Almijisti Almagest
Science and Trade Institute
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Posted - 2008.03.26 02:09:00 -
[1]
Hi; first off, I have been playing for about two months, comparatively a complete noob, so take my comments with that in mind. That said, I have experienced low-sec from the POV of an itinerate trader and can definitely say that "piracy", while perhaps not easy, is far too prevalent and makes trading, mining, or exploring through or to low-sec far too risky for the cost-benefit. I put pirates in quotes there because most of them are simply griefers, the EVE equivalent to street thugs, and not people I would liken to someone like Edward Teach or Henry Every.
The reason for griefing/piracy being the norm in low-sec is pretty obvious: there is no deterrent to be a criminal. Loss of standing is, frankly, a ridiculous form of punishment for someone who is already committed to criminal activity. That's literally the equivalent of telling a serial killer that he won't be able to shop at Macy's if he keeps murdering women. It's a joke. I'm too much of a noob to know enough about what solutions could be found, but i would suggest that criminal activity be punished as it would in the real world: with fines (loss of isk), imprisonment (i.e., loss of access to the character for a time) or death (i.e., allow Concord to pod-kill very low sec players). Again, I'm very much a noob, but it does seem pretty obvious that anyone can play gangsta with nothing approaching the real risks such a life would entail in the real world.
Putting aside the risk-factor for a moment, the economic issues still make low-sec a dubious time and isk investment. Since it takes that much longer to get to more stable markets that can be relied upon, and time is money for any trader, it doesn't make much sense to go all the way to low sec for minimal profits that can't be realized without coming all the way back to high sec. I can make more isk buying and selling entirely in high sec than spending a couple hours jumping around to low sec. Even with higher trade skills, the goods still have to get to the buyers and that means having those goods already in high-sec or paying for a courier contract. Self-transporting is again, a time-waster.
Anyway, some real consequences for piracy/griefing and maybe roving Concord patrols to bust-up gate campers would make low-sec more worthwhile. At present, I am more interested in moving into 0.0 than low sec since at least a decent corp actually can police their controlled systems. Even during the tournament, Bergstrom (sp?) basically admitted that low-sec was more dangerous than 0.0 sec.
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