Factional warfare - empyrean age and all that – an overview

[eldaec]

Aside from that, who would complain about lowering the population density in 0.0?

Me, whenever we're on an op and can't find anything to pew our pews at.

[JoeTF]

Me.
On one of our recent raming ops we did 189 jumps on my recent op and only killed five, FIVE targets.

But if the FW will be really fun, I'm gonna move to lowsec myself and only visit 0.0 for serious business ops:D

[Simond]

http://www.eveonline.com/empyreanage/index.html

[ajax34i]

Don't forget to read the Player News Center on the website.  The in-game browser is limited to a max of 5 news items, and there have been several more related to that trailer they released.

[HRose]

Would you accept a system where the mission agent gives you the ship and modules to use (to choose among a few different sets/combo), then flags you so that you can't switch to another, and then sends you to a system/mission where you are matched with players with similar power (while using CONCORD to polish actions from external players)?

It would give a fair environment where to fight and minimize death penalties as the hardware is leased by the NPC faction and doesn't eat your money resources.

But is that acceptable for Eve players or there may be a rebellion?

[Viin]

http://www.eveonline.com/empyreanage/index.html

I might have to steal that flash title bar for our killboard ..

But is that acceptable for Eve players or there may be a rebellion?

Yah I donno - that's very 'arena-like'. I'd much prefer that some of the battle areas are like missions where only certain ship sizes are allowed in (ie: frigates, cruisers, whatever) .. but I don't think anyone should pay for my ship/fittings for me, except maybe my corp.    But that also means I expect to be able to loot/salvage all those ships I blow up or ninja loot.

[Viin]

From the above link, underline mine:

System Occupancy
In light of the formal declaration of war, CONCORD is now recognizing a new level of system control beyond sovereignty: occupancy. Factions gain occupancy of a system by winning conflicts in contested complexes. When a militia accumulates a certain number of victories for its faction, it is authorized to assault the star's System Control Bunker within 24 hours. Should the bunker fall to the attacking militia, a cease-fire is called in the system's Factional Warfare Complexes, and that faction gains occupancy of the solar system.

If indeed they are "complexes" then it's very possible the complexes will restrict by ship size...

Edit: er, if I had kept reading, it goes on to say:

Factional Warfare Complexes
As war rages across the stars of New Eden, a myriad of hidden deadspace complexes have taken on great strategic importance. Militia pilots that successfully scan for a complex and hold it uncontested for a set amount of time will claim it for their faction, and be rewarded with corporate standing-as well as more tangible benefits. But capturing these points of interest will not be easy, as they're guarded by rival naval forces. Speed and cunning are required to keep these important sites out of enemy hands, which is why microwarpdrives have been cleared for use in the complexes.

[ClydeJr]

Here are some pictures of the station that the Nyx hit. I didn't take these so sorry if they're dark.

[Simond]

Should have flown the Nyx into Jita 4-4.

[Fordel]

Why didn't it bounce of the shields like everyone else  ?

[Phildo]

Shield... disruptors?  New T3 module for Empyrean Age!!!!


So I heard that Alliances aren't going to be allowed to participate in faction warfare, only non-aligned corporations.  Truth?

[caladein]

So I heard that Alliances aren't going to be allowed to participate in faction warfare, only non-aligned corporations.  Truth?

Each faction has a corporation open to all pilots with the appropriate factional standing minimums. CEOs and directors are also encouraged to bring their entire corporations under the aegis of the militias, to better fund and coordinate the war effort. Regardless of corporation membership, all militia members will share a chat channel and read-only mailing list.

Alliances aligning en masse I think is out.  Not sure about Corps that are in Alliances, but I don't see anything that would exclude them outright.

[tazelbain]

Hmm, I wonder if there will be any spies? 

[Phildo]

Each faction has a corporation open to all pilots with the appropriate factional standing minimums. CEOs and directors are also encouraged to bring their entire corporations under the aegis of the militias, to better fund and coordinate the war effort. Regardless of corporation membership, all militia members will share a chat channel and read-only mailing list.

They're baiting us!  Bastards.

[caladein]

Empyrean Age Live Dev Blog if you missed it (like I did).

[Endie]

Alliances aligning en masse I think is out.  Not sure about Corps that are in Alliances, but I don't see anything that would exclude them outright.

if your corp is in an alliance you cannot sign up without the corp leaving the alliance or you leaving the corp..  Hilariously stupid.  The so-called RP-based reasoning that Greyscale talks about is complete bollocks.  He pretty much admits that they don't really have the technical skills to do it, doubtless because they've just done a hack by making the factions look like alliances.

If you want a factional, RP-derived game feature you have to ask yourself if deliberately excluding the RP alliances in particular - the people really motivated to play with this game aspect - is really the choice of someone who has mastered this whole "thinking" process.  I suspect they just thought "It would be tricky and hey!... people will have to buy new characters to participate without giving up on their alliances.. sweet!"

And this Tony G is an awful, awful writer and speaker.  This combines impressively to make him even more awful reading his own writing.

[ajax34i]

Big complaint thread started by one of our friendly war targets that we've seen in-game quite a bit, heh, about alliances not being able to participate in FW.

EDIT:  discussion also going on in here (page 8+), and some dev responses in this other thread.

[lac]

This will lead to left-out RP alliances camping the low sec systems where the opposition signs up instead of them joining the faction wars in a meaningful way. This in turn will scare off exactly those carebears CCP tried to entice to enter low sec in the first place.
They made a pvp expansion accessible only to people in empire corps and newbie corps, who only do pve, and shut out all the space holding/pvp alliances and corps. Faut le faire.

[Gets]

I say everyone who can fire up some alts and join F13 corp and we could frigate swarm ourselves into the Hysterian Age.

[MahrinSkel]

What you'll get is front corps, similar to the academy and logistics shells a lot of alliances and 0.0 corps already have.  You want to do factions without sacrificing the alliance ties you already have, you switch to the front corp.

--Dave

[HRose]

The idea of leaving out some alliances is already a failure of the concept.

I hope they don't miss their target.

If you sign up for a faction you can be attacked by anyone in opposing factions anywhere. it is that in low-sec we have marked out control points which will bring the combat to them making it easier for you to find and take part in.

Does it means full combat in empire space?

Are they basically removing CONCORD?

[tazelbain]

No, its still opt in and faction members would still have CONCORD protection from non-factions(alliances and pirates)

[lac]

Does it means full combat in empire space?
Are they basically removing CONCORD?

Yes, but only if you sign up to factional warfare, it's the same mechanic as with empire wars we have right now. Let's hope it will be a simple 'pvp flag on/pvp flag off' thing and not something that takes a while to wear off. If you can just enable you pvp flag, get a mission, maybe group up and have some small gang stuff it could become popular.

[HRose]

Yes, but only if you sign up to factional warfare, it's the same mechanic as with empire wars we have right now. Let's hope it will be a simple 'pvp flag on/pvp flag off' thing and not something that takes a while to wear off. If you can just enable you pvp flag, get a mission, maybe group up and have some small gang stuff it could become popular.

Yes, but if it isn't a temporary flag it fucks the whole principle of the system.

Meant as a way to give players who NOW can't or don't want to engage in zero sec space. So something more accessible to everyone and not just a small group of players.

So what they do? Let's make ALL space insecure. Gank everywhere.

This will SURELY help the noob. Indeed.

[eldaec]

If you sign up for a faction you can be attacked by anyone in opposing factions anywhere. it is that in low-sec we have marked out control points which will bring the combat to them making it easier for you to find and take part in.

Does it means full combat in empire space?

Are they basically removing CONCORD?

You can already attack opposing factions you are at war with even in empire space.

All this does is set up additional opportunities to be at war with other players.

[ajax34i]

I have a feeling that this concept of accumulating points and taking over bunkers or other objectives in order to achieve ... sovereignty, is their test run for changing the 0.0 game from POS warfare to "take and defend the gates" warfare.

[HRose]

You can already attack opposing factions you are at war with even in empire space.

All this does is set up additional opportunities to be at war with other players.

Yes, the point is that they made this system not again for the hardcore PvPers, but for those who shy away from that PvP and want a compromise.

And what is their plan? To flag them so they can be killed everywhere by three opposite factions. There was a lie there. This is just going to be another system for those who already dominate the game.

Catering the hardcore once again.

[ajax34i]

Well, they can't change PVP and combat mechanics, so planting a shiny in there so more people dive in is just about the only thing they could have done.  Trick now is to make the shiny appear nice to PVE'ers, but worthless to expert PVP'ers.  I mean...  collect grind points.  So you can buy medals.

There should be a lot more detail tomorrow (Sat) as people the alliance PVP'ers get on Sisi and actually see what the rewards are, and how much effort is involved, and what the mechanics of the whole thing are.

[MahrinSkel]

Except that there's a core element of the PvP population of 0.0 that is in it strictly for the pew-pew.  They tend to form the backbone of every raiding force, and they hate big fleets and POS warfare.  If they get drawn out of 0.0, there's going to be a lot less raiding going on.

--Dave

[Phred]

Does it means full combat in empire space?
Are they basically removing CONCORD?

Yes, but only if you sign up to factional warfare, it's the same mechanic as with empire wars we have right now. Let's hope it will be a simple 'pvp flag on/pvp flag off' thing and not something that takes a while to wear off. If you can just enable you pvp flag, get a mission, maybe group up and have some small gang stuff it could become popular.

Except, from reading the dev comments in the linked thread, the missions will be tucked away in low sec behind the pirate gate camps.
I wonder if wardecs will trump the same faction membership. i.e. will the alt war dec'd to the main exploit work for killing people who might be willing to group with you for the faction wars?

[HRose]

Alliances are not allowed to enlist, and neither are corporations in an alliance (or with an outstanding alliance application). There are a number of reasons for this, technical and otherwise, the most important of which is that we just don't want the major power blocs to descend en masse and take over everything. It's obviously not a hard limit on the players involved, but it's designed to encourage the idea that if you're a major player on the nullsec political scene you're already doing something incredibly worthwhile and shouldn't let yourself be distracted by the petty machinations of the Empires.

In this day an age there are still designers who expect to keep a system accessible by simply adding a COCKBLOCK (that is an horrible idea anyway).

Like if by doing that no one will ever try to take over a system and ruin the experience of others. Like if this never happened in the history of mmorpgs.

Sure, the cockblock will be more than enough.

[ajax34i]

They've put up a couple more devblogs, links for which are here.  One explains some details about what happens when you sign up, the other is an attempt to explain why they didn't want alliances to join.

Summary:

- Each faction will have an NPC-led "alliance" (militia).  Individuals can join the executor NPC corp, CEO's can join their whole corp to the militia/alliance.  Need at least 0.5 standing with a faction to join it.  Once you join, you're at war with the opposite side (the two sides being Caldari + Amarr vs. Gallente + Minmatar) as far as the mechanics of who can attack whom and where.

- They've beefed up the "Navy" NPCs so they aren't two frigates and cruiser anymore, they're nasty now.  Concord will follow aggression rules vs. neutrals as before, but will not get involved if you're fighting reds as per above.  The Navies will spawn and attack you, though, if you enter the high-sec regions of their empire.  They don't insta-concordoken you like Concord, but they're supposedly nasty.

- They didn't want alliances to take over this factional warfare stuff.  They had apparently figured out a way that they could have let alliances join it, but decided against it.

[Nerf]

That sounds pretty retarded.

[Calantus]

Splitting it into 2 sides is not a good idea if the plan is going to be getting empire corps and players to join because probably half of them, maybe more, are Caldari. Then Amarr have the most powerful RP PVP corps and they're on the same side...

[Simond]

So Gallente and Minmatar are going to get crushed.
I see no problem with this.