In an educational video CCP Antiquarian gives some basic, good info on Ice mining. In the background we can see his absolutely horrible fit: totally untanked Covetor.
His player pilot must be in CODE or Goons. Otherwise he'd never ever fly a covetor in the ice fields. Anyone flying a covetor in highsec, especially in the ice belts is pants on head retarded. That's asking for being ganked, even in 0.7. Ice anomalies are pretty easy to find, no scanning or dscanning needed like in a 10 belts system, there is always a big crowd so no one notices your scout (hey, use the new ice frigate!) and a Covetor can be ganked by a solo T1 catalyst. Never-ever fly a covetor in highsec! Check out the lossboard of covetors: they drop like flies in highsec, and in 90% to Goons or CODE. Even ganking aside, the Covetor has small ore hold, so only usable in fleets with alts which new players usually don't have. A tanked Retriever is their ship if they really want to mine.
Luring unsuspecting players to the slaughter of their mains isn't without precedent in CCP. I understand that employees are people too and if you ever worked in the IT sector, you probably wanted to shoot users who make your day miserable with their incompetence. But the professional handling this is going to the gym and punching the bag and not actually abusing the service to grief the new players who didn't even had a chance to annoy you yet. But hey, if you grief them out today, they won't ever!
What CCP Antiquarian (and the organizers of the linked event) did is the same as the waiter spitting into your coffe. CCP management should really keep higher discipline and not tolerate such behavior. If they let it happen, sooner or later they'll see employees openly harassing customers. Oh wait!
His player pilot must be in CODE or Goons. Otherwise he'd never ever fly a covetor in the ice fields. Anyone flying a covetor in highsec, especially in the ice belts is pants on head retarded. That's asking for being ganked, even in 0.7. Ice anomalies are pretty easy to find, no scanning or dscanning needed like in a 10 belts system, there is always a big crowd so no one notices your scout (hey, use the new ice frigate!) and a Covetor can be ganked by a solo T1 catalyst. Never-ever fly a covetor in highsec! Check out the lossboard of covetors: they drop like flies in highsec, and in 90% to Goons or CODE. Even ganking aside, the Covetor has small ore hold, so only usable in fleets with alts which new players usually don't have. A tanked Retriever is their ship if they really want to mine.
Luring unsuspecting players to the slaughter of their mains isn't without precedent in CCP. I understand that employees are people too and if you ever worked in the IT sector, you probably wanted to shoot users who make your day miserable with their incompetence. But the professional handling this is going to the gym and punching the bag and not actually abusing the service to grief the new players who didn't even had a chance to annoy you yet. But hey, if you grief them out today, they won't ever!
What CCP Antiquarian (and the organizers of the linked event) did is the same as the waiter spitting into your coffe. CCP management should really keep higher discipline and not tolerate such behavior. If they let it happen, sooner or later they'll see employees openly harassing customers. Oh wait!
12 comments:
I can assure you that you can fly untanked mining ships in belts, and in ice fields...despite the hype, CODE, Goons, whoever, are not in every belt, every system, and every gate.
You can also fly cargo expander tanked freighters, and forget your ships in space for hours.
However, the propaganda spread by goons, code, and you, certainly makes people scared to undock.
I think you entirely missed the point of the video, it's not some grand goon conspiracy they were simply going through the basics of ice mining not the details on how to fit your ship.
You'll notice that they didn't say which type of mining barge to buy nor did they say how to fit the ship they simply said you need specialised equipment for ice mining.
Yikes... I mean, if you are "starting your career" in Ice Mining, then you are likely not to be in a fleet with other people or using alts, so the Covetor as a ship for mining solo in is bad enough. A retriever, even poorly tanked would give them better isk per hour.
I'm not seeing educational videos like that of any value to a player - especially a new player who, you are absolutely correct, will get ganked in it.
@Zax: sure, you can get lucky while doing patently stupid stuff and live. But it's only a matter of time before you get out of luck.
@Anonymous: doing it right in the background wouldn't be harder. It's not that he missed some nuance, he fitted and shown the fit of a horrible ship that is just asking to be ganked.
As you mentioned CCP Antiquarian is giving some basic informations about ice mining. He is talking about what you need and how it works. And Ice-Mining works even in covetors, he also could have used one of the new frigs to explain the basics.
That you have a security issue if you fly a covetor is a totaly different topic. And should be covered in a seperate video like:"how to tank you ship" or "how to avoid easy ganks"
@Zyan: he could also use a proper ship, it wasn't more work. I understand that he didn't explicitly said "use untanked covetors", so he has plausable deniability. However newbies have the obvious tendency of copying what a dev does, so they will likely end up on the CODE killboard in a Covetor.
My point is that he had absolutely no reason to use a Covetor. He should have used either a proper ship, or the new and shiny ice frig to show it off. He still picked the Covetor and I can't imagine other reason than scamming newbs into dying to CODE or Goons.
The quicker new players start buying PLEX from CCP and selling the for ISK the better CCPs financial position is. If newbies dont lose bling ships there is little incentive to sell PLEX. Let CCP run their buisness in the way that maximises their profits.
Smart players read informational sites like yours. Smart players might even work this out on their own. Smart players arent likely to be selling PLEX anyhow.
Part of the reason CCP decisions often align with CFC is both are in the market of exploiting dumb newbies for profit.
I'm with Gevlon on this one. He, a CCP CS guy, chose the most gank bait ship and fit he possibly could. It's also the worst for the role he was using it for, solo ice mining.
I doubt it's some cosmic conspiracy, though. The guy probably doesn't even play the game, and has access to a test server to test stuff with. Also, he probably doesn't mine a lot. A cursory glance at the Mining Barges by a noob player would indicate that the Covetor is "The best" because of it's 3 laser hard points.
The guy has no business making videos and putting CCP's name on them if he has no idea what he's doing.
But then again, this IS how CCP rides... provide the player ridiculous choices and then laugh at them when they fall for the trap and choose wrong.
Zyan:
"That you have a security issue if you fly a covetor is a totaly different topic. And should be covered in a seperate video like:"how to tank you ship" or "how to avoid easy ganks""
That could have easily been part of a coherent plan for the videos. No explanation of that in this one, but showing a tanked Retriever in the solo ice mining role. A one-liner of text "I'm using a tanked Retriever because I feel it's the best for this role." could even be added to tie it all together nicely. But not really necessary.
Here's his thought process:
Noobs who get ganked stick around.
Hm.. What should he fly to get ganked?
Ah! Coveter!
I do it the easy why when flying around I just link Gobs taking pages its great for me as it tends to start convo's so I can recruit. I could care or less weather they read it, follow it, or die to code... its just a tool.
Although the video was not about fitting, using a crapfit Covetor just shows how much CCP employees care about their new customers. Zero!
If anything can be learned fomr CCP videos, it's do the exact opposite and you'll be fine!
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