I think there are great intentions with this post...and I agree. For some corps in the game their ability to produce is far exceeding their cost of doing business.

However, I don't think there is a really good way to systemically accomplish this. If you tax corps the assets will move to the players within those corps. If you tax the players you're hurting everyone down to the lonely noob.

You latched onto something with your post though... there needs to be POS's or some other form of NIC sink for end game corps to do. Unfortunately, that stuff is a ways out...i am sure when it comes, this corp that is in the lead may mismanage its money and overextend into other ventures... or they may not... who knows.

I guess my point is that I can't think of a good mechanic to do what you're talking about doing systemically....but the more content they add the more potential there is for accomplishing this dethroning of this king you speak of.

NIC/Resource sinks for end game in a sandbox are a must. Otherwise the markets are going to run rampant. POS' in Eve were a good form of sink as they required fuel to keep them running. This is something I'd like to see in similar terms for PO. Something that requires a moderate amount of effort to upkeep, to show that your corp is involved. The more involved the more you can own and the more you can really display your corps power and memberships efforts. The outposts right now are a really poor excuse for endgame warfare and they really don't take a lot in terms of upkeep. In fact I think there comes a point when the upkeep becomes free after so many defenses.

Endgame needs to be established, because if people show up there and they see what little there is to accomplish from the plateau of the game, they will leave and find another MMO that will reward their efforts and present innovative and engaging challenges.

Yep, I saw one the other day infact.

I like the idea of more end game NIC sinks however first you have to make outposts worth owning for more than just E-Peen in order to justify the sink. Right now outposts are nigh useless as an owner in comparison to not owning them.

It's not about replicating Eve and having huge time sinks. It's moreso about having something, as opposed to our current nothing. We don't need to copy EvE's layout in it's entirety and have to assume they will just be a big waste of time and an open door to 'zomgcapswarm'. Having some sort of customizeable, player owned forts/bases/structures, would further the sandbox's development and actually give corps who have the time and resources a greater sense of accomplishment and a common goal to work towards. Let's face, as it is, no one really wants to do to much in Beta because there's not much point in trying to defend a pile of empty islands, or even one for that matter. It's easier on the logistics to just run ops in to beta and then leave when you see fit as opposed to taking an OP and waiting for a blob to signup and wipe you out on scheduled time.

If we worked towards equipping ourselves properly, gearing properly, and fighting very well there's a lot to do in that.

I really think having a solid cohesive group of guys in the end, properly fitted, able to gear up easily, smooth logistics, and adapting to game mechanic changes over the course is a solid end game goal. This is of course without having to have the help of 50 other people to survive.

If this was done, we could likely well have people being independent as groups across the islands, ie more pvp, more pve and more fun.

But people don't want to do this, so they compensate their shortcomings  by asking developers for more content, or blob.

They need to introduce something to put "cows" ie targets on the islands. However if the cows can't learn how to survive properly, they'll be slaughtered.

I'd just like to point out that the POS/Sov System wasn't as big of a money sink as people thought.  Yeah it was time consuming and you did have to acquire large quantities of items to keep them working.  But that didn't stop one man corps from setting up their own system, much less major alliances.  I've been out of the game a couple years now but some of my corp mates still play and they talk like everyone has enough resources to invest in personal motherships.  People apparently have a lot of free cash floating around.

We the exception of dramatic and scalable cost increases to holding multiple outposts, I'm not sure you will ever truly have money sink in a sandbox game.

I know that it looks sometimes like I'm waving an M2S #1 foamy finger, but Mara is right on track here, it takes time, effort, and determination to make a succesful corporation. M2S has a dramatic lead, because they have been working as a focused and cohesieve force since beta, and it's going to take a serious level of effort to counter that.

The 100 billion NIC question is simply, do the current game mechanics allow the possiblity for new corps or existing corps to regroup and regain what was lost?

What has changed, why does one corp now have a majority of the outposts?

The biggest change is the new logistics of travel, the time to get around has been dramatically reduced with the introduction of additional teleports and highways.

But something else must have changed too, maybe its not a game mechanic at all, but more along the lines of Aranol leaving, in that vetern players are just getting burned out, and corp leaders are losing focus; while others are not.

And that there, where the game can't keep leaders interested, is where meta-game hits game mechanics.

Plain and simple, leaders need to be motivated to achieve goals, they will in turn motivate thier corporation. The generic term NIC sink is anything from simply losing bots in combat to 'owning' your own island with a 1000 M nic/week upkeep. AC is going to need to do something, they may need to try a number of different things, we just don't know what is going to motivate existing leaders or what may trigger the rise of new leadership.

What ISN'T going to work, is more of the same. If POS simply consists of mining stations and combat turrets, those are not going to motivate leaders. We need something SHINY, and I would argue that it CAN be simply ePeen. I suspect that even an outpost that allowed you to change the color of your bots would be enough to generate a WAR to control it.

AC - try something please.

I think the way the game is designed helps create the blob.  Whoever has the oldest accounts have the EP advantage allowing the better skilling of bots.  For another guild to be competitive in pvp you then need to gain the blob to balance the reduced EP they have . As time goes on the EP difference becomes less important as the 'end game' is reached but by this time the blobs tend to suck up people still as it becomes more of a numbers game.  Tactics still play a part as we see today with pairing of bots together (sum > individual) and bomb bots, but if you find a winning combination and you have the pilots to drive them the blob is still king.

My hope is that the more diversity we get in the end game (which I do think this game has) the more hope there is.  My own suggestion for encouraging anti-blob / players on more islands would to limit each beta outpost to say 30 named players.  ie if your not on the list you can never enter. Perhaps this would encourage guilds to take over and USE multiple outposts rather than being based in a single (result dead islands)  one or trying to take them all over for the glory of the epeen.

This thread is deteriorating into "how to stop the blob".
1) Interference
2) Artillery
3) superior tactics
mmmmkay?

on topic:
i don't have any personal experience on beta so I'll leave that discussion to the major players

There is no blobbing in Perpetuum.