The FIRST iteration was an early attempt at multiplayer. It was the first foray for Battlenet, and it was actually with Diablo, not Diablo 2. My mistake. They launched it and it was an immediate problem. I experienced that problem myself.
CODE is trash and always will be. No argument changes that.
The actual problem isn’t that piracy and ganking exist. That’s fine. The mechanics that allow things like CODE. to exist in the way that they do are wrong.
For instance, I absolutely agree that those who wish to be pirates should be allowed to join into that faction. That choice is, naturally permanent to that character and all the consequences that should follow that choice would be permanent too.
IOW, you have no interest in constructive discussion and should not be posting here.
For instance, I absolutely agree that those who wish to be pirates should be allowed to join into that faction. That choice is, naturally permanent to that character and all the consequences that should follow that choice would be permanent too.
Sure. Just as long as other changes are also permanent. Join a nullsec alliance? You’re now considered a traitor by the NPC empires and will be CONCORDed as soon as you enter any 0.1 or higher system. Fly an industrial ship? You’re now permanently a civilian and no longer permitted to equip offensive weapons on any of your ships. Etc.
And just how do you propose changing those mechanics? Giving players the ability to opt out of PvP? Banning all PvP in highsec? None of these potential changes are at all acceptable.
Actually, that sounds okay. Choices with actual consequences. I’m good with that.
You’re free to enforce whatever permanent consequences against other players that you want. Nothing’s preventing you from forming a coalition to keep them locked out of a certain area, going after their known affiliates, not doing business with them, etc. etc.
I will agree that some game mechanics are lacking to help in this regard, such as not being able to sell items to certain individuals due to anonymous, lowest-order market purchasing, but such limitations could be gotten around through the use of alts anyway.
It sounds like you want permanent, NPC-enforced consequences for piracy, but asking for that without asking for it to be applied across the board to all activities isn’t very fair (edit: it looks like you are). If you want anyone guilty of some kind of criminal action to become persona non grata in empire, this should extend to mission runners who routinely shoot empire NPC forces as part of their gameplay, for example.
There is no argument since that’s purely personal sentiment aimed at a group of people. It’s like if I said “pizza is trash.” It’s a completely meaningless comment.
Thankfully you don’t get to make game design choices for EVE. Locking people into fixed roles would be an idiotic decision in a sandbox game.
That makes for some really terrible, unfulfilling gameplay. We play this game because it’s not real life. If I want a civilian hauling experience, I’ll become a trucker.
Players are actually quite limited when it comes to enforcing anything that isn’t null. There needs to be a structure for it. This is also prevalent in our daily lives. Without a structure, which for EVE would be mechanics, it devolves into lawlessness. That also is frequently prove in life. For a place like HS to establish the means of enforcement they would have to create something like Pinkerton, but there isn’t any way to make that work in EVE, unlike real life. It still has all the activities you like but with actual risk and actual adversaries. People have tried to do this in EVE but the mechanics make it impossible. Thus things like CODE. exist. They could still exist with the Pinkertons but they would have to actually work at it and, like real piracy, would most likely die poor.
There are plenty of mechanics this game could have to simulate consequences more realistically without making the system completely unfun for everyone involved.
Unfortunately, CCP went for the low-hanging fruit from the very beginning in the form of a timed NPC kill trigger for criminal activity.
Actually Euro truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator are both very popular games. It’s a play style that can actually be quite enjoyable. ETS2 was Steams most successful Green light project ever. Their players went on to make a mod that has a multiplayer server with up to 2000 players on. It’s still usually full. it’s moderated and if you see a cop car, that’s a moderator. =)
Most days ETS2 has about as many players on as EVE does, but there are no alts in ETS2.
In a true sandbox, this role would exist. Secure space trucking only because NPC empires were active instead of passive.
Edit: ETS2 was PC Gamers favorite employee office game for years. They used to write about that.
But you just said the mods were human, and one sentence later, you ask for NPC enforcement. Which is it going to be?
They implemented ramifications based on their mechanics. EVE could do the same but they either refuse to or are simply too lazy to address it. To be fair, fixing the different security zones would be a huge overhaul, and we know how CCP handles long term tasks. They don’t.
Nonsense. There are absolutely ways of countering ganking. The issue is that nobody cares enough to use them. They’re either selfish pragmatists* who protect themselves from ganking and leave everyone else to die, or risk-averse PvE farmers who only care about their menial grind. The farmers don’t want active player-driven enforcement of anti-piracy rules, they want CCP to turn off PvP.
*A good thing in EVE.
You might want to learn EVE history.
They tried to keep more hands off initially and it did lead to a complete breakdown of highsec in the end, that’s why we have unbeatable concord. Love it or hate it unbeatable undodgable Concord needs to exist in some way. Levers can be twisted for balance inside that of course.
What happened within a few months of release qualifies as the beginning, since the game’s been out almost 20 years.
There are other ways to address criminality than just having an NPC kill trigger. For example, stolen goods could be marked and considered contraband, leading to the creation of a black market. This would push down ganking rewards without compromising the level of destruction. At the same time, the NPC-driven kill trigger could be replaced with a player-driven policing solution, which could become a viable source of income in the form of bounties, which could become fairly large if gankers had the incentive to use ships for ganking that are larger than T1 destroyers.
Of course, all of this would take quite a lot more work than just setting up a response time table and then killing the perps with an NPC macro.
This has been proven to not work already. It’s either exploited by the gankers themselves to build up a large enough bounty to be worth taking themselves, or not worth the players time. Additionally the fact that this isn’t RL and it’s not our job means that you can’t rely on people actually being online.
Do remember what my desire for ganking to look like is when you answer, I’m not calling for ganking to end or be utterly nerfed, I’m just saying that an NPC response that can’t be avoided or tanked is a necessary part of the process. Your other points around contraband tags etc can also all be implemented alongside a Concord system. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Which is one of the best mmorpgs in my opinion. Top 3.
That’s on an individual basis. The point that was being made by the rest of the statement was that there is no way for something like HS to have a counter organization (the example was Pinkerton) due to mechanics. It’s been tried but the mechanics completely favor the gankers and prevent any such resistance.
Again, nonsense. Organized anti-ganking fails because of the players, not the mechanics. Lots of people in highsec love the idea of being protected by other players but few are willing to put in the hours of effort to make it happen, not when it’s someone else’s assets at stake.