EVE Online - No Clone Grades & No SP Loss on Pod Death

EVE Online and the "Pay to Win" Argument

The situation is extremely clear: as the definition of “win” is “reaching your goal”, if paying real world money gets you closer to your goals, you are paying to win. All the excuses are wrong. The pay-to-win people usually claim that their win is not guaranteed by the payment. It’s true, but irrelevant. Just because it’s possible to win a soccer game 10 vs 11, bribing the referee to ban one of the opposing team without reason is still cheating. Playing 11 vs 10 is a huge advantage. Just like having gold ammo or being able to spend all your game time on fighting because you bought dozens of replacement ships from $.

The “my real world income is higher than the $1-2/hour I can earn in the game” is wrong for three reasons:

    your income is $0.00 while playing a video game. Unless you are an RMT seller, you create absolutely no monetary value. Being more productive while working than while playing is obvious.

    if you can earn 50-150M per active playing hour, you are either very newbie, very “just smelling the flowers and watching the scenery”-casual or fail very hard

    finding that paying gets you in-game progress easier than playing is an obvious criteria for deciding to pay to win. Saying it loud isn’t more of an argument than “I cheat because it’s easier to progress this way”.

Now the trick in EVE, compared to World of Tanks is that you don't pay the developer to win. In WoT, you buy gold ammo and you can pop enemy tanks like they were tissue paper. In EVE, you buy a PLEX from CCP, but it doesn't make you any stronger. However, you can trade it to better players for their power.Te common saying among many EVE players is "ISK doesn't buy you PVP skill".  There is no better way to say it.  The fact of the matter is that even if a large number of players invested personal out of game wealth into the game for the purpose of creating a formidable and well-fit fleet.  Their understanding of game mechanics, overall coordination, and general skill at manipulating the game and its players is laughably poor.

A small but skilled force will always outclass a richer force as they have the means and understanding to utilize tactics that will confuse and disorient the newer players, nullifying their ISK advantage.

This is where the hiring of skilled players comes in.  An entire industry exists within EVE for exploiting the relative weakness of players with little skill but, lots of wealth.  Hiring a merc alliance to distract your enemies can work.  If you use that distraction to your advantage to build up your own forces or devise new ways of hiding from your enemies.  But most players who go this route never take it that far.  Most don't even bother to fight back.  They take their lumps and continue with the same activities that made them a target in the first place. 

What is worse about this cyclical behavior is that these players are often driven from the game entirely because they cannot cope with the sense of constant PVP of all forms that EVE embodies to its core.

While buying PLEX does make a player stronger in the sense that they have POTENTIAL for better resources and the means to engage and overpower their enemies.  The true strength lies in the judicious exploitation of that potential.  Why buy a brand new fleet of ships without the adequately trained pilots to fly them?

It would seem that the the obvious conclusion for anyone that understands EVE, is that the game will never be what most undretsand to be "Pay to Win".

Black Legion Phoebe Orders Leaked

On Saturday, 25th October 2014, an alliance meeting was called for Black Legion. to issue orders in preparation for Phoebe release on the 4th November 2014.

The first point made was that Infomorph Psychology and Synchronizing are to be trained to level 4 at least to make rapid movement across the universe easier and so that BL. can re-deploy quickly if required. It will help BL. retain a certain amount of mobility post patch and seems to be something a lot of the alliances are thinking of.

Orders also still stand for everyone to move everything to Tartoken by the 29th October, so that when the next move op happens, everyone will be moving from Tartoken with the cyno chain that will be supplied by BL.. As to where they are going, a document was released to BL. members that showed the pro’s and cons for regions including:

Curse - which would put BL. in the locality of INIT, HERO, PROVI and PL but may cause TZ issues and put them a long way from the CFC, if they are still going to try and take them down.

Lonetrek - which is nice and close to Jita and within hit range of a number of CFC regions and certain low-sec entities for content but any gains in CFC space would likely be temporary as CFC will probably turn up in force.

Venal - which is right in the middle of CFC space and would make for good content creation with lot’s of people to fight and there will be enough PVE content and moons to set up a good source of income. However this will make movements for caps difficult as all mid points would be in hostile space and PVP content would depend totally on CFC as no one else is around to fight or, if not blueballed by CFC, they will likely get blobbed when the CFC DO decide to fight. Also high potential for hellcamped stations by bored CFC members.

Fountain Core – close to ‘money moons’ which will either generate ISK for the alliance if flipped or generate fights if others come to defend. A number of outer CFC alliances would be close by. PVE content for individuals would be good through Angel and Serpentis missions as well as exploration. However this will need a mid point in hostile space for JF’s to get to high-sec and there is a low chance of either getting hellcamped by CFC or their local allies.

The document also asks four main questions:

Do BL. want to take SOV post Phoebe? 

Do BL. want to continue taking on the CFC blob, maybe without friends like the rest of N3 to help? 

Where will BL. find the most fun content?

Do BL. decide to take a easy option, like Lonetrek? Or a riskier strategy like moving out to Venal?

As to where they are going, it seems like BL. are looking either towards Fountain Core or Venal, once that is decided, with the help of an alliance vote, the BL. leadership have declared that this will be the alliance home for the foreseeable future.

BL. seems to have also come to terms with the fact that the old EvE ways will be dying after this patch and that the will need to adapt and improve in certain areas to help them be successful in what will soon be a totally new game of EvE. BL. have said they will stop looking at the entire universe and just focus themselves on certain regions and their local area. Hopefully this will increase their effectiveness as an alliance.

BL. leadership have promised that they do have a plan for the alliance for the long term. This will be unfolding over the weeks after the Phoebe patch and when they know what the new ‘occupancy affected SOV’ will entail.

Orders in regards to supers are to not sell them, infact the BL. orders are to buy as many as they can possibly get their hands on. Titans are prefered over supercapitals and Leviathans are the preferred titan of BL. at the moment.

Nulli Secunda Alliance Update

Alliance Updates are intended for an internal audience and should be considered propaganda or taken with a grain of salt.

This update will cover what we will be doing for the next 10 days right up until the release of Phoebe and how you can get ready.  Please read the entire post thoroughly and work hard over the next week to findtime to complete any preparation that you don’t already have done.  Most of you won’t need to do anything, for the rest of you this should take virtually no time to get ready.  Our plans for Phoebe are simple, and we’re incredibly excited about some of the ideas we have for these new game mechanics. Here are the 5 steps/announcements/stuff of our simple Phoebe plan:

1) We will be moving everything out of Tartoken and deploying to a new staging system on Sunday, November 2nd:  

 

        The exact time of the move op will be posted on the calendar this upcoming Sunday after our corp leadership meeting, but expect it to be around the 19:00-20:00 range.  There has never been a more important move op, if it is at all possible for you to make it to the scheduled move then you need to do so.  I know this is cutting it close to the November 4th Phoebe patch, but because we only have dreads, carriers, and subcaps in Tartoken, this should be a move we are capable of making successfully before the jump drive changes.  We have very good reasons for waiting this late to shift to our final destination before Tartoken, and they outweigh all of the obvious issues that moving this late might cause.  We will do our best to run what is basically a constant cyno route to our new staging system for the 48 hour period between when we move and when the Phoebe patch is deployed.

 

        However, I know there will be some of you that will legitimately not be able to make any move op between Nov. 2nd and Nov. 4th.  If you know that you will not be able to make those ops, or are in any way concerned that you could miss those ops, then you should pack up all of your things and talk to your corp members to help get them moved during the move op.  We will be making more than one trip to go back and get all of the capitals and subcaps, so there will be plenty of opportunities for your corp mates to get your stuff moved.  You have 8 days to determine whether or not you will be able to make the move op and plan accordingly.  

 

I can not stress this enough, and will be pinging about this every single day until Nov. 2nd, BUT YOU NEED TO EITHER MAKE THIS MOVE OP OR GET YOUR TARTOKEN STUFF TO SOME CORP MEMBERS BEFORE NOVEMBER 2ND.

 

         If you have pvp assets in Kheram that you would like to move to our new staging system, then you need to move those assets to Tartoken before the move op.  Our new deployment will still be a combat deployment, so you still only need your combat assets.

 

All Titan and Super pilots have different orders that are on the supercapital forums.  If you are a super and titan pilot and do not have access to those forums, that sounds like a problem you should get fixed.

 

2) You need to finish training the mandatory jump clone skills we asked you to train during the Tartoken move op.  For those of you who don’t remember, these skills will be mandatory for everyone to have by November 4th (you can easily train all this in time):

 

Infomorph Psychology V

Infomorph Synchronizing IV

Advanced Infomorph Psychology IV

 

        We would actually like everyone to have all those skills ready by November 2nd, as we will be strategically placing jump clones during our move op (as well as during the week before it).  However, if you are going to be cutting it tight to make the deadline, We would rather you train Informorph Psychology V first, then Infomorph Synchronizing to IV, then Advanced Infomorph to as high as you can get it before the op (and then obviously finish it to IV as soon as possible).

 

        Every combat pilot, including dread and carrier pilots (but not supers or titans) is required to have these jump clone skills trained.  This is as mandatory as mandatory things get as far as I’m concerned.  It’s a quick train, but more importantly, so much of our plans post-Phoebe will revolve around our new Jump Clone strategy.  We will go over in detail our methods and plans at the Nov. 2nd meeting, but for now you need to start minimizing the amount of jump clones you have for personal use.  With the required skills trained, you’ll be able to own a maximum of 9 jump clones.  Right now we are trying to decide between requiring you to have 5 or 6 of your jump clones reserved for alliance use.  It’ll be at least 5 (but I’m pushing hard for 6).  This will leave you 3 or 4 jump clones for personal use.  If that's not enough for you currently, then you need to find a way to make that enough.  I wish we could be flexible on this, but we can't.

 

        Orders for where to place the jump clones will come out this Sunday after our corp leadership meeting.  This should give people who can’t make the Nov. 2nd move op plenty of time to teledeath and install a jumpclone somewhere.

 

3) Once you have finished training the required jump clone skills, we need you to spend 4 days following these skill training orders:

 

        While not as crucial as the jump clone thing above, it is very important that we get as many of you as possible to follow these next instructions before November 2nd.  The more of you who do this, the more effective we will be:

On any account you own, pick a character that you think you will lose the least post Phoebe (or make a new one if you have an open slot).  It’s important that this character is not your main PVP character, or isn’t a character you plan on Jump cloning a lot.

You will then pause the skill training on this account for whatever character is training so that you can train the 4 day skill plan below.  This is why it’s required for you to finish the jump clone skills before training these skills.  I know that no one likes wasting skill training time, but this is a 4 day skill plan for even the most basic character.  All we are asking for is 4 days.

The skills you need to train are listed in this forum thread: http://forums.nullis...and-aid-fleet/

If this character is not  currently in a nulli corp, he doesn’t need to join one yet, we will take care of that on November 2nd.

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE AN ALT CHARACTER THAT IS NOT A PVP CHARACTER AND HAS ALL OF THESE SKILLS, THEN YOU CAN USE THAT CHARACTER.  That should save you some time.

 

4) We are relocating Nulli’s home base/asset storage location from Kheram to UW9B-F in Curse: http://evemaps.dotla...ap/Curse/UW9B-F

 

        We told everyone a few weeks ago that we would be discontinuing Kheram as our home base as it is no longer practical to keep assets their with the Phoebe changes.  We have finally decided on UW9B-F as a place that fulfills the most of our needs in a “home system” for whatever that will mean in a post-Phoebe world.  UW9B and it’s adjacent system have good 5-LY jump ranges for various jump routes, and of course some of you will remember that this was the same system we used to pool our assets after the 0-W hellcamp.  Some corps already have offices, and there are plenty available either in system or within one jump for every corp to have an office.

 

        Basically, everything you have now in Kheram that you don’t want to leave in high sec and don’t want to take to our next deployment, needs to be moved to UW9B-F.  The focus should be on things that can’t be moved in a jump freighter, as JFs will still be able to move around pretty freely post patch.

 

5) There are no orders to evacuate anything out of any conquerable space that we currently own.  However, if you have things in a conquerable station that can not be moved with a Jump Freighter, and you do not want/need to keep it in the conquerable station, then the place you should move that stuff to is UW9B-F.

 

        Basically, there is no space we are planning on purposefully conceding or not defending.  So if you are doing industry things, or ratting things, or whatever down in our sov, then there is no reason for you to evac those assets unless you feel that you wouldn't be able to get them out quickly in an emergency.  If you have assets that are much larger than a few jump freighter runs (a.k.a you’ve been saving cap parts for a super/titan), or have assets that can not physically fit in a jump freighter, then you will need to discuss that with your corp leadership after this upcoming Sunday.  Your corp leadership will be getting information as to what we plan to do with things like super and titan building and other heavy assets of that nature on Sunday, and will then plan accordingly on what to do with your stuff.

 

Conclusion/Summary/whatever:

 

That's it, do those things.  Morale speechs and narrative crafting and shit like that will be saved for the November 2nd alliance meeting.  You should all make an effort to ensure that not only are you prepared and finished with all of these things, but that your corp is as well.  I'll be pinging this thread and information about it every day multiple times a day.  We will still be running fleets from Tartoken, so there's no need to leave here except to do stuff that is detailed in this post.

The Future of Renters in NullSec

With all the speculation and moves being made in Null/Low Sec space in advance of Phoebe one would not be too far off base in expecting people to try and hang on to old methods and agreements of surviving in EVE.  Because as we all know, some EVE players really hate change.

Taking the sell-off of the Drone Regions from PL, and N3 allegedly moving to the SouthWest as an example, a lot of alliances are looking to still try and hold onto a slice of landlord/renter ISK.  Or they move into the space left behind in the SouthEast and try to replicate the success of the BOTLRD era.

Regardless of intent, the writing on the wall suggests that rental empires are not long for the sweet embrace of death.  As most SOV-holders are looking to focus on holding easily defensible areas and generating more easily defended revenue streams, there are only a few groups left that will vie for the inevitable scraps of the rental table.

The first group that must be discussed is the pirates and small gang PVPers. Pirates and other small PvP groups are not the competitors of renters. Renters do PvE, mostly ratting. Pirates don’t really want to rat. Chasing away ratters without ratting yourself is just dumb: the income from the rats in your land will be gained by no one. Renters have no loyalty to the landlord as we saw PBLRD members running to B0T or NA for better service. They are ready to pay to anyone who guarantees them the ability to rat in peace. Currently these are the big coalitions.

the other groups that will likely be brought up are new faces in the SOV game.  Smaller alliances looking to carve out a piece for themselves.  Assuming that any smaller groups decide to grind down the evac'd SOV ahead of larger groups and succeed, they will most likely have to focus on holding that SOV from other small groups and defending the revenue of those systems from aforementioned PvP gangs.  In all likelihood, small groups won't be renting space anytime soon.

Currently the strategic and tactical control are the same. If you own SOV, then – using jump bridges and bridging titans – you are able to drop an overwhelming force on anyone who is messing in your land. Pirates live by hit-and-run. Renters don’t have to fear them as long as they watch local. The pirates cannot reasonably attack structures because the landlord shows up with a supercap blob or 500 subcaps.

After Phoebe the strategic and tactical control will split. The regional power will still hold the SOV as it can still deploy and grind down everything in a week while stomping on any attempt from the locals to fight. However they will have to deploy to do so, at the cost of not being anywhere else. This means that outside of such deployments, the local pirates are free to plant their towers and siege renters. If the SOV holder scrambles whatever members they have locally, the pirates would likely beat them up. This creates an awkward dual-power situation: both the formal SOV-holder and the local pirates are owning the same land.
Whomever takes control of the situation on the ground from the larger region holding group, both groups will inevitably come to the conclusion that sharing wealth is better than trying to hoard it.  A split in renter income will be paid to the pirates actively holding said systems, and the SOV-holder of the region will likely demand a cut.  And in effect it will resemble the "protection" rackets of organized crime, in a less violent and chaotic sense.

In most cases, this will not happen at first. The landlords will be reluctant to acknowledge that they lost tactical control and can no longer demand full rent. The pirates will likely approach with an “I just want the World burn”. This can lead to an initial exodus from some regions. An empty land where no one does PvE is good for no one. The SOV-holder will realize that lower rent is better than no rent, while the pirates will realize that having income is better than no income while having blue ratters at least attract random roamers that they can kill, while empty space attracts no one. So after the initial hiccups, the rates of this dual-renting will be accepted and renters will continue ratting as they always did.