# PA/CCP Wants You to Keep Smoking **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Created:** [December 22, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470 "2020-12-22T18:13:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr\_Epeen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mr_epeen/32/373308_2.png) [@Mr\_Epeen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mr_Epeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/1 "2020-12-22T18:13:45Z")
Most governments don’t really want their populace to quit smoking. Too much income from tax. So instead of jumping the price from $1 a pack to $10 a pack all at once and have everyone say “■■■■ that” and stop buying them, they incrementally raise the price over the course of years. Just enough for people to grumble a bit but keep on smoking. This way, when smokes are eventually $10 a pack people will not only accept it, they will justify it. WTF are you going on about and what does this have to do with EVE, Mr Epeen?!?!?!? It’s the same strategy PA/CCP has employed with PVP. If they just yanked it and said, “Want to fight? Buy a special item for consensual evenly matched battles”, the server would have been near empty of non bot players. But they are slowly phasing in arenas and slowly phasing out non-consensual PVP. And it’s working like a charm. I see so many formerly “hardcore PVP” players becoming cheerleaders and apologists for the very mechanic they swore to never accept just a few years ago. Well done, PA/CCP. Shame on you, player base. Mr Epeen 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Ramona\_McCandless](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/ramona_mccandless/32/468438_2.png) [@Ramona\_McCandless](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Ramona_McCandless)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/2 "2020-12-22T18:17:09Z")
When people write “the old arena”, they dont seem to mean the sun anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Forum\_Posting\_Alt](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/forum_posting_alt/32/254303_2.png) [@Forum\_Posting\_Alt](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Forum_Posting_Alt)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/3 "2020-12-22T18:17:26Z")
belt 1 … ---
**Author:** ![Destiny\_Corrupted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/destiny_corrupted/32/411527_2.png) [@Destiny\_Corrupted](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Destiny_Corrupted)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/4 "2020-12-22T18:27:30Z")
> [@Mr\_Epeen](#): > > But they are slowly phasing in arenas and slowly phasing out non-consensual PVP. And it’s working like a charm. I see so many formerly “hardcore PVP” players becoming cheerleaders and apologists for the very mechanic they swore to never accept just a few years ago. It feels like a false flag operation to me. Carebears putting on masks that say “PvPer” on them and then talking about how they think arenas, etc. are such a good idea. I’ve never seen any of these people before. Ain’t any of _my_ friends saying this ■■■■. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/3X/d/5/d59e066628a2fc756e5b5053d5dfc0a60f49dd9c.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Epeen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mr_epeen/32/373308_2.png) [@Mr\_Epeen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mr_Epeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/5 "2020-12-22T18:34:28Z")
> [@Destiny\_Corrupted](#): > > Carebears putting on masks that say “PvPer” on them and then talking about how they think arenas, etc. are such a good idea. That makes no sense to anyone without carebear derangement syndrome. If you replaced ‘carebear’ with ‘dev alt’ in your post, it seems more likely. That is, providing what you are claiming is evidence based and not fabricated BS to push your CDS narrative. Mr Epeen 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Destiny\_Corrupted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/destiny_corrupted/32/411527_2.png) [@Destiny\_Corrupted](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Destiny_Corrupted)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/6 "2020-12-22T18:35:36Z")
Blame our health care system for me not being able to get the mental help I need. ---
**Author:** ![Solstice\_Projekt](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/solstice_projekt/32/503293_2.png) [@Solstice\_Projekt](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Solstice_Projekt)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/7 "2020-12-22T18:35:53Z")
You’re right writing that taxes on cigarettes aren’t being increased massively and suddenly … … because that would cut a big part of a states’ income quite suddenly and dramatically. But there’s many who actually quit smoking over the years … … also because of the price and the propaganda against it … … which also leads to less new smokers. In around ten years time Austria went from 8000+ tobacco shops to 2000+ tobacco shops … … simply because it became less and less sustainable … _(cigarettes are the main income source)_ … _and_ the governing entity _(cigarettes are state regulated)_ made it harder to obtain one, too. I’m aware that politicians don’t give a ■■■■ about people’s health … … but the states’ and shops’ income on cigarettes went down a lot over the years. Source: Family tobacco shop for over a decade. Please note that the increase in price does not reflect in our margins. Our margin is dictated by the state and the manufacturers. The cost of a tobacco itself is state regulated and taxed very highly. ---
**Author:** ![Scoots\_Choco](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/scoots_choco/32/262262_2.png) [@Scoots\_Choco](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Scoots_Choco)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/8 "2020-12-22T18:39:43Z")
When your narrative is falling apart so bad you have to come up with false flags to cope. lmao ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Epeen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mr_epeen/32/373308_2.png) [@Mr\_Epeen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mr_Epeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/9 "2020-12-22T18:40:36Z")
When you claim to have me blocked but read everything I post. lmao. Mr Epeen 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Destiny\_Corrupted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/destiny_corrupted/32/411527_2.png) [@Destiny\_Corrupted](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Destiny_Corrupted)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/10 "2020-12-22T18:44:45Z")
Gentlemen, _gentlemen_, there’s no need for such conflict and bickering. This is EVE Online, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Evei\_Shard](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/evei_shard/32/245990_2.png) [@Evei\_Shard](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Evei_Shard)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/11 "2020-12-22T19:09:54Z")
Interesting take on that. Arenas were something I had not really considered. I would pose, though, that while the incremental changes are correct, PA is potentially looking to run Eve more like Black Desert. Where PvP is still non-consentual, but it is limited by factors such as location, skill point level, etc. An example would be if they chose to force Safety to Green for Alpha accounts, and made them invulnerable to being attacked. Given, there are a number of things that would need to change in order to make that sort of thing work, so it’s just an example, but since I returned to Eve last summer, I’ve felt there was a slow move towards something akin to that. It is very clear that they have an agenda to increase the player base numbers, but with a preference for a different type of player than the people who have been part of Eve for the past decade. This is not to say that they are looking specifically for Carebears or PvP types, but for the people who are expecting daily log in rewards, cash shop sales, etc. in exchange for 100% full access to the game, and yes, even pay to win. I’m probably quite the carebear when it all comes down to it. I hate PvP primarily because I suck at it. An asteroid is more of a threat to a PvPer than anything I can pull off. That said, there are a number of things I’ve seen changed in Eve that concern me, to the point that I’m agreeing with the viewpoint of gankers on the forum here on occasion. The Abyssal stuff was pretty shocking. Sure, you can lose your ship and your pod, but what I see is a 100% safe mission environment. Much as I hate PvP, that is a very un-Eve. From a carebear perspective, you’d think I’d have jumped for joy over that, but it’s such a deviation from the sandbox my reaction was more shock with the realization that something was very wrong. I like the idea of the Abyssal stuff being used for limited PvP engagements/mini-tournaments, and CCP needs to get off their collective asses and focus on making them into something that isn’t as easily exploitable (note: hearsay on my part, though the complaints about queuing abuse appear to be valid points about mechanics, and there are safeguards in other games to prevent such things). However, this brings us back to @Mr_Epeen’s original statement regarding a shift towards arenas. It seems very likely that this is where Eve is headed, but I also am firmly of the opinion that due to the way PA has Black Desert set up, we’ll likely see something more akin to the way PvP operates there, than a full separation. The saddest part of all this mess, is that if they’d stop huffing their own gas and take of the l337 PvP’er glasses, the people in charge of where the game is going have over a decades worth of solid suggestions on things that could be done to fix a lot of the things they now see as roadblocks. There are countless threads over the years about how to making mining more interactive. How to make changes to ganking. How to make bounty hunting a much more interesting and profitable system, and on and on. Of course the suggestions aren’t perfect, and some are terrible, and ALL of them have at least one person flying through them and trolling all over the ideas. In fact, I’d say that the highly contrasting opinions on game mechanics are perhaps the reason that CCP, especially now days, doesn’t appear to listen to the players as much. To pick one example to toy with, if they decided to move ahead with the idea of adding a fuel requirement to Cloaking, you would think that 90% of the players in Eve would quit if you read the forums. This seems to be the standard course for most suggestions. A person suggests a change, and it is immediately jumped on by the individuals it would affect negatively, and then it stagnates while people hurl insults at each other until the thread dies out or is locked. Again, @Mr_Epeen is accurate in placing the blame on the player base. There’s an amount of blame for the top end empire leaders who have abused game mechanics and their CSM positions (not blaming all the CSM folks) for their own advantage in making fake space money, but the rest of the player base bears some of the burden, especially those who participate on the forums and reddit. For me, personally, my subs are going Alpha over the next couple weeks. Not because of player actions, but I don’t personally want to put my money into the game right now. I believe, for myself, it’s time to sit back and “let it ride”, to see where things go. Being that they have several mechanics already in place, I would personally like to see them focus on fully fleshing out things like ship skins, etc. in order to get more financial gains. At the same time there are other things I wish they would back off on (NPC gate camps and NPC podding, for example). PA/CCP needs to tread carefully. There’s a lot of potential still for the game, but there are definitely a large number of people who are out to destroy Eve itself, not just other peoples in game assets. ---
**Author:** ![Shipwreck\_Jones](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/shipwreck_jones/32/274382_2.png) [@Shipwreck\_Jones](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Shipwreck_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/12 "2020-12-22T19:09:59Z")
Don’t feed the trolls. > [@Eve Fun](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/eve-fun/286004/11): > > You’ve already taken the first step. Posting something to rile up the no-lifes that make sure they have a stick firmly shoved up their collective ass before logging in to haunt the forum for 12 - 18 hours every day. You’ll find it much less work and much more rewarding to learn what pushes the buttons of each particular regular instead of going to all the trouble of logging in to the game and trying to find something to do. A single word, used properly, can set some of these guys into a rage… ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Epeen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mr_epeen/32/373308_2.png) [@Mr\_Epeen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mr_Epeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/13 "2020-12-22T19:16:26Z")
I was wondering who would be the first to attack the messenger and not the message. I’ll look through my hangar for a gift appropriate to your mental level to contract. Mr Epeen 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Epeen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mr_epeen/32/373308_2.png) [@Mr\_Epeen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mr_Epeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:19pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/14 "2020-12-22T19:19:43Z")
> [@Evei\_Shard](#): > > PA/CCP needs to tread carefully. You’d think so. But at the end of the day, they skillfully extract millions of dollars a month from gamers while all we do is (figuratively) sit in our mom’s basements playing games. We play games. They play us. They have a serious advantage. Mr Epeen 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![Destiny\_Corrupted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/destiny_corrupted/32/411527_2.png) [@Destiny\_Corrupted](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Destiny_Corrupted)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:27pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/15 "2020-12-22T19:27:39Z")
> [@Mr\_Epeen](#): > > I’ll look through my hangar for a gift appropriate to your mental level to contract. Can I get something too? ---
**Author:** ![Xuxe\_Xu](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/xuxe_xu/32/464660_2.png) [@Xuxe\_Xu](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Xuxe_Xu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/16 "2020-12-22T19:38:27Z")
> [@Mr\_Epeen](#): > > I was wondering who would be the first to attack the messenger and not the message. …you mean like you advised others to do for fun?..isn’t that pretty standard trolling?..so if somebody points out you are being a trolling troll…is that an attack or accurate description? Dang, epeen, your self-simping hurts my little inferior brain. I am glad you are using that character again, though. I like it better than that other one you had to use for a while (strangely, I know) ---
**Author:** ![Evei\_Shard](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/evei_shard/32/245990_2.png) [@Evei\_Shard](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Evei_Shard)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/17 "2020-12-22T19:40:35Z")
I suspect that the level to which they play us is a lot more than most expect. ---
**Author:** ![Scipio\_Artelius](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/scipio_artelius/32/408264_2.png) [@Scipio\_Artelius](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Scipio_Artelius)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/18 "2020-12-22T20:42:36Z")
All the cigarette tax trend analysis aside, ■■■■ arenas. Back when clone states were removed from the game, CCP explained it in terms of how bad the gameplay was (there was no real choice. You just had to upgrade your clone, or lose skillpoints when it died). Back then, I naively agreed with the argument they put forward, having felt the sting of losing SP by not upgrading my clone. However now, I hate the mindset CCP began to fall into back then and that’s in full swing now (among both the devs and many people in the player base, including the CSM). The constant removal of consequence, move towards instanced pvp zones and the view that complexity is not good all grind the wrong way. Part of the charm of EVE was how challenging some things were and even a small slip up could sting. A lot of that is gone and unfortunately it’s unlikely to ever come back. ---
**Author:** ![Makshima\_Shogo](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/makshima_shogo/32/247769_2.png) [@Makshima\_Shogo](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Makshima_Shogo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:56pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/19 "2020-12-22T20:56:58Z")
> [@Forum\_Posting\_Alt](#): > > belt 1 … Belt 1 usually means a diamond rat trap thou 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Destiny\_Corrupted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/destiny_corrupted/32/411527_2.png) [@Destiny\_Corrupted](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Destiny_Corrupted)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470/20 "2020-12-22T21:03:24Z")
One important distinction is that when CCP removed clone states (or learning skills) from the game, the intent was to increase _our_ (the players’) quality of life. When CCP added arenas to the game, the intent was to increase _their_ (CCP’s) quality of life. [Next page](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/pa-ccp-wants-you-to-keep-smoking/286470.md?page=2)