Break Vol: Blog Banter 13

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed CrazyKinux. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us from Zargy, A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled "Design your own EVE mission". My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

I've read a couple other banter posts, and so far, I feel everyone has the same general response to this. We aren't simply proposing new stories, but whole new ways to do missions. I have two, and I'm sure my two are echoed by one or more other banters.

Player Created Missions

I think this is really a no brainer. Players can create contracts, but they are rife with problems. One of the contracts that I'd like see made into a mission is the courier contract. I'm sure mining missions would be easy to do, too.

I would want this to be structured and anonymous, to a degree. The mission runner doesn't know the name of any capsuleer that put out the mission, and the mission requester doesn't know who is running the mission, or that it is even being run, until it is complete. I would not want capsuleers to be able to randomly create missions, though. I would want it to be a grantable role in a corporation. The corporation would have to hire mission agents (like renting an office) and missions would be posted on behalf of the corporation through the agents.

When one completes a mission, there is a standings increase toward a capsuleer corporation. Corporations at war, or in alliances that are at odds, can negatively impact standings.

Basically, I want to recreate the existing mission system, but have the whole thing fueled by the capsuleers.

Opposing Missions

Ms. Minme Tar accepts a mission. The mission is to defend a mining operation that is under attack. There are a few waves of hostiles that descend on the mining operation. Once the miners are done though, the mission is over, and Ms. Tar can return to her agent.

Meanwhile, Mr. A. Mar accepts a mission. His mission is to clear hostiles away from a gate and allow friendly warships to move through to complete their own mission. Eventually, one of those waves will return and report that the mission was a success or a loss. It depends on how quickly he can get reinforcements through the gate.

The careful observer will notice that these two capsuleers are increasing the difficulty of each other's mission. The faster Mr. Mar gets the gate clear, the faster waves descend on Ms. Tar.

I see too much abuse if capsuleers were to directly encounter each other in a mission, so I suggest a system where the mission they are in affects another mission in progress. Mind you, there may be times when the missions have to be time shifted. So, the activities of one mission are recorded and played back for an opposing mission some hours later.

This could be made as complex as one likes. Perhaps there was a mining mission first. The miner's performance dictates how long Ms. Tar must defend the operation.