Greedy Goblin

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Not sure about safe corps anymore

One of my recurring suggestions is to create safe highsec corps that can't control structures, must pay the same NPC taxes as the NPC corp, but they can't be wardecced or awoxed either. They would be simply a version of the NPC corp with some group identity. I'm not that sure anymore.

Why? Because I've been reading the awoxing adventures of the New Order. Of course I knew earlier that they were awoxing. But reading their completely bizarre actions made me think if the awoxing and grief-deccing are bad at all. I mean those corps are clearly not a bunch of friends chilling while doing solo PvE. They are completely delusional and bizarre groups hoping for future progression (without any real hope). They are a permanent disappointment for the members. Please read the nonsense what the corp CEO wrote while open awoxers were still inside his corp:

My error was assuming that they are socials. Players who are fine with not progressing in the game, just chilling with friends. But they are delusional morons who believe that mining in highsec is somehow a first step on a journey that ends in a nullsec powerblock. We know it's not true. We know that a highsec miner - even if he doesn't quit the game for being bored - will at best "progress" into a missioner or a multibox miner, collecting ISK and having absolutely no effect on New Eden. No, I don't mean hundreds of Goons screaming "you do nothing anyway, so please stop". I mean no one even knows they exist.

My error is that I spent too much time fighting the social Goons to realize that they aren't the worst kind. The worst are the Morons and Slackers. You don't find this term in my recent posts, right? My bad.

I've always believed that the M&S are the root of all problems and we should focus on them. Why did I shift to fighting Goons? Because without a somewhat decent social group to progress into, there is no hope to fix the M&S. In WoW the progression is trivial: join a guild that actually raids. But in EVE, what should I tell them? "stop mining all day and become Goon minions instead" Not really motivating. N3 and PL wouldn't touch such noobs with a pole. I could send them to HERO too, but I've been in TEST. Twice. And considering from the recent Brave leadership drama, it seems kettle met pot. I wrote how newbies are only good for F1 pushing and paying tax. But where should they do that?

One thing is for sure: idiotic lolcorps must not exist. The gankers, wardeccers and awoxers are probably the only hope against these abominations. Any game mechanic change that would stop highsec griefing would be giving up on the players locked into these corps.

Before I can turn on the real problem, the M&S, I must fix the Goon problem or some other way find a decent place for those who are liberated from the M&S corps.


Talking about miners: Sugar found this horrible fit covetor + slave pod. Poor newbie (since 2006).

9 comments:

Von Keigai said...

Safe corps are still a good idea.

It is true that there are morons out there starting badcorps. It's also true that many newbs join these corps, which is probably not much good for the newb. Still, it's not like force is required to eject the newb from the badcorp. Indeed, I'd guess that a substantial fraction of highsec corps are bad, and they are not destroyed or awoxed. They just fade and die with the ebbing of player interest. Most newbs will figure out on their own that there is more to the game, and/or that their badcorp sucks. If they don't, they probably are not EVE material anyway.

Gevlon said...

Or, they just assume that their badcorp experience IS EVE and quit.

Anonymous said...

Mercenary alliance was huge in to mining back in the day, and I'm not even joking. Now Seleene, and BDCI are in PL. Many high SP characters don't like to admit it, but the have mined, and this blog posts implys that anyone that ever mines will never PvP, which is somewhat ridiculous, isn't the CEO's plan(who knows if the mail is truthful really) to convert miners into PvP just the kinda plan you want to convert M&S out of being M&S's?

Anonymous said...

Awoxing (killing the noobs or taking the corps assets etc) is most likely to result in turning noobs off corps entirely. Your perspective is totally different from theirs. Don't assume they will magically decide "hey, that awoxer sure taught me a good lesson" that's a cheap fallacy the griefers spin. They are most likely to be left confused and bitter. If they want to grow in the game casually an AWOX by the CODE or grief decking is only, at best, going to show them a: their corp may not be very good and or b: they can become like the awoxers. This means pirates if they're lucky, or highsec game mechanic greifers (CODE)if they're unlucky. Still doesn't help them learn the game and grow at their own pace. There are plenty of good corps and alliances out there too. My answer is to help new players understand how to research / shop for a decent corp. I have 2 suggestions: 1) The tutorials force newbs to work together for some time encouraging them to network so they can compare notes down the road and or 2) The university is CCP backed and promoted.

Anonymous said...

I have 90M SP. I've mined. I've missioned. I've run PL cap fleets. I've tower bashed. I've traded. I've pirated.

The beauty and curse of EVE is you can do whatever you want, regardless of your past.

Bads are always going to bad. Just let them; it doesn't diminish your experience.

calintor said...

For what its worth I've seen a number of not-too-bad hi sec corps killed by griefers like Marmite - a corp with a high proportion of new players has no way of either fighting or paying, so their experienced core abandon them.

Extending your idea of team PvP - how about semi permanent teams or squads inside the NPC corps. A group could get together and learn stuff before either starting a corp or joining one as a group.

Anonymous said...

The mail you highlighted seemed to be written by a guy with an out-of-control ego. I'm not sure ganking him would stop that either. It'll probably just reenforce his persecution complex and give him more external sources to blame for being bad (instead of addressing his own failings.) I'm also not sure that ganking or awoxing corps like this would do much good for newbies that fall into them. More often than just leaving the corp, they'll probably just see the game and the playerbase itself as overly hostile and not come back to the game.

Anonymous said...

The CODE / New Order blog is a propaganda machine. It is designed to convince you that their victims deserve what they get, both to neutralize potential opposition to their actions, and to encourage activity amongst their members.

An objective analysis would look at all corps, or at least a substantial number of them, randomly selected. It would not take cherry-picked examples, because they may be completely unrepresentative. CEOs don't necessarily represent the opinions of their members, and even if the membership of that corp agreed, one single corp cannot fairly represent all corps in highsec.

Most players don't want to reshape the EVE universe as you do. They just want to relax in a FUN videogame. If EVE stops being fun for them due to wardecs, awoxing, etc, why would they work hard to change their playstyle? Why not just stop paying a subscription fee to CCP, and play one of the 100 other games in their Steam library instead? If people want to learn, they will. If they don't, then making the game un-fun for them via wardecs and/or awoxing mechanics just costs EVE players and ultimately shortens the lifespan of the EVE universe for everyone.

Even with wardecs/awoxing eliminated, there are many other reasons to switch corps. High taxes, new corp has more members, new corp has more people doing what you want to do, joining your friends, etc. Awoxing and wardecs apply negative pressures on corp membership, but they have big drawbacks for retention. Positive reasons like the above can be just as powerful, yet have none of the same drawbacks. For example, if CCP gave better stats on corp activity, alongside simple member count, members would move from inactive corps to active ones, greatly improving their gameplay experience.

EVE is a sandbox. Everyone can set their own goals. So what if some players' goals are to level up their Raven? Who does it harm? Nobody. In fact, it keeps the game alive. Those players pay subscription fees too. Their money pays for keeping EVE online just as yours does. Wardec or awox them out of the game, and the whole game will suffer for it.

If EVE was changed to eliminate wardecs and awoxing, more PVE players would stick around. CCP would have more money, and they could hire more developers to do all those PVP-related updates. Conversely, if CCP insists on wardecs and awoxing until the end of time, EVE will continue bleeding players until the day the game ceases to run. Like it or not, the hardcore PVP audience has been playing EVE for years, and most of them have got bored of the game and moved on by now, especially given the endless subscription fee. The people joining EVE, and who have been joining EVE for years, are not hardcore PVPers. They're your average MMO player - IE: a carebear, who wants to level up their Raven in peace, preferably with some buddies. EVE can adapt to the changing demographics of its playerbase. Or it can ignore reality and continue to bleed users. The choice is up to CCP.

Bing Bangboom said...

What the New Order is, is a player driven response to people like the immediately before me poster who would destroy Eve to save it. Players who just want to build a Raven and PvE with it are already on the way out the door the day they join Eve. PvE is NOT fun and once they do it for a while they quit.

At this point, what CCP "wants" is irrelevant to us. Every nerf or additional safety feature that CCP has given the carebears has been turned into a weapon against them by the New Order. We WILL find a way....

Listen, here is what is going to happen. EVERY player will know that undocking is going to lead to their sudden, and spectacular destruction unless they are absolutely prepared for what lies on the other side of that wall. Play Eve or leave.

Highsec is worth fighting for.