The Ultimate Grief…

~or, “Is it Possible that Troll Dimsdale is Right…?”

[Empyrean Empires Part 1]

First off, this is just one non Industry player layman’s view of the coming Industry Changes. I’m not interested in how these changes impact Industry per se, but how they impact the players and the various playstyles in EVE Online… and yea… you heard me right, I’m wondering if Dimsdale Pirannha, that HORRID little single minded conspiracy laden troll might possibly just be just a little teeny tiny bit right.

If you don’t know who Dimsdale (actually Dinsdale) Pirannha is, go to Jester’s Trek and search his name, but take an anti-nausea pill first. He is a raging anti-goon who believes that some CCP Devs, and by extension CCP’s Executives, and the leadership of the CFC/GSF are actually acting in collusion to assist and support the total takeover of the game by the CFC et al, and in addition CCP supports, or at the very least knowingly looks-the-other-way as the CFC et al engage in all but blatant RMT. He goes so far as to make allusions to people paying their mortgages with said RMT income…  IMHO he is a troll and worse, due to being blinded by his bias, he is an idiot.

So obviously I don’t mean I am beginning to believe his conspiracy theories about CCP and any dark, nefarious skype-back-channel collusion with the Ebil RMTing Gewns™… I am, however, starting to wonder if mebbe, just mebbe the former Goons CCP has hired as Devs are actually not working in the best interests of ALL of the playerbase, but in the interests of Nullsec players only… and if CCP also truly believes the best future path for this great game is a Totally Player Based Content game… to remove NPC interaction, to remove CONCORD, to eventually have the entire game boil down to just one playstyle… Empyrean Empires.

I have to admit, no matter how I look at it, the latest Dev Blogs showcasing the coming changes to Industry really seem to be changes specifically directed at enhancing only one playstyle... and that playstyle is Sov Null… and, for that reason I think it’s dangerous to the game as a whole and, TBH I dunt like it one bit.

Marlona Sky, in his Coalition Sov Mapping, under Latest Data, lists 7 primary Coalitions that hold more than 1 system in Sov Null; CFC, N3, Stain Wagon, PL, Provi Bloc, xXDeathXx & H.E.R.O. (Black Pearl Alliance holds 1 system). These 7 coalitions and their Leadership are the Sov Holders in the 35 Regions of Sov Nullsec. They make and enforce the rules and those rules go far beyond anything CONCORD does… as such Sov Null is, for the membership of these entities, far safer than ANY other space in the game, period.

Great Wars notwithstanding, it is well known that Sov Nullsec, under these mere 7 Coalitions, is more directly and closely controlled and 'policed' than Hisec, Losec or W-space. Players have really only 2 choices in Sov Null… join a corp/Alliance that is controlled by one of the Coalitions, or… oh, uh… nope, sorry, just ONE option, join a Coalition allied corp/Alliance or fuck you… If you don’t believe me, just try taking your corp or Alliance into Sov Null and make a home for yourself without joining one of the Null Coalitions… go try and take advantage of these great new highly profitable changes to Industry ON YOUR OWN… yea, go ahead, see what happens.

CCP has often repeated the statement that it supports All playstyles in EVE. If even one of those oft repeated statements is true then CCP also wants ALL playstyles to reap higher rewards in higher risk space, but I am thinking mebbe they are not how they say they are.

This is, for me, the key issue here… The only playstyle that is rewarded in Null is the large group, in actuality, the Very Large Group. Small un-coalinged Alliances and unallied corps and solo playstyles are locked out of these higher rewards. Locked out completely… If their gameplay does not include subsuming their players/corps/Alliances, and in effect submitting to the larger Coalitions and their rules and playstyles then it’s just FU.

What scares me the most is that I think possibly Ripard Teg feels the same way... he says, “Because in the long-term grand scheme of things, this view of EVE is the correct one and it's more healthy for the game.” Oh crap. That’s true ONLY for the Sov Nullsec playstyle, not for any of the playerbase that have no desire to EVER play the nullsec game, or to take knee to the Nullsec Coalitions.

He even goes so far as to title his post on this subject, Traitor which means he fully understands the highly overall negative impact this change will have on Hisec and Lowsec Industry and hence how ALL the players who prefer to play in those spaces will see him, a CSM member elected on an ALL Playstyles Platform, as a traitor to their gameplay. He goes so far as to state unequivocally, “Did I raise a major objection to this at the Summit? Call me a traitor if you must, but no I did not.” What I want to know is if he, or anyone on the CSM, voiced ANY objection at all… and if so, what CCP’s response was. He KNOWS this is a “go to Null or accept a much shittier game” from now on for a helluva lot of players.

I now wonder if he truly believes in the sandbox ideal at all… that, as he has repeatedly stated, ALL playstyles are important and ALL playstyles should be viable and supported in EVE Online. This last post make me think he doesn’t really believe that anymore, if he ever really did… or, is it possible he is not running for CSM9 because he realized CCP doesn’t? and there’s nothing he or anyone can do about it.

In what amounts almost to a tongue in cheek nod to Dimsdale, he says… “…it's a pretty damn good bet that manufacturing is going to be cheaper in null-sec as well. Particularly since -- *shudder* -- it's CCP Greyscale working on that.”… The thing we have to remember about Mr. Teg is… he is, in the end a Nullsec player. Not a Hisec Industrialist, not a Lowsec FW pilot, and most definitely not a Wormholer… he flies and fights in NPC Nullsec and that is the game he knows and likes best. I am now of the opinion that he believes Nullsec is THE way the game is best played, the way it SHOULD be played… by everyone.

Mord Fiddle, of Fiddler’s Edge, has stating he is unsubbing directly due to the direction this Expansion is taking. In his post, That'll Do, He says, “For myself, I cannot continue to support a game in which my monthly subscription dollars are used to benefit a small subset of the EVE player base, both financially and in terms of quality of play, to the detriment of all others.”

I have asked Mord to reconsider leaving until after the Expansion actually hits, to not jump ship based on 2 Dev posts alone… wait until the proof is in the code as twere. For myself, I am not an Industrialist an I don’t live and work in Empire space and, excepting how it impacts the costs of ships, mods, etc. and the prices I get for my Sleeper Lewt, Salvage & PI prods, which is very important I’ll grant… I am not really interested in how Industry actually works, it’s just not a big part of my playstyle.

But… as it impacts the WHOLE of New Eden is very important to me. How changes like this could lead, one day to the Nullsec Coalitions, having taken over all of Empire space, turning their full attention at last on the truly deadliest space in all EVE… Negsec, Wormhole space, and THAT will be the day several things will happen…

1. I will unsub… not that like Mord, in itself it will mean much to anyone except my friends and those of you who have found something worthwhile, or at least enjoyable, here… but it will mean a helluvalot to me… and

2. The Goons will have fulfilled their Mission Statement… “We're not here to destroy THE game, we're here to destroy YOUR game.”

One thing to seriously think about that highly misleading Mission Statement is… if the Goons see ALL of us, CCP included, as the people they are out to destroy… then, for them, to Win at EVE is to own all of space, drive out anyone not-them and, in the end… possibly… to do something that will bring them one final and everlasting piece of E-fame… to have greifed a Real World company into failscading.

CCP needs to wake up and smell the koolaid… before it kills them.


Fly Wreckless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=