Why do you think it is stupid?
Because hardly anyone truly abides by it. A few years back I had a former character in PROVIBLOC and as neutrals ran around and harassed us I was told I want allowed to do anything about it…
I knew alot if people who straight up ignored it and nothing was done to take care of them. It felt like forced pacifism in a game where if it moves youbare encouraged to shoot it.
You must understand that there are individuals and groups that make it a policy, a strategy, to infiltrate, subvert, confuse and demoralize other groups.
NRDS is simple. You might also think of it as RS.
It sounds like you encountered misinformation.
In all fairness it felt like forced pacifism from provibloc staff.
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Imagine what an NBSI diehard would tell players if he held the position of director or even CEO of a corporation in CVA, whose official policy was NRDS.
He hates you. He wants you to fail and die and quit EVE.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but . . . rabbits never want to believe that foxes are real . . . not even when they are running from one to save their lives.
If that’s the case then CVA deserves to die. If community leaders are not looking out for the best interests of the community and not just their own selfish interests then there is no point. While it helps a great deal to have self sufficient players who can entertain themselves it is important to have CEOs and alliance executives who are willing to sacrifice for the group. If not then they need to be replaced. If that is not possible then it is essential for some kind of reform.
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Sidenote: exaggeration though it may be something I’ve noticed is this meta gaming where people in communities try to get their people to quit either the corp/alliance or even the game. This is totally unacceptable and is detrimental to not only the environment of said community but also the game itself. This type of boorish behaviour is just ridiculous. I would like to point out it’s ok to get heated, we all do, but driving someone away with such ridiculous force is unnecessary. Some, like the mittani, back some time ago tried to get someone to commit actual suicide. That’s an extreme example but still. We need to remember: this is just a game.
The Mittani, at Fanfest with the wizard hat.
People need to grow thicker skin.
I thought it was all the rage these days to NOT do what youre told?
Superior how ? Because more people do it ? Perhaps more “popular” or “accessible”, and “less complicated”.
and when you take that to an individual level, why join any group ? Is that competition then suddenly gone ? What is the bond between individuals belonging to an NBSI group ? Or will they tear themselves apart at some point and make NBSI a failed policy ?
Personally I do not see any qualitative difference between a policy of “we’ll kill you if you don’t follow our rules of engagement”, i.e. NRDS and a policy of “we’ll kill you if you’re not a member of our group”, i.e. NBSI. Or is there ?
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WARNING: This is an un-proofread mess of disorganized thoughts. Skip to the next post. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The difference between NRDS and NBSI at the most basic level is whether it is necessary to commit a known infraction before being shot at.
There is no provision in the policy that sets in stone the rules for being set to red. Only that you have to meet some criteria before being fired on if you are not known.
NBSI is easier because any unknown can be a spy or saboteur. By aggressively clearing out anyone you don’t know to be your friend, you reduce your risk profile. Since the addition of injectors, it isn’t even possible to find a threshold of time below which a character does not pose a significant threat. Any character could be a cyno scout for a capital fleet.
Setting aside the politics of the region, Providence is (or was, I am not keeping track at present), a content factory. It has the lowest bar for entry, whether you’re looking for a place to carebear or a place to hunt the bears. I would agree that the people who lived there were not the most skilled of pilots, but the NPSI fleets that congregated to invade Provi weren’t the most skilled, either. It was non-consensual PvP without high stakes against softer targets for some. For others, it was a support group that would provide at least some modicum of service to defend or inform against invaders without having to give up their independence.
I lived in Providence for a time. I can vouch for the mandatory policy that residents are not supposed to engage PvP targets. The logic is that content denial is a means to discourage future or more frequent attacks, or so I gather. This wasn’t a policy I liked, but I obey the local laws when I am in someone else’s space. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not big on PvP, but it was still something I wanted to be able to offer people in my corporation who wanted to do that.
This was a major obstacle. Essentially, in Providence, my corporation was confined to carebear activities. Since I wasn’t particularly interested in the riches of null, that defeated the main reason I wanted to go there.
There was a high degree of mistrust. As a result, I did not have access to the main intel channels. Attempts to join Providence defense fleets were denied by the CVA. Some local FCs in Silent Infinity, under who’s aegis I operated, would organize roams that my people could participate in, but no major engagements of consequence.
Even within Silent Infinity, there were those who felt I was some kind of spy or up to no good. When selecting a system to base out of, I chose one on the edge of their territory and along what they called ‘the highway’ because it saw frequent through traffic. For my purposes, namely inviting trouble to give people a chance to shoot some guns, this was best. I suppose that made some think I was trying to operate outside of the range of their eyes. I would be accused of being an alt of anyone who would dock at my station, even though the docking rights were controlled by the alliance access list. I was accused of mining ice with a large fleet of alts, as if this were some kind of crime, which it would not be by my understanding even were I guilty of it.
This is probably the reason I did not make an attempt to return after my assets were destroyed during the Pandemic Legion invasion to seize the Faction Fortizars. I felt tolerated, but not welcome. Also, while I kept my assets anchored to support some kind of defense of the area, there would be none that materialized. Most of my peers abandoned the area, sometimes selling off their assets to someone who didn’t realize they were going to lose that asset in the near future. It had a strong air of ‘fair weather friends’, and quickly dispelled any image I had of there being some moral high ground among the general populace.
NRDS is a policy that really centers on those players Nicolai said were of no consequence. I, myself, use a NRDS policy in order to be able to act as support for those who otherwise have none. The question is whether opening your hand to these players is worth the risk that you’ll be giving your opponents an opportunity to pounce at the same time. I think that it is.
Do I think CCP should do something to enforce the preservation of NRDS space? No. An area like Providence should be a player institution if it is to exist at all. To enforce it with any kind of game mechanics is to deny anyone who would carry that torch with their own effort their rightful place in Eve history. If it dies, it dies, let it lie and tell stories to those who come after.
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Interesting POV, my experience was different in the Sev3rance pocket, I had contact with the CEO & Diplo from previous business in hisec so I got corp standing and access to intel. So it appears that as in RL, it’s sometimes who you know rather than what you know.
NRDS = bad idea. Only thing worse than a red in the system is a nuet! At least with the red you know his intent.
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I could have written a lot more, but it seemed to me it was already long enough. Not every experience was negative.
Silent Infinity leadership treated me well from start to finish. They granted any reasonable request I made, and I had access to their intel channels which covered their sov space, but I did not have access to the primary channel that people would tell me I should be reporting my intel in. I lived at the edge of the sov space at the entry way, so the sov channel was not of much use to me, but I was living dangerously anyway so it was not an issue I cared to resolve. I lost a barge or two. No big whoop.
I have a positive opinion of Silent Infinity. There are some other alliances I thought well of, and there were people who were good to me. The CVA, though, never let me be anything more than a squatter. When I moved in relations between the CVA and Silent Infinity were strained, and I’m of the mind that the CVA used the invasion of Providence to remove Silent Infinity from the field, after which point they retreated to Great Wildlands. I did not follow. I considered it, but I like being in highsec where people are varied and haven’t all been dyed a color by association with one side or another.
I like NRDS as a concept, and I would not oppose the CVA out of respect for NRDS space in general, but I feel justified in feeling like I don’t have to rally to their defense when they rejected my help earlier. Should Silent Infinity require a favor, though, I feel I owe them that, so long as I’m not asked to violate any of my principles and it is something I can reasonably do. I might answer the call of an alliance other than the CVA if they are committed to the cause (and desperate enough that even my help is useful), but it would depend on their sales pitch.
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This is my opinion:
https://zkillboard.com/character/2019861910/kills/
Pirate infestation in Providence has to be taken care of.
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Provi is now another dead region, nothing special about it anymore. Yes, you can use it as a hunting ground, as it has always been used. With the coming changes in resource distribution it may look economically slightly more interesting (lowsec/hisec connections) than ever before, but still a challenge to keep. At best one of the large blocs could take it to reward faithful alliances (for the current WWB2) for their efforts and loyalty. But there are better regions than provi for that purpose.
You know nothing 
Provi is not dead, most of Provi still lives in Provi, just under new leadership. You might wanna check zKill, Provi is still a good place to find content.
TEST cant take over Provi and hand it over to allies cause it is already owned by such a group (Rekking Crew).
Any alliance that let people inside their region and give them the chance of shooting first, deserve losing their region.
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For the five years I lived there Provi had far higher activity. KBP7-G, our home, was usually in the top 10 most violent systems daily. It’s nowhere near those activity levels or even the levels when provi bloc was still intact.
Never say “can’t”, and nothing is forever in this game. But keep up the good faith
I’ve recently returned to EVE after being away for 9 years. Yep, things have definitely changed, of course, and one of the most surprising changes in Provi.
When I last played, I was in CVA, and had sought to join them specifically because of their NRDS doctrine, which I found very interesting - far more interesting than the regular low-sec shenanigans that could be found pretty much everywhere else. As a carebear for the first few years I played the game, I originally had zero interest in leaving high-sec. But CVA’s presence lured me there.
I was a very small player, still more of an industry-guy than PVP by far. Everyone I came into contact with in CVA was welcoming and friendly, and best of all - patient. Obviously a lot can (and will) change in 9 years, so I can’t attest to how CVA had been doing the past few years. But I definitely have fond memories of CVA doing something -different- and something interesting with the NRDS system. Sometimes the system didn’t work as intended, sometimes mistakes were made, and the human element was always present. Still, I had a great time while I was there, and believe that even though an NRDS system might be ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ to maintain, it is still a very cool idea. 
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