They were originally red. Even after the first orange ones were introduced they had stayed red, along with some mission spawns and caravans.

I'm pretty sure you hold the record in this.

I'm not against this change. But now there is only one playstyle, numbers.
Would have been better for PvP to make externals no jumped while flagged but leave mobiles as jump as flagged. In most instances the small fleet can be caught on the externals.

Numbers, Numbers, numbers all the time now.

Why not just make it mandatory the any new player has to join a player corp right of the bat? A solo new player will not be able to "protect his mining fleet".

A solo player, or one or 2 small bots, will not be able to find a stray gank on Beta without a chance to escape. Well a smaller chance.

These changes lately, this tele change, the NPC change, neither one help any part of this game for new players at all, if anything its a deterrent. I just don't understand why you are shooting yourself in the foot here.

I was againt the SpT change because numbers power projection, not SpT. A cooldown would have been better, even 10 minutes.
I was against the follow nerf, until it became a forum warrior thread, then I went for it. I will miss my attaching demob cam.
I was against the suggestion of nerfing ewar, I'm glad it remains intact.
I was against the recent NPC changes, beacon pits should cease to exist with your new (maybe?) Gamma terraforming rules, but the griefing that remains possible is just stupid.
I am for limits on PvP flagged jumping with teles, not sure if you are doing it the right way.
Are you actually considering releasing the API info for PVE kills? Because you realize that is just a troll thread made in response to the death co ords on kill mails now, right?

Almost all of these changes have far greater impact on your future noob steamlings than me.  But its your game, you make these changes as you see fit, IMO I don't think its good for the overall health of this game, and I will play it as long as its enjoyable I guess. We will see.

+1, is there a link somewhere to the patch notes? I'm at work.

I just think this entire change to NPC behaviour has been a swing and a miss.
Revert it back to where they rubber band.

I get a lot of new players running missions asking questions about whether its profitable or not. I recommend them only to run missions for sparks or rep, as a viable reliable source of income it is not.

I think you guys are forgetting how players play mmos, sometimes, and I will be specific with EvE comparisons.
They grind the *** outta Lvl 4 missions, kill rats on belts, run complexes.

Endlessly. For money, for shiny, for gear. This is 75% of their player base that does it, day in and day out.
And individuals can do these activities as well as fleets.

You are on the verge and even at the beginning of a influx of new players. You guys know the importance of this influx. Most of these players have the grind mentality, the "missions are content" mentality. The current mission system offers a painfully slow advancement, slow enough to probably force players away from the game. Not having reliable spawns that can be farmed consistently also cuts into the "grinders" income, bye bye sub.

I'm not one who wants it easy. I wouldnt have one orange NPC in game, period. But the chain the NPCs had was sufficent to create an event for a player, he can approach the area, do his thing and get out. And make money, get items, advance.

Its balance. And its way out of wack right now.  You need to feed the masses, If its too easy they will get fat and lazy, If its impossible to get the food, they will look elsewhere. Its your dollar at stake. Fix this

One of the areas this game departs from EvE is the lack of greifing in Alpha. This is a positive for you, its why I started here and left there. The *** who try and project their influence in the pvp world here should be sufficient grief.  If you are saying miners need to be protected on Alpha you are saying *** you solo players.

I'm all for pvp and corp fights and alliances and territory control. But 85% of the people who will put pizza on your table and beer in your fridge will be solo or Alpha dwellers.  And these are the people who will stock the market and consume it. I'd be much happier with all red spawns, and harder ranked spawns on the Alphas, than with the ability to drag NPCs and grief them on other players. Make it harder, for sure.

You are shooting yourself in the foot if you continue down this path, and you are right at the cusp of the game living or dying.

Farming is a necessary evil. Same as mission grinding.  Like it or not, it comprises the vast majority of income generation in mmos ... if people can't reliably make income they wont play. Its up to the Devs to make the farming tolerable, even enjoyable.

Zoom, the NPCs following everywhere is ruining many aspects of gameplay.  Its fine when we lure them to kill our enemies and they do it to us, but what is stopping someone doing it to noobs. your future income? Its being done to demonstrate its broken. You need to correct it. There is nothing someone can do when they undock a scarab, and do not appear on their screen on terrain before their stability is up, and someone else drags a red mob to them.

Dont tell us thats not reimburseable. Its players pushing a broken mechanics causing loss to other players, its not normal gameplay. And again, being able to take mission NPCs out of mission areas  ... just no. We already have no idea what mission we are accepting beforehand, and its so slow walking out to the mission area only to find ... nothing? Vets understand whats going on, but new players? Hence this post ....

Anyways, I'm just repeating what everyone else is saying.

I think this entire direction you have gone in an effort to nerf the beacon pits and eliminate farming, is the wrong solution to the problem and is making it worse.

Also, not an hour ago, -77- was able to kill a farming Mesmer Mk2 and support bot ratting the lvl 4 mech spawn on the *** by Weyster II ... by draggin a huge number of reds to him.  You know the area, there is only one way in and one way out ..... how can he possibly avoid this? Cudos to -77-, its brilliant what they did ... but it shouldnt be able to happen. What do you think will happen when people cannot complete pve activities? Bye bye customers.

your "home base" selection doesnt display, even though its still set as before. but with it not displayed, many people are pressing clear and resetting it by accident

One lone STC cam with some HUN assitance and an incoming TOG squad not yet on island was enough to scare off 2 waspishes Mk2, 2 Castel Mk2, a Vagabond and an Artermis apparently. The sap wasn't completed, (not a big deal either way) and all attacking bots were able to escape via the armoured they were hugging.

http://imgur.com/p4mYB5F

Propaganda is fun. Apparently its bad form to troll on someones elses recruitment threads. Well, so says the guys who are doing it. All I want to add is PHM are great enemies to have and are blessed with an abundance of creative talents. If this sounds like a good fit for you then you cannot go wrong with them.
Cya all on the battlefield.

June is coming, again, right?

Edit: I really like your new recruiting slogan.

"Join PHM, BE FEARED COMRADE, BE VERY AFEARED!"
+1

Show everyones skill, pve deaths, and assets ..... umm, somehow asking for something absolutely ridiculous is supposed to illustrate a problem with this topic how, exactly??

But, its funny, you actually bring up an excellent point. EvE killmails provide the exact fits, including the cargo contents, of every ship that dies in pvp. This particular intel is far more crucial than location of death co ords could ever be. And yet, somehow EvE bravely struggles forward each day in spite of this obvious critical free information available on 3rd party sites without logging into game.

And Lemon to clarify, you are correct that not everyone has unlimited free access to the API data. What I meant of course was that if someone wanted to, specifically a major player in your faction, or any faction for that matter, requested the data for use similar to perp-kill or sequer.nl, they would get it. There's nothing stopping Bandwagon900xxyz for compiling the same data just so you dont have to worry about some secret magical political advantage.

So what is the real issue?

Is it Doeks' site?
Zoom has made it clear to Syndic, or anyone, that they can have the same access. And Doek does not moderate politically on his website

Is it the delay?
All sides have acknowledged the 15 minute delay negates an instant response. But if the argument is the data can be analyzed for trends then who cares if its delayed 24 hours, it can still be analyzed and actions can be prepared.
I like Ville's point about harvester dies "grow op here!" sign goes up, but c'mon, who continues to harvest Norg in the same location they have died? Once it's found, it's found, find a new spot.

If the argument is 3rd party not logged in is wrong, does this mean if the Devs had an ingame KB with the same info and 15 minute delay thats all cool?

And if 3rd party aids aren't fair, and you need to log in, does that make the fitting tools, the guides, the scan app (which I have never used) unfair? Every game with fans develop their own fan sites and aids.

I think the data is intel, but not game changing intel, and well worth the cool stats and maps that are sure to be produced when a yearly or monthly action report is created.

One other thing, comparing this to EvE doesn't work. EvE has many in game filters that tell you within the last 1/2 hour pod kills, ships killed, etc. Most gameplay in EvE involves entering system, warp to next gate enroute, leave system. Just by knowing system name in EvE is far more the advantage than just knowing island name in Perp. One player in EvE can scan every warp able location in a system within 5 minutes. You would need 4 detectors and 20 minutes to MAYBE clear one island.

Does this contribute?

Good luck with this forum proposal.

Not so long ago the killboard was updated instantly, and even though that provided "real time" Intel, it did not generally result in instant responses. The 15 minute delay is fine.