Awoxing game
There have been some discussions ongoing about these changes, however I was surprised to learn that initial thought was to remove friendly fire altogether instead of making it a toggle on/off option. Giving corps more control seems only reasonable thing to do.
To be honest, I did not care much about awoxing playstyle. I know some people focus in this activity, but it never appealed for me. Even though I like to be an asshole, joining a corp that don't know any better and killing their Orca and mining fleet (usually) just doesn't get me off. You can, of course, aim for more shiny ships, but to solo kill those, like shiny battleship or a marauder, t1 destroyer might not cut it.
Main reason I don't like awoxing is that you get blacklisted after first awox if corp bothers to report it on the forums. Also your killboard shows you awoxing. Having done that, you are blocked from all decent corps that put minimal effort in their recruitment and do background checks. Then you can only join some miner or very newbie corps that don't know any better. Not to mention your char is a throwaway. God forbid if character is on the same account as your main. By giving your full API you expose yourself. So many disadvantages and so much effort for mediocre kills. You might get a lot of tears, but I am not sure they are worth it. There are many more useful/profitable activities with much more impact that dedicated account can do.
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While I do not do awoxing, I am concerned about the changes. Highsec play has changed dramatically since I first joined EVE. Starting with crimewatch and now with friendly fire changes, I can't help but fear for the future. All "improvements" made may somewhat make sense, but it all adds up to safer environment. Just put all your safeties on and you won't have to worry much about screwing up or being screwed over. CCP might get the opposite effect than what they expect. With no dangers present, people will die out of boredom.
Once changes are live and assuming corps go for maximum security, only way to get at someone will be wardecs and suicide ganking. My biggest fear is that this trend will continue. Imagine if suddenly they implement player corps equivalent to NPC not to be wardecable with 10% tax. As Gevlon names them - friendly corp. Then imagine suddenly they change suicide ganking and forbade -5+ players from docking in highsec stations. These might be extreme examples, but if safety changes continue to be implemented, we might end up being more close to theme park than unforgiving universe. I believe for each change CCP needs to give something in return. Like being able to shoot the deployables implemented in Rubicon expansion. Stuff like that brings new forms of emergent gameplay.
Great read and nice view on the situation. It's not for everyone, but that being said, nor is PvP. I used to exclusively awox and now come more recent times I can see why that might have been a bad idea - not only was I forcing other players into a game style they didn't want any part of, I was disrupting their experience to some degree or another. I'm also now unable to join a Wormhole corp, which is actually a huge bummer to me, I've always wanted to get into W-Space..
ReplyDeleteAnyway! nice read and keep it up man.