Sloth Arnini
ORIGIN SYSTEMS
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Posted - 2007.11.14 00:43:00 -
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Edited by: Sloth Arnini on 14/11/2007 00:45:15
Edited by: Sloth Arnini on 14/11/2007 00:43:40
While I don't have any specific proposals to add at this juncture (I need to read and re-read some of these proposals! ;)), I would suggest that rather than making it a question of simply seeking the magic bullet (as most of these very thoughtful posts have been trying to do) the best solution is to allow several ways of achieving sovereignty.
Now, many of us in 0.0 want to play the territorial game. We think that is what should make EVE head and shoulders above other MMOGs- it may be almost unique in that it encourages players to band together into what are essentially sovereign nations. The problem, as was evidently made clear at the fanfest is that the tool in place (the POS) is a chore, both to attack and to defend. Clearly then, the sovereignty mechanics has to be made interesting.
The problem with the magic bullet approach is that a single way soon becomes boring. What would make the sovereignty contest interesting is having a variety of ways (ideally structured in a modular fashion, so that alliances could pick and choose the ways they want to maintain sovereignty). The current situation where attacking one territorial alliance is much the same as attacking another, although the scale changes, it always follows this format:
1) Dispatch cyno jammer with BS blob.
2) Deploy capitals/blobs to reinforce the towers OR just drop towers of your own.
3) Try and muster sufficient support to destroy the towers once they come out of reinforced.
4) Launch enough POSes to take sovereignty, defend them from counter-attacks.
5) Shoot station until it surrenders.
However, consider a situation where alliance A claims sovereignty in one way (for instance planet based sov towers), but alliance B claims sovereignty in another (e.g. a mega-deadspace complex with all sorts of obstacles that must be fought through to threaten sovereignty). All of a sudden, two different kinds of war are opened up and alliances need to fight each other in new ways.
Rather than treating all the ideas in this thread in isolation, consider ways in which they might be synergised to create a more dynamic sovereignty system (apologies for the management speak). That's what I'll be doing when not doing constructive stuff such as essays for university.
Incorporating several ways of taking sovereignty will undoubtedly mean more coding than just using one sovereingty mechanism, but if they can be coded in such a way that one can pick and choose elements from several systems, I think the work would be worth it.
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