EVE Online bank embezzled. Lulz ensue.

[Yogi]

Perhaps that’s true in the larger alliances. I had to run Mining ops though.

You know, I can (and probably will) rant on and on about the game mechanics, but let's talk Metagame for a while.

1) ISK (in game money) buying is legal. You can buy a GTC (game tine card), sell it to someone for ISK, and it's perfectly legal. Characters can be sold for ISK in a perfectly legal way as well. This allows people with plenty of RL money to avoid all consequences for their actions.

2) There is this thing called a BluePrint Original (BPO) which allows you to make stuff that's better. There's only a limited number in game, and the only way to get them is to spend a small fortune to get a cheap knockoff which can only be used a few times, buy an original for a large fortune, wait for new ones to be released and get insanely lucky, or be friends with a GM, in which case he'll give you BPOs for free. The GM was eventually caught, the BPOs were destroyed, and the GM was fired.

Just kidding, the GM continues to be a GM in Eve Online. He might even be the one to answer your petition!

[Commander 598]

Even Goons run occasional mining ops, though I'm fairly certain it's mostly for personal funding (Like ratting) and/or resources for special projects for that particular section of the Fleet.

[Spyder]

Many of the problems you have with EVE are mitigated with being in a corporation, surely?

Being in goonfleet means you get to have fun ganking titans as part of a swarm of T1 frigates.

Other then that, the EVE economy starts with mining and goes through research, trading and manufacturing. In theory, if you can organise other EVE players into a massive power bloc you can carve out a section of space and exploit the effort of other lesser corps (which in itself takes time and effort).

Basically, you're probably better off just getting an actual job.

[Prometheus Unbound]

*Ugh* Eve Online.

Tried it. Played for two years, Uninstalled it.

The Concept for it is awesome which is why I got into it in the first place. However, while the concept is good, the execution is BAD.

Short version of the problems.

1) All losses are more of less permanent. Death carries a very high non-trivial cost. In WoW terms, all your gear and inventory is gone when you die.

That is in fact, a good thing. It's what brings many players to Eve. It's marketed like that and played as such. I love the fact that when I lose a ship, I've lost a ship. That's how you break alliances and corporations; you destroy enough of their stuff, stop enough of their logistics and break their morale, they are defeated.

2) PvP is allowed, though people in Empire space are relatively safe. Think of Empire Space as being patrolled by lots of high level guards who will insta-gank aggressors.

Again, this is a good thing. It's not Hello Kitty Online.

3) However, PvP is a net-loss activity in Eve. You can recover some of the opponent's stuff, but some stuff will always be destroyed. If you only PvP, unless you win all the time, you WILL lose money.

Totally untrue. Out of the 30-40 billion isk I've made, all of it has come from PvP in one form or another.

4) Hence, you have to make your money via PvE, which amounts to running what are essentially Daily Quests (only you can run them as often as you like) running non-instanced dungeons (called Deadspace) or mining. OR you have to win all the time.

Or you just play smart

5) As PvE gear is different from PvP gear, people who PvE will do their best to avoid PvP.

Which means you have to be careful. And play smart. It's not a bad thing. You have to make a choice. You can quite capably PvE in a PvP fitted ship if you want. You wont be as good as a purely PvE fitted ship, of course, but that's the choice you make.

6) If you want to win all the time in PvP, you need to prey on people who can't fight back effectively. This means hunting in packs, or attacking the PvE people above. Hence, you can’t really have a fair fight because statistically, both sides will lose out.

Again, not true. The majority of my kills have been solo kills and yes whilst some have been easy kills, many are not. And think it through; this is a "serious" game; you're not going to take on a fight that you don't think you can win; not on a regular basis anyway... that'd be kinda dumb.

PvE is also necessary in order to get the money in order to build your own miniature empires in the middle of Lawless Space. This is considered "end game content" as PvE conists of running the same missions over and over and over and over again. A chain of Daily Quests that never ends.

This is entirely untrue. It is not necessary and it's not the only way.

9) Since Ships, Weapons, and other things need to be built, a lot of emphasis on manufacturing and supply chain management is necessary in order to build your empire. HOWEVER, most of the enhancements in the game have been in regards to combat, NOT in manufacturing, even though the non-combat aspects are critical to the survival of a player-run alliance. Being a non-combat pilot is very very boring.

That's because everything is focussed towards PvP. It's a PvP centric game. Everything exists to enable PvP.

9a) An example is Mining, an essential activity that is vital to supplying your war machine. It’s more boring than open water fishing in World of Warcraft. Not hunting for pools, open water fishing. I wish I as kidding, but the memories of too many mining ops are burned into my head.

So find a freigher that's hauling those minerals and kill it. Use someone else's hard work to build your own empire. Use and abuse other players.

10) Another problem is getting from place to place. In a major military operation, we could be asked to make 45 “jumps” to the enemy location. That’s 30 min spent just on travel time ALONE.

Well, pick your enemies better then... pick someone closer to you... or move closer to them.

Eve Online allows you plenty of freedom, the same way that gcc is the world’s most flexible game creation tool. The concept is good, the framework is good, now if only the individual parts are fun to play I might actually spend (more) money on it.

I think you're confusing "fun" with "easy".

[Prometheus Unbound]

Perhaps that’s true in the larger alliances. I had to run Mining ops though.

You know, I can (and probably will) rant on and on about the game mechanics, but let's talk Metagame for a while.

1) ISK (in game money) buying is legal. You can buy a GTC (game tine card), sell it to someone for ISK, and it's perfectly legal. Characters can be sold for ISK in a perfectly legal way as well. This allows people with plenty of RL money to avoid all consequences for their actions.

That does bother me, yes.

2) There is this thing called a BluePrint Original (BPO) which allows you to make stuff that's better. There's only a limited number in game, and the only way to get them is to spend a small fortune to get a cheap knockoff which can only be used a few times, buy an original for a large fortune, wait for new ones to be released and get insanely lucky, or be friends with a GM, in which case he'll give you BPOs for free. The GM was eventually caught, the BPOs were destroyed, and the GM was fired.

Just kidding, the GM continues to be a GM in Eve Online. He might even be the one to answer your petition!

TomB doesn't work in EvE at the moment; he's not a GM any more and he wont be answering any petitions. He was put on the WoD project and moved to Atlanta. In any case you have the story wrong. What TomB did was to give his character in game more research points in the lottery. He didn't spawn himself any BPOs or spawn them for anyone else, he just gave himself a much higher chance to be one of the ones that got one (or 10!). Symantics I know but let's at least be accurate over it.

When it was discovered, at the time, the people in charge of CCP were on holiday and as such no one had the right to fire him (as he would have been normally). He was chastised internally but since he had already been punished, under the laws of Iceland, he can't then be fired for something over which he's already been diciplined over (which in legal cases is called "Double Jeapardy" I believe).

The BPO issue has been fixed; invention.

[Yogi]

That is in fact, a good thing. It's what brings many players to Eve. It's marketed like that and played as such. I love the fact that when I lose a ship, I've lost a ship. That's how you break alliances and corporations; you destroy enough of their stuff, stop enough of their logistics and break their morale, they are defeated.

Again, this is a good thing. It's not Hello Kitty Online.

See, this is the problem with addressing each individual point alone. The list of points are parts of a series of argument, with the initial points used to highlight the later problems. The problems with PvP vs. PvE cannot be explained without first knowing about how losses work in Eve first, hence why I explain everything in the beginning for those who are not familiar with the overall system.

Totally untrue. Out of the 30-40 billion isk I've made, all of it has come from PvP in one form or another.

Or you just play smart

Which means you have to be careful. And play smart. It's not a bad thing. You have to make a choice. You can quite capably PvE in a PvP fitted ship if you want. You wont be as good as a purely PvE fitted ship, of course, but that's the choice you make.

Again, not true. The majority of my kills have been solo kills and yes whilst some have been easy kills, many are not. And think it through; this is a "serious" game; you're not going to take on a fight that you don't think you can win; not on a regular basis anyway... that'd be kinda dumb.

Once again, your problem is that you respond to each of my points, pretending it's my entire argument, when I address the issues furthur down. Yes, you can make money in PvP, if you prey on PvE ships or form gangs and gank people 6 to 1. That's what I have posted. However, in order to do this, SOMEONE has to do PvE in order to make the stuff you eventually rob from them. The problem is, PvE sucks.

It also raises the larger question on PvP vs. PvE. The fact is, when two ships engage, no matter who wins, "Stuff" leaves the Eve Universe via violent explosion. Therefore PvE IS necessary in order to replace the "Stuff" so saying that PvE is not necessary is a rather narrow view. Perhaps an individual can survive off of PvP, but the game as a whole needs people to PvE in order to survive. The problem is, once again, PvE sucks. Missions and Mining Ops FTW!!

This is entirely untrue. It is not necessary and it's not the only way.

You cannot sustain a POS or station on just PvP. No alliance of any significant size can do so.

That's because everything is focussed towards PvP. It's a PvP centric game. Everything exists to enable PvP.

Building supply chains and manufacturing is an integral part of PvP. PvP encompasses a much larger aspect than just ships shooting at each other. Having the ship built and shipped to the correct location is just as important.

So find a freigher that's hauling those minerals and kill it. Use someone else's hard work to build your own empire. Use and abuse other players.

Once again, no large alliance an survive off of freighter ganks. It's a nice bonus, but in no way can any large alliance rely on those. Not even Band of Brothers or Goonfleet.

Well, pick your enemies better then... pick someone closer to you... or move closer to them.

That's not always an option and you know it. This is doubly true for the really large alliances where just the alliance space alone is huge.

In addition, there are the hauling trips from Empire to 0.0 Space. This is mandatory, as there are parts only sold by NPCs. Again, say hello to loooong trips.

I think you're confusing "fun" with "easy".

That was . . . random. Making things "easier" won't address any of the problems I outlined above. Once again, I specifically said it was locked in a Zero Sum Game, where making it easier for one group makes it harder for another group.

The main issue is that CCP wanted to make Eve realistic AND PvP oriented, when the two are pretty much opposite. In real life people DON'T PvP because the penalty for losing is extremely severe. In Team Fortress 2, they DO PvP becuase the loss penalty is extremely light. By making the death cost heavy, it encourages people to be risk averse and stay in Empire Space all the time. Just open up the map one day and see how many pilots are in Empire versus 0.0. With stuff being constantly destroyed and needing to be replaced, the resource gathering and manufacturing aspect of the game is vastly more important than, say, World of Warcraft. Yet making stuff hasn't been given much attention, and is more boring thn dirt, while everything has gone towards ship to ship PvP combat.

If they had made manufacturing more interesting and engaging (such as designing your own factories and trying to be as efficent as possible, or manually controlling your mining bots to tunnel through asteroids in search of juicy ore clusters) it not only would make it more fun for manufacturers, but cause more people to PvE, giving PvP players more prey. However, as it stands, the game is simultaniously pushing people towards and away from ship to ship PvP, and it stinks.

TomB doesn't work in EvE at the moment; he's not a GM any more and he wont be answering any petitions. He was put on the WoD project and moved to Atlanta. In any case you have the story wrong. What TomB did was to give his character in game more research points in the lottery. He didn't spawn himself any BPOs or spawn them for anyone else, he just gave himself a much higher chance to be one of the ones that got one (or 10!). Symantics I know but let's at least be accurate over it.

When it was discovered, at the time, the people in charge of CCP were on holiday and as such no one had the right to fire him (as he would have been normally). He was chastised internally but since he had already been punished, under the laws of Iceland, he can't then be fired for something over which he's already been diciplined over (which in legal cases is called "Double Jeapardy" I believe).

The BPO issue has been fixed; invention.

Are we thinking of the same thing? From what I knew, some Ammo BPOs were given to some Band of Brothers guy, and they didn't get caught until awhile later. Also, I'm not aware of double jeprody laws in Iceland that apply to INTERNAL company punishment.