EVE General Discussion

I keep forgetting that some people would rather be wrong than live.

I think Issler Dainze is also a high-sec oriented candidate?

If for next year you can find high-sec candidates who are knowledgeable about the game and can attract a support base, that would be great. It's a difficult job to organize high-sec behind a candidate, so good to think about it early.


People often make statements like this, and I think it greatly exaggerates the role of the CSM. Give CCP some credit, their heads are not always in the sand.

The CSM gives advice on game design. That can be a very influential role, and particularly so when CCP is directionless as they seemed to be through a good portion of last year.

But CCP are running a business. They're not going to let that sink so that Alliance X can control a few extra systems on the map, or earn a bit of extra play money. CCP's interest is to make the game better to attract more users. Any advice they get from the CSM gets filtered through that motivation.

Here is why there's a push towards null-sec:

Eve has some strengths and weaknesses. Among the weaknesses are most of the actual mechanics, including the PVE games. Among the clear strengths is the social environment and player interactions, which has both cooperative and competitive aspects. These are what put the game head and shoulders above the rest - they are so strong that remarkably Eve succeeds despite being broken in so many ways.

Null sec is where the player-driven strengths of the game really take hold - both competitive and cooperative. CCP want to encourage players towards those strengths. Spend a year doing nothing but missions, good chance you'll get bored and leave. Join a good corp and make some friends while trying to get ahead in a hostile universe, you're likely to stick around because you come to appreciate the depth of the game beyond the stupid mechanics.

These are the business reasons for the directions they take. They would make these decisions regardless of who is sitting on the CSM. And they are not one-sided - I think they do try to take into account the game as a whole, including all of the secs and professions. They can't do everything at once, some things do seem to be abandoned, and they don't have a clue as to what to do about my favourite sec. But averaged over a couple of years, most activities should see some progress - because it's good business to have a well-rounded game.

There's no reason to obsess over who is sitting on the CSM. They don't make decisions and they don't rule the game. They don't allocate devs to projects. CCP are adults with their own ideas and philosophy of game design which colours their priorities. For better or worse, they are perfectly capable of ignoring the CSM if they think the game would benefit by a different direction, and I suspect this happens more often than not.

TL;DR: CCP are not puppets.The CSM doesn't rule the game.

Also delicious desserts.

Uhm, did you follow the CSM 7 elections. I ran for high sec and won a seat. I definitely feel your frustration. In 24 hours my alliance will be at war with the goons for speaking out about their leaders poor behavior. I am not sure how CCP sees Eve as serving the majority of its customers when it allows a small group to ruin the game for the majority.

We can only hope new aggression and war mechanics might level the playing field.

Issler

Nope.

Majority is enjoying the game and understand that in a game about insterstellar combat for resources and power, wardecs are part of the game.

You forgot to mention your own poor behaviour, for which you were also required to apologise in public.

Jessie-A Tassik is correct. It definitely looks like player numbers have dropped.

Obviously it seems there's a few players posting in this thread who don't know how to read charts and graphs. They keep spouting incorrect assumptions even after factual proof is presented, constantly bellowing out fallacies like "Eve has grown steadily year after year since it began." or "The only drops in Eve's subscriptions coincide with PvE high sec content." Stop posting lies and look at the evidence.


What that chart shows is from 2006 "Bloodlines Expansion" to the middle of 2009 "Apocrypha Expansion" there was definitely steady growth. In the middle of 2009 there was a huge drop that leveled out for about 6 months. That is the longest stretch of time with a steady low amount of player numbers making it the low base reference point ..

From the middle of 2009 to present day growth has been sporadic and short term followed by a large initial drop and a long steady decrease in player numbers each time.

Each consecutive short growth spurt has been exponentially larger than the previous one. Probably due to good advertising, PR work for expansions, word of mouth, etc.

However, each consecutive short term growth spurt has been followed with an even larger initial drop and steady gradual decrease in numbers bringing it back down around the initial low reference point of 2009. Probably due to various bugs, unfinished content, people being disillusioned by the PR advertising, etc.

The chart shows the amount of player numbers now currently active is a bit lower than the high player count listed in the middle of 2009 during "Apocrypha". The actual highest amount of player numbers active online only lasted for a few months which coincides with the release of "Incursion".

Since the current amount of active players now online is less than or maybe equal to the amount of active players back in 2009, how does that equate into Eve steadily growing year after year?

Let's play the game your silly way. Are there more players now than in 2004? In fact, is CCP's released subscription numbers higher? I see somebody linked those numbers earlier.

The 2012 number of subscribers are higher than the 2010 numbers. That looks like growth to me. Slow, small growth thanks to the debacle last year; but still growth.

Protip: In the Q4 2010 economic statement, CCP revealed that the average is 2.2 accounts / character. So if *every* null sec person had 2.2 accounts, it would still only account for roughly 40% of in game toons.

That still leaves 60% of all characters that aren't associated with Null Sec...

Not saying they're all hi-sec'ers, but still...

what do you hisecers want again?