CCP, Goonswarm are making an example of you

Communications Center General Discussion
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So, here we are again. A bunch of players angry about a change to the game, so they set out to ruin the experience for potentially thousands of others in a mass protest. See the message at the bottom; I want to have a little rant first.

CCP, while I have enjoyed this game, it’s experiences like this that really ruin it for me. The current highsec war system is an atrocious griefer machine which I don’t think has ever once been used for its intended purpose. That this is still a problem in 2017 and that you seem content with the system in its current state just beggars belief.

When I talk to other aggrieved players, they all suggest the same solution: make wardecs seriously expensive (we’re talking 1bil a pop or more) and make them have a purpose. The fact that griefer/hub camper wardecs often have zero kills during a war is proof this system is broken and is used to grieve and oppress rather than achieve an end which creates emergent gameplay for both sides. If the aggrieved corp tries to fight back, the grievers just scuttle off and sit in a station without any blows exchanged. Since the corporation I’m in has been targeted by these types of wardecs (unrelentingly, I might add; one immediately after the other for weeks now), the corporation has gone from a bustling scene of friendly and positive activity (with 80+ actives) to a complete ghost town with less than 5 actives, with most of the players having become disenchanted and having quit. The CEO is over it, the officers have given up, and this is when they were working really hard toward getting us out into nullsec to enjoy EVE at its best. They’ve been stifled before they even had a chance.

The below is a message forwarded on to me from one of the officers. If I’m not going to be able to play this game over the Christmas holidays with the bunch I want to play it with, I’m not going to be playing it at all. There is absolutely no way Goonswarm is a fair or enjoyable fight for me, and the reason they’ve sent this extortion mail is because they know it. They have no valid intention because small indy corps are no threat to them. Just take a look at the Delve economy stats from the last couple of months as proof. All they want to do is grieve those who would never have an intention or capacity to fight back.

-3 subscriptions for CCP, with no doubt many more to follow over Christmas. Goonswarm wins.

Greetings,
I represent Goonswarm Federations WarDec department. In the spirit of Burn Jita, we are beginning a program of declaring CONCCORD valid wars against Indy Corps like yourself. This is in part to protect our dominance in the industrial sector with the coming nerf to our Rorqual mining fleets.

What does this mean to you? I am sure you are asking. Well we will begin declaring wars in time for the holiday player rush and in order to prevent this we are accepting payments to prevent our WarDec’ing you. Many corps will decide not to pay and our inflated holiday break numbers will enjoy having many haulers and miners to target in High and Low sec with no CONCORD protection.

How much will protection cost me? To ensure that your Corpmates are not attacked in High Sec. Total amount required is 100mil per character in your Corp, as the more members you have the more likely we are to catch valid kills in High Sec.

Send a payment to either of the following characters with the note of “WarDec Department”

Once payment is received your Corp will be added to our treaty list and not be WarDec’d during out holiday rush. Deadline for payments is December 17th.

Maddy Zabbara
Patty Zabbara

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Is it just ransom scam?

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Basic scam, basic idiots.

Odds are, the OP is also in on the scam and using this to advertise and try to legitimize the concept/plan

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Ransom, yes. Scam, no. They will declare war on anyone who doesn’t pay because it costs them nothing. Anyone with a basic familiarity with Goonswarm will know they get off on blowing people up in highsec.

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I wish I was in on the scam… I’d have enough money to buy myself a small island and live in perpetual bliss.

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On Chinese forum we would already be discussing the conspiracy theory that OP is just doing Goons propaganda. Meh the cultural difference.

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I think part of the problem is that CCP has made some serious mis-steps in the development of this game. Some related to trying to force game design from on-high into paths of great risk with little actual player benefit. Others related to the practice of hiring from the very player base they support risking significant conflicts of interest.

The result has been player rebellion over various changes in which CCP reversed many of their decisions, which led the more socially creative members of our community to try and influence game design to fit their own needs at the expense of the rest of the player base, which has lead to many leaving the game for good.

Unfortunately this leads to a situation where the best organized groups outside the game have a good chance to influence game design to suit their needs through multiple paths, either from within CCP or from the outside by mass social manipulation.

With the Goons though, they have done many things like this in the past for many different reasons. They have had the stated purposes to destroy the game and everyone’s enjoyment of it years ago, and they have tried to influence game design with some success like burn jita. But if you put it all together I think they are, for the most part, simply creating in-game reasons for they main goal of simply being what they seem to be, frequently bored internet trolls.

Though, that doesn’t mean they should be banned from the game, and it does make the game interesting at times. This game is suppose to be the “dark side” of the game world.

I just wish CCP had been a bit better at some of its decisions in the past and a little less willing to cave to player-based game design extortion such as mass un-subs. They have been a bit daft at determining when there was a valid issue and when they were simply being manipulated in to favoring a specific group’s interests. Granted that is not an easy task to do.

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A very carefully and neutrally-worded way of saying you don’t think the war mechanics should change and CCP should keep things as they are instead of listening to any kind of criticism on the subject… I see what you did there, sir. :wink:

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And here we see yet another ‘idea’ that hasn’t been given any though as to how it affects the game further than the OPs own limited view of how things are affecting him/her personally.

How does a small noob or 1man corp wardec someone… 1Bil per dec ouch.

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That’s the point. A one man corp shouldn’t be wardeccing another. The fact that 1bil is prohibitive to a smaller group yet still back pocket change for someone like Goonswarm is the reason this wardec system is so broken and why groups are abusing it in order to troll and grieve. This is echoed in the fact Goonswarm are here demanding 100mil for each player in the corp. What small indy corp has that kind of ISK? It’s a no-win situation.

As I said, this wardec system has rarely, if ever, been used for its intended purpose and it will keep being used in such a manner until CCP puts in the hard thought and actually improves it. It will take way more than I’ve suggested, and I happily concede that point.

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Yeah, that is kind of like the “mouse that roared.”

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Why shouldn’t a small (or one man) corp dec another? If a small corp is holding a POCO that I want, then why shouldn’t I be able to dec it…

I agree with your original premise, that a huge Alliance shouldn’t really be able to wardec every corp in Hisec, it’s just your solution that I disagree with.

Perhaps a more workable ‘fix’ would be a war limit per corp. Can only dec 5 other corps at one time?
Note, this is not a limit to how many times you can be dec’ed, to avoid exploits.

Wasn’t the wardec system available so that a corp can target and cause damage to a competitor. I don’t think spam dec’ing everyone was really its intended use.

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you can wardec that corp. but i think the arguement is to make it a little more costly to have concord look the other way.

I mean, to add… you could have a sliding scale for price of wardecs… depending on number of members the victim corp has. If there was three members in a HS corp, a billion isk may be a little steep. but a 300 man gang, it may be feasible.

more members in alliance or corp, the more you have to pay to make concord not interact.

could even factor in the number of members the attacking corp/alliance has into this price.

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I totally agree with you and, yes, your use of the wardec system would be what it was intended for. I hadn’t considered POCOs, which are notorious for being owned by small groups and changing hands frequently in small “turf wars”, for want of a better phrase.

They did actually introduce a 3-war limit a few years ago, from my understanding, which they did away with when too many people complained. Once again, they gave into the pressure of people like Goonswarm. I appreciate it’s difficult to come up with a solution to something like this that keeps all parties happy, but in reality they should be doing the thing which results in the smallest amount of grief-based gameplay and the most emergent gameplay, where both sides are at least somewhat evenly matched and it isn’t just a blitzkrieg to pad out a killboard.

Spam deccing everyone wasn’t its intended use, and this is the point I’m pushing the most. I don’t care how they achieve a solution, as long as it’s a proper workable solution that prevents people like myself from being griefed and trolled to the point where it’s just not a fun game any more. I would be extremely surprised if that’s the type of gameplay CCP are trying to achieve, but that’s really the effect of what they’ve created.

I should probably point out this does have something to do with balancing the market and is a semi-autonomous way of CCP to handle that. So if that’s true then, really, it’s just a cop-out by them and an unwillingness to spend the time and resources to actually develop a proper solution to inflation.

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I run a small corp that wardecs other small corps so we can destroy their POS structures and scoop-out the juicy innards. We will happily pay 50m ISK a pop, but if the price of wardecs is increased it may no longer be economically viable to pursue this activity.

We only wish to clean-up highsec. Please consider all playstyles before making such proposals.

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Your playstyle drives away far far more paying subs that it attracts, so your playstyle should be banned.
Period, fullstop.

You want to try that stuff in low sec, by all means. But when you are doing that in high sec, you are griefing, and should be banned.

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well to be fair. there are many forms of legal greifing in high sec. ESPECIALLY ganking haulers on undocks and gates … lol without a wardec…

to say his game style should be banned? LOL wtf? im sorry but thats hilarious!

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Impinging upon various people’s playstyles should not be a justification for maintaining a poorly implemented war system. Raising the required commitment by you when entering into a war is what I’m talking about here. If you were required to pay 1bil to enter into a war you might set your sights a little higher then defenceless corps just trying to get a foothold in the game.

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I like the idea that you need to pay a plex worth or near that to make concord look the other way. 1 billion isk, and with a sliding scale so if your corp or allaince is say a 5000 member gang like goons, you have to pay more than 1 billion isk per corp you wardec… :slight_smile: makes sense being they make MORE isk, and can easily recover from losses. smaller corps wardeccing other corps should pay LESS to wardec… imho.

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Not sure if troll.

I don’t see how legally going to war and removing structures is griefing, and calling for a ban for using mechanics the way they were intended is very extreme. If you’re not trolling, you should think about taking a break from the game as you take it far too seriously.

Why is it always “defenceless newbies” to you guys? Most of the corps we’ve decced were multiple years old, and filled with characters just as old, or older. Also, they have the ability to fight back.

1 Like