EVE General Discussion

I recently had a discussion on the Everquest forums about Everquest Next(III). Specifically someone was claiming that sandbox and EVE was a niche that should be left to be explored by EVE and Fantasy should be left out of it, because it is niche. EQNext is claiming to be a sandbox and I argued that John Smedley was right to go that route.

Certainly EVE is a niche in that space fantasy is a much smaller audience versus high fantasy. Let us ignore fr now that EVE SWTOR and STO are basically the only space MMOs out and their combined populations of around 2 million is dwarfed in comparison not jsut to wows 8 - 10 million but to Everquests 2 million and AoC and RIFT and etc...

But it is not "niche" in terms of success. Does it have room to grow? certainly, SWTOR and STO have populations, there are space players out there that do not have their needs or interests met with EVE and SWTOR and STO picked them up.

So we look at the subs and EVE is successful. Relatively low production cost which can be attributed to MUCH less need to produce "content". Instead EVE produces tools and rules. Certainly there are missions, but the majority of EVE is spent in this great meta game, building empires with tools rather than hand holding through an experience that NO developer could ever create for others to experience.

Thus EVE is not niche in that sense.

You cannot use WoW as a metric,it is an outlier.

SWTOR may have the same sub numbers as EVE, but EVE did not cost over 200 million dollars to make, didn't have a direct, intentional competition with WoW and didn't have the expectations that SWTOR has, neither does or should Everquest Next(III).

The example I used was that EVE has 20 - 45 K players LOGGED IN at any time. Login concurrency is, in my mind, the status of health of an MMO. It shows who has an active community. Yes they might be alts, but those are paid accounts. Someone had to pay for that PLEX.

Various games have more subs than EVE such as RIFT. The current F2P fad is making the water murky. I dont want to get into details about F2p vs sub, but what metric is left to make a more apples to apples comparison other than login concurrency?

To the best of my knowledge current typical MMO servers support 2000 players. If you take the most populous of those, EQ and EQ2 and divide over their 15 - 20 servers each it is around 2000 players each.

Divide EVEs basic 20K players logged in, divide that by EQs 20 servers and you have 1000 players logged into each server. That simply does not happen, even when expansions deploy, similar story with EQ2, RIFT, SWTOR etc. They simply do not have 1000 players logged in. If you consider EVE has many multi account players and that EQ and EQ2 have mercs, it becomes a wash, probably still favoring EVE.

So you see, EVE has shown that sandbox is viable.

Sandbox is successful, has lower development cost after release.

The next big MMO is going to have significant Sandbox components. From EQ2 and most likely EQNext as well as Neverwinter having player made content to Elder Scrolls Online having one "mega-server" and skill based leveling ala Skyrim, EVE needs to brace itself for new forays into Sandbox because some of us are here ONLY for the sandbox. Darkfall, and in two weeks Darkfall: Unholy Wars, is THE only other alternative for serious sandbox at the moment. I may go there but others are waiting for something new and better.

Adapt or die.

The Barbarians are at the gate.

It is coming. 10 million players on one server. Back to having Dungeon Masters, back to the true sandbox, your imagination.

I remember back in 2005 there weren't even Aura tutorials or career agents to guide new players, only a simple instructor drone that taught you rudimentary basics on how to control your ship and use the UI, the final instruction being to destroy the drone to show that you knew how to operate your targeting systems and weapons. From there, you were entirely on your own but there was no denying the sense of freedom and boundless adventure right there and then.

How is it that the players back then took it upon themselves to head out into the unknown, with all the inherent risks and dangers of going into uncharted territory, and accomplished so much with so little? Could the average new player today hope to do the same, or even half as much? Because for me, this is what EVE Online was all about, player-driven emergent game play that didn't depend on the game to spoon feed you from your baby steps up in the hopes that you won't somehow trip over and suffer a bruised ego or self-esteem and then rage-quit. No, back then the game left the players alone for the most part, and it was the players who created the unspoken rules, governments and, one might even say, societies in-game. It truly showed what groups of people could do if left to themselves, the sandbox concept was synonymous with social experiment, and that was what made EVE Online unique.

Frankly, I think EVE Online should go back to being the way it was those many years ago, and let a new generation of entrepreneurs, thinkers, military strategists and leaders come and reinvigorate New Eden like it did when the game first launched.

Well we'll just have to gank each other's hauler and mining alts

Most MMO's like WOW are finite.

Top end players will play, get the top gear then get bored. Months, if not years later an expansion will roll out and those top end players will complete it all in a matter of weeks and then revert back to the bored stage.

On top of that there's this constant power creep that rapidly kills the early part of the game.

EVE's a different beast, the "end game" and "top end players" are running their own content, creating more as they go. Forming huge wars, trade empires, partaking in espionage and generally making their own fun.

This is why CCP could spend 4 years just fixing stuff and although many would shout\cry few would leave and those that do leave would have left anyway.

Sure new ships are nice, if they're needed and serve a purpose beyond "More guns".

All the NPC additions to the games are nice if you like that kind of thing but they don't really affect the end game beyond jacking the price of everything up by dumping more isk into the world when not balanced properly.

the whole cry for "consensual PvP" has always struck me like entering a diving contest and then complaining about getting wet.

This game is not popular because a handfull hardcore players doesn't like it to be. But some people are opposed to progress, fearing the game will change from spaceships to avatar play and microtransactions. I was really looking forward to Incarna, and it saddens me that CCP threw the towel there. Perhaps they changed their mind: they don't want to make the best spacesim ever, but the spacesim those hardcore players want. In a game like EVE there is room for vanity items too. And more gameplay variations.

There's something wrong with some of you; I aplogize.

EVE is near 10 years old, changing the fundimental mechanics of the game now is as good as shutting off the server. Tens of thousands of us have been here for almost as long as EVE has been live, many longer. We've supported the game for almost a decade.

They killed WiS over a few thousand people cancelling over an unrealated issue; you'd have to be a grade A moron to think that the walk-out and uproar would be anything less than NGE level rage. Considering the games been live for nearly a decade, SoE end up looking like saints compaired to CCP, and EA/ Origin would be visionairies.

1) EQ, EQ2, Saga of Ryzom, Rift, SW:ToR, DCUO, City of Heroes.

Each one of those games offers PvE without PvP, NONE have done better or been more seccuesful than EVE. City of Heroes is shut down, Saga of Ryzom has been sold like twice, EQ2 is free to play and ToR is going free.
EVE is still running as a subscription MMO, and has been one of only a few that have had continual growth over the last 10 years, they weren't a AAA stuido, and they weren't backed by any major publishers. Game devlopers have been listening to you guys for the last 7 years, and the games have sucked; not one of them doing any better than EVE.

In fact, the only MMO that ever "competed" with WoW, was a free for all MMO that had an incredibly harsh death penalty, Lineage 2.

Only the blind and ignorant would think that "no pvp in high sec" would bring more people to EVE.
EVE does not have a reputation for "fun" PvE. Every person I know that's wasn't into PvP and tried EVE have quit for the same reason, the PvE sucked and bored the hell out of them.

You could play the exact same kind of never ending, repetitive, grinding, mission based PvE in City of Heroes. City of Heroes has been shut down.

CCP already advertises EVE as a game you can "be a pirate" or "be the bad guy", and makes being the bad guy pirate as big a pain in the ass and as unprofitable as they possibly can.

Every person that wants CCP to remove PvP high sec should seriously quit EVE. I'm sorry, but you have to be a raging douchebag to buy a game and sub to it knowing goddamned well what kind of game it is, and then demand it be changed to something else because you found out that the game you're playing really isn't your cup of tea.

You guys are the worst part of EVE online.

I'm already never going to get to see WiS because of the crybabies that can't handle seeing EVE become more than just a spaceship game. Which is one of the BIGGEST excuses I hear for why many will not play or stick to EVE, they don't like "being a spaceship"; not "I have a one in godknowshowmuch chance in getting shot in high sec".

It took 5 years for me to get blown up in high sec for god; WTF is wrong with some of you.

You guys are the wrost people to listen to. Someone will make a game like EVE with no PvP and you guys will rush off to play it, then quit a few months later when you realize that it's boring. Just like most WoW players do for every new themepark MMO that hits the market.


A safer high sec does not equal more subs. Better, more fun, and varied content is the only thing that will ever have a benefitial impact on the number of people playing EVE. People play EVE for what it is; not what some of you think it should be.

In WoW, it's easy and risk-free to be a carebear and the game gives you plenty of incentives to be one. If you win, you gain the admiration and praise of those you tried to protect. If you lose, no big deal, just move your spirit to your corpse and resurrect with no loss to your items, wealth or stats. Players on your side can't harm you in return so you don't have to worry about turncoats.

In EVE, the stakes are exponentially higher, you have more to lose and the consensus is "trust no one". That guy you tried to save could just as easily turn around and blow up your ship and pod, there are no hard-coded fealty to one's faction or empire. That's not to say that there aren't noble "white knights" in EVE willing to come the rescue of others; it just means people tend to think twice and sometimes change their mind rather than risk their safety and hard-won assets to what could potentially be traps and scams set up by unassuming players seemingly in need of help, who may or may not be what they seem.

In short, the onus and responsibility for one's survival in EVE falls on yourself.

Don't know about the Sleipnir, but i like doing lvl 4 missions in a myrmidon. Doing lvl 4's alone in a myrmidon, is not great isk/hr, but it's fun. I guess it might get better if the myrmidon, gets upgraded to 5 heavy/sentry drones, which seems to happen when battlecruisers get rebalanced.

At the moment i think a 2 man team, myrmidon and talos is great for level 4 missions. It's not to slow, and you may loose a ship if you don't pay attention.

It's interesting.

I have a lot of neices and nephews, and I commented the other day that it seems like they have no imagination. I thnk I said something to one of them about going outside and using your imagination and they looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

I tihnk my mom was bitching about them playing video games all the time.

Kids are going to be really smart when they grow up. I watch 3 year olds playing games on iPads and iPhones. The interactivety that kids get out of divices, and at such a young age today is amazing, all of it being pumped into developing brains.

And it's killing the part of the brain you use to "imagine".


It's not suprising that so many people refuse to accept that the future of MMO's isn't going to be more themeparks and developer created content, it's going to be sandboxes.

Where in my post did I say I wanted EvE to change? Take a second look. I said the population demographics would change IF PvP rules were changed.

Also, you are correct that population stats are not objectively listed by CCP. So we can't know the real numbers with any degree of accuracy. But all you have to do is fly around and it becomes obvious that there are huge numbers of hi sec players and 0-10 in most low/null sec systems and often I'm alone in low/null systems for a couple of hours. I think it's reasonable to conclude that there are vastly more players logged on in hi sec at any given time.

To get back to the OP's topic of EvE's limited popularity: I think most people have correctly identified the reason as non consensual PvP and all of the issues that go hand in hand with that.