Revisit to my PVP views

About a year ago, after a lengthy discussion on PVP with a number of players on Vent, I wrote this:

http://eve-lifeinthehole.blogspot.com/2010/06/view-on-pvp.html

Now, after a year of participating and trying to learn more about this side of EVE, I have come to some conclusions about PVP.

#1  Most of PVP in EVE is non-consensual
#2  Like my sex life, it takes way too long to happen and is over too quick
#3  No matter what you do, some people will never, ever voluntarily PVP
#4  Shooting i-HUBS and Stations is not PVP, but can lead to it
#5  Even people who fly the biggest ships still can suck at PVP

Looking at each one a little bit closer.

#1  - So little of EVE PVP is consensual.  Most PVP is the result of small gangs and solo players looking for indy and PVE targets.  The ratter in a belt, the mission runner, the industry player at a Customs Office, the low sec gate camper.  Now this is not to say that there are a lot of combat ships v combat ships fighting, its just that one of the people is not looking for a fight, it finds them due to their stupidity, afk-ness, or other reasons.  While this is not "bad" its just not the glorious vision most people have of PVP.

#2 - Takes too long to find and never lasts.  Sure this might say more about my sex life, but we all have experienced the 2 hour roam to nowhere that ends up in a ball of flames and white light expresses back to our medical clones.  Even worse is when it ends due to the blue of our blue not being blue.

#3 - The Reluctant Carebear - Offer free ships, offer training classes, offer "insert whatever you want here" and the fact of the matter is there are some people, even living in 0.0, that have zero, zip, ziltch, nada desire to ever PVP.  Sure they get blown up in their Tengu's while ratting, or their Rattlesnakes, or even their carriers, but tell them we are going on a frigate roam in corp paid for rifters, and they disappear quicker than a drop of water in the desert.  I can not figure out how they can undock a billion isk ship to go rat, but cant for the life of them undock a free ship to go shoot other players.  Even as incoming roams increase to the point their ability to make isk ratting is in serious jeopardy and they still would never be found in a corp paid for drake shooting at the incoming gang.

#4 - SOV warfare is broke - end of story.  To have to spend days shooting at targets with a bazgillion HP when the owners could care less is ridiculous and only encourages blobs and crappy lag induced PVP.

#5 - A plethora of ISK and no brains - How else can you rationalize a guy undocking a Rattlesnake when the corp provides all BC's for system defense?  How else can you explain a Titan pliot that cynos himself to the fught instead of opening a jump bridge.  How else can you describe all the crap and fail fits we see on a daily basis.  Too much isk and not enough brains.

So overall my views of the glory of PVP have changed, but the reality is still as I once believed. There are the hunters and the hunted, the high sec afk miner and the suicide ganker, the hot headed mission runner and the ninja salvager, the war dec'n high sec corps and the indy players too dumb to know there is a war on.

There is little PVP that meets the trailer reels CCP makes, but man those trailers are cool.  Maybe the next trailer should be cloaky Tengu or Hound slowly creeping in on a mining op and blowing up an Orca and Hulk, or a Sabre dropping a bubble on a group of Drakes running a Sleeper site, and his friends blowing the crap out of them.  Those would be way more realistic.

Fly Safe,
Mick