Unlike Trebor, I've never felt that Ripard would pander to whatever segment of the EVE Online population could get him elected. He's not quick to state a position until he's well-versed with it. That can be frustrating for a potential voter, but it also means he considers his positions well.
So colour me exceptionally surprised and pleased to have read the following response on his campaign thread in the Jita Park area of the EVE Online forums. It's a response to what could best be described as a troll post by Fawn Tailor; the sort of political trolling you see from fans of other candidates in every campaign thread. Fawn is a member of New Order Logistics, which most of you might know as James 315's corporation. Fawn was attempting to paint Ripard as some sort of super-carebear who would urge CCP to further the carebearing of highsec. (I would strongly suggest that New Order Logistics go after Trebor in this regard. He's already come out strongly in favour of consensualizing more PvP in highsec.)
So here is Ripard's response. It made me smile. And he deserves a bro hug.
Fawn, it's pretty clear from what you write that you're not going to vote for me no matter what I say. But the ironic thing is that I am philosphically sympathetic to your aims. Looking at what New Order Logistics is up to, you're pretty much doing just what I put into my blog: you're putting multiple Catalysts on the field for most every gank. As far as I can tell, your first solo kill on this character was two days ago and I'd guess it mostly happened on the strength of the T2 blasters you used. But most of the time, you're making ganking social and putting a lot of players and a lot of ISK on the field. I totally respect that: it's how I'd like ganking to work.Or consider this comment regarding risk/reward:
I was particularly impressed by this kill:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16434966
Matter of fact, if you want to tell the story of how that happened, I'll make it my blog's Kill of the Week this week and tell your corp's story so that I present both sides. Write up what you like about what your corp does and as long as it's within reason, I'll publish it.
For income, it should be high-sec income < low-sec income < null-sec income.
That's is how it is for incursions today, but high-sec incursions should be riskier for the ISK being made. The incursion sites themselves are balanced fairly well, but if I were a junior game designer, I'd look for ways to increase the risk in other ways. One idea that I saw somewhere that I found kind of intriguing would be to significantly delay CONCORD response in incursed constellations. But I don't want to get too specific because I'm not a game designer. All I have to work from here is my feeling that in all areas of the game, you should be rewarded more for risking more.
Ripard and Poetic sitting in a tree; kay eye ess ess eye enn jee.
ReplyDeleteSorry, couldn't help it; you two are such a cute couple! <3
(Ripard for prefect)
Am I the only one that finds it adorable that little Fawn thinks he is doing all that work by himself and his few skillpoints. I miss the younger days
ReplyDeleteI'd disagree that null sec reward should be greater than low sec reward. Most players who play in all areas of the game know that low sec is a much riskier place to be grinding ISK, whether via missions, mining or whatever. You don't get the protection/benefits of holding sov, nor the protection from Concord.
ReplyDeletehi to null is clearly and purposefully intended as a gradient. It seems silly to me to adjust the reward gradient to match a broken risk gradient, instead of just fixing the risk gradient.
Delete-Bantara
The thing I hate about the argument over "income" high/low/null is that it's really hard to pin down exactly what the conditions of the debate are. Certainly there are plenty of people in null who make, in terms of raw income, far more than their highsec counterparts. If the income stratification that Ripard outlines is possible (as in, a person in null CAN make more than a person in low, who CAN in turn make more than a person in high), then I'm not really seeing the stakes of the debate. Are we going to argue that it shouldn't even be POSSIBLE for a person in highsec to make as much money as a person in low or null? That seems like an overtly anti-sandbox principle to me.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, in EVE, income is variable mostly as a condition of an individual player's will to chase it down. And it's made in so many different ways that it's hard to say, okay, we'll tweak this or that, and now there will be a hard cap to earnings in each area of space. It's difficult to pin down what the people who pay lip service to this idea are actually arguing for. They say "income," but it's such a nebulous term, and the theories behind how it should be managed/controlled in order to produce the intended outcome tend to be quite thin, or even nonexistent.
And at the end of the day, I think the "income incentive" argument is a bit of a red herring. There's too much faith put in the notion that people will chase ISK anywhere, and too little in the way of reasoning or evidence to back it up. Sorry, but if you want people to go to nullsec, you have to fundamentally alter what nullsec has BECOME. People are staying away because it's a matter of either joining up with one of a small handful of alliances, or being shark bait. It has nothing to do with how much money one can or cannot make out there.
People want a place where they can belong, and when you limit the overall number of those places to a mere handful, like we've got now, that dramatically reduces the chances of people being interested in the prospect. Now, I'm not sure exactly how we rectify that situation. Obviously, heavy-handed solutions are out of the question. But certainly, I think that shaking up the sovereignty system, and shaking up moon-goo income, perhaps developing some mechanics that turn a gigantic alliance's lack of agility into a downside (thereby creating an opening for smaller, more agile groups to make a dent in null), would be a good idea. Far better than this notion of stratified "income" anyway.
"I just want to hug Ripard Teg right now..." but, only from behind, right? ;-)
ReplyDeleteOr you can simply read between the lines in Ripard's statement:
ReplyDelete"As far as I can tell, your first solo kill on this character was two days ago and I'd guess it mostly happened on the strength of the T2 blasters you used."
Translation: You clearly are not as new a player as you think you are.
"But most of the time, you're making ganking social and putting a lot of players and a lot of ISK on the field. I totally respect that: it's how I'd like ganking to work."
Translation: Individual ingenuity and knowledge of game mechanics is discouraged in the high sec outlaw game style. If you don't put a lot of assets and ISK on the field (and do that as a team) you aren't being fair to the solo rich, detached carebear. Let's buff Concord again.
Rest of that post's translation: I made a terrible PR mistake back in late January, but thanks to my ability in being absolutely vague and still make seemingly solid statements, I will now just fill the blanks, a posteriori, with details of what I "really" meant back then. And while at it, let's mix all that with a friendly, interested attitude. My 'bending-in-the-wind' kung fu is really strong.
Ripard is the worst (by virtue of his detachment) representative high sec can have. I can't understand why you think his tactics are so different from Trebor's (a guy who enjoys Ripard's support) Poetic. Is it because Teg is simply the better politician?
If you read Ripard's quotes in context, and have followed his blog since before the New Order started fixating on it, Ripard's positions are very clear and obviously not pro-carebear. But quote mining to set up straw men is a good enough way to manipulate any real-life electorate, so why not do it in Eve as well :)
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