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Why Eve isn't more popular?

First post
Author
Erufen Rito
The Dark Space Initiative
Scary Wormhole People
#301 - 2014-05-14 03:26:31 UTC
Voight KampGaff wrote:
Newb STEAM player here.

PvE is pretty boring. An ISD gave me a link to look up missions. I fit a couple of armors that it says on the website. I throw in the drone types it says. Off I go to the mission ATM to get my free ISK.

I have not lost a ship yet. This is pretty easy. The missions seem very repetitive.

No boss fights.

No rare spawns that sometimes pop into missions to whup on me.

No unique spawns that pop out of nowhere.

Very, very very predictable.

I have started to watch the Babylon 5 series on T.V. and now I am afk mining asteroids in my Venture.

A few million ISK per episode.



Instead of mission running, you could try wormholes. Rats are harder, and then there's the fact that players can find you and will kill you, without any repercussions....if that's more to your liking.

Cassandra Aurilien wrote:
I recall when I started, before the Crimewatch system & the ore holds on mining ships... Local in high-sec was actually busy... People chatting, talking trash, sharing fits, etc.

You'd be mining, someone would flip your can, and you'd switch to a combat ship to engage, or if the fight didn't feel right, just leave the victor to his spoils. Little undeclared turf wars between mining corps were common in busy systems.

Now, local seems dead in most of high sec. No one talks, rarely see people working together, not like they used to.

I spend some of my time in WH's & some running level 4's in high sec. (Two different characters.) Some randomness in the PVE would help, but honestly I don't think fixing PVE would be some kind of magic fix all.

New players used to be exposed to PVP if they decided to mine. (And plenty of new players mine to get the ISK for their first cruiser, or a few frigates.) Now, they only run into it if they are ganked. In my first week in high-sec, I think I got into at least 12-14 frigate fights... I think that was what got me hooked into EVE. It's other players who make EVE fun, not more challenging red crosses.

Which reminds me... I still owe one person from stealing my ore in my first week... It's past time I settle that debt. Big smile

I too remember a time when saying in Local "Who wants lv 4 salvage" would get you flooded with convos. Now? I let the wrecks rot, because no one will take you up on it. My first 2 years of eve were spent mostly in hisec, so I can say for certain that the PVE is horribly boring. Maybe changing PVE to be closer to PVP would not magically fix the game, but I do think that it would give NEW players a better understanding of pvp mechanics, and stay true to the high action trailers you find on the net.

Why don't they make a trailer focused on mining for whatever expansion the mining update got pushed back to? I'd like to see it.

This is as nice as I get. Best quote ever https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4137165#post4137165

Galen Darksmith
Sky Fighters
Rote Kapelle
#302 - 2014-05-14 03:40:39 UTC
Asking "Why isn't EVE more popular?" is akin to Joss Whedon asking "Why wasn't Firefly more popular?" Then looking at the popularity of Jersey Shore and saying "I guess I should try to make a show more like that."

Popular != quality. McDonalds is popular. Twilight is popular. I'm fine with EVE being best in its niche. If it ever tried to leave that niche, it'd probably lose me and most of the playerbase to go with it. It's happened before in the MMO world, and it'll happen again. Hopefully not with EVE.

"EVE is a dark and harsh world, you're supposed to feel a bit worried and slightly angry when you log in, you're not supposed to feel like you're logging in to a happy, happy, fluffy, fluffy lala land filled with fun and adventures, that's what hello kitty online is for." -CCP Wrangler

Cassandra Aurilien
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#303 - 2014-05-14 03:48:20 UTC
Tare Bloodraven wrote:
Has anyone done any real market research? This isn't really productive asking here inside an game forum of obvious "Forum Warriors" we are already playing.

I have seen commercial marketing advertisements for other games that are huge successes such as Halo and WOW.
They have Chuck Norris!
and SHAK

But I don't recall seeing a Eve online commercial?

Do they run them in Europe and not the US?

Word of mouth works very slowly, a World CUP, Superbowl or Olympic Commercial reaches Tens of Millions.

Maybe it's just lousy marketing?

I don't know any Celebs that play and we didn't hear anything in the Media until we lost Vile Rat (rip).


Samuel L. Jackson was a player at one point in time. (At least back in 2005, he "supposedly" said so in an interview.) No idea if he still plays, or how long he played for.
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#304 - 2014-05-14 03:48:53 UTC
Galen Darksmith wrote:
Asking "Why isn't EVE more popular?" is akin to Joss Whedon asking "Why wasn't Firefly more popular?" Then looking at the popularity of Jersey Shore and saying "I guess I should try to make a show more like that."

Popular != quality. McDonalds is popular. Twilight is popular. I'm fine with EVE being best in its niche. If it ever tried to leave that niche, it'd probably lose me and most of the playerbase to go with it. It's happened before in the MMO world, and it'll happen again. Hopefully not with EVE.


Eve Online New Game Experience ::shudder::.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

Cassandra Aurilien
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#305 - 2014-05-14 03:50:26 UTC
Erufen Rito wrote:

I too remember a time when saying in Local "Who wants lv 4 salvage" would get you flooded with convos. Now? I let the wrecks rot, because no one will take you up on it. My first 2 years of eve were spent mostly in hisec, so I can say for certain that the PVE is horribly boring. Maybe changing PVE to be closer to PVP would not magically fix the game, but I do think that it would give NEW players a better understanding of pvp mechanics, and stay true to the high action trailers you find on the net.

Why don't they make a trailer focused on mining for whatever expansion the mining update got pushed back to? I'd like to see it.


Yes, I tend to agree it would help. Honestly, I've always felt that some of the spark left EVE when they made high-sec safer. The best way to learn PVP is to PVP, though.
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#306 - 2014-05-14 03:53:52 UTC
Ramona McCandless wrote:
ISD Ezwal wrote:
Ramona McCandless wrote:
Anyone here do cyno? Yes, no?
Yes, in the cheapest piece of junk frigate that can fit the cyno and can hold the fuel.
In essence, something a new player can easily do, but in general doesn't know is one of the myriad options of things to do in EvE.
That's why I (and fortunately others as well) sometimes take the time and hang around in a new player systems talking to, well, new players. Pointing them at the near endless possibilities this game has. Of course a lot are newly started alts, but quite often there are new people that are open to the sandbox.

Is it boring to do as opposed to the things I normally do in game? Oh yes, definitely. Is it rewarding? Again, oh yes. (And no, not in Isk or km's or new corp slaves to smack about!!!X)
I can recommend every seasoned EvE player to do so once in a wile. Just help the newbro's on their way. Not to make an interesting evening, far from it actually, but an interesting EvE future for years to come.


Thank you, and I give the above in response to the "there's a lack of content" statements that have sprung up in recent replies. Its impossible to run out of things to do in EvE.

And I dont find helping new players out to be boring. In fact I really like it, and I like to think I save them from terrible CEOs which I regard as the single biggest reason why people dont hang on with EvE, right after the ones who leave find that the game doesn't suit their capabilities.

Of course, I rarely do it myself, I usually have one of my slaves er I mean other "toons" do it.

I don't think many new players are cut out for the Blood Raider lifestyle just yet, and my own opinions on how to treat new poddies prevents me from harvesting their deep dark claret, may Omir forgive me.



My corp was and still is newbie friendly. I used to love tiral accounts and new members, i;d help get them on there feet and they either stuck around for life (i have 10 guys who pretty much go where i do) chilled for a while, or moved on to bigger things. A few times i got burned by alts, but meh. Its why i was always broke. i had fun sitting in a station talking to noobies while i waited for a pos to cry.

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#307 - 2014-05-14 03:58:28 UTC  |  Edited by: SurrenderMonkey
Cassandra Aurilien wrote:
Erufen Rito wrote:

I too remember a time when saying in Local "Who wants lv 4 salvage" would get you flooded with convos. Now? I let the wrecks rot, because no one will take you up on it. My first 2 years of eve were spent mostly in hisec, so I can say for certain that the PVE is horribly boring. Maybe changing PVE to be closer to PVP would not magically fix the game, but I do think that it would give NEW players a better understanding of pvp mechanics, and stay true to the high action trailers you find on the net.

Why don't they make a trailer focused on mining for whatever expansion the mining update got pushed back to? I'd like to see it.


Yes, I tend to agree it would help. Honestly, I've always felt that some of the spark left EVE when they made high-sec safer. The best way to learn PVP is to PVP, though.



A friend and I were reminiscing about the things you just don't see anymore in Eve, recently. I spent a good amount of time lurking around low sec assassinating hulks in belts - and the occasional ratting battleship - once upon a time. Today, I would probably die laughing before I could secure a point if I came across either of those in low sec.

The constant stream of haulers running NPC courier missions is another thing that went the way of the dodo, too.

One of my more hilarious early experiences involved a pack of Russian jet-can miners in Gammel who were EXTREMELY displeased to suddenly find themselves bound by a uh... slightly non-consensual contract for my minutes-old ore-hauling service. Admittedly, it might have been the online translation tool that made it so funny.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#308 - 2014-05-14 04:03:07 UTC
Tare Bloodraven wrote:
Has anyone done any real market research? This isn't really productive asking here inside an game forum of obvious "Forum Warriors" we are already playing.

I have seen commercial marketing advertisements for other games that are huge successes such as Halo and WOW.
They have Chuck Norris!
and SHAK

But I don't recall seeing a Eve online commercial?

Do they run them in Europe and not the US?

Word of mouth works very slowly, a World CUP, Superbowl or Olympic Commercial reaches Tens of Millions.

Maybe it's just lousy marketing?

I don't know any Celebs that play and we didn't hear anything in the Media until we lost Vile Rat (rip).



You should do some eve history research.

First the celebs: I know for a fact of one politicians son who played eve, he is now a politician himself, and both him and his dad are rather high in the Indonesian Gov. He used to play when his dad was in Geneva.

I have heard that Sam l Jackson used to play, the guy who played superman in man of steel said that he played. I heard that Russel Crow played for a bit, and Jessica Alba also. I can;t confirm any of that though.

There was eve commercials back in 2003, when Simon and Schuster was eve's publisher. They were crappy.

SnS got out og game publishing in the end of 03' i think, and CCP bought back the rights to publish eve. Since then its been web ads and word of mouth.

They did have an Ad for Dust 514 when it was out last year, i saw the ad once. (no i actually saw it on tv once, not just the fan fest video)

CCP relies heavily on word of mouth, press from large events, and web ads.

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#309 - 2014-05-14 04:06:46 UTC
I will say this, eve is on the threshold of being popular. Or having a door slammed in its face.

With Valk and possible Legion coming, this could open the door to a new source of blood and rev for CCP. Someone could jump into either of thous games, like them, and come here. We saw a slight increase when dust went live.

The flip side, if CCP does Valk and legion badly... it can cause a loss of people, and loss of money. But we will see. the future looks bright, now is that the light of day or a train running towards you at 200 mph.

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#310 - 2014-05-14 04:14:36 UTC
DaReaper wrote:


SnS got out og game publishing in the end of 03' i think, and CCP bought back the rights to publish eve. Since then its been web ads and word of mouth.

They did have an Ad for Dust 514 when it was out last year, i saw the ad once. (no i actually saw it on tv once, not just the fan fest video)



There was at least one other Eve ad that used to air on the SciFi channel in the US during Battlestar Galactica - the Scope breaking news thing where the Nyx crashes into a station.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#311 - 2014-05-14 04:19:05 UTC
SurrenderMonkey wrote:
DaReaper wrote:


SnS got out og game publishing in the end of 03' i think, and CCP bought back the rights to publish eve. Since then its been web ads and word of mouth.

They did have an Ad for Dust 514 when it was out last year, i saw the ad once. (no i actually saw it on tv once, not just the fan fest video)



There was at least one other Eve ad that used to air on the SciFi channel in the US during Battlestar Galactica - the Scope breaking news thing where the Nyx crashes into a station.



oh yes i forgot i had seen that one too, i geeked out when it was on lol

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

Tare Bloodraven
My Test Corp
#312 - 2014-05-14 04:28:12 UTC
DaReaper wrote:
Tare Bloodraven wrote:
Has anyone done any real market research? This isn't really productive asking here inside an game forum of obvious "Forum Warriors" we are already playing.

I have seen commercial marketing advertisements for other games that are huge successes such as Halo and WOW.
They have Chuck Norris!
and SHAK

But I don't recall seeing a Eve online commercial?

Do they run them in Europe and not the US?

Word of mouth works very slowly, a World CUP, Superbowl or Olympic Commercial reaches Tens of Millions.

Maybe it's just lousy marketing?

I don't know any Celebs that play and we didn't hear anything in the Media until we lost Vile Rat (rip).



You should do some eve history research.

First the celebs: I know for a fact of one politicians son who played eve, he is now a politician himself, and both him and his dad are rather high in the Indonesian Gov. He used to play when his dad was in Geneva.

I have heard that Sam l Jackson used to play, the guy who played superman in man of steel said that he played. I heard that Russel Crow played for a bit, and Jessica Alba also. I can;t confirm any of that though.

There was eve commercials back in 2003, when Simon and Schuster was eve's publisher. They were crappy.

SnS got out og game publishing in the end of 03' i think, and CCP bought back the rights to publish eve. Since then its been web ads and word of mouth.

They did have an Ad for Dust 514 when it was out last year, i saw the ad once. (no i actually saw it on tv once, not just the fan fest video)

CCP relies heavily on word of mouth, press from large events, and web ads.



This is the our biggest issue! you can't do business on the CHEAP! We need a Media Icon spokesperson like
Scarlett Johansson in the last Superbowl commercial to represent the Game to the public.

EA games advertises constantly!!!!!

EVE isn't exactly a little kids game (learning curve) most of those are more in to first person shooters or minecraft type stuffs
so you have to look at the target for our player audience and do serious advertisement not "selective" geek advertisement.

Unfortunately everything you mention is ancient history.....the best we got recently was the huge monetary losses in the monster fleet sov battles. But that reporting was pitifully done and didn't showcase any real aspects of the game. I would like to know if that got us any jump in Subs....
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#313 - 2014-05-14 04:31:37 UTC
Tare Bloodraven wrote:
DaReaper wrote:
Tare Bloodraven wrote:
Has anyone done any real market research? This isn't really productive asking here inside an game forum of obvious "Forum Warriors" we are already playing.

I have seen commercial marketing advertisements for other games that are huge successes such as Halo and WOW.
They have Chuck Norris!
and SHAK

But I don't recall seeing a Eve online commercial?

Do they run them in Europe and not the US?

Word of mouth works very slowly, a World CUP, Superbowl or Olympic Commercial reaches Tens of Millions.

Maybe it's just lousy marketing?

I don't know any Celebs that play and we didn't hear anything in the Media until we lost Vile Rat (rip).



You should do some eve history research.

First the celebs: I know for a fact of one politicians son who played eve, he is now a politician himself, and both him and his dad are rather high in the Indonesian Gov. He used to play when his dad was in Geneva.

I have heard that Sam l Jackson used to play, the guy who played superman in man of steel said that he played. I heard that Russel Crow played for a bit, and Jessica Alba also. I can;t confirm any of that though.

There was eve commercials back in 2003, when Simon and Schuster was eve's publisher. They were crappy.

SnS got out og game publishing in the end of 03' i think, and CCP bought back the rights to publish eve. Since then its been web ads and word of mouth.

They did have an Ad for Dust 514 when it was out last year, i saw the ad once. (no i actually saw it on tv once, not just the fan fest video)

CCP relies heavily on word of mouth, press from large events, and web ads.



This is the our biggest issue! you can't do business on the CHEAP! We need a Media Icon spokesperson like
Scarlett Johansson in the last Superbowl commercial to represent the Game to the public.

EA games advertises constantly!!!!!

EVE isn't exactly a little kids game (learning curve) most of those are more in to first person shooters or minecraft type stuffs
so you have to look at the target for our player audience and do serious advertisement not "selective" geek advertisement.

Unfortunately everything you mention is ancient history.....the best we got recently was the huge monetary losses in the monster fleet sov battles. But that reporting was pitifully done and didn't showcase any real aspects of the game. I would like to know if that got us any jump in Subs....


Unless the trend has changed however, eve has grown every year since inception. They did not say the subscribers at fan fest this year, so it could of gone down. but i'm not so sure. At this point, eve needs to fix some of the older code to handle more player before they do a huge ad campaign. But meh i'm not ccp

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

Cassandra Aurilien
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#314 - 2014-05-14 04:43:16 UTC
Tare Bloodraven wrote:


EA games advertises constantly!!!!!

EVE isn't exactly a little kids game (learning curve) most of those are more in to first person shooters or minecraft type stuffs
so you have to look at the target for our player audience and do serious advertisement not "selective" geek advertisement.

Unfortunately everything you mention is ancient history.....the best we got recently was the huge monetary losses in the monster fleet sov battles. But that reporting was pitifully done and didn't showcase any real aspects of the game. I would like to know if that got us any jump in Subs....


EA can afford to advertise constantly because they produce games built to the lowest common denominator, chock full of micro-transactions and paid expansions. (Look at how much it would cost you to buy everything for the Sims 3, for instance...)

I'm pretty sure there was a jump in subs shortly afterwards (saw plenty of new players around for a while), but it then evened back out. Most of the players drawn in by that sort of thing get discouraged messing around in high sec, I think.

When I first started, the first person to try to get me to join their corp had not traveled more than 2 jumps from his base system in 4 years. He was actually a nice guy & gave me some decent fitting advice & a bit of help in PVP (surprisingly, in retrospect), but he was also of the "low-sec/null/WH space is death" school.

I knew that mindset wasn't for me, so I ventured into more dangerous territory (WH's) as soon as I could afford to replace ships.
Asia Leigh
Kenshin.
Fraternity.
#315 - 2014-05-14 04:48:15 UTC
Tare Bloodraven wrote:

Incase you missed what CCP did they took they completely reversed the exhumer line, they took the GIMP single gun and made it a BS tank and took the Mack and gave it a huge ore hold and soso tank but gave the Hulk nothing.....


And that is bad how?

Skiff = Big tank, useful for mining in hostile territory.
Machinaw = Big cargo bay, useful for solo mining.
Hulk = Highest mining yield, useful for group mining with support.

Doesn't seem broken to me >.>
Apply the damn rules equally >.>
Hasikan Miallok
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#316 - 2014-05-14 04:56:04 UTC
Asia Leigh wrote:
Tare Bloodraven wrote:

Incase you missed what CCP did they took they completely reversed the exhumer line, they took the GIMP single gun and made it a BS tank and took the Mack and gave it a huge ore hold and soso tank but gave the Hulk nothing.....


And that is bad how?

Skiff = Big tank, useful for mining in hostile territory.
Machinaw = Big cargo bay, useful for solo mining.
Hulk = Highest mining yield, useful for group mining with support.

Doesn't seem broken to me >.>


Machinaw = Big cargo bay, useful for AFK mining cos you need to offload to the Orca less often


:D
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#317 - 2014-05-14 12:29:08 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Don't mistake me saying some people feel this way to mean all people do. But really, I've run incursions, C5 escalations, and high end DED's in groups and personally I'm not finding the same mentality of enjoying the PvE, but rather the company, and the goal (usually isk making).

I've been in plenty of incursion groups where if we weren't making headway on that goal, the group fell apart. It was never because they like incursions, but rather that they were less boring with the company than other alternatives and more profitable for the risk involved.

Similarly I've been in a C5 WH corp that really didn't care about the escalations beyond being an income source for ships to raid wherever the new holes led. Maybe I'm just finding the wrong people, but honestly whenever the topic of better PvE comes up there is usually a consensus evidenced among some that PvE is not something intended to be enjoyed as of itself.


The bolded part is the important part. A game about people isn't (imo) supposed to have this magical "not about people" part to it to draw people away for...interacting with people.

Look at what you said. It amounts to "these PVE activities bring people together" (incursions and such). THAT is what snadbox PVE is supposed to do. Which is why EVE's PVE is working as intended.

The OPs (and it seems yours) idea that this game someone how needs 'better' pve to keep people is backwards. This game maybe only needs better advertising to reach more people who would enjoy this social gaming niche (whether they were adversarial "play against you" types aka PVPrs or cooperative "play with a group" types aka PVErs)

Quote:

This actually leads back into the point. PvE being static means that, in relation, tool creation only adds a sandbox element for all of about 2 minute when figuring out a new tactic and maybe a few hours fine tuning it. But it stops there. At that point the PvE isn't contributing to the sand box beyond being a function from which isk and items are created.

Is that MJDU still sandboxy and innovative the 100th time you've used it with perfectly predictable success?


This is again untrue. After 7 years I'm STILL finding new ways to tackle PVE content across New Eden. Just last week I 'discovered' (i use that word lightly, I know I'm probably not the 1st) the joys of using a Smartbombing Drone Link Augmented Domi to do null sec anoms. Warp in at 100, drop sentries, MJD to npc spawn point, start Smartbombs (to kill things) + start ECM burst (to keep aggro and to provide a potential anti-tackle asset if the tackler is dumb enough to venture within 10 or so kilometers).

Haven't lost a single sentry drone and have been raking in the isk. Got tackled once by a ceptor, MJD's away.

That's where the fun in PVE comes from, , doing new things and seeing if they work or not. I've bet you real life money that 99% of the people who say "PVE isn't fun" are mission runners running the same fits over and over doing the same missions (or other pve content) over and over and wondering why they are bored. In EVE, PVE is just like PVP in that YOU make it fun or not. That's a sandbox.

If you think you've discovered all the ways to use the tools of EVE Online to PVE, you shouldn't be posting on these boards, you should be trying to get hired by CCP.
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#318 - 2014-05-14 12:44:55 UTC
Has... has his argument really come down to "Ea is more popular and they never stop advertising!"?

While those are technically true, they also lay claim to some of the most obnoxious playerbases in existence, and everyone hates them.

They are a great example of selling your soul and your integrity for mainstream popularity.

What they are not, is an example any game company should follow.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.

Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#319 - 2014-05-14 12:47:45 UTC
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:
Has... has his argument really come down to "Ea is more popular and they never stop advertising!"?

While those are technically true, they also lay claim to some of the most obnoxious playerbases in existence, and everyone hates them.

They are a great example of selling your soul and your integrity for mainstream popularity.

What they are not, is an example any game company should follow.


EA became a bad word to me when they killed MPBT 3025 in beta, a game i waited a decade for....
Velicitia
XS Tech
#320 - 2014-05-14 13:01:06 UTC
Easiest explanation I can think of as to "why" it's not more popular is that EVE doesn't follow the typical MMO mold (i.e. essentially "single-player" content that you do with a lot of people, in 100% safety, unless you actively choose to "turn on" PVP).

People come to EVE, realize that they don't like the difference (because they're bad and get shot for doing something dumb), and then ***** and moan to all their other friends about how horrible we are, and they're glad they can come back to a nice fuzzy "community"* in whatever game they originally came from.


* in the sense that their group is a community. The overall game community can be terrible though, but they don't mind, because they only need to interact with the 200-odd people in their specific group.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia