What am I looking for?

I’d like to find a fairly mature, active PvP corp for my Gallente. He is still below 3 million skill points so he’s got a lot of developing to do. I don’t really want highsec wars because they generally lead to station games and that gets old pretty fast. Essentially I’m looking for a PvP corp that is willing to “train” me and show me the ropes. I’ve already been through a basic PvP class that my previous faction ran and on a few 0.0 roams, so I’m not a total newbie but I know I still have a lot to learn.

As far as my Indy, I’m not sure yet if I want to just leave her in the NPC corp so I can mine without worry of wars or if she’ll tag along. Anyways, if you’d like a pilot that is willing to listen and learn, can follow orders and just wants to have fun…  feel free to comment.

Oh..  US Timezone corps only please.

Originally my current corp appealed to me because of how they said they responded to war decs – they would fleet up and fight. The first war dec that came in about a month ago, this turned out fine. We fought a few engagements and after the week was up the group moved on. The current war dec has been very different though – it’s essentially a group that just tries to pick on the weak, single targets with their better skills and better ships. Any time we bring a significant force against them, they start playing the lame station docking games. I’ve only lost one industrial that was my own stupid fault.

The problem isn’t this group that is picking on our weak though. It’s how their response has differed with the current war targets. Essentially, we are expected to always fleet up whenever we are doing any missioning or mining. That wouldn’t bother me so much…  if I could actually get into a fleet. Quite a few times, I’ve asked repeatedly for a couple hours if any groups were out doing missions. Either I get no response…  or I get a response that basically means I’m not wanted. I understand that some people may not want to split the isk/loot from their level 4 missions that they can solo. But if that’s true…  then don’t come on the forums and bitch at people for going off to do their own thing. I moved my Hulk out of the area the war targets were camping regularly, so I could still earn some decent isk. Apparently, I shouldn’t have done this…   I suppose I should just sit in station a couple hours each night, waiting for the chance to get in a fleet.

Did I mention the fact that a few people even mentioned that they will not provide “protection” for us miners that are only mining for ourselves? Forget the fact that the corp uses Mining Buddy to do payouts for mining ops, and these same people could easily get paid by joining up? Forget the fact that they could earn isk for doing nothing more than sitting on a gate, watching local for flashing red, while the miners and haulers are actually working? Sure…  mining is not all that much work, but it’s a damn lot more work than sitting watching local.

Apparently I should also be spending all my gaming hours in a fleet that does nothing but sit in the same system the war targets are in, docked in station and talking crap in local. I’ve done this multiple times and let me tell ya…  it gets boring, FAST. Of course, because I quit doing this over the past week, because I’ve basically been ignoring the “war that isn’t a war”, I’m not supporting the corp. I’m some carebear miner that won’t help my corpmates. Pfft…   obviously you missed the fact that I have 2 accounts, one for mining/production and one that is developing my PvP character. Obviously, you missed the fact that I’ve participated in several 0.0 roams – you missed the fact that the first 2 weeks of the war, I spent quite a bit of time in these fleets that sit for hours.

The straw that really broke the camels back for me though was looking at the forums today and seeing someone say that they will not invite someone to their mission fleet that is not in Vent. I have Vent and it works. But if my wife is watching TV behind me…   you yelling, or laughing, or acting drunk means she can’t hear. I don’t like wearing the headphones, especially due to those things I just mentioned. So if my wife is asleep on the couch, then no…   I’m not hopping on Vent to listen to you talk about useless junk.

I pay to play Eve the way I want to play it. So if you’re going to bitch and moan about how I’m not supporting your precious corp…   well, I can find somewhere elseto play. o7

This is my first time participating in the Blog Banter, I look forward to participating in them more in the future.

Welcome to the eighth installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here . Check out otherEVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from me, Ga’len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility.  He asks: “What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe?  Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a ‘nerf this, boost my game play’ post like we see on the EVE forums.”

I’m a newer player so I still have a lot to learn and discover about Eve Online. So far I’ve mostly been involved in mining, mission running, and a few highsec wars. I have a bit more skill points (at least on my miner) than the average new player because I originally started my Eve account a few years ago. I only played about a month or two back then before I got too involved in World of Warcraft to keep up with Eve. Essentially though, I’m still what most would call a “newbie”.

I say this because I know many that participate in this month’s Blog Banter are likely more experienced, longer time players. I still have so much to learn…

Anyways, my suggestion for a new game mechanic would be to implement a system that allows for NPC-based scenarios to be run by CCP. I’ve played many different MMO’s through the years and some of my most memorable experiences came from those games where the game developers participated more in the game by running storylines that the players could participate in. I played Ultima Online back when they actually did things like this and I will never forget those days.

I know that many may be against this, as Eve is specifically designed to be “run by the players”. Imagine though, when the latest expansion released and the wormholes appeared throughout space, how different would it have been if small fleets of NPC “rats” had of jumped into your home system and started attacking the local star bases? Would players have rallied to defend? What if the “rats” had of managed to actually destroy the local Concord defense ships, temporarily changing that highsec system into lowsec? Would pirates have used this as a chance to prey on the locals?

CCP has been working more on the storyline for Eve lately from everything I’ve read, which to me is always a good thing. I’ve been a roleplayer for many years, starting with D&D and even getting into it various MMO’s. I don’t roleplay in Eve but I always enjoy it more when there is a good back-story to the game I’m playing. These “scenarios” would be great to allow the players to get more involved in the Eve universe, more so than just fighting for sovereignty or the various 0.0 dramas I hear about.

Mission running can also get pretty boring fairly quickly. Many missions become the same, repetitive steps and grinding faction standing can get tiresome pretty fast. What if these scenarios allowed you to gain faction standing for participating? Perhaps even new faction rewards could be added in, given to only those who participate in the scenarios?

Eve Online was designed to be a sandbox game, I fully understand that. I’m not asking for these scenarios to be run all the time. Even if it was only with each expansion or with major change or event in the game, I think it would seriously add more to the game and perhaps draw in even more players to the game.

Other Blog Banters

They vary in age, race, sex…  I’ve seen people often refer to them as “kids” or “children” but many times I have come to find out that even those out of their teenage years can be a GIM. Their tactics vary from game to game as well. My first real MMO was Ultima Online, where people would frequently corpse camp your body after killing you. The term, “Player Killer” or PK, really originated from Ultima Online, where your character would turn red for frequently killing others, giving anyone free reign to attack the PK without consequence. Many PK’s wore their red color with pride though.

Player vs Player (PvP) combat was only one of many tactics for a GIM to try to ruin your gameplay. In World of Warcraft, I saw GIMs that would purposely exploit various game mechanics to ruin others day. Stealing raid ID’s, attacking a quest mob before you could do enough damage to it so you wouldn’t get credit, purposefully ruining a market for a crafting skill…  the list could go on for some length. WoW was that much worse too because of it’s huge popularity and lesser learning curve – the more people there were, the more GIMs that abounded. I’ve seen guilds destroyed just because a GIM decided he didn’t like the guild.

Console gamers have it worse than most from the little bit I’ve seen. I’m not sure if it’s because the majority of console gamers tend to be younger or what, but anytime I have joined a game on my PS3, the smacktalking over voice chat is just ridiculous. I had thought that my days of playing Battlefield 2 on the PC would prepare me for it, but all I can do is shake my head as I think about the cursing, the belittling of others and the “teabagging” that goes on in these games. It makes me wonder many times what the parents of that 13-year old is doing while he screams epithets into his mic while shooting your already dead body.

I only recently have started playing Eve Online again. Many times I’ve heard it described as a more adult-oriented game. Sure, there is a younger crowd that plays it but I doubt many 10-14 year olds play. The game mechanics and user interface themselves just aren’t as user friendly to the younger gamer in my opinion. This does not mean there isn’t a sizeable crowd of GIMs around though. Huge scams have happened several times in the past. Can flipping, or stealing from another players can of ore, is a popular tactic as well – many times it’s just an attempt to try to get the miner to agress the can flipper so they can be blown into space debris. Of course let’s not forget the GIMs that find it amusing to fly around highsec, declaring war on industrial or newbie corps, getting their kicks out of destroying these player’s new ships. Playing station docking games when a sizeable fleet is brought against them, smacktalking in local chat while safely docked up.

Sometimes I really have to wonder what these GIMs do in real life. Is it some young kid sitting in his parents basement, laughing away as he ridicules others in some game? Perhaps its a group of college kids, drinking and having a good ole’ time at the expense of the new player that doesn’t know how to defend themself? Really though, it doesn’t matter. All of them fit into a category of people that enjoy the misfortune of others. Is this the new generation of player?

———————————-

As to why this post is titled Highsec Wars, I have really come to the conclusion that CCP (the developers of  Eve Online) really need to do something to redesign the way wars work in highsec. I know that I’m newish to Eve, but it seems to me that these wars work only in favor of the long-time player that wants to kill newer players. I’m part of a rather sizeable adults-only corp (400+ members) and for the most part many of us are newer (below 5 million SP). I still have a lot to learn about Eve. For the past few weeks, we’ve remained war dec’d by other corps. The first one wasn’t so bad, they warred us and moved on after the first week, even complimenting us in the long run. Turned out it was a French corp, which amused me to no end. The second corp though…  they have been doing nothing but going after ripe, easy targets and when we bring a fleet against them they just play station games. Quite a few of them talk smack in local chat, of course. We’ve had very high numbers of losses compared to theirs, but each of their single ships is worth about 10-15 of ours most times.  I guess I just don’t get what fun it is to sit docked in a station while 20 ships sit around waiting for you to come out. I lost an industrial due to my own stupidity and newbishness, but generally it hasn’t been too big for me other than getting tired of having to watch out for war targets.

Generally, I just don’t understand CCP’s intent with highsec wars. To me, if a war target shoots at an enemy ship whatsoever, they should not be able to dock up for a long time. We shouldn’t need to sit in system for four hours guarding against the enemy undocking and going after one of our corpmates that isn’t paying attention. It should be a war. Now today the enemy did not renew the war, but there is talk of going out and attacking their lowsec POS within a couple weeks. I wish we had of done that in the first place, maybe then they wouldn’t play station games in our area (their HQ over 40 jumps away).

Mostly I just want to be able to either 1) – Play the game in peace or 2) – Actually fight. Supposedly this weekend we are taking the fight to them a bit more…   but that remains to be seen.