Cortez The Killer wrote:Very well thought out and interesting idea, just not an NPC contract beyond Beta. +1
It's the substance that would make the difference. In order to keep people from disengaging in the "One Universe, One War" foundation, it would need to be a contested barge that actually belongs to someone/ some corp and have an effect on that corps ability to wage war somewhere. In that way it would give the infantry only people a playground and still be a contribution to the overall gameplay, lore, roleplay, whatever.
This may also lead into an interesting mesh of Eve and Dust, as an Eve corp would first have to disable the barge in space before it could be contested. Borrowing from existing sov mechanics, it might not be terribly difficult to modify to apply to war barges. It would also answer a ton of questions people have asked about whether war barges would be attackable, and if so, conquerable or destructable.
This is a way better idea you have here than some map generated out of thin air for people to play on that has no lasting effect beyond stats.
Thanks for the input.
I agree with you that in the future, it would be interested to have fights for player owned ships in Dust 514. But it would need a lot more thoughts and balance than any planetary fight. Also, we have no real idea how war barge will work within EVE. Will they be "attackable" (sorry), EVE player driven etc.. Regarding other player owned ships, it's even more complicated. First they are the tools for eve players to actually play the game. Having those ship being destroyed by mercs without them having any real involvement could make a lot of people angry. To make it simple, it could take years to reach that kind of interactions.
Thus why i suggest to have this as a NPC contracted type of fight for starter. Would already set in-space fights as something that exists and leave plenty of time to think for further interactions. Would also contend many infantry players. Two birds one stone.
After all, no NPC contracted fights will have any impact on the overall EVE universe and wether we like or not, they will probably the most played battles for a while. So, doesnt matter if we have War Barge fights in those high-sec battles at first.
But in the end, anyone will probably agree that infantry battles on player owned spaceships would be the ultimate step for the EVE universe.