EVE General Discussion

Alts are present in every MMO out there. It has nothing to do with how interesting the gameplay is.

In EVE, two characters working together is much more powerful than if they're working alone. In a single player team sport game, like FIFA for example, duties of a the other players are handled by AI, which isn't available in EVE. In single player games like shooters or racers, having an alt available would certainly be a help, but things happen so quickly that a single person couldn't do both sides asks at once. Similarly, an EVE player trying to pilot hot a tackle frig and a DPS cruiser in the same fight would find it trembly difficult to keep up. However things often happen more slowly (which doesn't imply boring) in EVE, making alts possible. For example, jumping a travelceptor into a system of o scout before jumping the industrial in. Or setting up off grid boosts. Or lighting a cyno. Certainly two people working together can do these things, but a single person working alone can too, and that's often easier to arrange. The idea that time spent in EVE is boring and people create alts to fill the time with different activities is, IMO, quite incorrect.

Thanks for all the good feedback. Sorry I couldn't catch any of it 'til now. It's been interesting to read most of your comments, and a funny to see some reactions. I'll definitely bring a little more political correctness and sensitivity next time I title something.

I had my own thoughts on why all the alts, and you guys really helped break it down while sharing the things you love about Eve. I agree with most of you: the fun you have in Eve is a direct result of the work and creativity you bring. Optimizing your isk grinding probably won't get you there.

parties are made for 9 people groups

Alts are simply a response to bad mechanics, and you could probably write a performance function equation to get a "just how bad of a state are we in" index based on the average number of alts carried by most players. A well designed game would not encourage alts, or atleast no gain would be had from them.

What sort of alternate mechanics would you propose?

IMO, the power gained by having an alt is a reflection of the power gained by having two or more players working together. Change the mechanics such that having alt doesn't confer an advantage, and you'll also change the mechanics such that people playing together no longer have an advantage. Personally, that's not an EVE I would want to play in. Another option would be changing the EVE play style to be so fast-twitch that no single person has time to manage two characters. Again, not something I'd want to play.

problems I see about people having alts is more alts equals less reliance on someone else.
As one of the others stated that he cant keep his sec status above -5 so he uses an alt for logistics, he could use another player as there are people in game that would like to do a job that's not regularly done.
being a 1 account holder with my age and upbringing in the game I find little use for alts pass having 1 go negative security or having a mission alt killing every amarrian fleet in his path.
ive been on and off with my alts for years now, sold a few not thinking id go back to having an alt or so, got alts to get empire pos standings for ccp to kill the need so my alts went offline and now I just run about and do what I want on my 1 character.

edit: ive read some where in the eve help section before that alts aren't really "endorsed" by CCP, ofcourse they know that people having more than 1 account means more money for them to, but they could 1 day do a bit of programing that allows only 1 client to ever be open on 1 pc like some other games.

I normally run 2 accounts simultaneously with whatever I do in EVE.

I find the minute to minute gameplay to be pretty boring but then again I'm pretty bad so who knows.

For me it's about empire building and character progression.

As someone who has been here from the very beginning I can give you a good idea of what went wrong and why EvE turned from a really exciting and fun game to what it is generally today.

When the game released it was pretty simple in terms of gameplay. Simple is not bad, it was a lot of fun actually. The different classes worked normally, as you would expect they would. Frigates were fast but cruisers destroyed them one on one, cruisers were fast and powerful, battleships could blap a frigate as one would expect they would and could blap a cruiser in two shots.

Things were good, we had infamous and feared pirate groups hanging around HED-GP, we had a lot of solo pirates in low sec, anti-pirate hunters groups and industrialists and miners. Subscriptions and server records were going up.

Unfortunately CCP got it into their heads that MMO meant people had to be forced to play cooperatively in large groups rather than its original definition of players playing together (cooperatively and against each other) on a single server or cluster of servers. So they decided rather than give players functional ships, they would break the ships abilities up and put them onto multiple hulls (extreme examples being Arazu and its fellow recons), ships could tackle but they couldn't kill, ships could tank but they couldn't dps. To have a functional attack unit you needed multiple people now.

Of course the one problem with that is the popularity of soloing (convenience, dont' have to split income, time to put together and coordinate a gang) so of course people started to use alts. CCP continued to push their idea of MMO meaning cooperative, implementing bonuses, implants, skills that only worked in gangs, so when people didn't or couldn't get a gang they used alts for those things.

Other factors exist too, like the blind jumping into systems requiring scouts, mining vessel cargo capacity requiring haulers etc etc.

So we have alts online now.

In large part I think alts are a result of play denial tactics.