EVE Online - Bob's dead baby...

[Yogi]

I'm pretty sure people signing up for Eve want this kind of game, otherwise they wouldn't be playing it. BOB has done this to other groups before.

Well, technically if you look at the "Populated Systems" map, you'll see that most people are actually in Empier Space. But even if what you say is true (let's only look at 0.0 Alliances for now) how does that invalidate my point that a large group of players were screwed over by events they had no control over?

[Duckie]

I'm pretty sure people signing up for Eve want this kind of game, otherwise they wouldn't be playing it. BOB has done this to other groups before.

Well, technically if you look at the "Populated Systems" map, you'll see that most people are actually in Empier Space. But even if what you say is true (let's only look at 0.0 Alliances for now) how does that invalidate my point that a large group of players were screwed over by events they had no control over?

Because who cares? It's like saying "DEAR GOD THOSE PEOPLE ARE SHOOTING THOSE POOR PEOPLE" in a WWII game. People signed on to shoot people. When one group shoots another group, it's not a surprising occurence. Even if it's the equivalent of an artillery bombardment like BoB just got hit with.

If people are in BoB and fighting Goons in 0.0, they should be expecting vicious corp warfare with people doing infiltratory stuff like that. This is why it's EVE Online and not another game. If they like being in Empire Space, they're in Empire Space.

If you don't want to get shot, you don't play Medal of Honour with your MoH clan.
If you don't want to get fucked over by ganking, infiltration hijinx, or paranoia, you're not playing Eve with your 0.0 clan. Guess who isn't playing Internet Spaceships because she's not up for that right now and doesn't have free time to devote to dealing with it? Author of this post.

Why would you play a game and then bitch that what happened in a game with player run organisations fucked over the little people? Every single thing in Eve done by high command of a corp does that, either to their own or to someone else's little guys. That's the whole point really- player decisions have consequences.

Anyhow, best point someone made:
"We all fantasized about slowly building up to critical mass, grinding into Delve and slowly anihiliating BoB in a weeks-long battle that killed the servers.

But it turned out IGNE's recruitment department won the war. Figures."

[Yogi]

Because who cares? It's like saying "DEAR GOD THOSE PEOPLE ARE SHOOTING THOSE POOR PEOPLE" in a WWII game. People signed on to shoot people. When one group shoots another group, it's not a surprising occurence. Even if it's the equivalent of an artillery bombardment like BoB just got hit with.

If people are in BoB and fighting Goons in 0.0, they should be expecting vicious corp warfare with people doing infiltratory stuff like that. This is why it's EVE Online and not another game. If they like being in Empire Space, they're in Empire Space.

If you don't want to get shot, you don't play Medal of Honour with your MoH clan.
If you don't want to get fucked over by ganking, infiltration hijinx, or paranoia, you're not playing Eve with your 0.0 clan. Guess who isn't playing Internet Spaceships because she's not up for that right now and doesn't have free time to devote to dealing with it? Author of this post.

Why would you play a game and then bitch that what happened in a game with player run organisations fucked over the little people? Every single thing in Eve done by high command of a corp does that, either to their own or to someone else's little guys. That's the whole point really- player decisions have consequences.

Anyhow, best point someone made:
"We all fantasized about slowly building up to critical mass, grinding into Delve and slowly anihiliating BoB in a weeks-long battle that killed the servers.

But it turned out IGNE's recruitment department won the war. Figures."

OK, does everyone remember when I said that entering into the Eve Online forums means I would lose brain cells? This kind of shit is why.

18-till-I-die expressed interest in joining Eve, and I explained to him that it's a lot more fun reading about it and that being dicked over by things you have no control over (as I had mentioned in the last Eve thread). Predictably, some Eve Online Worshipping Twat promptly accused me of . . .

. . . not really sure actually. Being sympathetic to BoB I guess, or perhaps thinking that such an action shiould not be allowed. It really doesn't matter, they're pretty much too busy wanking it to how cutthroat Eve Online is that it's a perfect opprotinuty to crow about it from the highest rooftops and to . . . well . . . decry me as a big carebear I guess. I dunno, I don't really disagree with most of the points being made so it's hard to even see WHAT I'm being crucified for. It's like watching a knight joust with imaginary windmills. You can see he's attacking something but it's hard to tell what it is.

Ironically, Duckie ends up doing most of my work for me, which is describing what actually goes on in Eve Online and warning those who don't like it to stay away, so thanks, I guess. It also demonstrates another problem with Eve Online, namely it's player base, so thanks again. Now, would you kindly fuck off. Those cans of trit aren't going flip themselves.

[Duckie]

OK, does everyone remember when I said that entering into the Eve Online forums means I would lose brain cells? This kind of shit is why.

What, having to read your posts? That makes sense that whereever you go you're losing brain cells.

18-till-I-die expressed interest in joining Eve, and I explained to him that it's a lot more fun reading about it and that being dicked over by things you have no control over (as I had mentioned in the last Eve thread). Predictably, some Eve Online Worshipping Twat promptly accused me of . . .

Oh yeah I totally worship a game which I read about because I dislike the gameplay and was posting why I dislike the idea of actually playing the game (HINT: READ MY WORDS "If you don't want to get fucked over by ganking, infiltration hijinx, or paranoia, you're not playing Eve with your 0.0 clan. Guess who isn't playing Internet Spaceships because she's not up for that right now and doesn't have free time to devote to dealing with it? Author of this post.") Good work fuckshit.

. . . not really sure actually. Being sympathetic to BoB I guess, or perhaps thinking that such an action shiould not be allowed. It really doesn't matter, they're pretty much too busy wanking it to how cutthroat Eve Online is that it's a perfect opprotinuty to crow about it from the highest rooftops and to . . . well . . . decry me as a big carebear I guess.

Like I said in clear and plain english, which I will now repeat in clear and plain latin in case english is not your first language.

I am calling you an idiot because you said "OH NOES THOES POOR PEOPLE ARE BEING FUCKED OVER BY GOONS". People being fucked over is the point of Eve- someone's always getting fucked over.

Dico·qva·cavdex·es·qvod·dixisti··EHEV·MIESRI·HOMINI·SUNT·
FVTVTVM·GOONE··Est·EVE·aliqvis·fvtvtvs·est·MMDCCLXIIAVC

I dunno, I don't really disagree with most of the points being made so it's hard to even see WHAT I'm being crucified for. It's like watching a knight joust with imaginary windmills. You can see he's attacking something but it's hard to tell what it is.

Ironically, Duckie ends up doing most of my work for me, which is describing what actually goes on in Eve Online and warning those who don't like it to stay away, so thanks, I guess.

EXACTLY. My post wasn't intended to be OH GOD EVE IS SO AWESOME UNF UNF I JUST CAME ALL OVER THIS GAME. It was to explain exactly why the game is so awesome to read about but not to play- high ranking players dicking over the low ranking players is the entire goddamn point of the game.

I'm saying "The game is full of assholes and it's awesome to read about". You're saying "This game is full of assholes oh god that's so horrible for those poor players." I told you the players like it that way because they are playing a game designed around assholery and infiltration and corp hijinx. You then reply with... I don't know, flames? Perhaps you were confused by my message and thus couldn't understand it well enough to make an on-topic response.

It also demonstrates another problem with Eve Online, namely it's player base, so thanks again. Now, would you kindly fuck off. Those cans of trit aren't going flip themselves.

Good work fuckshit, accuse me of playing a game I don't even play as an insult. You are a quality poster. Senate nominate this man right now.

Now would you fuck off, I want to argue with people who argue against me by actually making a point, rather than agreeing with me and then insulting me because they have no reading comprehension. Unless I'm the idiot with no reading comprehension and you never said the "OH NOES" thing I am accusing you of, in which case I will gladly concede we're both agreeing with eachother.

[Stark]

The ability for this shit to happen, even if it's not related to you (ie, you're in empire space) is one of the big draws for EVE. It's not static, it's not WoW, and if you trust people they can fuck you up. It's great.

They need a decent legal system though, and CCP reps cheat, but it's better to be interesting and dynamic and broken than boring and stupid and broken.

[Duckie]

The ability for this shit to happen, even if it's not related to you (ie, you're in empire space) is one of the big draws for EVE. It's not static, it's not WoW, and if you trust people they can fuck you up. It's great.

They need a decent legal system though, and CCP reps cheat, but it's better to be interesting and dynamic and broken than boring and stupid and broken.

Yeah, if I were to make an Evelike game I'd first try not to make it not Boring As Fuck (impossible, it's an MMO) but then also make it a little bit more like the Wild West in that there should be some kind of Feds who actually have power (like make the internal empires and NPC factions have a little more power over the corps and prosecute abuses or something). Or like actual corporations where the feds can ruin your day with an ethics prosecution or the like, instead of just saying "Lol whatever". Eve is less like corps and more like african tribal warfare simulation minus any UN peacekeepers in space.

[Nathaniel]

This should be very interesting to watch. Does anybody know how the situation is now? I'm heading out in a Catalyst to see if there's fighting going on, but I don't want to get blown up without some chance of getting loot.

[Stark]

Yeah, if I were to make an Evelike game I'd first try not to make it not Boring As Fuck (impossible, it's an MMO) but then also make it a little bit more like the Wild West in that there should be some kind of Feds who actually have power (like make the internal empires and NPC factions have a little more power over the corps and prosecute abuses or something).

It's tough making a 'legal' system that works in an MMO where nobody cares about death and everyone is using alts anyway. Coffee and I cooked up a half-baked idea whereby useful, fixed tradable things could be penalised, but from my perspective the lack of a 'commerce commission' makes contracts and couriers etc utterly retarded.

[Uraniun235]

The way I've heard it elsewhere, which makes sense to me (from my limited, outside perspective) is that this was a "cultural victory" - Goonfleet (supposedly) promoted an internal culture which was so appealing and attractive, and wore down an adversary's morale over time to such an extent, that one of the highest-ranking members of an adversary was willing to defect to them - and therefore is as legit a victory as any military conquest.


Now, to be fair, this does highlight the simplicity of EVE's modeling of corporations and alliances - no real corporation or alliance would allow one man to, with the stroke of a pen, dissolve everything overnight, without the oversight of other persons within the organization. But at the same time, I'm not even sure that's a shortcoming - yes, it means that alliances could be destroyed by "cocksuckers", but at the same time it can also mean that things can be unexpectedly shaken up and new opportunities suddenly created. Former BOB members now have to scramble to try and coordinate a ragtag defense of whatever they can claw on to, while the surrounding groups have to mobilize swiftly in order to try and catch a piece of the action - while fighting off other opportunists. This, to me, sounds like it would be an enormously welcome event to happen every so often. Realistic? No. Conducive to good gameplay? Perhaps.

Yes, it represents a loss of things that players have built up - but I thought the whole point of this game was that there were no guarantees (outside of Empire space, that is). Sometimes disasters happen despite best-laid plans, and this sort of thing seems representative of that to me.


As to a legal system... could EVE be considered a sort of libertopia?

[Stark]

That's the sort of thing I think could be improved, yeah; their corps and alliances are just standard MMO guilds with officers. There's no board to answer to, so a single rogue operative can do whatever they want once promoted, which is what I'm talking abotu when I say the legal system is broken.

I don't think the EVENTS are bad (stuff like this and previous scams are fucking cool) but I think the simplitic approach to the law and regulation has knock-on effects right down to the very small-corp level that aren't so great.

[Duckie]

The way I've heard it elsewhere, which makes sense to me (from my limited, outside perspective) is that this was a "cultural victory" - Goonfleet (supposedly) promoted an internal culture which was so appealing and attractive, and wore down an adversary's morale over time to such an extent, that one of the highest-ranking members of an adversary was willing to defect to them - and therefore is as legit a victory as any military conquest.

Wait so galactic civilisations ii is realistic? Mind is blown.

Now, to be fair, this does highlight the simplicity of EVE's modeling of corporations and alliances - no real corporation or alliance would allow one man to, with the stroke of a pen, dissolve everything overnight, without the oversight of other persons within the organization. But at the same time, I'm not even sure that's a shortcoming - yes, it means that alliances could be destroyed by "cocksuckers", but at the same time it can also mean that things can be unexpectedly shaken up and new opportunities suddenly created.

Yeah, out of game perspective it makes sense, but in-game attempting to write say a story on what happens makes no bloody sense- A single guy with director access blew up the company somehow. It wasn't a cool way to end- a story of a huge month long battle at the gates of BoB headquarters would be cool, but I guess it was the most effective in terms of game loopholes that are legal. If they made the commerce, alliance, etc. system more complicated it'd avoid stupidities like this. Because this is stupid- it's awesome, but retarded. Just like most of EVE.

Expect to see corps have far less high-level permissions on people, perhaps only a few as possible as far as gameplay things, just like anti-spy mindset after GHSC.

As to a legal system... could EVE be considered a sort of libertopia?

Indeed. Best argument against anarcholibertarianism ever.

[Yogi]

It's tough making a 'legal' system that works in an MMO where nobody cares about death and everyone is using alts anyway. Coffee and I cooked up a half-baked idea whereby useful, fixed tradable things could be penalised, but from my perspective the lack of a 'commerce commission' makes contracts and couriers etc utterly retarded.

One of the issues that I have is that, while there is supposed to be consequences for your actions, all of them them can be evaded by enough in game money. Buy a GTC, buy a throwaway alt, have throwaway alt buy character, transfer goods and cash to character, sell or retire original. Now you're in the clear and there's no way anyone can track you down.

What might fix that is if a player's records and wallet history can be hacked by someone with enough skill, so that they can track down people who try to launder stuff. Hacking their market and contract records would also help. But then they'll just convert their assets into +5 implants or something, put it in a container in the middle of nowhere, then pick it back up. In order to track that they'll have to track the history of each individual item, but that would probably cause the server to melt down.

Or they could just ban buying and selling characters.

So yeah, while the idea of an EvE like game is awesome, I can't think of a decent way to implement it either.

[Duckie]

Shit let's start from basics- can anyone think of a decent way to implement an MMO at all? We have to invent the wheel before we can make a sportscar.

[Stark]

It's not too hard so long as you don't fool yourself into thinking you can restrict out-of-game stuff; many devs (and development decisions) seem to be built on the idea that since the EULA says 'no alt accounts' that thus nobody has any, which is totally absurd. If you approach the out-of-game stuff with the same 'people will try anything' attitude you have when working with PvP mechanics, it's harder to fuck yourself up by comfortably declaring xyz doesn't happen because you SAID it doesn't happen.

[Yogi]

Shit let's start from basics- can anyone think of a decent way to implement an MMO at all? We have to invent the wheel before we can make a sportscar.

World of Warcraft?

Just kidding, sort of. It kind of depends on what kind of MMO you want to make. If it's something that most people with basic computer skills can hop on, play for a bit, then do something else then . . . World of Warcraft is a pretty good starting place. It has things a casual player can do, things a more hardcore player can do, for both PvP and PvE, and they never have to cross each other's paths if they don't want to.

In a more "realistic" shared universe everyone has to play together, from those that want to forge great empires, to those who just want to have a little fun, to those who love making other people miserable, to those who will do anything to win. I'd say, something similar to EvE with High-sec, Low-sec, and Null-sec. In High-sec space no one can attack without risking the wrath of the established countries (though attacks from police is survivable), but you can't actually build anything yourself, everything's already been claimed and the only thing you can do is to work for another person. Low-sec would be more the Wild West. You can build your own stations in areas that your country has claimed, and you'll get some support if you come under attack, but you can't attack people who work for the same country you do, you can't build outside of your country's territory, and you'll have to pay more taxes back to the home country as your empire grows.

Null-sec is lawless space. You are your own country, but you can build anything that existed in High-sec to create your own little country. You can hire NPCs to preform some more menial tasks like mining, guarding gates, mining, patrolling the general area, mining, first responders to enemy attack, and mining. They can potentially be as powerful as the home country police, IF you pay enough money to do so.

The key would be consequences. Sure you can lead a life of crime, but that would involve bounties placed on your head, your assets frozen, denied docking at all lawful stations, and you'll have to pay a "notice me not" fee to dock at some of the shadier one, having your assets frozen, or even having an army show up at the door of your pirate station if you really piss them off. This should eliminate one of the problems with EvE in that it is sometimes impossible to force someone to face the music via in-game mechanics. That, and eliminating character and GTC sales would make the beginning of a possibly decent game.

But the devil's always in the details.

[Duckie]

=double post, delete this=

[Duckie]

Except that you can't ever eliminate character sales and so forth, and also you'd just have no sec crim, low sec runner, and high people for each person, or just crim+high. One would do the no sec space, one would do the high sec space, and one would do the middle and be able to run stuff between them. Alt accounts are basically unavoidable in that scenario, just like Eve, and thus if you do bad stuff as a criminal you can just pass it to your non-criminal alt.

[Stark]

That's the attitude, though; pie-in-the-sky development ideas are all well and good, but reality trumps them and players will do ANYTHING AT ALL to get an advantage; nothing you think 'should' happen will actually happen without a reason. The mechanics basically determine the kind of game and play that emerges, regardless of how much stupid fluff you produce saying otherwise.

Most game designs don't survive contact with actual players; look at RTS balance.

[Duckie]

Once thing that would make Eve slightly better is some kind of minigame while mining or doing repetitive tasks. Like, I dunno, some kind of tetris while mining, but not tetris. It would give you something to do.

Granted what Stark said above is true, that 99% of players would still get their resources from macrominers, but it'd give those crazy 1% of player-miners something to do other than talks.

As is, doing anything other than PvP in EVE, or maybe ratting with a group of friends or mining with a group of friends once or twice is like playing Desert Bus. It's one major reason why I'm not playing it.

[Stark]

I've liked this idea in the past, at least to avoid botting; replace progress bars with silly games. Doesn't have to be good or hard or complex; the original System Shock had cool 'rewire the door' minigames that were good. However I'm not sure they'd REMAIN cool after the first 4-hour stint ... but of course it wouldn't be necessary, only provide some kind of bonus to ACTUALLY BE PLAYING THE GAME.

[Yogi]

Except that you can't ever eliminate character sales and so forth, and also you'd just have no sec crim, low sec runner, and high people for each person, or just crim+high. One would do the no sec space, one would do the high sec space, and one would do the middle and be able to run stuff between them.

That's really not an issue, as there's really no reason trade CAN'T happen between them. As long as the trade is tracked and players can get access to it, they can see who has been interacting with who then a criminal would have a harder time evading consequences. If Empire would actively peruse criminals, such as occasionally spawning bounty hunters and police to gank him, running far away might be the only viable option. While you can't always eliminate all the ways a player can escape, limiting them would be better than the current system EvE has.

[Duckie]

I've liked this idea in the past, at least to avoid botting; replace progress bars with silly games. Doesn't have to be good or hard or complex; the original System Shock had cool 'rewire the door' minigames that were good. However I'm not sure they'd REMAIN cool after the first 4-hour stint ... but of course it wouldn't be necessary, only provide some kind of bonus to ACTUALLY BE PLAYING THE GAME.

That would be good too- make it so that you can only mine well if you're paying attention to the minigames. It won't be fun, but 4 hours of playing tetris or meteos or rewiring the door or pacman would be better than playing 4 hours of desert bus.

[Stark]

I'd actually like to see that shit in more games overall - Gears of War has a 1-dimensional 'reloading minigame' that increases interactivity and makes the trivial action of reloading important and gives the player more to do. The current trend towards 'progress bars' or 'pause the game and play a dumb minigame' is bad in my opinion; event Thief's 'swap between two picks' door-opening system was better than that.

[Duckie]

I'd actually like to see that shit in more games overall - Gears of War has a 1-dimensional 'reloading minigame' that increases interactivity and makes the trivial action of reloading important and gives the player more to do. The current trend towards 'progress bars' or 'pause the game and play a dumb minigame' is bad in my opinion; event Thief's 'swap between two picks' door-opening system was better than that.

That's true, Gears of War's reloading system is fun and actually has a point in that messing it up is annoying and doing it well is pretty good (although it's kinda easy to be perfect at it even in the worst of situations).

I'd like a minigame for mining or other boring tasks in Eve to at least not be replicable by bots easily, but that's probably a pipe dream.

[Stark]

It's worth noting that Gears2 addressed many issues with the 'minigame', in that different weapons have a different 'rhythm' to them and consecutive successes made the success window smaller until you failed. You'd need a lot of that in an MMO context where any amount of farming/grinding isn't enough to put off players.