The nullsec curse is that living in null is less profitable than living in high, despite the PR says that with increasing danger, there is increasing profit. The reason for it is the necessity of PvP and the large amount of players who PvP for fun. They don't count their hours, neither in farming opportunity cost, nor for optimal killboard results, so they can harass you for free, while being harassed is not free for you: it has opportunity cost of lost income. The result is that economically oriented players stay in highsec.
I faced the same in WH space. I have a neighbor, not of a nice kind. I asked around for mercenaries to get him removed. It would cost more than everything I have in that hole, including pods. So just throwing out everything would be better option than paying the mercs. No, the mercs aren't charging too high, one was nice enough to explain their costs that includes scan a way out of their C6, travel dozens of jumps in highsec, doing the job and then return to their C6. All with several pilots, under wardec in highsec. So their price wasn't inflated, but it still didn't worth it. Please don't say that "consider it an investment, the WH will pay for it", as I get no guarantee that tomorrow someone else don't come in, being the same trouble, getting me another merc bill.
Of course I could learn to PvP and do the job myself, but then why should I remain in my WH when I could turn into an expensive merc myself? I've checked several merc forums, most clients seem to be butthurt who want revenge, the costs be damned. I could get a slice of that!
I spent several hours scanning down wormholes for a new home. Found 10 C1-high and C2-high systems. All were occupied. While there must be empty WH systems, I can say without doubt that the majority is already taken. So the curse is that a PvE player can't profitably live in a WH due to its PvP cost. The WHs are populated by PvP-ers who do some PvE when having nothing to do. Of course as the PvE players are missing, the targets of PvP is missing, and "PvP" means "rolling holes all night to get a hauler kill". Which leads to:
Why did the Nullsec curse hit Nullsec less than WH space? At first, because of power projection and local channel, it's easier to find "fights" (ganks) in nullsec. The typical nullseccer doesn't care about the lack of income, he is happy blowing up stuff in a reimbursed battlecruiser. Such PvP is impossible in WH space.
But the other reason is more interesting: nullsec and lowsec constantly has new player influx. Why? Because a solo player or a very small group of friends can move to lowsec or nullsec at will. Of course not to take sov, but to live in some less active space, using the safety of the stations and the logistics of Black Frog in NPC space. On the other hand, there is no "NPC wormhole" space. As every piece of land is taken, you have to come out with guns slinging, taking "sov" from an occupant and protecting it from anyone or losing all assets.
To make it worse, there are no huge zerg armies that can use one more F1-pushing grunt. While WH corps are recruiting, they all demand PvP experience and good history, neither what is available to a new player or a highsec carebear wanting to stop being a highsec carebear. These problems practically lock down WH space from new players, removing the influx of new wormholers, providing no new food to top WH players, making them bored.
I'm sure that if someone wants to "save" WH space, make more players go there, he must start a newbie-friendly project. Something that provides safety and guidance to players who want to try out WH space. Some will find it not fitting his taste and leave. But some will grow fangs and join the more powerful WH entities, providing both new members and new targets.
If I can figure out a way to make that possible, I have my next project. But currently it doesn't look good. I mean "hire mercs for the 1-year income of a Wormhole just to get in" doesn't look viable. The "experienced WH-players should go altruist and welcome newbies (read: spies)" look even worse. Those who want to press F1 while drunk are already in nullsec and WH-space can never compete with the "click titan, press jump, receive instant PvP" of nullsec. The project must be financially profitable for both the newbie and the veteran.
Finally the project must be individualistic, at least on the newbie side. Not just because I like that, but because the main benefit of highsec is that you do want, when you want. The "give full API, do what's told, when told, ask no questions" isn't that lucrative. If you say that finding a solution is not easy, I agree.
PS: I assume AHARM and Blood union mentioned in the SYJ alliance page are WH groups. Anyone can guide me to a "WH politics" page or series of posts that introduces who are relevant in WH space?
I faced the same in WH space. I have a neighbor, not of a nice kind. I asked around for mercenaries to get him removed. It would cost more than everything I have in that hole, including pods. So just throwing out everything would be better option than paying the mercs. No, the mercs aren't charging too high, one was nice enough to explain their costs that includes scan a way out of their C6, travel dozens of jumps in highsec, doing the job and then return to their C6. All with several pilots, under wardec in highsec. So their price wasn't inflated, but it still didn't worth it. Please don't say that "consider it an investment, the WH will pay for it", as I get no guarantee that tomorrow someone else don't come in, being the same trouble, getting me another merc bill.
Of course I could learn to PvP and do the job myself, but then why should I remain in my WH when I could turn into an expensive merc myself? I've checked several merc forums, most clients seem to be butthurt who want revenge, the costs be damned. I could get a slice of that!
I spent several hours scanning down wormholes for a new home. Found 10 C1-high and C2-high systems. All were occupied. While there must be empty WH systems, I can say without doubt that the majority is already taken. So the curse is that a PvE player can't profitably live in a WH due to its PvP cost. The WHs are populated by PvP-ers who do some PvE when having nothing to do. Of course as the PvE players are missing, the targets of PvP is missing, and "PvP" means "rolling holes all night to get a hauler kill". Which leads to:
Why did the Nullsec curse hit Nullsec less than WH space? At first, because of power projection and local channel, it's easier to find "fights" (ganks) in nullsec. The typical nullseccer doesn't care about the lack of income, he is happy blowing up stuff in a reimbursed battlecruiser. Such PvP is impossible in WH space.
But the other reason is more interesting: nullsec and lowsec constantly has new player influx. Why? Because a solo player or a very small group of friends can move to lowsec or nullsec at will. Of course not to take sov, but to live in some less active space, using the safety of the stations and the logistics of Black Frog in NPC space. On the other hand, there is no "NPC wormhole" space. As every piece of land is taken, you have to come out with guns slinging, taking "sov" from an occupant and protecting it from anyone or losing all assets.
To make it worse, there are no huge zerg armies that can use one more F1-pushing grunt. While WH corps are recruiting, they all demand PvP experience and good history, neither what is available to a new player or a highsec carebear wanting to stop being a highsec carebear. These problems practically lock down WH space from new players, removing the influx of new wormholers, providing no new food to top WH players, making them bored.
I'm sure that if someone wants to "save" WH space, make more players go there, he must start a newbie-friendly project. Something that provides safety and guidance to players who want to try out WH space. Some will find it not fitting his taste and leave. But some will grow fangs and join the more powerful WH entities, providing both new members and new targets.
If I can figure out a way to make that possible, I have my next project. But currently it doesn't look good. I mean "hire mercs for the 1-year income of a Wormhole just to get in" doesn't look viable. The "experienced WH-players should go altruist and welcome newbies (read: spies)" look even worse. Those who want to press F1 while drunk are already in nullsec and WH-space can never compete with the "click titan, press jump, receive instant PvP" of nullsec. The project must be financially profitable for both the newbie and the veteran.
Finally the project must be individualistic, at least on the newbie side. Not just because I like that, but because the main benefit of highsec is that you do want, when you want. The "give full API, do what's told, when told, ask no questions" isn't that lucrative. If you say that finding a solution is not easy, I agree.
PS: I assume AHARM and Blood union mentioned in the SYJ alliance page are WH groups. Anyone can guide me to a "WH politics" page or series of posts that introduces who are relevant in WH space?
32 comments:
Tell me why what Foo is doing doesn't count?
gevlon,
what about focusing on the ghost sites and working towards finding gate parts so you will be ready to build a gate and go to the new lands? look to the long term. keep making your profits and spend your time hacking the ghost sites. the new lands ie. space that is coming in a few years is the future of eve. if you have a corp ready to go and geared towards that future you have a win.
Several thoughts from a wormholer:
1) The circled items on the SYJ page are likely intended to be humorous. Take them with a grain of salt.
2) You do bring up an interesting point about "no NPC wspace". I'm not sure how I'd solve it without doing something really dumb, but it is an interesting concept and I'll mention it to my corp, which happens to include James Arget and Chitsa Jason who are both on CSM. We do want to see new blood in wspace.
3) No zerg F1 pushers is GOOD. Most wormholers either left null or never went there in the first place due to that crap. They can keep their tidi and their F1s and their alarm clock CTAs. We LIKE mass limits, thank you.
4) AHARM = Aperture Harmonics, the former kings of C6 Wspace and the corp of former CSM Two Step. Blood Union is another large group still in the fight, Russian IIRC. Other big groups include KILL, SSC, Whale Girth/NOHO and a handful of others at the C5/C6 level. C1-C3 space is actually pretty vibrant with new corps with some fight - but the "social" piece of wormholes (for defense and eviction as you're finding) is even stronger than elsewhere.
5) You may have the best luck in a C4 hole connected to a C1/C2. It's a bit more work but C4s are very isolated by the WH static system, connected more often to themselves than anything else. This makes them a bit safer than C5/C6, and a bit more available and lucrative than a C1-3.
How do you find the, for want of a better word, inconvenience of WH? e.g. scanning, bookmarking, ...
I certainly would not find the minutia interesting; it seems like it is quite different than what the lolpvp or F1-drone want and busywork does not make the ISK/hour player happy.
The organization, logistics and "social" (recruiting, motivating, training) aspects of getting new players to be viable in WH seems large.
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Isn't the biggest appeal of WH - very different for a small niche of players also it's fatal flaw? Nulsec has the ear of CCP; Nulsec can drive CSM and has former residents become CCP employees. It seems to me WH lack both the numbers and organization to drive much.
How are you looking for wormholes? If you are solely looking in HS, keep in mind that there are more than 3x as many C1s with HS exits as there are wandering WHs from HS to C1. Since exits need to be spawned, most of the WHs you find this way will be inhabited.
Perhaps you're already doing this, but I hop in the first WH I find and to through the entire chain looking for a home. When I'm done for the day, I go back to a system with a static to my desired type and log off there to try my luck the next day with a new chain that I know will start with a prospect
Admittedly I'm not looking for c1s, but it's never taken me more than 3 sessions to find an unoccupied home, where I live til I feel the urge to move back to LS or when I occasionally get kicked out
Also you may be a victim of your blog here. Unfriendly neighbors have generally gotten bored with me relatively quickly. But again I don't know the details of your situation.
@Ragelle: Foo has 3 holes with no real prospect or intention to grow. It's not bad what they do, but not relevant either.
@Rhavas: maybe they are joking, but they did left WH space to become a mediocre null alliance, so they mean the core idea.
3: The zerg F1 pushing is a good entrance to clueless newbie. Of course it's bad that many get stuck on that level. Seeing a year+ player in anything below battleship is sad.
@Anonymous: this is the problem. WH space neither provides lolPvP that Null/Low does, nor the ISK high does.
@Michael: C1 exits are spawned by people who are travelling from higher WHs to highsec.
Foo seems relevant to me. If he can run three, you can too. You can train newbs in one system, much less three.
I think your idea of how easy it is to get in wspace is way off. You can live in wspace out of an Orca. Or these days, even a T3 with a mobile depot. You can live in a hole occupied by someone who does not know you are there. Or find an empty one and live light there.
I lived (in a POS) in a C1/hs for a few months when I entered wspace. People came in "my" hole, and I made friends with all of them. But maybe I was lucky. I don't know.
What is hard is finding prime real estate unoccupied. That's what highsec exits are: prime real estate. Great farms due to the guaranteed access to Jita.
Find a way to make a lowsec or null static pay; there are plenty of those available. Or do what I did: move up to higher wspace. I have no guaranteed highsec, but with a C4/C3 static, we tend to get a C3 with highsec about once or twice a week. This is enough to work with. You cannot do some kinds of manufacture involving really bulky stuff. But it's not much of a loss. There are plenty of ways to profit from your own POSes.
There are often C4s I see empty, especially those with crappy WH effects.
Or learn how to fight just a bit. You can run a dreadnaught. Find a C1, move in, build one. Anyone unfriendly comes in, smash. They'll get the message (or they'll kill your dread).
The foo corps are growing. Due to population pressures, what was one wormhole became 2, and is now 3. I intend to add to those population pressures.
I am still recruiting off the back of highsec PI changes, though I was hoping for more.
Some do well, others scrape by.
There are some joint activities, but the majority of pilots are solo.
If you want to be left alone, living in a C1/C2 is NOT the way to do it. These systems have frequent direct access to K-space... the way those of us who fight in WH's move is either via rolling our static or by moving through K-space.
C4 is a no mans land. A C4 blackhole is a major pain in the neck for anyone to invade. A C4 with a static C2 will give you almost constant highsec access. You'll need at least 2 characters that can scan, one to leave home incase your static gets closed.
I used to live in a C4 system and never once in 18 months got invaded.
Also if you are living light, the best way to avoid an attack is to just load stuff into an orca and log it off. Let them bash away at your tower for ages if they want. They are going to get nothing. Once they go away, log the orca back in, drop another tower and start again.
Your problem is you wont listen. You don't listen. You think you know it all. And you don't. C1 and C2 space is a highly populated, highly trafficked, low income zone.
as for WH politics.. circling some SYJ propaganda and using that as the basis of some enlightenment is hilarious even by your standards.
For the record AHARM are part NOHO now.
And 1y+ flying less than a BS being sad... i have never laughed so hard in my life.
@Gevlon
Michael is right. And if all you are finding are occupied C1s, you are doing it wrong.
I ran a C1 with a bunch of noob alts for around 6 months and got attacked twice overall, both times short lived. It only took me a couple of days to find an empty WH to call my own and I rarely saw another person. It sounds like you've just got found yourself a bit of bad luck. If you've essentially got a camper though and you are adamant you don't want to fight, your best bet is to pop some fuel and extra guns on your POS, jump a guy out of the WH, then just don't log anyone on in it for a few days. Most campers get bored very quickly if nobody is even logging on and will leave.
@Gevlon "Seeing a year+ player in anything below battleship is sad."
Battleships are clumsy, boring, and have specific use cases. I can fly all four races' battleships incl. T2 weaponry, but I prefer not to and hence rarely ever do.
1 year+ and flying battlecruiser? I was in an alphafleet 1400mm Maelstrom in something like 4 months after starting. With meta PDUs, can you dig it?
By the way, I’m not sure about SYJ? Just the other day I commented on Syncaine’s blog, he said he’s in a wormhole, and he’s in SYJ. Hey, maybe you should give him a call and work something out. I’m sure he’ll be delighted ……
“They don't count their hours, neither in farming opportunity cost, nor for optimal killboard results, so they can harass you for free, while being harassed is not free for you”. I can feel your anger. It almost sounds like… like… like you’re whining that play4fun, farmd4free people are ruining the(your) game…
Unfortunately you took your cue from SYJ - the most fail and pretentious WH group, and never a powerhouse.
NPC wormholes might be a fun little thought experiment.
Maybe a Sisters of Eve Station in a system or two, with 'stable' wormholes to each other, and hi-sec exits.
As an extension to this idea, have other wormhole exits cycle through all other WH systems, at a high rate, and you might be able to encourage a trading hub.
Russians already done that project. There is newbie training WH corp from alliance in 2-2 WH space.
Eve Univercity has a Wormhole Campus open to anyone with Sophomore rank (which takes about six weeks). See http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Wormhole_Campus for details.
If you go to wormhole space and don't want to PvP, you're going to have a bad time -- and you did. If you move into a C1 to generate isk from the C1, you're going to have a bad time as well.
Noobs can and do go to wh space. Me specifically and my UK friend both with less than a year in game. Moved into a C2 with another active tower in system. Turned out to be just one player farming the static C1. We got all Gevlon on him and farmed the C1 relentlessly before he logged on. Never fought him. Didn't attack his tower. Just deprived him of income until he packed up his tower and moved to nullsec.
Its only the two of us, so a daily C1 feeds us fine. We get lots of isk, lots of fights, and are having a great time.
Wormholes aren't dead. C6-C5/C6 are dead. Invading a well defended C5/C6 is very hard work that takes weeks to months of seeding capitals and rage rolling against entrenched locals with well stocked cap defense fleets and often large circles of friends. Skirmishing against neighbouring C5/C6 on the other hand usually devolves into massed T3 brawler blobs due to the nature of wormhole connections and mass limitations. The only PVP aside from that are ganks against site runners where the outcome is usually a foregone conclusion.
SYJ grew bored of those particular styles of effective but static PVP, so they left for an environment that allows for more variation in fleet doctrines. You're taking the leet-pvp rantings of one former WH group as fact and extrapolating it to all of W-space. The politics of their departure have nothing to do with money making opportunities. Cap escalations still allow for people to make stupid amounts of money without needing to resort to market spreadsheets.
@Steel
"1 year+ and flying battlecruiser? I was in an alphafleet 1400mm Maelstrom in something like 4 months after starting."
I guarantee a half awake cruiser pilot could down your maelstrom without breaking a sweat.
Bigger != Better.
In EVE all classes of ships have their place. Battleships are big, slow and find it hard to hit small fast targets at close range (I say hard to cover the times when someone's a moron and breaks his transversal with an MWD active, but usually it's impossible). If you go out to PVP solo in a battleship, you are doing it wrong.
@Anon
"Wormholes aren't dead."
Statistics beg to differ.
I've noticed its just the way it is with trading in Eve. When you count minutes at the keyboard vs income, there really isn't anything comprarable. There are great ones, but they require an inordinate amount of keyboard time comaritively. The one advantage WH space and some of the better anoms have is absolute profit over absolute time. You can probably walk into a C3 wormhole, and 24 hours later leave with more than I cna make in 24 hours, but you will have to spend a few hours in there.
I may only be able to pull a bn a day max as a trader, but have only 20 minutes in front of the computer that day.
the only answer really seems to be valuing end goals higher than you currently do, or consider investment for the payout above it's current costs in time.
I'm sure once that happens, those end goals will work out better. Sure merc groups cost more than the wormhole, but being able to bring in new players, spending the time and effort to train them (even paying the mercs to do that part) will eventually have a payoff, but with way more upfront capital and time invested.
Thats the problem, expecting a huge payoff, with little capital and time investment, is short sighted, and trading is really the only professin that can start that way
Well I think your problem has been solved already, sorry bro but you are really late to the party.
A: newbi friendly B: do what you when you want (doesn't happen there are 61 thousand other people who might disagree with you and force you change you plan) C: is profitable (it is all profit if you want to work at it).
So you might ask; What is the solution Providence of course or great wild lands both of which offer ease of access, opportunity to be null and oddly enough (once you learn the safest methods) results in minimal loss.
@Lukas Kell
Who said anything about solo PVP in a battleship? Noob...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sixDADVVnxA
I agree that most of w-space is taken. But it is actually very easy to find empty system if you stop searching ingame and start searching on http://wormholesales.com/.
BTW C4/4 space is much calmer. ;-)
SYJ left because BU started seeding caps in their home system. SYJ had a lot of heart, but they grew too big too soon and got a lot of bloat, and were never as effective as their propaganda would have you believe.
AHARM is back living in C6->C6 (Polaris actually) with the rest of NOHO.
C5 space isn't particularly dead - it's just dominated by a few very large corps at the moment, with a lot of the mid size corps using it to stage from for nullsec roams instead.
Things go in cycles though - and larger corps tend to be quite fissaparous.
Just go to the wormhole forums, and look at Chitsa's post if you want to know the main actors in w-space.
As ever, I expect you to get the wrong end of the stick.
@Steel
"Who said anything about solo PVP in a battleship? Noob..."
I was talking about your automatic belief that battleships are better, and that a 1 year+ player in a battlecruiser is a bad thing, retard.
Wormholes aren't any deader than they're used to be. We find far more active holes than active nullsec systems on our roams. By those standards null is dead even if all the major powerblocs are still alive and kicking.
@Anon
"Wormholes aren't any deader than they're used to be. We find far more active holes than active nullsec systems on our roams. By those standards null is dead even if all the major powerblocs are still alive and kicking."
In November, in WH space there were 42,359 ship kills and 3,223,689 rat kills.
In nullsec during the same period there were 263,513 ship kills and 89,628,270 rat kills.
In low there were 349,784 ships and 6,385,075 rats.
Just for completion, in high there were 423,724 ships and 165,610,300 rats.
They may not be any deader than they used to be, but they are still compared with other system types.
This is all available here:
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/stats/2013-11
and it's based off of CCPs kill stats API, not based off of killboards or anything like that, so it's (mostly) accurate.
By those same stats, just 10 out of 3294 nullsec systems accounted for 16.5% of all nullsec ship kills and 10 others accounted for 3.8% of all NPC kills. According to that, most of nullsec is deader than dead.
That's a pretty big leap. How did you arrive at that one?
I'f you'd said the top 10 had 50% of the overall kills I'd have agreed, but 16% still leaves the rest of nullsec with way more kills than the whole of WH space.
Not to mention that WH space doesn't get a stat breakdown like that, so you are unable to compare to the same stats on a WH.
But please, by all means proceed to tell us how null sec is dead and your precious WH space is teeming with players lol. It doesn't change what is actually the case, which is that WH space is dead, still...
We left c6 space because c6/c5 space was 'dead'. for us dead meant shit pvp. Multiple alliances had left or failscaded to the point that our pvp picking during our US tz were gone. For a large alliance like us it was near impossible to get 'goodfights' that weren't just us sitting logoffskies. We still do wh merc ops occasionally and we still have a presence in part of wspace as well.
WH space is not dead, there is tons of pvp in the lower classes and tons of money in the higher up areas. for us though money making was to fuel pvp and there just wasn't enough pvp. High class wh pvp is dead.
"SYJ left because BU started seeding caps in their home system."
Seeding happened way after the Alliance left system. The vast majority of players and assets had been removed. BU was going to take advantage of the situation but they were not the cause of it.
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