People fight in ways others don't like, in a sandbox. News at 10.

No, not jousting.

Notice I didn't say "don't blob". I never mentioned honorable combat. This isn't two guys barreling at each other under presumably equal circumstances. I'm saying that the people who engage in those activities need to get out of their comfort zones and live a little.

I spend the majority of my time at war with a half-dozen corps and alliances in highsec. I hunt my targets, running 20+ jumps to get a kill, exposing myself to ambushes and counter attacks every moment I'm active. I've watched hunter fleets start into a long warp and then ganked the last one off the gate, then led the rest of their fleet on a chase until I was able to single another one out. I've hunted targets while being hunted by mercenaries, avoiding their attempted traps and continuing to kill the corporation they were hired to protect. That is FAR more of a rush than "we sat on a gate and shot all the lone ships that came through and then warped off when a gang showed up on gate that could beat us". Risk is what makes Eve exciting.

Too much talk on effectiveness, the problem is the fun factor. Gate camps (I haven't been hot dropped) are not fun, for the camper or campee.

Gate camps will be gone the day inter-system travel will be introduced. But this being said, many features will need to be tweaked and introduced as well. Here are a few things CCP could do:

- All ships could have a second "improved" warp system (transwarp drive) that can only be used for inter-system travel (because of some natural phenomena). This would eleminate the need to do multiple warps because you ran-out of cap. These trans-systems warps should not take to much time.

- Make it possible to be able to warp to a ship that gets into your dscan range. If the detected ship is in warp, why not even be able to follow it in warp so you can land exactly where it will be landing. You could even introduce a way to simply take ships out of warp. Interceptors would be great at this. Covert-ops ships warp signatures could be detected at the last second (give the rabbit a chance guys!!)

- Make it possible for the prey to be automaticly alerted about possible hostile ships that are about to land on their grid. (Lets give the prey at least a chance to run a bit!!)

Anyways, this is just a few things to make the cats & mouse chases more dynamic and fun. Not perfect but they could make the game interesting.

If gate camps are to eventually be removed, it should still be possible to catch prey. As for hot-drops...maybe the wolves will love chasing rabbits so much that it will lower this sort of activity.

If you are crying this much over gatecamps...i cant image the tsunami of tears that will pour from you when you need to MWD from system to system...or better yet, have the miserable experience of capdrain warp after capdrain warp for 3 hours to get to a next door system.

How else does any (other than very large established) corp compete with a hot dropper that drops 20-40 ships on one noob farming belt rats? Happens all the time. And then poof they are gone before anyone even knows what happened.

"I tried to go to low alone, and got shot at a gate"

"I tried to roam null alone, and got hotdropped"

Stop being a bad.

Pay attention to local and don't rat in belts.

Srsly.
I roam Lo and Nul at-will. I beat gatecamps for faeces and grins and giggles. I do donuts around Sov structures in VFK. I eject garbage on outpost undock perimeters. I troll the hotdroppers and campers mercilessly. I live in Nul, bcause it's that's where the fun is.

Sometimes I die in fires. More often, I do not.
And I do it all solo.
It is not hard.

Hey, get yourself blown up 1000 times doing that.

As long as you're not crying that the you got caught on a gate, or we ran a 40 man gangbang on you outside of VFK, you're being a good.

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When I was growing up games were kind of tough, they didn't have saves, and usually when you died you started back at the beginning. When I wasn't playing video games I was outside playing sports, because I was a typical boy that enjoyed competition. When I played sports, we kept score. Someone won, and someone lost.

It's like I'm living in a culture now that doesn't want to keep score, and doesn't any difficulty. Everyting nice and neat on a plate, and handed to me.

It's like I'm playing a game with a bunch of guys that grew up playing dollies, and who's parents put them in little league teams that didn't keep score and gave every kid a trophy. It's firgging sad.

Pac-man was brutal, moreso than EVE imo, yet nobody ever complained about the ghosts ganking you 4v1. Playing outside of highsec reminds of Pac-man, actually, you sneak/run around to grab the fruit/dots while avoiding gang chasing you. And then, when you have the means to hurt them, all the baddies start running away.

I like this thread! It's the first one that I have read so far that basically says "Don't give us more options, we like it just the way it is!" So for everyone who is arguing here against the OP, they are saying that gate camping and hot dropping should be the only options? "It is what it is, it works for us so learn to use it and stop crying about it" should be the motto?
Personally I would love to see the battles over resources instead of gate camps, security rateing actually mean how much the area is patrolled by NPC fleets (would make gate camping more interesting in low sec if Concord came through busting a gate camp every now and then) and hot dropping... I don't know. How do you make hot dropping more fun?
I can live with the game however it is, and will play or unsub based solely on how much fun I can have with the mechanics of the game. That said, I am all for more options to have fun.

My 2 cents.