Wednesday, September 09, 2009

News The Second

The first details of the sovreignty changes have been annouced! Hat tip to CCP_Fallout over twitter.

Let's jump to the important things shall we? Here are snippets from the blog post:

Sovereignty will no longer be tied directly to starbases.
[...]
There are no sov ‘levels' anymore; you either have sovereignty or you do not.  The mechanic for claiming a star system will be much more simplified and symbolic.  You will plant your ‘flag' in the form of a new claiming module and it will sync up with the traditional ‘borders' of a star system, namely the stargates.
[...]
When Dominion is released, the answer is simple - if you want to control the space accessed by these stargates, you will be responsible for their monthly maintenance and upkeep.  The current design calls for this to be a simple ISK transaction, representative of things like duct tape for reactor maintenance, Amarrios breakfast cereal and other important stuff.
 [...]
Essentially, we are going to give you the tools to improve the space you hold.  There will be many ways you can do this, but they will all fall under one of three categories: Military, Economic and Industrial.
 [...]
The idea is that some areas of space are obviously considered of less worth than others and always have been.  This is going to change.  YOU are going to change it.  Through the investment of time, money and effort at all levels, an alliance will be able to directly affect the value of and develop the space they hold.  This will consist of things as simple as investing in improvements that allow your members to discover new riches in systems long thought barren and useless.  The resources were always ‘out there', hidden or out of sight, and now you will have the tools to access them.  Other developmental areas will concern the expansion and efficiency of your industrial base. 
[...]
The goal is to provide incentives for you and your allies to not have to spread out so much in order to provide reasonable rewards for your pilots.
 [...]
Without going into too much detail, Treaties will be a fully functional mechanic that formalizes many of the agreements already in game.  The plan is to give alliances the tools to ‘rent' out areas of their space to other alliances or corporations, create formal military treaties and establish diplomatic boundaries with regard to your alliance interests.

I swear CCP devs must read my blog! ;-)

A lot of the ideas I've had are shining through here, a case of great minds think alike. Stargates being important in sovereignty, making each system capable of supporting more pilot's income generating activities, more development opportunities in systems... its very good stuff.

For the first time I'm excited about the sov changes in Dominion. Let's get more details!

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:22 am

    So so interesting. I don't know a lot of course about how sov works now, other that consensus seems it is boring and flawed, but just reading this explanation of how it will work already makes me think "Of course it'd work like this."

    The treaties aspect is especially intriguing. Again, not sure how all of it works currently but I assume any "renting" out is done despite the game mechanics. It looks like Alliances with large sovereignty may actually benefit financially more from allowing other corps to rent space, develop it, improve it's value, etc, than it will be to gobble up the universe and everyone in their way… Which will give them real dominion (i'm clever) over their empire.

    Anyway, yes, this news has the wheels turning.

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  2. This sounds VERY interesting and adds some feeling of immersion. Not to mention the players get to play with the sand in the sandbox. Hope it will be as nice in reality as on paper.

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  3. I don't think I have been as excited by a dev blog since Factional Warfare got announced. Too bad that didn't turn out so well. But really this is just what I have been looking for. I really like the idea of limiting the efficiency of the giant blobs of alliances so we can start to see small entities living in and developing nullsec. This will lead to more smaller scale skirmish warfare and thats just what I have wanted for years now.

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  4. "I swear devs must read my blog! ;-)"

    It has to be true, after all look at the Home Improvement section:

    "And we are going to give the Rokh +25m3 drone bay space!"

    Kidding, kidding...but who could resist? ;)

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  5. Agreed with everyone else in that this definitly had me drooling. Though as with many other CCP announcements, it left a LOT of unsaid details. I feel very good about what they're hinting at but they're still a lot of grey areas, areas that i feel have already been pointed out in the forum comments, that could make this one large fail cascade. But I have to admit, I agree with a couple comments especially. Sounds like its going to be one hell of a show when these sovereignty changes get put into effect. Get the popcorn, chips and beer! We're in for a party! :)

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