EVE General Discussion

New models don't have any value for the game.

Meaningful fixes to game UI and mechanics have high value, and this is what the last expansions have been about.

To be fair, many MMO expansions improve the game very significantly.

Consider the first WoW expansion - it added flying as a travel mechanic, opening a whole new dimension to the world exploration, and vastly opening the possibilities for zone map variety. That alone was a pretty huge change to the gameplay. Same expansion added a rated arena system, where player skill, communication and cooperation, NOT gear or uneven numbers, won the day. Another fairly sizable addition. And of course the same expansion added a whole new continent, arguably increasing the amount of non-user-created content to explore by anywhere from 20-40% of the original. And that's not including other stuff such as heroic dungeons (increased difficulty and rewards), multiple world and instance raid bosses, etc., etc., etc.

And, contrary to popular belief, adding non-user-created content to the game does not prevent users from creating their own content within the game on top of it. Resulting in a much larger net amount of content, and arguably with much higher quality and production values, than anything user-created in EVE. Not to the same scale as EVE, of course, but considering non-user-created content in EVE is practically nonexistent, they had to give players something to work with. So the accomplishment is somewhat dubious.

As far as expansions go, I feel Burning Crusade is a shining example of how to properly do an expansion, not the glorified DLC that most other games provide. Including, sadly, EVE in the last few years.

Also, keep in mind that half a million number you quoted is the number of subs, not players. Considering how many players in EVE have 3+ accounts (and some people claim 8+ accounts), the actual number of players enjoying EVE could be as low as 70k. This of course is totally irrelevant to CCP - as alt accounts are still paid for. But this creates a bubble of sorts, that can (and I posit will in future) burst in a spectacular fashion. What I mean is, in an MMO where players-to-accounts ratio is 1:1, a loss of a single player, for whatever reason (illness, death, work, kids, etc.), translates into loss of one account. But in EVE, where the players-to-accounts ratio could be as high as 1:10 (if you believe some claims of certain individuals running up to 40 or more farming accounts), a loss of a single person is magnified tenfold in loss of accounts. Bubble. It pops.

But hey, that's just me.

And yes, to answer the OP, I too feel like EVE development has been on a backburner for years, with a skeleton crew. The last 3 years, expansions of EVE were nowhere NEAR in quantity or quality to Apocrypha or Trinity. Remember Trinity? TOTAL graphical overhaul of the entire game? Not just a few skins of a few ships? Yeah, that. We haven't had anything of that magnitude in years.

Jame, we've had a total revamp of the UI graphics, new nebulas and V3 of almost all ships.

I hate to burst your bubble but players aren't interested in scripted content. It's burger entertainment, you kill NPCs (yeah you always win), receive bacon. No amount of variation to graphics or effects changes this.

We have easy access (log in, warp from pos to anomaly) to the highest end PVE in game, sleeper capital escalations, and frankly nobody from our community bothers doing it. PVE by nature is boring.

Hunting real people is fun, because it's unscripted. Latest expansions have made it more fun.

That's why most EVE players agree that they are awesome expansions.

I agree with OP.

Afer Apocryphya CCP spreaded their resources over DUST and WOD. Apcryphia is the last true expansion we got.
The recent Cruccible, Inferno and Retrivution fixed and improved a lot of things but are basically patches/mantainance.
But more than resources allocation the main concern here is the lack of a vision. Lack of vision justified by all the CSM in charge that showwed so their mediocrity and unability to give feedback and general vision of the game.

All the ship rebalancing rethoric is good, but cannot be considerated a real work to expand the game universe.
It's good, yes, but is also a mere update on a SQL table, not like they need a team of NASA engeneers to balance spaceships...

The new t2 BC and new destoryers are cool toyes, yes, but weren't really needed; when in Apocryphia they added the new class of modular T3 ships there was to fill a new role. New space type, new resource gathering and industry layer, all linked in a vision.

Now, if they nerf the Hurrican to release after 3 months a new navy version of it that is basically the same as the old hurricane so you can claim "see, we are working hard to improve FIS!" we see the trick, not like here everyone is stupid...

good stuff.

However, "gameplay" fixes (i.e. mechanics) happen in EVE as well, and all of the expansions/updates/whatever you want to call them have more or less tweaked those mechanics as well.

The real focus (at least to my understanding) is that CCP calls everything an "expansion" where it should be "update/patch"; so we're up to 16 or 19 "expansions" or something like that, as opposed to WOW that has had four expansions that have actually expanded the gameplay (plus updates, whatever). Going on that definition, the only "expansions" EVE has had were Trinity, Apocrypha, and 2-3 others that have actually physically expanded the game (though more than a handful of modules / ships).

My point being -- it doesn't matter here so much (although, sometimes some extra breathing room is nice), because we're the content-generators; not CCP (or Blizzard, or Activision, or whoever). Not to mention that even with a "community", you can only run the same missions so many times before you want to gouge your eyes out.

Smaller, more focused teams is a good thing in my view. Too broad a scope and too many people leads to slow progress.

Then it's not an "expansion", is it?

You can give me a space like.

Everyone knows that real expansions involve adding Pandas.

Come on CCP, get with the program.

Oh dear... does this imply we won't be getting an Apocrypha-sized expansion anytime soon... to include Odyssey?