Random Posts from Auga

While I think there’s still clearly scorn for Faction War PvP (see 1st slide image from the Keynote), in listening to the Eve Keynote from FanFest, I heard only three main changes, two I agree with and one that remains to be seen for me:

Can’t dock in enemy militia stations

While this will be annoying, it really makes perfect sense.  Can’t really argue against it.

LP points for killing enemy militia pilots

This is awesome and way overdue.

Bunker becomes some sort of upgradeable hub

Seems like too much null sec mechanics to me, but it will be upgradeable via LPs.  Remains to be seen what the benefits will be though.

Go to 41:27 to see the Faction War slides.

I hope they do get around to creating a new destroyer class.  New mods looks cool too… changeable resist mods, more web drones (they might actually be useful now?) and micro jump drives.

The first CSM6 meeting notes have been released, and here’s an excerpt with the discussion on Faction War:

CCP has begun some concept work on how they want FW to evolve in the medium-to-long term. Some iterations to FW may be possible as soon as summer 2012. They would like to merge the FW and 0.0 sov system capture mechanics somewhat, but are not happy with either of the current mechanics.

CCP would like to inject some of the drama that surrounds the CSM election system into FW, by having some sort of in-game election of militia leaders/admirals. This would help move some of the 0.0 style
politics/revenge/spying into FW. Another important addition to this system would be some real power/consequences for system ownership, such as the elected leaders being able to set things like tax rates in
lowsec stations that they control (and having some of this tax ISK flow to the faction). The leadership would be able to set strategic goals as well as adjust settings for the new FW benefits.

Some of the CSM members expressed some concern that FW issues would greatly impact pirate organizations that live in the area, and wanted to make sure that non-FW entities would be able to neutralize FW control in some way (by blowing stuff up, preferably). CCP agreed to take that into account when designing the system, but that the important thing was to make FW meaningful and fun.

CCP mentioned that letting alliances join FW was supposed to be a Crucible feature, but was not completed in time. It will be released in the very near future, so that groups that want to participate in FW don’t need to break up their existing social structures in order to join. Some CSM members noted that this, in addition to the election mechanics, would allow nullsec entities to co-opt FW groups.

On the question of where FW revenues would go, CCP suggested that they would be able to be used for system upgrades; an example was to increase LP payouts or something similar.

The CSM suggested that one of the major issues with lowsec was the large increase in risk with a much smaller increase in rewards. It was suggested that allowing FW upgrades to decrease risk, such as making probes less effective in a system, would help draw people into lowsec. This brought up a side conversation about how the current probing mechanics has negatively impacted tactics like sniping, which is an issue CCP is aware of.

CCP suggested that in the long term, they would like to see the possibility of FW folks taking over nearby high and nullsec systems, and turning them into FW-controlled systems. Some CSMs suggested that FW could be used as a testbed for new capture mechanics, since FW would be smaller scale than nullsec.

The CSM presented a list of smaller issues that were raised by the FW community. CCP promised to look at the list, but pointed out that issues that had to do with Crimewatch (the system that manages aggression timers, security status hits, criminal flags and other lowsec mechanics) were unlikely to be addressed without the Crimewatch rewrite that CCP is planning.

The forum discussion on the minutes can be found here.

So, it’s been announced that Alliances will be allowed to participate in Faction Warfare.  Reaction can, at best, be called mixed.  A large number of senior and vocal factional warfare pilots consider this the end of faction warfare.  Others seem to think it will be OK.

I’m mixed about it—I think there will be the occasional null-sec behemoth who dabbles and therefore will create some havoc, but at the moment I think the ability for existing faction warfare corps to join up into alliances within FW will outweigh the negative.  Of course, I could also be totally smoking.

Go here to register your own opinion.

Some reactions from the twitterverse:

Shalee Lianne:
Alliances in Factional Warfare? Boooo. Please CCP, why you trying to kill FW? Why?! WTB a dev who really understands what FW is about.

Susan Black:
Alliances in Faction War….please tell me it’s a joke… Alliances in FW will kill it…  *Rages*  …You might as well just get rid of Faction War and give Alliances free wardeccing instead of going thru the trouble.