EVE Online is fast approaching its tenth anniversary. And it’s also facing some fairly major issues: lack of new content, an aging crop of bitter-vets who have trained everything and who are looking for something new to do, massive invincible sov blocs controlling vast swaths of null, super-cap proliferation out of control, and a large population of players with far too much ISK.
Believe it or not, I’ve come up with something CCP can do to at least partially address every one of these issues, all at the same time, and celebrate their tenth anniversary in style.
It’s time to open up Jove space.
I’ve thought through a step-by-step process for starting to do it, one that would be rather epic and have interesting impacts throughout New Eden without being overpowering or making the game all about Jove space. It would also protect new players from the major impacts of Jove technology without closing off Jove technology to new players that wanted to try it.
Before I start, let’s quickly review what’s been revealed about the Jove in EVE’s lore. I’m not an expert on this, so I may have some of the details wrong, but I’m sure people will correct any mistakes I make in the comments. Still, I’m reasonably certain I have the gist correct, and any details I miss can be adjusted. The Jove are essentially human, the first humans to climb out of barbarism after the collapse of the EVE gate. Whereas it took the Amarr and Caldari some 8000 years to come out of the dark ages, it can be argued that the Jove never had any period of barbarism at all, or only a very brief one. As a result, their technology is several thousand years ahead of the younger races… but much of that technology is biological and genetic, in the form of genetic engineering of their own species. As a result, the Jove can only loosely be described as completely human.
Jove space technology is highly advanced, but not overwhelmingly so… or at least the space technology they show the other races isn’t. In particular, in the one battle between the Jove and an Empire faction, the Amarr invasion of Vak’Atioth, the Jove lost one frigate or cruiser for every three Amarrian ships (of all sizes, but mostly battleships) destroyed. The Jove have moved throughout the galaxy several times, most recently from Curse to the three regions they live in today. The reason for these moves is a congenital disorder — the so-called “Jovian disease” — related to Jovian genetic engineering. This disorder can strike any Jovian and is ultimately fatal.
Other factions can adapt Jovian technology for their own use. Capsules were a Jovian invention, as were some types of boosters and implants. Jovian ships are invariably described as extremely fast and agile. It’s rumored that the Angel Cartel ships — also noted for their radical fast and agile designs — are partially based on Jovian technology. This advantage apparently came from the Angel Cartel settling on previous Jovian worlds in Curse. And finally, in the last year or so, it’s been hinted in various parts of the lore that the Jovians may well have died out from their genetic disorder. Certainly, there has been no sustained contact with the Jovians in the last several years.
So let’s start from there: the Jovians as an archaeological prospect.
CCP could have stargates to Jovian space appear in three regions: one in Venal, linking to the A821-A region; one in Vale of the Silent, linking to the J7HZ-F region, and one in Perrigen Falls, linking to the UUA-F4 region. One stargate each would appear in each of those systems, looking very different from current stargates — actually rather primitive-looking. In close proximity to the gates — some 2000km or so — would be small NPC dockable stations. Each of these three dockable stations would be the starting point for an epic arc: Jovian Research.
It seems groups of archaeologists and astrophysicists and engineers have heard that the Jove are all dead, and have set up shop in these locations and believe they can unlock Jove space. They’ve identified a number of Jove energy signatures that they believe can be used to build a primitive Jovian device that would cause the primitive stargates they’ve built to fling a ship into Jovian space. They’ll provide the energy signatures: all the player has to do is track them down and bring back the appropriate artifacts. This leads to a 20 mission epic arc that will drag players right across New Eden — starting in Curse — seeking out sources of these energy signatures. At mission ten, the scientists manage to cobble together a Jove Frigate skill book. It requires that the player have all four racial frigates trained at Level V to train.
And at the end of mission 20, the scientists manage to piece together a primitive Jovian frigate… the Jove equivalent of a T1 tackle frigate. The gates into Jove space can only be activated by a Jove frigate, so after fitting the ship, into Jove space these first few players can go. The Jove frigate is quick, agile, tough, and superior to all existing faction frigates. And while you’re sitting in it, you get a permanent Suspect tag.
Seems that CONCORD has been monitoring the experiments, and doesn’t much care for capsuleers having potentially stronger technology than CONCORD does. But lacking null-sec resources, they have no way to combat the problem except with Suspect tags for everyone sitting in a Jove ship… and one other thing that I’ll get to in a few minutes.
Once ships start entering Jove space, there are existing Jove stargates linking the three regions together. There are also scannable sites, with Hacking and Archaeology potential for additional Jove loot. Initially, none of the Jove loot is usable for anything in and of itself (that changes later). It can only be carried back to the three NPC stations in the Jove entry systems. And the sites should be guarded, but what they should be guarded by I leave as an exercise for the student. Some new class of Sleeper-like rogue drones is one possibility.
One thing there isn’t in Jove space is evidence of the Jove: only their gates and the sites remain as testaments to their technology, plus evidence of terraformed planets. There’s also two other interesting things: every system in Jove space appears to be cyno-jammed, all the time. And you can’t anchor any structure of an industrial nature, including station eggs and POS-based manufacturing anchorables. You also can’t anchor anchorable bubbles, but dictor and hictor bubbles work fine. You can’t light a cyno anywhere in the three regions, you can’t bring in capital ships, and you can’t build them. You can’t build anything in Jove space as a matter of fact; everything has to be imported.
But there’s stuff to export. Oh my yes, is there. Enormous asteroid belts, lots of untapped moons, lots of untapped planets, ice belts of all four varieties… pretty much every raw material you can think of is available, and in large quantities. Plus all the Jove site materials, which eventually have to come out the three choke-point gates to be of any use to anyone.
As players complete more and more of the Jove sites and bring materials back to the three NPC stations, eventually (over the course of a couple of weeks), the NPC stations begin selling Jove Frigate skill books to anyone, then Jove Destroyer skill books. There’s only two problems: they’re horribly expensive, for one. 10 million ISK for the frigate book, 100 million ISK for the destroyer book. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the scientists to make one skill book, so only one is available for purchase at a time and the cost escalates after the first book purchased in the normal fashion with other skill books. And second, CONCORD doesn’t think much of the practice: they start assigning bounties to anyone who buys a Jove skill book, equal to half the price of the book, whatever that is.
Eventually in Jove space, someone comes across an odd BPC. It’s a small, medium, or large rig BPC: Jove Access Rig. It requires a small flood of T1 and T2 salvage parts to build one, but eventually someone does. Then they fit it to a ship. Then they discover that any ship fitted with this rig can transit a Jove stargate, including the entry gates. With this rig, normal capsuleer ships can enter Jove space. Without it, they can’t. Capitals continue to not be able to use the gates.
But sooner or later, someone figures out that a Large Jove Access Rig fit to an Orca will work just fine. The race to colonize Jove space en masse is on. Carriers begin to be a common sight at the choke-point gates, both camping the gates and serving as loading/unloading points for the Orcas.
As more and more materials are brought to the NPC stations by any player, thresholds are reached in game that unlock new skill books, and eventually new BPCs. Every few weeks, the scientists come up with a new skill book, at steadily increasing costs. Jove Cruisers, for one billion ISK. Jove Battlecruisers, for ten billion ISK. BPCs for ships of these classes also become available as more and more Jove material is delivered. Building the ships requires materials from Empire, from null, and a few of the materials from the Jove sites as well. But they can be built. And flown. And they’re completely awesome. Jove ships don’t require the Jove Access Rig: they can use any Jove stargate. And you have a Suspect flag whenever you’re sitting in any Jove ship. And as you buy the skill books, your CONCORD-placed bounties go up and up and up.
By this point, the three choke-point entry systems are probably the sites of a dozen major fleet fights a day. The three NPC stations are bubbled and camped around the clock, but someone always comes along and tries to push the camp away. The 2000km from station to gate is one giant grid strewn with wrecks, corpses, cans, and anchored bubbles. Super-cap battles in the system are constant and intense. The demand for Jove skill books and ships is increasing daily.
Pity the poor idiot that buys 20 Jove Cruiser skill books intending to haul them to Jita. First, that’s 20 billion ISK, minimum. It’s probably a lot more as the skill book code in game makes each book successively more expensive. Then he’s got a 10 billion ISK bounty, minimum. And he’s got to figure out a way to get these billions of ISK in skill books to Empire somehow without being ganked… only he’s now appearing on the top twenty bounty list…
Jove weapon skill books begin to unlock, first the smalls, then the mediums. These require that you’ve trained all four types of T1 weapons to Level V, and are just as expensive as the ship skill books, and give you CONCORD bounties just as fast. By this time the bitter-vets don’t care: like any drug, Jove technology is highly addictive. “Let them come find me in Jove space if they want this bounty,” they’ll say, and people will. Lots of very rich people will kill lots of other very rich people in their very expensive Jove ships to get at those bounties. And eventually Jove weapon BPCs are unlocked too and these require more Jove materials from inside the three regions, which have become constant bloodbaths around the site warp-in points. When you enter a Jove system, the first thing you notice is there are about a hundred scan probes out waiting for the next site to spawn, and a half-dozen fleets within five jumps all waiting for the next one to be scanned down.
Eventually, the Jove Battleship skill book unlocks. It costs one hundred billion ISK. But the first pilot to sit in one is a famous New Eden demi-god. Oh, and also a big fat juicy target.
That covers about the first year. About a month after that, the Jove wake up. It was all a trap, you see… they wanted capsuleers in their space, flying their ships, trapped far away from their enormous capital and super-capital ship fleets. But I’m sure someone else can take over from here. That’s enough for now.
It’s time to open up Jove space. If not now, when?
What do you think? 
EDIT (12/Dec/2012): After I published this post, I thought of one way to game the system: use throw-away alts to buy the skill books and in that way avoid the bounties. I can think of two fixes: either don’t allow Jove skill books to be sold, contracted, or traded, or more simply, apply the bounty to the person that trains the skill, not the person that buys the book.
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I stopped at "need all frigates to 5" and "superior to all other frigates".
Get out, and go back to progression-based MMOs like WoW.
I have everything to 5 and thought that was a great requirement. However. I still think he should go back to wow. And ccp should fix moons before opening jove space or space expansion. We know its possible. We got wh's, There just like systems (but without gates or ice). A way to claim a WH system would be nice. The content of sleepers though is jus barely better than mining. At this time, Running level 4's is more of a challenge.
In short.. Eve needs more random insert content comment here.
L4s safer than WH sleeper content?
Eh… no.
If you look at cap kills on evekill, daily there's about 3-5 dreadnoughts or carriers with sleepers on the killmail, sometimes more if there was a large battle (like RNK vs Transmission Lost)
That combined with (at least somewhat) random wormhole spawning means that WHs remain the best random content, however it could be more random… though with sleepers that would be a bit hazardous to anyone who wants to brave them.
I do like the idea of being able to "claim sov" in a wormhole. Perhaps allow stations to go in there; maybe a smaller variant (Read: POS how they should be)? Forget the whole ACTUAL sov though. Still unclaimable, but possibly upgradable with an iHub variant? However, because of the randomness of wormholes, maybe get rid of the RF timer and use stront instead like towers do now.
I would TOTALLY get into that. Defendable areas of space with no supers and only a limited number of enemy forces able to come at you at once. Can't defend by blobbing either because then no one would make any money in there (site spawning would still dry up from over use like they do now).
Granted, there's still the whole "leave a scanning alt" thing to get people in over the course of a few days, but come on…I've been there and it's a pain in the ass having to wait for people to get in while logged off/cloaked in a safe. BORING! Not to mention I'm sure the residents would notice…
Anyway, Forget opening up Jove space. Just make it so Jove interact with the general galaxy. Maybe they would sell special stuff for WHs like structures, upgrades,ships equpment, etc. to combat their ancient nemesis, the Sleepers (made that last part up, but makes for good content)
Also, sorry for double post, but previous comment got a little…rant-ish.
Nice post , but tbh man , Just add new regions , make all moon goo , available in all regions , aswell as equivalant amounts of moons , slow it's process down so it's not spitting out gigantic amounts , so it doesnt fuck with the market.
Reduce the amount of alliance members to 3000 per alliance , Make having to set blue * Cost a fortune * so if you want to set someone blue to alliance , then it's going to cost you a large amount of isk. so you then have to pick * who you want blue * , especially in battles. make new entrances to all regions available. So that you can goto any region at any time without having to jump 70 jumps to get there. Reduce jump bridge range , and raise up the amount of fuel taken per * ship that jumps through a titan bridge. * so that it's very costly for alliances to just jump fleets of ships everywhere.
And pray that ccp reads this post I just made.
Oh and make Super Cap Warp Disruptors that fit on Battleships , so that more pilots use BS's . make the game challenging again and somehow enforce it , without screwing it up entroducing * SUPER BIG SHIPS *. Dont get me wrong , there pretty and all , but it's alot better and funner to make them die , then to watch them blob up.
I like the cut of your jib, but only a few of those ideas would possibly work.
Adding new regions for the sake of making space bigger has always been a retarded idea, seeing how large swaths of null are pretty much uninhabited already.
Also, creating an artificial limit on allies would be easily circumvented, and limiting the number of alliance members is just dumb.
You think so , But having a reduced alliance number means having to have more active members , and more active members means having to keep them busy with active content. otherwise as normal human beings , well go look for the next best thing to join or do. And more space is needed. Look at 2006 for active wars. It was because you had alot of space to travel through and fight for. more regions means more wars and more area to gain. it's not stupid at all. You just can't seem to see the big picture overall. You need more alliances * smaller sized and less blobby * fighting in every area. and if you really want to kick it up a notch , then make moon mining run out , and then possibly alternate in different locations. just a thought on this one.
great idea, but you'll just end up with gooswarm 1,2,3 or 4 testicles..
One other option instead of adding regions is limiting the number of systems an alliance can control, this could be based on a skill like the other corporation management skills.
All these big alliances controlling large swathes of nullsec is killing the game, restrict the number of systems and more alliances will move to nullsec, more players means more fights.
Come on who doesn't like more fights
" One other option instead of adding regions is limiting the number of systems an alliance can control, this could be based on a skill like the other corporation management skills. "
Then alliances will create space holding shell alliances, and +10 them.
Setting artificial limits on size is dumb, and people will find ways around it. Using a CVA-like KOS/NRDS list if they have to.
Yeah that would be the way to go to start cleaning the crap EVE is in now. As in wardecs, if you want someone blue, pay up for more people that you want blue.
As in FW, add instantly deployable cyno jammers which last for 10-20minutes – that would prevent every fight becoming automatic win for the SC heavy alliances and they would have to start deploying subcaps.
You want destructible stations – make new Titan module that would allow the Titan to suicide ram the station. You get to eliminate stations but at a cost, plus we would see more Titans lost.
And most of all, eliminate passive alliance income.
And watch as yellow becomes the new blue, and everyone is forced to set massive red-lists in the new NRDS eve.
Making all space the same value makes it all worthless. Why fight to hold or gain your space when you can just move someplace else? If you want better space, and you are better players than the current holders, then go take it.
Making it not take 70 jumps to get somewhere is the entire point of jump bridges. Why do you think making it harder to get places will lead to more or better fights? This is contradicting your request for more gates to make travel easier.
Everyone agrees that moongoo needs rebalancing. It seems to me that most rebalances get done after goons abuse the feature to death, one way or another — heavy missiles, FW, throwing thousands of ships into tracking titans, previous JB nerf, ratting supers, etc., etc.
That Thai Stick…
did you read the part about regaining the interest of bitter vets? those folks would likely have all frigs to 5. which i would if the amarr frigs didnt suck so bad at the time i mapped for ships. quit looking for the tiniest excuse to moan and just play the fucking game. or better yet; write a better article smart ass.
Wow, that's quite the epic fantasy you've concocted there… cudos for thinking big
Couple issues: Eventually, after the initial lengthy exploration period, the advanced Jove technology will be seeded across the universe, essentially making all other ships antiquated and useless?
-Having "choke points" to Jove space will only ensure supercap heavy alliances will be able to control these access points indefinitely.
-The idea sounds like a 'game within a game' content exclusive for bittervets who have nothing else to train or do, when its emergent gameplay which will keep the Eve universe going strong…
-And lastly this concept sounds like the ultimate Jesus feature when the 'major issues' hurting the game are current mechanics needing an overhaul, not a massive shiny distraction for a slice of the playerbase.
One thing about supercap heavy alliances being able to control theh supply: They wont
It will be the massive subcap alliances (Read: Goonswarm & whoever is on the other side, SOLAR/IRC atm) who will control the supply
Only time supers are EVER used is bashing structures when they are sure risk is minimal, or bridging fleets (the only role titans have, might as well put the poor things out of the misery and remove them)
If there are only three choke points to control you can bet that even if they dont field supers, power blocks will have a significant interest in occupying these places. Both for their own access and simply to deny access to others.
So, lore-wise, our last update on Jove was that Sansha had taken over and was running shit, and the wormhole technology that launches Incursions is Jovian, so 1) the Jove are definitely not totally dead (though perhaps enslaved) and 2) who the hell needs gates to get to Jove when you've got wormholes.
Speaking of, yes, there are connections between w-space and Jove, go read the books or find someone else to spoil Templar One for you.
In terms of a drastic game shift, though, I think you're right that opening up Jove is the last major frontier CCP has available. The problem is of course "what can they do after that?" The issues you raise, which I think aren't as drastic as you make them out to be, will hardly be solved by granting access to Jove space. At best they will be temporarily suppressed. I suspect CCP will hold Jove for not this pseudo-stagnation, but for the one five years down the line or so.
I don't think it necessarily has to be their last frontier. I'm sure CCP could come up with something great if they put their mind to it. And if everything else fails could they always make the first stargate come to life
New regions of space would be nice or better and a few things do need a look at. But Jove space will never open in my books.
But..
1.) Its CCP's playground.
2.) In the Jove Lore they blocked off access to their but thanks to the Amarr we can't, and they won't because of us Capsuleers being immortal could reek havoc on them and it would follow with basically start a World War between the high alliances of EVE for that space. You be breaking EVE lore.
3.) Letting us have Jove ships/weapons?!!? Are you out of your mind? It would ruin the game. They would the only thing people would fly or fit. Jove ships stay out of the game.
5.) We don't even know how many Joves are left so won't get many missions from them.
I do agree there needs to be change in missioning and other fields of EVE. Null I can see a few things need change and addressed but thats thin ice CCP would be walking on.
Open up or create new regions of space for us to explore, more new ships(Capitals would be nice), less re balancing unless needed, improve the missions or make new ones, more events from the devs or CCP themselves that don't involve being in null, and much more to enhance the experience in EVE and something for the vets.
Think a little more before you post something Jester. This isn't WoW, this is EVE. Get that fact in your head.
tbh thinking was never this cunt's strong point….
HBC would gtfo from south to camp Perrigen Fall gate, split camp in Vale with CFC and CFC would take care of venal
-> run sites pretty much in complete security as there probably would be only handful of hostiles lurking around
-> profit
And then what?
You pretty much leave all the hard questions unanswered. What would jove ships be compared to normal? Completely overshadow them? Well, if producing of the capsuleer jove ships would end when Joves show their hands and launch the trap, I guess it could work, but be little meh for the majority of eve players. Something happened for a year in EVE and you never even got there nor had even skills to train the frigging frigate skill book if you would have.
I think more interesting way would be to just launch Jove space without any Jove tech, but keep it to function pretty much as you described:
- No cynos
- No anchorable bubbles
- No any construction possibilities
And to that, some additions:
- Mining is super fast (something like 5-10x) at Jove space and there is also moon minerals in belts (these doesn't apply to entry systems)
- Space is filled with random pirate rats
- Jove "officer" spawns (drops random collection of pirate deadspace items which they obviously got from the random pirate rats while fighting furiously against them). You need something like 20 man gang to kill it.
- No local
- Low number of small wormholes randomly connecting to WH space, restricted to only cruiser size and smaller and only about 10 uses before collapse
Maybe:
- Jove gates connecting randomly to each other -> travelling in Jove space would be different almost everyday.
- Only POS structure allowed, not any mods. Only way to stash material would be bring huge hauler hull army to float at pos (or orca / freighter)
- Maybe restrict hauler hulls from Jove-Unknown space travel via WH's to force people to use the pipe gates in hauling.
What I am aiming is to create zone where you can generate wealth with your alliance by actually doing things in EVE and other people still would have pretty good ways to fuck you up if you don't do it properly. It would be more about the hauling and securing than the actual rock smashing.
Oh, forgot to clarify:
Jump drives shouldn't work at Jove space to prevent JF use at moving stuff out
(Also, to add to maybe section:
I think it would be nice to see those entry gates work different way than normal gates:
- Make the gate absolutely huge. Gate diameter about 80km and 100km diameter jump range.
- 550km radius where you can't warp away, unless you are in pod
- You can't warp inside gate grid even if you are outside of the 550km range.
- if you warp to gate, or anything what is in the gate grid, you would land to 100km away from gate jump range at the direction you started your warp. No matter where your warp in was in the grid or what range you warped from it, you would end up to 100km away from gate jump range (150km from the center point of the gate). Only execption to these rules would be capital ships. Freighters and Orcas would land straight to jump range and other capitals, which would land 750km away from the gate (making them pretty much useless at the gate)
- After stargate use, you would end up 450km away from the gate jump range (500km from the center), 50km to drive before getting out
- Every 15min gate would emit pulse which deactivates cloaks at gate range (preventing gate area from just being 1000 bombers waiting for juicy moment, but not preventing you to actually use bombers to kill gate campers)
- No cynos allowed at the gate grid
- Jumpdrives don't work
I this setup would pretty much guarantee that no one could just mass up and sit 0 to gate with uncounterable blob, and bring one totally new element to EVE PVP field, as you would need to drive long distances instead of warping. Freighter / Orca escorting would became pretty interesting action, instead of fast surprise drops/ganks situations would turn to long chases where defender frigates would end up racing to freighters with hostile frigates and then fighting it out and bigger ships would follow them and hope that they get to freighter before it gets out of the 550km range of the gate or attacking frigates can keep it pointed for them)
Little bit too fantastical to be honest.
Here's another idea:
-Release a full line of Jove ships. However, because the radiation from the power core (or some other stuff) would cook a capsuleer in his/her pod, the power cores on Jove ships have to be scaled back to be in line with current ones. This provides a storyline justification for not making Jove ships really OP.
-Release a new Jove-based weapon systems.
Between these you give capsuleers a good year of new training.
There would be one new ship however that would trump everyone: the super-Titan. Capable of fitting several traditional doomsday devices as well as a new (or old depending on your perspective) lower-damage area DD, capable of killing most frigs and t1 cruisers while doing significant damage to everything else. Their hp would be insane, as would the resource costs, the training time, and everything else.
There are two kickers: There'd be a limit of 1 per system. The build time would also take 6 months and, because of the massive energy signature created by the Jovian drive system, systems with super-titans cooking in the unique assembly array needed for this shiptype would be displayed on the EvE map. This would give people the incentive to hold space for long periods of time. It also gives people the easy ability to target these pos's. The combination of these, along with the 1-per-system limit, will limit their impact.
All in all, these changes add new features without putting too big a shock on game mechanics.
Eve has enough technical issues that CCP need to start addressing, and to be fair, they have started. Crucible, Inferno and now Retribution are steps in the right direction to implementing small steady changes. To even begin, no matter in how small a way, to introduce a fifth race of ships would completely swamp CCP's devs with more work than they could manage.
Let's not forget it wasn't too long ago that they were forced to downsize many employee positions. You probably won't hear too much of it from CCP, but I'd imagine that they have enough on their plate as it is. A fifth race being introduced would require gargantuan rebalancing, not only on the new ships (cause let's face it, how often do CCP get things right the first time) but to the antiquated and aging ships of the current races just to keep pace with this 'new rising power'.
Throw in need for new lore articles, integration with the up and coming Dust 514 interface, seeding a new empire's worth of space with content for all fields of combat, industry, exploration, etc., it is more than they could handle in my opinion. More than they could handle much in the way of walking in stations was more than they could handle on release.
Taking all that into account, the large power blocs currently in existence have enough manpower and expertise…(goons with expertise? o.O) to completely swamp and take control of any new large expansions such as introducing Joves. As noob put it above, "-Having "choke points" to Jove space will only ensure supercap heavy alliances will be able to control these access points indefinitely."…yeah this basically.
Maybe i'm wrong and maybe I don't fully understand what it takes to develop Eve Online but I don't think adding a whole new race of problems is a good idea when we already have four races to iron out still. In fact, I like the idea that Jove space won't ever open up. An inherent secret area of space that has rarely if ever been seen by players lends an attraction to keeping new players interested in the game until the games more accessible features become available to them. It's a small part, albeit a part, of why I still play the game after 4 years.
Not that I'm really agreeing on the Jove addition idea. But "…has already enough…issues…needs fix first…" if they would just do that we wouldn't get any new feature for the next 2 years straight.
We already had our fair share of these kind of fixes and they were good. Now we need new content in the furite whatever that will be it just needs to be fun in the end.
And you know their downsizing not too long ago wasn't because Eve was declining, it was because of all the money they made with Eve wasn't enough to also fund development of 2 full blown games PLUS Walking-in-captains-quarters.
Soonish Dust514 will add another revenue stream. Freeing up (financial) ressources that can be put into expanding Eve again.
At least we can hope they will focus on Eve and not the Vampire crap.
I say blame World-of-Darkness for the lack of Eve content!
You are right in that we need a good balance of fixing the old while introducing the new. I just simply mean that there are many other options for introducing new content rather than slapping on a fifth race fix so to speak. I would like to see new stuff come to eve but I personally can't really think of what those things could be. Guess that's why i'm not a dev.
Is a good idea, but needs some tweaks, the entrance should be through c6 wormholes.
Is about the same as a lost constellation expansion, but with more added flavor.
I see CFC/HBC fleets covering the (only 3) entrance-systems and fully taking advantage of this new source of income, like they do now with tech-moons.
In General an expansion like this would be highly welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!
how about a reset?
Hell yes!
all frigs to lvl 5? wtf? better make them with high sp, like 10x/15x/20x/25x (frigate,cruiser,battlecruiser, battleship) training factor
What do we think? It's a steaming pile of bullshit. Think SOE and NGE. Time and again I'm amazed at Ripards naivety.
I like the idea of new content being introduced but it has one flaw from my perspective. It has to be recyclable so that players that mature to the bitter vet stage can embark on this journey with the feeling of it being pioneered by others. I also am concerned that the assets from this region will just turn into another "tech" saga and someone will monopolise it essentially creating another situation that we have today.
-1 to all the Neigh-sayers as you guys just there and bitch about it.
While I do not agree with all that Rip said and dislike some of the concepts, i commend you for posing the problem and making an attempt at a solution. This kind of dialogue is good and I think the whiners need to be more constructive.
Now go -1 me you pussy!
Guys, this will fix eve for sure. Tech 3 titans. Don't worry they are only sort of overpowered. Its not like they could win a 1v4 every time. That would just be silly.
even if that happened then it would just be a matter of time before they got nerfed:P
no
ok jove epic mission arc would work,if joves are dying making them give mission to capsuleers is completely logical.
make it a 20 part mission arc,the rewards are regular ingame content though but pay out alot,maybe a random carrier bpc or something as the final payout, perhaps a 1 run bpc or a new kind of cap ships that can shake things up since the titan is basicly a large jumpbridge now that people also wanna nerf now.
there would be 1 jove station, 1 jove gate, every mission from the jovestation gives you a temporary keycard.
when used on the gate it will drop you in different parts of null to complete the mission.
this way it would drag you all over nullsec in eve.
It could be probably the utlimate cloaky mission arc covops/blops recons etc.
I dont know why people so hard want Jove stuff… ehh
What about the only way to get into the Jove space is via scanning a wormhole down that leads to it inside wormhole-space? That wouldn't create any bottlenecks on the entrances.
Pla. don't listen.
This is an interesting read, but nothing more.
the issue is with the 3 choke points and that they are all in the north, making the south even more useless (now w/o the right moon goo)
Firstly CCP will only make any changes to EvE that are firstly endorsed by us. If anyone wants to make any changes in EvE the first thing you need to do is petition us for permit ion. Pay a suitable fee and we might, if we think its ok, give CCP the green light.
I AM GETTING A LITTLE SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE POSTING THINGS ABOUT WHAT CCP SHOULD DO WITHOUT FIRST PETITIONING GOONS WITH ALL THE RESPECT WE DESERVE.
Repeating yourself doesnt make it a better troll..
Great article, and good for future dev once goo is sorted and blob mechanics are countered, any real statergist that wargames hates the fact that BLOB is possible in eve, but it benefits the whole, something needs to change to make the system more benefincial for solo or small groups and adds huge ammounts of conflict, (reset all of eve to red for a week and break alliances up
) a chaos factor 
Firstly CCP will only make any changes to EvE that are firstly endorsed by us. If anyone wants to make any changes in EvE the first thing you need to do is petition us for permit ion. Pay a suitable fee and we might, if we think its ok, give CCP the green light.
I AM GETTING A LITTLE SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE POSTING THINGS ABOUT WHAT CCP SHOULD DO WITHOUT FIRST PETITIONING GOONS WITH ALL THE RESPECT WE DESERVE.
Still can't figure out the reason why the Jove faction was created if we only here legends and stories about them. Can't find the logic in the 'this is ccp playground territory and faction' stuff. Someone please explain it.
The Jove fulfill a few primary functions:
To give CCP a god-mode set of ships to fly around in while they are doing dev things.
They are also a plot device meant to move the greater story.
Jove space is CCP's way of giving us tangible evidence that they exist, instead of something CCP simply said.
Also, the jove are not the first civilization to rise from the ashes of the destruction of the EVE gate. According to the books and established lore, they are an offshoot of the Enheduanni, better known as sleepers. Where the sleepers chose to offload their consciousness into something akin to the matrix, the Jove devolved into the Jove, and were left behind after the Enheduanni achieved a kind of technological singularity because of their simulated reality.
The dust mercenaries have their beginnings in an experiment at using the uplink implants the Enheduanni developed to transfer consciousness. The same book talks about the Jove being wiped out by a genetic disease, and all that is left are AI imprints. In all likelihood,
hmm i like your effort but there a lot of problems…
1. Your idea of super-special Jove ships might seem good, but with time will either a) be seeded or b) become commonplace. Remember when supers came out?? They were meant to be the flagships of alliances, symbols of power. Now they're nothing more then a pigeon in the sky. Ultimately it would just unbalance all the balancing work CCP has done with the ships.
2. Having chokepoints into Jove space is simply going to allow the blob to well ummm ….. blob. They would without a doubt control this new GOD area with an ironfist which would only further unbalance the amount of control the superblocks already have under the current sov mechanics.
3. Having features where realistically only a small portion of the playerbase will be able to access or take part in it is just silly.
No what this game needs is a complete sov overhaul. COMPLETE OVERHAUL. At the moment it's basically whoever has most wins, and to me thats just boring and unsatisfying. Oh look 10,000 monkeys swarmed 1000 monkeys and won wow!. I'd like to see more variety in the ways sov is won.
Firstly CCP will only make any changes to EvE that are firstly endorsed by us. If anyone wants to make any changes in EvE the first thing you need to do is petition us for permit ion. Pay a suitable fee and we might, if we think its ok, give CCP the green light.
I AM GETTING A LITTLE SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE POSTING THINGS ABOUT WHAT CCP SHOULD DO WITHOUT FIRST PETITIONING GOONS WITH ALL THE RESPECT WE DESERVE.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycMR_n4DHmo
You must be a new Goonie cause your troll is bad troll-.-
Why as a pirate can i not board another pilots ship yet, pillage it, cut his balls off for a trophy and fly his ship back to my hanger where i could then tie the crew to the ship to make it look like a Reaver ship from Serenity????
Why isnt there more corporate functions?? Such as internal market places, the ability to create corporate missions with corporate lp being the reward. Such as net this much tax income for the corp, or mine this much trit, or assasinate this player to get this much corp lp which can get you this or give you access to that so on and so forth….
Why not have random system or constellation events (like incursions) that players can try to fix, like an asteroid about to collide with jita IV station taking out all market items in that station!!, a black hole forcing stoppage in movement between regions i dunno blah blah….. how much fun would this be cmon people!!
Personally i think after this amazing Retribution expansion we now need many more features, the forefront of which needs to be sov overhaul.
Firstly CCP will only make any changes to EvE that are firstly endorsed by us. If anyone wants to make any changes in EvE the first thing you need to do is petition us for permit ion. Pay a suitable fee and we might, if we think its ok, give CCP the green light.
I AM GETTING A LITTLE SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE POSTING THINGS ABOUT WHAT CCP SHOULD DO WITHOUT FIRST PETITIONING GOONS WITH ALL THE RESPECT WE DESERVE.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycMR_n4DHmo
OK so here's the deal – first time poster, wanted to comment on the original post.
Seems to me that every time someone want to find an answer to the bittervet 'been there done that' effect, the first instinct is to make the Eve environment somehow bigger so the vets suddenly have more to do. Of course what always happens is it works for a short while until the 200 mil SP / squillion ISK crowd manage to maximise the benefits of the new rules then we're back to where we started again, except the newbies have an even steeper hill to climb. Remember the launch of the Titans? The ships nobody would ever be able to afford? How did that go for ya?
So – making the place bigger or more complex isn't going to work.
How about this as an idea, just throwing it out there. I started a new trial account recently just out of idle curiosity and I was genuinely thrilled at having to struggle for every ISK and every frigate or destroyer. What a rush – a mil ISK was a lot of money again! So here's the plan: want to prove how big your cojones are? Adopt a unique custom ship skin (applies to all your ships) at the cost of going back to 2 mil SP and 1 mil ISK / no LP. Some safeguards would be needed but you take the point, ISK isn't that much use without SP. Effectively start again, but with all the RL skill and cunning that made you an effective player to begin with plus a highly visible badge to prove how cool and badass you are. Want to gank newbs? Fine, but your only advantage will be flying skill. How good are you really…?
OK it's crazy but it might just work…
Grim
Where is the furrysex-aspect in ur retarded fanfic??
Test is elitee , we rule you all. soon we have also the jovian sov.
We win always , even outnumberd.
bow for your lords
Did you get Montolio's permission to speak?
Once PL stops holding your hand TEST will be plowed under as this is one of the shining examples of darwinism suspended by outside (PL) intervention. My god that KB is terribad…
Not gonna happen soon.. I heard that test suck some mean cock and even pay for it^^
Balance, anyone ?
This idea is not bad in itself, but as it is it remember me of "titans are so expensive that you won't see more than ten in game at any time"™
Well, I do see a major issue, mainly that the powerblocs will know all about this cause, well, Goon = Dev, Dev = Goon…
Not only will they be fully prepared to corner that entire area, but will know /exactly/ how to do it. Thus, making them even more powerful.
If CCP really wants to fix EVE they first need to deal with Devswarm first.
Because, when you think about it, EVE is not a sandbox game. They may say it is, they may advertise it as that. But, its not. Most of the devs will favor CFC and actually defend them. Mainly through needs (as we've seen with the Russians.) Or, more annoying, getting a 1k fleet setup to try and take some of their space, only to encounter "Emergency shutdown." 3 times in a row!
I only find one fault in your thinking. You forgot Pandamic Legion = Dev , and Dev = Pandamic Legion. So you have the biggest know cheaters in the game which they don't dispute – Pandamic Legion. The biggest Scammers in the game = Goons. The biggest Pet In the Game who rubber stamps Goons/PL game play. All three have DEVs that work for CCP. Where does one learn to use alts to pass information. Does not one think these twats are very honorable chaps and would not give there old friends a head up of new stuff. RRRIIIGGGGHHHTTT.
And for icing on the cake try this on for size – The CSM is controlled by who? Ding Ding Ding Ding!!! Pandamic Legion – Goons – TEST. So there thier is old saying that come to mind. If you Cheat ( PL) you will steal (GOONS) if you steal you will Lie (TEST) if you lie you will cheat (PL). Kind of make one wonder, aye?
I think if you uproot your entire family and leave your entire life behind to move to Iceland and work for the game company that makes, arguably, your favorite game in the world that you might be a little hesitant to give secrets out that could get you fired.
From my understanding Devs have to essentially start the social circle as an unknown character and are not allowed to play with the people they previously played with. Combine that with the fact that they likely have a ton of restrictions on the way that they can play makes a compelling argument as for why "Devswarm" isn't even a thing.
Now for the actual article, I would agree that the Jove tech should be opened but perhaps not in this way. Another bottleneck to be controlled by the largest organizations is not the way to go. I do think that Jove should have High skill requirements but I would like to see them just as balanced as the other ships in their tier. Make them as more of a flavor item for those that put in the time to train each tier of ships. Maybe make them all equivalent to faction ships perhaps so that they can be a little better but are also costly. Not a fan of making something directly imbalanced.
Good write up though, I like reading things that actually seem like they could be a good time even if I don't think they should be implemented.
I hate goons, but you sound ignorant and just plain crazy.
I think you are right, if the Devs would just cancel all CFC subscriptions and actively hunt down and ban any who try to be sneaky and start new characters and then and only then would Eve be a great and wonderful game. It's just got to be done all CFC was be purged immediately so we can have fun.
Eve is in a catch 22. They need new players to keep going and their bittervets have no content left. The game has completely went to blob warfare and is geared so 6 month newbs win eve in alpha ships.
There is no counter to the blob and lag and the endless tech money. No reward for all that training. Bring back something like nano and give higher sp players a chance to fight off the blob is a better idea
I think revamping the POS, fixing technetium, would be a better step before opening new areas… or they will end up all the same…
Horrible plan. Yeah the north needs MORE sources of ISK.
Started the post with bittervets have to much isk, end the post with adding a new Isk faucet to the game 100b for a battleship skillbook? are you fucking insane? Your entire idea is just retarded, So mind numbingly stupid that it defies logic.
1) your entire idea is based around the fact that everyone will want Jove ships
2) to make everyone want jove ships you want to make them insanely overpowered
3)you want to make the SKILLBOOKS cost more then a higher tier fully fitted ship
4) you some how believe Fleet fights will happen daily, instead of one group just taking it all over
More space isn't the answer, LESS space is the answer.
Instead of having retardedly (i think your retarded now, thought you should know.) high skillbook cost why not have jove ships act like a faction ship? Require all races skill to fly it? With all races giving bonus's and Figure out something jovan for the ships roll? An entire Set of ships that Hull tank perhaps? Getting all the skills to five would make the ship awesome, but not brokenly(read: retarded) overpowered.
As always armchair Devs fail to deliver.
Hail the Jove!
How long do you think it would take for a major power bloc to form based entirely on control of the Jove space? Just perma-camp the gates (or the stations) and kill anyone coming through that isn't blue. Charge people to be blue = profit. Oh, and now you have sole control over the most expensive ships in the game. Grats, you have a build in isk fountain and over-powered ships to defend it with.
Cmon Jester, you're smarter then this.
Exactly – Have limited number of entry points. Makes it easy for one of the Big SOV blocks to camp it. But what CCP is failing understand people are getting smarter. They just read 10 years of Wikki – troll the forums – and two things happen. They learn fast and just leave the game. Or join the newest flavor of the blue ball Sov Block Alliances and ride the wave till they fail and look for a new blob to join till they get sick of the game and leave.
Space Space Space and more Space is needed. So CCP need not to touch the current space mechanics as not to make Goonies/TEST/PL whine like the twat they are. But add more space and make the systems bigger in AU size. That way it really takes you days if not weeks to cross areas of deep space. Twats Like Pandmic Legion will have to really plan to move. Not be able to move around current space in 30 min or less with there Super Blobs twating up eve with the alt spy's waiting in everyone comms for the next Capital to pop up so they can wack it.
Idea is worth of talking about, but as usual, ccp tards will blow it.
IDK, only 3 stargates to enter Jove space seems awfully small, could be easily perma camped by nullsec big blue blob, in the end it might end up with goons and their pets holding monopoly on Jove access. If this is to work there needs to be greater number of more dispersed gates.
I can see this going horribly bad very fast. The fact that people have accumulated a lot of isk, skill points and have perfected certain areas of the game like capital ship production is simply the result learning from their mistakes and well the huge amount of time they have spent playing. Adding another layer of more difficult content does buy the developers time but eventually people will perfect Jove space ( just as they have done with null and high sec ) and we are going to find ourselves in a galaxy dominate by jove ships, space pandas and inflated currency.
As a person who enjoyed exploration in EVE I would really like to see something in the way of wormholes that lead to space which is generated only for a set amount of time 1-2 hours. It could be a system or even just space in between two systems ( why not galaxies ). Since the entire space is dinamically generated and exists only for a short period building anything would be a total waste of resources. Player can do their regular exploration stuff like scanning and running sites. Those sites will have very small chance of dropping very expensive items such as Jovian bpc. Maybe even drone ship bpc and a special module which can be used by a command ship to control several drone ships at the same time ( that could perhaps even help counter ze blob to a very small extend ). So after the time expires the player gets kicked back to New Eden from that pocket in some acceptable way and resumes his search.
PS:
I can just image the HBC/GSF/SOLAR blockade on those three poor gates.
Why is it the first paragraph of your posts are always you whining?
You're a faggot. These are obvious problems plaguing the game.
Interesting read, but nothing more.
You set out to solve a few problems, namely:
1. lack of new content
2. an aging crop of bitter-vets who have trained everything and who are looking for something new to do
3. massive invincible sov blocs controlling vast swaths of null
4. super-cap proliferation out of control
5. large population of players with far too much ISK.
1. Yes, this is new content. No complaints.
2. No “bitter vets” have trained everything. Sorry, until EVE reaches around 20 years age, you haven’t trained everything. Its just numbers. You can always train something else, something new.
3. This does nothing to solve sov problems. It just brings new, more powerful content in. Sov blocks are still being patrolled by super cap blobs.
4. Proliferation problems isn’t necessarily a problem. However, assuming it is, this doesn’t change anything. If it makes any difference at all, it brings new and more mining/ISK making possibilities, whcih means more supers.
5. This doesn’t curb incomes or expenditures. Its a band-aid on a chest that is blown open. People might buy a skill book here and there, but if the bounties are in place, half that ISK is back in the playerbase. And after people have their books, they will return to their faucets.
Overall, its a very creative idea. Unfortunately, it doesn’t solve the problems it went out to fix. The only nice thing I can see from these kinds of changes would be that PvP would be considerably stepped up in these choke points. It would make for some great gang fights. However, the unintended consequence is that this is a stimulus package. Its stealing players from all over and forcing them into a small area for a short period of time. The boring areas will even be more boring, and after awhile it will all revert back to where it is.
I say it is time for something completely new. A way to expand eve to a new generation. …. a new server…. eh? Eh?
Scuttles away…
f jove space. make a large wh that opens up to a new galaxy. no highsec, no low sec, just 0.0 sov with no concord bills. you have to make your own stargates, and the wh to that galaxy spits you into random areas. so if you don't come prepared you might as well self distruct.
aye, hell camp the gates. Also, you forgot the part about it being the Jove that removed the gates to their space in the first place. So I highly doubt 3 new ones would suddenly just pop up as if "Oops, we forgot a couple gates. My bad."
I would imagine just allowing wormholes to connect to jove space would be sufficient.
Go back to writing fan fiction. Worst story ever^^^
Personally Id like to see:
1. Moon mining harvesters and silos moved outside of shields.
2. Remove station egss from the game.
3. Make titans permanently anchor able (the new way to obtain a station)
4. Make SOV nullsec stations fully capturable. All items contained become the property of the capturing party.
5. Make SOV nullsec stations destructible.
6. Make market sell orders standings based.
7. Standings cost ISK/individual. So the more blues you have the more your monthly cost.
the 'bounties' can be shelved onto an alt… which changes alot of things
Loved this, good read and some good ideas.