Dragonx
Hendrix Angels
Fabricated Confabulations
1
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Posted - 2012.05.10 14:34:00 -
[1] - Quote
During my first days in EVE (Beta) I was recruited by the best corp I've had the joy of playing with. I was immediately asked to fly out to the depths of Fountain and was forewarned of many NPC pirates at gates. Bare in mind that these were the days of mining for your ships, no warp to zero and little known of the game mechanics. We'd soon created a set of bookmarks to insta jump... Good old days.
This was the most fun I've ever had in EVE. I was immediately mining precious resources in my imicus with tech 1 mining lasers. Since then I've come and gone from the game but never again found nullsec as inviting. Back then we had the occasional m0o or other pirate camping outside our station, but it was fun. We talked to each other and killed each other if someone slipped up.
I've recently come back to EVE and find myself to be one of those "stuck" in high-sec for whatever irrational reasons. Sure, I can and do nip out across 0.0, buy and sell, often in a pod for convinience. It's not difficult. I'd love to be living there as I did 9 years ago but the problem is, as a number of people have pointed out, it's not "inviting." More importantly, the people there aren't inviting - literally. If I, with xSP, resources and game know-how cannot quickly find a corp to join them in 0.0, I can't imagine how much of a barrier there is for all the new and high-sec established people to even fathom moving there.
To me, ultimately, EVE is overpopulated. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see 100x more players. Rather, it's overpopulated for the game mechanics and distances within the game. When it took a long time to get out deep into 0.0, and it was an epic journey to get back, it was amazing, and a rush to encounter "enemies." But I guess that's somewhat beside the point. I feel that in many ways many of the additions to the game over the years have taken much out of the fun factor and appeal of null-sec. Everything is instantly gratified now, it's too easy. I can sit in empire all day doing level 4 missions easily solo or with help if there are corp'ies about. I can mine, melt loot and sell or, or build ships with it. If I'm really feeling lazy and really want "that" new ship or item I can just buy PLEX or ETC and get it. If I'm an alliance in 0.0 I could make 15,000 ships and gank people for a laugh in a relatively short time and relative ease.
Anyway, this thread is one of the most, if not the most interesting ones I've read in a while. It highlights many issues I've felt in recent times but haven't given enough thought to. To get people into 0.0 two things need to happen. First, CCP needs to make EVE feel big and hard again. EVE used to be hard. Space used to be big. I shouldn't be able to grief some players in one corner of EVE and then in another corner an hour later. That's ridiculous and too easy. I could do suicide runs all day grieving people and refuelling in Jita with the aid of PLEX if need be. Second, all those null-sec players complaining about people in high-sec need to encourage the players out. Scamming them and ganking them most certainly doesn't work. There needs to be both a better mechanism for this and a greater effort from the established community to recruit people on a more personal level. Encourage them to mine and do PVE in null-sec. PVP later, as people are more confident and have gotten to know the people they're flying with. |