Jita Park Speakers Corner

All due respect if you are being serious about this thread, we could certainly discuss more, but I think its about time we say 9/10, 13 pages before anyone caught on. Only reason for the -1 is that we finally figured it out.

I still want to know what this John and Phil thing is all about....am I missing something?

Like I said, I meant no disrespect if you are genuine in your concerns. You just have to realize that your statements are so at odds with why most people come to play EvE that it is easily interpreted as a caricature of what people derogatorily call a "carebear".

The first first line I quoted above is the critical one. You entered a sandbox game, where you are expected to chart your own goals for yourself, and decide your own destiny. Rather than look at the infinite possibilities of things to do in the game (none of the activities you listed exist out of hgh sec areas), and use your creativity to decide what you want to get out of the game, you're getting visibly angry at CCP for not providing you with a set of goals. This is why people genuinely question your authenticity. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the kind of game that EvE is.

I highly suggest that you try some activities outside of high sec, if you really want to give EvE a chance before you move on. There are many options for casual gameplay that exist beyond Empire space, it just takes a little know-how about protecting yourself and how to move around safely, but there are lots of us that can help you learn those skills. I often can only log in for an hour, and find plenty to do. I run a mission, join a gang for some quick pew pew, move some stuff to market, or scan down some sites to do another time. Level 4 missions are quite a time-consuming way to make isk, so if "casual" gameplay is what you're looking for, perhaps there are better options.

If you do choose to remain in high sec, you'll have to decide whether the accumulation of wealth or goods is sufficient a goal to provide yourself with long-term entertainment. If it isn't, you'll have to imagine a goal. Imagination is a key factor in long-term enjoyment of the game. If you want CCP to tell you why you should grind those missions, you'll be forever unsatisfied. Certainly, if you simply need more items to shop for to be happy and continue running missions, EvE is not the game for you.

Missions are simply a means to an end. Every one of us has different long term goals, that money helps us meet, but they are all deeply individual. CCP can't and won't just keep baiting you with new things to shop for, or constantly providing additional "theme park" style content, because that it simply at odds with the very nature of a sandbox game.

American. And no, I'm not reading 14 pages of a stupid thread.

I'm American too, apathetic about our crappy government right alongside you brother.

But seriously the actual important talking points to this thread have already been thrown about ad nauseam, no real need to go on.

Oh it's this thread again.

This message has been paid for by the commitee to elect Aaaaaaandrew Aardvark.

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone who abstains from PvP while missioning for three years would be concerned with NeX item pricing.... the math just doesn't add up. I smell a rat. Or a few hundred thousand of them.

Yeah, just like in the other thread, that's not what he said.

What he's saying here is that since EVE is a sandbox, expecting there to be lots of solo content is misrepresenting what EVE is all about. He's not saying he's elite and he PVPs, he's saying that you have to figure out your own rules for playing this game, and that expecting things like NEX to magically make the game last longer is just not realistic.

Your problem seems to be that you want the content itself to be fulfilling, when most of it isn't content designed for content's sake, but content which is better consumed with others. I'd get bored if I tried to do nothing but missions, because it's monotonous. Buying new pants would not make me think "yes! this is fun, I need to go back and do more missions now!". In fact, most of the time I log in these days is to fiddle with the market alt in jita and to tweak the PI planets, chat a bit with corpmates (ingame and out of game), and watch movies/play other games/wait for something to happen.

It's just the nature of the game, sooner or later you'll have done all of the mechanical things the game enables, at which point you're going to have to invent new rules to play by to make these mechanics actually worth doing, not as an end in and of itself, but as a means to an end.

This isn't to say there shouldn't be a push for more mechanics, far from it, I'm just telling you that you need to look beyond just the mechanics of the game, if you want to make the game to last longer for you.

If you manage to construe this post as well as "I am elite, I pvp, yadda yadda", then there's no hope for you.

You pvp, but are not elite, Goonie. You have to be a Heretic and camp the Ossogur gate to be truly elite. Or maybe be Hydra and "provail". I forget what "elite" means these days.

Though you are right with your post. That is what Hans was trying to get across. The issue with playing PvE in a MMO, and worse, in a sandbox MMO, is that you will never be satisfied with the amount of unique content you get compared to what the PvP community does. PvE always ends up devolving into repeating the same monotonous (and profitable) task over and over and over, be it level 4 missions, mining, etc.

It's true, some PvE systems of the most modern games are beginning to incorporate dynamic missions and happenings -- see incursions. CCP has foreshadowed more similar stuff incoming. The worth of the incursions comes from the fact that they are different every time. The spawns can vary, locations are unpredictable, cooperation with other players is almost always required, players can interfere or race each other to objectives, and other fun stuff. These "wild cards" add to the long-term fun of the mechanic.

By contrast, missions are monotonous: you can run them in the same ship every time, alone, without any challenge, plus they are repetitive as all heck. Rightly, missioners get sort of tired of them after not-so-long. I got tired of missions after my first few days, said "screw it all" and joined the militia.

From what I see, mission-running as an "end-game" is a rather broken system. It is an activity in a massively multiplayer game that... is not multiplayer. As is, missioning is a broken implementation of what "questing" is in single-player RPGs, except with repeatable quests. It is impossible to keep such content fresh after years. That is probably why CCP has hardly even tried to.

So far as what is satisfying is setting goals for yourself. Even for a pvp pilot the goal of "I'm going to shoot all the things" is really not good enough. One of my foremost personal goals is to fly every single sub-BS ship effectively. A secondary one is to kill as many battlecruisers (or larger) in frigates as I can. When I used to be in the militia, I had a less pvp-oriented goal: to get the standings to run level 4 militia missions, so I could be self-reliant for ISK. After that, it was to get the standings with either the Republic or RSS to be able to do the Angel epic arc, which I eventually did, which contributed to my getting my first Vagabond, which contributed to my overarching goal of flying all sub-battleship ships, etc etc.

Stuff like that is what keeps me going, at least.



Yes, but all those are means to various ends. For example, ninja salvaging is the means to getting delicious tears from sad missioners. What is your chosen goal?

Repeating this again for emphasis: Eve is not a game that will spoon-feed you content, goals, and things for you to do and strive for. If you want a game that does that, I strongly recommend Skyrim.