Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Everyone has opinions and this is just mine. But this post has been a long time in the making. It’s not a rant or a covert plan to change game play to suit my needs – It’s a pilot’s perspective that loves this game. Appreciates the huge amount of effort that’s gone into its creation and wants EVE to live for ever. I’m concerned that I am going to lose my investment and the game I love because of one… just one failing on CCP’s part. It won’t take too long to explain, I hope.

I’ve been playing MMO’s for a long time – I started out in subspace, but found my home for 10 Years playing a game called Infantry before I stumbled quite accidently across a game called EVE-Online.

I downloaded the game and went on my way into the most amazing galaxy I’d ever seen! – I’m not an early eve player, but I joined the community in 2006 and already the galaxy was vibrant. Full with people, activities, alliances and much more. It was simply fantastic what CCP had created.

But I have one grave concerns – that no amount of PR – or cool features is ever going to quell.
Limits
What’s creating the limiting factor?
What’s stopping the sandbox in it tracks?
What’s forcing lots and lots of features and changes to account for this?
SPACE

Wormholes, Jump fatigue and many changes to SOV over the years have only been necessary because EVE is way too small. There is nothing to explore anymore - there is no grand experience to flying around the galaxy. You can do it in a day. There is no deep space to set course for and intergalactic politics are discussed among very few that control space.
We don’t just need twice the amount of systems. We need 100x maybe a 1000x the amount of systems and that’s only to begin with.

EVE grew fast – we conquered space and the mechanisms that govern it a long time ago. Eve players are determined as hell – from the era of 15km to the gate and the creation of the “0 on gate bookmark seller” to the latest shortening of jump range because entire capital fleets could transverse the known galaxy in a matter of min? Not even hours – just leading to more cyno alts and more characters to fly the capital ships (I’m a few days away to my third aeon pilot for just one ship) we will break this system to.

All the things I see lacking in EVE – the limitation of small groups, the need to be friendly with your neighbour (coalitions), the feeling that all the “good moons” are taken –that all of space is controlled – is down to a very small universe when you consider the current ship line up and the amazing way in which coalitions and alliances have been able to wield them – we are being limited even more by emerging mechanisms.

I know that there will be technical issue behind expanding the universe, but I’m not sure eve has a bright future without the consideration. Numbers of unique pilots are not rising and my dreams have been long smashed by the obvious monopolisation of the top coalitions. (Props to them, it’s a major achievement)

The reasoning behind this post is because I think the size of the galaxy really needs to be put on the table. It will be mostly stagnated! That’s the point. Space is huge… and it doesn’t feel like that anymore. If you look at Elite: Dangerous and its 300+ Billion systems. Even with all that space, its working fine, online, I know where to go find myself a good fight… and people will in eve to.

I don’t want this implemented tomorrow – I just want it on the table.
Imagine a universe where you and your corp decide to create something on your own, somewhere it takes weeks to get to, somewhere you need REAL midpoints, to refuel the freighter – somewhere a market is so removed from JITA that it really does work independently.

In short, I’d like to see a bigger sandbox because its feeling quiet full atm. Everything has become about mustering numbers and the SOV changes that are proposed... are great, but it’s not going to change that theme. People don’t join coalitions because they really want to, it’s just as close as they will get to carve their own bit of space.

Games are emerging that offer this and id like it to be part of EVE’s agenda to. We need to move with the times and more and more the features of new space MMO’s is an almost endless galaxy. The potential that EVE has in that environment is absolutely massive.

I constantly read on forums that eve is essentially monopolised. If you want to remove that – make it so big that it’s not even feasible… OR EVEN BETTER! That when a corp/alliance/coalition does do it, it’s amazing! But avoidable! - Its space. It’s meant to be huge and endless.

I’m not very good at articulating what I want to say. It’s been hard for me to even write this. But I hope others who see the same thing as I do will speak up also.

I’m willing to wait, willing to see it moved to a completely new engine, willing to go through the teething issues. I’m not willing to watch EVE slowly become a stagnated political environment where only the few make there marks. Not without making a post about it at least and putting my argument on the table.

Please CCP – make EVE bigger – after everything that’s been achieved, it deserves the chance to carry on growing and I truly believe that it would.

I'm going to add this, its one of my responses to the reddit thread and the focus there on "Empty Null Sec" which seems to be the main objection and from my perspective rather short sighted.

JC X,

I cannot agree with you more, I still believe Eve is and will be the best Sandbox ever created, I believe it needs investment to make this happen. So many want it to be expanded it bids the question just how difficult is it. Maybe with its current engine its not possible but either way it would be great for the Devs to comment on Eve and future plans of expanding the universe.

That is really a topic I would like to see addressed by CSM.

I know that you cannot compare Elite with EVE, because the architecture is complete different but I really miss the feeling to be lonely in EVE.

+1