Once again very informative. Thank you guys for getting together alot of other peoples opinions, it's nice to hear about what other think sometimes.

Yeah, our online times haven't matched up for any fun fights with you guys lately. That fight when we were in lights was pretty fun. I think I got your termis kill, but remember you died in a kain in the beginning. F-navy were passing thru and we went with them. I'm from the States though and have had less time to play the past month or so though.

But this wasn't aimed at you, but more to the corps that we have had fights with. We've been killing them with less players. I think it's somewhat of a combination of reasons why (player skill and/or experience and extensions) but I also think that a big part of the reason is we're fitting better then them. That was the point I was trying to make about T4 gear being still so important to fit.

The addition of noralgis for t4 made it justifily more expensive for you to fit t4. It gives t3 a better position, as someone may decide to fit a few peices of t3 on their bots when they're pvping in place of t4 simply for the cost savings.

It's also one of the reasons why I feel the minerals everywhere should be unnerfed.

You're saying that it isnt that way now? Some of the corps that havent lived as long on beta, or haven't had as large a player base have real trouble now in competing with others in pvp. ROME, DOY, Blood, DEAPr, specificly. The past few times i've roamed out there we've killed gobs of those guys. Some of it may have been related to skills (both actual player skill and experience, and ingame extensions), but I think a large part of it is the way they're fitting their bots. I haven't seen much teir gear from them, even t2 stuff. Not saying they don't have it, but just that they haven't been fitting it on their bots, and we've been killing them alot.

Shoutout to nicinator who lost 7 bots the other night, we had some good fights with you and I lol'd when cookie monsta ran away as we killed Rolphonyl and jackie chan before turning on your kain.

You still need t4 to be competitive in any real sense, without a distinct numbers advantage. 10 t1 lights bots will almost always beat a t4 fitted mech.

I stopped reading after this, but Agra, you misunderstand me. We don't sell any of the ore we mine, it's all put into production. I used nic as a form of value. We're doing just fine in my opinion every time I look in the corp hanger there's plenty of *** to get blown up in.

But yeah, I guess that's what I want back, in more simplified terms, I'd like to be able to AFK mine while I pvp/farm/artifact scan. Mining is not fun at all, and farming npcs isnt much fun either. What's the point in having the other account. Mining is all that account does. Was nice to pull my own weight in terms of providing something in return for what I get blown up in and still do something that was fun.

I'd still like to see the return of previous minerals. Adding noralgis to t4, in my opinion set it apart sufficiently from t3 to make it more of a loss -- and worth more -- as to give t3 more of an option to people in pvp. I was told part of the reason for the nerf and the addition of noralgis was because the devs didn't want everyone running around in t4  all the time, and having it be the de facto fitting almost to the point of exclusion of everything else for pvp.

But lets face it, anyone who does alot of pvp knows that at the barest minimum you need a t4 frame for roam situations. Even for your own island defense you really need them just to catch the enemy. Skill matters alot in this game, but there's still alot of importance for fittings. You'd have to be pretty damn good, and your opponent pretty damn bad if you're fitting all t1 and beating all t4 fit.

I don't much care to talk about intrusions as I don't really want any part of them until some other system is worked out. Seeing as in how this is probaly the best way to do them, or we make taking a station take much longer - like say, you have to fight over 1 sap every intrusion (but make owning a station YOURS, you can block people based on standings from entering). Then again if you did that you'd have to release some sort of alliance system, or require it to take a 24 hours or so before the owner of a station can block a corp/people from the outpost so you don't have some *** holding people's things hostage.

I agree with alot of things you've said Gordon, and I've been saying them for awhile now. I've seen alot of people saying they want to have something to fight for, that they want the DEVs to give them the reason to fight... Well, I agree, but not in the same sense. Most of us players already have reasons to want to fight. I very much enjoy blowing up M2S's bots, and they've designed it that way, or at least that's the reason they give for acting like snotty little brats all the time. I've got a reason to fight with CIR and the rest of the Dom crew, and although until recently it's been pretty respectful. Players egos and the smack talk gives us more then enough reason to fight.

What players want is a reason to risk their 4 hours worth of work for 1 hour worth of fun (or not so much fun for some people when they die and get beat all the time ).

The solution is what Gordon said, put mining back to prenerf. I don't claim to know alot about the economy. I don't find that fun personally, and I have no idea what that would do to the economy such as it is. If you want to not have so much nic in the game, simply add more real sinks, such as paint jobs for your bot, and allowing corp owners to change the MOTD of their outposts. Hell, maybe the excess of minerals on the market will inspire people to make things for sale.

Hobby game or not, I want to have some fun doing it. Alot of people started leaving the game after that nerf. M2S's entire alliance has merged into one corp, and not even the largest corp in the game. Almost every corp in the game had a mass exodus, to the extent that many of them cease to exist in any capacity. It started after the mineral nerf.

New Islands will help. For a time. But like Agra said, people will come back to see what's changed, and when they find that nothing's changed, there's just more of the same in larger quantities they'll be right back out the door.

Unnerf the minerals. It should take longer to clear out a square before moving on to the next target. I get 3-5 cycles from most of the little yellow bars. I'd like to see more 25+ squares. And, I don't want to hear anything about "Move to beta, there's plenty of fields like that to mine".

I personally dont see the problem with AFK mining. If i stick my miner on something and go do the laundry, at least im another active player on the server doing something. Bot prices should be cheap, modules should be expensive. I should be able to hop into a new bot, and be shooting teh bad guys with less agravating work then it currently requires. There's got to be like 10 people on the server that mining is their only enjoyment in the game.

I guess it goes back to the arguement of hardcores vs casuals. We can all agree that the game needs more people, be they casual or hardcore, and we're always going to have more of the former.

I agree with mining needing work, and I think it should go back to prenerf. Mining to the vast majority of people is the chaff you have to work away to get to the heart of the game. It's what makes the world go round here for everybody, but the way it's set up is kind of backwards to me. If it's more frustrating to go mine for the minerals to build the bot then it was for getting the bot blown up...

Pre-nerf mining wasn't fun... but it wasn't tedious either. You don't want hordes of afk miners on alpha, and that's fine... roaming npcs help with that. But I don't play this game for the mining, I play for the social aspect, and the pvp. In my opinion, the work/fun ratio prenerf for minerals was fine. I'd like to be able to replace my stuff when it gets blown up, and I expect to have to work for it -- it's not about free replacements -- but the amount of work required is too high. Having to constantly scan for new places, having to drive 3km from base to find something worth spending any time on, and then having to deal with driving it back to base at some point. I think the scales were tipped a little to far the other way with the mineral nerfs, and apparently alot of the people who no longer log on agree with me.

This is true on your end as well Siddy. And it will continue to be true no matter what's changed about the plants. Fact is, none of us can have continous coverage of plants (i mean come on... guarding plants 24/7? no thank you). It's fine the way it is IMO, plants on everyones side will get raided.... pvp happens. At least now when a roaming gang goes out and finds no targets to shoot there is something else they can do. Most people are fine with this.

I guess I can kind of understand that about wanting t4 to be expensive, but lets face it. If player Y has to spend x number of hours mining, npc'ing or whatever to get into the right modules for pvp (to compete at the very least almost every bot requires a t4 lwf), then loses it in 10 minutes of pvp then how many times do you think that person is going to do it?

There's a balance to be had to making things worth something in pvp. You don't want to make things so expensive that only the richest will ever dare use them in pvp, and you dont want their cost to be relative either. In my opinion, adding noralgis for t4 production went a long way to negating t4 being the defacto pvp fit. There's alot of modules besides t4 lwf that many people would not want the extra cost on, and would decide to take t3 instead.

Devs should be encouraging pvp  -- which I think the addition of noralgis has done -- and not discouraging it -- which the nerf to mineral spawns has done. In the end, wether you're a miner, or a npc'er or a producer, or a prototyper or whatever, it's PVP that makes this game go round. Without it, and maybe more importantly - the people that make it happen - there'd be no reason for the miner to mine, or the producer to produce or the prototyper to prototpe.

And also, punishing 3/4's of the server population because one alliance abused ingame mechanics to the point that the game is no longer fun for them, is not the way to handle your mistakes.

We're still recruiting, and actively seeking Euro TZ people, so if you have friends swing by the Roving Guns Pub to have a chat.