EVE General Discussion

Eve is not about ~progression~, since making numbers go up faster with a more expensive ship is just more of the same.

There's a reason the most memorable moments in Eve are not at all related to player SP or how many purple modules your mission running autism chariot has, but about drama and large scale changes in the political landscape of nullsec and giant fights where thousands of people were sufficiently motivated to log in and play internet spaceships together.

Go play WoW or Asteroids (still a better rock shooting game than mining in Eve) if you want PvE.



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CCP's own metrics indicate that people who stick to highsec, are many times more likely to unsub from the game. People who leave highsec are more likely to stay for much longer. Source: CSM minutes.

Highsec makes people leave the game. You can argue that you would lose a proportion of the utterly entrenched if massive changes came in that stopped making perma-highsec life viable, but it's rather like cutting off a rotting toe to save the foot.

The trick isn't to move all development of eve around the carebear-entrenched mindset, but to create a game where people don't get stuck in that rut to begin with. As mentioned, people don't start playing eve because they heard you can min/max saving the damsel 400 times a month, that's a play-style they fall into because other options are too hard to break into.

The reason subs spike after things like BR is because 'HOLY CRAPOLA LOOK AT THOSE BATTLES I WANT TO DO THAT!!" - but then they start the game and everyone they ask tells them to never leave highsec. Then, they leave after a small amount of time.
On the contrary, when things like BR happens, our newbie drive goes totally mental, and we retain a very high proportion of these new players, because they aren't bored shitless in highsec, being given advice by carebears.

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a newbie speak up and ask if they should go exploring lowsec/0.0, only to have a dozen ultra-bears shout them down and tell them its a bad idea, instant death awaits, etc.

Those people should be purged from the game for the benefit of everyone else.

I was not offended in the least.

I must admit, I am starting to wonder if the transparent elections that have always been a there are a thing of the past.

Given the STV voting system they really need to remain transparent.

But then we have not actually even gotten confirmation as to the successful candidates on these forums by CCP.

2012: CSM winners released in the keynote, dev blog comes same day.
2013 CSM winners released in the keynote, dev blog comes out hours later.
2014 CSM winners released in the keynote, dev blog comes out......

Many truth's are spoken here. When i was a young capsuleer i went into low sec the second day i played the game, and withing three months i was in null sec. I also heard the carebears in high sec proclaiming "Don't go there! Its dangerous!", but that never stopped me. Sure, i was blown up a couple of times, but i also made HUGE profits. When i now return to high sec to get new skills i always see it as an unending sea of mediocrity and boredom. If advancing in this game is what you want, you need to get to null sec. This is where the big boys who make the headlines play, and this is where you can make a decent profit, be it mining, exploration, ratting or (in the future) industry.

I believe its a problem of the mechanics of the New Player Experience.

Straight out the gate you are presented with a neat stack of missions, and dropped in to a chat channel with the most entrenched players in the game (because players who have at least dipped their toe outside the starter corp drop back in to a different corp, so it is only those who have never left who are there to "advise" new players). So it is not surprising that the starter player drifts in to the highsec missioning lifestyle, either unaware of the alternatives, or aggressively advised not to take them.

I'm not sure there is any sane way to introduce a player to the politics and pvp side of the game right off the bat. I mean, the mission that suggests signing up to fleet war tries that, but paradoxically, it is more often the less aware players who are more likely to accept that offer unknowingly, and accidentally find themselves in fleet war, dead due to ignorance of mechanics, and scared further away from trying to pvp in a structured manner.

The problem is that the only alternatives presented to the player are mining, missioning, and exploring, and of the three, missioning is far more familiar territory to the former themepark dweller coming here from elsewhere. Industry is also presented, but the agonising problem of finding a free line remotely near a newbie system no doubt puts them off that at the outset - hopefully the Industry update will resolve this (there is an idea, tag tutorial Blueprints to exclude them from the price escalation of crowded systems?). Follow that with the blatant falsehoods and misconceptions parrotted in to the newbies ear, and no wonder they never make it in to the other part of the game. Much to my own disgust, I believed the "have to be this high to ride" fallacies, and didn't step foot out of Highsec until I had a fat enough wallet to fit out a half dozen battlecruisers, 15 million sp (so those BC's were all T2 fit), and a couple of months "training" time in RvB. And once I got out there, I realised exactly how much time I had wasted.

The vote totals are probably not out yet because CCP Dolan is letting his liver recover after fanfest. If I remember right the CSM minutes took an unusually long time to come out this year as well.

You are right though nerfing highsec is the best way to combat falling subs.