this is the developer stating that assets stored in upwells belong to active players.
Which makes absolutely zero sense.
No, but it doesnât matter. Stop looking at this in terms of âitemsâ like this is physical property. Your items on an EVE character are nothing but character stats, like the fact that your sword in a fantasy game does 150 DPS. Or the fact that the mines you built in the early days of EVE can no longer be used. Or the fact that your Kestrel can no longer use cruise missiles. Etc. There is exactly zero chance that anyone is going to successfully sue CCP for making changes to their character stats.
Remember, you own nothing about your EVE character. CCP allows you to purchase the privilege of playing the game, but at no point do you ever buy anything but the right to access the game for 30 days. The only conceivable argument that could have any merit is that a gameplay change so completely removes your ability to play the game that you are not able to make use of the 30 days of access you have purchased, but âI have less space money than I used to haveâ is not an obstacle to further use of the service. And the only thing you could possibly win is a refund of the remaining time on your subscription.
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Thatâs most likely the case, but there are plenty of other negative consequences CCP might experience. A lack of player trust is a pretty big one, for example. A slowed-down economy and unwillingness to invest money into the game is another.
And a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, can still be dangerous. If people read articles about such a case, theyâre not going to painstakingly weigh the facts and try to come to an informed conclusion. Theyâre just going to read the opening paragraph, see that a bunch of players are suing CCP for âdeleting all their stuff after saying that their stuff is safe,â and the resulting opinion will be ânope, this is definitely not a game I want to try.â
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Sure. I donât dispute that gameplay changes can have consequences for future revenue. I was only disagreeing with your claim that a lawsuit against CCP over this could have any merit whatsoever.
However, I donât think the consequences are going to be very serious. Anyone with any sense already treats their assets as expendable, especially if they arenât securely stored in a highsec NPC station. Why worry about future losses and let that get in the way of having fun right now? EVE is entertainment, not your retirement fund.
Theyâre just going to read the opening paragraph, see that a bunch of players are suing CCP for âdeleting all their stuff after saying that their stuff is safe,â and the resulting opinion will be ânope, this is definitely not a game I want to try.â
Or they could respond with âJFC these people are idiots, trying to sue over a video gameâ and CCPâs reputation remains intact. If anything the players who lost stuff to the change would be making themselves less persuasive by setting themselves up for mockery over a frivolous lawsuit and distracting people from the facts of the situation.
The end result will be a net loss for CCP regardless. This will drive potential players away (and many existing ones), but it wonât attract any new ones. Players arenât more likely to join this game because of this change. Even the people who think that the people suing CCP are idiots are still going to have thoughts in the back of their minds about what would happen if they play this game, and then lose their stuff after suddenly winding up in the hospital with COVID for a month.
Also, the whole lawsuit thing is just one minor aspect of why I think this change is bad. Like I said, itâs unprecedented and fundamentally unfair. There was no real reason to do this in this manner.
Would you be fine with CCP deciding to treat NPC stations this way over the course of a month? After all, the principle is the same. So why shouldnât they? Letâs just let active players reallocate the assets of anyone who hasnât logged in for a while.
This seems asinine as hell to me. There isnât even counterplay involved here. Even the players scoring massive drops from this change think that it makes no sense.
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Why not? âDestroy abandoned structures and get rich from other people being carelessâ sounds pretty appealing for some people. All it takes is an article or two about a successful looting and it gets new players, much like other articles about successful crimes in EVE have drawn people in.
Even the people who think that the people suing CCP are idiots are still going to have thoughts in the back of their minds about what would happen if they play this game, and then lose their stuff after suddenly winding up in the hospital with COVID for a month.
BUT WAT IF IM IN THE HOSPITAL WITH COVID FOR A MONTH AND CCP GOES BANKRUPT AND SHUTS THE SERVERS DOWN.
Play EVE because itâs fun right now, not because youâre building up some kind of investment for the hypothetical future. EVE is entertainment, not your retirement fund. Anything you have in EVE can be lost at any time and all youâll have left is your memories.
Would you be fine with CCP deciding to treat NPC stations this way over the course of a month?
No, because that would be a stupid change. EVE needs NPC stations and allowing them to be destroyed would be a death sentence for the game.
There isnât even counterplay involved here.
Sure there is. Donât let your stations go inactive.
Thatâs a very different sort of consideration.
Loss by an effect of your actions is very different from loss stemming out of circumstances you canât control.
Asset storage in citadels was a circumstance you could control. Asset safety was a mechanic clearly stated and advertised by CCP as something that is absolute. Exactly the same as storing your assets in NPC stations.
This isnât something that CCP made people aware of when they introduced citadels. They made it very clear that your structures could be attacked by various means, and that their modules, fuel, ammunition, etc. would drop as loot, while stored assets would go into asset safety. That is the set of rules that players operated under.
I am not saying that the change to these mechanics is bad. Iâm only saying that applying it retroactively was a bad decision. It should only have applied to assets stored in citadels after the patch went live (or even when the changes were announced).
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I do not deny that some changes are needed. And as I wrote in an earlier post, if the current change would have affected new structures at the time of roll-out with all currently active players informed, there would not be any problem.
If a person acts on a given word of 100% asset safety and then gets shanked that person has been duped into believing an official statement. Yes, this is only a game, but itâs still part of the transaction.
And indeed, a word IS an agreement, else itâs not a given word. From that follows that yes, perhaps they should stop communicating if their statements have no truth.
Keeping word is very different from not being able to make necessary changes. And I think you know that too. Flexibility has to come from both sides. Recalling assets collected in the past is something else entirely, especially involving players who arenât present.
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Perhaps a middle ground:
Players departing due to service deployments or family situations could pay for a service: some percentage of the value of total goods to be transported to an NPC station. To prevent abuse, it must be done in advance for a time period and remain in place during that time, even triggered by a status of the station perhaps pending an activity log. So in such cases the ISK is automatically deducted after the player has not logged in for a long time and the structure is going down, and the stuff is moved.
This would separate out those who had to leave to go do something around which internet access was not possible, like military deployment or missionary work (those Amarr players for example) from those who have simply lost interest and abandoned the game.
in before hurf blurf (insert some imaginary thing here)
But how would you do this separation? I donât think thereâs any reasonable way for CCP to audit a playerâs claim to be deployed/sick/etc, so whatâs to stop everyone from from turning on the service every time they step away from the game?
Note I didnât say specifically the reason why? And who gives a â â â â if everybody paid for it to step away from the game?
I did mention those who simply walk away. Why should we care about that too? Are we so ideologically poisoned that we need one qualitiarian solution for every player? Those who want to come back pay for a service if they donât have time to move stuff themselves. Those who just donât care, well nobody has to care. And nobody has to care why someone uses the service, or not.
Every case on itâs own basis. Donât worry, the world wonât end.
Because if everyone who steps away from the game uses the service then whatâs the point of making it an opt-in feature? Thatâs needless extra complexity compared to just putting asset safety back on abandoned structures.
While itâs not the worst idea, itâs not really needed. This game operated just fine for 13 years until citadels were introduced. Players knew that their items were safe inside stations and outposts, and not safe inside PoSes and left out in space. This can continue to be the case even with citadels, if people are made aware that their items are not guaranteed to be safe in them. After all, citadels were intended to replace PoSes anyway.
The only problem is that CCP broke its guarantees by not grandfathering into safety assets that were left inside citadels before they made this change.
Iâm starting to think that they did this to drive up some hype for the game, but I think that their decision will backfire badly. Iâm already brainstorming ways to reduce my asset holdings across the universe on all my characters. I donât trust CCP anymore in this manner. I have no guarantees that they wonât make similar moves in the future. I donât want to go on a break, and come back to finding out that half a trillion of my stuff is gone because drifters blew up Jita or Amarr in another one of their events.
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Isnât Triglavian part of it, or, are they just trying to sell a New World in New Eden?
The place used to be nice and quiet and there was nothing wrong.
Itâs like a world of bacteria which is created inside their mouth requiring mouth wash to heal.
If birds gave lip service, they would look like a blob fish.
Oh yes, when we turned off the computer last night, we lost the assets by mistake due to a bit shift.
I think the last bit was inserted first, even if not quotaholic doing too much workâŚ
They didnât. You agreed to the TOS and EULA that the game might change. It changed, deal with it.
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Alright. Where in the TOS/EULA does it say that the goods you acquired may or may not be forfeited - as a whole in this case ? It doesnât. Deal with it.
Better still, dump all you @Nicolai_Serkanner own in a pos and take a break. Weâll fix you up.
Iâm a bit with @Forum_Posting_Alt here.
The last thing we need is for EVE to turn into a RUST or ARK clone or any of those other MMO battle arenas where if youâre not playing you can be thrown under the table.
Those games exist for a reason and theyâre all outside EVE.
At least this is how I feel for the small corp or solo player. Alliances and large corps can deal with it. They have players playing 24/7. Thereâs literally no reason to have issues there for fueling these stations when youâre too big to fail. If youâre a solo/small time guy and had your own station you seriously got screwed with this update.
The only message CCP sends with updates like these is âscrew the little guy, join an alliance/larger corpâ. Iâm just a guy who works a rotating weekend nightshift. Iâm gone for 3-4 days out of the week to earn my living. Basically the reason I gotta solo a lot. All the cool stuff happens when Iâm at work anyway.
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It doesnât have to. Everything in the game is and remains the property of CCP and they can and may do with it as they seem fit.
Oh dear, you have scared me now.
Indeed, they can do what the whole thing as they seem fit. Some things that can be done donât make a business sense.
Wasnât meant to scare you, Nico, just to give a taste of what it could mean if you yourself were involved in this ânew contentâ.