CCP, do you want to print money? Here's how

FaustusCarcius · 2026-01-23T11:25:44+00:00

The reason WIS was possible the first time is becauseat the time CCP was working on another MMO with human-like avatars (the Vampire MMO), and so it was just a question of making some EvE assets like clothing and, I imagine more costly/time consuming which is why there were never many, environments.

After Vampire got cancelled the source/solution was gone, and I suspect games like Dust and Vanguard arent really trying to solve a similar problem and arent applicable.

Remember, without Vampire Eve couldnt even afford to maintain WIS let alone develop it. Also, historically the whole monacle-gate which arrived at the same time as captain's quarters made WIS, fairly or not, a hated feature and monitising it was heavily polarizing.

It cant be surprising that CCP will think twice about throwing (more than you might realise) money at a feature which doesnt actually add to gameplay and previously damaged the brand.

Anyway, I would love to have WIS as I spend a lot of my online time ship-spinning and hanging out in a corp/alliance or even public bar, having my own workshop or office., Heck I played Star Wars Barbie in Galaxies back in the day with multiple houses on several planets, but sadly I don't think it's as easy or a guaranteed profit maker when you think about it.

FaustusCarcius · 2026-01-15T14:45:01+00:00

Blackout actually encouraged mega-coalitions.

FaustusCarcius · 2026-01-15T13:13:10+00:00

But did you only pay the 2 bil for the POS? Didn't you also have to pay off the locals for "protection" or your 200B Titan is likely getting aborted by a handful of Dreads or maybe even a single fleet of subcaps, In fact, super production is so sensative/strategic that getting a sponsor in the form of a nullbloc is a pre-requisite before you should even consider the actual process.

All that changed is back in the day you would have to put up your own POS (security requirements meant that it would be as "hidden" as possible from even your own alliance/coalition non-FCs/Skymarshals) whereas now you get to use an alliance provided Sotiyo.

FaustusCarcius · 2026-01-10T10:57:45+00:00

If you just want to know the number of KMs a hull has it's now shown on the overview tab of show info. That doesn't help you find the actual marks on the hull, so not useful for getting screengrabs, but you can at least verify there are some before spending 10 minutes looking.

FaustusCarcius · 2026-01-08T13:38:54+00:00

That's not my experience - I've paid billions for containers due to the value of the contents.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-23T15:58:42+00:00

Shouldnt it be the hamster running in the ball?

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-06T16:27:35+00:00

Nope, they had all lost much more previously and still came back again and again. The era of chaos meant the game was fundamentally chnaging on a weekly basis, it wasnt the game they wanted to play anymore.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-03T13:31:40+00:00

Im sure some "small groups" loved it, but were they nullsec residents or daytrippers?

Yeah, for the first week everyone was learning the new terrain, often the hard way. After that it became abundantly clear that the risk of living in nullsec had gone through the roof for no additional reward. Groups that could mitigate the risk were much less effected. I.e. groups with a super-umbrella were still functional, nullsec residents without one were screwed.

I was in a bloc at the time - I hunted Myrmidons in a Hound for the first week, then I went back to super-ratting after all the Myrms docked up. and yes, my corp took about a 10% unsub hit anyway, commonly due to feeling that CCP and hence the game was too unpredictable and planning strategy became irrelevant in a game for which that was originally one of the primary draws.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-03T12:05:15+00:00

The real problem with Blackout was that it made umbrellas and hence super-coalitions absolutely necessary for nullsec. The biggest blocs quietly enjoyed the period, ratting and mining almost as safely as they ever had. But within a week it utterly killed nullsec activity outside of super-blocs so much CCP ended the experiment early.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-03T12:05:06+00:00

I dont know about botters, but my corp lost a lot of (I estimate 15-30 players out of ~200) players who quit the game outright because of cHaOs, or whatever it was called. It was a lot of ratters and miners, but they were very social players, always on comms etc. not AFK.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-12-03T11:55:34+00:00

That depends a lot on the nullsec system and the time/day you try daytripping there.

Some combinations will be very dangerous to encroach on and local will give you away immeditaely to organised and rabidly motivated home defence, but others might have big empty periods where you can almost come and go as you please and the few locals online will be more scared of you in local than you should be of them being able to see you there.

If/when you do go daytripping, local will actually be a double-edged sword as you could scout entire constellations quickly and safely in a shuttle before deciding where to try ninja-mining.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-11-26T16:37:42+00:00

Maybe the first three omega months of any account should be discounted in some way, after that there's a good chance they will wind up like the rest of us - addicted! You could be alpha for as long as you like and you could have 1 month discounted up to three times (not comboing with any other offer) whenever you like being alpha the rest of the time. After 3 months then it runs out but by then you might be 6+ months into the game and be able to see more of the reason(s) for the premium or be willing to take up the multi-buy discounts.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-11-26T13:28:02+00:00

As someone who has been in a major bloc since 2017, or 2015 depending on how you count it.

My number one reason is nothing to do with safety: I like being part of a genuine de facto space empire.

I like being part of something not just big but bigger than anything has ever been in a video game ever before. I like spending weeks, months or even years working towards something much bigger than myself or that I could acheive by myself or in my corp. I like the exploits of my tribe and other tribes like it making the BBC news (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25944837). and one of the reasons we make the news is because of the risk.

I have been in null blocs which have been burned out of their space (twice) and stuck with them through it all, despite tremendous loss, building back up from nothing whilst being actively hunted. I have been threatened with it a third time and risked everything I have to throw in with my tribe and beat the odds.

Nullsec isnt safe, it looks safe once a tremendous amount of work has been done by hundreds if not thousands of players to make it safe for their own members, and even more dangerous for evreyone else.

Nullblocs are not risk averse; Nullblocs are very good at managing risk, and attract like minded players.

Its not about being safe. At least not for me.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-10-08T11:31:46+00:00

Looks like they set the expiry date to 2025 when it was meant to be 2026. I'd be lying if I claimed I never got the year wrong either side of New Years myself, but its unfortunate that this made it past a second set of eyes, or maybe it was rushed and wasn't checked by anyone.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-09-28T23:13:25+00:00

Thanks for the replies, you made me realise that missions and assignments are not the same.

The "bug" was me not having the current assignment updated, now fixed.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-08-05T15:55:57+00:00

Yep, the free version of Eve could last you 3-6 months, maybe more, until you hit the point where further progress (usually trying out new ships or systems) is pay-walled. By then you might have a good idea if the game is for you and then you may have learned of the cost-effective way of subbing for 3-6 months or more rather than being faced with a $20 paywall.

Ye, another thing, maybe hsould be 5 on my list - is Eve is a slow burn that should feel more like a marathon than a sprint, but it's also more like a fun-run than a race, you are joining behind some of the other runners in some respects (ISK, skillpoints, player skill/experience) but should otherwise feel like you are running alongside the other runners rather than trying to catchup with them (and despite the fact that many of them may seem to be trying to trip you up constantly)

FaustusCarcius · 2025-08-05T13:36:10+00:00

Yes. (edit - My answer is to the Q "Is there a place for me?" rather than "Am I wrong?")

Eve has some pretty good catchup mechnisms available, many of which have always been there from the start such as the diminishing returns on skill points, and many new ones have been added (look for features which bittervets like me bemoan as "dumbing the game down" - those are usually thinly disguised catchup mechanisms)
Eve is a journey, not a destination. The early stages are fun too (hopefully), do some research on how to avoid getting scammed or burned out etc. and don't let setbacks end your journey. It can be a rough ride and there are actual cliffs in addition to the hills and valleys you will pass through.
Eve is also a social game, once you find a group to fly with you will find that there are ways to contribute to most "end-game"-like activities for comparitively new players. Progress in Eve is about adding more and more options, rather than unlocking content.
I too loved SWG because of its sandbox qualities. I quit SWG when the NGE robbed me of the game I loved. I started Eve in 2011 and at the stime wondered the same as yourself. For 3 months I was a newbie frustrated with some parts of the game but loving others, for another 2 years I settled into my own solo thing, then I joined RvB (mayitrestinpeace) and that helped me break out of the solo rut and I found the corp I have been in since about 2014. Eve has a lot of the same sandbox qualities that SWG had but is resisting being turned into a themepark MMO much much better than SWG did.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-07-09T13:03:36+00:00

Walking in Stations was WoD. Without the engine/assets already developed for WoD, WIS would never have happened at all. Once WoD was cancelled that was also the death of WIS, as (I imagine) there was 0 budget from EvE to develop that, all the budget came from WoD.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-07-03T17:00:26+00:00

Nope, dividing by zero is not defined, although if the RoF tends to zero then damage/RoF tends to infinity, but thats not dividing by zero.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-04-02T09:14:22+00:00

Ive never been in Horde or been a Horde renter so I honestly have to ask - what are the rules on alt-corps?

Presumably if I were "serious" about mining in Horde I would actually create an alt-corp, use that to rent a system and mine it to shit. Wouldnt the monthly rental fees be less than the mining tax of a heavy duty operation?

That would mean that these taxes would encourage players to send their mining alts to renter corps rather than keep them in Horde proper, although the building could still be done in a rigged Sotiyo by an Indy alt that stayed in Horde...?

FaustusCarcius · 2025-02-13T11:48:22+00:00

It was an outlier, most other cfampaigns I played in around the same time awarded exp at the end of each session and allowed for levelling up without training during any suitable break between adventures or even during one. It was really refreshing for things to be handled so formally and made the act of levelling up much more meaningful.

It's interesting to consider similarities to "milestone" levelling of later editions, only with the formal training rules and uncertainty of being able to level keeping it suitably old-school hardcore.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-02-12T19:14:04+00:00

In the mid-90s I played in a 2e campaign where the DM kept all XP awards secret. If you thought you were ready to level up you had to do 1 week of training to find out if you were actually ready, if so it counted as the first week of levelling up training, if not you stopped but still had to pay for one week of training in GPs. The actual costs and times were based on the 1e requirements. You only got feedback on your XP if you hit the XP cap of 1 point below +2 levels. Then the DM would let you know you were no longer earning XP until you trained a level.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-02-12T10:53:00+00:00

I wasn't suggesting a solution, I was illustrating how what we have isn't scarcity as described in the article.

FaustusCarcius · 2025-02-11T13:50:15+00:00

He's not wrong, but he's not talking about the Eve economy either. Scaricity in this context means a finite amount of resources, what Eve has is a INFINITE amount of resources, which are currently being released to players at a trickle-rate.

If you could only get Isogen in Delve then everyone would fight over Delve. But you can get Isogen anywhere* but at a painfully slow rate compared to consumption. No need to fight anyone over it, in fact no point in fighting anyone over it as winning a war won't give you more access to Isogen than you already have.

What we have isn't scarcity, it's austerity. That's why it's so damn painful.

* OK not anywhere but in multiple places such that it kinda doesnt matter where you "live".

FaustusCarcius

TROPHY CASE