Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I've read that Rixx is sending you a mail so I thought why not?

EVE has been good to me. I've been watching the ever-growing "Emporium killed by MoA" chart in pride that my killboard analysis help them battle propaganda and my ISK keeps them in ships. In a year they turned from "irrelevant NPC trash" to "the biggest enemy of the Emporium" and in that I had a big part.

The fall of the Propaganda book Kickstarter was a dream. Not only because each word of Sion in the "shake it off" felt like a teardrop right out of his heart into my cup, but because I rallied against that thing before it was cool. Actually I was the first one to do so. Did I started it or merely was at the right place at the right time, it doesn't matter. Looking at their monetizing empire burning was like Christmas coming early.

Still, here I am, asking something from you, because while the metagaming is very fun, the actual time in client is just a chore updating orders and rotating mining mission ships. I'm not complaining, I choose the play-to-win style, and it's never a "let's dance nakked on the postbox" fun. I just wish if it wasn't so lonely. While I belong to the lowest socialization need decile, I still miss talking to someone while playing. I know, it would bring nothing to my project, it would actually be a distraction. Getting ISK is a solo venture, you can't trade, haul, mine or rat/mission better by having another one around you. It's a pure vanity request to be able to talk to like-minded players.

Santa, the sad thing is that starting a corp with other players in highsec is not a pointless vanity, like in most games. It's a serious drawback that I will never do. It opens one up to wardecs, which removes the only good thing about highsec: CONCORD protection. If you are OK with others shooting you, you should go to low, null or WH, where the yields and margins are higher. Only a fool or a wardeccer would be in a crop while in highsec. Sure, I could dance around the rules like Red Frog, having only contract alts in the corp and doing the real activity with NPC corp alts, but it's too much hassle and most people wouldn't care to do it just for a good chat every now and then. I wouldn't either.

I don't pull the "players quit after finished leveling their raven" line, because I'm not them and can't speak for them. I cannot promise you that my corp could keep a single player subscribed. I ask for this only for my own fun. I'm not asking for much, just new versions of NPC corps with the very same rules that NPC corp players already have to follow, except that here players join by application and acceptance instead of automatic ways, so we would actually be like-minded ones instead of randoms.

If you choose to ignore my wish, oh well! I'll keep doing what I'm doing now: getting money and helping MoA to grow to the point when they can take on the Emporium in sov war. I don't need a corp. I just wish for it sometimes.

Fly safe on that reindeer sled!


PS: I can now tell why glenarvan used an out of MoA alt to kill three Goon JFs: Goons in their infinite wisdom set the YAO beacon tower to shoot reds, but not neutrals, so it didn't shoot his dread, allowing it to escape once. They fixed it now, after seeing it not on his latest suicide-dread loss.

18 comments:

Zax said...

"Only a fool or a wardeccer would be in a crop while in highsec."

People say similar things about freightering, or mining, and yet the vast majority of corps/POS/miners/freighter pilots get about just fine.

The "risk" for you is that you are...in your own words, internet spaceship famous, and perhaps you worry that your blog may not be viewed favourably.

Steve Ronuken, renowned carebear, is in a player corp.

You are the puppetmaster behind MoA, are you saying they are incapable of handling any decs you get? You have your equivalent of a merc corp at your beck and call....and still you are worried about making your own corp?

Elizabeth Norn said...

I thought you didn't play EVE to have fun?

Gevlon said...

@Zax: of course I could deal with wardecs. But it has costs for no in-game reward. Or do you claim anything good would come out of having a corp besides chatting with people?

@Elizabeth: I don't. That's why I'm playing for almost 4 years now in the NPC corp. It doesn't mean that I don't wish some on the side.

Amarr-Zon said...

I totally understand your points in not opening a corp.
Additionally you would have to deal with more tries of scamming. Which would take more time (e.g. to check APIs from candidates and to think about permissions to members).

Nevertheless I see some advantages, like
- having different player types working more or less smoothly together (miners, industrialists, haulers, traders)
- maybe not having to learn all the skills and/or not having to manage multiple characters at the same time (e.g. cyno+JF)
- maybe small but steady income from taxes
- getting information by practical experience from others, not just by numbers/ graphs
- avoiding direct competition with other traders by talking to them
- chats on the side

But I'm sure, you already thought about these points...

Absence of Substance said...

"Fly safe on that reindeer sled!"

Hehehe nice and very EVE-esque! Would be epic if he o7'ed us in local whilst doing his deliveries as well!!!

Murmurr said...

How would creating a channel in moderated mode work? That would essentially be the same, a place to discuss yet as it would be moderated you(or someone else) would have absolute control over allowed people.

Gevlon said...

@Murmurr: it would lack the "we are a group" thing that social people want, so they would simply not be interested. I tried it with "goblinworks" channel, but it's mostly dead.

Anonymous said...

While having a corp tag might be appealing to some you don't need to have one to create or have social interaction.
Some of my friends are in wormhole space, some live in Providence, some are highsec manufacturer/trader, some are lowsec pirates... yet we share our own chat channel where we talk to each other and discuss things in and out of game. We might shoot us if we meet in space but inside our chat channel there is no EVE politics.

Feel free to create your own "social goblins" channel, set it invite only and/or kick/mute/ban notorious trolls.

Dunamis said...

Gevlon, whilst I totally understand your reasoning behind not wanting to create a highsec corp, I do believe that the Goblinworks channel could generate the like-minded people that you're looking for, without the risks that you mentioned involved.
I also disagree with the fact that sociable people need a "we are a group"; I believe that as long as they have an outlet to allow them to be chatty and communicate freely with others, they'll still want to be a part of it.

I've been in that channel for almost the past 2 years solid and do agree with you that it is largely dead. Personally, if I see a conversation start up, I try to get involved wherever possible, but I believe that the reason the channel is so dead is largely due to the restrictions placed on the content in that channel.

With no emotes, the more sociable people are unable to truly convey the type of message they are sending, be it sarcasm, humour or whatever other emotion they're feeling.

Most conversations that have gone off-topic in the past (i.e. not directly trade related) have been shut down by yourself, leaving participants to wander off back to whatever they were previously doing. I understand if you want to stop non-Eve chatter, but shutting down almost everything results in little to no chatter at all.

Of course, you're free to ignore my advice, but if I were in your shoes, I'd remove a few of those restrictions for a while and attempt to kindle more general conversations in the channel more, to see if that provides what you're looking for.

Gevlon said...

@Dunamis: the theme of "goblinworks" is "place to get ISK advice". Maybe a new channel should be tried for people who talk about things loosely related to some goal.

Having a corp allows common in-game activity (like a once-a-week roam to Deklein, a mining fleet in Halaima or an ECM/logi fleet in Uedama). In case of just a chat channel, you have to either set manually blue everyone or manually check his presence on the chat before fleet invite. While it is possible to form fleets without being in corp, it's very tedious and mistakes allow trolls to easily spoil it.

Anonymous said...

'I tried it with "goblinworks" channel, but it's mostly dead.'
perhaps you overestimate the interest your corp would have.

E-Uni chanel has another purpose (recruitment) but is also a lively place for giving and recieving help. there are euni and out of corp veterans offering advice as well as new players who are either applying to euni or just seeking advice of a better quality than the rookie channel. perhaps consider joining that and helping out for a while.

Anonymous said...

did you see this post?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/3wto0a/leaving_goonwaffe_need_an_exit_strategy/

dont know if you would be interested, may be a scam.

I think you would be a great content creator if you could start a Corp. Although I think it would be ruined by goon troll alt applications.

Hanura H'arasch said...

> I tried it with "goblinworks" channel, but it's mostly dead.

I second that this is because the focus of the channel is simply too narrow. There simply isn't enough to talk about if it *has* to be on trading/ISK making.

Anonymous said...

I think you would be a great person to lead a highsec pvp corp though. A corp that would work with the anti-ganking channel and help prevent ganks. One that would find industrial corps under attack by war deckers and offer assistance for free. And if that sounds too goody two shoes, once that would find cfc freighters and give them a taste of their own medicine from time to time.

Gevlon said...

Anti-ganking is hopeless since there are many idiots in overfilled, antitanked freighters.

Defending highsec corps against wardeccers is pointless, since it's easier to just disband and reform the corp.

Anonymous said...

Well as an anti-ganker I cannot really argue with your logic on the first point. I once saved a guy auto-piloting in an orca through Niarja. He was very thankful and I thought he learned his lesson. Three hours later same pilot in the same orca comes back on auto from the other direction.

The second however I will challenge. Right now that is the easiest thing to do because no one is actually trying to fight them. But how do they ply their trade? They camp the pipe systems like niarja and Uedama and the trade hubs. Trade hubs would be harder to challenge them on, but get a fleet of 10 to 20 corms and you could terrorize them in systems like niarja and uedama and pretty much shut them down.

Maybe you could get Erebus Silentkill to put an alt in to be a corm fc, he has often expressed a desire to go after high sec war deckers. I would put my own alt in as well.

As it stands if you tried to make a corp that just wanted to mind its own business it would be wardecced. May as well come out of the gate armed and dangerous.

NuTroll said...

I agree with goblin, a non decable highsec only corp with severe restrictions (no structures etc..) would actually improve the game.

The idea behind war decs is that without them one highsec corp would own all of highsec because there would be no advantage for the carebears to split up. Highsec corps that get to large now are at risk of constant wardecs, keeping them to a smaller size and constantly reforming.

But if those undeccable corps had the restrictions goblin mentioned in previous posts, they would essentially be chat channels with a slightly higher psychological commitment. Materially it would have little effect on gameplay but Psychologically it would have a big effect on CB gameplay and probably retain people who otherwise would have left. People who would join that type of corp are doing it with alts, or they are the type that never leave HS or pvp anyway. There is a market for carebears who like eve for its pve, but can't play the game they want to play. Just because you think its dumb, and that you're a superior gamer, doesn't mean you should deprive ccp of that money, which is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I realize that eve has a reputation for its competitive culture, but that culture needs to make a concession here (which isn't really a concession at all except in pride) in order to allow CCP to have more income. More income for CCP means a better game for you. More population in eve means a better eve for everyone.

You can say "good we don't want them, those kind don't belong in eve, screw ccp for being greedy", but you're sure as hell wrong. That is money leaving the game, highsec mining and mission carebears/socials don't plex accounts. Nullbears do, Bots do, RMT do. They do belong in the game, in highsec ,where they affect nothing but ccp's bottom line (in a good way).

There is no benefit to the game to have an a more empty highsec. Especially if the player base remains the same but the share of HS goes down.

The ore is farmed 100% anyway (more players just means a smaller per capita share of said ore), mission isk is 2ndary to rat isk. Without going over goblin's data, let me assume that mission bountys in HS are 10x the mission reward itself. If that was true, it would still mean that 2x as much isk is generated outside of HS from rats as within it. Slightly more mission isk wouldn't cause inflation because there would be a much greater demand for basic goods (ammo, mods, hulls, scripts). It would also cause non HS farmable goods to increase, a net benefit to all non HS players, as more carebears don't fight over a smaller per capita share of HS loot. A game with 10% pvpers with 30k players , or a game with 5% pvpers with 100k players, which game has more pvp ? which game has a better market? which game leaves more money for ccp to develop things? Especially if the extra 70k players are the same % of the isk/ore generation, buying useless ravens that do no fighting?

The (entirely undeserved) elitist mentality/culture of eve players is ruining eve when it hurts CCP. Let the sheep be sheep, you need the wool. The truth is, 80% of eve players were never the hardcore pvp type, and probably never will be. 80% of people , aren't fighters, they are morons and slackers. Some of them will fight, f1 style, but all of them will pay, in cash. If they pay, you don't have to. If they don't pay, good luck making up the difference.

Zax said...

"of course I could deal with wardecs. But it has costs for no in-game reward. Or do you claim anything good would come out of having a corp besides chatting with people?"

That depends.

If your playstyle in eve is moving things from one personal hangar to another and then selling them on the market, then there is nothing for you in a corp.

If you are doing any sort of activities, then the ability to rent offices, run a POS, and have wallet divisions is invaluable.