OK, Now I’m a Betting Man…

Uh… something happened to my little blog. Something… I simply can’t believe…

I got a comment.

I got a response…

to my “Open Letter to CCP”

I got a response…

A  RESPONSE…   from

Uh huh, CCP Seagull herself herself… She dropped me a few lines of simple, clear txt which I first read on my phone this evening (sitting on a picnic table in my backyard after putting up some shelves for the missus for mums day…) and well… to put it simply, I almost fell off the bench.

I was honored and yes very… very surprised to say the least.

I write nothing more than a spotty, niche kinda, incoherent mostly, wall-o-text often, rambling EVE ‘journal’ really… and inna oft very colloquial style… with WAYYYY too many ellipses… so I know I’m no Jester, no Mabrick… no Sugar Kyle… man, like ten people follow me! OK? (LOL)… and well, it’s just that I know and am happy that my little blog aint a ‘big fish’ in the EVE metagame or EVE fanfic or even the blogshere, I mostly just write stories of my exploits… But occasionally though, I’ll read something in the metagame that hits home, and then my muse just grabs hold of my brain and squeezes...hard.

The end product of one such incident was, “An Open Letter to CCP”. If you haven’t, PLEASE read the post first as Andie Nordgren, Senior Producer, EVE Online Development, is replying directly to this and it puts her response in context.

And while I am going to post her comment on the original post (and take multiple screenshots and get the wife to snap a few Polaroids of me grinning like the town idiot next to the screen… suitable for framing…) I felt moved to get this very interesting and unexpected reply, to what I felt was a key question that no one had just flat out asked in no uncertain terms... I wanted to get it out there and not lost in the back pages of a small, though scrappy, little blog… Hell, it’s gonna be pretty lost right up on the old front page of my little rag as tis… (I do hope that this will be taken up and reblogged for exposure to the widest audience.)  =]

OK, so I asked a direct question about the "vison" for EVE Online that 'seems' to be exclusively nullsec centric. But I didn’t really, I mean I NEVER actually expected an answer… come on! I was just adding my 0.2 ISK and try to ‘stir the meta-pot’ some with my little ladle is all… Never did I, or anyone else, think I would actually get an answer from CCP… much less than by the one person more deeply in the know on this subject than maybe even Hilmar himself. So…

My question, stripped of the rhetoric, and ellipses…

“Does CCP plan on solo, casual and small gang gameplay having a place, IE being involved, in this new vision?”

Here is what CCP Seagull said…

 Hi and thanks for asking so directly. I do mean it when I say that the vision is a journey for every capsuleer to be part of. I want EVE to have more things to do for small scale groups and solo pilots - and all over space, not just in null sec. When I talk about player control, I mean the effects players have on each other all over space - in different ways - not just the null sec free-for-all - and I don't mean that the null sec model should be extended to everywhere. I know it can be hard to hear solo and small groups in the vision when for a long time "player driven" has mostly meant nullsec and huge corps and alliances - and I got some questions along the same lines in the vision roundtable at Fanfest. But both small groups and solo players are very important in the design work we are doing now and to our vision for the future of EVE. First project where this should be visible is the corporation and alliance system work we are starting after the summer - that will look deeply at small and medium sized groups, including corporations where all characters belong to a solo player. Stick around for that and give your input!

/CCP Seagull

May I reiterate...

“But both small groups and solo players are very important in the design work we are doing now and to our vision for the future of EVE.”

OK… looks like I got my answer, and I’m sold for now… and that’s all I have to say on that.

Thank you, Andie Nordgren, I am flattered, and I am very pleased… and I, and I think many others too, will hold you to this!!!

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

PS - comment up.

For Once, a Simple Sales Problem…

~or, “Are You a Betting Man?”

I was absolutely floored, stunned, incredulous and a little ashamed tonight when I read Jester’s post, “The seven percent solution”.

This shows how at the New Player Experience panel at FanFest this year, according to Ripard, CCP Rise made it very clear, as Ripard took it at least, that,

“…when new players pay for -- not try out, pay for! -- EVE, 50% of them leave the game very shortly after doing so (he implies their subscriptions last for one month). 40% of them move into solo activities, which he primarily describes as missioning. And in his words only "five to ten percent" join a group had have a diverse experience with the game.”

Ripard’s summation is as follows:

“Put another way, between 80 and 90 percent of all new EVE subscribers that stay with the game for more than a month (a) avoid playing the game with other EVE players; and (b) many will probably leave the game anyway.”

That’s right… 80 to 90% of all new subs that stay with the game for more than a month, and MANY will PROBABLY leave... Now Ripard in his usual style then poses a question based on this data, he asks…

“…if you were CCP with a limited budget to support development of EVE Online, where would you put your resources? If you think CCP should put more resources to this larger group of solo players, how do you think it would help?”

“Well Yea,” you say, “I can see absolutely floored, stunned, incredulous… but ashamed?” “WTF ashamed?

Yea… ashamed… ashamed that this question even needs to be asked, ashamed that CCP does not see the plain, and only answer.

I’ll simply quote myself in my comment on this…

“This is sooo bloody simple Jester I am ashamed the question was even asked....

CCP has never shown interest in competing in solo content-driven theme park MMOs. The fact that players drive content in EVE has always been the game's competitive advantage. But between 80 and 90 percent of new EVE subscribers are avoiding that game play.

If 80 to 90% of the people who try out your game leave, and they seem to be looking for good solo PvE gameplay.... FUKKIN GIVE IT TO THEM! Jezuz why is this so gods damned hard to understand??

(1) Give that 80 to 90% of players, who having played themeparks for YEARS and therefore only know themepark gameplay... Give them what they want... really top notch PvE... THEN once they are HERE, you have a shot at them 'discovering' (IE SHOW THEM) what real sandbox social gameplay is and how it can be soooo much MORE than Themepark solo PvE based gameplay...

Jezuz why is this hard to understand???? If 80 to90% of your potential customers are walking in, looking around for 15 minutes and leaving... the only possible  reason is, You are not selling something they want… IE, They are not the problem... YOU are.

The real issue? CCP has never shown interest in competing in solo content-driven theme park MMOs.

Really? No interest in solo content CCP? How about this… 80 to 90% of your potential customer base WANT THIS.

Soooo…   Give ‘em what they WANT. Create and USE New Awesome PvE as your “CARROT”… Then you will have a chance to show Themepark Inculcated players that there is something different, something new (to them) and something really amazing and wonderful in MMOs… EVE Online’s Immersive, Deep, Intelligent, and the Emergent Player Created Content gameplay… whether solo, casual, small gang, large gang, very large gang or 10,000 player Empires….

They are NOT the problem.... YOU are. Give them what they want, and they will come.” It actually is that easy… am I the ONLY one who sees how incredibly simple this is???

And I also find CCP Rise’s wording very interesting…

About half of the New Players, who have actually subbed, leave after something like 1 month… but, 40% FORTY PERCENT, almost half…

“…move into a very isolated playstyle…”   IE Solo, casual play

”…mining and/or missioning, actually missioning a lot more than mining…”   IE Solo, casual play

“…they stay pretty much to themselves…”   IE Solo, casual play

“…they don’t engage in a very diverse range of activities.”   IE Solo, casual play

Then he most tellingly says this…

“They’re pretty much just doing that, umm, you know, straight forward Themepark of, umm, sticking to missions and, you know, leveling up their Raven basically.”

“And for some people that really fits, uhh.”

He goes on to say about CCP Veritas that, “…for him this is actually amazing.” “He loves this type of gameplay and we have a lot of people who do, and that’s awesome.”

He then says,

 “…but we’re definitely, we can see very clearly that our New Player Experience is pushing people this way.” “This is where they’re heading when they come out of it, and for many of them, umm, that’s not a good fit, and so, ummm, they end up leaving.”

He seems to ‘blame’ the NPE for this… as if there is something intrinsically wrong with it… saying, “…for many of them, that’s not a good fit.”… Hmmm… really? 40% of your new players, 40% of YOUR paying customers play this way. FOURTY PERCENT… and it’s a problem how?

I want to know, of the 40%, HOW MANY actually end up leaving? He doesn’t say. What he does say next is not about the 40% though, he says;

“We have this other small group, of, you know, 5 to 10%, that do move into a really wide range of experiences.”

Then we have this other…
really small group….
5 to 10%.

Five to Ten Percent… that CCP Rise very very obviously feels is the be all and end all of the EVE Playerbase, He all but gushes with enthusiasm for all the things they DO get involved in… then;

“These people tend to stick with us. These people are, umm, are all of you guys most likely.” He says, looking at the FanFest audience, (laughs) “And they love the game and they stay with the game fer a long time.”

He follows with, “And to us that says that the more we can do to get people having the kind of experiences that this groups is having, the better off we’ll be, umm, because obviously for them it’s, it’s, it really rich and  meaningful and it sticks with them, uh, for a long time.”

He points (to a screen?) and says;

“And I have one more (something I could not make out clearly) ‘cause yes, we do have , umm, more often than not the people in this track tend to leave, whereas the other group, ah,  doesn’t.”

"...people in this track tend to leave..." I can only assume he was referring to the 40% as compared to the 10%, but I feel it is probably an accurate assumption.

He then states,

“So, the last goal we can take, is to encourage, uh, meaningful experiences as much as possible.”

Listen for yourself, don’t just read what Jester and I think…

[start 16:02 to 18:26 – Fanfest 2014 – New Player Experience Vision

I’m gonna stop there as that covers what I am concerned about… CCP is banking their whole roll on the 5 to 10% who play, they way THEY think we should play, IE “Meaningful Experiences”… in a sandbox game.  I swear I thought I had heard it all.

Oh, and one last thing… yes Jester, CCP has a “…limited budget to support development of EVE Online”… Do you actually know ANYONE who doesn’t?? Seriously, do you? I have been an IT Tech Consultant for 17 years… I worked a wide variety of jobs until I found IT… and I never have worked one day with ANYONE who actually had anywhere near the capitol or funding they needed, much less wanted,  to do what they wanted to… So what?

It’s not about the total of money you have available; it’s about where you spend what you do have. If 80 to 90%(?) of your potential customer base is walking out the door having found nothing they want… you had better restock, and do it quickly.

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

An Open Letter to CCP

To Whom it may concern,

I want to ask something direct and I'd really like a direct answer from someone at CCP… say Senior Producer, EVE Online Development, Andie Nordgren (CCP Seagull) or even from CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson himself.

First to define where the question comes from…

There is a stunning amount of 'tinfoil and Conspiracy Theories’ currently making the rounds of the EVE blogshere, posts and forums as regards the planned direction CCP is taking EVE Online. The direction as defined by the vision of "capsuleers taking control of space" with 'Player-Built Stargates' and ‘New Space’ as the centerpieces for that vision.

As we understand it now this will require a very large collaborative effort from the players in order to build such a stargate. This sounds to me and to many others, less and less like an ALL playstyles centric vision for EVE Online and more and more like a vision that is based heavily, if not solely, on Nullsec Coalitions, meaning Large Groups of Alliances style gameplay.

This worries a large segment of your playerbase. The large number of players who play solo, casually or in smaller groups are very concerned that they will be left out of this vision as Nullsec and the large Nullsec Coalitions are not their preferred playstyle.

Therefore my question is simple…

“Does CCP plan on solo, casual and small gang gameplay having a place, IE being involved, in this new vision?”

When the new Player Built Stargate is built, will it give ALL of “us” access to fascinating new space?

or, will it be’ Go Null or GTFO’?

On his blog I asked Ripard Teg, outgoing CSM8 permanent member, this question directly…

Question:

“Does CCP still plan on supporting solo, casual and small gang gameplay or not Jester?”

His very timely answer (thank you Ripard) was as follows…

Part 1:

“CCP has made no secret of the fact that they want players in corporations and alliances. Players that are in corps and alliances stay subscribed more, play more, and generate more content for other players than solo players.

Therefore, as a general statement, these players are going to get lots more attention than solo players. CCP Rise made that point during the PvE sessions. That's not to say that solo players will get nothing, but solo players are not where CCP's bread is buttered.”

In response to several follow up comments, he additionally said this…

Part 2:

“As I said right in the post, CCP can walk and chew gum at the same time. They don't have to choose one option and ignore the other. They can and will work on both.

That said, my original point stands: the focus seems to be for the moment on EVE as a social experience rather than a solo experience.”

I want to state clearly that Ripard is probably answering this under NDA and as I told him, I fully understand the reasons and merits of NDA having signed a few in my time. So I understand there may be things he cannot say… That said, his answers do give me some small hope that CCP’s vision is not nullsec exclusive…

But I, and a very vocal percentage of YOUR playerbase CCP, would really like their worries and fears set at ease if possible by a direct and unambiguous answer…

CCP, do you care about the solo, casual and small gang players? or is it, “Well, you shoulda been in B-R if you wanna play EVE”…?

I, and all of those of us who love this game, but don't want to do so in Nullsec, await your answer.

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

PS - Asked and Answered, here and there...

A Quiet Little Hole, Mostly…

~or, “Well, That Din’t Go As Planned…”

Seems Sov has found us a quiet little hole this time. The C3 we now live in has, in weeks since I moved in, been all in all kinda quiet. It’s nice for PVE and PI and to sit quietly of an evening and contemplate Life and the ‘Verse whilst gazing deeply into one’s navel… so quiet in fact, one gets a little… complacent… and you mebbe dunt spam the scan buhtan as often as your training and experience tells you too. Not that that’s what happened… but, last night we sure got jumped right outta the milky mauveish whiteness that is the normal sky for C3s...

First off, I was in a very good mood as Sov and I had finally finished off a legacy POCO left over from some other corps time in this particular Black Hole C3. Before I joined HELPeR the guys had replaced the one’s on the planets they cared about for POS fuel production and ignored the others, but I am interested in PI for its own sake. I make Robotics on the planets already in our control, but I donate all of them to corp for fuel and the excess is sold for the corp wallet.

As we don’t get taxed on Sleeper L&S like the rest of ya'll do on bounties and Agent payouts, bonuses and suchlike, other than POCOs there are no levied taxes in Anoikis, so Robos serves in that stead… and considering the price of Robos, 56k to 57k ISK per unit avg., it’s not a bad deal for the corp.

I however also need and just want to make PI a source of personal income if possible, and in most W-space systems, as we are negative sec, IE all holes are -1.0 security rating, so the PI in even a shitty hole is a far cry better than Hi, Low and many null systems… hence I wanted to expand my production which meant clearing out one or two more of those pesky legacy POCOs to free up more planets.

Now you see the one we dunt own are charging me taxes on every transfer… from 5% to 10% and even 17%...this was absolutely unacceptable as you might well imagine… I was literally giving ISK away to people I dunt even know much less not wanna shoot in the face. So Sov and I had reinforced one of the ones I needed and completed the removal and erected a Brand New Shiney POCO in HELPeRs good name, and with a tax rate of 0.0, heaven for us small time Industrialists.

Add to that my corpmate Strigon, who had been on (I can’t afford PLEX) uh… sabbatical... from EVE, finally returned last night… well, I was having a grand time. We had scanned all-the-things, and had an empty C4/C3 EOL (end of life), a halfway decent U210, also EOL, and a few sites in home to run.

Life was good. I messed around with PI, Sov was scouting around the lowsec... and he saw a guy, he said a mission runner, I said Bait… I’ve reached a point where every ship in space is bait… if it isn’t who cares what I said but if, no when it is, I was RIGHT!... anyway, he jumped into Bosena and we put together a 3 ship to try and jump him and get a Navy Scorp kill but he left before we got in place.

So we trundled back home and decided to run the 3 sites in our home hole. We have settled on a nice system that works well  for a small gang inna C3… we run at least 2 DPS ships with Logi. As I finally decided Tur is gonna be a L5 Logi and EWar pilot when he grows up, so I am always logi and happy to be so. I fly a cap stable solo Scimitar and normally orbit at 65k keepin an eye on the watch list and reps on them as needs it.

I also still have an abiding love for the Noctis and salvaging and we have found a good way to utilize the strengths of the MTU (Mobile Tractor Unit) and the Noctis together for small gang site running. I carry 3 MTUs, drop one at the warpin for each site, when we finish the 3^rd site I swing back, scoop the MTU and loot the can it drops at each site in turn. If we have more than 3 sites, I’ll drop off the loot at the POS and we rinse and repeat until all sites are done. Then, once I have the last of the MTUs, loot and the Scimi back in the POS I reship to the Noctis.

Now the Noctis is fit for fastest warping and all the highs are fit with Salvager IIs… I warp from BM to BM and, as the MTU has made a nice fat wreckball at each BM, I land and just salvage all wrecks without having to tractor or loot and off to the next site. The guys fly cover, watching the holes, and flying DPS & Ewar JIC… and last night, JIC happened.

I was on the third site Scoop n Loot when Sov called out, “Proteus on scan.” I was ordering a warp to the POS when…

[2014.05.02 05:35:05] (combat) 91 from Trick Nixon[SB00N](Proteus) - Heavy Electron Blaster II – Grazes…   !!!

I called out, “He’s on me.” Sov advised I try and open range as the Scimi is AB fit and does a decent 1100+m/s. I had his Hob II drones on me, was webbed and scrammed but tanking well. Then the Proteus was joined by an Abaddon and Falcon… then my guys landed right behind em!

NC1M is almost always inna Falcon and he immediately jammed out the Proteus freeing me to make good my escape… from that point on all did not go well for our intrepid gang of interlopers…  =]

We had a Falcon, Ishtar, Nighthawk and a Hurricane after I reshipped… I landed and burned hard and called out 2nd point on the Baddon. EC1M jammed the aggressor Falcon and our Ishtar and Nighthawk started taking him down.

We were holding point on the Baddon but he was slipping out of range, Sov asked me to reship to a Sabre. The Falcon went down while I was reshipping, his POD got away, the Proteus broke off and fled and the Baddon kept trying to pull range to escape point. I landed, burned in, dropped a bubble, got point and web and that was that for the Baddon. We offered ransom for the POD, but…

[2014.05.02 05:43:43] (notify) Greasy Khan has initiated self-destruct of their Capsule, it will explode in 120 seconds.

Needless to say, we didn’t need 120 seconds to decide that Greasy Khan wasn’t going home on his own terms.

The Proteus and the Falcon POD looked to have exited stage left. Sov did some scouting/research and found they came in from our U210. They are a Lowsec group that takes unkindly to wormholes, and them as live in them, as impinge on their system from time to time… But this time, they bit off a bit more than they could chew it seems.

Well... once things calmed down still had three sites worth of Sleeper wrecks in the sky… I reshipped once more to a throw away Thrasher Salver and went to work with my guys again scouting, flying and watching the sky for me. I salvaged up all three sites, got everything back in the POS safe n sound…  =]

THIS is why I love Anokis. CCP got it right when they created Wormhole Space… no ‘local’… destroyable , incredibly hard to live in ‘stations’…  imminent danger and the prospect of great riches…

Does anyone think for one second that there will be anything like ‘local’ once we actually go to space IRL? I highly doubt it… hence Anoikis is the most virtually like IRL to me, and for me... that is THE game.

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

EVE Ascended?

~or, “To be a Star Citizen, or One of The Ascended?”

Like many of us, I am interested and excited by the idea and potential of “Star Citizen”, a new MMO in development by Chris Roberts (developer of “Wing Commander” et al.). This is an MMO aimed at the Space SciFi crowd same as EVE, but with Roberts ideals of avatar (not ship) based characters, FP flight and combat modes and multiplayer ships for a few. Roberts is not trying to out EVE, EVE, Star Citizen is a persistent virtual world unto itself, just one that is also set in a far futuristic science fiction based 'verse with space flight, combat and industry with a player driven market.

I am intrigued by “Star Citizen”, but… I am not an easy gamer to please, and I am not ‘sold’ on all of the concepts in Star Citizen based on what I have read and seen so far, interested yes, sold that it will be as immersive and fascinating as EVE, not yet. What I want does have some of his idea’s though… character based avatars with (what we in EVE call, WiS) Walking in Stations, maybe even multiplayer ships. But his vision sounds to me, less immersive. Star Citizen will consist of two main components: First Person Space Combat (Squadron 42) and Trading (Star Citizen) in an MMO persistent universe.

For me, though some of his ideas are right up my alley, the one’s that increase one’s ability to suspend disbelief and get really immersed in a virtuality. For me in EVE, there are many immersion breakers… warping through planets and moons and stations… being automagically ‘tractored’ (IE transported) inside stations on landing at the correct range… IE Poof!, and yet, ALL of us being forced to undock from the same location, no matter the size or number ships involved… and one of my least favorites… weird Asteroid Belts that aren’t belts at all… just a very small arc of rocks that are not connected in any way to the actual physics of real asteroid belts… AND these automagically ‘reappear’ after they have been used up, over and over and over again.

Well… I don’t know if I am behind the curve here and everyone already knows about this but, I recently saw this article on Massively, “MMObility: Age of Ascent hopes to beat EVE Online's battle concurrency record” about “Age of Ascent” another space based MMO currently under development. Well, as an EVE player there is no way to not read something with that title, now is there? This, of course led to going to the website and checking this out a bit and what caught my eye the most are not the ways in which it is similar to EVE, of which are many… but in the ways in which differs from EVE… ways which are very exciting to me.

- Direct-piloting combat

- Free-to-play without pay-to-win

- Map derived from real world star catalogs:  more than 120k star systems!

- Skills to be a combination of Real Time AND Player Experience

These are a few of the design goals for the roll out product, the direction Llyriad Games wants to go after that though, now THAT really grabbed my attention…

- Ship and hull classes (science ships, support ships, drone carriers, weapons platforms, minelayers and minesweepers, stealth recon)

- Multi-player options for co-operative capital ship flying (!)

Multi-player co-operative capital ship flying? “…capital ships – carriers and ships of the line – that require crew to fly. Crew will initially come from specially skilled NPCs, but as an early stretch goal we will allow multiple players to fly the same capital ship simultaneously, occupying different positions and working together, acting in positions such as skipper, navigator, shields and damage control, engineering and power, weapons systems, manning turrets and so on.” OMG!

They also envision a Player-led Economy, very similar in concept to EVEs but…

- Multiple currencies which have a dynamic existence

- Using the Periodic Table of Elements as the basic construction building blocks for everything in the game… and

- Resources that won’t renew. You may find a system where it takes two years to mine all the goodies, but once they’re gone they’re gone. How can they do this? you ask, “…with more than 120k star systems to play with…” that’s how… uh, WOW.  Now THAT’s Immersion.

In a nod to the PvP-adverse players the core systems will be run by a variety of NPCs, and if you stay on their right side, they’ll try and keep you safe and, just maybe, they’ll offer you technologies and trades you won’t see elsewhere.  Which sounds to me like an open sandbox ‘verse similar to EVE, but with skill and or module based increases in ‘protection’ from non-consensual PvP… But you have to work for it, not you are safe just because you are in “X” system or some such. And, with 120,000 star systems, you actually would have a chance to go “Where no player has gone before, and none may find you in for a long long time to come…” or at least for the first few years.

They also are working to build multi-threaded, multi-outcome PVE missions. Missions that “change dynamically, according to local circumstances and which can have the scope to change entire regions of space depending on what players do and how our AIs respond to that activity.”

They also describe something very near and dear to my heart “…modularly designed – space stations, jumpgate networks, trade-lanes, weapons platforms, manufacturing and mining centres, minefields, and every single thing that the pre-designed NPC zones of control has in them.”

There is a lot more and it all reads like a dream wish list for a Space based MMO… now THAT’S what I’m talking about! I just hope they can make it as beautiful as EVE… AoA is a browser based game, and that may be, for me, its downfall…

Because ATM the graphics in AoA, in comparison to EVE, leave very much to be desired… AoA looks an awful lot like Vendetta Online TBH, and while I liked playing VoL, I have been ruined for space games with lesser graphics than EVE… and as it stands now, that’s ALL of them.

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

CONCORD, now The Consolidated Nullsec Cooperation and Renter Command…

~or, “Risk vs Reward is Broken.”

[Empyrean Empires Part 2]

In my previous post, I stated that due to the strengths, capabilities and agreements the Large Nullsec Coalitions have made Nullsec “safer” for their members than any Hisec system and how the latest changes are all aimed directly at enhancing Nullsec. This is based on the, no longer valid, idea that Nullsec is the highest Risk space in EVE.

What I realized during the writing of that post is that the Large Nullsec Coalitions are, for all intents and purposes, the CONCORD of Nullsec, and this fact has BROKEN the Risk vs Reward balance in EVE Online.

As I am a strong proponent of, “If ya dunt like it, do YOU have a better idea?” Well, yes actually, I do.

Reward should equal Risk, but ‘Risk’ no longer equals the ‘System Security Status’… so what should it equal? Why… the real risk of course.

I know the argument FOR changes that enhance Nullsec income is the “Risk vs Reward Philosophy”. This is one of the foundation principles in EVE, the higher the risk, the greater the reward and that Nullsec was originally designed to be the ‘highest risk’ space in the game, IE no CONCORD or any other game mechanics against any form of aggression. And that used to be true, until the advent of the Coalitions.

The Coalitions are groups of Alliances that have formed cooperatives similar to how Corps can create Alliances… only Coalitions are not a built in the code game mechanic, they are meta-agreements made outside of the game client that define ingame Rules of Conduct between the member players, corps and Alliances in a Coalition.

The System Security Level is based on CONCORD's response and consequences to unprovoked/unpaid for aggression. In Hisec CONCORD responds to aggression with deadly force on a decreasing time scale with a Sec Stat hit (reduction in your personal Security Status). In Lowsec there is no CONCORD fleet response but there are gate and station guns and you take a Sec Stat hit, and in addition in High and Lowsec several very powerful aggression modules, IE Smartbombs, Bubbles, HICs, etc. are to varying degrees restricted by game mechanics. Nullsec however, was designed to be truly lawless space, no CONCORD at all, no consequences for aggressive acts, and ALL aggression mods allowed.

So, ‘Risk’ was defined by ‘System Security Level’, IE the consequences of CONCORD’s responses to aggression.

But… we now have a Nullsec that is owned and operated by Coalitions that make Sov Nullsec far far SAFER (less real risk) for Industry/Mining/Ratting than Hi, Lo and most especially, Negsec (W-Space)... The power that the Coalitions have, Jump Freighter services, Jump Bridges, Power Projection, sheer Manpower and the internal rules and external agreements they have ensure far safer gameplay for all these activities than anywhere in the rest of the game.

You see In High and Lowsec, the consequences of CONCORD are in response to unprovoked aggression… In Coalition run Sov Nullsec, the Coalitions are proactive… not responsive. If you don’t believe me, jump into Sov Nullsec with 50, or 20 or even 10 of your friends in fleet and see what happens… CONCORD waits until ‘after’ you have broken a law, in Sov Nullsec, just entering their space is breaking their law. I find it telling that all those who argue that null is soo much more dangerous than the rest of the game always avoid these particular and embarrassing little facts.

All of this has brought into existence an emergent effect CCP did not foresee… With the consolidation of Large Coalitions of Alliances in Nullsec, the actual Risk Level of a system is no longer tied to the original System Security Status of a system.

Hence as WE the players have once again changed how the game actually works, I propose that CCP needs to rebalance Risk vs Reward such that…

The “Risk Level” of a given system needs to be separated from the arbitrary “Security Status” of that system. So where does Risk come from? Why, from the Players of course.

“Security” is about CONCORD and game mechanics… and it should continue to be based on the current game mechanics for PvP, Crimewatch, CONCORD, etc. This defines the consequences for unprovoked (or unpaid for) PvP for whatever space you are in…

“Risk” however, is about the threat posed by the Players… and it should be based on number of/value of ships/pods/destroyed 'over time' on a per system basis. Over time is the key here...

The System Risk Level would be assessed based on a combination of short term, IE 24/48 hr kills and long term, IE 30/60 day kills. This defines the Actual Risk Level one will have to plan for based on the historical threat of player interaction, PvP, Wardecs, ganks, etc. for whatever space you are in…

Long Term vs Short Term effects to Risk Level; A system's overall Risk Level would be determined from the 30/60 day kills so that Great Wars, Burn Jita and Hulkageddon type events, IE short term/high kill rate events, would cause a shorter term smaller increase in the Risk Level, and these would then drop back quickly to the Risk Level reflected in the longer term overall Risk Level.

Now here is where I make the nullbears scream UNFAIR!!!!

Income levels, for Industry/Mining/Ratting/etc. should be based on the ‘Risk Level’, not the ‘Security Level’ of a given system. Potential Income should be based on the ACTUAL Risk from Player Interaction in any given system regardless of System Security Status.

Hence as things stand now Jita would likely become the Highest Risk system at Sec Stat 0.8 / Risk Lev -1.0 and huge areas of Null would be Sec Stat 0.0 / Risk Lev +1.0. Thus Income levels and potential would be reflected in the ACTUAL Risk one assumes plying those trades and activities in areas where the players themselves create greater and lesser actual inherent risk through their actions. We would have one more way in which we actually affect the space we play in, or own. Not just by creating risk, but also by mitigating risk… the way the Nullsec Coalitions do today in Sov Null.

Imagine how Risk Maps will look on Dotlan… =]

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