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[Merdaneth]

I assume that each side has a narrative about what the other side is up to, and we just brought those narratives OOC.

Merdaneth's narrative is that experienced capsuleers are subsidizing others through flight school and then sending them out sub-skilled in and ill-fitted ships in an attempt to bleed the Republic dry of isk. Isk the Republic foolishly gives away in quantity to TLF capsuleers of which the majority have no intention to actually support the Republic and are playing the bureaucracy to amass personal wealth. A situation which should eventually bankrupt an already impoverished Republic.

On the other hand that the Amarr Empire has established militairy strongpoints who's defenses are easily analyzed and overcome by a frigs with minimal sensor equipment and defended by anemic ships who can barely manage to hit let alone seriously threaten a rookie capsuleer. And the Amarrian bureaucracy is apparently to slow-moving to consider changing tactics even after years of ineffectiveness.

[Aldrith Shutaq]

Actually the refusing to flip systems was a strategic decision, not a monetary one. When these blog posts started popping up, describing how the Minmatar were pretty much taking advantage our attempts to play the FW game, many of us were incensed, so we decided to stop playing fairly as that would only line the pockets of our enemies with easy ISK.

Simply put, we could not hold any systems we took so long as a glut of plex farmers existed on the Minmatar side. If the Amarr flipped any system it would be retaken in a matter of days to a week, with the Minmatar profiting all the while. We noticed the pattern and stopped it, resolving to only leave Minmatar systems vulnerable (and therefore not profitable) and defend only 3 systems doggedly: Kamela, Sosala and Sahtogas. This move effectively drove Minmatar plex alts from our warzone - only to have them move to Caldari space and farm those systems endlessly for Minmatar LP.

This tactic was decided upon long before Nulli Secunda announced they would be joining the war. A good number of systems were already vulnerable when this occurred, and our strategy was independent from their arrival. When they did arrive we told them of the strategy and they also began to replicate it in Metropolis. Of course, them being noobish null-bears, they couldn't figure out how to do it right and got their assess whopped every time they tried to fight.

Then came the cash-out, the return of the Minmatar plex-alt swarm, and the mass-exodus of just about every decent PVP group in the Amarr militia. Everyone cashed out, then when there was clearly no chance of ever holding the systems or ever seeing a decent warzone control level again, they said  "Screw this hopeless situation, cutting my losses and leaving." I've stopped playing and let my subscription run out since then.

The overall feeling from our side is that the only way to beat the Minmatar as they are is to make FW supremely un-fun for them. No fights, no profit, no nothing. They simply have too many plex alts, too many PVP'ers with heavy assets (now bolstered with limitless supplies of Republic Fleet ships and liquid ISK) and too much of an entrenched edge to ever take down without the resources of a nullsec alliance. Small, unorganized groups do not have the ability to take down the profit cartel built up in the Minmatar militia at this point. The only way to stop plex alts is to perma-camp all entrance gates to the WZ with insta-lockers. The only way to beat a full faction BS fleet is with a better one or caps, neither of which even the more senior Amarr militia members can afford with ease any longer. Even if we could, the Amarr Militia would have to win 10x as often to even the odds, when they already are at a monetary, numerical and firepower disadvantage. This thought crushes the morale of Amarrian militia members and deters anyone but the most cocky PVP noob-group (like Fweddit) from joining and trying to 'help' the situation with smack talk and/or shameless profiteering. So now it seems the only thing left to do is bore everyone to death by being absent and come back later.

Sooo... All that remains now is to translate all of this into an IC perspective!

[Merdaneth]

Sooo... All that remains now is to translate all of this into an IC perspective!

The Amarr Empire and Minmatar Republic have both lodged a complaint with the Concord Bureau. The Empire says the new reward system agreed upon does not allow them to reward capsuleers when they need their services the most, and this has caused a mass exodus from the 24th Crusade capsuleer ranks. Conversely, the Republic has informed Concord that its war budget for their entire year has already been spent because they need to keep paying exorbitant amounts of isk to raw recruits for services they don't really need at this time. It remains to be seen if the bureaucratic machine that is Concord will respond to these issues in a reasonable time.

Many capsuleers wonder why the parties have agreed upon a reverse of normal market dynamics for the reward structure. In the current system the lower the demand for new pilots is, the higher the individual rewards get and vice versa, high demand is forcibly met with a low reward. Even more insulting to many capsuleers, some pilots that have never fired a gun at an hostile in their careers and who's speciality seems to be fleeing at the first sight of a hostile get awarded with the highest possible ranks in the militia, quickly outstripping some of their less cowardly brothers.

[Seriphyn]

I think this is the point.

As per the Dark End of Space chronicle that Gyra Rho pointed out, it was all meant to be a neat idea to save the empires from destroying each other through conventional/total war.

But now we read the 514 chronicle four years later, about how "capsuleers are out of control, and we need to stop them". Indeed, the Caldari/Gallente are letting their own space fall, only to retake it for maximum rewards, at the price of everyone who lives in those systems.

Our OOC feelings on it may very well fit the IC themes taking place in-universe.

[Bastian Valoron]

Bastian sees the regular, monthly > 90% swings in the warzone control as unexpected turns of the battle, caused by correct or erratic decisions by the military leadership, economy, media or some other factor. He does not think there is anything wrong with the system. All the stabbed merlins and incursuses on the warzone are signaling that common citizens have responded to the plight of their nation, and bravely chosen to offer their assistance, by walking the path of unarmed resistance.

Out of character, it is of course a mess. The way I see it working is that null-sec players have low SP alts in both Minmatar and Caldari militias and once one side is ready for T5, they cash out and start farming with the other alt. I believe most of their mains are in 0.0 because the farmers are actually pretty good at handling themselves in low-sec, the number of old FW pilots seems to be too low to explain the phenomenon, and there has been talk along those lines on the EVE-O forums. Those trying to do combat are just an irrelevant side note in this game of ISK.

Farming goes on around the clock, it is almost hopeless to catch a farmer frigate and decontesting a system has high opportunity costs for the defender. If a combat focused corporation wishes to have a continued access to its assets in low-sec, it has to move to one of the larger militia bases where a heavy resource competition is going on in the surroundings and which in turn puts strain on the diplomatic relationships. As a player, this is what bothers me more than whether the LP payouts go to the deserving pockets.

[Desiderya]

Yes, and I wonder when CCP will address this issue (not fix, at least address ). The money-craze is a bit out of hands, but I' interested to see how this'll develop over the coming months, as the steady supply of LP store assets due to repeated warzone flips will crash the prices hard, which incidentially might lead to the fact that the offers requiring tags will become the most profitable.

[Silas Vitalia]

I've stopped playing and let my subscription run out since then.

And here I thought you were just ignoring my evemails!!

See you when/if you come back

[Syylara/Yaansu]

PvP systems that use extrinsic rewards for win conditions have been reduced to informally coordinated "win swapping" in a great majority of cases across my time in MMOs.

[Casiella]

Tol Barad... SWG base clubbing... yeah.

[Graelyn]

My little AM project has been going on for a while now, trying to give Amarr RP corps a place to go and collude.

What I haven't done is invite some larger corps that are interested in joining, nor have I kicked off any big public whoppdedoos, which we had planned to run a good month or so ago. I've held off on these because I keep seeing reasons to hesitate, and so far I'm glad I did. I wish I wasn't trying to congratulate myself for listening to fears...

Attaching ourselves to FW seems to look like a terrible idea now. I want to give CCP some credit for trying new things with FW, changes that quite excited me at the time, but in the usual style things are worse than before.

Given that my new job has me working late and my free-time dropped to not-very-much, and my good pilots are utterly burned by the way everything works in FW now, I'm not convinced I should keep this up. I do not like to put in effort for the sake of effort, especially when so much of it relies on me asking others to put in that effort.

[BloodBird]

My little AM project has been going on for a while now, trying to give Amarr RP corps a place to go and collude.

What I haven't done is invite some larger corps that are interested in joining, nor have I kicked off any big public whoppdedoos, which we had planned to run a good month or so ago. I've held off on these because I keep seeing reasons to hesitate, and so far I'm glad I did. I wish I wasn't trying to congratulate myself for listening to fears...

Attaching ourselves to FW seems to look like a terrible idea now. I want to give CCP some credit for trying new things with FW, changes that quite excited me at the time, but in the usual style things are worse than before.

Given that my new job has me working late and my free-time dropped to not-very-much, and my good pilots are utterly burned by the way everything works in FW now, I'm not convinced I should keep this up. I do not like to put in effort for the sake of effort, especially when so much of it relies on me asking others to put in that effort.

Graelyn.

Everyone realizes that FW, right now, is flawed, if not out-right BROKEN. Everyone. It's clear to see that it takes it's toll on you, your corpies, alliance mates and everyone else. So please, for your own sake, and that of your companions; Convene and ask each other what is more important to you - your IC decision to join in FW, or your OOC entertainment provided by EVE.

Make a choice and stick with it. Personally, I'd go with leaving FW until it improves and being entertained by other actions. Plenty of things you can do out of FW, you know.

Last I want to see is yourself and/or a bunch of other RP'ers quitting EVE over this. I've seen quite allot of that lately, as it is.