What to do with High Sec?

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Since yesterday's post I've gotten a bunch of emails, discord DMs, and other notes about High Sec. I want to be clear here, I am not an expert at HS and what goes on there. My expertise is Low Sec, PvP, and the meta game surrounding Eve. I'm certainly not trying to pretend otherwise. There are a lot of people whose opinions I would trust on the subject above mine, like my friend Mike Azariah, and others of course.

Let me be clear, there should be no place inside of New Eden that could be considered "safe", except inside a station. Having said that there already exists a scale when it comes to levels of danger. A player in a 1.0 system should feel "safer" than a player in a 0.2 system. I would argue that might not always be the case. But that doesn't mean that everything gets thrown out with the bath water. I believe that most of us would tend to agree that High Sec isn't working as well as it should and that certain mechanics are, to one degree or another, broken.

As always my only goal would be to make it better, not worse. But in thinking about what better might look like, I wonder if we all have a good enough understanding of what exactly the goal of High Sec is exactly? What is the purpose of HS? I bet if you asked 10 players you'd get 10 different answers. Which is pretty normal, you'd get 10 different answers from 10 different Low Sec players and 10 different Null Sec players. But from a game design standpoint High Sec seems less defined than those, and especially when compared say to Wormhole Space.

For me HS served as the place I first learned the game. The place I first experienced combat, trade, community, and the pull of something more dangerous. When I fly thru HS on my alts I don't look at those in system as losers, or players without courage, or guts, or anything other than potential. Their potential might be different than mine, but that doesn't make it any less important to them. I learned a long time ago that it takes all aspects of New Eden working together to make things work. There is no Low Sec PvP without Industry, Mining, Exploration, and Trade. HS functions as a foundation for every other single activity in Eve, it is - and should remain - the Grand Pivot around which everything else turns.

Tahrl Cabot from Eve University wrote me a well-reasoned email that essentially proposes that HS function exactly like LS when it comes to War Decs. Aggressors get Sec Status hits that affect gate and station guns, etc., exactly the way they do in Low. This risk/reward loop is important everywhere in Eve and the idea has a lot of merit in my opinion. But this is only one idea. There are many ideas.

My "change of mind" was simply an acknowledgment on my part that it needed some consideration. Those of you that are quick to judge may not realize it, but a significant percentage of my alliance A Band Apart operates in HS. As well as every other section of space. I'm not only the CEO of Stay Frosty, but I also represent my Alliance players. I would also like their game to be better. And so would they.

I recommend reading this article from my friend Saint Michaels Soul - Non-RP – A counter to Evocation Adzhera’s article. He is responding to the original article that I was responding to yesterday. It seems the community is currently pondering these issues and I fully support that idea.

As always all I want is for Eve to be awesome for all players.