Neither was mine until well…that’s a story for another day.
To Dirk I say that can flipping forced you to make choices concerning what you mined with. I used to mine in a Badger Mk II with lots of cargo expanders, I think a single haul was in the realm of 28,000 m3 iirc. Sure it took longer, but I didn’t have to worry about flippers when I did mine. Before that, I used an Osprey, mined faster but the cargo hold was a hair over 1,000 m3. I could drop what I couldn’t carry in cans, but this opened me up to can flippers. Mine faster versus carry more. Action and consequence, pretty much the cornerstone of what Eve Online was back in the day.
Can flipping wasn’t about griefing miners all the time, sometimes it was a quick a convenient way to get a fight in HiSec. Drop a can, let the other guy steal it, get your Pew on. With the whole dueling thing, it did remove the need for cans to PvP without Concord vaporizing your ride, but there really wasn’t any need to make it a universal criminal timer. All that did was remove an avenue of PvP that wasn’t a Player vs People situation. Sure, an entire corp could jump in, but rarely did it happen.
Frankly, Mo is correct, all the sharp edges have been covered in foam and there is an inherent desire to play in a New Eden that isn’t so…PG Rated. I’ve been just about everything at one time or another…miner, PvE’r, PvP’r, Pirate, War Hound, and Nulseccer. I still enjoy Mission Running and Mining now and then, its a nice way to make a little scratch and burn some time. But I can’t help but feel like the experience has been WoW-ified these days.
Oh, and I gotta say this to whomever said go to LoSec for gudfites…bwahahahahahaha! Lolsec was the very definition of low hanging fruit, and then the 20 guys preying on solos would wonder why no one ever came to losec. Maybe that’s changed in the time I’ve been away but I doubt it.
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Did I start something with my can flipping comment the other day? I just thought it must have been a better system for casual fights.
If you look beyond your personal hatred, you’ll realize the game needs villains.
This really nails it on the head, Mo. I feel what you are saying, and it’s interesting to think back almost a decade ago to now my own thoughts on the subject. CCP really did screw the pooch by making things a little too sanitized and once they did it, there is no going back without players freaking the F out. Hate to see an old pirate heading out the door, but if you got to go, fly well! o7
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Hatred is relative to your intelligence level.
I’ve enjoyed this bit of forum PvP enough to resub for a 3 monther.
I haven’t actually played much, but I still like the idea of playing.
Well, gentlemen, enjoy your conversation…i’ll go elsewhere
\o/ Yay! Lol, I’ve actually been toying with the idea of subbing again, but I’m not sure if I should or not. In my mind I haven’t decided if there’s a purpose for me to do so.
Well, highsec is a grind fest with not a little t going on.
Low and null are busier than they used to be, but with all the same problems.
Faction warfare is better than it used to be, but still without a compelling storyline… but now fighting is done in plexes that mix pve and pvp.
Have fun, good luck.
Mo
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Welcome to the endgame, then. Great thread you have, i really appreciate how well you’re running it. i also appreciate the insights and yet one more confirmation about the mindset.
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To Sir Nephilius: Agreed about ‘old mining’ being a choice between safety and speed. Sid Meier pointed out that a good game is a series of meaningful choices. The can-flipping days exhibited that: safety vs speed, let the bad guy take your can vs take a shot at them.
The problems were due to the imbalance of the predator/prey relationship. While the choices are ‘meaningful’, it takes many prey to support a smaller population of predators. The predators are rewarded and entertained by this imbalance, the prey are not. CCP can see where the majority of players are spending their time, and balance the game accordingly. It is foolish to leave a system in place that rewards the few at the expense of the many.
To Mobadder: Personally I have no problem with a casual consensual PvP environment. The problem is you’re conflating ‘consensual PvP’ and ‘villainy’. What you enjoyed in the can-flipping days was in fact villainy. You were disrupting the game plans, goals, and limited gaming time of other players in order to amuse and reward yourself. Other than can-baiters (whose existence requires many can-miners and can-flippers), the miners themselves (who actually create the ecosystem), had no interest or reward in what you call ‘consensual PvP’, and were merely victims.
You see this as ‘providing content’. They see this as interfering with their choices in a gaming session. There are more of them than you. CCP can math.
The challenge is creating a mechanism where the ‘villains’ can be opposed by ‘champions’ without stomping on a lot of ‘prey’. That’s what FW is intended for, of course, as well as some of the newer challenges CCP has been working on (Resource Wars, for one).
Resource Wars is currently PvE, but you could have, for instance, the Amarr ‘secret resource hub’ attacked by Gallente/Minmatar forces, and defended by Amarr/Caldari players. Sort of a short-session mini-FW without the standings hit. Rewards could be given (beyond the kills/drops) for achieving various levels of ‘miners shot down/minerals destroyed vs. miners survived/minerals recovered’.
That would shift the basis away from predator/victim and more to ‘consensual participant’ while providing more opportunity for small-scale PvP in hi sec.
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Dirk, I see your explanation as clearly as day.
And I do not disagree, what I did was villainy.
That was pretty much the idea. I was kinder than guristas, who would happily destroy your ship… all I did was provoke those who chose to allow me.
Your version of the game has no meaningful pvp because a meaningful fight requires a grudge. You really need to want to kill the other player… otherwise, it’s meaninglessly popping flashies who you have neither reason nor specific desire to kill.
My opponents wanted me dead. The ones who bested me felt pride. The ones I beat wanted retribution. My opponents experienced meaningful pvp, something that will never be replaced by meaningless systems designed to prevent the players from feeling anything.
The difference between what you and I want is simple: emotion.
I want players to feel something and engage in real strife. I would be happy to be a good guy or bad guy in this type of conflict. I just want it to be what Eve has always aimed to be: real.
You want players to remain as numb and unemotional in pvp as they are in PvE, and for the life of me I can’t understand why.
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Strife! NOOOOO. We must live in an enforced Utopia.
You are glamorizing the conflicts in a manner that suits your preference. A can-miner who sees you stealing his cans doesn’t want retribution, he simply wants you to go away. A can-miner who makes the mistake of shooting at you, then gets blown up, isn’t going to ‘seek retribution’ (although a few might). He will definitely be angry, hold a grudge, etc, but someone who is can-mining really isn’t the sort of person who is likely to fly back and jump into his combat ship and hunt you down.
Basically you want easy fights, against fairly unequal opponents (can-flipping targets miners, after all), with the occasional thrill of a can-baiter who is prepared to fight tossed in so you can pretend you’re taking risks. Even if they do choose to fight back, someone who can-mines isn’t someone who spends a lot of time honing his PvP skills. Easy fights, in safe space, against lesser opponents, with minimal risk to you - that’s your goal.
You are also interpreting any PvP that is not your easy, risk-reduced flavor as ‘numb and unemotional’. If the PvP version of ‘Resource Wars’ from my example existed, people who were combat ready would be engaging to maximize their return from it. You think if you shoot them down they are going to be emotionless about it? You think actual PvP combat against players who are ready for it and competing directly for rewards and payout is ‘meaningless’? You think someone who has his rewards shot down by you isn’t going to bear a grudge?
I’m not trying to diss you or anything, I’m sure you are a fun player who does a lot of different things in the game. I think you have simply put on rose-colored glasses to convince yourself that the thing you did for easy, convenient, low-risk amusement at the expense of others was somehow ‘a real good thing’. People do that all the time. It’s called justification.
From a game design point of view, an ‘even playing field’ generally gives much better results than a system of predators and victims. If you disagree, you might want to take a look at all the major sports of the world, where the rules set up a contest between roughly evenly matched opponents, and decide how ‘numb, unemotional and meaningless’ they are.
You could always write a book about it…I see you tried. A publisher might be difficult to find however.
I still disagree. You seem to think villainy is wrong because it isn’t desired by he victims.
I think if the victims wanted it, it wouldn’t be villainy.
In all fights, there is an aggressor and a victim. And in all of EvE, there is/was only one common scenario where the victim got to choose whether to fight after considering and examining everything. I think my chosen style of fighting is the single most generous to the agressee.
Fights are FAR less fair in null, low, warfare, wormholes, etc… where the stronger of two forces is easily able to force destruction on the weaker.
The balanced field doesn’t happen in Eve and if you think fights in low are fair one of us needs to check it out again. Tactics, really, is the art of avoiding fair fights.
Yet, the flipper’s target gets to choose whether to allow the flipper to engage. I cannot flip in a T3 because nobody wants to fight a T3. Most of my work used to be in T1 frigates and haulers because that’s what people are willing to fight. My entire playstylr revolves around flying garbage ships that everyone just knows they can beat.
You see, my target doesn’t just engage because he is angry, he thinks he can win. He is an opportunist and he ultimately chooses to engage because he thinks he will kill me.
And you know what… he can beat me. I’ve gotten in countless fights where I didn’t have the DPS to kill my target or had to run away with my ass on fire because I couldn’t take my adversary.
In the last 5 years, when I flipped cans, I’ve accepted aggro against literally everyone in highsec when I flip a can… and I’m still using a t1 frigate or hauler… is that easy?
A few months ago I traversed the entire Amarr-Jita pipeline, suspect flagged, in a hauler and still nobody shot me. Does that seem like someone who is only accepting unfair advantages?
No, I don’t think risk aversion is my problem and I don’t think I’m afraid to accept a challenge.
I do think without piracy and crime Eve is bland. I think Evildoers give Eve relevance and make it interesting.
The reason you don’t respawn ships you lose is so you will face loss when you die… I’m just trying to give those feelings a target… me.
Nobody will ever remark about what happened in a canned mission or when two groups blasted each other on a gate in low. Even competing in this mining dead space whatbik thing you propose… there is nothing gritty about it.
But betrayal, theft, extortion, and chaos are interesting. They’re fun, and they make EvE unique and they give Eve the fascinating depth that makes it real.
Imagine if Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were both nice guys with mild political differences and no penchant for violence. What do you think, better story?
Sadly, no. We need villains.
Can flipping is dead. Ganking is dying. War decs are in decline. Your way is winning. The sad thing is that you don’t even know the game they killed for you.
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His generalizations about what these miners wanted, and didn’t want, are misplaced. He’s ignorant of history and how miners turn into villains by making them feel adrenaline… or making them lick their opponent’s blood.
Don’t say they’re winning. They’re not. Do something about it, and be more hopeful. the future doesn’t look to grim, when i extrapolate CCP’s doings into a prediction covering the next years.
Interested in a summary?
Mo hits the nail right on the head here. The ONLY thing that gave eve relevance in the beginning was this. This is the literal foundation that the game is built on. Without that foundation, that you white knights are complaining about there would be no EVE. I know by the way you are talking that you haven’t been around that long…its ok, just admit your ignorance and either HTFU or GTFO.
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Well I’ll do what I like. You can always smd…
Rookies have it drilled into them from the start that when you see a suspect it’s probably a trap.
Spend some time around certain trade hubs and you soon see yellow blinking suspects who are permanently in that state. No one challenges them, no one bats an eye. Nothing shatters the illusion of danger faster than seeing ships permanently in a supposedly high risk state being ignored by everyone that passes.
When you can see that existing players in expensive ships don’t attack each other (except in duels) despite being suspect flagged, you definitely think twice about doing so yourself. It’s like everyone knows something you don’t, and there are unspoken rules about not attacking certain people.
If the game had the dangerous wild west environment that it needs to make it exciting, these guys wouldn’t be able to hang around with suspect flags chatting in local. I’m not sure how to explain the mentality you end up with when you see this safe, sanctioned version of pvp, but it’s not good. It makes a mockery of the dangerous space we all want to believe EVE is.
I applaud anyone trying to put the danger back into EVE, no matter their methods, because without their contribution there are way too many safe spaces for a game with such a dangerous reputation.
Exactly. More chaos please.