So last night, trying to get reality out of my head so I could go to sleep instead of on a rampage, two topics were in my head:

Bots and RMT
Incursions and Vanguards and the ISK fountain

Then it occured to me: CCP is trying to kill botting.


You see, if RMT is serious business, and there are mafioso types running it, then changing game mechanics to hit botting really hard (such as removing local in 0.0) and perhaps all but cripple it might earn CCP a horses head in their beds. Those Icelandic ponies are cute and we would hate to see that happen.

Then there are those ISK pumps.

If ISK flowed like a mighty river from every pore of game content, would there be a need for bots and RMT? Sure there are some slugs out there who are so lazy that running incursions for an afternoon to pay for a week of PVP (or less if they JUST HAVE TO HAVE an uber-pimped ship to camp and blob noobs with) is still too much time, but they could comprise a small minority of players.


If the ISK pump was shut off, this could mean the only way to get large quantities of it would be through bots or RMT. The RMT operations could own the game and with more money at stake against doing anything about it, the chances of RL violence increase. If someone is making say a few thousand on RMT and you nerf their methods, no big deal. A few hundred thousands and some guys named Vito and Anthony show up to lean on you (a little).

Or I am paranoid.


I am no fan of ISK pumps. In my opinion, it's dumb to let the Sansha mother sit there while the sites are farmed. That mother should have a despawn timer and if it's not destroyed, NOBODY gets their ISK and LP rewards for that incursion. This would make things very very interesting.

Speaking of CSM representation - as an explorer in this game, and no dedicated ship for it like everybody has for the way they play, I feel like a Ron Paul supporter in RL watching a pole result where Ron is 2nd place and the media shows 1st, 3rd, 4th.... Spank makes a good point about the CSM on this that I cannot deny if CSM representation were directly related to the location of the best ISK pumps.