EVE General Discussion

My character is 3 years old. But, I've only been actively following the game for about a year. In that year, I've noticed a lot of people unhappy with things and stuff. And I catch tidbits here and there, stuff I notice, stuff I don't...

-The module offlining issue
-The cargo hold issue
-I've heard about ships flying backwards. Never happened to me.
-I've been in small fleet battles (<70 ships on each side). Never had any lag issues. The only lag I've ever encountered in this game is 2 years ago trying to get into Jita

Bugs, but not enough to make me as up in arms as some seem to get. But, there were things that made me scratch my head:

-NEX as a whole. 1 PLEX for a pair of boots? I hadn't even considered the 'pay to win' idea. It just seemed for far outside what EVE is.
-The CQ lighting. I hate it. I'm told it's fixed in the upcoming release. I logged into Singularity (I know I'm a little behind on this) but I didn't see the new CQ. The lighting was somewhat better, though.
-One thing I really don't like is that CCP removed Aura's explanation of your selections in character creation! I thought that was phenomenal! It pulled you in right away. "The only true democracy of New Eden..." That could come back.
-There may be others, but I don't remember them right now.

Always, though, I have defended CCP against the really caustic players who insist that CCP is evil and malevolent and other things that can't be true when I'm staring at a galaxy of proof otherwise. I've always listened to players who constructively annotate their frustrations. Then, came the CEO's devblog. I felt a little foolish. In the letter, he openly admits that the vision was lost. That tells me that I never fully understood the original vision. And now, a failing EVE is no longer simply a meme, a way to poke fun at devs, but some people are legitimately concerned it may happen. And that makes me sad, for 2 reasons:

1)I love EVE. I love what it has done, and I love feeling superior to the players of The MMO That Shall Not Be Named.

2)I didn't fully appreciate what it was before this ongoing schism between player and developer. I started playing in Empyrean Age in Sep 2008. I was a carebear. To me, null systems were all labeled on the starmap: "Here there be dragons"

So, my question is: what am I missing? What is happening, that has so many people worried about the game's future, that I'm not seeing?

EDIT: I know I'm late to the convo. And I'm just going to go along with newfound cautious optimism.

I heard about that too. I'm excited. And yes, I am slightly late. I'm going to try and start paying more attention to the forums. I guess I was hoping for a bit of a recap. The thing that really got me is the talk of the Vision. I guess I don't understand what that is, and it makes me unhappy. I feel like I'm not doing the game justice.

I think to sum up:

Incarnia was a mistake that is being corrected in December. People were disappointed with Incarnia, and those same people are generally happy with whats on offer for Decembers release

The letter said that the mistake was marketing it as a full blown release, instead of an addition to an existing release. To elaborate, this would imply skewed priorities, I guess.

BOOT.INI

The best patch.

About a year and a half ago, CCP did a blog outlining changes to how they are going to deliver the game.

Going from an "expansion" model to a stream of smaller updates - pieces added 1 at a time so they can see that they work correctly vs a big load of stuff then "patch", "patch", "patch" after the release of "finished" works.

The result tends to be a steady stream of updates and fixes but only declared 'cut points" between the updates - name changes style versus any real break in the stream of changes/fixes.

So out comes a blog on what's to be done. Then "incomplete" (compared to older releases) pieces of it stream out. Lots of upset at the missing portions.

An easy example I like to use:
Character creator comes out - then tattoos are added later, then more and piercings - so on and so forth. A rather successful and appreciated (by most) addition to the game but as the "stream" of changes came out - a lot of outrage that it wasn't "complete" and how things were missing.

Incarna is following the same design/implementation model and so is the NeX store - incomplete at the start with a stream of changes planned except, with these "streams of changes" many blew gaskets at what was being released and how it was "jammed in their faces" in an incomplete fashion.

Lots of other little things too but that's a general outline of where some of it comes from.

To sum up:

Only two full releases have been met with real success: Trinity and Apocrypha. I was around for Apoc, and I saw that success. Reason for this is a periodic dose of humble pie, similar to what Mr. CEO released recently?

The vision, according to Kaar, is a total scifi experience. That's what I thought, though I will admit that I was a little blinded by the sudden release of avatars. I just thought it was a great addition. But - to change topics slightly for a moment - that's all it should have been. Not a standalone release. By hyping it so much, the feeling is that they were spotlighting that one little piece, and neglecting how it fit into the galaxy as a whole. I understand that there are people who simply don't care about the avatars. But for those who like the idea, it was execution that was the major offense. There are other issues that would create more immersion than that, if addressed. So we tack neglect to the board.

The new style of content delivery is an issue. Namely, that the released pieces are incomplete themselves. That is a problem. The character creator, while I do like it, was more comprehensive, but was, and still is, missing a few things from the old system.

Okay, I think I'm up to speed. Thank you all for the informative responses, and for all the thinly veiled insults (KaarBaark), I don't want your bittersauce. It's too bitter.

Any thoughts on what Santa Claus is going to bring you this year? A brain cell maybe?

I don't either.

You are beneath contempt. You parents made a serious mistake.

Filthmar is trying to save his butt. As long as you keep paying, he keeps winning.

I'd love to see a full immersion space exploration simulation.

Chances of CCP providing one that doesn't cost you organs? 0%

Chances of the current version of the human race producing it? 0%.

We aren't good enough.