You can train as many Alpha accounts at the same time as you want. Those 5 million SP will take about half a year to max out, and can make for some nice and versatile additional characters. Plus you can refer yourself for an additional 1 million SP that you can redeem after you hit the training cap (so that it doesn’t count against the cap), and there will be some reward SP along the way. Basically every new alt you make becomes a 7 million SP character after 5-6 months.
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Or after a long day at work the repetitive point click gameplay is like a virtual stressball. Isk is kind of irrelevant in that case
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There are much, much better games available for that purpose.
And yet I still mine…even though 3/4 of the ISK that I now have is a direct result of bringing in PLEX. Just checked, and over on another virtual world I spend the equivalent of 3bn ISK a month just for a virtual house to live in. So I’m hardly a ‘poor’ miner.
There is a psychological element to it…and it has little to do with ‘ready for PvP’ and all that. And its not as if I haven’t ever ventured out and got zapped in a combat ship.
I’m aware of those. What I’m talking about is where are Amarr/Caldari/Minmatar/Gallente military fleets? Why don’t we see or come across those empire fleets? Where are they? Why don’t they fight and why can’t we join those fights by fleeting up with them?
What’s the point of choosing an empire if we can fly any ship and never get to join those empires in space battles?
I don’t know, I haven’t mined yet and don’t plan on to. I don’t think the game pushes players to mine, I think players choose mining because it’s easy isk right off the bat.
I don’t mind starting as a defenseless nobody. I’m not a nobody in mind so it doesn’t affect me personally and let’s be honest, most of us, if not all, would be nobodies were New Eden a real world.
Exactly. I’m not going to mine, ever, when all I can do is buy PLEX and get a ton of isk. Mining is too boring, it would ruin the game for me if I were forced to mine.
I don’t feel that way. If I can get isk by buying it then why not? CCP has set that up to gain on their finances and I’m more than happy to help their purse if it means never getting a mining ship.
I look at PLEX as an alternative to boring repetitive play and I’m glad CCP has come up with that alternative.
I agree with the actual ISK being irrelevant. I’m not mining for ISK. The price of a pint of beer brings in more ISK than I could mine in a week.
On the other hand, sitting there mining in lots of local systems I now know the region like the back of my hand…far more so than would be the case if I’d just been dashing about in a Condor for all that time. I know all the regular names, all the people who hang about at gates, the true levels of activity in those areas over time, and so on. And it is THIS that makes me much harder to gank in those regions. The only places I’ve had ships destroyed have been new regions I was not familiar with.
There are other ways to get to know New Eden and the players in it, not to say that your way is not valid of course.
I like Exploration and Distribution. That gets me around quite a bit and I at least feel like I’m helping my chosen empire by delivering munitions and other things for the empire agents.
Also, I wouldn’t like to mine because I don’t like to think I would be some sitting duck just waiting to be ganked and for what? The equivalent of a dinner at a restaurant in isk?
But there is a free for all foodchain in EVE. I mean, one could in theory wake up as a “warrior” after laying as miner.
There is no restriction, but… I think the whole idea is to allow the transgression not only as one feels like, but also as a response to the environment’s proposal.
Take me again… I have jumped around through careers dictated by my personal assessment of what me and my $urrounding need$. But I’m different, call me old phart but I don’t plex. I pay RM for EVE.
The fact that the environment has it all sharing the same container, makes it not only favorable for one to jump around --from a career perspective–, but for the diversity of ecosystems --or careers-- to jump on you. Which is healthy.
Denying ourselves the ability to read the scenario both ways, should --and indeed does-- affect one’s survival rate.
I’m afraid that some of those lines, and particularly the ones that result from self-exile just will face destruction without the benefit of defense under the rules of the environment as is.
Could one be strictly mining forever? yes, but even at the most recondite of corners, other gaming lines will reach you and you will die. A few times.
The same for PVP? doesn’t exist. For ever ganking is doable and encouraged but seeking a classic confrontation requires funding.
Somehow there should be balance. Of course one is prone to be consumed more than the other simply for being unable to prevail.
Considering that the ability to prevail is an entitlement is a fundamental misunderstanding.
Once a miner, always a miner.
To get back to the original OP, and not focus completely on the ganking-specific sub-topic:
Xucca originally asked “Why don’t we die enough?” and then also just said:
And this is the key to the lack of destruction in EVE. A game is an ecosystem. Players participate in a game to get rewarded and receive gratification, or to create a feeling of ‘making progress’. They don’t do it to “sacrifice for the good of the game”. They don’t do it to reward somebody else at their own expense.
Because of poor game design, there are very few reward mechanisms in EVE. ISK and “intrinsic satisfaction” are basically all it boils down to. Standings, LP gain, skill gain etc. all basically translate to ISK.
“Intrinsic satisfaction” is more complex and varies gamer to gamer. Most humans are wired to derive satisfaction from being productive and increasing their ‘value’ along various metrics. Salt-miners derive satisfaction from provoking angry and upset responses from other players. Some players derive “I’m better than you” satisfaction from winning a fight, even if the fight was a Catalyst against a Venture (the ‘playground bully’ school of esteem building).
Gank-farmers often derive both ISK profit and satisfaction from carrying out high-value ganks. As Destiny said,
Gankers by and large are just farmers, farming in high-sec where they’re safe. They do everything they can to derive maximum value and avoid risk, just like every other farmer. Losing ships while ganking isn’t a risk, in that case, it’s simply an operating cost to your farming model.
The reason we don’t have enough destruction is simply because, by and large, it’s a losing proposition. Overall, PvP in EVE always costs more than it returns (when both sides are considered). Therefore unless you can tilt your PvP style so that you have a much higher chance of winning than losing, you simply don’t participate (in general).
For roughly 3/4 of the EVE player base then, PvP is not a worthwhile activity. You can avoid it, you can minimize it, you can absorb the costs and carry on, but most players don’t have a valid reason to participate in PvP.
That’s why the topic turns to ganking so often, simply because it’s mostly only salt-miners, schoolyard bullies, and gank-farmers who have a valid reason to initiate PvP. (Nullsec wars aside, which is a completely different scenario.)
Put other methods of reward and/or deriving satisfaction/making progress into the game, and you’ll see more actual PvP (combat ships vs. combat ships) than sheep-farming.
So, could I assume that there should be a prize for the “winner” in direct proportion to a destroyed ship’s DPS? and maybe not the ship’s ISK value?.
Rewards can be tricky but I agree with you on the assertion that there’s no balance on rewards or gratification.
I only deviate on the issue of what the whole deal represents for those which loses are either a high percentage of their wealth or just peeps that don’t take it lighly.
Of the recurrent points, this one is fundamental, I know…
But it’s as hard to make a difference between fitting a tank for taking a beating and PVP, similar to between engaging an unforeseeable outcome and ganking.
But peeps think that a self pat in the back for such “brilliance” when posting all the above in narrow scoped recital of logic by mass, is deserved for pretending on getting the last word.
Well, no. these things are all different. Ganking is not PVP and neither is tanking for a beating. It’s just regurgitation of self glorification that only looks stupid.
So you agree that miners are not people?
Context?
Oh I see… Of course it’s not PVP… it’s PVp or pVC. But not the same.
The fact that there are no specific words to define each, doesn’t mean that one should put them under the same appellative, like gender.
It’s time for a revision on that particular aspect. More so, In that post’s context.
If ganking is not player vs player, then miners must not be players.
There are many types of rewards that can be presented in a game. They don’t always have to be of economic value but should represent either economic/value, intrinsic satisfaction, achieving a goal, hierarchical ranking or gaining a benefit.
Yes, it is an excellent idea to base a reward not on something like ISK, but more on something like DPS values, or even better, ratio of “how hard the fight was”. So for instance, a Catalyst vs. a Venture would have a very low (and possibly even negative) benefit, whereas taking out a Cruiser with a Frigate would give higher.
To keep people from farming it for endless gain, you have to take something away from the loser (ISK, reputation, standings, ranking or whatever). That way you can’t progress by shooting your own stuff, although you could conceivably transfer points from one character to another, at a loss.
Currently, EVE PvP rewards salt-mining, gank-farming, and ego-boosting for a certain small segment of players.
If that set of scenarios was expanded to bounty hunting, white knighting, protection contracts, account unlocks, standings-based rewards, etc. we’d see a lot more combat-PvP.
(PvP meaning combat-fit ships fighting other combat-fit ships, and not weaksauce Catalysts going after Ventures and calling it ‘PvP’.)
Both are. But a more clear definition might be needed to level the same game complexity with one’s ability to argue. --or the right to-- Some people just can’t and feel the urge to put them all under the same in order to avoid specifics… Usually when trolling.
I always assumed player vs player means player vs player.
Do you have some other definition?
The assumption lacks the complexity EVE deserves.
It doesn’t matter if I can define PVP, I’d just change it to GVP, both players, one just happens to be Ganking for this particular scenario.