Gotta Catch 'em All

The Purity of the Throne event has been run for the past seven days. While I missed the first five due to vacation, over the past couple, I’ve been running a few of the sites.

Well, more than a few.

I’m not really a collector of novelty items. Sure, I have a bionic arm on Talvorian, and I injected any freebie skins we received over time. But other than that, I’ve bought exactly one skin, the Police Pursuit Comet Skin. And that one was purchased only because it’s pretty awesome to pull people over in lowsec (ie. kill them) while flying around in a ship painted like a police cruiser.

In fact, generally speaking, I’m offended by CCP’s strategy regarding skins. In my mind, they’re far too expensive for what you receive. I think it’d make more sense (in-game reason) and demonstrate much better customer respect (out-of-game reason) for a skin to be equally applicable to every ship that shares the same hull profile (so, a skin could be useable on Merlins, Hawks, Harpies, and Worms, for instance). I can’t really think of a reason beyond the desire to squeeze every cent out of players for having it the way it is.

Which, of course, is totally viable. I just don’t think it’s good customer service.

Regardless, it’s a moot point, since I’m not really the demographic for skins; I’ll never buy them because they’re far too expensive for me to adopt them regularly. In fact, I rarely even remember to put them on the ships I own them for. I’m just not built that way.

Nonetheless, I’m finding myself intrigued by the Purity of the Throne event. Really, the rewards are more akin to the Operation Frostline rewards – meager and without much inherent value – unlike the Blood Harvest event.

Yet, I’m consumed by this desire for nearly a whole set of Purity skins. As far as I can tell, it’s simply the fact that the white skins look awesome on Amarr ships. With all the other skins I’ve seen (again, with the exception of the Police Pursuit Comet), they’ve really just been variations of color combinations.

But these Purity skins are striking, bold, different. I’m finding myself not only fixated on getting the ones for ships I regularly fly, but even for ships I’ll never sit in. A Providence? Really? Gotta have it! I may even inject the Aeon and Avatar skins, even though I’ll never fly them with Talvorian.

Wherein My Galleon Capsizes

I've been playing Eve consistently for the past five years, and have spent all of that time in null-sec (I did start out in high-sec in the two years prior, but that was intermittent). I really should know some things that I clearly don't know.

Recently, I've undertaken to begin market seeding and contract stocking for NC. This is a new thing for me, and it involves a lot of learning. While you do need to mark up the costs from Jita prices, I don't want to gouge anyone, and have been pricing my contracts beneath the least expensive alternative as a way of letting the market dictate an appropraite markup. Really, if I want to make the most isk, then, the trick is in velocity, not margin. It's taken some time to understand which ships move the fastest, letting me reuse those contract slots and keep the stock flowing. I'd say I've done a good job at that.

But, there's one huge piece I'm not doing well. Case in point.

Yeah, that happened. I'm a terrible jump freighter pilot.

Re-thinking High-sec in Light of the Lore

This is not a post about nerfing high-sec.  Not at all.  In fact, my argument isn't going to be about player engagement, income distribution, or any of that stuff.  I just want to talk about a cool thing I thought of while replying to a comment on the reddit post for my last article.  To do that, I'm basing my argument on a bit of logic and some lore.

First, some context.  CONCORD exists to apply precise "rules of war".  In part, it also serves to protect the empires from capsuleers, who cannot be killed permanently and represent a borderline xenophobic threat to the empires, even as they represent the empires' key way of fighting each other.

But, Concord (no caps anymore, too annoying...) also serves to manage intel and payment for activity against pirates, as well as classifying the security status of every system of New Eden.  Yet, Concord hasn't revised it's security status calculations in a very long time.  To the point, they haven't revised them in response to the discovery of wormhole space, the change in customs office ownership, sleepers, drifters, and the general weakening of the military forces of the empires, both in comparison to the past and to capsuleer empires.  A full fleet of capsuleer titans is a thing, yo.

I think it's high time Concord revises it's security status calculations to reflect this shift in power away from the four main empires.

Plus, it's time pirates get a seat at the table.

Dipping My Toe in Station Trading

I’m not the richest person in the universe… comparatively.  But I am able to purchase whatever ships I want.  Losing that Archon loaded with T2 and T3 ships set me back about 4 billion, which represented about 9% of my liquid isk reserves.  But, a sting like that still hurt, particularly with PLEX prices rising.

So, though I can afford what I want to buy, I can’t do so indefinitely.  Moon mining is tricky business, with only a handful of profitable moons anymore and those all locked up by larger groups (particularly in lowsec, where they’ve all migrated). 

For a long time, I’ve wanted to try station trading.  I’m told you can make a lot of isk that way.  So, I figured I’d give it a go.  One of my characters can run over a hundred open market orders and has maxed skills to reduce transaction and market order fees.  I figure that’ll do for an initial foray.

Nonni

There are too many stations in Nonni.

That is all.

Burn Jita

So, Burn Jita is over, and I’m a little disappointed.  Sure, I was able to kill about 30 billion in ships, and sure, total kills were above 600 billion.  On those accounts, it was a good weekend all around.

But I only managed to lose 3.1 security status.  I’m disappointed in myself.  I had hoped to bring my ratting alt down to negative security status, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

For those of you who haven’t participated in a Burn Jita in the past, here’s generally how the fleets go.  The CFC had two fleets running around the clock, with various FCs rolling responsibility in two or three hour shifts, usually.  It’s similar to what happens during hellcamps.

Lessons: A Good Day

In my last post, I talked about a terrible day and the series of mistakes I made.  As is wont to happen with one’s focus immediately after a shameful display of terrible piloting, you tend to pay attention to all the little things you neglected during your next roam.

And that’s exactly what happened to me last night.  I went out of Doril in my Harpy looking for a good fight against a couple of BRAVE war targets.  A couple hours earlier, some of my alliance mates killed a few targets in Chidah and Sooma, so I headed out into Derelik generally making my way there.

Part-way through, I received intel that a few BRAVE members were floating through the route to Rens, so I changed course, traveled through Sendaya again, and made my way up towards Gamis.  On the way, I saw a good number of war targets, though most of them were either docked up or mining (and on the ball too, by remaining aligned and warping off when in trouble).

Then, all of a sudden, I landed in the middle of a 14-man BRAVE T1 frigate fleet camping the Shedoo gate in Ihal.

The Raven Navy Issue Thing...

So, recently, TMC covered an interesting ALOD of a RavenNavy Issue.  I was actually laughing as I realized where the story was going while I read.

Suffice to say, the player was a WoW player who bought PLEX to pay for a very, very expensive ship (to the tune of 44 bil).  Naturally, this ship was ganked, and the pilot raged in local.  He threatened to find the players in real life and make them suffer.  At this point, a Goonswarm member contacted him, convinced him that he represented a group who defended and reimbursed ratters, got him to trade his second pimped out Raven Navy Issue (also purchased with PLEX) and paid him 500 mil for the service of moving his ship safely to a nice ratting system.  Suffice to say, it didn’t end well for him.  He ended up losing billions in isk.

Now, this player did a face-plant into the difference between Eve and WoW… namely that Eve is laissez-faire, while WoW is a playground with very observant babysitters.

Guest Poster: aPOCOlypse

From time to time, I'm approached by an alliance-mate or friend who really wants to post something for wider distribution.  1Robert McNamara1 felt very strongly about the conflict-driving nature of high-sec POCOs and submitted the following piece.

Something very strange is happening in high-sec.  There are wars with purpose.  I’m impressed with CCP they gave small and large groups a rope to pull on, tied with the knots of war.  Along with it, several new conflict drivers in high-sec.

The larger conflict driver is Player Owned Customs Offices (POCOs).  RvB, Goons, and other large groups are clearing Interbus offices en mass, with smaller groups doing much the same.  Naturally Caldari space is getting most of the attention.

What’s interesting about the high-sec angle is that it’s shaping up to be the sub-capitol baby brother of null-sec style fights and conflicts.  This new age of POS-lite warfare has people looking at planets to see who owns it and declaring war if they think they can take and defend…  Big sov blocs like Goons and N3 will have momentary distractions, giving the little guys chances to take planets.  Not sure what could distract a group like RvB however they may be poised to own huge swaths of empire space. 

We just passed is the land grab period.  Most un-defended planets in Caldari space have been claimed.  Now is a period of real conflict as null-blocks and empire fighters trade fleets for POCOs.  All of this leaves the carebears with an awkward arrangement...

The PI carebear now has a vested interest in throwing their lot in with a PVP group that can defend a network of planets.  This is remarkable as currently only null-sec offers such a driver for PVE to seek out PVP groups.  This gives the high-sec groups a reason to cut their PVP teeth.  A reason to organize and fight for ‘turf’.  Good preparation for the larger scale conflicts.

Given that high-sec lacks the same tools for force projection, it may well be that it will be divided up by local groups who reside in a given constellation or region.  Hopefully we see more high-sec conflict drivers like this from CCP.  It stands to reason as the empires lose their dominion over high-security pod players.

Keep track of the action yourself, with the eve-kill feed of POCO conflict.

1Robert McNamara1

Bubble Wrap

So, let’s pretend a pilot travels to Jita and decides to buy a medium Domination tower.  Let’s further assume that this pilot spent the last, oh… three years in null-sec, very rarely traveling through high-sec.  When he did, let’s assume he always traveled in PvP ships, and carrier-jumped the majority of the way through empire space.

So, this enterprising – and entirely fictional pilot – decided he wanted to move a tower and a few of the nicer POS modules to the HS static for his wormhole.  Of course, to do it all, he had to use a fully expanded Iteron Mark V…

You see where this is going, don’t you?

Fixing Null-Sec Pt. 1: Sweetening the Pot

Many people decry the filth and horse poop being suggested in the Eve-O forums as a pubbie wasteland, but they ignore the larger issue: a landslide of Eve characters and many Eve players choose to live, die, and regenerate solely within high-sec.  This is a problem for Eve as a whole.  A society that doesn’t encourage its children to leave the cradle finds itself incapable of going about any serious business.

As a premise, I assume CCP wants Eve to be a game that rewards the intelligent, aware, and careful risk-taker, while allowing human nature to punish the stupid, the lazy, and the ignorant.  Miners often complain that gankers are overpowered, when – if they had spent any time in null-sec, they would have learned the aligning tactics that would keep them safe if a half-dozen Catalysts warp into their belt.  Wardecced corps complain about denial of service as a result, but fitting their ships with basic PvP in mind would allow them to make a choice other than to dock up and hide.

The issue isn’t so much that they complain about the inconvenience, but rather that their minds don’t immediately recognize the easy methods of mitigating these inconveniences.  Quite simply, they never learned them.  And why not?  Because they were comfortable enough in high-sec to never have needed to travel into low or null, where necessity would teach them these tricks.

That, my friends, is the problem.  High-sec is too comfortable; it’s too easy to make a comfortable living running level 4 missions in high-sec.  That results in two- and three-year-old characters who don’t understand how to handle themselves in PvP – in a PvP game.

I’m not saying players shouldn’t be allowed to do industry, mining, missions, or trading.  I’m saying you shouldn’t be able to make enough isk in high-sec to pay for PLEX each month while still holding down a full-time RL job.  It shouldn’t be that profitable.  Otherwise, we get the status quo: many players learning nothing, gaining the highest rewards without risk.

People will only accept risk if the reward is sufficient to justify it.  Right now, it simply isn’t.  While CCP is eliminating “tiers” with their ships, they cannot apply this same principle to play styles.  Tiericide for ships ensures that everyone can play any play style they choose.  Tiericide for play styles themselves keeps people in high-sec.

Why should CCP care about this?  The more risky play styles result in increased losses, and increased losses result in more PLEX sales.  Null-sec is stagnant, especially in the recent months in which TEST lost half its membership, a strong, worthwhile fight is hard to come by, and small gangs are dying.  Remember: large fleet losses are paid by alliance reimbursement, which has no interaction with PLEX.  Only small-gang and solo PvP, travel, and losses result in hits to individual wallets.

CCP should be very concerned at the loss of small-gang warfare.  A lot of these players solely PvP, and very rarely rat.  They sustain themselves off of other accounts, loot, and bounties (though they’re pitiful).  These are exactly the type of customers CCP wants.

But how would I go about improving the risk/reward ratio in Eve?  Here are a few modifiers I’d change.  Keep in mind the rules I stated in my intro... I'm suggesting equation and modifier changes requires little-to-no CCP development time (other than testing).

Missions

Mission locations should be changed so level 4 missions and agents only occur in deep low-sec (at least 2-3 jumps from high-sec).  Level 3 missions should be located in shallow low-sec, with agent locations in high-sec and those low-sec systems (same as mission). Technical change: adjust location of some agents, ownership of some stations, and modifier on mission spawn systems (from, say, 0.6-0.5 to 0.3-0.2).

Requiring the highest mission runners to enter low-sec will bring life back to this region, while still offering the protection of gate guns and sec status decreases.  This should give pirate corps a shot in the arm.  I predict we’d see a drop in level-4 mission running for a couple weeks, until mission players realize they need this riskier mission income.

A side effect of this change would be a vast decrease in pimped-out mission ships.  High-sec players would have to learn to fly what they can afford to lose and understand the importance of the value vs. cost relationship in a way high-sec mission runners don’t currently.  This will reduce the value of null-sec mission loot, particularly modules like the Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster and Pithum A-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field (800 mil and 1.6 bil respectively at present).  Keep this in mind for later.

The argument against this one will be, “Why are you forcing people who just want to run missions to PvP?”  I’m not; I’m forcing people who want to get rich to accept some risk.  You say you have no goal but to mission?  I present you with level 1 and level 2 missions.  All the dopamine rush of completing a task, none of the risk.  I’ve never known a rich person in real life who didn’t take risks; why should a multiplayer sandbox game be any different?

Mining

+5% and +10% ores should be removed entirely, base ore yields should be reduced 20%, and replaced with standardized ores: standard value in high-sec, 125% of standard value in low, and 200% of standard value in null.  Refined mineral sizes should also be decreased significantly, allowing easier transport.  Mining barges should be much slower to align than they are now.  Technical change: all of these are modifiers that can be tweaked: incidence rates, yields per ore, etc.

Mining in null yields targets for small gangs.  By reducing the yields, miners will either be flushed into low or null, or accept and absorb the reduced yields.  I recognize that many miners will simply plug on as they always have; that’s fine.  But this change would give an advantage to those willing to venture deeper into unfriendly territory, secure in the knowledge that the reduced size of refined minerals means they can ship their goods in a cloaky transport that much more easily.  This will create targets, both if miners and mineral transports… and when a mineral transport is caught, as rarely happens for a smart pilot, the killers will actually be able to scoop some of the cargo as loot.  Likewise, the slower align time will make mining barges who don’t know how to stay aligned into scrap, providing content for everyone.

The argument against this change is that it’ll raise prices across the board.  I doubt this very much, since it’ll also allow null-sec and low-sec to generate quite a bit of ore, some of which will be shipped to high-sec.  The rest would be used for the next adjustment.

Industry

Retribution included changes to boost the number of station industry slots in null-sec, and this is a good change, but we also need a reduction in job length for null-sec station and POS industry, too, perhaps 25%.  It’s easily justifiable, too… Ishukone isn’t going to make it’s fastest, most efficient factory slots available for the public while they plug along with rotting assembly lines, but a null-sec alliance servicing its own alliance members should give access to the best lines.

I would also introduce POS modules that can modify various functions; an Industrial Optimizer that would reduce job times by a further 25%, for instance.  That specialization would come with a cost, though: for every one you onlined, you’d be crowding out something else in your POS.  As an added kicker, these POS modules wouldn’t be anchorable in high-sec (they can’t be limited to null, since this would put them only in reach of sov-holding alliances, who are often reluctant to give POS management rights to line members).

Incursions

I know the least about incursions, but I can tell you that high-sec incursions should exist for no purpose but to teach pilots the basics of incursion fighting.  Incursions are a good way to learn countering of neutralizers, webs, scrams, and other ewar in a way other high-sec PvE simply cannot provide.  But remaining in the safety of high-sec shouldn’t be a viable option.

I would argue for a good mix between low-sec, sov null-sec, and NPC null-sec for incursions, with a heavy preference for NPC null.  Right now, NPC null is a good model for the type of null-sec I hope to see, and a good first step might be to shift some (but not all) of the sov null-sec incursions to NPC null as a way of building more traffic and getting people accustomed to null-sec warfare, and only after several months move them back to sov null-sec.  PvE-ers have to crawl before they can walk.

Summary

The purpose of these changes is to incentivize, but not mandate, travel into low- and null-sec.  CCP should allow for each play style to exist in each area of space, but not equally in all areas of space.  Isk-making and Ship-breaking should be heavily favored in null-sec’s favor, with low-sec as a happy medium between risk and reward.

One thing is certain: Eve exists and prospers based on its conflict, not it’s PvE.  There are dozens of games that offer more engaging PvE, and Eve cannot successfully compete on that alone.  All PvE should exist as a gateway to Eve’s basic premise: that you can do anything you want, without forgetting it’s basic business model premise: that players must be incentivized into a domino-effect of engagement, starting with one activity and being drawn in, through connections and progression, to other activities, the mix of which can only be found in Eve.

That’s how Eve will survive.

Next up: Part II: Sovereignty and Force Projection.

Fixing Null-Sec

Most folks who regularly traverse null-sec agree on a single, inescapable point: null-sec is broken, and is in bad need of attention from CCP.  A lot of suggestions out there recommend significant changes to sov mechanics or new features that would require considerable developer time, but those options really aren’t necessary.

What null-sec needs are small tweaks; changes that will allow Eve to move towards a more desirable state of null-sec.  In the next few posts, I’m going to discuss small changes I recommend, all of which consist of small adjustments to established mechanics, drop rates, and values within the Eve code.  Many of them are economic in nature.

But most importantly, I’m going to tie each to a serious null-sec problem and explain why this result is more desirable.

What is the end state of null-sec I hope for?  I imagine a null-sec populated by a significant number of smaller alliances, each holding enough space to be profitable, but not so much space that any entity needs to travel more than 10-15 jumps to find an enemy to shoot.  I want a null-sec that has much more small gang PvP, and significantly less bloc warfare.  I don’t want CCP to dictate how we play, but I do want the mechanics to be stacked in favor of this form of playstyle.  Essentially, I want Space Fiefdoms™, not Space Empires™.

And in the next few articles, I’ll describe why, and how we get there.

Part 1: Sweetening the Pot
Part 2: Sovereignty and Force Projection
Part 3: Countering the Blob

Lessons: Being the Primary

A lot of folks who mention fleet fights in Eve talk about the importance of adhering to the primary called by the target caller.  Particularly for large fleets, focusing your fire on a single target is crucial for taking it down before the target can catch reps (also known as being able to alpha a target).  Doing so ensures a good number of kills for nearly the whole fleet.

If you’re a DPS ship in a fleet fight, it’s really just luck-of-the-draw whether you’re alpha’d by the enemy or not.  If you have a name at the beginning of the alphabet, you’re probably in more trouble than others.  Your only option is to broadcast for shield or armor reps the moment the enemy begins locking you and pray you can catch them in time.

But what if you know you’re going to be a primary before the fight begins?  If you’re flying a logistics cruiser, tackler, interdictor, or command ship, you’re also likely to be primary.  Must you simply surrender to your inevitable death?

Absolutely not.  But survival often means giving up on some kills or delaying your preferred fleet contribution.  You really have three options: kamikaze, serve as bait, or evade.

The “kamikaze response is most often chosen by interdictors, who realize they’ll likely die the moment they bubble an enemy fleet.  The only exception for dictors is when they bubble the enemy on a gate, immediately jumping through, then burning back to the other side and returning to the fight.  However, kamikaze logi isn’t unheard of, either.

The other two options, though, require a little more skill and wisdom.  Most pilots have expectations about how certain ships are fitted.  A Vagabond, for instance, is often fitted with 425s and barrage ammo to operate on the edge of faction point range in a kiting capacity.  Intentionally warping to an enemy at 100 and allowing tacklers to close distance on you is typically suicidal… unless you’re armor tanked with multiple faction webs and scrams (and no prop module) and a friendly fleet nearby.  Being bait can turn the enemy’s typical reaction to seeing your ship on its head, luring them to their destruction (similarly, a Scimi can –sometimes- fulfill this role, depending on the gang size).

The other option is evasion.  I don’t mean the “align and warp out of the fight permanently” escape option, though.  Let me give you an example.

In RvB, I was flying a Jaguar in a fleet of T1 cruisers and frigates.  I knew I was going to be primaried because I was a T2 ship, a less common sight in RvB fights.  So when my fleet warped to 0 on the gate to engage the Blue gang, I didn’t engage.  Rather, I waited unaggressed on the gate until a few ships targeted me; as the first damage came in, I jumped.

What did this accomplish?  First, they wasted the time it took for them – Cruisers and frigates – to lock and engage an assault frigate Jaguar, only to see him jump through.  That gave my gang enough time to destroy the first enemy ship and move onto the second.  It was an early advantage that removed a tackler from the equation.

Secondly, it forced the enemy FC to switch to another primary.  When I reburned to the gate and jumped back int othe fight, no one was expecting my return, so I was able to safely warp to a scout point, and then back in at range.  I was able to pick my targets on the outskirts of the fight and apply my TD to targets of interest.  It wasn’t until I had helped kill a dozen ships that someone noticed I was back on the field and engaged me.  By that point, we had won the engagement, despite being outnumbered.

I’d call that a successful example of recognizing an enemy’s tactics, evading them, and returning to do some damage in the fight.

Yes, I missed out on a few kills when I jumped through, but while I gave up one or two – and only one round of my guns on each – the tactic paid sixfold dividends.  I recognized the limitations of my situation and flew the best way I could.

Not a bad night’s work.

RvB is Awesome

A while back, I bought a character that had perfect fitting, gunnery support, armor, and shield skills with the intention of training her to be an excellent Minmatar character for either NPC-null or pirate small gang fighting.  While I’m training her up, I realize I’ll need to build a PvP record of her own – and not try to trade on Talvorian’s record – so I started looking for ways to boost my PvP experience.

I started thinking about faction warfare, but my brief experience of it a few months ago taught me it was actually a PvE enterprise hidden in PvP trappings.  I wasn’t looking to chase button-orbiters around four or five low-sec regions.

And then I remembered RvB.

A forever war in which your enemies are all two jumps away and eager to engage in fun, meaningless PvP?  What’s not to love?  The only real downside is the dearth of T2 ships.  I was flying a Jaguar and was considered “shiney”, which is quite a difference from null-sec roams, in which I wouldn’t dream of flying a T1 frigate or cruiser, particularly solo.  But T1’s back in a big way, and RvB is turning out to be an excellent way of learning all about these rebalanced ships.

So far, I’ve joined one fleet, killed about 450 mil worth of ships in exchange for my 35 mil Jaguar, and am having a splendid time.  It’s everything I wished faction warfare would be… constant PvP for the sake of PvP.

But it also provides another benefit that I recommend for nearly any player… even though the ships you’re fighting and losing are cheap, they are kills and losses.  The more engagements you’re involved with, the calmer you’ll be during a fight, and in that sense, RvB is perfect practice for other forms of PvP.  I highly recommend that it be the first stop for nearly any player.  You can learn not only PvP basics, but also to control that flutter in your heart when you engage another player.  And it’s better to learn to do that with a 10 mil ship rather than a 400 mil ship down the line.

I’m actually a little embarrassed that I’m only now giving it a shot.  It’s delightful mayhem.  As a veteran null PvPer, I heartily approve.

Oh, dear… I just realized I’ll now show up as yet another “high-sec character” on CCP’s stats… what have I done?

Faction Warfare Represents All That’s Wrong with Eve

Yes, I know that title is harsh, but it really is true.  Go ahead and try to kill a FW pilot.  I’ll wait.

Now you understand how I felt for three hours yesterday, during which I roamed through three regions looking for a fight.  I successfully engaged and scrambled three targets, only to have them either play station games or warp away (yeah, at least two warp core stabilizers there).

On the bright side, I observed very fine flying from one pilot, who successfully kited me – though he didn’t engage – until his FW timer ticked to “Captured”, at which point he warped off.

But I couldn’t find a fight from a FW pilot to save my soul.  They would rather mindlessly circle a button for ten or fifteen minutes to collect their LP than engage in, you know, warfare.  In FW, PvE pays better than PvP.

Eve has the same problem.  Much of both null-sec and low-sec are unpopulated, but high-sec is filled to the brim with PvErs.  Safer activities are more profitable than dangerous ones.  In Eve as a whole, null-sec or low-sec activities don’t generate enough isk to justify the additional risk of entering space that could involve you in *gasp* an engagement.  The only people that go into these areas of space are those who are looking for those engagements.

We need to balance that cost/value relationship.  It was something I was hoping I’d hear about in the Rubicon expansion teaser, but that announcement was filled with garbage, to be honest.  I knew it would never happen, but I was reading with bated breath about the 50% decrease in high sec, 25% increase in low-sec, and 75% increase in null sec of mining yields and mission rewards.

And the solution for Faction Warfare?  Drop the LP reward for capturing sites by 75%, and quintuple the rewards for killing a FW pilot.  Instant PvP-infusion.

But I doubt that’ll ever happen.  CCP seems perfectly content to keep the bulk of their players in high-sec.  I think this is a huge mistake.  Chaos drives industry, encourage PLEX sales, and makes Eve life more difficult for more players.

Difficult?  Is that a good thing?  Yes, it is.

It’s well-known that there are certain thresholds that mark the end of an Eve account’s lifespan.  Owning a supercarrier is one of them.  They all appear to be really good goals that will provide more excitement to an Eve session, but they’re actually a death blow.  The more CCP can extend the period of time needed to reach those thresholds, the longer an account will remain subscribed.  And, setbacks will only make the achievement of all the intermittent goals all the better.

And who knows?  You may get derailed by PvP, which is a self-propagating goal in-and-of-itself that has the side-effect of generating content for someone else, too.

What we achieve too cheaply, we esteem too lightly.

War and Peace

Life in sovereign null-sec consists of alternating periods of peace and war.  If you’re reading this site, I assume your interest isn’t as much in the fertile fields of ratting space, but rather in the vacuous, crystallized air vapor-dotted swaths of battlefields.  You most likely live for the wars.

But hold that thought for a moment.

Null-sec alliances cycle between deployments and down-time.  During a deployment, they’ll stage out of some distant system, where all PvP characters are expected to base themselves for the duration of the campaign.  Alliance contracts, logistics, and jump freighter services are all moved to that staging system.  All PvP fleets stage out of that system.  The deployment may be as insignificant as a search for “gudfights”, or as important as an all-out bloc sov war lasting for months (albeit unlikely; one of those hasn’t happened in years).

People tend to think the “exciting” times are the deployments themselves.  They see the large fleets and fleet battles as the height of PvP in Eve.

Interdictions ≠ Ice

Goonswarm announced another ice interdiction.  To be honest, I don’t much care what their goals are.  As a loyal CFC member, I relish the opportunity to kill folks in high-sec.  My security status isn’t quite low enough yet, and I make plenty of isk to afford to buy it back.

This will be my fourth interdiction.  “But Tal, we’ve only had one ice interdiction before.”  Did I say ice?

In my mind, we’re not interdicting ice, but rather laziness.  Hulkageddon, Burn Jita 1 & 2, the ice interdictions… to me, they’re all the same.  We’re a force of Darwin come to show you how to become better players.  In the end, it’s not the high-sec player we prey upon.  It’s the stupid high-sec player.

Mining ice without protection during an ice interdiction?  Yeah, that’s stupid.

Flying a 9-bil mission Tengu in any situation?  Stupid.

Auto-piloting a jump freighter through high-sec?  Stupid.

Because, in Razor, we don’t’ limit ourselves to the identified targets; we’re looking to run an isk-positive ganking operation.  Ganking isn’t a play style we’re used to (for example, I was on 5 fleets during which we had to explain the new aggression mechanics to our members… we simply don’t hang out in CONCORD space).  It’s fun because it’s different for us.

Our strat ops are the place for objective-oriented PvP.  For interdictions, we’re out for fat, juicy kills.  And tears.

How can you survive?  Don’t fly officer-fit Tengus.  You don’t need them for missions.  Ever.  Don’t be predictable.  Don’t assume that innocuous-looking ship is alone.  Don’t warp directly to your target.  Keep dscan open.  Simple.  Well, it’s simple if you’re used to it.

But wisdom is coming.  Embrace the knowledge we provide.