The bounty system dev blog is up:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73446Some initial impressions:
- Kill rights got interesting, but there will be fewer kill rights going around. "Only attacking in hi-sec or podding in low-sec." This means hi-sec gankers and people who bother to pod-kill in low-sec. Since the latter population tends to live in low-sec anyways (where they can be shot regardless of suspect flagging), this will affect hi-sec gankers the most.
- The activation of a suspect flag upon initiating a kill right is awesome. As is the on-demand, click-for-kill-right mechanic. Again, a pity kill rights will be restricted in the new system.
- Bounty pay-offs for structure bashing. I can see someone putting a large bounty on a corporation, then publishing the location of their POS'. Some pies already make a living off of killing POS' and harvesting expensive arrays, so there could be some business there.
- "We’re going to muck out all the advertisers, poker stars and attention seekers currently clogging [the bounty system]" heh.
- "Finally, we want to support bounty hunting as a career choice, preferably in a way that makes it possible for newer players as well as older players to get involved." I like this sentiment, but I'm not sure the ecology will be large enough to truly call this a career choice. This might be a secondary or tertiary isk-maker at best. Still, people continue to pirate for a living for the fun and pew-pew, even though the isk/hour of pirating is nothing to write home about.
- Then again, creating a Bounty Hunter leaderboard may be just the thing for people to focus on this 'career.' Nothing drives EVE PvPers like e-peen. See: all killmails.
- 'Private Bounties' is a great idea. It might finally be the mechanic that revives the PC mercenary industry. Also ties in well for someone who ranks high on the Bounty Hunter leaderboard, who can advertise for private bounties and personal attention to priority contracts.