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EVE Online: Building an EVE Empire, Rule 1
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com EVE Online Correspondent Sam Guss writes this first part of a series of tips for running an Empire in EVE Online. This first part is titled, The Rule of the Care Bear.
The Rule of the Care Bear (Rule 1)
The world revolves around money. In EVE, the Universe revolves around ISK. Those who have the most ISK, have more opportunities than those without. This applies to Empires and Empire building as well. In this article, unless noted, the word Empire refers to a coalition of alliances versus Empire space.
The power of the Care Bear industrialist and miner can not be underestimated. The flow of ISK, manufactured modules, ships themselves, inventions, T2 equipment, moon ores, salvaged equipment, minerals, ice, all of this and more is firmly in the hands of Care Bears who make their Eve living and indeed Eve life based around these things. Throw in some PvP traders and even some space truckers and you have an economic powerhouse that an Empire can revolve around.
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Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Rule 1 don't talk about the EVE Empire?
Rule 2 dont mention rule 1
Decent write-up though I do think callin' 'em care bears isn't helping much. I think anyone who steps into EVE knows they're going to have to fight. Preferring to do other things should be derided with domain specific names. But I digress.
I think there's one thing that you missed and something I often see when wandering around EVE. Yes, territory should be controlled and the core of the home turf should be a no-fly zone for untrusted individuals. However, there should be a gateway system which can act as an interface to the outside world. That system should allow neutrals (not enemies, clearly) to enter and proceed to one or two stations and the outside gate. Use those neutral-allowed stations as a place to post buy/sell orders as well as an end-point for carrier missions. Why?
Trade.
A healthy economy is not one that is isolated. It is one that does have some trade with the outside world, or in this case, universe. It would serve as a purpose to get needed mins while selling off surplus elsewhere. An end-point for carrier contracts that start in high/low sec. What better way to get some high-sec industry pilots to move outward than to simply pay them to make a run? Frees up your pilots for industrial work inside the home turf/patrols of the main route and once they arrive and see they're wanted and protected out there they might just stick around.
Just as an aside (not directly to you), no, these 1% contracts are bunk. 1mil to move a sealed 5000m3 container 12 hops through nullsec with a 100mil insurance policy? Not on your life! If that item is really 100mil and it really is 12 hops through nullsec you're gonna have to pay more than what I could get doing an L1 mission and salvaging it! Try something like 0.1% per hop through highsec, 0.25% per hop through low-sec and 1% per hop through nullsec. So for 100mil insurance on 12 hops through nullsec, best be 12mil and change my friend.
Post some outbound contracts as well (bring in manufactured goods, send out unused raw mats) with the same kind of numbers (20mil insurance, 2.4mil for the contact) and you just might see people running the gauntlet for you.
Not just another pretty color.
These are all great points....now how do I find that corporation?
Sounds like a good start. Question is, is there any of these types of locations left to new alliances/corps looking to empire build?
My next question: Aren't carebears the ones that refuse to leave Empire space where they have Concord protection? I'd say anyone willing to get out where the only protection you ahve are your corpmates can't be classified as carebear, no matter how mundane the tasks they do are.
In response to the previous poster looking for this kind of corp/alliance: They're out there. Do a little research on the bigger alliances, read through the corp/alliance recruitment channel, check the corp recruitment tool in game, and ask around. There's plenty of alliances looking for miners and industrialists.
The proper term to use would have been Industrialists.
ASCN had the issue of too many indies compared to pvp pilots, and they paid the ultimate price for it.
Also, the first rule of EVE is: Don't trust anyone, ever, under any circumstance.
Now with 57.3% more flames!
"In EVE, the Universe revolves around ISK. Those who have the most ISK, have more opportunities than those without"
And that is why EVE is not getting anywhere, and is quickly becoming a thing of the past...
An MMO has to offer equal opportunities of success to all its players, not only a select few, no matter their occupation.
Besides, why put effort in a game for virtual fortune instead of putting that same effort in RL for real Fortune?
Your asking people to pay to work in a game...that is a thing of the past.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
This article completely destroys itself because of one thing, the use of the word "carebears".
Everyone knows that he is talking about industrialists, but instead of using the correct word, he has to use derogatory word over and over again.
What is it MMORPG? Isn't it about time you edited some of these trash articles you post?
I have seen some general posts complaining about the content of the articles lately and I really have to agree, many of these guest authors should have either never sat down and typed or they should have at least had some constructive criticism before being posted.
There is just no excuse for publishing such shoddy work.
rule 2 has its birth from rule 1 and havs to obey the rule 1. the world of EVE is always on my top 3 list. haha. look forward to its new improvement.
By whose standards?
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
Only two games in the 70,000-700,000 area have consistently increasing numbers. Dofus and EVE. EVE is older and I've never even heard of Dofus. For completeness Second Life also has increasing numbers but Second Life is hardly a game in the traditional sense.
Jump to the 200,000+ chart and the only additional game with increasing numbers is WoW. Skip down to the 0-120,000 chart and we pick up one more game that has increasing numbers, Puzzle Pirates.
Of the 50+ (western) MMOs tracked by mmogcharts.com there are 5 which are not in decline.
WoW
Dofus
EVE
Second Life
Puzzle Pirates
Even the present golden child of mmorpg.com's readership, LOTRO, is in decline and has fewer numbers than EVE.
I'm curious, other than your personal bias, how you came to conclude that EVE is "not getting anywhere".
Not just another pretty color.
OK firstly the article isn't all that bad and other than the use of the label "Care Bear" the article explains very basically what alliances need to grow.
Now with all of these GREAT ideas there is one major issue
There is no decent 0.0 space left for a small growing alliance to grab hold of & do all of those great things & with stations/outposts costing at least 20 billion to build (is probably a lot more ATM I haven't done a check of the prices of ALL the required materials) this small growing alliance isn't going to be able to afford many & they also run the risk of building it & having it removed from their ownership OR destroyed before it is able to be full constructed during the next DT. Building one of these also takes a more than reasonable amount of ability as it will require the use of freighters and lots of industrial ships & must be done as close to DT as is possible to help avoid it being attacked before it is constructed.
Labeling industrialists Care Bears isn't going to help to recruit more NEW people into that side of the game as they will think that it is belittling or will make them look like idiots.
EVERY decent alliance MUST have it's own industrial backbone & those that fail to have one that is capable of supporting at least 65 - 85% of the alliances requirements are going to find it very hard to keep surviving in 0.0.
The industrial backbone should have easy access to: Min's., T2 parts & invention/research, slots for building/research/invention, BPO's/BPC's (A nice collection will save an alliance a lot of hassles & it can be where an alliance has a lot of it's assets sometimes), POS's for the building of parts or the mining of moons etc. (the more high end moons your alliance has the better, BUT these moons are highly sort after by the BIG alliances & anyone thats anyone in 0.0 so protecting them may take up a big part of a schedule), they should also have a good team of industrial players that can also move into the rolls of helping to protect the alliances most valuable systems.
A good alliance should have people from as many different time zones as possible so that things can be moving 24/7 (well 23/7 if you take DT out
) & the alliance should be using something like Vent or TeamSpeak to do most if not all of their communications.
Anyway EVE is just a game, but people need to remember that there are a few of the bigger alliances that take the game very seriously & will not be very happy if you try to move in on their territory in any way. I would personally suggest any new alliances try to become friendly with one of the established alliances in 0.0 & see if you can work out a plan to maybe rent or live in their space free if you help out. (This is done by many smaller alliances so they can have 0.0 access & it doesn't hurt to have very powerful friends in the EVE universe!)
*&*& Update *&*&
I think EVE does has declining numbers (not sure if they also have declining subscriptions) as I have been checking out the number of people online at different times of the day and it looks very much like the daily adverage has dropped by anything up to 5k players online. (Don't take this as a flame, take it more as something CCP needs to try a bit harder to stop. Out of the alliance I am in & a few others that I know people in there has been a lot of people either having a break from the game for a while or have called it a day for good & the reasons range from the rise in cost of playing for 60 days to just feeling that there is no hope for smaller alliances & corps in 0.0 any more)
Anyway EVE is a great game that will be around for at least a couple more years I would say.
Here one Day Gone The Next.
Game reviewer.
I guess you should also ask why anyone even bothers playing MMO's at all rather than doing things in RL!
People play MMO's & any game for that matter to have fun & entertain themselves away from the issues of RL, I guess you don't play many games as you would have to be more interested in making the BIG $$$ in RL wouldn't you by what you have said in your post?!
Everyone starts off with very close to the same abilities in EVE, that includes ISK..
I personally can't say that I know of many games that don't have the issue of people that spend more $$$ have the more powerful characters. In EVE however the only RL $$$ you have to spend is the 60 day fee, then if you get off your @ss & have a go you can get your ships the best or the most decent mods..
Here one Day Gone The Next.
Game reviewer.
This lovely bit of theorycrafting sounds like the perfect way to spend +70B in startup capital, (Two outposts "minimum" lol) and lose it all to the first serious threat that comes along.
Carebear alliances are merely factories for producing pvp nacelles which break away to form better corporations. Eventually, the alliance collapses, and the bulk of the membership disperses to new and existing lower tier alliances, thus renewing the process. The little splinters of functioning pvp groups sometimes succeed for a good long time, and sometimes even grow.
If you want to witness a real empire, you have to start with pvp cores. Perhaps a few collaborating on clear goals. But that's not enough alone. If wealth comes from assets, and that wealth is distributed to the people who fight to preserve it, then you might see an empire. However, managing POS involves sitting around, and pvpers prefer to be moving around. NPCers and other people who are generally not habitual collaboraters are mostly useless unless you can succeed at scheduling their activities to some degree for aggressive purposes. Seems like getting people to collaborate should be easier when you are paying them to do so.
Currently, I don't think enough isk is being generated by moon mining or even the whole T2 market to compete with the collective sum of NPCing. I find that pitiful. Perhaps the ratio is shifting slightly, but I doubt the competitive mechanic will eclipse the non-competitive mechanic. The only thing that matters for getting anyone to do anything in this game is social capital. That's why leaders burn out so much.
"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."