Risk, Reward, and Risking the Reward: The Eve-Dust Connection

CCP have gone through some iterations of what they "want" from the Eve-Dust link.

First it was that Dust players are mercenaries selling their services to the highest bidder. Eve players will want to hire Dust players in order to procure various benefits which we'll be introducing. Dust players will want to coordinate with Eve players in order to pay for their various FPS pursuits.

I'm pretty convinced this was one of the most masterfully executed pieces of PR that CCP have ever pursued. There was more than a hint of implication that only Eve players would have any real control over what battles were fought, and that any metagaming implications were mostly to be concentrated on the space side of affairs. It was just enough to placate any of the very natural fear of change as Dust got underway.

To this day CCP still call Dust players mercenaries, but that's completely incorrect. At best it's a continuing marketing ploy. Most Dust players are soldiers.  We're as much "mercenaries" as anybody in nullsec is an "employee" of their corporation.

So yeah, pretty much everyone involved knows that the previous vision of Eve-Dust integration is as outdated as breach assault rifles and hurricane fits. Where CCP seem to be going with it now is arguably worse. Today's typical rhetoric gets pointed towards the Eve-Dust link being "mutually beneficial" to both parties. But wait, there's more! An older Dust maxim mandates that Dust and Eve players be able to operate independently of each other and still remain competitive in their respective fields.

You see "mutually beneficial" and "competitive without each other" start to sound a lot like "consensual" to me when taken together. CCP have been driving towards an "opt-in" mentality for the Eve-Dust link using these themes. Let me pose this question though: Why should I bother investing time and resources in cooperating between games when I'm still competitive without that cooperation? There's no incentive unless I want to opt-in to that coordination for whatever other motive.

The driving idea behind this seems to say that denying a positive is always equivalent to a negative where it comes to human interactions. Taking away a production bonus is equivalent to losing a ship. Taking away an orbital strike in a game is equivalent to blowing up a clone with a grenade.

But that's completely contrary to all the other tenants upon which New Eden is founded. A link constructed of only mutual benefits is one where all parties are completely bereft of cross-game retaliation. All any threat contains is a chance at returning you to the typical status quo.

These design directions have seeped into CCP's monstrosity of an integrated link between Dust and Eve in Planetary Conquest. In case you don't know what the "benefits" are (http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/team-true-grit-brings-some-changes-this-may/):

Eve

• 10% manufacturing time reduction per Alliance/Corporation district with a Cargo Hub on the planet at which a POS is anchored up to a max of 40% 
• 5% POS fuel consumption decrease per district owned with a Research Lab to a maximum of 4 districts or 20%

As BENEFITS these are laughable in the first place. Who manufactures shit in low sec? Oh, and 20% less POS fuel consumption. Guess I'll have to make one less fuel run out to Molden Heath every month or so.

Dust

• The ability to receive Eve-based orbital strikes from pilots in your corp/alliance

This is also hardly a benefit. CCP's adherence to making sure that you can be "independently competitive" without Eve support means that there's an NPC variant of strikes that you can call that's basically the same as pilot orbitals. 

You'll see that the best you can do cross-game is threaten another alliance's bonuses. Dust -> Eve: I don't like you, so I'll make it so that your POS's consume fuel at the regular rate. Eve->Dust: I don't like you, so I'll make you use barely less effective orbital strikes by killing your pilots. 

Did I mention it's also boring to drop strikes and boring to kill people doing strikes? 

Community furor suggests that ISK transfer is the one thing which can truly link Dust and Eve. I think that's not quite true. Until CCP change gears and make the Eve-Dust status quo about both mutual threat and mutual benefit, there will be no real integration. 

There's a difference between risk-reward and risking just the reward. 

But hey, until then: 

ONE UNIVERSE // TWO WARS