Assembly Hall

Hello I started playing EVE back in 2004 and have returned to playing after a break of 4-5 years.
I must confess to find playing EVE an increasing depressing experience.

The activities of players exploiting other players seems to have increased over time to where it now seems to be most prevalent thing going on in game. It always as aspect of the game but now seems totally dominant, promoting nothing but paranoia vengeance and viciousness mirroring the worst of RL.

The game only remains visually wonderfully, CCP please think about balancing content and practical gameplay to those of us who do want to play computer games just to be vindictive to other players.

I have played this game since 2004, I do not enjoy killing other players and when I started to play it was not an exclusive PvP game. Has it now officially changed so if I do not want to PvP I am in the wrong game?

Yes, it was.





You always were.

If EVE is getting sicker, maybe we should send it to a doctor?

I've played since may 2004 and it's always been a PvP game. (Not this char)

You either didn't truly play, stayed in some back water system and did nothing but mine, or your memory is wrong.
When I started there were far less online at any one time, so the former is likely.

Eve is PvP centric. Almost every aspect of the game, revolves around competition and conflict. As more players have joined, it's merely gone to highlight that more.

The only thing I can clearly recall changing from 2007 to now is that currently, getting into Null-sec is far far easier than it was back then.

I'm in about 5% agreement with the OP.

Eve is becoming increasingly polarized between the carebears and the pirates. Once upon a time, corps typically had a mix of pvp-focused players and industry-focused players who would work together for each other's benefit. Hauler's had escorts, mining ops had security, and lowsec industrial POSs had defenders. Now this is rarely found outside of nulsec (where it's a practical necessity). But in empire space these two groups have little reason to work together. The industrialists are focused on ISK/hour and have no desire to build anything other than to sell on the market. The PvPers want to pad their killboards and have no interest in sitting around, guarding a bunch of shiny mining ships, when they could just as easily gank said ships and get their killmails that way. I'm not saying that it's completely gone from empire space; but it is in decline. Things are drifting towards creators-vs-destroyers.

People play EVE for different reasons. Many are driven by the primal desire to clash and match wits with other human beings. They love the thrill of combat and the adrenalin rush that comes with risking and fighting over things of value and consequence. Others are driven by the primal desire to make things. They love turning barren rocks floating in space into beautiful functional spaceships, and wish to bring civilization to where there is none. I am of the second type. I heard about the massive fleet battles involving thousands of players and the vast, complex player driven economy behind it. But what really sparked my interest was the backstory about humanity reaching out through the stars, through a wormhole to a distant region of space, to where there was nothing by emptiness and asteroids and, not only having to make due, but thriving. I understand and respect the other type of gameplay, and would quite happily build you ships and weapons to further it, but it's not for me (I prefer to have my PvP of the FPS variety). When I got into EVE I was a bit disappointed to find that everything that needed to be explored, discovered, researched, invented, and built has already been explored, discovered, researched, invented, and built. This is no Minecraft in space. But that's a rant for another post.

When you think of what makes EVE great you probably think of the legendary battles between player empires in nulsec. These are what make headlines and gaming history. But what's important to the current discussion is that they build any fly their own fleets of capital (and sub-capital) ships and destroy them in the great melees that make the New Eden economy go round. The key point here is that it's creator/destroyer-vs-creator/destroyer. This is the defining characteristic of a healthy New Eden.

Creators-vs-destoryers sucks for everyone. It sucks for the carebears of obvious reasons. And while it may initially be fun for the pirates, it cause their victims to cry and scream until CCP starts rolling out nerf after nerf to highsec PvP. Not good. What needs to happen is for CCP to nudge these groups towards cooperation with each other for mutual benefit.

I honestly don't know how to make that happen. But I think a good place to start would be recognize the defining quality of a healthy EVE Online alliance: that members, as a whole, create and destroy in approximately equal amounts. Groups that mostly do one or the other are not healthy. Most Individuals are biased strongly in one direction or the other, as would most subsidiary corporations of alliances; and that's fine. But the group of players who have agreed to generally not shoot one another, be it alliance or large independent corp, should be balanced.

"Eve is a competitive PvP sandbox set is a war-torn futuristic dystopia where we the players fight for power, space and resources. The game is specifically designed to foster conflict between the players everywhere in New Eden."
That exert is exactly what they are referring to. There isn't a lot of war-torn futuristic dystopia anymore. I have lived everywhere in this game for the last 2+ years bouncing here and there trying to find that same love of the game I had when I started playing so long ago.


The majority of gameplay I encounter on a day to day basis is not war-torn content, it's scammers trying to steal your isk through the same tired old scams being spammed over and over every 30 seconds day in day out. A stale and uneventful high sec, and nullsec where everyone just mines, missions or rats and docks up when their shiny ship is in danger.
Sure there are always tidi fleets to protect player space, but not everyone enjoys sitting in a 30% lag for 5+ hours defending a timer.

I understand eve has a challenge in every aspect, but to allow the scammers and spammers to run rampant is too much. I detest the trade hubs and I always close my chat boxes when I have no choice but to go there, why? b/c there is nothing of value to read there, everything linked is a scam or someone bitching about being scammed. I mean hell its gotten so far out of hand people are now using their bio to carry their scam everywhere they go, and it even comes equipped with a fake link to their "wallet".

"Play my game follow the rules and you win, click here for api verified wallet transactions" but I found those websites and they are designed to falsify the wallet so it will show isk returns when there are none.

No, the OP was referring to the ubiquitous existence of PvP as a "sickness" in Eve. Eve has always been a place where everyone is competing with everyone (it's even in the name, Everyone vs. Everyone!) and that is the same today as it was 11 years ago.

Now, if you want to claim that Eve has some issues with stagnation and malaise, I will not disagree with you. However, in my estimation this is not because there is too much player conflict in Eve - it is the exact opposite. A combination of highsec being too lucrative and too safe has drawn many players back to earn an income in near total safety, as well as a lack of compelling sovereignty mechanics to keep players fighting in nullsec has caused there to be a lack of meaningful conflict. Just a bunch of veterans grinding ISK in highsec incursion and then randomly roaming around outside of highsec looking for consensual and meaningless fights with one another.

Scams are part of the "dystopia" but easily ignored/avoided if that isn't your thing. Highsec is too safe to be really interesting as there is no real advantage to joining a corporation and defending it from a wardec, and nullsec has its own issues.

I agree that Eve definitely has some problems, but too much player conflict isn't one of them.

The "dirty little secret" of most PvPers is that they already have a "miner/indy/trader/hauler guy."

Sometimes this person is an alt of the PvPer... sometimes it is an actual person. Either way... what separates these characters from their miner/indy/trader/hauler peers is that they...

- are willing to accept risk as it comes (even if it means lower profits).
- talk, communicate, and work out deals with the PvPers they are supplying.
- understand that no matter how powerful his/her PvP friends are, "safety" can not be guaranteed. So it is up to that character to take preventative action and/or stay within "we're coming to save you" distance from friends and allies.
- (continuing from the last point) understand that in order to take preventative actions they have to know how PvPers operate and what mechanics they typically use. This usually requires the miner/indy/trader/hauler to PvP a little bit (much the same way a "pure" PvPer has to take a crash course in economics and industry to buy/sell stuff on the market).


The rub is that there are more than a few miners/industrialists/traders/haulers that do not want to adapt in this fashion because it "interferes" with the way they want to play... which usually does not include PvP in any way, shape, or form... which is silly because they are affecting PvPers in their own way and literally asking to not be affected back.

The current issue is mainly based on perception and principle... not actual mechanics.