Tiberizzle’s recent complaints regarding CCP’s changes to carriers coming up along with the latest capital changes struck a certain chord with me and has made me reconsider the status of ratting in nullsec and what I dub the “AFK Lifestyle” in EVE. Internet comedians like Yahtzee have made the joke that EVE is a game that you can win by not really playing at all, this being the idea that the game “rewards you for not playing it”. While this is largely in reference to the way we train skills, the joke still applies to EVE’s sometimes harsh meta-gaming, ISK-botters and, in Tiberizzle’s case, AFK ratting in multiple carriers.
I won’t pretend that these things don’t annoy me to a great extent. I find them contrary to the entire idea of the game. Indeed, throwing a tantrum and quitting a summit on the new capital ships is something I can only compare to a child throwing a tantrum at his parents because his toys can’t play themselves. Insults aside, there are points to be made in this argument.
The state of ratting and mission running is completely boring. Grinding out “dank ticks” and paying attention the entire time is a chore and takes away a lot of time from what is actually fun in EVE. We may have to farm money in nullsec to pay for our next fleet ship but EVE is still a game and the players want to have fun doing it. There is little risk to farming rats besides roamers or gankers and the NPCs you kill are typically so easy that they present little actual challenge unless you’ve managed to spawn a DED site. In the mind of a disgruntled player or one who plays for convenience, why not AFK when you possess the ability to do so– making piles of ISK more than if you weren’t.
Nonetheless, the first step to solving the problem of AFKers is to eliminate the ability for them to AFK, and making carriers into dedicated fighter ships was the first major step. Whether or not CCP will examine the way we run sites in the near future is yet to be seen, but believing that we have the right to make money while not playing the game or doing much of anything is absurd in my mind– don’t get me started on the idea that it’s a threatened and valued way of life, let alone a way that people actually want to enjoy the game. If you want to make money in EVE, get down to the nitty-gritty and make it. With that being said, in regards to Asher’s article on Crossing Zebras, it can hardly be said that those with families or that are older can’t find time to play EVE or simply can’t be bothered to try and make ISK without being AFK.
Even then, there is a multitude of risk averse methods to enjoying the game such as Planetary Interaction and Industry that don’t require you to be at your keyboard every second of the process. PI has only ever required maybe 15 minutes of time per toon each day depending on if you are managing your facilities or moving them to maximize income. Industry, on the other hand still requires acquiring resources– which can take hours–, researching blueprints, waiting for the items to be built, then managing to sell them on the market. Meanwhile, AFK ratters invest a fraction of the time while sometimes getting far more money.
In closing, EVE is a game and games are meant to be played. The AFK lifestyle arguments for me can be boiled down to the idea that someone wants something for nothing– zero input for maximum reward. Indeed, AFK runners are a threatened species, because they were never meant to exist in EVE in the first place. Nor should they.
