Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The Full Bounty

Never underestimate a carebear's inability to understand game mechanics.


All the way back in October 2012, I warned the rebels against misinterpreting the new crimewatch and bounty systems slated for release in the next expansion. Clearly, they didn't listen. N3d Flanders, for instance, wasted 500 million isk to put a bounty on CODE., an alliance full of -10 sec status characters.

But that was nothing. Later that same day...


I was startled to learn that someone named Ms Launa, a character I'd never heard of before, had placed a 5 billion isk bounty on James 315's 1-man alt corporation. Apparently she hadn't read all of the posts I've made about how I can fold and re-open my corp at will to dissolve wardecs--or corporation bounties.


To put this into perspective, my corporation now has the fourth-largest corp bounty in all of EVE. What was Ms Launa thinking? Curious, I looked up my own profile to see all of the bounties added together.


Whoops, wrong James 315.


Incredibly, tallying the different kinds of bounties, over 7 billion isk has been wasted on me. Not a single isk has been collected from all the bounties added since the new system was introduced. All of this madness could've been avoided, had the carebears only listened to me.


Agents DJentropy Ovaert and loyalanon visited the in-game "Mining" channel, which is open to everyone who hasn't been banned yet. It's mostly filled with a handful of miners who aren't AFK (at least, not when they're typing nonsense into the channel), plus Agents of the New Order trying to make them see reason.


Out of nowhere, someone put a 2 billion isk character bounty on DJentropy.


It was Ms Launa. The latest rebel plot to destroy the New Order: Throw money away.


As always, the New Order tried to help its enemies understand the error of their ways. Sometimes this works. The Ms Launas of the world, however, are slow to learn.


During the argument, Ms Launa was inspired to place the extraordinary 5 billion isk bounty on my 1-man alt corp.


You know, we've all had a good laugh at the carebears who waste billions of isk on worthless bounties. But let's not forget that it's an equally absurd practice to fly expensive ships in highsec without a permit.

Say "no" to waste. Say "yes" to the Code!

40 comments:

  1. Bounties and kill rights. Isn't it amazing how eagerly miners put kill rights on -10 character available {to corp, to all, to alliance, for price...}. When asked on reasons, the answer is "so my pvp colleagues will have some fun"... oh well...

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  2. EvE mechanics are hard...

    - Guybertini

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  3. no wonder people afk mine, they're too stupid to do anything else

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  4. Well, at least they have fun dropping bounties......as if it matters.....

    ---Mike Adoulin

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  5. Has James even undocked and bumped anyone within the past 6 months?

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    Replies
    1. Whether he has or he hasn't, he'll always be bumping bot-aspirants in our hearts.

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    2. Don't you know? James 315 is a alt of The Mittini, who is himself a alt of E1, and all of us who enforce the CODE are just alts as well. We are all James 315.

      Delete
  6. N3d Flanders putting a bounty on James?!? Gosh diddly darn it!

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  7. The bounty system should be removed until it works because the fact that it is broken is not obvious to any new players. CCP completely failed in their attempt to give criminality meaning, and they shouldn't give players the impression that they can achieve anything by placing bounties.

    I'm shocked that CCP spends so much time on tiericide when fixing defunct professions would provide so much more sandbox content.

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    1. Even if they put a notice up informing players that pilots with a -10 security rating can be freely attacked without Concord penalty; they'll still do it as they can't read simple blog posts explaining the system.

      CCP can't patch stupid and shouldn't attempt to do so.

      Delete
    2. There will never be a system that is "push bounty butan, ruin players game."

      For one, It's not possible. The reason a bounty works in real life is because you don't respawn when you die. In a game, respawning opens up a whole world of possibilities. Your friends can kill you, claim the bounty, and split it with your newly minted clone. That was the old system. Under the new system, at least it's not profitable to have your friends harvest the bounty. But since it's not profitable, there are no real bounty hunters. It's a catch 22: either you make it profitable and thus easy for the intended target to collect the money themselves, or you don't and people don't even realize that guy they killed has a bounty until they get the mail.

      Even if it *were* possible to have a "push bounty butan, vastly inconvenience player" bounty system, you'd regret it very very quickly. See the ISK counter in the top left? Yeah. Guess where that ISK would be going if it didn't take a catalyst to make a carebear's life difficult. I mean, ganking is already a non-profit activity that is funded out of pocket by a dedicated group.

      If you just cut out the middleman and had a bounty system that could somehow meaningfully impact someone's gameplay, two things would happen:

      A. Gankers would figure out how to get around it before it's even released (see also: kill rights, -10.0 ganking characters)
      B. It would be weaponized for use against carebears who CAN'T figure out how to get around it (see also: kill rights, dropping corp under wardec).

      Delete
    3. The TL;DR from my anonymous colleague being: You can't patch stupid.

      As soon as you change the game to help someone who can't help themselves, smarter players will immediately exploit it to their advantage and the helpless will still be in the exact same place.

      Delete
    4. Good summary!

      Delete
  8. All I know, is with over 2 billion in bounty on my head, I have not been able to undock or enjoy Eve for weeks due to the horde of "bounty hunters" who are following me.

    :-)

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    Replies
    1. Well I shall leave you alone then, for a while.

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    2. Wait, you're that guy that does not even have to pew pew me, right? You just blog about me and I get permabanned?

      :-)

      Delete
  9. Its kinda funny to me that you guys have just NOW discovered that the game has a "Mining Chat" Channel, and most in there do not fall under the category of "miners". I know Ms Launa and she has VERY deep pockets. Its also funny that she put a 7 Bill Bounty on Scordite Cowboy, Guess she thinks more of him than you Jimmie. At least Scordite undocks.

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    Replies
    1. Not sure where you got that we "just now discovered" the mining channel. More to the point.. you seemed to have missed the point of the entire post. Good thing you posted your name so we can all laugh at your stupidity.. Oh wait.....

      -Nitetime Video

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  10. I've had the misfortune of spending time in the mining chat channel. Loyalanon and myself brought the good word to the unwashed masses, only to be treated to an avalanche of stupid from the resident care bears. There are literally no words small enough that they'd understand, no concept shallow enough that they wouldn't just drown if tossed in and made to fend for themselves. No depths of violent, same-sex intercourse they weren't completely obsessed with describing in detail.
    We used locator agents to find where the biggest of the talkers were--- all of them docked in .9 and above systems- literally newb starting areas, and even then docked lest their words actually carry consequence. They also couldn't care less about their fellow miners that continued to get ganked during our entire conversation in the mining chat. Very much a 'better him than me' attitude from self-appointed white knights.
    Typical care bears, ineffective at literally everything.

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    Replies
    1. You and loyalanon are brave Agents, venturing into that intellectual wasteland.

      Delete
    2. Alana, Only a close minded blind follower of James would call a room of FREE thinking individuals an intellectual wasteland. and Solly, please dont be a homophobe, it's a very closed minded way of thinking...oh wait.. you would follow James 315 off a cliff and thank him as you fell to your death...my bad.
      If you could think for yourself you might see there were NO "White Knights" in that room.I've never claimed to be a white knight nor do i want to be.
      I'm sure you'll spout at me about "thought crimes" when it comes to free thinking, but not all of us wish to let James do our thinking for us.
      Its sad how many don't know a single thing about history and what can happen when you let Ego Manic Dictators think for you.
      Have a great day ;)

      Delete
    3. "Its sad how many don't know a single thing about history and what can happen when you let Ego Manic Dictators think for you."

      This isn't history, it's a video game.

      Delete
    4. So, Solly, basically you're saying that trying to educate miners in the Mining Chat is literally psychological torture, am I right?

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    5. "Alana, Only a close minded blind follower of James would call a room of FREE thinking individuals an intellectual wasteland."

      They're free, but they're hardly thinking.

      Delete
    6. @Daniel Sidrat: Ripard Teg made it very clear. It doesn't matter who is being tortured, or if they are willingly subjecting themselves to it. People engaging in torture should be permanently banned. Seems to me that CCP should take action against those miners.

      Delete
  11. Alas, that 5 billion could have been 5,000 New Order shares.

    If it were up to me, having a bounty on your character would allow anyone to initiate a limited engagement with you, anywhere in highsec. Characters that have access to the rookie chat channel wouldn't be able to be bountied. As things stand now, Ms Launa lives in a fantasy world.

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    Replies
    1. Also, the minimum bounty on a character would be raised to something closer to the order of 25-100 mil.

      Delete
    2. Well the problem with that would be that it would completely eliminate freighters and limit mission runners to cheap....

      This is a great idea

      Delete
    3. There would have to be a cooldown between dropping the bounty and being able to engage in pvp or else no freighter could ever undock again.

      find freighter, drop 100mil bounty, engage and kill, collect bounty and loot, repeat.

      The idea needs alot of development before it could only be used as intended; eve players have a way of bending rules/mechanics...

      Delete
    4. Isn't that wonderful? Not in order to space-truck, you will need to have escorts! Freighting will become a group activity, creating content for everyone!

      Delete
    5. You're right. A 24-hour warning between when a bounty is placed and it becomes active. Perhaps there would also be a restriction on what ships can be engaged, based on the bounty remaining on the character. For example, a character who is flying a freighter can't be attacked simply for having a mere 20 mil bounty on him.

      Delete
  12. i kind of want to go wardec Ms Launa now, so I can get in on the awesome bounties and add to my personal fame and glory. Hopefully she doesn't read minerbumping!

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  13. Bounties are good for two things: trolling and tricking mad people into wasting their money. Mission accompished with Ms Luana, though I can't tell which one.

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  14. It's not about "Patching Stupid." I don't fault new players for assuming that a gaming company would not maintain broken/useless features. Eve is ten fucking years old, and it is CCP's only source of income now that WOD died in the womb. I believe that most of the fury new players direct at people like the code stems from the fact that CCP doesn't bother to remove or explain deceptively stupid features within the game.

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    Replies
    1. I think EVE tends to aim for a different class of player, even if many of them seem to miss the mark.

      Let me give you a example.

      http://bit.ly/1iqlaBR

      There. See how easy that is? In a game where every action has an effect - I take the time to use an approach like that and become educated about the action, about the mechanics - BEFORE I use a feature that I don't fully understand.

      The truly sad part about all of this - in the last couple of weeks since this bounty was placed, in the normal course of my play style, I've lost a few ships in PVP combat - and I would bet money that every time Ms. Launa sees a message that 500k-1million ISK has been claimed from my bounty pool she is convinced it must be a squad of professional "bounty hunters" who shot my Velator or my Catalyst.

      *sigh*

      Delete
  15. The article has a lot of interesting information.

    ReplyDelete

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