Valea Silpha
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
70
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Posted - 2012.11.23 01:02:00 -
[1] - Quote
Making it more dangerous to trade only seems like a good idea if you camp gates tbh. It would make the economy even more open to manipulation and definitely would increase prices by a wide margin.
Jita would still reign supreme as the trade-hub of choice and everyone else would either have to fly their cheap ships through massively camped gates, or pay more wherever else they happen to be at the time. Basically it would punish people for picking the wrong race. All of this is bad.
Also, this doesn't only change hauling for trade. It also effects hauling for personal stuff. Moving a dozen ships is already long dull and painful, moving them through pirate infested low sec is horrific. The net result is that it encourages not only people to never leave high-sec, but also to never leave amarr/jita/dodixie/rens. Joined a new corp ? Well you can either fly your ships through the biggest choke points in eve, or you can lose a minimum of 20% of everything you spent selling them. It didn't work out ? Well you can either sell up again, or run the gauntlet again.
In terms of PvP, this idea makes any empire pvp basically impossible. Run a locator agent on a target, and oh no there's a hundred pirates between my three dudes and him. So no pvp for us. Oh they all jump cloned into amarr space? So I guess this whole war is useless now.
If there are easy kills to be had, then people will take them, and just because you're only thinking about trading doesn't mean thats the only thing its going to effect. It would make eve feel like a much much smaller place, with incredibly cruel boundaries policed by jerks. It ensures that most if not all routes between trade hubs are impossible to traverse for everyone all the time.
Under no circumstance would the risk be worth the reward. For new people, it back-stabs them for shopping for a good price.
To put it concisely, your idea doesn't encourage emergent gameplay, it encourages people to not play the game. It doesn't even make sense in its own terms.
'Pirates' as used to exist are a complete myth. You are thinking of 'privateers', but I'll let that go. And they did not outnumber the merchantmen ever. Nor did merchant ships travel alone, ever. Pirate ships were small and fast, and survived by every now and again picking off a straggler. The value of a ship and cargo taken would pay every man on a pirate ship for a year. There was no such thing as pirate infested waters, because the pirates had to constantly be moving, because the navies would come and kill them if they stayed still. They also needed a friendly harbour (no harbour would ever accept a freelance pirate btw because all sailors of all navies hated them, that's why you needed to be a privateer so you could use allied ports, and of course without a harbour you couldn't sell the hundreds of tons of cargo you stole).
Compare that to the results in eve. Pirates would be static, because there would be choke points. They need have no fear of being killed, because they can fly whatever ships they want in as many numbers as they want. They can immediately contact friends to reinforce them. Seeing a big fleet with escort ships approach wouldn't make them scatter, it would mean they got a more fun fight. They have a friendly port wherever they want them, because the game lets anyone dock in low sec. It is exactly the opposite of the romantic ideal of piracy you have. Far from the lone pirate against the masses of merchants, it would be masses of pirates against lone merchants.
There is no aspect of this that would improve the game, except that you get to kill more haulers. Go you. |