Low Sec = No Sec

Welcome to the twenty-first 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from @ZoneGhost who a few month ago asked “Is Low Sec the forgotten part of EVE Online?” Is it? I’d like us to explore this even further. Is Low Sec being treated differently by CCP Games than Null Sec (Zero-Zero) or Empire space is? Can one successfully make a living in these unsecured systems where neither Alliance nor Concord roam to enforce their laws? What’s needed? Or is everything fine as it is?

I titled my post “Low Sec = No Sec” because of the way I play.  I’ll explain that in a minute; first a bit of history about my play styles.

I started EVE not knowing a thing.  Queue that XKCD image with a nasty learning curve.  It really wasn’t that bad, I came from EQ1 beta “wtf do I do now?” days.  Hell, I was happy it wasn’t as linear as World of Warcraft, to be honest.  I joined a mining corporation that hung out in the Everyshore region.  Then, low-sec looked like a place where the ore may be better (and sometimes  existed only there) but there were “bad guys” there.  The police still responded, but slower; I thought that mattered.

I lost a few ships right away to some curiosity about gates, guns, low-sec   movement, etc.  Hell, I never realized the D-Scan was good for anything.

Today, I play as an annoying high-sec pirate.  With a new character.  I make my money off of your hard work.  (Thus the name of this blog: “Diary of a Garbageman.” – if you cleaned up your stuff I’d be broke.) To me, there is no difference between low-sec and high-sec.  I just find killing people in high-sec to be harder.  Not that I get many kills to begin with, I enjoy very much the social engineering that is required to go into a high-sec kill.

That said, I’m currently working an alt in a wormhole.  That’s totally different, and to be honest, I don’t know that I like it too much.

In terms of the actual question in the banter: I don’t think CCP gives any more or less attention to the different security status levels of the systems/regions.  I have always seen the 3D map showing sec status as a bit of a ‘we started here and the rest, there be dragons’ kind of thing.  It would be cool if sec status _changed_ over time, for instance.  Maybe with NPC border skirmishes, helped by the players, too.  Almost like the Sansha invasions, possibly.

In short, I don’t feel there is any real difference between low-sec and other sec levels, nor do I feel CCP has done anything wrong, etc.  I look forward to exploring more of the lower-sec space, but to be honest, it will be with the sole intent of finding new and surprising ways to piss people off and take their money.

Here are a few other links within this current Blog Banter:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: The Lure of the Wild
2. Subs’ suds: Forever a noob in Eve: Low-Sec – the forgotten part of EVE Online
3. Blog Banter XXI – Lo-sec = Low Priority? | I am Keith Neilson
4. where the frack is my ship?: Blog Banter 21: What’s good for the goose…
5. Blog Banter #21: Change? | Sarnel Binora’s Blog
6. Friggin Low Sec
7. Low Sec = Wild West
8. In The Ghetto
9. Banter 21: Low-Sec
10. Arr, Yer be talkin’ bout me lowsec
11. Low Sec: I wanna talk to you
12. Fish Heads and Baby Ruths
13. Change?