Note from retired criminal

Communications Center Crime & Punishment
141

Akiainavas used to be my system. For those who don’t know, it is one of the 4 noob tutorial systems where they do the profession missions.

Each of those four systems were extremely high PvP areas.

Solomar is absolutely correct, Akiainavas would routinely have kill numbers competitive with Tama. Back then, there would be 120 people in system any day of the week, and 30 of them were looking for fights. Yes, noobs were part of that but it was also a place for casual fighting with other pvp’ers.

I think we fought every major PvP alliance back then as well as dozens of skirmishes against other local and nearby PvP corps. The locals we would fight one day would rep us when we got in over our heads with the larger PvP groups the next. It was a strong sense of community and the culture of hijinx was strong.

It was increasdibly interactive. Yes, we made people mad. We also provided highs that cannot be experienced in pve… and we always kept it interesting.

For a long time, there were fights on station so routinely that I relied on using neutral reps to share aggro as one of my predominant ways of getting fights. It was a madhouse and I didn’t pve at all those years. Someone was always fighting, talking smack, or causing a ruckus in local.

I remember a small Russian PvP corp who were remarkably skilled, I’d guess we fought them daily for about 6 months and they disappeared.

You can frown on the noob killing, but even that can be done well. I remember a small corp of fresh noobs who flipped a bait can and tried to kill me and a corpie, so we shipped -down to velators with remote reps and fought them until we lost our ships. I’m sure we killed a few, but you would have thought those guys won the Alliance Tournament when they bagged us. I remember we chatted them up and they were tickled pink. I bet those guys still remember doing it, wherever they are.

We ran local events, like The Clean Moon Initiative (where we destroyed local POS’s and invited noobs to watch), or Bot Enforcement (where we all got together in a belt to gank some miner bots and invited all the noobs to watch/participate). We used to get a good crowd together sometimes.

I played there for years until just before Retribution. CCP started taking petitions against anyone picking fights in those systems, and after 2 petitions I moved out. Shortly after that, can flipping mechanics went away and wars went up in cost 25x… and I moved to Umokka with several local wardec corps where we all slowly faded away.

I don’t really know of anyone running shenanigans like we used to. No place for it in the game anymore…

We had and shared a lot of fun, and I don’t think anyone is having that much fun anymore…

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142

@CCP_Falcon ^ some parts of this post really are what used to get new players involved, myself included. Safety and removal of criminal careers has been a massive blow the the actual fun in EvE. I’m not so much up for opening the noob systems to can baiting again but in general this thread is full of truth.

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143

Ever thought about teaching PvP for Eve-Uni or another organisation ?

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When I played in Akiainavas, I was practically a career agent.

I dragged many people into PvP and taught them mechanics. I’m better at teaching than PvP anyways.

You know, when I say Akiainavas was my system, it’s not much of an exaggeration. I had a lot of local friendlies there because I also cleaned up tasteless pvp’ers on a regular basis. If you showed up to blap noobs in a shiny or abused them in local, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a wardec or a noob who had an unusual quantity of help and logistics. Akiainavas was a fun only zone.

I’ve trained for a few griefer/mercs over the years, but I find teaching is very hard when you can’t send them off to pick a fight and, to be honest, you don’t need to know what I know to be a successful merc. Eve Uni probably wouldn’t be a great fit either, but maybe I try them if this mining gig doesn’t work out.

My history doesn’t make me a blue-chip recruit for those sorts of organizations.

I loved the hijinx, training someone for low or null PvP just isn’t that much fun for me and, truth be told, I’m not that much of an expert at it.

I’m very good at getting the mamimum performance out of a t1 frigate, making sure that what I’m doing is borderline silly, and having fun. I like to do it around people who enjoy it as much as I do. High sec PvP was a great fit for me…

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145

I use to have fun in Jouvelen killing guys that would try and bait newbies with free stuff cans. Or mining in a bantam with a can out waiting for a can flipper to come and flip my can. Even flipping cans of entire corps busy mining in a thorax. And then having to fight wave after wave of ships the corps throws at you.

Man I loved those corp escalations where you flip one guys and suddenly a battleships from their corp warps to belt to kill this person that is bugging their corp members.

I will also never forget losing a pimped out legion to logoffski from can baiters. Flipped, they log on warp in ontop of me, 2 falcons at 70km and a few ships taking their time popping my 280k ehp Double 1600 plated Legion while I sit back watch with a smirk sipping my coffee.

sigh…

Up yours CCP.

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146

Yes,

I gave my loot I made from doing “evil stuff, as the retards of EVE call it” to the new guys that was interested in Jouv. There are a few of them milling about these forums today. And Somali BootCamp took a lot of effort but I am proud of seeing so many guys from that bootcamp in pvp corps.

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Somali Coastguard Authority were some fine can flipping fellows. I hooked up later with a few of 'em in Marmite (Magic Preacher, etc.). Good blokes.

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That’s a legacy I know well.

My initial forays into PvP were against them. They killed me a few times, and I them. I fought Magic, Cordo, Cuckoo, Quaaid, and a few others several times in Akiainavas before I ended up working with them…

My first kill was against a guy in a battleship who was baiting noobs to “test his guns”. I flipped him in a Merlin and could tank him, but couldn’t close the kill. Quaaid (who I had fought recently) saw my stalemate and used reps to get into the fight and help me win.

I still think of them as an exceptionally high standard of both Piracy and high-skill PvP in the small gang/ solo arena. I can’t think of a group I’ve known since with such a high level of individual expertise.

In a 1 v 1, those guys made very few errors… and we’re very likely to be carrying reps.

They weren’t mercs in the sense we have today, they were expert criminals who specialized in a particularly brutal creation of content.

I miss them.

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149

The suspect flagging killed most of the hi-sec interaction and fun. Flipping a can and going flashy to the owners’ corp only was great fun. 6 v 1 battles ensuing and most of the aggressed corp would stay playing to become the flipper in the near future. Times were good before the suspect timer was introduced.

I had played constantly since 2008 and through hi-sec shenanigans met some truly great people, since the suspect flag introduction and the lack of visibility of war targets, I have strayed to other games in the past two years or so. I tried lo-sec and null-sec but have never had the fun I once did back in the day. I agree with the OP that hi-sec is far too safe and I in turn believe this has led to many old and new players becoming bored and leaving the game.

I would love a roll back to old times for a few weeks, would surely beat the agency drivel that is being thrown up to entice players to stay.

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150

The Agency missions are to make players aware of the diverse activities and steer them into doing more than one activity.

Rollbacks never work. Sometimes games change, for example Star Wars Galaxies was good but was gradually changed into a mess. Making the devs believe the only solution was to ‘make it simple’. Everyone could be themselves in the Star Wars world but with the addition of Jedi the PVP was broken as everyone liked to play the character that has an extra ‘replenish other stats’ bar, yes taht was OP. Then Simple Smedley wanted to solve this by remaking all possible skill combinations into 9 or 12 cookie cutter professions which were all equally bad.

So I went to play Fallen Earth, which was fine for years untill they started to make it more exiting (read harder for new players although the game was complex enough). They made it such a challenge most unsubbed and now the server probably runs on a few yearly subs with a GM that on occasion restarts the server so the lag is reduced a bit.

EVE Online however did not listen to the playerbase and survived.

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151

The new Agency UI is exactly what you need.

When they extend it to players being able to offer jobs, or services, you will be able to use it to get people into doing shenanigans, and you will have the enjoyment of laughing at the totalitarian carebears, when they start crying and bitching about how you “evil sociopaths”** “grief noobs”** all day, every day, and “how you can’t seperate reality from a game”**.

Looking forward to it.

** actual quotes

152

You know, at least the bitching and name calling is an interaction. If Eve truly goes safe, what will we interact about?

People get so fired up because the fight and the anger is real. This is one of the only games that can give you that fire in your belly, and only PvP can give it.

When guristas kill your ship, you blame yourself and you log off with the same numbness you had when you were grinding.

When a griefer kills your ship, you blame him for provoking you. You begrudge him and you often hate him. You feel vivid emotions… things which make you perceive the game more deeply.

You feel things you may not even feel in normal life.

To dilute the crimes between players is to dilute the vividness of the game as an experience itself.

Why would anyone want that?

If you’re going to play the game, do it. Experience it all.

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vOv

Here, help me with my poll.

thanks!

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I too have dipped in an out of eve for years since aggression added a global flag - It made sense for say stealing in view of local police, and technically reporting that makes more immersive sense.

But I loved it, I excelled at it. I bait mined in my osprey and I flipped in my rifter/punisher - Iv never got the thrill of tricking someone in any other game and never since in eve bar 1 good wormhole trap.

Its far too safe. I miss flying defense fleets to protect miners from can flipping, or flying in fleets to trap miners who agessed me for flipping, It gave me hours of fun and there were always targets.

Wardecs are fun, but too easy for players to avoid, too much effort for casual or small corps to get kills with on the smaller corps without them just moving off

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155

The fact that 70% of the players live and work in High Sec should ring a bell already.

It just seems from your text that a lot more people are interested in PvE and peaceful gathering and building than in virtual violence towards other players.

Maybe virtual violence is on its way out?

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That’s influenced by politics. CCP’s politics. It’s not a valid thing to say, because people are being pushed towards it. There were times when that wasn’t the case, and at these times the situation was not only different, it was also much less boring for everyone.

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It is a very valid thing to say. It is what i feel and experience in this and other games.

The times that were not the case is x years ago when this game was a fresh and new concept.

And not everyone has the same opinion on what is boring. I find the industry related content very apealing. If it were accompanied with a good PvE environment and less PvP orientated i would definitely go Omega.

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Sure, if you care about your personal opinion more than about the deafening silence in systems in highsec. Then it’s valid. You shouldn’t do that, though, because there are more important things than your opinion.

It’s not an opinion. Compared to just a few years ago, the deafening silence in highsec is clearly noticable and definitely more boring, because silence and perceived inactivity is de facto more boring than activity.

The game you’re looking for is called X (1,2,3,etc), or any of the other huge amount of games tailored for the easily milkable crowd. Let us keep one of the few that allow us to play how we want and stop being so selfish.

Thanks.

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I see i am not the only one here with a personal opinion :slight_smile:

Yes, but we are in the here and now, not in ‘a few years ago’.

It shouldn’t be too hard to notice that even though EvE’s PvE is underdeveloped it is slowly drawing more and more interest from the general crowd. A clever company plays into that, and from the looks of it they do.

Selfish?

I am looking at this game with slightly raised interest because from the looks of it the devs want my growing demograph more than your shrinking one.

It’s not my fault that people grow less interested in virtual violence. Could be something they experienced or saw IRL perhaps ???

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People are more interested in virtual violence than ever before, directly as a result of what they have seen and experienced in real life.

Dunno where you think you were going with that.

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