EVE General Discussion

You're absolutely right about shifting the taxes down the chain.

The way I imagine it sorting out (which is really just a guess of course) is that the holders will essentially "sell" the right to mine moons to their industrial corps or pet alliances. They'll charge a monthly fee for each moon the industrial entity wants to use. The corps/pets will set up their mining ops (like they already do)... they'll just target moons rather than gas or ore.

This will work relatively simply for large aliances.

Ores/minerals will go up... but that's kind of needed at the moment. Dividing the mining efforts between moons and minerals will help with the current oversaturation of minerals on the market.

The thing that you seem to realize (and everyone should) is that the more active you make anything in the game, the more having large numbers helps with the activity.

As for the "gift"... this doesn't really make things easier for anyone. It is just less of a pain for the larger alliances. I'm also not sure about the impact on small groups being unreasonable... why should a small group be able to grab income from a large number of moons? While it may cause quitting... it also may cause some of the small groups to consolidate or join larger groups. It does tend to increase the pressure to join bigger groups as opposed to starting your own smaller concern... but that pressure has always existed to some degree. This just makes it larger.

The new design's do drastically change the time and capital requirements for taking a moon or maintaining large chains of moons. Even my small corp owns a small and large tower for when it is needed for a project. There have been times where I have made use of R8 and R16 moons that came available. I've used moons for a few days or hours. That will no-longer be the case if the refineries use the Anchoring/ Unanchoring mechanics for Citadels.

More moons may come available but it will also be more of a risk (time Sink) vs Reward that may leave of them open. It will largely matter to find out how much of a time sink the new system will be. Also the grid layout could be a deciding factor on how many moons are taken. How close can other citadels be parked near a Refinery? If moon mining becomes a large long term investment then it would make sense to drop several structures in a cluster over your moon. Well, at-least that's how I see it as a small corp.

Large alliances should have no issues past their day to day ones.

That could be a possibility. I've considered moving back to NPC Null, wormhole bunking, or joining faction warfare to side step the issues with EVE's fixation on Sov Null. Many corps may just opt out as status quo and stay put in hisec.

I think the terms "enslavement" and "indentured servitude" are a bit off.

For holders to attract "moon renters", they'll need to offer a rent price that also allows the renter to profit. If the moon produces X amount of isk worth of materials on average... the rent might be X *.5 or X * .25 or something.

Again... there is already a setup like this in place in many alliances where industrial wings mine minerals. They organize various corp operations for mining ore or huffing gas. Moon mining just adds an additional activity for those organizations to use their time on. This will likely cause the price of ALL of the things they spend their time on to increase... gas, minerals and moon products. The amount of time being spent isn't changing... it's being divided among an additional activity.

The people hurt by this are those who are not miners who own moons. They'll either have to make a deal with miners to extract their goo and split the profits, or just abandon the moons. The miners will just split their time based on profits... which will make mining (of all kinds) more profitable. It might make ninja mining of the goo of others a profitable activity (if prices escalate enough).

CCP is likely going to continue making isk generation as active as possible. I wouldn't be shocked if a year from now they announce a PI change that requires more active playing to extract those materials. The research agents have already been nerfed as a passive income source. Upcoming changes to allow the manufacturing of meta T1 modules will nerf one of the most simple avenues for passive station trading profits (as you don't currently have to worry about a manufacturer coming in and mass producing something that runs at a nice profit to undercut your margin). Upcoming moon mining changes remove the ability to passively make isk along that avenue. The only thing really left is PI and skill point farming. Both of those require additional subscriptions to increase income... which may be enough to keep CCP from adjusting.

In general I agree with the philosophy that you should have to play the game to make profit. I understand that it might impact those who want to make easy isk without taking time off from PvP. But... why should they be able to make easy isk without taking time off from PvP? If the concern is simple profitablity for PvP folks... wouldn't an adjustment to cause ships to drop a higher percentage of stuff, an increase in insurance payouts or percentage of bounty received be a more direct way to handle that issue than a passive income method used by PvP and non-PvP folks alike?

But that's something that existed 10 years ago just as much as today.

That "I feel like a peon" thing is what caused me to quit back in 2009. What's funny is if I hadn't quit and just kept playing... I wouldn't be a peon (or I'd be a very wealthy one). I remember BOB and the first Titans and thinking "I'm in a cruiser... it will take YEARS to get where they are already."

It's actually better now. You can grind isk to buy injectors to skill up. But back then you were always going to be behind.

The thing is, while you may not be able to be the master of Null Sec if you start playing today, there are plenty of aspects you can play in with a small corp to create your own story. You won't be a king... but you can have a story. Go be a wormhole baron. Go create a trade empire. Become a mercenary band and get paid to destroy others. Be a solo manufacturer (all the null-sec materials often end up in Jita anyway).

Are you going to create an alliance that takes over a tenth of null-sec? No, probably not. But to be fair only a few of the old players did that anyway. A properly motivated person with a 5 year plan... who knows? It took them that long (or longer) to get where they are anyway.

The "well, that's always been a thing" is the dumbest argument anyone could possibly come up with. "The worst part of the game is going to become the ONLY part of the game! Awesome!"

It's not about age, it's about options. Moon mining used to be an option for small groups. Now it won't be. And when moon mining *was* an option for small groups, it opened up even more options. A small PVP corp could have a couple guys running their moon ops. They could potentially do something defend it it as well. Moon mining *was* a PVP activity. Now not only can the smaller PVP corps not moon mine, they also have reduced options for PVP because of the loss of that income. So options? If they will have to give up their story and pick something mediocre and bland, or quit.

Ok, maybe that exact scenario doesn't represent a very big percentage of players, but I think it erases the stories of thousands. How many groups who aren't currently moon mining have that as part of their plan to eventually get their own sov? And now not only does this change remove that as part of that plan, it reduces the options to achieve sov. It doesn't create any new options, it just makes the worst options the only options: become someone else's NPC, or quit.

And I think this is why EVE has been in decline for most of its lifetime. Fewer and fewer options. Every time nullsec gets buffed, they get more entrenched, more ossified. Which is fine in theory, except that the majority of players who DON'T live in nullsec quickly come to feel like the game is a dead end. Because it is. CCP does not understand the role story plays in peoples lives, and they absolutely do not understand how to balance a game in a way that creates a rewarding narrative. The difference is players could say "that sucked but it was awesome" when something bad happens, where instead they say "that sucked, I think I'll quit." That's the power of narrative, and it's 100% CCP's fault, and it's demonstrated here.

Yes... owning a POS to get passive moon mining income will disappear as an option.

But in exchange, ninja mining of the chunks of moon rock broken off from moons becomes available. Where as before you had to own a POS on the moon... now you can steal material from the owner of a citadel.

I don't see how that reduces the options. It would seem to open up moon materials for all... as opposed to just those anchoring structures. Right?

The difference is now they cannot PASSIVELY get the moon income. They can still anchor a structure and create the moon rocks and mine them. The difference is that others can come shoot them while they do it. They can steal the rocks when they're not around. It creates MORE interaction with other players around the location of the moon materials... just like we have with miners of ore or gas or ice now.

Your argument seems to come down to being annoyed that a huge source of passive isk making will now require actually playing the game to make. That doesn't seem like a problem to me. I don't see the idea that "players should be able to get easy isk so they can just pew-pew more" as being valid. If it was... CCP could just give everyone x amount of free isk each month and the PvP'ers could go use it to buy ships. That doesn't make any more sense than arguing in favor of easy isk from moons.

CCP has made a ton of mistakes and continues to make many. I believe they need to spend a LOT more time on figuring out how to get new players up and running quickly and involved with groups asap. But I don't think making passive isk making become active is a bad thing. I don't think players not caring about losses because their passive moon farms will replace them is good... loss should HURT.

Look... it sounds like you primarily play Eve for PvP. But you have to understand that not everyone plays the game that way. This change benefits mining and industrial corporations at the expense of PvP organizations who don't have industrial divisions. It opens acquisition of moon materials to those who don't control a POS on a moon and can't destroy an existing one... by stealing moon rocks when the owners are asleep. It opens plenty of stories. It creates options... just not ones YOU want to use.

Moon mining hasn't changed much at all since EVE first started. I think this is a very positive change. While you may have a point regarding narratives and such... this change doesn't really impact that. It feels a lot more like a fix that has taken way too long to arrive... kind of like the ending of the T2 BPO lottery or the Incursion nerf.

What shock, a group with more and better organizational structure does better than a group that has neither. Yes, totally outrageous!

You expect an activity that require infrastructure deployed (the refinery) to be done in a nomadic fashion via RNG material spawn location?

Of course it is off...and not just a bit. In my last alliance they wanted people to help with reactions. To get people to do it, they offered a profit sharing plan. So I jumped on it. I got ISK and only had to log in a 2-3 times a week for 1-2 hours to earn it. Was I enslaved? No. Was I an indentured servant? No. Was I an employee? Not really, I was, if anything, a partner since I got a share of the profits.

Can some sort of arrangement like this be worked out with the new moon mining process? I don't know, but my guess is that some alliances will figure out something.