Arsilon

The current tech obviously allows you to track location of all ships within circle during initial tag so they are spawned in correct location in battle instance. The current tech also allows you to track location of reinforcing ships relative to the outside of the circle (they must sail outside of it if they are already inside) so they can be spawned in the proper direction of the battle inside the battle instance. The difference seems only to be when that check is performed. For the first group the check is done when the tag timer reaches zero. For the second group the check is done when they click the join battle button (assuming the battle is not already closed). Could you not just perform the position check for both groups at the initial tag? You still have the tagging circle but you now would have an imaginary (heck you could even draw it) reinforcement circle that would cover all ships currently in range to reinforce if they want to sail and click into the battle. There would be additional computing required as there may be many ships in range that you would need to track potentially unnecessarily. I do not know whether this is a deal breaker based on what you have on the back end to keep track of all this. If this does not break your back end, you could set that range to deal with whatever time compression issues you need to resolve (how far away is reasonable for a ship to be able to sail and still join the battle even if spawned farther away in the battle instance?). You would also only do the check for ships currently visible on the map. This would solve the hiding in battle screen and port hiding issues as well. I obviously do not know how you have chosen to code what is already there but from a design perspective it appears the elements you need are already in place. If this is the solution you are already proposing to code and it will take time, great. But if not, maybe some food for thought. Regardless, I would still rather wait for a good solution than trade one bad solution for another that is clearly debateable whether it is a 'less bad' or 'more bad' interim solution.

I think people are getting so caught up in the port battle component of lordship that they are losing sight of the other methods you reference, eg heroic feats. Could you perhaps give some examples of what you are thinking there? How will PvP victories contribute? How will being a level 50 crafter contribute? How will supplying your nation with mods gain status points?

Oh, please no. BR limits didn't fix anything any of the problems it was supposed to have fixed. It was easily abused. At best putting it back in is only a band-aid on the positional reinforcements and doesn't fix it either. Just leave it as-is until you can fix it the right way. We can deal with the repercussions in the meantime.

I would venture to guess by the fact this question has been asked 100 times and they have never answered it, no.

Not a single trader to be found south of Cuba in the shallows around Barcos over several hours yesterday. Looked again this morning and nothing. Actually not a fleet of any kind, really. I did see one AI Spain Navy Brig fleet but that was it. No traders, no other fleets at all.

Think this through to the end: We leave port as a group of 6 people. 2x 3rd rates, 1x Niagara, 1x Renomee, 2x Snow as a possible mixed group of newer and older players. We sail 45 minutes to get to enemy waters We see a lone 3rd rate and we "gank" him. Still a gank We see a lone trader....choice - Send 1 Snow to tackle the trader and the rest of the group is left behind to wait or find something else to do. Group is done for the evening for that snow captain as he may not be able to rejoin his teammates (1 combat 5 no combat) - Let the fast ships go chase him and kill him 4v1 and the 2x 3rd rates are left left behind to wait or find something else to do. Group is done for the evening as the 3rd rates will not be able to rejoin teammatesand still a gank (4 combat 2 no combat) - Let the trader go and eliminate the economic warfare opportunity -- that trader just delivered iron ore for enemy to build a ship. No combat for those 6 people We see a group of 2-3 fast ships that do not want to engage with us...choice - Since enemy group does not want to engage, send faster ships to engage leaving slow ships behind. Group is done for the evening as those two 3rds will not be able to rejoin teammates. (4 combat 2 no combat) - Continue to sail while they smaller group continues to trail outside of tagging range while 3 or 4 or 10 other people in smaller faster ships sail to the area before they attack us. Would probably be a fun fight but guess what, still a gank just in the opposite side as they now have 12v6. Evening patrol over. The next night we decide to leave the 3rd rates behind and get in smaller ships that do not have the same issues we faced the previous night. So we go out in 6 snows. We see a lone 3rd rate and we "gank" him. Still a gank We see a lone trader.... - Go chase him and kill him 6v1. Still a gank We see a group of 2-3 fast ships that do not want to engage with us...options - Tag the ships as a group with still likely 2x the numbers so still a an 'unfair' fight - Tag the ships as a group but 1 person didn't sail well enough and didn't keep up so didn't make it in the initial tag. They are left out to wait. Still an unfair fight and group likely now down for the evening as the one person will not be able to rejoin his teammates. (5 combat 1 no combat) etc. etc. What you see is. - You still have unfair fights, but now you have unfair fights and breakup of group play. So your anti-gank mechanic didn't actually solve this 'problem' in the long run. - You no longer have mixed groups of players in range of ships. You have to cater to lowest speed ship in your group or have likely scenario where your group will not be able to play together. - Each side facing the same issue will have to do the same which reduces what you see on the open sea as both sides optimize. Traders or Fast ships that can dictate the terms of engagement. You no longer have as many unfair fights. But now you have only the opportunity for the same fight you could have gotten in a dual or small battle.

The issue many of us are complaining about isn't the ability to create unfair fights. Most of us on this side of the debate are not out looking for unfair fights. We're out looking for whatever fight is there to be had. If we are outnumbers 6v10 so be it. If we outnumber you 6v2 or 6v1 so be it. Part of the appeal of the open sea patrol is never knowing what we'll find. Did we bring the right mix of ships and equip them in an optimal way for who we are likely to find? We don't want to create "gank" situations. It just ends up happening that way in some cases. We aren't looking to protect our ability to go seal clubbing. We are looking to go out and play as a group and take whatever is there to be had win or lose. The issue is by focusing on only the ability to prohibit the 'unfair' fights, you are prohibiting fights in general. You are limiting to a pre-specified set of criteria when a fight is allowed and when it isn't. When you are doing that you are not creating a 'you never know what you will find' sandbox. You are creating an arena system that i just in a much larger area of space. We already have arenas in small/large battles. We now also have duels. Yet that isn't enough you now want to take away the dynamic and unpredictable nature of open sea patrolling too. Its great we now have the ability to create group size of 12 instead of 6. Now unless you ensure that everyone is in the same ship, sails at the same speed and blobs together in a tight pack, you may as well still be in 2 groups of 6 or all sailing solo. We all get you don't like the idea of 10v1 ganks. Yet if the mechanic puts in place also leads to only 1v1, 1v2, 2v3 and 6 people sitting waiting for something else to sail by then that is too steep a price to pay. If the 10v1 gank is the cost of ensuring a vibrant open world so be it. If you want to be assured you will only get 1v1 or 'equal' fights, why don't you just hit the small battle or duel button instead of the sail button? You get nothing new with this mechanic other than to get another area in the game to get the same type of fight that you already have the ability to get unless you like having to sail 10,20 or 30 minutes to get it, yet you take away the ability for others who don't care about that the only place they can get that flavor of dynamic open world unpredictability.

This is not unique to Eve. Name other PVP games where there is any reasonable amount of RVR focus where there has been no spying of any sort, whether using alt accounts or otherwise. I'd be really curious to know what those games are you are referring to as this has been around as long since the early days of MMO.

If you go into port, go to the fleets window where you hired them and you can uncheck them to make them inactive.

Yes, Australian primetime, when there are currently 100 people total online across all nations. Yes, Australian primetime, during which we took back all of the Northern Antilles and Puerto Rico from the Brits and saw a total of 1 Brit in a Basic Cutter. There were more Danish out and about than there were Brits during those hours. I of course wouldn't want to deprive people of having fun in their primetime hours. Not everyone can be on at the same time. Apparently the Brits have been trying to accommodate them forever since that is the same story we've heard forever now both with ports they were 'defending' against the US and other nations as well. Even now, 24 of the 72 ports currently owned by Britain are set to extended 'Aussie Primetime' hours of 10-16. The Brits probably need to find new Aussie players since the ones they have now aren't very active.

Given lower population on PVP2, even setting your timers during primetime won't guarantee a fight. Last night is a perfect example where we had a group of folks patrolling the south side of Jamaica about 40 minute sail from their closest outpost in Cayman Brac when the conquest flags in Hispaniola were launched from right next door to those ports. Even if they had their teleports ready, there was no way for that entire group to get to a place they could teleport and sail to make it in time. This is unfortunately a fair criticism with respect to the impact that lower population has on PVP2, ie not enough population to have people in both places. Given all the above, setting timers to any time OTHER than primetime you definitely won't get a fight.

I would probably agree with the majority of your other issues. However that being said, Slamz' point is valid in that by continuing to set port timers at the lowest population time of day, regardless of whether that population is 500 or 5000 at prime time has no other possible outcome than purposely avoiding any chance of meaningful port battle confrontation between nations.

It has everything to do with leadership when they decide to put timers for times when the population is at 100 vs. when its at 400.

You can place buy or sell contracts in any port you can enter. You must be in that port to place a contract. No outpost is required to place a contract. Placing of any contract will take the appropriate item from your inventory (gold in the case of a buy contract, the item you are selling in the case of the sell contract) and place it into escrow. Placing of any contract will charge you a certain percentage of the value of the contract as your 'administration fee'. (Fulfilling another person's contract has no incremental charge). Only the most advantageous contract price will be 'active' at any moment, eg cheapest sell price or highest buy price, allowing other players to put their contracts ahead of yours in the order they will be fulfilled. Ties seem to go to the most recently placed instead of the oldest one (which is wrong in my opinion). In any port you can click on the box in the shop UI to see all the active contracts and their prices for both buy and sell. You can 'claim/cancel' a contract at any point and receive whatever residual gold/items have been fulfilled/remain in the contract. You must do so in person at the port where the contract has been placed. You do not get any of your administrative fee charged when you originally placed the contract. You can delete a contract from any point, freeing up a contract slot but you lose any residual gold/items that have already been fulfilled. [NOTE: do not confuse the difference between claim/cancel and delete!] You can view the status of your contracts from any port in the shop window by clicking on the "Your Contracts" button in the Shop UI.

14-16 timers *lesigh*

Of course the people that left want to feel better about their decision so yes, they do want PVP2 to die faster. No one wants to feel like they made the wrong choice. They would feel really silly if PVP2 all of a sudden was thriving again and they chose to start over for nothing. They would also feel really silly if the devs at some point decide to create a systemic way to merge/transfer without having to start over. By that point it will have been too late for those that moved now.

Purge (France) isn't going anywhere as things stand currently. If the pop drops to the point where there literally is no PvP we may also re-evaluate -- but even then we'd more likely just go on hiatus till next content patch brings folks back than switch servers. Whenever we get to a wipe and everything starts over anyway, we may also re-evaluate.

I was going to suggest Tortue but then wondered if that might "get in the way" of whatever Conquest shenanigans might be going on with the Pirates and Britain (not that that really is a consideration I would care about because quite frankly that would make it even more fun in my opinion). I was also thinking this probably would have to be a 'scheduled' thing as well so people know to show up. Or worst case a "hey [insert clan/nation here]! I'm calling you out. Show up at Cayman Brac with your big boy pants on. See you in 20 minutes." in global chat.

For those that are unwilling to start from scratch and/or are willing to wait until any wipe in order to pull the trigger on any move, this is a compromise for the main complaint I have been seeing with respect impact of the lower population on this server.

I know there are a lot of calls for server merge. But until then please remember your server tags in your posts!

So with recent complaints of "it's too far to find PvP", "I'm tired of fighting empty/undefended port battles", "There is no one around to fight", etc. I am proposing we declare a PvP Free-for-All zone. Normally I hate arena style contrived PvP but given recent server issues, this is probably a reasonable compromise. What this entails is that any individual, clan, etc. looking for PvP create an outpost in Cayman Brac (or other?) where if you really want to fight, show up and anything goes independent of any nation agreements, cease-fires, alliances, non-aggression pacts or anything else that would have bigger consequences for fighting other than losing your ship. You want to fight? You don't know where to find it? Come solo. Come in groups. Attack whoever. Join whatever battles you want on whatever side you want. The trick will still be to align play times for various parties that are interested. Reinforcement zones and invuln/invis joining have been disabled so that makes things a lot more simple. But looking at the map I wanted to try and find a port that was close enough for most people to sail to but out of the way enough that it would not interfere with any conquest fleets the might be moving around. Based on that, Cayman Brac seemed like a reasonable choice but other suggestions would be welcome. Could this work? Is it worth trying? Anyone interested? Any other suggestions?

I would think it would make sense but one alternative thought would be to have it only be a spot that only allows you to sell or trade from. It wouldn't show up on your Home screen as an available ship (it would be in the drydock not the actual dock). It would show up in your select screen when trading and would also show up when putting it on the market. It is annoying that as a crafter when you can't have a full complement of usable ships like everyone else when you have to reserve one spot for crafting/trading purposes. It would also invalidate the magic teleport option for ships eliminating the remote shipyard that can magically transport new ships (other players could still do it after trading/buying it of course but that is another discussion entirely).

I am pretty sure the Brits forgot the conversion to/from server time changed by an hour for daylight savings time. Easy mistake and seems quite unfortunate that ends up being the reason they didn't mount more of a defense.

I love how every time the stories get told: The number of Pirates that re-rolled French grows larger. The amount the bounty on Slamz' head ultimately got to gets bigger The amount Slamz supposedly paid to get OMG to re-roll gets bigger This is how legends are made.

I think he was referring to the peace negotiation approach the Pirates took with the French and the same approach the Brits used with the Swedes/Danes as points of comparison. This is I guess what sets France apart on this server. We actually want "win-win" scenarios. Not "take this or die" ultimatums. The best deals are those where both sides believe they got the better end of it. I think all three parties come out ahead in this deal.