Apparently I am!
I posted a small glass of full-bodied whine on the Eve-O forums that faction war had been lumped into the "little things" session for the December 2011 CCP/CSM summit. CSM Two Step said CCP weren't committing resources to FW currently therefore "Little Things" was the best bet to get some things sorted for us.
Several people have said, both inside and outside of faction war, that this was because Faction War was a "minority".
Oh.....
Hang on a sec!
For this blog I'm going to argue with myself for a bit.
How do you define faction war as a minority? Compared to what?
Well of course 0.0 and hi-sec Drackarn!
Let me stop you there. You are comparing a region of space to an activity in Eve, you cannot do that. It's like comparing Ninjas to Pirates! You need to compare like with like..... and Pirates beat Ninja's btw!
OK then Mr Picky, how about 0.0 carebears. There's a lot of them!
Yes I agree. During my time in 0.0 I found the majority of 0.0 players were carebears. Interesting argument, but when you look at those carebears there is no such thing as a "common carebear". They come in all shapes and sizes, and more importantly, do very varied things. Devoting resources to improve mining is not going to make any difference to those who chain belts all day. Changing the rat spawning mechanic in asteroid belts is not going to make any difference to those who run a POS and build spaceships all the time. Changing POS's is not going to make any difference to those who run level 5 missions in a carrier all day. I could go on with exploration, archaeology, hacking, trading (logistics and market seeding) and all the other carebear proffesions of which there are a lot!
OK then, 0.0 PvP'rs
Small gang or 1000+ blob? HAC gangs, BS gangs or supercap blobs? Would you like your PvP battle with or without a hotdrop? Sov wars, war decs or just simply there for roaming gang PvP? Pirate (shoot anything that moves whilst yelling G'AAAARRRR) or NRDS alliance fleets? Again, there is no "common pvp'r" and changes to one game mechanic may only effect a small number of the total of that group.
Is there actually a majority player base in Eve Online? Just split it down when you are thinking of game mechanics and security status of the space. Each area, high, low, null sec and wormholes have a lot of players in them. Low-sec and WH's admittedly probably have the lowest population. Then each of those areas can be split into three - carebears, PvP and alts. I wonder how many high-sec toons are simply alts, many of which have been in spaces once in a noob ship to move to Jita and then never undocked again? Then each category can be split again and again.
But before you go any further, what about the activity? Us low-sec PvP'rs kill more than those 0.0 lot.
Balls!
Well here is a list of the top 10 corps in terms of kills in 2011 for high sec, low sec and null sec from CCP Diagoras.
As the top corps in wormhole space were posted, here's the same for high/low/null sec. Narrowed it down to just 2011 so far though:
Top 10: 2011 so far, kills in high sec, excluding capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Blue Republic 28,406
Red Federation 23,603
Interstellar Brotherhood of Gravediggers 7,775
Suddenly Ninjas 3,638
Nova Ardour 2,699
Privateers 2,521
Concentrated Evil 2,118
Gank Bangers 1,994
The PriestHood 1,921
Guy Fawkes Trust Fund 1,789
Top 10: 2011 so far, kills in low sec, excluding capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Heretic Army 9,010
the united 8,946
The Tuskers 7,990
Immortalis Inc. 5,650
Quantum Cats Syndicate 5,268
TunDraGon 4,330
Shadows Of The Federation 4,307
Wolfsbrigade 4,136
The Imperial Fedaykin 3,992
Snuff Box 3,881
Top 10: 2011 so far, most kills in null sec, excluding frigates, capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Fremen Sietch 7,538
GoonWaffe 6,894
SniggWaffe 5,951
Sniggerdly 5,338
Dreddit 5,206
D00M. 5,109
Xenobytes 4,708
Agony Unleashed 4,691
Free Space Tech 4,682
Interstellar eXodus 4,588
Ooooo look, my corp Shadows of the Federation and our fellow corps in the Faction War "minority", Qcats, and the Amarr militia corp Wolfsbrigade are in the top 10 and looks like low sec'rs have more PvP fun than the null sec'rs!
Check out the numbers of the top 5 null sec killer corps by total number of members (as of today).
Fremen Sietch has 63.3 kills per member on average this year.
Goonwaffe has 2.3
SniggWaffw has 29.3
Sniggerdly has 16.2
Dreddit has 2.1
We in SoTF have 42.2! So apart from Fremen Sietch, we get more kills per member than four out of the top five 0.0 corps in kill numbers. And we're seventh in the low-sec top ten o.0
So whats your point faction war fan boi?
My point is that when looking at improving something in-game, unless it is VERY general like graphics or the new BC's, it will likely focus on one minority or another. Like POS fuel blocks. They are simply of interest only to those who fuel POS towers (not people who own them or use them, only those who fuel them) and the people who make the fuel. They are a minority in Eve online. Time dilation, unless you are fighting in 0.0 alliance battles with hundreds of pilots, again it's of no interest to you. T2 siege module, I bet characters with Tactical Weapons Reconfiguration 5 are very much a minority! There is no "majority" in the Eve Online player base. We all live in our own small minority.
OK finish up with your last argument-winning point FW fan boi!
If we are such a small minority, why did Hilmar flag us up in his open letter a couple of months ago?
"For me, the most frustrating aspect of this is that after all this time, as far as EVE has come and in spite of everything that’s happened, I fervently believe with all my heart that we’ve not even scratched the surface of EVE’s potential. My personal failing is not reconciling that passion with pragmatism. We’ve been trying to expand the EVE universe in several directions at once, and I need to do a better job of pursuing that vision without diluting or marginalizing the things that are great—or could be great—about the game right now. Nullsec space needs to be fixed. Factional warfare needs to be fixed. The game needs new ships. We need to do a better job of nurturing our new players and making EVE the intriguing, boundless universe it has the potential to be."
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO
CCP Hellmar
I posted a small glass of full-bodied whine on the Eve-O forums that faction war had been lumped into the "little things" session for the December 2011 CCP/CSM summit. CSM Two Step said CCP weren't committing resources to FW currently therefore "Little Things" was the best bet to get some things sorted for us.
Several people have said, both inside and outside of faction war, that this was because Faction War was a "minority".
Oh.....
Hang on a sec!
For this blog I'm going to argue with myself for a bit.
Well of course 0.0 and hi-sec Drackarn!
Let me stop you there. You are comparing a region of space to an activity in Eve, you cannot do that. It's like comparing Ninjas to Pirates! You need to compare like with like..... and Pirates beat Ninja's btw!
OK then Mr Picky, how about 0.0 carebears. There's a lot of them!
Yes I agree. During my time in 0.0 I found the majority of 0.0 players were carebears. Interesting argument, but when you look at those carebears there is no such thing as a "common carebear". They come in all shapes and sizes, and more importantly, do very varied things. Devoting resources to improve mining is not going to make any difference to those who chain belts all day. Changing the rat spawning mechanic in asteroid belts is not going to make any difference to those who run a POS and build spaceships all the time. Changing POS's is not going to make any difference to those who run level 5 missions in a carrier all day. I could go on with exploration, archaeology, hacking, trading (logistics and market seeding) and all the other carebear proffesions of which there are a lot!
OK then, 0.0 PvP'rs
Small gang or 1000+ blob? HAC gangs, BS gangs or supercap blobs? Would you like your PvP battle with or without a hotdrop? Sov wars, war decs or just simply there for roaming gang PvP? Pirate (shoot anything that moves whilst yelling G'AAAARRRR) or NRDS alliance fleets? Again, there is no "common pvp'r" and changes to one game mechanic may only effect a small number of the total of that group.
Is there actually a majority player base in Eve Online? Just split it down when you are thinking of game mechanics and security status of the space. Each area, high, low, null sec and wormholes have a lot of players in them. Low-sec and WH's admittedly probably have the lowest population. Then each of those areas can be split into three - carebears, PvP and alts. I wonder how many high-sec toons are simply alts, many of which have been in spaces once in a noob ship to move to Jita and then never undocked again? Then each category can be split again and again.
But before you go any further, what about the activity? Us low-sec PvP'rs kill more than those 0.0 lot.
Balls!
Well here is a list of the top 10 corps in terms of kills in 2011 for high sec, low sec and null sec from CCP Diagoras.
Top 10: 2011 so far, kills in high sec, excluding capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Blue Republic 28,406
Red Federation 23,603
Interstellar Brotherhood of Gravediggers 7,775
Suddenly Ninjas 3,638
Nova Ardour 2,699
Privateers 2,521
Concentrated Evil 2,118
Gank Bangers 1,994
The PriestHood 1,921
Guy Fawkes Trust Fund 1,789
Top 10: 2011 so far, kills in low sec, excluding capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Heretic Army 9,010
the united 8,946
The Tuskers 7,990
Immortalis Inc. 5,650
Quantum Cats Syndicate 5,268
TunDraGon 4,330
Shadows Of The Federation 4,307
Wolfsbrigade 4,136
The Imperial Fedaykin 3,992
Snuff Box 3,881
Top 10: 2011 so far, most kills in null sec, excluding frigates, capsules, shuttles and rookie ships.
Fremen Sietch 7,538
GoonWaffe 6,894
SniggWaffe 5,951
Sniggerdly 5,338
Dreddit 5,206
D00M. 5,109
Xenobytes 4,708
Agony Unleashed 4,691
Free Space Tech 4,682
Interstellar eXodus 4,588
Ooooo look, my corp Shadows of the Federation and our fellow corps in the Faction War "minority", Qcats, and the Amarr militia corp Wolfsbrigade are in the top 10 and looks like low sec'rs have more PvP fun than the null sec'rs!
Check out the numbers of the top 5 null sec killer corps by total number of members (as of today).
Fremen Sietch has 63.3 kills per member on average this year.
Goonwaffe has 2.3
SniggWaffw has 29.3
Sniggerdly has 16.2
Dreddit has 2.1
We in SoTF have 42.2! So apart from Fremen Sietch, we get more kills per member than four out of the top five 0.0 corps in kill numbers. And we're seventh in the low-sec top ten o.0
So whats your point faction war fan boi?
My point is that when looking at improving something in-game, unless it is VERY general like graphics or the new BC's, it will likely focus on one minority or another. Like POS fuel blocks. They are simply of interest only to those who fuel POS towers (not people who own them or use them, only those who fuel them) and the people who make the fuel. They are a minority in Eve online. Time dilation, unless you are fighting in 0.0 alliance battles with hundreds of pilots, again it's of no interest to you. T2 siege module, I bet characters with Tactical Weapons Reconfiguration 5 are very much a minority! There is no "majority" in the Eve Online player base. We all live in our own small minority.
OK finish up with your last argument-winning point FW fan boi!
If we are such a small minority, why did Hilmar flag us up in his open letter a couple of months ago?
"For me, the most frustrating aspect of this is that after all this time, as far as EVE has come and in spite of everything that’s happened, I fervently believe with all my heart that we’ve not even scratched the surface of EVE’s potential. My personal failing is not reconciling that passion with pragmatism. We’ve been trying to expand the EVE universe in several directions at once, and I need to do a better job of pursuing that vision without diluting or marginalizing the things that are great—or could be great—about the game right now. Nullsec space needs to be fixed. Factional warfare needs to be fixed. The game needs new ships. We need to do a better job of nurturing our new players and making EVE the intriguing, boundless universe it has the potential to be."
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO
CCP Hellmar
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
/end_whine
Another argument for focusing on faction warfare is... since it is not played heaps, let's develop it into something that many more players want to get involved in (at some level).
ReplyDeleteLet's develop this 'little known' area of the game, into something that more people will want to get involved in :)
Let's not try and fix it for the people that are playing it, let's make it into something bigger.