Brother Nightfall
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Posted - 2008.07.23 21:28:00 -
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Personally, I think that voiding Concord insurance for anyone who has destroyed a target in hi-sec is a sensible moderation of the issue in hand. It won't remove suicide ganking completely, but it will tone it down to acceptable levels (i.e. generally, only against targets that deserve it, such as ships that have been scanned and found to be carrying an overly valuable cargo, making the proposition profitable), rather than the speculative ganking we are seeing at present (ganking targets just because they look like they might be carrying something of value).
However, I think anything beyond that, including the more severe sec hits that are already on the table, are misguided, and will result in negative effects on the game.
For example, it would be easy to be extremely heavy-handed (and some CSM members are all for this), and punish any ganker so severely that his faction standings and sec-hit are impacted with months' worth of repair work.
All this will do is prompt more ingenuity from those who wish to persist in their attacks. For example, it is perfectly feasible to train up a gank Caracal on a trial account. In sufficient numbers (and which group in the game do you know who excels at such organisation?), they would be able to take down almost any target they wished in high-sec.
What then? Monitor IP addresses? Proxies would circumvent that. Remove trial accounts from the game? Yes, CCP would love to do away with one of their main marketing tools, I'm sure.
People play this game to PVP, primarily of the non-consensual variety, to engage closely with fellow players and blow their stuff up. There seems to be a trend for this becoming harder and harder to achieve; issues such as the Lofty scam and now suicide ganking are being firmly addressed, but the overall picture that has made these activities so desirable (such as the immunity offered by NPC corps, and dysfunctional war-deccing and bounty systems) are ignored. Suppress this element too hard, and a great deal of the mystique of this profoundly unique and engaging game will be lost, and this is something that can only be detrimental for all players.
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