[Jester's Trek] That's just the way it is
That's just the way it is
I apologize in advance: this one's going to come off sounding like a bit of a rant.
I find myself increasingly losing patience with some of the things we've all just come to accept in EVE Online as "that's just the way it is." It doesn't have to be. Most of these things are quite easy to fix or to change. Almost nobody wants these things to be the way they are. But everyone involved from the developers to the players has come to accept them and not even really think about them any more.
Problem is that I've been trying to introduce new players to the game here and there, and many of them see and laugh at these quirks... or more often, include them in lists of reasons why they stop playing. So I thought I'd list some of them and ask why they are the way they are.
As you read these things, just realize that we accept all of these things. Why do we accept them? Are there good reasons for them?
Why does autopilot drop you 10km from the gate you wish to go through? The only reason I can think of is so that other people get a full four or five minutes to scan your cargo and see if they want to suicide-gank you. Wouldn't it be nice if these people had to develop some actual EVE-playing skill? It's funny how many macros have sprung up over the years to avoid this.
Similarly, I am apparently one of the few mutants that flies strategic cruisers without using an eject macro to prevent skill-point loss. Is there still a good reason for this loss?
Similar to that one, why doesn't the game automatically ask you if you wish to upgrade your clone after you get podded? The only reason I can think of not to is to punish drunk people and forgetful people. Is EVE deliberately trying to chase off such people, or is it a sociology experiment to determine how many times the same player will retrain the same skill?
I have a high-sec POS. This means I have to buy Starbase Charters from the Loyalty Point store. But I can only buy them one hundred at a time. When I buy them, I buy 5000 of them. That means I have to click a little "Accept" button fifty times. God help you if you want to buy Navy Cap Boosters in any quantity. Again, there are readily-available macros to help you avoid RSI from that click-fest.
I've asked this one before, but it bears repeating: why is my ability to put up a high-sec POS limited by the pilots in my corporation that the Empires hate? Isn't this a bit like Mexico refusing to let Ford build a factory there because a Ford janitor said something mean about Mexico once?
Another one I've asked before: why can I bribe CONCORD and the Empire navies to look the other way while I shoot some dude in high-sec (war-decs) but I can't bring my -10 security status character into high-sec and bribe them to look the other way while I don't?
Why does character security status exist at all? If EVE is a dark, cold universe, can't we all just assume that EVE is a dark, cold universe all the time?
Why can't I put a bounty on anyone I wish to?
Why must I look at every single PI extractor on every single planet on every single character I have, one at a time? Why doesn't the game allow me to right click on a PI planet and select "Restart all extractors"? Yes, I realize that means I might lose a tiny bit of efficiency here and there.
Why is the only ship that can carry other ships in an SMA in high-sec a mining support ship? Specifically: why must I train mining skills to fly it? You would think there would be an industrial ship that could do this by now.
I tried to introduce a new player to the game. He quit after a week, then started ranting about a variety of new player topics. He kind of amused me with this one: "During the tutorial, why does the game give me a weapon that can shoot a maximum of five kilometers, then give me a slow spaceship... and then put the spawn points 40 kilometers away from me?"
Then he started ranting about how all the things he needed to buy to fit his ship to complete the tutorial missions were only for sale ten jumps away from the tutorial missions. I didn't have the heart to tell him that longer-term EVE players think of ten jumps as "a short trip." I also didn't have the heart to tell him the market he was looking to buy these things from was way more expensive than longer-distance alternatives.(1)
Why oh why can we select a large block of different items, and reprocess them, trash them, repackage them, move them, or contract them... but we still can't sell them?
Similar: why must I buy every piece of a ship fitting separately? Wouldn't it be cool if you could just drag a ship fitting into a market window somewhere and the game just asked you "This ship and fitting will cost 31.7 million ISK in this market. Buy it?"
When I have 100 items for sale on the market, why must I individually right click each one and select "View market details" to see if I'm selling it for the lowest price for that item? Wouldn't it be kind of cool if I could get a display of those 100 items, what I'm selling them for, what market I'm selling them at, and what the lowest price is for that item at that market?
If I select "sell item", then "advanced", why doesn't the game just go ahead and assume that I'd like to beat the lowest price on that market and set that as my default price? Where does the price it selects come from?
When something is for sale on contract only in Jita, why can't I just accept the contract from another region? Is there a good reason for this?
And finally, the grand-daddy: why must we all have Jita alts? Is there a good reason for me not to be able to look at what prices are in any market I choose?
Answer to all of the above: that's just the way it is.
I'm sure I've missed a lot of these. Weekend homework assignment: what are your biggest "that's just the way it is" pet peeves with EVE? Discuss.
EDIT (28/Jul/2012): Lots of comments, which is not surprising. SerpentineLogic probably has my favorite so far: why must we wait 24 hours between clone jumps?!? The blog post proposes a new skill to shorten the time between jumps. I propose just nuking the wait time. What reason is there for it at all? Great comments, everyone!
(1) He created a Minmatar character.
Source: That's just the way it is