Dirty Deeds

There's been a decent amount of concern over on the Eve Forums that the F2P option will fill the server not with new players, but with existing players making HiSec travel even more dangerous with a swag of ganking alts that cost them nothing to train. It's a fair argument too, when you look at the capabilities of a Gallente Alpha Clone in a gank Catalyst destroyer.

In the past I've organised a few gank ops in and around Osmon with my Corporation mates targeting Marauders and other Faction Battleships. For the most part we weren't too fussy and didn't scan our targets to see if they were using expensive modules, we just wanted to piss in someone's cornflakes. Of course, being HiSec, we got our fair share of very shiney kill mails and made the experience ISK positive very comfortably. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I seem to remember the initial outlay for about thirty fitted gank Cataylsts cost about 300 million ISK and the returns were several times that number, not to mention the "luls" that you just can't put a number on.

It's also fair to assume that HiSec suicide ganking isn't typically the domain of people new to the Eve universe, so the concerns being voiced are certainly justified. New players, bless their unjaded, idealistic souls, are ignorant to the the cunty tactics that are employed every day in New Eden.

That said, does it make any difference at all to a bitter vet if the game is F2P?  Unlikely. We still have skills we want to train, advancements we want to make and to be able to enjoy those skills to the best of our abilities. What F2P does enable is those players who, for whatever reason, aren't able to maintain a subscription, maintain a useful presence.

More importantly, it's an entirely legitimate way to make a living. In a previous posts I wrote about ratting as a good option for an Alpha Clone player, but suicide ganking, if you can manage good target selection, would do the job just fine. Anyone with the intent could easily make enough ISK to buy a PLEX every month. If it has to be at the expense of another player then so be it, I say. Just think of it as an Eve Survival Tax. If you want Eve to survive, you need these guys to subscribe.