I appreciate the CCP responses to this thread, as well as its mostly constructive discussion so far. I have one question for the CCP game design team:

What do you think about what I'd call the "traditional model" of a 0.0 alliance? Now, I can't speak for how things work in the south or east, but pretty much every alliance in the north works in a similar fashion. The alliance holds strategic assets (moons being by far the most important, then also POCOs and stations), which produce income to the alliance wallet. This wallet then funds ship replacement / ship sponsorship / capital / supercapital programs.

This means that the regular member in a reasonably well-run alliance will get their ship losses in PvP replaced by this alliance income. This means that I, as a member of an alliance, don't have to spend my time grinding NPCs or rocks for money, I can instead spend it fighting for my alliance - which is what I came to 0.0 to do.

If alliance-level income is nerfed to the point that it can't afford the ships needed to keep the alliance alive, the burden of making ISK falls down to the common grunts. I, as a busy person out of game, definitely don't have the time to spend shooting NPCs or shooting rocks or doing industry or whatnot to afford my ships. Neither I want to, I consider the vast majority of PvE content in EVE dull and repetitive. I prefer shooting other people in the face and taking their stuff.

Forcing alliances to tax their members and then use the taxes to buy ships doesn't solve the problem. It only means that the alliance will be redistributing the burden of the grind. If the "PvPer" in an alliance is to survive, someone else (or likely several people) will have to pay for their losses. I don't see a fair way of managing this that wouldn't result in a group of alliance members being exploited for their ISK.

And before anyone accuses me of wanting effort-free income, this is very far from the truth. Alliance (moongoo) income is by no means effort-free. Even now, in what I would consider peacetime, there is not a week without us having to fight to defend our moons. In an active war, moons are being attacked daily and frequently change owners. I would say that on average I spend as much time fighting for moons (and for sovereignty, and for CSAAs, and to just deter enemy fleets) as I would need to grind for money to afford my ships. The only difference is that I don't spend this time shooting NPCs, but shooting other people.

This aspect of EVE is what kept me attracted to it for the past three years. The fact that you can have a fully functional game without any of the background and content being provided by NPCs. As it stands now, the vast majority of my interaction with the game is player-driven. Our income as an alliance - which funds my ships - comes from bashing other players' towers, not from grinding NPCs. After a blanket moongoo removal with no comparable replacement for an alliance-level income, I don't see a way in which this type of gameplay could survive.

So here stands my question, is CCP aware of this "traditional model" of a 0.0 alliance? Do you want to support it, abolish it, or is it not a deciding factor in the process?

Thanks for any replies.