EVE General Discussion

Maybe you should actually look at the charts rather than just link to them. Do you see the peak in 2011-01-06? Do you see the direction it takes from there? The one that wasn't reversed until 2011-11? It started with Incursion, not Incarna, and it ended with Crucible.

Or look here: http://eve.beyondreality.se/pics/PopAvgs.png - it's the same data, filtered to remove some of the noise. Again, look at the peak in 2011-01 (Incursion) and what happened afterwards. In particular, look at the rolling monthly/quarterly/half-yearly averages from that period all the way until 2011-11. Notice also that Incarna simply continued this trend — while it may indeed have made the trend more drastic, it certainly did not cause it. Also notice that in terms of peaks, there is one just before Incarna (it was an AT final and midsummer and pre-patch hype week-end — all of which were gone the next week).

I know that the pervasive narrative is that Incursion ruined everything. It didn't. It was a perfect storm of two cases of failed delivery, two cases of failed business model meddling, one or two cases of failed community outreach (depending on how you count), failed communication, and general technical failure. But it still wasn't the start. In reality, if you actually look at the data, it started with Incursion — a standard PvE expansion that do what PvE expansions always do: create a short-lived bump of interest which peters out quickly and leads into a decline of subs and activity. In retrospect, the only thing that keeps Incursion from being remembered as an abysmal failure is that the sheer drama of Incarna takes away attention from it and that drama and time proximity does curious things to how the brain sets up patterns of cause and effect.

It's entirely possible that the trend actually started with Tyrannis, but that there were enough good tools in the “patch” part of both it and Incursion (in other words, the first two stages of Incursion at the end of 2010) to keep people around. Also, it was only 6 months into the :18 months: so it wasn't as obvious yet that nothing was happening as it became in Incursion and the “expansion” content ran out after two weeks. What Incursion did was to fail to deliver the increase CCP were looking for, and instead made them lose subs at a rapid rate. Incarna later came along and cemented this trend and added enough outcry over the perfect storm to make people actually notice this loss. Also, note the timing of the lay-offs. They happened in October, three months after Incarna. Even though some 10% of the population was lost due to that storm, that's still far too little time to make that kind of large adjustment.

Again, the losses that caused the lay-offs started much earlier (just as the Incursion content was being consumed) and Incarna simply failed to reverse that trend the way they had hoped. Six months of nose-diving numbers and “the greatest expansion ever’ failing to deliver the influx of customers and cash that was needed to placate the investors and allow for sufficient recapitalisation to keep going as normal.


…and both are irrelevant for the purpose of predicting what will come out in 2018, just like how Red Moon Rising and Revelations could not predict what would happen in 2010–2011. It's simply too far off and it ignores the history of expansion releases. Hell, I'd say that if you only joined two years before Incarna, you don't have enough perspective (although it would explain the whole 2-year vs 5-year prediction error — you go with what you know, after all).


It would be understandable if people made sensible comparisons. As it is, they're trying to equate a 2-year process (or less — the fabled :18 months:) with a 5-year one, even though the history they're supposedly referencing shows that it's nonsensical to do so. Again, trying to predict what will happen in 2018 based on a single expansion in 2013 is like trying to predict the Tyrannis-Incursion-Incarna triplet in 2006. If the rumoured space expanding was going to take place next winter, and we were currently being handed the equivalent of Tyrannis in terms of content, then maybe… but that expansion is five years off, not scheduled for a year from now.

And even then, a failed delivery and some communication problems only ticks one quarter of the boxes for the perfect-storm situation of Incarna.

Then will come the reality check. Maybe not as dramatic as Dinsdale Piranha put it, but certainly there's going to be a lot of puzzled silent majority in the next expansions, much as now there's some disheartened bittervets.

CCP are marketing the game to themselves. They're developing what they want to sell, but I doubt that there's enough players willing to buy it as to justify the alienation of everyone else.

Expensive stargates to new space to plant a flag on, massive fights over them... that's nullsec gameplay.

Everyone else will get... huh... "crumbles", did Ripard Teg say?

So WHO is going to pay for it?

I already said it. At least WiS was transversal -affected everyone, everywhere. Now nullsec may get Sov fixed (or don't, i'm gonna crack myself laughing if post-Rubicon development precludes Sov fixes ) and also will be handed 3 years of dedicated, almost exclusive development for them.

It's a bold move, certainly. And CCP haves my simpaties for daring.

What they won't have it's my money.

that would actually be hilarious, I hope CCP implements some subtle reference to it on the first stargate creation-jump

Be thankful your not egosoft at the moment, I imagine their accountants are crapping themselves at the moment. CCP take heed. :-)

Oh No...

I saw what those guys did to Ultima Online

I don't think CCP is on any kind of approach to what went wrong in the lead up to Incarna. While there have been a few issues from the community relations part of CCP lately, the game development side seems to be solid.

Also, you put a bunch of information in your post that is inaccurate.

First, yes Hilmar's apology did seem like a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation, and the player response at the time was, "Words mean very little to us, but we will give you a chance to show us." Also, Zulu is the person to blame for 1000 dollar jean comments, not Hilmar.

The communication from the game development people hasn't slowed down at all recently, just look at the features and ideas section, or the videos leading up to Rubicon.

Now your list:

1 - First, it wasn't trillions worth of ships it was hundreds of billions, and Somer weren't the only fan created "content" that was given ships. While I personally don't think SomerBlink adds much to the game their donations to other events did. This is a relatively minor issue compared to the communication issues leading up to Incarna. CCP didn't ban anybody who recieved the ships from talking about it so they weren't trying to hide it, they just didn't announce it.

So, a big backlash from the community, and CCP stopped the program that resulted in the issue occurring, overall very minor impact on the game itself, only community relations suffered.

2 - The community event really had one big issue, its own popularity resulted in severe TiDi and many jumps through it. The only part of the devblog response about it that showed success was the number of people who attended, it mentioned that TiDi caused issues with it, and that in the future a Titan bridge or something similar might be used to alleviate the TiDi many jumps issue.

So, interesting event, much better for the Null Sec groups, but information for future events was learned, the real question is how many people will actually show up next time.

3 - Why do people keep putting this stupid crap out there, CCP's official response to clear it up was pretty straightforward. You can claim xPLAYERx is your alt if they are without repercussions. It is making the claim that you are a player you are not in an attempt to scam somebody that is the issue. Even then it was how they were doing it before their announcement, they were just trying to make it so people knew that is what they were doing.

So, a complete non-issue in the end, a little bit of a miscommunication about the announcement and initial response from some GMs on the forums, but mostly a bunch of people posting incorrect information like you months after it ended is the only real issue.


Now, the difference between the issues with Incarna and where we are today. First, a decent number of people actually were looking forward to walking in stations, it was the lack of any actual content after years of development that was the issue. Especially because other features and issues in space were not improved during that time.
The difference with Seagull's current plan is that the road to her vision allows for small steps to get there that add something to flying in space gameplay. A new method for things to be deployed to space by individuals arrives with Rubicon, as well as new ships useful . Both are good incremental steps towards Seagull's vision without making promises that can't be kept.

Do cats use the sandbox?

CCP - unbroken track record for 2 years running.

I'm not buying it. EVE has evolved and changed with every expansion. The devs have communicated, rather splendidly too I believe, about rebalancing ships. Not one time, not twice, but time and again. The communication about ship rebalancing, a process that has been going on for a long time now, has been exemplary.

It is true that people will need to adapt to the new reality. But that has never been different.

There are now new challenges, but there are also a lot of new opportunities. This is EVE Online, it is not Candy Crush. You're supposed to use your brain when you do this. Cogitation is supposed to occur. The ship rebalances, the changes to warp speeds, the new space-deployable units and the Ghost sites, are new ways to engage us.

To say that people will run away because they can no longer mindlessly play space boat is not a compliment to the people doing this although, and it pains me to say it, for some people it might even apply.

This place is about the challenge. It is a stupendously rich environment where the player is invited to give expression to what they want to do in the environment, and to come up with ways to enhance the experience. That's what you came here for. That is what you're supposed to like doing. If not for that, why come here in the first place? To whine about the shaking screen and the loud noises?

The only thing that always has to stay the same is: that which is possible for one player has to be, or become, possible for every other player who wants to likewise engage.

Having been on the receiving end of freely distributed pirate munitions, I can tell you there is one thing about EVE that endeared me to these people: you get to shoot back. You are not supposed to take it lying down. There is no all-powerful faction, there are no ships that can't be destroyed. You don't owe anyone a play style, you make your own destiny. That's what you came here for.

If all that is too much of a burden, why does someone bother to make an account in the first place? And why do we have to be the victim of someone who can't find it within themselves to adapt and overcome? There are other places for them to be, there are other things for them to do. It'd be like someone with a huge stack of potatoes on their plate, bawling their eyes out and whining that they don't like potatoes while they're stuffing their face full of them. What sense would that make?

You don't want to 'get' what this is about or adapt to the changes [and there have always been changes], don't make it an issue. HTFU, give us your stuff and don't put yourself through this mental anguish by coming here griping about it.

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Charts are all specifically designed to show what the designer wants to show as opposed to what is actually going on.