Racing Syndicate in New Eden

Communications Center General Discussion
1

I’m interested in racing. I’ve posted about this before.

Currently there are a couple of threads over on Reddit discussing the possibility of player run racing events in New Eden. Now, I spent several months about three years back discussing racing events, to/with pilots in the starter systems, all the starter systems, trying to gauge if there was sufficient interest in such an endeavor. In the end, I concluded there was not.

But, given the discussion on Reddit, I’m interested in canvassing the pilots engaging on EVE’s official forums and see what you all think. Has time changed the level of interest?

Would, say, a corporation whose stated group goal was running event races on a wide variety of levels, i.e. starter systems to market hubs, market hub to market hub, interregional, interfactional, nullsec to high, circumnavigation of the cluster, be welcomed now? If isk was no object.

So, forum dwellers, what do you think? Is this the basis for a corporation? There are mining corps, pvp corps, corps for ganking, exploration corps, social corps. Could racing be the foundation for a social/event corp?

o7

4 Likes
2

Go for it.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

2 Likes
3

I recommend talking to Rixx about Death Race

m

2 Likes
4

Hello Sere O’asis (Oasis, I see, nice wordplay!),

first of all, I want to express my sincere appreciation for bringing forth a creative idea to the table. I welcome these thoughts, so that the game grows richer and more vibrant in its aspects. Whatever I’ll say next, I do hope that your idea finds success.

You have asked us all how we evaluate the feasibility of such an undertaking to be the sole basis of a dedicated group / corporation.

It is my estimation that this project will find very little interest in the general audience that you are targeting.
The overwhelming majority of groups in the game have dedicated themselves to tangible ingame aspects like say Mining, PvP and so forth. These are relevant throughout the entire game, and being a member in these groups can greatly heighten your impact and capabilities not only in that specific area, but in all aspects of EVE Online, because these aspects overlap with each other to various degrees.

A racing group has no tangible benefit for its members, because there is no game mechanic that interacts with your interest. Even the greatest mastery of this activity will yield no rewards and have no use anywhere - you would have to be positively addicted to racing and only wish to do so for its own sake, to seriously dedicate yourself to that.
Not only that, but joining your group will mean to give up on all the benefits you would enjoy anywhere else. Your racing concept would have to be one hell of a banger, and continue to be so, to attract players in spite of this.

Aside from that, there is very little support from the game itself for your activity. There are no tracks and no existing geometry you could use. The ship control is very barebones and does not offer the nuances that serious racers will seek. You suggest game modes like flying from system A to system B, but I struggle to see the appeal in that, both as the racer and also possibly the observer.

That is to say, the idea is not entirely without merit. It is of my opinion that it would take a colossal amount of effort to turn this into a fun activity that will lead to longterm engagement from players. Either way, I hope that my evaluation has respected the intention of your idea and also given you a honest neutral perspective. May it prove useful to you!

With power-sliding regards
-James Fuchs

3 Likes
5

James, thanks.

I mean that sincerely. You pretty much summed up the obstacles in a nutshell. You’re spot on in your assessment, that the typical EVE player, at least in my opinion, is interested “providing for their own benefit”, whatever that might mean to them, i.e. isk in their pocket, a preferred activity, (pvp).

When I explored this last, approximately three years ago, I found everyone liked the idea, but it stopped there. You are quite right, pilots liked the idea…if someone else does the work, actually “doing the work”, and being involved in pulling something like this off, is not attractive.

And, you are spot on in your assessment of why “I” want to do this. I like racing.

If I could have my way tomorrow, I’d have 5 or 6 dedicated pilots and would do my best to replicate the experience of the Artic explorers by a group circumnavigation, exploring every nook and crannie system on the outer edge of New Eden. I’d finance the whole lot, pay salaries, provide ships, negotiate ship replacements for ships lost in incidental pvp on the edge for the pilots who managed to save their pod, and do my dead level best to know what it was like to explore for explorations sake as a group/team, in New Eden. Everyone would have to know about racing, agility, cat and mouse tactics.

New Eden could give me that experience, I believe. Finding the 5 or 6 pilots interested in the same, is the proverbial needle in the haystack.

lol, I’ve played twelve years, and I want more, :slight_smile:

1 Like
6

While I agree with some James’ Phux’ comments in principle, I do feel like this idea can have legs, it just depends on the kind of racing being considered.

Fast paced, slalom cutting, high intensity formula one style racing is probably out, but that’s just one kind of racing.

You’re still left with checkpoint style racing, in which long courses can be plotted across multiple systems with a start and end that are not next to each other.

I can imagine a course plotted across approximately 100 systems, where players can and will leverage every trick available to them to get to the end.

There would need to be prizes; perhaps a pot gathered from entry fees.

Players would need to be able to remain in their own corporation/alliance/empire and not be forced to “join” anything. Keep the process simple, as follows:

A calendar is produced containing race days.

Players register for the races they want to take part in.

Players show up half an hour before a race starts, and submit a screenshot of their ship in the Start system station, with the insurance mail open and in view. You can have them take a corresponding screenshot at the end to prove they finished in the same ship they started in - this should help reduce cheating by clone jumping and pod-express.

You allow wormholes, as this method of cheating at a race is well within the spirit of eve, and, if executed incorrectly can ruin a prospective cheater’s day anyway; there has to be some risk, this is eve.

In a similar vain, it has to be true that the races can be risky; routes through null, the requirement to keep the same ship or you’re out of the race, and the potential for attack from other racers - this is the eve way.

There will need to be “classes”, i.e. t1/t2 frigates, or haulers-only etc. You can’t have Drakes racing Rifters.

With something like this you would have a respectable starting point.

Also I’d be up for racing, but I wouldn’t be up for booking a day off work in order to take part :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
7

I agree with this, and with @James_Fuchs assessment that the ‘racing’ potential of EVE doesn’t have the proper mechanics to attract actual racers. What it would attract is that small portion of players in any game, who will do anything at all to be able to say “I win!” or “I beat you”. And of course it would also attract gankers along whatever route was chosen, because EVE has that sort of people as well.

What might possibly work along similar lines potentially be more like a scavenger hunt/obstacle course design.

However as you already figured, to make these things work involves some person or small group putting in all the work, promoting, organizing and running it… to entertain a very small number of participants usually. One way you could slowly acquire names would be to create a chat channel where the MotD says something about it, maybe have it point to some character bios that contain more detail, and from time to time pop a quick notice about the event and the chat channel into chat.

1 Like
8

I agree this is a critical point, for the racers.

And, this is another. Racing is not “critical”.

But, what do you think about it as a group/corp activity? Would you consider joining such a group that sponsored/organized racing events?

Or helping to organize, if it was a one-off deal?

9

Years ago, I had a friend in game who figured out how to do “murder mysteries” in EVE. I used to help him with the EVE lore aspect of it. But, outside of that, he did it all pretty much himself. I think it burned him out in the end.

His experience is another reason, I’m making this inquiry.

Kezrai, thank you for your comments. I appreciate the input. I appreciate people taking the time to respond, and you are spot on, in the over all scheme of New Eden this involves a lot of work

o7

10

OMG…we can’t have anyone ‘winning’ anything can we. I want a participation award even if I come last.

11

Personally I think racing would be a great idea. I think, though, that there might be a problem in recording whether a person jumped the gun and departed before any ‘start’ signal, and likewise…how does one record the ‘finish’. I have ‘raced’ ships back to corp HQ from various events, like maybe 20 jumps or so, and often there is only a split second difference in arrival time even after that many jumps.

12

If it (or at least the starting and finish points are) in hisec then anchored audit log containers can be used to record when someone started the race and when finished it.

This way people can participate even if there is no specific time for starting the race, which is a better option anyway considering different time zones and ability to participate at certain times in general due to real-life matters and whatnot.

There can be a time frame for completing the track and then once the time is up the audit logs can be put into an excel sheet or such and the times for completion compared.

1 Like
13

little annie thought it was more exciting

14

A racing circuit would be cool. The problem is the Karens and Kens will attack the idea once the idea involves measures to keep the gankers from wrecking the race by ganking it.

1 Like
15

I’d like to see gankers gank the 1.6 second align time Sunesis I will use.

16

How would keep “bad actors” from using jump clones?

17

While I appreciate all the replies, pilots, I am hoping for discourse on the viability of:

o7

18

Sadly, New Eden doesn’t welcome new ideas.

Unless they’re very profitable and easy to exploit.

19

This is down to your ability to organise and administer it. As a minimum you’ll need to create an ad like every other corp does, but you also need to divide the work into roles and specify those in your ad.

If you fill all your roles then you have a show, else you don’t.

20

Can you stop it from being ganked would be my 1st question?