EVE General Discussion

So being Grr Goon as I am, it didn't take me long to stumble on Gevlon Goblin. Now unlike his many detractors, I do not find most of his blog posts crappy. In fact, reading his posts weekly for many months now I have only run across a couple that I thought were just rank bad observations with bad commentary and bad solutions. I do admit that a great number of his posts don't have much value other than for entertaining reading and comedy. A large number of them, however, I find fairly astute posts about the state of Eve, whether they be about Goons or not.

Since I have been reading him, though, I've noticed two really major contributions he's made to the game. The first involves his very detailed collections of massive amounts of statistical data involving his archenemy the CFC and the many observations that he has concluded from this data, which he pays for and collates to a degree not done by anyone else in the game. The result has been a well-supported line of thinking around the idea of the vibrancy of piracy in Eve, the value of NPC space, small fleets as a source of good fights, and all sorts of ideas that have inspired groups from Pasta to MoA to BL and others, not just in fighting the CFC but in eking out a fun form of Eve whether fighting N3 or other pirates or whoever. His ratting data has cast the light on high sec as a valuable subscriber source as well. After he put out these observations I definitely became a fan, and continued to happily read his standard posts about funny kill mails and his rallies to cause chaos for the CFC.

Yesterday, though, I read what I think may be Gevlon's second big doozie of a post or idea that has significant consequence for Eve as a whole. I want to post about it here because I think a lot of players in Eve are being duped into crying their way toward their own demise, and people can really benefit from understanding what Goblin said. It was a watershed post. Frankly, I had already been reading him ***** about what he is calling RMT efforts in previous posts on his blog. But with his latest post he put things into a perspective beyond his previous rants.

I'm not posting his post or making too many detailed references because I don't want this post to get locked. Suffice it to say he illustrated how leaders of large alliances and coalitions have a financial interest in seeing Eve grow just as much as the devs do, and that the path that they have taken is to create a situation where they can create content for their noobs and members without real consequences for them or their members. The effect is that the leading players of the game, out of personal interest, are trying to turn Eve into a theme park type game similar to wow, where the dungeon instances are run by the player leaders. This may result in growth for Eve, but will damage Eve's uniqueness and ultimately harm Eve's ability to survive in the face of competition from other games looming on the horizon.

This affects all those who may have been convinced to be outraged by CCP's efforts to damage the major coalitions through travel and sov changes. So to the devs, I would like to say that Eve's survival ultimately depends on it remaining a niche game. Hopefully it will be a big and long-lived niche game. But frankly, in the world of MMOs, most games are like checkers, and most MMO players are kids who want to play checkers. Eve, however, is like chess, and while it has succeeded in cultivating a player base that has grown for the most part and has remained extremely loyal and long-lived, it is a player base that has come to and enjoys Eve because it is like chess. There is real intelligence involved in 'winning' and there is real consequence to losing. Some parts of Eve are annoying, but some forms of sport involve hard work and dedication. Have you talked to surfers who get up at 4 AM to surf in 50-degree shark infested waters? These are the players we want to find and retain. They are the kinds of players who will play the game for decades despite job changes, marriage, kids, all that.

So if you're an eve player, are you going to unsub because a nerf is on the way that will upset your game of checkers that Mittens built for you? Or are you willing to actually devote resources and strategy to hang on to a smaller piece of the pie that is going to be attacked by players who had no chance before?

Gevlon's analysis is basically correct.

You just have to note how all the coalitions instead of fighting their equals are piing onto the last independent small guys on Provi. PL dropped what, 50 supers and a titan on a single rep carrier worth 1bil last night? Something like that? Such content, much elite, as they say.

Anyhow, to answer your question, no I will not unsub because of the nerf.

Anything that prevents big guys from interfering all over eve is a good thing in my book. nerfs dont go far enough in my opinion.

I'm going to do as I'm told by whoever pays my SRP.

Links or the blog(s) in question do not exist. Seriously, it's common courtesy to link such things.

Interesting ....
... but do I now really have to read his drivel? :/

I mean ... it's Gevlon Goblin! -.-'




Oooookaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy.............................
.......... still better than reading James' bullcrap.

Ah GevlonGoblin, the greatest Texas sharpshooter of them all.

In essence Gevlon's point is that the "fun" of dropping a disproportionately large force on a smaller force at any arbitrary point on the map at any arbitrary time will lead eve to it's death.

He's not wrong.

The "fun" of the large blocs is unsustainable. Don't believe me? Just look at all of the mewling on these forums from those same sov players bemoaning a lack of ~content~ over the past nine months.

LOL. Well yeah, I do think CCP made a mistake letting Mittens back into the game after 30 days. Now Manfred Sideous, who wouldn't take a CSM spot because of real life issues, is an example of a leader who plays his part in Eve out of true dedication to the sport of it rather than funding his website, and is an example of a leader who is a bit more credible. And note that Manfred openly stated that he was for all out war between N3PL and CFC and his proposed solution for null sec was far more draconian than anything CCP has come up with, basically limiting a cyno jump to an adjacent gated system.

But seriously, this isn't specifically to bash Mittens or Goons or plug Gevlon. I have two aims. One is to invigorate CCP to keep up their program of refining Eve into a game that delivers on its stated goals of true competition, real strategy, and real risk and consequence. The second is to open the eyes of line members to an understanding that they really don't want to be playing Eve in order to log in and press F1 but to return to a game of real consequence and reward and that doing so will involve a change in the status quo, and that CCP is orchestrating this.

What tells you that most of the scrubs ...
... you call them line members ...
... aren't just carebears?

Carebears ...
... like those in RvB ... and CODE ... EVEUNI ....... BNI .......................