Kaleigh Doyle
Rho Dynamics
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Posted - 2006.09.29 16:38:00 -
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Raising or lowering market fees isn't going to push people to lower security space, especially if no one is there to buy their goods to begin with. Penalizing high sec players alone isn't going to encourage them to come down to play either, they'll just raise prices, or quit playing altogether.
Incentives to live in low security space have dwindled significantly since Cold War and the introduction of L4 agents all but eliminated any interest in low sec mining for a majority of players. Why mine hedbergite at 20mil an hour when you can run a couple missions in high security space and make an equal amount within the same time? Coupled with the introduction of rogue drones that drop the rarer minerals in abundance, it all but killed the low-sec mining profession.
As many have previously stated, people aren't stupid. They go where the best risk/reward is, and that happens to be agents. Oursulaert turned into the HUB it is today because of the abundance of high quality lvl 4 agents, and I'm guessing Rens and Jita weren't much different before the big boom. I run agents in a low security system where there's 10 to 15 people tops on the weekdays, and when I travel to Aunia theres 90+.
Furthermore, pushing agent missions into deadspace is actually reducing the risk and forces "gankers" to camp gates and stations. They should be encouraging missions that can be accessible in ways easier than deploying scan probes. Pirate Blockade and Assault were some of the most dangerous missions for this reason, and now that they're removed there's little to no risk...but I'm ranting a bit and totally off topic. Pardon. 
Trust me, I've been in this game for three years, and as a dedicated agent runner, I've seen the differences in playstyle from my fellow "honest" players and the steady dwindling of the mining profession from the game.
So I'll probably be aping what many others have already said, but I'll add my suggested solutions:
1. Move all lvl 4 agents to low security space.
2. Make the mid value ores abundant and plentiful. Jaspet, Hedbergite, Hemorphite...should be plenty of this in the belts. (some border 0.0 regions have worse ore types than some low sec empire regions, which is kinda sad)
3. Make missions just as risky as mining. Even if agents are moved to low sec space, players will still continue to choose missioning over mining if there's little to no risk running them in obscure deadspace locations only reachable with scan probes.
Those are the most important changes that I'd see that might encourage players to return to low security space and might liven the mining profession. 
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