This post isn't specifically about the recent Xander Phoena interview with CSM candidate James 315, but it is about a few of the points he brought up. Points that I am very much in agreement with.
(I do have to say that I think that, out of the sixteen interviews Xander has completed, this is the bad apple in the bunch. He expected to interview a loon, and he attacked James' ideas as though he were a loon, even when James demonstrated anything but loonery. Xander seemed more intent on demonstrating James as a loon and/or troll candidate than investigating and understanding his proposals and viewpoints. Xander has certainly demonstrated a strong aptitude for investigative reporting in his many previous interviews, but I believe he came into this interview with too many preconceptions and he was unable to depart from them.)
Back to the EVE Online ecosystem.
Let's talk relative safety first. There's always talk that nullsec mining is far more safe than highsec mining. That may very well be true in certain circumstances and locations, but is by no means true of all nullsec. What is true, is that highsec safety is free, there is no work or time or money that a highsec miner has to spend or perform to acquire that level of safety. On the other hand, nullsec safety, as it exists, is not supplied by game mechanics, but directly via the efforts of players. A miner or missioner is safe in nullsec only because of the efforts of their alliance. The alliance supplies that level of safety through members logged on and in space, via alliance intel channels, via alliance gate camps, via roving bands of alliance PvPers hunting intruders. Nullsec safety, unlike highsec safety, requires player effort and coordination. Nullsec safety comes at a cost. Highsec safety is free.
A highsec miner can mine for long periods of time with very little interaction with the game. What are the chances that a miner is going to be ganked in highsec in any twelve hour period? Consider the number of miners in highsec during a twelve hour time interval, consider how many ganks occur in that twelve hour time period. The chance that any particular miner is going to be singled out is statistically very low.
Nullsec miners, on the other hand, to ensure their safety, have to be far more involved with the game client during the period that they are mining. They need to pay more attention to local intel, they need to pay attention to alliance intel channels. A nullsec miner that engages in AFK gameplay is far more likely to end up dead than their highsec counterpart.
The question then becomes, how long can a player mine in a relatively inactive state throughout a given day, versus mining in a state where they need to actively pay attention to the game? A highsec miner can multitask quite effectively. They can mine 8-12 hours per day, while getting many other tasks done: their job, playing another game, watching a movie, making sure their kids don't stab themselves. The nullsec miner can't multitask as effectively, if at all. The time they can spend mining is far more limited.
So, if you can spend 8-12 hours per day, earning 25M ISK per hour in a generally AFK activity in highsec, versus spending 3-4 hours per day, earning 60M ISK per hour in nullsec, what do you choose? Low effort for 250M ISK per day, or greater effort for 210M ISK per day? This is why most nullsec alts are based out of highsec. Low effort, high reward, very low risk.
Not everyone is going to leave highsec. That's cool. But there are certainly people who would leave highsec to perform their industry or their PvEing if the reward was large enough. Yet, the reward for leaving highsec is rarely worth the effort it involves.
Miners and missioners. These people are part of the EVE ecosystem. They're the producers. These folks are the bottom of the food chain. They don't necessarily need to be eaten, but their very presence does spur activity among the consumers.
There are few producers in lowsec and nullsec, and the PvP ecosystem is becoming stale. Some of the consumer types are an endangered species. It's consumers on consumers, and the consumer population is dwindling as a result. You see this in forum posts and blog posts, people becoming bored of fighting the same people over and over again. The variety is causing burn-out and a general malaise with the game.
Producers encourage primary consumers (gankers) to roam. The majority of producers can avoid being victimized by the primary consumers, but having producers in areas that are not inherently safe acts as enticement for the primary consumer population to grow, flourish and be active. These consumers cull the odd producer from the herd (the ones who get up to have a bio, or go AFK for whatever reason, who didn't see the reds spike in local.) These occasional acts of culling keep the primary consumers fed, and hungry for more. Their population increases as a result.
An increase in the primary consumer population in turn increases the secondary consumer population (the PvPers and the pirates), who make their living hunting the primary consumers.
An increase in the overall consumer population in turn increases the scavenger population (the killmail whores, the folks looking to salvage and sweep up the detritus of battles.) Scavengers are preyed upon by consumers as well.
People are going to say "You just want easy ganks! No thanks." The thing is, most producers do not become victims. If there are an extra 200 producers in lowsec per evening, and if only 1 in 50 (or 1 in 25) of those are ganked per day, that probably increases the primary consumer population by double the number of producers, which in turn increases the secondary consumer population by double the number of primary consumers. The producer losses remain low, because these are the smart players, and the rewards are such that their occasional losses make the risk worth the effort and reward. The overall effect is to increase PvP across the board, and as such the PvP becomes more varied. The overall health of the game increases, fewer players experience burn-out and malaise.
The EVE Online ecosystem is sick. It's in ill-health. The delicate balance is out-of-whack. The risk to reward ratio has to return to a reasonable level. There are producers who will brave lowsec and nullsec (lowsec in particular,) but the reward for doing so has to outweigh the rewards currently available to highsec. Producers are the people who jump start PvP, they're the carrot. The game needs more carrots venturing outside of highsec. More reward; carrots for carrots.
I keep wondering. Why people in Eve always, invariably believe that the reason that so few people attempt the risky activities of lowsec is that the carrot is not sweet enough or that the other carrot of high sec is far too sweet and can't stand the competition? No matter what I say, it doesn't seem to sink in that it just might be otherwise, not even in people I generally see display quite intelligent reasoning.
ReplyDeleteBecause that is not at all necessarily correct, and I believe that's the major wrong part about James' thinking, as well as the numerous other ideas that have been around and will probably come again -- not the rhethoric, which is delivered in a manner which is kind of loony even if it is otherwise correct, but that basic assumption.
Why does everyone think that people don't fly by flapping their arms because they don't have enough incentives to do so? Why, if some specific result is desired, i.e. getting people to fly under their own power, there are no calls to ease people into devising solutions to do so, no calls to offer them enough resources to experiment, no calls to investigate if it's even theoretically possible, or if there's a psychological or social or simply reputational barrier to doing that?
I've already said what I think on the subject (Wildly divergent play styles with people forced to start at one play style create natural, statistically impermeable gaps that most people just can't jump.) but that is just a theory. I could be wrong about that one too, but is sure as heck better than "the carrot is not sweet enough".
Seriously, when will I see something original around here?
What did you even just say here? This is so much academic gobbledy-gook. What does "No matter what I say, it doesn't seem to sink in that it just might be otherwise ..." even mean? You don't explain it.
DeleteI don't expect all highsec miners to move out of highsec. That will never happen. That's cool. But there are nullsec alts who would happily play with more risk if it meant more reward. There is currently ZERO incentive to anything industry or PvE outside of highsec. Would be far easier for CCP to adjust incentives and then see what happens ... then go through the major overhaul you're suggesting.
(Okay. You kind of explain it here, in a roundabout, non-specific manner: "Wildly divergent play styles with people forced to start at one play style create natural, statistically impermeable gaps that most people just can't jump." Do you think CCP is going to start newbs in any place other than highsec anytime soon? I suggested a closed area where new players could experiment with the varied areas of EVE Online with similarly skilled peers ... but I believe you shot that idea down. ;))
I don't explain it because explanations take longer, and I'm already anything but brief. :P But I do know that some things that are obvious to me are not at all obvious to everyone else, and this happens often, which is why I'm not brief in the first place. Well, you asked for it. So let me break that down:
Delete1. The most common belief is that lowsec isn't popular because it is not sweet enough, i.e. that there's not enough incentive.
2. For some reason, unclear to me, that belief is dominant, and no matter how often I speak against it, nobody so much as appears to doubt it. My speaking against it might be irrelevant, but it's strange to me that nobody, so far, seems to have come to similar conclusions.
3. It is quite certain, that incentive is not the only thing that drives people to do things, let alone not the only thing that stops them from doing things. There are things some people would not do no matter how high the incentive, (selling your mother to a white slavers ring) there are things you cannot possibly do (break the laws of physics directly), there are things you cannot do because there's a barrier of entry you can't get a loan against the expected incentive to jump, (send a man to the moon when you're a grade school student), and there are things you won't do because you don't believe the incentive is worth the effort, even when it actually is. While increasing the incentive further might break some of these barriers or cause people to think up a clever way to circumvent them, (given sufficient reward, one could sell their mother to a white slaver ring and then immediately recover her by force, thus achieving a net gain without breaking core values at the cost of a certain risk to ethics) you can surely imagine how damaging could that be to the rest of the system
4. My theory is that the barrier of entry is too high. The offered incentive has to be high enough not to overcome the cost of activity itself, but also the cost of learning a radically divergent play style. I.e. a grade school student not only has to be rewarded for the actual effort of going to the moon, but also needs to be rewarded for dedicating years of work to learn all the prerequisites to being able to do that on his own. The reward would require to be pretty goddamn high to justify that.
5. My proposed solution to that you already know. But my theory may as well be wrong. I maintain that it is far superior to saying that the incentive is not high enough or that the incentive of high sec is too high. If my theory is true, adjusting the incentives will not have a significant effect unless the adjustment is sufficiently big to irrevocably break the game.
6. It is impossible to test my theory without risking breaking the game, which is a common problem in sociology. (Every sufficiently interesting sociological experiment is either unethical, damaging, or provides no generally applicable results, or all three.) But testing the theory that is obviously too naive ("the carrot is not sweet enough") carries the exact same risk, while it offers no counterarguments to mine.
Clearer now?
It'll take some time to respond to this more fully ... but you give a lot of real-life examples to back up your hypothesis. Yet, in a game-world, motivations are entirely different, and usually boil down to reward over effort. Players, in games, migrate to the most reward for the least effort. Risk is often part of that equation.
DeleteGaming motivations are simple, the variables are few and easy to weight against each other. Real world motivations are far more complex, they involve far more variables and factors that must be weighed versus each other.
Gaming does not exist in a vacuum, which is another common fallacy. It is not "unreal world" by any means. People come to gaming with values inherited from their source culture, and these are modified to fit the game world, but not entirely circumvented or thrown out, and that is true for every insulated context, be it an online game or the world of student football. You can't say you're dealing with a closed system, because it's not closed.
DeleteI wrote about that.
It's sad, market-based logic. It's logic that people buy into intuitively, and have done so for so long that they never even think to question it. What they forget is that we're playing a game here, and one that is very, very open-ended. As such, it's hard to really gauge what somebody's motivation is. The notion that we'll sweeten the deal over here, or we'll sour it over there, and that this is going to send everybody running in a certain direction, is absurd.
DeleteNot to mention the fact that I don't even agree with the basic premise that producers are the impetus behind PvP. That, by itself, doesn't really seem to make much sense. I guess if you count ganking, you could consider them the "carrot" for a minor subset of PvP, i.e. gankers. But the thing is, gankers typically don't like even odds. Gankers don't hang out in nullsec because, ironically, they aren't safe there. Attack a nullsec industrialist, who probably has a healthy-sized corp or alliance backing him, and you're going to have a bad day. In high-sec, it's very much a consequence-free existence. You gank, get slapped on the wrist by CONCORD, and there's nothing any industrialist, or his/her corpmates, can do to stop it. Gankers want it that way. They are the carebears of PvP, and arguably, bigger carebears than the carebears they gank.
"Attack a nullsec industrialist, who probably has a healthy-sized corp or alliance backing him, and you're going to have a bad day"
Delete"You gank, get slapped on the wrist by CONCORD"
So the nullsec alliance will destroy your ship. Concord will destroy your ship. Errr... as far as I can see, the only difference here is that one (Concord) is instant and has a 100% success rate, while the other has human error and response times.
"1. The most common belief is that lowsec isn't popular because it is not sweet enough, i.e. that there's not enough incentive."
DeleteThis belief is common because it is true.
"2. For some reason, unclear to me, that belief is dominant, and no matter how often I speak against it, nobody so much as appears to doubt it. My speaking against it might be irrelevant, but it's strange to me that nobody, so far, seems to have come to similar conclusions."
Actually, your conclusion is similar to the dominant conclusion, and therefore your statement that nobody seems to have come to a similar conclusion is 100% wrong.
"3. It is quite certain, that incentive is not the only thing that drives people to do things, let alone not the only thing that stops them from doing things.... "
Yes, it is so certain that spending that many words talking about it was a giant waste. Brevity is the soul of wit.
"4. My theory is that the barrier of entry is too high. The offered incentive has to be high enough not to overcome the cost of activity itself, but also the cost of learning a radically divergent play style."
This theory was actually mentioned by James315 in his interview, so unless you have proof that you came up with this theory before he did, I'm going to have to rule it as his theory, not yours.
"5. My proposed solution to that you already know. But my theory may as well be wrong. I maintain that it is far superior to saying that the incentive is not high enough or that the incentive of high sec is too high. "
It's not your theory, and it's not far superior. It's a very minor refinement and/or elaboration, which is not your property or idea, and wouldn't be a big deal even if it were.
"6. It is impossible to test my theory without risking breaking the game, which is a common problem in sociology. (Every sufficiently interesting sociological experiment is either unethical, damaging, or provides no generally applicable results, or all three.) But testing the theory that is obviously too naive ("the carrot is not sweet enough") carries the exact same risk, while it offers no counterarguments to mine."
It offers no counterarguments because it's the same damn theory. You are really a piece of work. "The carrot is not sweet enough, plus, some people aren't used to the taste of the carrot yet" is the same damn theory, just stated with unnecessary elaboration--which aptly describes your overall style. This minor elaboration has already been made by James and others years ago, and the only difference in your formulation is that it's overly wordy and filled with added errors, such as your claim that people are "forced" to start playing in highsec. This isn't true, anyone who joins goons or test, to name the 2 largest alliances in the game, creates a character and instantly goes to nullsec. James and Xander both state that they immediately went to low and nullsec, respectively, as well.
I hope this response helps bring you back to some kind of normal thinking on this issue, and that you can stop being confused why no one agrees with you--when the truth is that the only thing that no one agrees with you about is that belief that your position is different from everyone else's. If your pathological thinking doesn't allow that, then I won't respond to you again. This is a one-shot deal. I wish you luck.
Why people in Eve always, invariably believe that the reason that so few people attempt the risky activities of lowsec is that the carrot is not sweet enough or that the other carrot of high sec is far too sweet and can't stand the competition?
DeleteBecause invariably we have tried highsec, and lowsec, and it turns out that the risky activities of lowsec are not sweet enough. Partly this is subjective -- hitting dscan every 10 seconds for an hour is not fun. Maybe you like it.
But mostly it is just math. I can explore in highsec and potentially score 300m or 500m faction modules. I can expect to get maybe one per week if I work at it, with many smaller scores that still add up. I can also explore in lowsec, continually looking over my shoulder and having to GTFO from time to time. I have tried it. Every system I move gives a small chance of unlucky gate-camp death -- and you have to search many systems. I have to bring friends to do the harder sites because they are hard. And I can get, what, maybe a 700m item? But my site count per hour is lower. I have to safe up to scan. I cannot take a break to pee or get coffee; I can duck into a station but then I can get camped there. I have to dscan. All the time. Overall my isk/hour is lower.
The math for mining is even more unfavorable. Miners can mine scordite in highsec for 80% of what they can get mining hedbergite in lowsec. Hmm. Is the risk of losing my 135m Skiff worth an extra 4m per hour? Well, it is if I can mine for 34 hours unganked! This is ignoring the unfun of watching local and dscanning, and the time lost from GTFO every time anyone enters local. If I have to spend more than 20% of the time safed up, then I cannot do better in lowsec than high. And you know, judging by the complete absence of miners in lowsec, I think this is the case.
The point is that providing incentives to move into low sec or 0.0 are not enough. They need to decrease the value of High Sec while, at the same time, improving the other sectors of space.
DeletePeople do not leave High Sec because it is profitable to remain in High Sec. If I can make 50 million ISK / hour (or the mythical 100 million ISK / hour) running level 4 missions why would I go to low sec where I can make 60 million ISK an hour?
I wouldn't. Even though there is an incentive to go to low sec it isn't significant enough to entice me to actually make the move.
High Sec is just too rewarding IF the idea to get people to move out of it.
I believe that High Sec is far too safe as well.
There is a fundamental design decision that needs to be made for EVE Online and in the course of making that decision we need a lot of different voices. James 315 provides a voice that will remind everyone in the discussion that, hey, you know what? High Sec space is -already- really really safe and really really rewarding.
Wow. Am I really the only person who find Mary clear and easy to understand, despite not sharing either her native language or her academic background?
DeleteHer point is that if you start in high sec, and most people do, then the main barrier to entry to other parts of the game is, essentially, to learn a new and different game that they might not enjoy. This is simply true; I can vouch for that as someone who started in high sec, then added low sec to my diet, then wound up in null, and then in a wormhole. For more than a few people in high sec, the rewards in low would have to be game-breakingly high to lure them into the greater alertness and greater preparation and greater risk of violent conflict in the other parts of the game, and there are many who wouldn't respond to those incentives anyway.
The difference between Mary's position and James' is simple:
1) Mary acknowledges the play style gap, which, as Rammstein points out, neither James 315 nor Xander have ever experienced, because they went directly into the more dangerous parts of the game. For some, the low risk of high sec *is* much of the reward. But there still has to be a game there to enjoy, and L2 missions hardly count.
2) James is more than willing to drive people away from the game if they won't play in low/null. Mary is not.
3) Mary is saying that the risk/reward model doesn't work for attracting high sec dwellers to low and null sec (the reward would have to be "game-breakingly high") which is somehow taken as an affirmation of the risk/reward model... because Falcon. Or something like that.
I can think of at least three people standing for CSM 8 who understand how high sec will need to be changed (and yes, nerfed in some places) to better interact with other parts of the game. The only difference James offers is blunt force trauma.
Mary, I believe you are right that there are many people who will never go low/null-sec because it isn't the game they want to play. However, there are some things that are disheartening about the current state of the game.
Delete1. There are quite a few people that live in null-sec on their mains, but use their alts to mine in high-sec. The *player* is the same person, so it's a true risk/reward decision in these cases.
2. According to many old timers, the risk/reward used to be more balanced. There used to be miners in low/null-sec. This would lead me to believe that these miners probably went to high sec as the buffs/nerfs went over the years.
So, in short, I think that while maybe James 315 goes too far, his direction is correct, and his direction is opposite of the current direction of the game.
@Kainotomiu Ronuken: That's not the point. What's at issue is the fact that gankers get to play on their own conditions in high-sec, whereas that would certainly not be the case out in null. In other words, they accept that CONCORD is going to blow them up, and what they get in return is a virtual guarantee that no player can impose new rules on them, or otherwise engage them (outside of timer-limits anyway) without CONCORD treating them in the same exact manner. It's a totally safe, 100% encapsulated activity which guarantees a minimum of actual conflict with real players, and therefore a minimum of actual ramifications for one's actions. In nullsec, gankers would probably be regularly deprived of kills that would have otherwise gone off without a hitch in high-sec. That is precisely what gankers don't want. They are the carebears of PVP, and bigger carebears, in actuality, than the players they blow up.
Delete@Dersen
Delete"Her point is that if you start in high sec, and most people do, then the main barrier to entry to other parts of the game is, essentially, to learn a new and different game that they might not enjoy. This is simply true; I can vouch for that as someone who started in high sec, then added low sec to my diet, then wound up in null, and then in a wormhole."
So, because you learned a new and different game, within EVE, 4 separate times, you feel your anecdotal experience backs up a theory that the main difficulty in getting people to spread out through EVE in a more balanced fashion is getting people to learn a new and different game? I'm sorry, but I take your anecdote as affirmation of completely the opposite, that people are willing to try new things, but if they're not rewarding enough, they won't stick with them. Perhaps you're not familiar with how anecdotal evidence works? Generally, the argument that "people won't do X, I know, because I keep doing X, over and over and over, with slightly different X, I really love it, WOW!", is a pretty weak one. Like my anecdote about how I keep dating supermodels, they aren't shallow like people think, they're really rather interesting after all the travel and man are they hot--which I use to support my theory on how I think the rest of you guys probably wouldn't like dating supermodels all that much. Leave them to me, guys: it's simply true.
I'd respond to the rest of your post, but it's more of the same kind of issue, and I really have to get back to these models.
All of this pontificating and I've yet to read the one overriding fact, the simple rule you guys are all forgetting completely, and which drives to the real heart of the issue:
DeleteIn the equation of "Risk vs Reward", for some people (probably a lot more than any of us would like to admit), NO risk is acceptable. Doesn't matter how much reward you throw at them. No amount of "carrot" will make a difference. There's a lot of people who, mathematically speaking, don't even LOOK at reward, and go straight to "solve for risk". If Risk > 0, they stop there, because no reward is worth it.
Carrots don't matter to those players, and sticks will make them leave.
Add in the fact that being blown up is "losing", and most people don't like "losing" games. Hence why the popular themeparks we all hate so, death is a mere minor inconvenience. If death actually meant something, lost equipment, lost levels/abilities/whatever, they'd have a lot more raegquits on their hands.
Then, on a corp/alliance level, add in the lovely "zero-defect mentality" from real life ("If you died it's because you're a fucking moron. No, I don't care what happened or why. You dead. You fucking moron. End of story."), and you have a lovely recipe for people to stay in the "risk-free" area, and be enraeged or shed tears when they find out it's not as "risk-free" as they thought. And, consequently, to demand that the "seemingly" risk-free area, be made "actually" risk-free.
Oh dear god Poe... I disagree with you on so many levels but I always respected you, I never thought you were a loon... before. Calling 'players' the bottom of a food chain? Who don't HAVE to be eaten? Inferring that they can and will be if they don't play the way YOU want them to? That griefing and ganking them somehow is GOOD for the game as a whole? And the absolute worst... that their leaving the game is good for ANYONE? And actually SIDING with that idiotic Hitler wannabe???
DeleteHe is slick and charismatic and he appeals to the unwashed mass of people who have no mind of their own... I at least though you had your own opinions, as mangled as they are... Yea, I said HITLER... who else did he learn this from?
"I am the Savior of Hisec"
James315
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
Adolf Hitler quotes (German Chancellor, leader of the Nazi party, 1889-1945)
That's not bigotry... that's history.
"primary consumers" ... secondaries, ... before you start throwing around definitions you should define them. So which class of consumer is the industrial? Are his 15 bucks less valuable than the one of the pvper/ganker/scavenger?
ReplyDeleteStop ganking high-sec miners -> increased tritanium and pyrite supply; prices fall, margins go down, pvp becomes cheaper, empire less lucrative.
An easy way to increase low and 0.0 industries would simply be to place more hidden belts in the systems with more low end minerals.
It's pretty hard to get all the Tritanium needed for 100 BS in 0.0. While you have dozens of high sec systems to mine low and 0.0 is mostly limited to a few of those. And even if you would sweep the standard belts you won't get decent amounts. There is no need for Super-veldspar simply a greater variety of hidden belts and industrial would be thankfully building stuff at the source.
Industrialists (e.g., miners) and mission-runners and incursion people are PRODUCERS.
DeleteGankers are PRIMARY CONSUMERS. They prey almost entirely on PRODUCERS.
PvPers and pirates are SECONDARY CONSUMERS. They prefer to prey on PRIMARY CONSUMERS, but do prey on PRODUCERS occasionally.
There's no shortage of Veldspar in 0.0. It's just that nobody wants to mine it. More hidden belts full of Veld won't change that.
DeleteYou know what, Mary Titor is right about one thing: This old boring idea of risk vs rewards is going nowhere.
ReplyDeleteNot long ago FW was the most lucrative activity in EVE and people didn't flock to LS, not a single mission runner or miner moved there, just a small group of people were orbiting buttons in complexes.
All of exploration in Null is better then Empire. To the order that people use carries to run them. And still people don't move there in mass. Sure there are other factors at work, but is not risk vs reward.
The problem is all this talk is old, all the formulas for adjusting it failed. The more this subject is discussed the less good ideas come out of it.
Increase reward in LS and Null and all you will do is to make people that live there already richer. Like it happen with FW.
Your post fails in the start with a false equivalence comparison between HS, LS and Null. Than you got ecosystems wrong. Ecosystems are not balanced like a game has to be, the imbalance is so strong in them that entire species are driven to extinction on a daily basis.
You should ask yourself why population in HS is thriving while in the other parts of EVE they are decreasing. FW is thriving now for the same reason, but even being in the middle of it you still can't see.
These places have game play going for them, a door to make contacts and get to know people and activities to share. Normal LS don't, null also don't have it. To get there you have to make contacts out of the game in reddit or SA forums, or know someone in an alliance to vouch for you.
If the only game play that you have to offer to people is hunter/prey, don;t be surprise when prey don't want to participate and feel happy if all predators are killed.
I'm a bit surprised you are buying into this stuff, Poetic... The graphic you made for this post is appropriate. Lighting off a big nerf nuke in hisec would have about the same effects on the overall health of EVE as lighting off a nuke to zap 1/3 of the city one lives in for "urban renewal" would have...
ReplyDeleteI don't actually *buy* the argument that the risk/reward is out of whack. There is very little hard evidence to back it up. It seems like a nice rational argument but there are problems with it.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, the AFK argument is somewhat flawed. The AFK miner puts in precisely the same amount of effort as the "active" one does, in terms of interactions with the game client - once every few cycles dump the ore into a jet can or orca or something. Once every few other cycles, change rocks.
This is the same no matter where you live.
The relative safety of the blue donut means that afk mining out there in nulsec is pretty darned easy. As a wormholer who constantly ganks people out in nulsec I can tell you that the reaction times thanks to a fairly strong intel network to any kind of interloper are staggeringly fast. You can get a gank or so off...and then the system is filled with angry bees, or honey badgers, or whatever.
In highsec - well. Aside from a 15 minute GCC you have to wait out you can gank people in a system until all the miners run away or are dead. Get an alt you can do it every 7.5 minutes. I'm lucky to be able to stay as a neutral in 0.0 for more than that amount of time before the intel network is breathing down my neck.
I agree completely with Ripard, the balance in highsec is ever so slightly in favor of the gankers. It could probably stay there or be shifted ever so slightly in the miners favor. This wont, as James asserts, destroy highsec or turn the game into a carebear paradise via some irrational and utterly illogical and non-existent slippery slope.
James and the new order are simply attacking miners for the yuks. No ifs, buts or maybes. This in itself is completely fine. The problem I have with them is the deception. Why make it about something that is not and wrap it up as some sort of legitimization of their activities? their activities are already legitimate without the false motivation they spout.
"Let them quit"? CCP can ill afford this sort of attitude. Instead of running on a platform of making it harder for the carebears to be...well, carebears - why not advocate fixing industry so that it is an active and rewarding form of game play? Oh of course, I forgot. Fixing the game isn't why they do this - they do it for the lulz.
I'm curious as to whether or not any of the commenters here actually listened to the interview, because these points are all the very same ones that Xander brought up himself and which James rebuffed.
ReplyDeleteThat must be it...'cause it couldn't possibly be anything like people aren't taking this stuff at face value ...
DeleteFirst, you know nothing of high sec mining income. Best case scenario in a nice fat belt with a perfect orca pilot and a perfect hulk pilot is 13 to 15 million isk an hour. 25 misk is an impossibility - that's level 4 mission income, not mining. Lone miners are lucky to make 7 or 8 million an hour, most, make in the 5 million isk per hour range.
ReplyDeleteI know lots of null Indy types and they spend more ask time than I do. They have huge intel networks that give them tons of lead time on warnings and tons of time to alt tab back to Eve and warp out. No one knows, or gives warning when a bunch of alt neutral gankers show up. There is the odd chance that a worm hole will open, but it's rare. Null IS safer.
Null is broken because ever group immediately wants easy mode money, moons, and tries to turn everyone into pvpers. Most Indy types aren't interested in pvp. Miners could massively increase the alliance incomes in null, but alliances are only interested in talking about farms and fields - not doing it. Even with pos refining at 25% less than high sec stations, you can still easily make 3 to 4 times the high sec income in null, including veldspar. Null sec isn't broken for industry, people don't do it by choice.
Low sec is broken because of the drunk 12 year old mentality of the players that go there. They kill everyone that tries to play there, so no one plays there, not even the assholes who created the shitty environment. Low sec could be null sec without the so bullshit. A miner can easily make double or triple what they can in high sec,that is the REAL risk vs reward, but not if they have to dock up all the time or keep getting blown up.
The problems in Eve are caused by players, not game mechanics. Assholes poison the water for everyone, and like poison, it doesn't take many assholes. Assholes like James. Attitudes need to change, from CCP and players, or Eve will keep slowly starving itself to death.
"Attitudes need to change, from CCP and players, or Eve will keep slowly starving itself to death."
DeleteYes. The HTFU attitude of this game has kept it from growing, year after year, for the last ten years. You've convinced us all.
"Even with pos refining at 25% less than high sec stations, you can still easily make 3 to 4 times the high sec income in null, including veldspar. Null sec isn't broken for industry, people don't do it by choice."
DeleteYes, nullsec mining currently offers almost 100% security as well as incredibly lucrative ores. You can AFK as much as you like, and there's literally no way in which nullsec is not better than highsec, and yet almost every single miner in the game chooses highsec over null.
Sorry, but that just doesn't follow, and some argument about nullsec entities 'discouraging' mining doesn't help either. If someone in TEST is advised not to mine, it's because there is literally no point in wasting your time doing it unless you enjoy mining for the hell of it.
@ Poetic: Well, if it is growing year on year, doesn't that indicate CCP have the balance right? Is "HTFU" too bitter a pill for the gankers to swallow when it is their turn for a dose of STFU medicine? I would suggest the answer is yes to both.
Delete@Pointy, from my experience you are absolutely right. I lived in null most of my life and suicide ganking/hulkaggedon were meaningless. I ran a fleet of 4 hulks making billions. I stayed at 4 hulks because that was my comfort limit for staying alert and not using any automation tools. I never considered that mining to be boring. Now in hisec I run way more ice miners that require almost no interaction except emptying cargo every 25.3 minutes. And then they made freighters loadable in space, so I don't even need to empty an Orca out every 25 minutes, instead needing only every 2.5 hours. This is very boring and I think very bad for the game. I only endure this now since I can put a DVD player window right in center of my screen and watch Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galatica. I'm not exactly AFK as I can see everything, but it's nowhere near the alert I had to maintain in null.
DeleteSo why not move back to null? I think the big problem is I remember the old AFK cloaker issue. Interesting that many people think that kind of AFKing is ok but AFK mining is not, or vice versa. When I log in, I want to be able to play. Income is secondary to doing what I enjoy. The risk/reward argument is just wrong. It overlooks that people play to have fun. Some will find making isk to be fun, but that is not the focus for most people. If CCP wants more people in null/low, they have to give them fun things to do there. Income should be mostly an enabler for people to do the fun things.
Low sec would be more interesting if we were nicer to one another. If we kill less people, more will come in for us to kill... but we aren't suppose to kill them, so... more miners for us to watch?
DeleteThis sounds like an amazing plan.
Null and lowsec (outside of FW) are broken because there is almost nothing meaningful to do there or fight over that isn't eye-stabbingly awful in execution.
DeleteSmall minds, parroting the Sam erred old shit that is causing the stagnation.
Delete@Poetic - the subscriber increase from year to year is at a snail pace. Less than 10% from year to year and obviously not enough to keep up with CCP bills. Some years less than that. If you're as aware as you like to claim, that point is obvious to anyone.
@Kaimo - I never said null was 100% safe, you did. Taking your stupid rebuttal to the extreme is the standard reply from a weak position with no forethought. It's standard straw man dogma.. If you had a clue, it would take little effort to notice that all the null recruiters talk about is turning everyone into pvpers. Pure Indy types aren't interested in that, so they stay in high sec where they can play what they want.
@pyro - Lowsec would have more people playing in it if it wasn't a constant gank fest. Let miners pay a pvp corp a billion a week for permission to mine in "their" system. The pvpers now have a reason to sit on. A gate for hours as they wait for other pvpers to come in and gank the miners. How many low sec pvp corps have a srp? None? More miners, more protection, more pvpers coming to gank the miners, more money, more systems, no sov grind. It just takes effort, but sharp dudes like you are more safe going after transports and thinking about two minutes ahead, yes? I'm talking about something sustainable for Eve, not easy mode pvp.
FOX NEWS PROPAGANDA!
ReplyDeleteLet me see:
DeleteStarts with a false equivalence argument between Nulll and HS, move to over simplified wrong science comparison with production chains and ecology.
Than pull numbers out of the ass that sound correct but are not, and here comes the slippery slope argument, follow by fear mongering and appeal to protect the privilege of few.
Yep, it's Fox News indeed.
I'm fairly new to Eve, so I'm certainly not familiar with the all the intricacies of the game at all. That being said I seem to remember (vaguely) about Nash equilibrium points in iterative game theory application (talking about economics not video games, also side note Nash is the guy that the movie a beautiful mind was based on). And it is not always as simple as balancing risk vs. reward as a greater than lesser than comparison.
ReplyDeleteI am not even sure if that is the correct terminology of the idea. But generally when you have two people who can make choices and the outcome for both parties is affected by both parties choices, there arises an equilibrium point where they generally always chose the same choice that is available to them. In the example of Eve, Miner has the choice to Mine in High-Sec or Low-Sec. Ganker has the choice to gank in Hi-sec or gank in low-sec. Now I don't remember all the math that gets to the point, but basically each party chooses not to maximize their return, but rather to minimize their losses. So miner will chose to mine in high-sec because the risk is lower, while ganker will chose to gank in low-sec because the risk is lower.
Increasing the reward for the other option doesn't really alter the choices people make because as stated above that person wants to minimize their losses not maximize their gain. Increasing the reward for mining in low-sec wouldn't bring more miners to low-sec just make the ones there that already have minimized their potential loss richer.
Probably the only way to alter behavior would be lower the potential risk, not increase the potential gain.
But as stated above I do not know the intricacies of Eve to suggest possible solutions. I played for like a month or two, two years ago and just recently came back for less than a week. I have like 3 million skill points.
Mate,
DeleteCongratulations to you my friend. With so little experience in the game you just hit the nail in the head.
The only problem is, people from LS and Null wants everything. They want all the people to move to their area so they can kill them all in exchange for nothing. Now they also want industry or "farms and fields" as they named it, which is the fantasy that people would move to their area because of profits to serve as prey for their hunting games.
But don't fear, CCP grew up a lot in the last year with CCP Unifex in charge, and they move from this fail mentality to game play discussions. Lets see the next expansion what they bring.
Until a week ago I was content to run anoms and rat in nullsec. Then last week I spent a few hours in an incursion fleet for the first time,, and made more ISK in one evening in high-sec, than I could in weeks of ratting and anoms in null-sec.
ReplyDeleteNow everytime I log-in, I can't find the movitation to waste my time making peanuts in nullsec. So if there isn't a pvp fleet, or an incursion fleet operating I simply ship-spin until I am bored and log off again.
Active money-making in null really does need to be buffed
Please pay attention to what Felipe Suzan said. It gets ignored or dismissed so many times. The risk/reward argument is so old and there is ample proof that it doesn't work. Every blog pointed out how anyone could use a 2 day old alt to orbit buttons in FW and make piles and piles of isk. Before that, it was "broken" incursion income. Gevlon gives guides to simple trading activity that makes huge income for little risk. There has always been something (see Jester/Ripard's IQ Test post for many examples) that gave HUGE incomes for NO risk, yet very few run off to do it. Aside from these specific examples, it is well documented and known that certain activities (mining/missions/exploration/plexing) are far more lucrative in nullsec. Yet not even a significant percentage of people flock to them, even when it's extremely unbalanced. So, when will people quit beating that dead horse?
ReplyDeletePeople ignore what he and you say, because it is simply not factual. Have you gone to incursion fleets? I have, there are often hundreds of people in incursion systems. Did you join FW during the button-orbiting frenzy? I did, it was difficult to find plexes that weren't full, which is why the people that really made serious, as in 100B+, bank off FW LP were the lvl 4 mission runners doing FW missions. You don't seem to know these simple facts, so your opinion counts less than zero. You even claim that nullsec mining is much more lucrative than highsec mining. Rofl. Next time, try going and looking at what's happening ingame, not basing your opinions on bloggers who also didn't try it out ingame, and you might accidentally say something true.
DeletePeople will stop beating that dead horse, when you realize it's not a horse, nor dead, and it's not being beaten.
You are right about one thing Rammstein, you see hundreds doing those activities. But hundreds is a small number for EVE. CCP confirmed that the number of "hard core" plexers in FW was below the 4 digits, so mostly alts from people that was already in LS plus of course the people in FW.
DeleteDo you find hundreds in LS Incursions as well? No.
CCP created the bottle neck on Tech and re balanced anomalies in Null to shake the balance of risk-reward and foment war. How did that work? People cry in the forum till the balance was rolled back and the tech people formed a cartel and a sea of blues to share the profits.
WH moved some people from HS to more dangerous space, something like 3 or 5% of EVE population, but WH are in a different category as they have lots of game play going for it.
Your view was tried many times before and fail all the time to move a significant number of people out of HS, why should we believe it now?
Well, Rammstein, as I said I did come out of nullsec to run Incursions and found the income with a single character to be far greater than my entire nullsec mining fleet, which itself was very lucrative. I also noted how very few of my nullsec alliance mates were there with me despite the ridiculously high income. I did go to FW to orbit buttons and saw previously empty systems now full of pilots. I also noticed how few of my alliance mates were also there. In both cases, it's not that NO ONE went, but that it was relatively few. And yes for my mining fleet nullsec mining far exceeds any mining income in hisec. I did it in nullsec for years and almost 2 years now in hisec. Only using some highly automated tools or bots could all the small roids and constant moving make hisec ever approach my nullsec mining income. I don't have to take some blogger's opinions for what I have done myself. Maybe your opinions will be meaningful if you ever remove your head from James315's arse and see the universe for yourself. Was that true enough for you?
Delete@mordis
DeleteIf I had any interest in the number of your alliance mates doing various high-sec activities, then indeed it would be.
Does your alliance prohibit out-of-alliance alts making ISK in highsec? If so, how do they enforce that unenforceable rule?
Basically you seem to agree with me on the actual figures, except for some strange obsession with your alliance mates who can't have alts for some unknown reason. I'm not really interested in that obsession, nor in discussing heads up asses, so I'm just going to chalk you up in the "agrees with me" column and quickly move on.
@Felipe: Your view was tried many times before and fail all the time to move a significant number of people out of HS, why should we believe it now?
I don't agree that my view was ever tried, actually. I believe that highsec isk-making potential has been constantly increased, not decreased, which is the opposite of my view. The things you quote are side issues but not my central view.
Who really chooses what to do in Eve (or any game) just based on risk/reward?
ReplyDeleteWe mostly choose to do what's fun for us.
Risk averse people have no fun doing stuff where they can suddenly lose sth. No matter the rewards, you are unlikely to see them in lowsec... Etc.
Most other players do a mixture of the stuff you mentioned, mostly based not on the rewards, but simply for variety. I do my pvp mostly in lowsec. I am not going to be there much more just because the ISK benefits are greater (unless more fun pvp is involved).
The problem is in the solution. James315 wants to nerf high sec to drive people out. High sec is by far the most populated part of Eve. Driving people out of the most populated part of the game will see some go to low sec, some go to null, some go to wormholes and some go to other games.
ReplyDeleteWhat CCP has been doing is gradually eclipsing level 4 missions as income. When I started in 2009 they were one of the best ways to make money. Without ever nerfing them they've pushed them down by introducing more lucrative alternatives like Incursions (which is high sec but not suited to solo afkers) and fw (which is low sec only and has really revitalised low sec).
The gradualist approach is needed here. Forcing people to change by prohibiting their current preferred playstyle is dumb. Electing CSM reps who have a dumb agenda will see CCP quietly cease to listen to the CSM.
"The problem is in the solution. James315 wants to nerf high sec to drive people out. High sec is by far the most populated part of Eve. Driving people out of the most populated part of the game will see some go to low sec, some go to null, some go to wormholes and some go to other games."
DeleteSo, the issue is, will more people currently in high sec go to other games, or will more people come back/come newly to EVE to play in the newly invigorated null/low space? This is the key issue which separates people into one camp or another--if you don't address this issue in your comment, then you haven't picked a side, which you haven't explicitly done here. If you believe the former, then you believe EVE is fundamentally a game about making ISK solo in high sec. If you believe the latter, then you believe EVE is fundamentally a game about multiplayer interaction in low and null.
"Forcing people to change by prohibiting their current preferred playstyle is dumb."
Actually, claiming that an agenda includes prohibiting their current preferred playstyle, when it doesn't, is dumb.
Some people claim they believe that EVE is both of those games in one...but we see over and over that these two different visions conflict with one another. An area with equal reward but vastly increased risk becomes an unpopulated wasteland. This isn't about prohibiting "current preferred playstyle", but about fixing broken risk/reward levels. Unless you're seriously arguing that 'current preferred playstyle' includes entitlement to broken reward levels for riskless play, in the same location as always? By that measure, every patch or expansion to any MMO ever "prohibits current preferred playstyle", which is a definition of that phrase so broad as to be meaningless.
To be very clear, I'm not saying that the choice between these two visions of play is necessitated by any theory of game design. I'm saying it's a practical choice, that there are different audiences out there, and CCP has to focus on primarily one or the other--a refusal to focus on one or the other openly only means that the choice will be made secretly and possibly unintentionally. The carebear audience is much much larger, and also much more fickle and with multiple orders of magnitude greater alternative games to play--and isn't the audience that EVE has had over a decade of success focusing on.
Going to crosspost what I wrote to Kainotomiu on the forums a few minutes ago regarding the James 315 interview:
ReplyDelete'Look, go to James' blog (minerbumping.com) and have a look around. Take a good hard look at the likes of the About page. Did I have preconceptions of what James was based on the research I had done on him? You're damned right I did. And it would appear an awful lot of others felt the same way from the emails I received regarding James 315 before I did this interview. As for him not stating he hates highsec? Well he says he doesn't but all of his actions state otherwise. For me, actions speak louder than words.
I'm sorry you (and Poe) didn't enjoy the interview. What makes me pleased is the vast majority of people, including James himself and the rest of the NWO camp, appear to have appreciated the tough questioning which allowed James to clear the air regarding the troll thing and his platform. You can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time I guess.'
Did I expect to be interviewing a loon? You're damned right I did. Did I question him throughout the interview in a way that made him have to work very hard to persuade me he wasn't a loon. Again, aye, I sure did. Does he seem very pleased at how the interview went because of how hard I went and him having a set of very well thought out and reasoned answers? His thread on the Eve forums certainly suggests so. The point wasn't to 'James as a loon and/or troll candidate', the point was to make sure he wasn't either of those things. James was given as much opportunity (or even arguably more) to discuss his platform as anyone else and did so very well.
I don't have an issue with tough questions. I have an issue with thoroughly unprofessional sarcastic tone from you, as the interviewer. You sounded like you were trying to have a drunken argument in a pub, not trying to aspire to something serious. If you're fine with coming off that way because James was happy with his performance in the interview--more power to you, but I'd be embarrassed if I were you right now. As you say, actions speak louder than words, and unprofessional disbelieving laughter from you during an ostensibly serious interview speaks much louder than your voice did reading out pre-prepared questions.
DeleteI thought you did a pretty good job. James has plenty of credibility as an amusing blogger. But this is not what he needs to be credible as a CSM. IMO he danced around only one question of yours successfully, the one about trolling (or "trolling", as it became). But other than that you confronted him squarely, as you should, and he answered very strongly.
Delete@Rammstein - Xander does interviews in his free time because he wants to, and you expect "professionalism"?
DeleteEntitlement much?
@anonymousbadposter:
DeleteI don't "expect" professionalism from any random volunteer effort, no. Therefore your rude accusation of entitlement mentality is unfounded.
However, if this was not an attempt to do a serious, real, interview, then what was it? If it was an attempt for an informal, funny, interview, then it failed even more horribly. Repeatedly hammering away at someone over an inability to understand the humor of their website is as unfunny an interview as I could possibly imagine. Indeed, in most ironic fashion, that would make him a "trolling" interviewer.
If I am in error in perceiving that Xander was attempting, and failing, to conduct a serious and professional-ish interview, but merely one of dubious entertainment value, then he can easily correct me here and I can refashion my comment without that incorrect assumption. Isn't that lucky?
@Rammstein Couple of points.
Delete1) I've very glad that most people seem to have been very pleased with this interview if judging from the replies on this forum, James' blog, Eve-O forums and reddit. I'm sorry you don't agree with the majority. I will concede that people haven't been as universally positive about this interview as with the others.
2) I am very excited to check out your professional CSM interview series when it happens. The feedback I've had from the 16 interviews (including this one) has been overwhelmingly positive so far as I'm sure you have noticed. If you think you can do better, I am exceptionally excited to hear it.
Also, fuck me, you have some AMAZING pub arguments.
@rammstein Oh and while I'm here, this comment - 'I have an issue with thoroughly unprofessional sarcastic tone from you, as the interviewer.'
DeleteYou imply that to be a 'professional' interviewer, you can't be sarcastic. I'm guessing you aren't British because if you were you may have heard of one of our most famous interviewers, BBC political journalist Jeremy Paxman. You should probably hit up YouTube for some examples.
If anything, Xander's interview with James caused me to consider supporting him whereas I wrote him off as a non-serious candidate before.
DeleteMost definitely. I didn't know what the make of James before the interview, and now I'm seriously considering giving him my votes. Thankfully we'll likely get an STV-style voting system, so at least I can rank my faves.
Delete@Xander:
DeleteI'm not a better interviewer than you, so I'm not going to do a series of 16 better interviews. I've never claimed to be a skillful interviewer, so that tack on your part is quite childish. If we went by that standard, bankers would be allowed to steal because they're better bankers than their critics, athletes would all take steroids without issue because people who aren't professional athletes would have no ground to criticize, botters would go unpunished in EVE as those who weren't skilled botters would have no basis for accusation, murderers would all go free because they're better murderers than the jury, etc. This is a nonsensical viewpoint.
That said, you've been pretty clear now that you were indeed intentionally conducting your interview at a junk tabloid level. Thank you for your honesty; I retract everything I said in my earlier comments, as they were based on a bad assumption and do not apply. I don't imagine we have anything further to say to one another.
@Rammstein
Delete'That said, you've been pretty clear now that you were indeed intentionally conducting your interview at a junk tabloid level'
No, I interviewed from the perspective of the average dude in Eve.
'they were based on a bad assumption and do not apply'
Yeah, you keep doing that, don't you? You should probably stop now.
'I don't imagine we have anything further to say to one another.'
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Xander Phoenix -- "No, I interviewed from the perspective of the average dude in Eve. "
DeleteXander Phoenix -- "You are a fucking moron"
Sorry, the average dude in EVE is well above that level of discourse. Average trade hub troll, sure.
Pointy Sticks is right - its human nature, human culture, human behaviour not game mechanics (look at serenity - different culture = different people behaviour with same game mechanics)
ReplyDeleteso - everything is OK with hi sec.....
So what are you worrying about if HTFU works so well? CCP were quoted as 'wanting to offer the best SF experience possible today'. People who play Eve Online are getting that. People who are using Eve Online to get their greifer pleasures are not. Which game are you playing Poe? Let me assist you I suggest that if 'tears' are a major part of your pleasure the G word is quite appropriate so just HTFU and accept you are a minority (getting smaller). Social attitudes have changed as people become relaxed with technology changes that shield them from the necessity to understand the technical with no consideration of the context of their use (10 years ago players struggled with making all the stuff work with little time for philosophy). Now, it better work out of the box so I can spend time on other things, like considering what is acceptable/desirable behavior. Adapt or die.
ReplyDelete"Seriously, when will I see something original around here?"
ReplyDeleteTruth, out of all the Eve Bloggers, Poetic is the most like modern media.. following the 'story' and creating headlines for the sake of viewers. And to think, i got my newbie skill plan from this site..
I am just going to add one argument here:
ReplyDeleteA lot of the players currently playing in high sec are actually what I would call "casual" players: They have e.g. an hour per day to play EVE in and want to get right into the action and be able to finish it in whatever little time they have (and possibly be able to take a break if RL "interferes" with the game time).
Neither Low-Sec nor Null Sec currently cater to these players - and nerfing high sec might perhaps make them quit EVE altogether but will never make them move. They simply do not have the time or the flexibility to do that.