EVE General Discussion

I'm sorry the OP is quitting. I agree with him that pew pew is at the core of the game but I disagree that it is the be all end all of the game. CCP has to balance multiple professions, each with its own end game activity. In mining its mining with a Rorqual and a Hulk in null. In manufacturing perhaps its building cap ships or T3 cruisers. In trade its amassing huge wealth and rolling around in it. There are strategy players who plot the course of nullsec empires. Some ppl never log on they just want to talk about EvE on jabber or teamspeak. There are pirates who cause grief to the unwary. There are lots of ways to play the game. Its a lot more than hitting f1 or "pure" pvp. There is a bit of roleplaying and a kind of immersion getting into your character to do stuff and a strong community of similar minded people.

I also don't think they are dumbing the game down. It is well known that there is a massive learning cliff that needs to be scaled just to start. Learning the basic mechanics alone is a task, even simple things like the skill que take time and effort to understand. Most ppl throw up their hands and quit after a few days. People who actually stick with the game are rare jewels to be protected.

Vets quit for lots of reasons, but it sounds to me you seem like you are bored with the game and think it will be more boring in the future. There isn't an easy answer to that except to try something new, something you haven't done. Maybe the new content in EvE isn't appealing to you and thats fine, I get why you want to quit. But I draw the line at getting other people enraged enough so they quit as well, which is what this thread is about. Encouraging people to quit is a sin in EvE where there are so very few people willing to play in the first place. The core of EvE is still there to be appreciated as it has been for a long time now. I hope it stays strong. This may be little solace to the OP but its still true as far as I can see. I hope the OP reconsiders quitting or comes back after a while to get some fresh air.

Sorry but what you are saying is just stupid. Nobody is paying for thousands upon thousands of subs.

Thousands of subs... must be quite a mining operation or something.

Next someone will be complaining that it's a boting operation, seriously thousands of accounts easy

Ever here of slave labor aka WoW players

Another thing I felt so much in WHs was the lack of any station at any distance (you really need to be in vastly dead end 0.0 to feel the same), it's like being an hermit with no backup, no civilization nothing.

But I can also see how this hard mode far west is a very good change for the so inclined players.

I actually feel colonizing sov 0.0 should provide the same far west "unknown lands" feeling.
Maybe make delayed local until you gain sov and anchor something? That something could grant say 2-3 manufacturing slots so it'd also entice people to live in those systems.

It matters because you're creating a strawman argument by not reading what I'm writing and assuming for no good reason that I'm talking about the summer of 2011 and that I'm drawing causal relationships like that.

Too bad that the drop had already started by the time you predicted it. You posted that in April. The decline started in earnest in January and actually had its roots before that. Again, the problem is that you're not reading what I'm writing but instead assuming that I'm talking about something you wish I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about the Incarna summer. I'm talking about the drop that happened just after Incursion was released. At this point, eve was into month 12 of :18 months: and they released a PvE-focused expansion that, to no-one's surprise, grabbed a lot of initial attention but then (as PvE content always does) quickly drops off. Attention was already petering out and Incursion managed to create the standard short-term boost that you see in PvE games: initial high numbers, quick drop-off, and ending up with lower numbers than before. In other words, that kind of expansion does not have the effect that some people think it has.

My point is that, unlike what Ansio is claiming, appealing to a different audience by going all out on the PvE has already proven not to work. Yes, you can prop up some already-sagging numbers with it, but it's a very short term fix and it will not hold. His vision of doubling the numbers by focusing on a different segment than the core gameplay will have the exact opposite effect, and we know this because it has already happened once…

Yeah, I'm going to stop you there because nothing you say after it is relevant to anything I said and only further reinforces the fact that you're piling up an immense straw man. I'm not talking about Incarna. Read what I write, not what you hope I'm writing. Incarna and the numerous other fsckups that happened around it were just the last straws — the whole thing started waaay before that (and way before you “predicted” something that was already happening).

In short: you're barking up the wrong tree. The biased fallacy is entirely on your end since you failed to read what I was saying and instead attacked a strawman argument built on noting but your own preconceptions of what I was saying (which is especially odd since the quote you used to start it all off very clearly stated where the problems started).

Stop being prejudiced about what I'm writing, or shush.

Oook… it's going to be one of those. No, you're still just reading too much into things.

I'm not anti-PvE. I'm anti-anti-PvP. I'm anti PvE:er-entitlement. I'm anti “we are the majority, hear us roar (but don't ask us to prove any of it)”. I'm anti-let's-turn-EVE-into-something-it-is-not-and-into-something-that-bajillion-other-games-already-offer.

In this case, I'm against the notion that going for the ”mass appeal” and throwing huge amounts of resources at PvE content will be the saviour EVE, given that the last time anything along those lines was tried, it had the entirely predictable effect of creating a nice peak with no (or even negative) long-lasting effects.

Yes, it is. The point is: that's when it started. You may be very proud of having caught it early, but the fact remains that it was already happening by then. I know it, and you know it, so don't come spouting your nonsense about how I blaming Incarna for something that started months (hell, even a year) earlier, because that's just dishonest.

There is this little word class called “conjunction”. You should look it up. There's more to it than just PvE… if only you stopped being so prejudiced and considered what I actually wrote.

PvE caused a very short-lived peak in players because it has no long-lasting hold — in EVE or elsewhere, which is why other games have to spew out costly expansions at such high rates or go under. The attempt to do something similar in EVE drew resources away from other, much more needed attention to core gameplay. Consequently, while the PvE expansion propped up the numbers for a while until everything had been figured out and rendered routine, the base numbers were sagging at an increasing rate. When the PvE interest died down, as it always does, we have a sharp dip in numbers from the PvE-ennui combined with the previously hidden lowered numbers from general game abandonment that suddenly were lain bare… et voilà — the start of the population crash of 2011.

Incarna then came along and managed to combine this on-going drop with its own brand of “let's change our customer-base”/NGE-style abandonment; the :18 months: coming to full fruition; the entire MT débâcle in its many many forms (Fearless, Hilmar's letter, the Ishukone Scorp); the “let's screw our fansite and third parties” débâcle, and thus we had the final avalanche made ready by that earlier thaw.

The funny thing is, my theory of what happened is fully in line with yours, but for some reason, you absolutely must believe that I'm only blaming Incarna, or that I'm only blaming PvE, when I said something quite different from the very start. This is why I'm calling you prejudiced: because you get so angry over what you think I'm saying that you fail to notice that we're largely in agreement.

Weell… it's not really my fault if I have to ask repeatedly for people to produce facts to prop up their fantasies, and if they continuously fail to do so.

Link?

good riddance to op and whoever else quits for same reason. less gankers the better.

I understand what Tipia is talking about here. Much of it makes sense but there is one point which I will never concede because I think the data that supports it is overwhelming and that is the undeniable fact that the large majority of Eve players don't participate in "combat" PvP. Thats not to say Eve is not a PvP game, but it offers tremendous amount of PvE outlets and this attracts a lot of players. This large player base seeks to play Eve's economic model be it mining, industry, research, invention, trade, transport and many player created services. These are legitimate players and if they seek more controls over their ability to avoid PvP, like it or not, CCP will ultimatly respond and in many ways already have.

That said, I do agree that creating artificial safety for PvE players is not a good approach for this type of game, but I also think that the state of the game right now is such that it has artificial risk free ganking which is also very hurtful to the game. For example using cheap throw away destroyers to blow up expensive large ships (Hulks) with what amounts to zero risk or pentalty. This is no more realistic than an artificial no fighting mechanic in High Sec.

Mind you I don't have anything against the concept of suicide ganking in Empire, I mean, I don't even think of it as ganking but rather simply a crime that exists in the game because it makes sense for it to exists and its a part of the game that should be there. I just don't believe the penalties for being a criminal are in line with the severity of the crime. Its really no different if the penalty was so high that no one does it.

Neither extreme is good, their needs to be more of a middle ground where their is a proper risk vs. reward.

Unfortunatly im not sure how a mechanic would work to acomplish that, and hence all Im doing is pointing out a problem without offering a solution.

Personally I don't see ganking as a profession unless payed by a 3rd party. Ganking someone should cost you money. Now the amount it should cost you should simply be weighted against the Gankee's paranoia.
They have a huge tanked ship it will cost you a lot more than if they are foolish and have no tank at all.
But the current penalties for the crimes are good enough, it is more the enforcement of the negative status that is worrying.