Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Come fight M&S in the ice fields!

People are making the mistake of considering the New Order, the project I'm on, jet another griefing campaign. It's pretty easy to disprove: a miner can remove himself from the target list by stopping botting and AFK-leeching (hardly an evil demand), paying a pitiful sum of 10M and declare his support to the movement. Compare it to Burn Jita! You couldn't get immunity from Goon gank squads and trying to join them leads only to the infamous Goon recruitment scams. The New Order on the other hand welcomes miners to join, become agents and create Knight alts.

For long I've ignored the original purpose of my blog: fighting Morons and Slackers. I was too busy proving that EVE can be won that I forgot that winning it would change little in real life. "You won a video game with 40K other people, good show champ" - right? On the other hand look at the permanent page that I wrote as a personal goal. It's time to make it happen! My purpose with this project is to find these morons and slackers and force them to change into socials while collecting socials and upgrading them to competitive people (called anti-social by socials).

Let's see the morons and slackers. Obviously mining ice in EVE won't make you one. However "ice miner" and "miner" in general gained a bad name for a reason in EVE. Botting and AFK-leeching is the norm. They expect ISK without any thinking or making effort. The stereotypical ice miner just park a Mackinaw in the ice field and goes AFK, returning just to handle the full Mack. As dumb and lazy activity as it can be. Their tank is "fukk u nolifer". Also, currently the New Order is small and can cover only a few systems. It wouldn't be hard to move a bit further where we don't operate. But that would be too much thinking/effort for the M&S.

This is about to end. When they return from AFK they'll find their Mackinaw empty, bumped out of range or even worse: themselves in the clone station. They will be forced to be upgraded to norm-following socials: they will change their Bio, they will pay a fee and they will mine active. I will provide Orca boosts for free as soon as my former nullsec industrialist pilot can fly an Orca. I will also encourage them to form groups with each other, find business partners, get their own Orcas and play in groups. I want them to experience that "being with people" can be profitable and not just wasting time with idle chit-chat. They will be talking with fellow miners in the belt in local and not with distant "friends". They'll have to be on local or they risk losing their permit as the Code says: "No AFK mining allowed. All miners are expected to remain at their keyboards at all times, and are required to prove their presence by responding in local when requested by the Supreme Protector or one of his Agents."

Secondly there are the socials, full of flowers and love in their heart. No wonder they earned the title "carebear". They do what is "ethical". They are so upset by our "griefing" that they go out and try to protect the targets, people who they don't know. Also a miner who is lazy but not a moron would simply change his Bio and pay the 10M. However socials refuse to give in to "14 years old griefers". They rather try to counter-bump or counter-gank. They will fail. They will not fail because they are worse players than us, I mean lower skill point or inability to fit a ship. They will fail because they stand up for "ethics" and "moral" instead of something real. The "anti-gank movement" is not real, they have no member list, channel, ships, nothing. They are just a loose collection of whiners. They want to rally the "oppressed ones" just to find that they are AFK. They have to face that their beliefs help them nothing. They have to experience that losing ships protecting the "oppressed ones" is a waste of time because they don't even say "thank you" as they are AFK. The M&S is unworthy of saving. They will learn it the hard way. Their resistance will be broken. On the other hand they will not be broken. Every time they lose, they get the chance to join us. One day they will have enough of the futile attempt of protecting the unworthy M&S.

Finally, I'm not naive. Lot of the "Knights" can't care less about the Code or the vision of a bot/AFK-free mining. They are just here for the tears. They are competitive ones, enjoying their superiority over peers. I hope that they will see that by their actions the whole EVE changes. By this there is a chance to outgrow their state and start to aspire for more than e-peen.

- If you never tried EVE and still "enjoying" being damage #1 as tank (or healer, happened with me on battleground) in WoW, try it. You can be an effective ganker in a week. It's like WoW, except the defeated M&S won't say "lol idc" but rage over his lost pixels. If you have a trader alt, you'll never have problems affording gank ships. If you don't want to do any other activity, an extra PLEX ($15) can cover your costs for a month. Just roll a Gallente pilot, do the newbie missions to familiarize yourself with EVE and come to Chelien, our current base.
- If you tried EVE and found only "permanent Arathi basin" and left, come back and join!
- If you are in EVE looking for a change, come and make a change.

The New Order is a non-bureaucratic, casual (no time sheets) organization smashing the M&S. Ships will be destroyed! Socials will cry, break and reborn as higher beings.


PS: my "try out EVE Online" page has been changed to reflect this.

Also, the gank need a scout who scans the miner, reports tank and provides warpin. Obvious scout is obvious. However the "friendly heplfull ppl" who risk their ship defending stranger M&S gave me an idea about making a scout ship that rises cheer instead of suspicion:

40 comments:

Hivemind said...

I'm having a hard time understanding where this concept of an "AFK leech" comes from exactly. Obviously a miner who is AFK for the time it takes to fill their hold is going to provide competition when selling their products to a miner who is not AFK, which will reduce the amount that any miners can sell their products for. But where exactly are they leeching from? As I understand it, a leech requires that other people put forth effort on their behalf, to which they do not contribute but from which they benefit. AFK miners aren't forcing anyone to do anything for their benefit. In fact, in terms of their mining they are putting in as much effort as someone mining at-keyboard to achieve the same reward; both the AFK and "active" miners only interaction in mining is to target an asteroid, start their harvesters cycling, wait until the cargo is full, dock up and unload, then warp back and start over. The only difference is what they do while waiting for the ore hold to fill up, which isn't relevant to the mining process itself.

AFK mining emerged as a gameplay style from a combination of the following factors:
> The Mackinaw has a large ore bay that takes a long time to fill up (previously, this was carg-expanded Hulks).
> Ice asteroids are effectively infinite in volume (it would take a very large number of miners on a single asteroid to deplete it before it refills at downtime).
> The actual gameplay involved in mining is not particularly engaging.
It's not against the TOS or the EULA and considering that CCP recently expanded the ore space with the Retriever and Mackinaw in the exhumer rebalancing as well as offering players the choice between high ore space and high yield, it seems that both AFK and active mining are equally valid in CCP's eyes.

You say repeatedly that you are in favour of the New Order because it will make life better for the "Active" miners, however you've noticed yourself that the vast majority of the ice miners you're choosing to focus on are AFK. In that case, aren't you looking to harm the vast majority of the ice mining player base by forcing them into a playstyle that they don't enjoy ("active" mining) for the benefit of a relative few? If those few "active" players aren't able to compete with the ice products provided by their AFK-mining competition, doesn't that make them Morons for trying to compete in a market that is inherently biased against them, Slackers for continuing to ice mine and moan about AFK miners rather than finding an alternative activity that utilizes their willingness to be at-keyboard and active to offer better revenue, like mining for ore instead of ice, mining in WHs or nullsec or running missions and Leeches for relying on other players (the New Order, specifically) to come along, organise things and make their situation better?

Gevlon said...

Obviously the current procedure of mining is AFK. It was before the Mack cargo hold (as you mentioned the cargo expanded Hulks).

However it's a vicious circle: mining is not engaging so everyone AFKs it, so it provides lot of ice destroying ice prices driving away active miners.

Enter the New Order and this will change: active miners will have the benefit of being alive while their AFK competitors dead. If you are active, you can increase your yield by running Orca+freighter supported Hulk (or Skiff when threatened) gangs.

About "forcing them into a playstyle". That is the definition of "making a story", or "making a difference".

I agree that the New Order is currently in an altruistic phase. However I hope that the active miners will gain enough strength to carry on the order, now for self-interest.

Anonymous said...

Botters are rational, their ego doesn't get into the way of paying into your little extortion racket.

I had a corpmate who made a living by ganking botters in 0.0 - until he discovered that he could just charge them 1b *per day* to stay away from their systems after the first few ganks.

They will happily pay any sum as long as it is cheaper than the loss of income from getting ganked or the cost/effort of relocating.

A small script that alerts the operator whenever one of his botting characters is mentioned in local is no big deal and useful as it helps to avoid being reported.

Botting farms usually don't run without supervision as there are too many things that can go wrong (e.g. today's troubles with chat channels in-game).

You are ganking the casual afk leeches while providing a safe harbor for bots.


Hivemind said...

You're still not explaining:
> How AFK miners are "Leeching" and who it is they're leeching off
> How the active miners trying to compete with AFK ones aren't Morons, Slackers and Leeches themselves for doing so

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: they are leeching on those who would like to have more ISK via effort. Similarly in WoW the loser team also receives honor, so the AFK-optimum would be no one doing anything and the time goes up, everyone gets this honor for nothing.

However this behavior makes active playing unprofitable (pushing in a WoW BG and losing due to half team AFK is worse than losing without effort).

Mining should be the basic economic backbone of EVE. The civilian miner on the noobship and the importance of mining in the newbie questlines (now providing a Venture with skillbook) shows that players should use mining as income source. However this became unpractical as minerals and ice products are mass-produces by botters/AFK leeches.

We are here to end this.

@Anonymous: I have no doubt that a professional botter is a harder nut than the random idiot who runs a bot on his main while in school. But being unable to do everything is no reason to do nothing.

Hivemind said...

The other thing I'd like to bring up is the New Order's oft-touted "Code". In this post you gloss over it quite brazenly, suggesting that all miners have to do is pay the 10mil fee, stop "AFK-leeching" and put a note in their bio.

In all honesty, assuming you aren't aiming for purposeful misrepresentation of the New Order, I have to wonder if you have even read the Code? Actually, I already know the answer to that, which is one of the issues I have with it. You haven't read the Code. Nobody has. To quote James 315 himself: "Since the Code is a living, breathing document, it's not possible to fully enumerate all of the rules." So what you're asking people to do is sign up to a set of rules that
> They cannot ever view in full
and
> That can be changed at any time without any consultation or even notification of changes
and
> That can even be "retroactively" changed by declaring the change was always there, butnever published before.

Even setting aside the malleable nature of the Code, I have problems with the "examples of the rules" that James 315 has graciously shared:

First off, "Mining indulgences [...] are good for one year, subject to forfeiture." Emphasis mine. There is also nothing in the publicly viewable sections of the Code that defines what actions can lead to forfeiture. This means any time James 315 feels like it, he can revoke one of those permits by adding something to the Code.

Second, "No AFK mining allowed. All miners are expected to remain at their keyboards at all times" Again, emphasis mine. Sure, there probably won't be too many situations that are too urgent to dock up in EVE first, but there's no forgiveness in the Code, no exceptions to that rule. That's what you're asking other people to follow.

Third, "No excessive mining. [...] I want well-rounded people in my system, not ice-mining machines." If you've read this far, it probably won't surprise you to learn that that's all the Code says on the matter; there's nothing in there for what "excessive mining" is or what criteria it's judged on. In other words, you can be signed up and paid up with the New Order sticker in your Bio, and then a Knight can still gank you if he feels like it, because he's decided you've been mining "excessively".

I'm not going to look at every other point that has been made public, because they don't concern the day-to-day acts of mining. Suffice it to say that they're all open ended, poorly defined and lack any sort of specifics, all of which could be used against any paid-up miner in the New Order. One rule is "The New Order of Highsec continues to recognize The Mittani as the legitimate Chairman of the CSM. This determination remains the rule in all New Order territories." What does that even mean for a Code-abiding miner?

You might have noticed that I haven't said anything about the protection from being ganked by the Knights or by others who support the New Order being offered by paying and following the Code. That's because there isn't any. It does not exist. There is nothing in the Code that says that by following it, you will not be ganked by other New Order members or supporters. Any protection is, at best, implied, not stated anywhere. Oh, but the Code does say "Upon being suicide ganked, a miner should congratulate the ganker on his success." So when they do attack you, do remember to say GF!

Hivemind said...

"They are leeching on those who would like to have more ISK via effort"

As I already pointed out, it takes just as much effort to mine ice if you go AFK after starting the cycle as it does if you stay at your keyboard for the whole process. At-keyboard mining doesn't involve any additional work.

"Similarly in WoW the loser team also receives honor, so the AFK-optimum would be no one doing anything and the time goes up, everyone gets this honor for nothing."

And would that be a problem for you, if you never encountered it? The existence of a couple of teams made entirely of AFKers who never crossed your path, content to just sit there and wait out the match timer? Because as I understand it your problem with BG leeches was them dragging down groups of players who wanted to play and wanted to compete and win with the leeches' desire to just get easy honour. As you say yourself, "pushing in a WoW BG and losing due to half team AFK is worse than losing without effort".

As I've said, the effort that goes into AFK mining and the effort that go into at-keyboard mining is identical; the same buttons, pressed at the same time for the same reward. This is not the same as a group of people having to put in additional effort to carry a slacker.

Dàchéng said...

While the New Order prefers to target active miners who have not paid a protection fee to targetting AFK miners who have paid it, it is clear that this is just a protection racket.

Debra Tao said...

The rationnal attitude would be to NOT pay and not follow the code. It's quite simple, either ice miners find a way to continue their AFK activity or they better have to change what they are doing.

The income of ice mining is so low that paying attention to your client once every 30 minutes is a fair effort considering themoney you are making. However if something like the code force miner to remain at their keybords the only rationnal behavior is to run missions, rats or whatever because the income/effort would be incredibly low.

I love minerbumping.com, i really enjoy James'stories but there is nothing rationnal here, just griefing and endless amount of tears.

Anonymous said...

just make some alts with skiffs or ventures to provide warpin to the gank squad. No one will suspect a mining ship :P

mordis mydaddy said...

@Hivemind, you are right that this is a protection racket that offers no protection. If you ever have the opportunity to sit in one of their "claimed" systems, you will see that paying their fee only affirms your weakness in their eyes and they will harass you even more. As you have seen, James actually encourages his minions to gank ALL miners, even those who have followed his every dictate...and then requires them to praise and congratulate the ganker. Like you, I have said before even the most moronic people would not be bothered with this scam. Only botters would pay to be left alone.

Tithian said...

In one of the lastest posts, a member is shown to infiltrate a mining corp and then kill a mining fleet that was following word-by-word your 'proper' way to mine:

a) they were not afk (since they were active in fleet chat, started aligning immedieately and some of them got out)
b) they were in a fleet with freighter and orca support (I assume boosts)

After seeing that, I can only believe that this is a very well veiled protection racket and most of the members just do this for the tears/lols.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind part 1: I'm not James. I aligned with him since our goals seem to align for the time being. It does not mean I fully agree with him. It means there are more that connects us than divide.

@Hivemind part 2: An active miner isn't watching the screen while the Mack AFK mines. The active miner:
- is in a mining fleet or in the process of forming one
- does not use a Mack but a Hulk for yield or Skiff for protection
- does not dock with ore/ice but fills it to Orca or Jetcan
- communicates with his fleet, educating and be educated
- ready to protect himself and his fleet from gankers (dscan, local, ECM drones...)

@Dacheng: no, it means that the New Order is yet small and forced to go for softer targets.

@Debra Tao: if active mining is too low ISK/hour then yes indeed you should move to other activities. However you don't seem to see that the reason why mining ISK/hour is low is that bots/AFK-ers flood the market with ice/ore.

@mordis mydaddy: I've not once seen a single gank or bump against active, permit-holding miners. I do not say that it did not happen, I just say it's not the norm, if it happened it was a bad egg.

@Chris K.: I've said thousand times that only PvP-only pilots should be in player corps. If you are a miner and not in an NPC corp, you are doing it wrong. Yes, it's bad design.

Also, they were not permit holders and they actively rallied against the New Order.

Anonymous said...

Hivemind, along with many others, brings up all valid points in my mind. It is exactly because of these contradictions that I have not thrown my support to James315.

As a very active miner/industrialist ice mining is an activity that I do rely on at least once a week to support my income. An increase in ice profits would be very welcome to me and my corp members, as would a reduction in bot populations. However I cannot support such an organization as the New Order precisely because of the glaring loopholes contained in the code. Were those to be fixed i am confident that the New Order would more than triple its ranks overnight. I know that it would recieve both my financial and physical support and the backing of most in my corporation.

Finally, requiring people to talk in local chat is a problem. With my corp, most of us are in teamspeak if we are online. This combined with a strict "never talk in local" corporate policy would immediately make us targets, regardleas of the fact that we only mine while at our keyboards.

Tithian said...

This doesn't change the fact that they had no qualms in killing a fleet that was clearly not AFK and was not botting.

This just further proves that the 'New Order' is interested just in ganks on people that don't pay up, not in stopping bot-aspirant gameplay.

(and besides, them being in a player corp made no difference in this instance, since their own corp-mates were the gankers - they did not die to a wardec)

Anonymous said...

Are you keeping stats on how you classify different miners you come across? I'd be really interested to see the breakdown of miners between:

-Suspected bots
-AFK miners
-semi-AFK miners (ie mining on a secondary account while they do something else on their main account)
-Active miner
-Active miner in organized corp/alliance gang

Gevlon said...

@Chris K: the "extortion" claim is nonsense since we demand 10M which is pocket change for even a 1 day old newbie. The payment is rather a psychological commitment than financial. It is important to make the person think about it and commit. Same with the Bio. The active miner who doesn't pay and doesn't change Bio is someone saying "I don't support you". I'm sorry but in this war there is no place for neutrals. You are with the bot-gankers or the bots.

You can't kill corp members in the NPC corp and you can't join a one-man corp, so being in a "real" player corp makes you both wardeccable and awoxable. You shouldn't be in a player corp in highsec. Bad design, see Monday post.

Anonymous said...

"in this war there is no place for neutrals" - I did not expect such social phrase to become your motto. Isn't that the phrase used by various dictators to force people doing something they don't want? You are either with us, or you are an enemy? Sounds like North Korea. You are basicly forcing individuals to align themselves with some social gruop. Why would an a-social person do that?

Tithian said...

The thing is, this reminds me of pirate ransoms: sure, that guy that has you webbed/scrammed demanding a ranson to not pop you MAY be honest and will keep his end of the bargain. However most pirates will pop you anyway, so why bother paying?

This is the same thing. While it's true that 10 mil/year is trivial, people will always suspect (in some cases correctly) that you will bump/gank them anyway in the first opportunity, making them seem like suckers to their peers that didn't pay up.

Also, being in an NPC corp sucks balls and the #1 advice on the Newcomer forum section is "get in a player corp - make friends". Otherwise, you might as well play solo and you know how solo-friendly EVE is. It might not affect you personally, being a-social, but doing anything worthwhile in a sandbox will require that you get into a community.

Anonymous said...

I take issue with your definition of "active"

"- is in a mining fleet or in the process of forming one
- does not use a Mack but a Hulk for yield or Skiff for protection
- does not dock with ore/ice but fills it to Orca or Jetcan
- communicates with his fleet, educating and be educated"

So if I am in a fleet, which does not happen to be a mining fleet, and am mining while chatting on voice with my fleet, I am not active. I have been in fleets with 1-2 miners while the rest are combat ships doing various combaty tasks, with fleeting for the purpose of...well, educating ^^
If I am using a mack, even while in a mining fleet, I am not active.
If I choose to dock each time (because I am just mining to do something instead of ship spinning, and I can update my market orders from space), I am not active?
How will you verify a miner is "educating and being educated"?

Selling permits to miners is hardly new, although, most trainee pirate corps recognise the value of repeat customers.

I also agree with hivemind, I do not see how the leeching occurs, I can be AFK at an iceblock, on voice, in the right ship, and by all appearances at my keyboard due to someone in fleet keeping watch...who am I leeching off again?

Also, this seems terribly social for a self proclaimed anti-social (not a-social).

Unknown said...

I think you're learning what ethics and morality really are. Your code of behavior (don't afk-mine and support efforts to reduce afk-mining) is one particular ethic. If your side, the side that you align yourself with and fight for, is defined by a standard of behavior rather than a particular name (e.g. name of person, name of corporation, name of alliance), then you're doing some kind of ethics. Imagine if on the other side of the Eve universe a nigh-identical movement against afk-miners had started and grown, and somehow you were only hearing about it now. Would you merge with them happily or at least come to some "mutual recognition" agreement? If so, then you're an ethical player.

There are alternative standards of behavior (e.g. do not scam, no taxation without representation), and people can have legitimate longstanding disagreements about which standard of behavior we ought to hold ourselves to.

Of course there are other reasons for conflict, such as misunderstanding of fact. Someone who believes (mistakenly) that the New Order is merely a scam might conflict with the New Order without disagreeing about which standard of behavior we ought to hold ourselves to.

However, advocating for one standard of behavior over others is called "ethics" or "morality".

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: I know how bad "you are with us or an enemy". But there is a reason why most nullsec is "not blue don't shoot". It's simply too much effort to figure out if a neutral is a harmless passerby or an enemy scout who'll light a cyno. Easier to just kill them all. It's wrong. But it works.

@Chris K.: The New Order honors the payment and it can easily be seen: other, permit holder miners are safely mining in the same belt.

Also the main problem with player corp is that it's only for "making friends". You don't play with them, you are still solo, just chat with them in the meantime.

@Second anonymous: the definition of active miner is simply "at the keyboard". A miner watching a Mack getting full is active, just stupid. My list is telling how much more an active miner could be than the cycle watcher.

@Johnicholas Hines: I just did that, find the minerbumping.com team and joined them. I would rather call it mutual interest than ethics, see Friday post

Hivemind said...

"I'm not James. I aligned with him since our goals seem to align for the time being. It does not mean I fully agree with him."

But your "Why was I ganked?" post links to the Code, and back in your "Considering the New Order" post you've given us screenshots showing you advocating the Code and taking up arms... well, bumpers in its name. Either you agree with the Code you've been shilling, or you don't in which case what are you doing preaching it?

Druur Monakh said...

@Gevlon "My list is telling how much more an active miner could be than the cycle watcher."

No. Your list is telling miners what they must be, because if they don't do that stuff, you come after them in your Catalyst. And if I'm not mistaken, you're not mining yourself, so you'd be again passing judgement on an area of gameplay you have no actual knowledge about (apart from one miserably failed mining op).

And "Your with us or against us" is a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: I accept it with its "strange" bits. Let me compare myself to a republician American under Obama. He isn't happy about Obama being the president and disagree with him, but still don't abandon the USA and forfeit his citizenship. Cooperation don't require perfect agreement.

@Druur Monakh: no, I gank them if they are AFK/bot. If he is in a Mack alone but not AFK, has his Bio set, I won't gank him. He is stupid for doing that though.

Camo said...

Gevlon: "About "forcing them into a playstyle". That is the definition of "making a story", or "making a difference".

I agree that the New Order is currently in an altruistic phase. However I hope that the active miners will gain enough strength to carry on the order, now for self-interest."


The problem is that forced people may stop to advance the cause once the force is removed.
Today they might comply because it is easier than standing against it, but if you turn your back they start to slack, forcing you to watch over them for all eternity.
To protect yourself from burnout, you need to plant the idea in their mind which can not be done through force.
People have to think about it and think on their own.

"Easier to just kill them all. It's wrong. But it works."

Would you eradicate Sugars mining fleet if they lack a permit?
The code says yes despite them representing the active miner you want to create.
It isn't even the situation of the smart guy in a Wintergrasp catapult who is punished to prevent MS from failing.

Gevlon said...

@Camo: actually it is. I wouldn't be able to enforce the other miners if I look over that. Of course - like with every other miner - I'd persuade them to pay up and change their Bio. If they resist, I'd have to kill them. I'm sure Sugar would understand, as she kills spaceships for less.

Jim L said...

Gevlon, by your own definition you are a leech. Remember back in your WoW days how you used to brag about doing inscription/jewelcrafting while AFK or alt-tabbed out. That is no different than an AFK ice miner.

Hivemind said...

"Let me compare myself to a republician American under Obama. He isn't happy about Obama being the president and disagree with him, but still don't abandon the USA and forfeit his citizenship. Cooperation don't require perfect agreement."

Except that to the extent the law allows, the Republican doesn't "cooperate" with the Democratic president - he votes for Republican candidates for the House and the Senate, when the next Presidential election rolls around he votes for the Republican candidate. In between, he might spread the opinion that the Democrats are doing a poor job and Republicans would do better among his friends, he might take that further by writing to the editors of papers, or even forming a grass roots organisation to support Republican causes and/or oppose Democratic ones.

My point is he doesn't just shrug, say "Well, we've got a democratic president, might as well jump in line with everything he wants", which seems to be what you're advocating here.

Bing Bangboom said...

Those of you who are saying you have witnessed Code compliant miners (ie, have purchased a permit) being bumped or ganked are lying. This does not occur. Agents and Knights of the New Order are diligent in not targeting compliant miners. By saying this you attempt to reduce the New Order to a opportunistic, protection racket. We are not.

The 10,000,000 ISK and the bio statement are proof of a miners commitment to the New Halaima Code of Conduct. The refusal to pay is similarly proof of non commitment. Saying The Code has loopholes and is incomplete is just an excuse to not pay. When I ask a miner where his permit is and he either doesn't respond or responds in a negative manner, I will bump him. I will continue to bump him until he either 1) buys a permit, 2) leaves the ice field or 3) receives a visit from the Knights.

I can personally tell you that miners are not non-compliant because the feel The Code is incomplete. They are non compliant because they are stubborn and intend to persist in their bot aspirant behavior. They invoke their personal honor and their ability to do whatever they like. Like the other Agents of the New Order I am there to prove to them that we control Highsec and their ability to mine there. As James 315 says at www.minerbumping.com, we say who can mine and who cannot. We have demonstrated our ability to enforce this in several systems and our ability to cover larger areas is expanding.

Over 135 billion ISK in lost ships and pods in the last six weeks. (that's 13,500 years worth of permits). Hundreds of miners bumped out of mining range. New Knights and Agents joining every day. Wardecs, anti-bumpers, vultures and space lawyers can't stop us.

Just pay the 10,000,000 ISK and declare your support.

Highsec is worth fighting for.

Bing Bangboom
Agent of the New Order of Highsec
Belligerent Undesirable

Debra Tao said...

Just type "questor forum" in google, the first link will give you a site, look at the forum. This is the most well-known community of botter related to eve online. There are only 3 reasons for CCP to ban a botter :
1- they rmt. In that case CCP always catch the botter
2- don't know how to protect himself
3- spend too much time online with perfect/optimized comportement

Long story short : there are no reasons for botter to mine rather than to run lvl4s and even better those that have tried mining in high sec get ban extremey quickly.

Ice mining price isn't the result of botter, it's the result of AFK people and the low price is good for everyone and it won't change unless you find a way to enforce the code in every system all day long people will always afk when ice mining because it's in their best interest (unless they want to die from boredom). The amount of fun AND the income for an active ice miner make this activity simply not worth it.

So back to step one : a rationnal miner should try to avoid the new order and never never give tears or isk to any agent. Actually miners shouldn't talk at all and just dock or change system.

That being said i fully support the new order because i am not an ice miner, i simply don't think that's in the best interest of miners to follow the code.

Druur Monakh said...

@Gevlon "has his Bio set"

Just another arbitrary 'must' you impose - one which isn't even in the remotest connected to an M&S attitude or lack thereof.

But hey, as long as you can feel superior over others, it's all good. Right?

Frostys said...

@Jim L

JC/Inscription is the industry profession not the gathering one. The time sink on crafting be it seconds in WoW or hours in EvE is only there to put a limit on what you can do. It was proved to be a non active action by the fact that blizz added a create all button to the interface. You could not afk mine or herb without a bot no matter how big your bags were.

Gevlon said...

@Druur Monakh: no, it's called "bureaucracy". The real life driving license is a SIGNAL of you learned driving. The cops will punish you if you drive without license even if you can drive perfectly and just let your license lapse.

The Bio is the same. A quick signal that you support the movement and aware of the rules.

Hivemind said...

@Bing Bangboom

"By saying this you attempt to reduce the New Order to a opportunistic, protection racket. We are not."

Actually, if you are forcing players to give you money under threat of violence in order for you to not violence them, you are a protection racket. You are protecting them from something, and the fact that something is yourselves is what makes it a racket.

"I can personally tell you that miners are not non-compliant because the feel The Code is incomplete."

I am a miner, I am never going to sign up to your code because of the rather long list of issues I have with it that I've posted above. If you want me to make it very simple though, I will always consider buying a permit under the current code pointless, because while there are no guidelines for how much is "excessive" mining, I'm pretty sure the amount I mine would qualify.

@Frostys

"It was proved to be a non active action by the fact that blizz added a create all button to the interface."

And Mining, in particular Ice Mining, was proved to be a non active action by the fact that CCP added effectively infinite volume iceteroids and 35km3 ore hold Mackinaws. But apparently taking advantage of this is "Leeching" now.

@Gevlon

"The Bio is the same. A quick signal that you support the movement and aware of the rules."

Once again, with the nature of the Code it's impossible for anyone except possibly James 315 to be "aware of the rules".

Bing Bangboom said...

@ Hivemind

"I am a miner, I am never going to sign up to your code because of the rather long list of issues I have with it that I've posted above. If you want me to make it very simple though, I will always consider buying a permit under the current code pointless, because while there are no guidelines for how much is "excessive" mining, I'm pretty sure the amount I mine would qualify."

I understand what your concerns are. You have decided that your best course is not to buy a mining permit and to not support the New Order. This is, of course, your choice. And our choice is to either bump or gank you. Do I guarantee that this will happen? Of course not. Highsec is huge and we cannot be everywhere. Yet. You may have a nice little corner of space that we haven't penetrated.

But if the odds go against you and you lose your mining ship and implants to a Knight attack you will know that you chose that outcome. As each miner who has been bumped, ganked or podded before you, the choice is either buy the permit and support the New Order or oppose us and be subject to the repercussions. Many of them probably thought similarly to you and never expected that the next one ganked would be them. Until the red flashy ships suddenly appeared right next to them and enlightenment flooded in. Along with anti-matter.

Unless they were afking bots of course and then I think we both agree that death and destruction were their due.

Highsec is worth fighting for.

Bing Bangboom
Agent of the New Order of Highsec
Belligerent Undesirable

Hivemind said...

@ Bing Bangboom

I think you're missing my point, and you're also misrepresenting the situation. You said "You have decided that your best course is not to buy a mining permit and to not support the New Order." but you're ignoring that that's not all there is - I would also be required to follow the Code. Setting aside the personal issues I have with the ambiguous wording, lack of specifics and that whole "It can never be fully written down" thing, there's the obvious one that I pointed out; my mining almost certainly violates the Code by being "excessive". Changing that to comply with your Code would cost me a lot more than just 10 million ISK in terms of lost profits. So long as you don't have a stranglehold on hisec, it's far more cost-effective for me to avoid you and not worry about conforming to your Code. In the unlikely event that you ever do achieve a stranglehold on hisec, it would be more cost-effective for me to switch to an alternate source of ISK than hisec mining, perhaps nullsec mining or missioning, than it would be to cut my income to conform to your code.

"Unless they were afking bots of course and then I think we both agree that death and destruction were their due."

Don't put words in my mouth, thanks. I'm opposed to actual automation mimicing player input to the EVE client, because it's against the EULA. I have nothing more against players who mine while AFK than I do against any other miner who's providing competition for me. As I've said repeatedly in previous comments, AFK miners and at-keyboard miners put in the same amount of effort to mine the same amount; they start mining when they're empty and unload when they're full. That is it.

Bing Bangboom said...

@ Hivemind

Sorry if my interpretation of your thinking isn't very complimentary but I think it is accurate. You don't intend to follow The Code for your own reasons. You are honest in accepting that this may or may not have an effect on your future mining endeavors. I also acknowledge that you are one of the few (but not only) miners who I have discussed the New Order with that won't comply because they think they can't actually follow The Code honestly.

I am fascinated by your statement that AFK mining is ok because it is allowed by the EULA. Since we have it from CCP Falcon himself that miner bumping is allowed by the EULA (at this time) you have effectively negated all the criticism of the New Order as being somehow in violation of the anti-griefing clauses of the EULA. So we agree there (don't we?).

James 315 is very clear in the discussion of The Code that The Code is steps beyond the EULA. In enforcing it, we Agents are trying to make things better than the current state of Highsec, not just legalistically compliant with the EULA. An AFK miner is thumbing his nose at the concept that Eve is a dark, dangerous place and that he must take steps to protect himself. We just show him, in our own fashion, that he is mistaken. Those who are not AFK but choose to not support the New Order and The New Halaima Code of Conduct give him aid and cover. So they are the same to us. In the war between the bots and the New Order, if you are not on our side... well, you are on the other. You may consider yourself "neutral" but we do not so, effectively, you aren't.

All that being said, I don't think we would actually want to drive away someone interested enough in the New Order to have these discussions. This is clearly an issue with a lot of angles and I enjoy viewing them all.

Highsec is worth fighting for.

Bing Bangboom
Agent of the New Order of Highsec
Belligerent Undesirable

Hivemind said...

@ Bing Bangboom

"I am fascinated by your statement that AFK mining is ok because it is allowed by the EULA."

That's not exactly what I said - I said I'm OK with it because an AFK miner and an at-keyboard miner put in the same amount of effort for the same amount of reward. They even use the same process; start lasers, wait for ore hold to fill, unload ore hold, restart. The only difference is what they're doing during the waiting period, which won't have any effect on the final mining yield.

"You have effectively negated all the criticism of the New Order as being somehow in violation of the anti-griefing clauses of the EULA."

I'm not sure why that's relevant, given that it doesn't matter what players think the EULA allows/doesn't allow, it's what CCP think that matters. Since you bought it up, as I understand it bumping purely to annoy miners is still harassment, but because James 315/the New Order offer an out for their victims in the form of the 10 mil ISK permit/indulgence, it's not purely to annoy people and thus not classed as harassment. I think it might be interesting to see how far that extends - for example if I publicly declare that I will never pay no matter how much I am bumped, would that take away the reasonable expectation of profit and make any further bumping pure harassment again? I'd expect the answer to be no, but it would be up to CCP to make that call, just like it's within their power to decide that bumping is harassment even if there's ISK involved.

Anonymous said...

Sins of a Solar Spymaster #43 - Rethinking Profit in EVE