Maybe Eve Needs to Hire a Sociologist too.. Because I can’t find the “Why?” in Eve.

I have read the books.  Well, all but the latest.

I have read all the Chronicles and Short Stories.

I have read as many of the player stories as I could.

But, I often find myself thinking, if I had to pick again in Faction Warfare, who would it be?  Would I even look into Faction Warfare again?  What about Eve as a whole?

I like Faction Warfare, don’t get me wrong.  It’s one of the few areas where if I can’t find a fleet, I can go out solo and try my hand at 1vs1 PVP while also doing some tasks to make isk.  I may not like it as much after the Retribution update, but then again maybe I’ll like it even more.  Either way, the problem is still there.  I don’t FEEL about why I fight.  I may be the only one, but I kinda like to have a reason for PVP.  It makes me think like I am doing something important.  Retribution is supposed to change some of that in Faction Warfare, because right now most of the LP farmers fly Incursii (I just like saying that word) in plexes, and for me in my Slasher all I have to do is catch them and then they add a few kills to my Board, the now dead ship adds a few modules to my cargo space, and the Caldari State thanks me with some LP.

And that’s it.  Sure, I may temporarily slow down a system capture (not that the LP farmers care mind you.. in fact, they hope that it DOESN’T get turned too soon), but there isn’t a gut level desire to appease the Caldari, or anyone in the Caldari hierarchy.  Why, as a Minmatar pilot should I care about Minmatar views?  Why, although being in Caldari FW, care about how successful they are or aren’t?  Right now, if you say “Minmatar”, I think “Red”.  You tell me “Amarr”, I think “Yellow”.  You tell me “Gallente”, I think “Green”, and if you tell me “Caldari”, I think “Blue”.. because at my level the names are practically meaningless.  There is no feeling from the game that Caldari is different from Minmatar is different from Gallente is different from Amarr.  Even the MISSIONS are the same, with only different puppets being shown.

I mentioned something of this back when I talked about racism in Eve Online.. or rather the conspicous lack of racism in Eve.  All the races should FEEL different, all the interactions between the races should be different.  Gallente should, in general, think of Minmatar as a lost, broken people struggling as a victim of Amarr oppression and dominance, likewise the Minmatar would practically be worshipful of the Gallente’s extravagance and luxury, or distainful of the coddling and pity from the Gallente.  The Amarr should be only somewhat tolerant of the Caldari, who appear to worship money rather than God, but yet find a similar streak of Loyalty that they can respect.  The Caldari on the other hand probably sees the Loyalty the Amarr display as weak, but cannot deny their pure dedication to task and the religous devotion that has made them the most advanced race their space (outside of the Jovians).

I should FEEL that.  I should feel the distain that the Caldari have towards me as some primative race, dirty, disqusting, and savage.  But at the same time I should FEEL why I would want to side with the Caldari on anything.  The Minmatar and Caldari share a border and fight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was always that way.  There should be always the underlying current going on between all the empires, and the pirate groups.  Oddly enough, while CCP did themselves a serivce with hiring an economist, I think they should have also hired a sociologist/cultural expert to see about manipulating (yes, I went there) the dynamic between nations.  Some noble, some not so noble.  Remember, these are powerful nations that are seeking advantage at every angle.  They are alive and ruling over TRILLIONS of people, each with different cultures, each with a desire to be at the top within each empire..

At this point, I begin to think that Incursions was, instead of a fun mechanic, was a grand opportunity missed.  Incursions clearly are fun and have the possibility of being financially profitable.  But suppose instead of having it be an on-going issue, they instead make it something that happens for two months, and then in the next two months an “incursion” happens but this time its the Amarr attacking Blood Raider space, and you can choose to help the Amarr or the Blood Raiders defend their turf, and the resulting Loyalty points for the victor allows them to buy at good prices, even fixes standings with the various pirate or faction groups.  Each “incursion” could be played off of a timeline that CCP keeps to themselves, so that if the Amarr wins, then something happens like they get more space and some of that space becomes high-sec, but if Blood Raiders win, some of the Amarr High-sec space breaks down into low-sec or even NPC null-sec space.  What if the resulting win/loss translates into some other event, for example a Blood Raider win, spurns an incursion by Guristas into Caldari space?  Or maybe a Minmatar incursion into Amarr space.  With each incursion happening every two to three months, that gives CCP plenty of time to write a backstory.. or better yet, form missions and events that lead to the backstory and then the incursion.

Yeah, probably too much.  There are other things CCP could do as well, like bringing up the news right when we log on about things that happened in our region… if you live in High-sec, Low-sec, and NPC space even.  What about the propoganda that every nation feeds itself and others about how good it is?

Its not just our story.. its also CCP’s story that we are in.  I wouldn’t mind it being more obvious, ya know?

The Gallente’s Evil Breeding Program – Is there going to be some “Fallout” from this?

I recently picked up a brand new Nemesis yesterday.  I always thought that these ships were sexy, but I will have to admit that I have a nagging question.

Doesn’t this:

Look an awful lot like this:

It’s a bit.. eerie, isn’t it.  Perhaps Fallout is an early, early history of Earth in our timeline.. and perhaps the Gallente decided to pick these up, along with snails, as a new food source and that every Nemesis hull is really a giant, super-bred, MIRELURK!!  Either that or perhaps the rumors of a giant space bat hidden way in the deep, dark recesses of Essense space are true?

.. or perhaps this is just the worst beginning of my blog evar.  Probably.

Anyways, now that I have trained up Gallente frigates to V and have all the small gun specializations up to IV, the frogs on the other side will be seeing me sport the newest in Gallente small ship hardware against them.  I’ll post what ships I did well in the field with too.

In Other (alt) News

Currently, my alt is focusing on two things:  Probing and Combat.  I had planned to move him closer to invention and construction, but I find that I am getting drawn more and more into probing.  Enough that I am pondering the possibility of setting up a low-sec system and doing probing operations in deep, ignored low-sec.  Still working on the specifics, but I think it is doable given the right locals.  I plan on dragging in a Prorater or two into a station system, then only mine local area signature locations, using the minerals to make ammo and shuttles for low-sec use.

The combat aspect is because I plan to be able to utilize all low-sec signatures, and that will require a much more powerful and generic ship than what a Tech 2 cruiser can provide.  This will likely mean that I’ll have to build up my missile skills as well as my cruiser skills too.  So my training plan is going to look something like this:

1. Science Skills: Archeology IV,  Astrometric Pinpoint IV, Astrometric Acquisition IV
2. Caldari Frigate V
3. Engineering Skills:  Engineering V
4. Missile Launcher Skills: Light Missiles IV
5. Missile Laucher Skills: Guided Missile Precision IV, Missile Projection IV, Rapid Launch IV
6. Science Skills: Various Engineering Skills to I
7. Science Skills: Metallurgy IV
8. Science Skills: Hacking IV

That is just the start… but I hope to have some of my production runs starting to make more money so we’ll have to see.  There is a strong chance that I may just avoid all the combat skills for now because they use up a tremendous amount of time and even if I operate in low-sec, my advantage will be on how well I escape, not how well I fight.  The Prorater and the Skiff have only enough drones to be annoying, not destructive.

The saddest part is that I REALLY appreciate mining as it is right now.  True, it is a no-brainer task that can be done largely AFK (well, only in hi-sec).. but this last weekend my family decided to go visit the in-laws sans me (because I needed to work), and I actually got quite a bit of house work (including some mowing) while I was mining.  Now, it wasn’t completely AFK mind you.  I would mow a couple strips of grass, go in, check to make sure I wasn’t being harassed or to switch roids, then go back to do another couple strips of grass.  It was probably the most truly Real Life productive time I have ever had in any MMO!  It is kinda scary, but I sorta don’t want to make CCP make mining any more interactive now.  Is it fun, not really…  but it allows me to keep interacting and making minor amounts of isk in the game, while I deal with stuff in the real world that need to get done.

So, back to probing.  I am definately going to need something a bit better than my Heron for these tasks, but I know that a Tengu is a bit much, both in isk and in skill (I don’t wanna fly a non-T2 fit Tengu), so I am pondering what my options are.  Right now I am pondering using a stunted “All-in-one” Caracal to start, then moving to the Tengu when the profitability becomes more evident.  Still, a Buzzard/Combat Cruiser combo might be best because I will still need to switch ships anyways, and my alt’s skills aren’t good enough to use slightly crippled combat ship effectively.

So, in the meantime, I will study low-sec areas, traffic, and market.. maybe find a way to carve a little piece of  Happiness out there.

Oh, one side note:  Someone posted a comment on my blog yesterday and somehow the spam filters tagged it as spam, and I only saw that it was a REAL comment the moment before I trashed it.  Sorry bout that.  Anyways, repost it and I’ll make sure it gets put in the comments again.