I would like to first point out that the topic is strongly conversational, but it does have it’s meaning behind it.
As it has been going on for awhile, we pay no mind or attention to full detail. The problem comes to rise when you have a corp. being instructed by veteran players towards our new player community in high-sec. These players are nowhere near ready to join in any low/null sec activities, but some do go to get the full experience as quickly as possible or it’s an alt of their main. Now as some do, they tend to mine, and in my corp we have Athanor’s moon drills that gives us our mining so we don’t have to venture off into the belts. The New players are given doctrines to help defend from gankers, the risks of coming threats, how to judge and move on. However, some can’t warp out fast enough due to lack of skills or mods, or some are flying the extra slow industrial command ships (orca) and these things are extremely slow with no maneuverability what so ever. So when some bumpers comes through, they’ll hit any and all ships and sometimes pushed them far enough to lose connection to their drones (estimated hundred million isk in the past week), some players are on a tight schedule so any minute to get some isk is game for them before they have to leave, or some aren’t aware of what “bumping” means since we get new players daily and these new players can’t generate the amount of isk to sustain as they go along. As this has been going on, it’s a bit frustrating to those, but it has brought a means of psychological effect on the new players. Some are so tired of it, so they quit the game entirely, some get so jumpy and paranoid that any player that is not labeled alliance or corp, will warp off, and some even gets to become enraged that they’ll eventually break apart their computing systems, and some would log in, see who is in local and log off since they don’t want to deal with the harassment and it has become a daily happening that it is borderline Grieving.
Now to some folks, its only a game, its fun, and it’s supposed to be adventurous. Well when you have unlimited amount of isk to spend or a high isk generator that doesn’t involve having to start small that is easy to say and do. But to cause despair and grieving to new players (1 day - 2 months into game) it’s making Eve look bad and will more than likely keep them from coming back or getting mixed reviews. This can lead to a decline in New Players in the community. I’ve seen it done and happen before in several other games and in local businesses. Some of these games are not even on the market or servers shutdown, others are being held by core players (as in every player knows every player real name and you won’t even need a friend’s list).
Problem:
Ship Bumping in high-sec is only a pvp type of thing, The suspect doesn’t attack to get CONCORD and the victim can’t do anything but to be helpless in the push. There is nothing that you can do that would make you a suspect or criminal. That is NOT balance, that is one sided. When you can cause harm to someone and they are helpless to not defend themselves while everyone, can’t do anything either, just watches as this is happening, it’s really sickening. It’s like watching someone being bullied, sure you can go tell and get help, but all that does is give you a feedback of “While I fully understand that the bumping of ships by other players can be very frustrating, it is currently not considered harassment as the opportunity to do so is within game mechanics.” This has got to stopped or be changed.
Solution:
If we can Fly through moons, stations, stars, and other ships in warp, why can’t we enable that with the ships out of warp. Remove bumping entirely to where you’ll ghost through the other ship. Not hard, and quite simple.
OR
Set a certain speed that when it make a bump with another ship, would make the player a suspect so CONCORD doesn’t intervene, and then it would allow the victim to counter without consequences (being CONCORD) and if they are in fleet/corp/alliance, and the other players bear witness, they too can join in on the counter.
Overall, this has got to changed to allow for new players to join in without paranoia while being in high-sec. They need to generate their isk, and they need to grow.
The best way I can put this scenario:
There is this one coffee shop where the food and coffee was remarkable and there was 5 men who kept going to it on a daily basis and they are allowed to smoke in the shop as it was opened on day 1. The new customers complained about it but the owner refused to change anything, then eventually, day by day, fewer customers shows up until it was just those 5 men. Went like this for a few more years, then the owner couldn’t support the shop due to lack of funds and eventually shuts down and becomes an abandon corner. The morale is that the shop could stayed open and had a good, growing business for all it had to do was make 1 change.
