TL;DR: Never ending matches.

So there's three ways to do an online multiplayer game, right?
Lobbies
Big Open World (Like PS2 or WoW, even though there are mirrors)
Multiple Smaller Worlds (Think like Day of Defeat or Team Fortress)

We've got the lobbies already.
We can't really do the big open world at the moment.
Why don't we try the third option?

There's gotta be a few areas in New Eden that are so contested that no side is really gaining any ground and the place is just a meat grinder. What better place to send immortal infomorphs?

This game mode, tenatively called "Occupation" for this thread, would operate like regular matches except that there's no MCC and there's no clone count. These battles don't end, they keep going and going and players will just drop in and out of them at their leisure.

Since these matches would be persistent and don't end, there can't be as many as the regular matches that are constantly being finished and created. We've nine maps, so maybe 3 per map (one Skrim, Ambush, Dom each), giving us 864 slots, or about 20% of the average playerbase. This of course could be increased, but the point is to keep the number of "empty" matches down, as a single player in an never ending game mode is going to be either really bored or really rich.

But Arx, if they don't end, how will mercs get rewarded?
Mercs would get rewarded when they leave the match. Selecting "leave battle" takes you to the same end of match screen where you can see what ISK and SP you've earned during your time in and all the other fun stuff. The leaderboard would just show everyone's stats at the time of your leaving.

Since there's no end to the match, SP would be rewarded solely for WP.

ISK would be rewarded a number of ways.
-First, you'd get an ISK payout based on WP earned. Maybe 100 ISK per WP.
-Second, you'd get a portion of the ISK value of whoever you killed or helped to kill. Like the current system, except each player has a pool.
-Third, objectives in Skirmish or Dominion modes would add ISK to every player's pool at certain intervals. Since there are no MCCs to get missiled, the objectives would just signify zone control.

But Arx, this sounds like it could be abused easily with AFK.
That's true. Currently, AFKers at least have to qeue a new match and can only take up one slot in constantly rotating battles. In Occupation, they'd be taking up a slot in one of the few persistent matches, of which there are few. I don't have a solid way to combat this, unfortunately, and it'd be one of the biggest drawbacks to the mode. Perhaps something around WP accrual (even 5) every fifteen minutes or the player gets booted. Maybe something more complex would be needed to make sure a player who isn't trying their hardest (but just being very poor/unlucky) wouldn't get booted. Since there are no clone counts to be depleted, even the guy going 0/30 isn't harming his team past not killing anything.

So what do you guys think?