How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Crimewatch 2.0

The Den collects articles of general wisdom, from philosophical musings to the examination of game mechanics, to simple tales of great hilarity. This one is about miners, things that go "bump", and high-sec mentality.

The times, they are a-changing

One of the biggest changes coming to our little slice of EVE this December is the overhauled Crimewatch system with a new "suspect" flag. If you do something illegal, everyone in EVE can shoot you for fifteen minutes. This opens the door for vigilantes, "white knights" or whatever you want to call them to come to the aid of a mission runner and asplode your boat. Even opportunists sitting at gates or stations might take a shot. This makes ninjering a whole lot more dangerous than it was.

Oh shit I got a flag!

Me, I'm not worried. I believe the vast majority of high-sec residents simply don't have the chutzpah to actually get up and do something with this new flag. Allow me to illustrate.

James 315 and the New Order of High Sec

You may have heard about this whole miner bumping business which has gradually been picking up steam over the last few months. If you don't follow the official EVE Forums (which you probably shouldn't) you'll have missed some hilarious shitstorms which have been stirred up by miners who are really, really angry. Angry and utterly incapable of helping themselves.

The "too long, didn't read" of it is that James 315 came up with a new way of torturing miners after the hitpoint buffs to mining barges and exhumers made suicide ganking impractical. An overpowered ship can bump a miner out of range of his rocks and, with persistence, keep him out of range indefinitely. This might be classed as harassment were it not for the New Order offering the miners a way out: pay 10 million ISK and adhere to a code of conduct to be left alone for a year.

Whether you buy into the New Order's professed ideals, or consider it simple extortion, a donations scam, or even just a clever facade to keep the petitions at bay – it works. The New Order has collected billions of ISK in donations from entertained players. And tears. Mighty rivers of sweet, sweet tears the likes of which haven't been seen since Hulkageddon.

One angry miner.

Have a look at their bingo card and spot the similarities to some of the things mission runners throw at us. "This is an exploit?" Check. "Try working for your ISK honestly?" Check. "I know powerful people in null-sec?" Check. I love that last one. It's a well-known fact that the major null-sec coalitions are all about keeping high-sec carebears safe and unmolested. Heh.

Resistance is futile

Compare the success of the New Order to its counterpoint, the Proveldtariat. It is composed of exactly one bloke with a blog. It has achieved exactly nothing, save for some mildly entertaining reading. It has a list of suggestions to counter miner bumping and they're actually pretty good, but no-one is employing these techniques. But why? Why do miners not take some of the simple precautions that could safeguard their operations? Why do they not band together, even if just to share intel? Why do they not stand up and do something to protect themselves?

Here's why.

The answer is simple – these people don't want to play with others. And the majority of high-sec mission runners is like that too. I have no statistical data to back that up of course. I say this from experience, having encountered hundreds of them. Old players who've never been out of their NPC corps. Players who have no idea how to fit a ship (the fact that they can run missions in them being a testament to how borked EVE's PVE is). Players who couldn't find Local if you wrapped it around a trout and slapped them in the face with it. They're out there in great numbers. And they don't want to play with you or anyone else. Not even to help themselves.