributed over the corporate accounts of a variety of 'shell' corporations that exist for this sole purpose. The accounts have limited access by Middle Managers, with each having access to only one account at a time. The shell corp CEO's are admittedly a problem, which I will label here as the 'CEO Question'. Middle Managers distribute funds to Tellers, who actually interact with accountholders by transferring/receiving ISK. If any of these individual people go bad, their ability to impact the system is finitely limited.

Hard Assets are resources that are stored in a controlled fashion that can be sold to produce liquid assets if the need arises. These resources are purchased using deposited accountholder funds while ensuring that sufficient liquid assets remain available for withdrawal (subject to limitations). The resources that are stored would likely be of enduring value, such as minerals or PLEX's, although their actual value would fluctuate according to market shifts. These resources would be stored under a dual-control system that prevents any one person or entity from accessing their contents. These controls would be held by the shell corporations, but no single corporation would hold both controls for a particular resource.

Example:

Corp A acquires a password-protected box and sets it to allow items to be placed, but limits removal via password protection. The password is kept secured and confidentially within Corp A, while the Box is transferred to Corp B. Corp B then uses its excess liquid funds to purchase resources to be placed inside the Box. When the Central Authority determines that hard assets must be liquidated, it has Corp B transfer the Box to it and Corp A send the password. The Central Authority then opens the Box, retrieves the resources and sells them. The proceeds are then sent to a shell corp to fill its liquid accounts.

Using this compartmentalization, it means that access is controlled in the following fashion:

Central Authority - only has access to money in the form of resources when they have been transferred to it via dual-controls. Central Authority operators could steal liquidated funds before they are disbursed back to the shells. This is limited to the total amount of a liquidation at any given time. (which is a limited time window and could be mitigated by limiting how many Boxes are handled at a given time)

Shell Corp - holds passwords and Boxes, as well as ISK in corporate accounts. Shell Corp CEO's cannot retrieve Box resources on their own, but could steal liquid funds in their corp accounts. This is limited by the total amount held by the Shell at any given time (which can be mitigated by setting limits on liquid asset amount)

Middle Managers - have access to individual shell corp accounts for dispersal to Tellers. Middle Managers do not have access to more than one account at a given time. This is limited by the amount held in individual corp accounts (which can be mitigated by setting limits on those accounts).

Tellers - have access to liquid funds personally distributed to them by Middle Managers, held in their own personal ISK wallets. This is limited by how much is dispersed to them at a given time by Middle Managers.

Using this system, while it is inherently complex, allows hard limits to be set on what an individual 'bad apple' can steal. Will thefts happen? Probably. However, the damage is limited and can be planned around.

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I've received valuable feedback and I concede that many aspects of the overal proposal are overly ambitious or unrealistic. This has been the 'conversation' I was seeking all along.

So, change of course. I'm going to pursue Aaron's general proposal of creating a collaborative venture for pilots looking to do something other than fight. The primary purpose of this arrangement will be securing blue status between our members and as many other people/entities as possible, with the goal of enabling free trade and commerce.

I want to state up front that I want no ISK and am not looking to create an alliance or a corp with widespread membership. I may create a corp to serve as an anchor point for this idea, but with little function beyond that.

To those people that have been following this thread, as well as those who have recently come upon it, I ask you to disregard my earlier suggestions in favor of this one and to provide me with feedback regarding this newest proposal. If its pleasing to enough people, I will begin the necessary steps to make it a reality.

This sounds cool Dietrich, l will come onboard.

I will support you and the blue community to the best of my ability, a few people have already mailed me saying they would like to come onboard so it looks as if we are off to a great start.

Yes, this is some good advice here.

The key is to get as much experience as you can. I haven't been successful in building a null sec community in all my attempts, but, I am more experienced than when I first started this type of adventure. Once you have more knowledge you're in a better position to know what will and won't work.

I'd just like to point out there are actually many ways to fight. Say if a pilot blues us and joins our community and proceeds to sit in Jita reporting the locations of gankers into our inter channel, I would view this as fighting. Also, another dude within the community will be able to use this intel to organise a fleet and attempt to fight the gankers.

Even miners joining our community can fight if they go ahead and mine while under the supervision of a fleet who can counter the enemy's attacks.

Words may also be classed as fighting If you can inspire people to take up arms and collectively fight the obvious conspiracy.

I can see why you'd think that. I'd say taxation is logical. Of course the abuse and mismanagement of tax is wrong. In lots of instances tax always gets mismanaged and the result is the little guy has to pay more tax.

I'll put it another way, governments and racketeers have several things in common. Governments, like racketeers, promise things that they can't or don't want to deliver.

Not paying taxes comes with penalties, seizure of assets, intimidation through the courts etc; not paying into an extortion racket comes with similar penalties, seizure or destruction of assets, intimidation etc.

The main difference between them is that taxes are enshrined in the legal system, which in most cases was set up by the moneyed portion of society to protect themselves; by and large that portion of society inherited their money from ancestors who exploited, conned or outright stole their wealth from others.

Anarchists always complain about government until their house is on fire (and they need the fire department) or the bad guys next door over break in (police) or worse the bad guys next country over march in (military).

But sure, taxes bad, blah blah blah.

Political science and ideologies aside, EVE is an artificial virtual universe with limited mechanics.

Players can ofc create anykind of community consensus/arrangement they wish between themselves, but in terms of ingame actualisation of them, means/mechanics are limited.

I tried to propose a corp structure that might somewhat mimic and translate the IRL gov structure you are attempting to actualize into ingame mechanics.

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EVE is fundamentally structured around a quite simple, undifferentiated corporate model, especially as involves the presumably immortal and a-political capsuleers.

Ironically though, many of the NPC empires/entities ingame are not strictly corp structures.

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CCP could, should they wish or bother, include different orgaisational structures mechanically.

Such that, for example:

1) Specializing in new factional skill trees would open up new organisational structures/options/bonuses/penalties.
-Amarr organisational specialisation could open hierarchic royal/aristocratic models.
-Minmatar, raw direct democratic vote.
-Gallente, a "council of equals"
-Caldar based on financial wealth/holdings.

2) Divergent Pirate/NPC Corp/Secondary NPC power faction models, such that for example Serpentis specialised organisations might have a research bonus.
-Or that all/some factional organisational specialisations have ingame bonuses/penalties to members in corps with that model.

3) Should a corps adopt one of these specialised factional organisational models, it could further be implemented that they receive:
-Bonuses/penalties in relation to ingame NPC entities
-Be unable to ally with corps that have unfavorably related factional specialisation organisations (For example, Khanid vs Amarr, though both monarchic)
-Automatic permanent state of wardec vs diametrically opposed faction specialised organisations

Balancing would be a nightmare, and intellectually conceiving different models would be a huge effort.

But hey, its possible, and would open up vast new metas and depth to how both Player and NPC organisations exist and inter-relate in EVE, mechanically.

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Would be an update that certainly would revolutionze the way EVE corps work, as it strikes to the true core of this game in terms of how players create, run and interrelate their organisations. A goal worthy of CCPs history of some truly fantastic development successes in the past.