That was my initial reaction…but after more experience in Eve I have to say that highsec would be incredibly boring without gankers. As I have alts that spend a lot of time dashing about transporting stuff, I love that cat and mouse of escaping the gankers. And having to wonder whether this time my cargo is at that gankable limit and can I risk it. It’s exciting. I haven’t lost a ship in any account in over 2 months…so I’m doing something right.
Without the ganking risk it would be no fun at all.
If this were true you’d see that there’s plenty of production going on, specifically around The Forge.
Even the most well put together Nullsec entities have to interact with Highsec. They have to come here, travel here for certain things or reasons. The most active and populated markets in the game exist here. There are activities that they flock to in Highsec to make ISK for their mains. There are whole logistics networks built to aid in the acquisition and sale of goods for personal and alliance-wide / coalition-wide growth and prosperity.
Me? I enjoy knowing that I’m disrupting those logistics. I’m taking from them. I am a thorn in their side. This playstyle is ACTUALLY as close to piracy as we have remaining in the game. Trade routes from populated Nullsec regions into Highsec that have been mapped out with strategic systems to intercept them and interrupt their purpose for being in Highsec - to profit from them.
The alt of the nullsec player who is trying to make some ISK because his main is hell camped in a bubble somewhere… or all his best ratting systems are perma-camped with cloakies. These are the players I intend on targeting. These are the players that I’m hoping have to deal with me.
So why Highsec? Well it’s because it’s where all these things come together. If Jita were in Lowsec and there was no replacement or alternative in Highsec then you’d see this piracy occur in Lowsec. Matter of fact it’s why every single gate going from Lowsec → Highsec is camped as well by other pirates. They are doing the same thing, but I can assure you that when it comes to actually disrupting gameplay and logistics… the Highsec gankers have them beat.
Every ■■■■-fit Iteron V carrying 5b in cargo is a potential Nullsec alt. Every 3b fit Battleship running L4’s is a potential Nullsec alt. Every Raitaru or Athanor could be housing and facilitating miners directly supporting a Nullsec entity.
It is a fight though. The fight is in the preparation and strategy. Every DST pilot that evades what is effectively my gatecamp has bested me. Without firing a shot he used the games mechanics to his favor. This isn’t about the shooting, but it is about the destruction, the strategy, the knowledge of mechanics, the preparedness, and the ultimate outcome of who is going to win.
We all know the numbers. The time it takes for Concord to react and how much damage I can inflict. We have spreadsheets that tell us what we can and can’t kill and what combination of ships we need to accomplish it with a varying degree of failure. We’ve taken our time to prepare ourselves for the interaction while the other side either fails to prepare at all or doesn’t prepare well. No gank is a certainty and that’s a fact. I can’t account for what other players will and will not do before, during, or after the interaction.
If we happen to be shooting at a bot, then yes it’s not PVP. Of course if the pilot on the other end is indeed a human that it is PVP. Simple stuff really.
Just a thought? And I hate to put bad ideas in CCP’s head. But could the AG be the new way that CCP wants pvp to be? The wd sys sucks so… No hints on that, that anyone knows of?
One of the only things I’ve done in this game was pilot the starter ship to Fountain, which at the time I believed was supposed to be the goons home system.
And I succeeded. I actually had to announce myself as being there before I was given a ticket to a clone bay.
But I did it just to see if I could. Cat and mouse can be fun.
high sec gankers are just a mirror image of my reaI life as a kid
gankers act like a group of queen bees who shop at the Northridge mall ganging up together to beat up on the weakest girl at school
crap like mining permits “you can’t sit at our table because you are too fat like omg”.
then the hair tossing after we beat you up,we invite you to come chat with me and my clique just so the rest can also have a piece of the pie and increase their own self worthing.
I dont look up to high sec gankers, i dont get angry with high sec gankers,
I PITY THEM
but then again its also the fault of CCP to create an area called " High Sec" and let players with a “-” secutity status just beat up on the weak or ill informed without any consequences.
Funniest thing about gankers is their arrogance. I’ve robbed people irl and been a criminal. Been to jail several times. I just fly around like a carebear in this game and enjoy it. Then you meet these nerds who sit at some gate and think they are badboys. Hilarious.
I’m pretty sure CCP didn’t intend for the average PvP fight to last about a dozen seconds, and have accomplished this purely out of ignorance and ineptitude.
It’s equally as true that some groups that engage in ganking don’t spend all their time ganking. One of my alts regularly buys stuff off the local ganker group…who appear to spend a lot of time trading, probably more so than ganking. Though it’s probably the loot they are trading
I think CCP have a delicate balance. Ganking destroys ISK…and that actually helps keep the Eve economy going. One has to bear in mind that Eve needs a continuous flow of ISK through the system. I’m not clear just how large a part of this ganking is, but it certainly adds to it.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure CCP would not want ganking to get out of hand. I think the situation at Uedama today was heading that way. But then again…most of Eve was pretty quiet today, and though I was at Uedama and saw the ganking ( which seemed to last all day ) I was also at corp HQ in Oipo with not a ganker in sight, and had another alt also mining in another highsec system with not a ganker in sight. I transported loads of stuff from Dodixie to other systems without much trouble from gankers.
I think if ganking was putting people off Eve, CCP would have to weigh up whether the loss from player revenue was matched by the gain from ganking. I suspect its mostly noobs who get put off…and people who’ve been in Eve a few months are used to ganking. But I also think CCP would not want anti-ganking to go too far either…as AG really destroys very little ISK.
It’s a delicate balance…and I suspect only CCP know the stats.
Well, yes…I’ve been setting up an anti-gank alt not out of any desire to help stupid AFK miners or people who transport 2bn ISK worth of stuff through Uedama despite the map saying ‘587 ships destroyed in past hour’…but because that arrogance is itself a challenge. And I like a challenge.
