Well Aland went haywire because they never announced it was all fixed, and let any ID with ZOI get involved. It seemed pretty exciting for a while. Everyone wanted to forge alliances and have a big mini war in O3, and they did that because of CONSEQUENCES. RP consequences are more enticing to me than a cash bonus for a kill, or showing up to meaningless arcade style scenarios.
So what is next? end pvp except for scheduled events with sign up?
Imagine if...All ID's with ZOI could come, and both sides went from there. If the corsairs couldn't participate in the conquest of Liberty...I'm not torn up about it. The closer the Gauls get to the heart of another house, the more at a disadvantage they are. Liberty and Bretonia have the home territory advantage.
I will sit back and continue to dream of a situation where we are leaning away from arcade style (shallow depth) events with little problems regarding cash bonuses or whatever, and would just sent up NPC battleship bases to be siege-able.
What is the point of this event? Announcing an event is fixed in advance...is a start, in avoiding some irritation. Sadly not in my case. There is a huge wasted potential going on here every day. Just my opinion, but months ago people were coming out in droves when they thought what was going on would matter, and the consequences (such as losing Aland or not, or losing GC or not) and there was nothing special needed but the situation in itself. To me, this place is locked down for no real reason.
1 million, 5 million, 10 million? Do people not trade for money? A badge of honor is great, but it doesnt make me want to log a bomber or make a nice ship of some kind on an indie ID.
I imagine setting the battleships in contested zones or along front lines to have HP. When they hit 0, go undockable. First to 0 loses. (Imagine having to siege a chain of bases and battleships to conquer a system??? :O )
Now for those that cry about the potential loss of balance, feel free to take the initiative to balance things out. In these situations, where there are two sides and an actual risk, people usually split evenly. But yeah the situation may be imbalanced. You may have a small faction trying to take on a larger enemy and getting creative about how to do that. As to consequences, seems like if the Gallic battleships were taken out (after likely days of siege and battles around them) they can't maintain a push to capture california. If Liberty loses theirs, the system could be under serious dispute for a while. THE SAME SHOULD GO FOR NEW LONDON.
And, if, most people wanted to save California, they would likely succeed. I know most people fear imbalance in these situations but with enough notice, and some specialty items to provide advantages (like NEMP's) to the underdogs, it wont be so imbalanced a fight. Fixed events and balanced events do not always prevent player irritation or players getting in fights. Thats why I'm sayin just let the real sieges begin!!
EDIT: Also, THINK OF REPAIR SHIPS being able to be used on the npc ship under siege. Would things go so quickly? if Front lines dont change for a while, it will be because of constant player effort. Imagine most bases having HP, taking little bits of wear and tear. Navies and police would have something to do, like assigning people to be responsible for keeping track of bases, defending bases from raiders etc. And the REPAIR COMPANIES etc who would be needed to go out and maintain bases that are taking the odd scratch.