For people living in high-sec, ganking is a constant problem and they demand more protection from the developers, especially during/after a serious ganking campaign. The other part of the community answers that there is already the stupidly overpowered CONCORD and sec status and certain weapons are unusable in highsec, so "carebears" already have too much protection and still they whine more.
Both sides are right. CONCORD is a joke as they are so strong that they could easily conquer the galaxy, but for some reason they are fine with doing nothing but killing gankers after the act. On the other hand, ganking is also very easy, a Tornado, which costs pocket change to an established player can oneshot the whole property of a new player (or a dumb miner).
The problem lies in how "crime" is handled in EVE. In real life, the jail isn't the only problem a criminal faces. Actually one faces it only after committing some serious crime, which most people never do. The smaller crimes are handled socially. I mean watching child porn pictures isn't a serious crime in the lawbook. You pay some fine and get into the list of sexual criminals. The real punishment for it is that you will lose your job when it's revealed, and there is a good chance that your friends and family (even your closest family) will sever connections with you. There are actions that don't even considered crime by law like talking neo-nazi ideas. Most people still don't do so (outside of anonymous forums), as the "lose your job and friends" is still there. The society handles those who violate the accepted norms, the Police only comes to the picture when the criminal is really bad.
In EVE the society is completely unable to do this. The coding prevents you from rejecting criminals in any way. The miners and traders cannot hold a "no minerals to gankers" event when they order their brokers to don't sell any minerals to those who were involved in Hulkageddon. I can't exclude gankers from public fleets, nor I can fight back until they fire first, no matter how much evidence I have that they are gankers. In EVE the consequences of ganking is completely paid to NPCs and the community is locked out of the loop: CONCORD will blow your ship and you must rat your sec status back. If you do these, the code decides that you are forgiven, no matter what other players think.
The solution would be not an even stronger anti-gank coding. CONCORD and magical weapon disabling could be removed, the faction police should be enough. Maybe they need some buffing on the escalation side, so over time they should be able to overcome any player intrusion, but in short term they shouldn't be stronger than random players and any prepared criminal should be able to resist them for a few minutes.
The consequences should be social. I suggest three self-defined player and corporation statuses: "lawful", "amoral" and "pirate". Lawful players refuse to trade or team with pirates or even with amorals. The market and contract system respects that. Amoral and pirate players can't bid on your auctions or contracts nor can you on theirs. You can't send or receive ISK or do direct trading with them either. Obviously a lawful player can't commit crimes in Empire space (he gets a "this action would be criminal" message whenever he tries to). Lawful corporations can accept only lawful members, can only form alliance with other lawful corporations and blue only other lawful corporations/alliances. The starter NPC corporations are all lawful. Lawful players can attack only war targets (including faction war) and pirates.
Amoral players and corporations can trade with fellow amorals and pirates too. Being amoral means not having problems with pirates, but staying within the letter of the law so they still cannot commit crimes. Amoral corporations can accept amorals and pirates, can form alliances and blue each other. There should be some default amoral NPC corporation for such players if they leave their player corporation.
Pirates can attack other players without wardecs. However as soon as someone declares himself to be a pirate, the high-sec wouldn't have him. Any player can attack him, he cannot dock in high-sec stations, his high-sec assets are confiscated and the faction police and sentry guns attack him on sight. He can join amoral player corporations or NPC pirate corporations (Gurista, Serpentis, Sansha and so on). What? Being forbidden from high sec? Isn't it too harsh? Well, it was explicitly told you during training that if you want to be a pirate, you must go low-sec:
Also, the low and null sec is not different from high from NPC standpoint. If everyone would "play nice", the difference between 0.5 and 0.0 would be the same as between 1.0 and 0.5: different minerals. Pirating players make low and null different from highsec. It's completely fair to expect them to eat what they cooked. You like ganking? Fine! Then go and live with fellow gankers!
This system would make security status useless and removed. The player is free to declare himself lower assuming he has 3M skill points to prevent players using disposable pirate alts. Changing status on the other hand takes time, both to prevent exploitation (flipping back and forth, smuggling items between communities), to emphasize the importance of the choice and to make one pay for his "crimes" the same way as in the real life: time. Change can only be initiated while docked, and doing so would log the pilot out, and place a "changing from X to Y until [date]" message on the character selection screen. Entering the game with that pilot before the change is complete cancels the change. No skills are learned during state change. I think the proper times would be:
With this system the players would have social means to handle ganking. If they are fine with ganking, they can choose to be amoral or even pirates themselves. If they reject it, they can choose to be lawful, punishing pirates and amorals by boycotting and shooting them. Pirates wouldn't be stopped by the godlike CONCORD but by other players - if they choose to stop them. Maybe only a few "carebears" would choose to be lawful and they would be ridiculed, wardecced if in player corps and hunted as abominations. Maybe the pirates+amorals would find that they are a 10% minority and they have to pay huge premium for purchases and can't find an open incursion fleet as the vast majority boycotts them. Either way, the community would decide. Obviously one could still chose the other way, playing the hunted pirate who refuse to behave or the noble hero who stands resolute in the sea of evil.
Please note that being lawful or amoral wouldn't lock one to "carebear" state. Player-null and wormhole space is not policed, anyone can shoot anyone there. They could also fight against declared war targets in policed space. They would only lose their option to gank random people in policed space.
The economies wouldn't be completely severed, pirates can obviously obtain items from lawful pilots by stealing their can or looting their wrecks. Items can also move between the communities as the assets of pilots changing states, but that would be limited by the long changing times.
PS: little fun story. My girlfriend said she don't really like EVE since she always played classes with pets in games and she can't do it here. I love how a gift of a simple skillbook solved this problem. Since then she happily runs the L1-2s with the Rokh. This game has much more choices and possibilities than any other I ever played. Try it out! The M&S has so much money, it's our sacred duty to separate them from it.
EVE Business report: Thursday morning 14.1B (2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
Both sides are right. CONCORD is a joke as they are so strong that they could easily conquer the galaxy, but for some reason they are fine with doing nothing but killing gankers after the act. On the other hand, ganking is also very easy, a Tornado, which costs pocket change to an established player can oneshot the whole property of a new player (or a dumb miner).
The problem lies in how "crime" is handled in EVE. In real life, the jail isn't the only problem a criminal faces. Actually one faces it only after committing some serious crime, which most people never do. The smaller crimes are handled socially. I mean watching child porn pictures isn't a serious crime in the lawbook. You pay some fine and get into the list of sexual criminals. The real punishment for it is that you will lose your job when it's revealed, and there is a good chance that your friends and family (even your closest family) will sever connections with you. There are actions that don't even considered crime by law like talking neo-nazi ideas. Most people still don't do so (outside of anonymous forums), as the "lose your job and friends" is still there. The society handles those who violate the accepted norms, the Police only comes to the picture when the criminal is really bad.
In EVE the society is completely unable to do this. The coding prevents you from rejecting criminals in any way. The miners and traders cannot hold a "no minerals to gankers" event when they order their brokers to don't sell any minerals to those who were involved in Hulkageddon. I can't exclude gankers from public fleets, nor I can fight back until they fire first, no matter how much evidence I have that they are gankers. In EVE the consequences of ganking is completely paid to NPCs and the community is locked out of the loop: CONCORD will blow your ship and you must rat your sec status back. If you do these, the code decides that you are forgiven, no matter what other players think.
The solution would be not an even stronger anti-gank coding. CONCORD and magical weapon disabling could be removed, the faction police should be enough. Maybe they need some buffing on the escalation side, so over time they should be able to overcome any player intrusion, but in short term they shouldn't be stronger than random players and any prepared criminal should be able to resist them for a few minutes.
The consequences should be social. I suggest three self-defined player and corporation statuses: "lawful", "amoral" and "pirate". Lawful players refuse to trade or team with pirates or even with amorals. The market and contract system respects that. Amoral and pirate players can't bid on your auctions or contracts nor can you on theirs. You can't send or receive ISK or do direct trading with them either. Obviously a lawful player can't commit crimes in Empire space (he gets a "this action would be criminal" message whenever he tries to). Lawful corporations can accept only lawful members, can only form alliance with other lawful corporations and blue only other lawful corporations/alliances. The starter NPC corporations are all lawful. Lawful players can attack only war targets (including faction war) and pirates.
Amoral players and corporations can trade with fellow amorals and pirates too. Being amoral means not having problems with pirates, but staying within the letter of the law so they still cannot commit crimes. Amoral corporations can accept amorals and pirates, can form alliances and blue each other. There should be some default amoral NPC corporation for such players if they leave their player corporation.
Pirates can attack other players without wardecs. However as soon as someone declares himself to be a pirate, the high-sec wouldn't have him. Any player can attack him, he cannot dock in high-sec stations, his high-sec assets are confiscated and the faction police and sentry guns attack him on sight. He can join amoral player corporations or NPC pirate corporations (Gurista, Serpentis, Sansha and so on). What? Being forbidden from high sec? Isn't it too harsh? Well, it was explicitly told you during training that if you want to be a pirate, you must go low-sec:
Also, the low and null sec is not different from high from NPC standpoint. If everyone would "play nice", the difference between 0.5 and 0.0 would be the same as between 1.0 and 0.5: different minerals. Pirating players make low and null different from highsec. It's completely fair to expect them to eat what they cooked. You like ganking? Fine! Then go and live with fellow gankers!
This system would make security status useless and removed. The player is free to declare himself lower assuming he has 3M skill points to prevent players using disposable pirate alts. Changing status on the other hand takes time, both to prevent exploitation (flipping back and forth, smuggling items between communities), to emphasize the importance of the choice and to make one pay for his "crimes" the same way as in the real life: time. Change can only be initiated while docked, and doing so would log the pilot out, and place a "changing from X to Y until [date]" message on the character selection screen. Entering the game with that pilot before the change is complete cancels the change. No skills are learned during state change. I think the proper times would be:
- Lawful-amoral: 1 day
- Amoral-lawful: 1 week
- Amoral-pirate: 1 day
- Pirate-amoral: 4 weeks
With this system the players would have social means to handle ganking. If they are fine with ganking, they can choose to be amoral or even pirates themselves. If they reject it, they can choose to be lawful, punishing pirates and amorals by boycotting and shooting them. Pirates wouldn't be stopped by the godlike CONCORD but by other players - if they choose to stop them. Maybe only a few "carebears" would choose to be lawful and they would be ridiculed, wardecced if in player corps and hunted as abominations. Maybe the pirates+amorals would find that they are a 10% minority and they have to pay huge premium for purchases and can't find an open incursion fleet as the vast majority boycotts them. Either way, the community would decide. Obviously one could still chose the other way, playing the hunted pirate who refuse to behave or the noble hero who stands resolute in the sea of evil.
Please note that being lawful or amoral wouldn't lock one to "carebear" state. Player-null and wormhole space is not policed, anyone can shoot anyone there. They could also fight against declared war targets in policed space. They would only lose their option to gank random people in policed space.
The economies wouldn't be completely severed, pirates can obviously obtain items from lawful pilots by stealing their can or looting their wrecks. Items can also move between the communities as the assets of pilots changing states, but that would be limited by the long changing times.
PS: little fun story. My girlfriend said she don't really like EVE since she always played classes with pets in games and she can't do it here. I love how a gift of a simple skillbook solved this problem. Since then she happily runs the L1-2s with the Rokh. This game has much more choices and possibilities than any other I ever played. Try it out! The M&S has so much money, it's our sacred duty to separate them from it.
EVE Business report: Thursday morning 14.1B (2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
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