EVE General Discussion

You and I both know that the real truth is that some people's 'ideology' and false perceptions get int the way of them understanding what's real. One of my side jobs is collecting crime stats for our annual report to the Feds and it never ceases to amaze me how much perception doesn't match reality.
. People think things are getting worse when they are MUCH ebtter than the past.

It's a very human trait. People turn on TV, see reports of crimes, and think there is all there is. No TV news report ever said "whelp, today was another day in which most people didn't get killed by a madman or eaten by a cannibal, now for the weather". I brains are weird to seek out negative information and gloss over positive information (positive stuff tends to not kill you) so most people think things are worse than they are most of the time.

In game is no different. You (Kaarous) and I know that EVE is as peaceful and kumbaya-ish and safe and polite as it's ever been, and yet people Like Milla love to think that the reason for lower PCU counts have something to do with the kinds of people Millia doesn't like in the 1st place. To call that delusional would be more than generous.

Oh, now i understand CODE much better.

So why does no one see the link between CCP introducing and maintaining more and more passive gameplay design and the dropping online numbers?

There's something wrong if there's so many things you can do in the game without having to be online. Why does it surprise anyone that less and less people are online?

Actually I think it is the link between higher EVE populations or skill requirements.

In my experience, we're far too heavy handed on some things. Even WoW, the most carebear, themepark, hand holding game out there, lets you PvP people without restraint.

I once stalked a guy for almost half a day straight, killing him across several continents dozens of times, and when he reported me a GM showed up and said "PvP happens on PvP servers, get used to it."

So it's really all about the particulars. I couldn't follow someone around for 8+ hours in EVE and kill them, even if they refused to log off or kept on doing things to expose themselves to me. I'd be reported, and warned for "harassment", even if the gameplay was 100% legal every time. I know this because it has happened to me.




You can be sure I do not care. This is a game, after all, not real life. If you don't like being a "prey animal" in a videogame, you can just magically decide not to be, and it's over.



Having worked for a large scale insurance company, I can assure you that's untrue. Real life is at the expense of others. Ever owned any Nike shoes? Then you've profited from slave labor. Drink orange juice? 50/50 on that. Own an iPad? You got it, made with slave labor.



And yet, the "worst elements" of EVE have been getting successively nerfed, again and again, for a decade. The game has never been safer, and according to some(including you), it's never been less popular either(by this, I mean the dive in concurrency of late). The correlation is pretty obvious, but we just have to keep blaming all those mean people for it, hmm? It can't be BECAUSE of everything that's been done to curtail player freedom, no sir, it has to be that those undesirables still have too much freedom left to do mean things.

Or maybe it's because if you spend a decade chipping away at what makes EVE, EVE, what you have left isn't all that great of a game.

I can manage and monitor my string of pos's and only need to log the character in every 3 or 4 weeks to collect the isk. If one gets attacked (hasn't happened in nearly 2 years) I need to be active enough to either replace it or defend.

A second just for the sake of it; I only log my trade alt in when I want to make changes to orders, I have been monitoring out of game. Still making as much isk as I used to logging in every day, now only logging in once every 2 weeks or so - and no need to put up with the constant flow of dung in Jita local chat.

A larger scale example - Mittens manages his little empire and hasn't logged into eve for several years.

Aside from totally missing the point on much of what I wrote and not actually responding to it in context, you did manage to confirm the fundamental issue. Eve onlines target audience and development trends is what keeps the game in the state it is.
When all the players who like to play differently to the "norm" stop playing, the "norm" become more pronounced due to less numbers to balance things . (norm = all pvp is fair as long as I win)
Many who do like PVP won't go roaming in small gangs because they know there is more chance they will run into a gang 3 or 4 times the size of theirs and just get whelped, than there is finding good fights. Or, you go roaming with a friend and 30 jumps later all you find is one stabbed Merlin.
Not everyone wants to belong to mega groups and be part of something bigger than them, not everyone sees ganking as fun, not everyone enjoys camping a lowsec gate in a gang picking off unfortunates who jump in.
Yet these same things are what Eve is all about.

What Eve is for many - For a few weeks now I have been running missions in NPC NUL, to get myself a few ships.
I undocked in an Assault frigate to do a mission and was insta locked by a RLML Caracal so just docked up. I then asked the owner of the caracal if they wanted a 1 v 1, surprisingly the answer was yes. So I grabbed an overpriced Caracal on the local market and fit it out - Undocking in my new Caracal, I was faced with the Caracal (which somehow turned into a blap Nado) and three friends -- I docked up. Turns out, this players idea of a 1v1 in caracals is to reship into something bigger and scream in comms for help.
When I asked the reason behind the deception, I was told - This is how eve is played, if you don't like it leave. (pretty sad but way too common response)

My interpretation of what happened - This is a player who has been around long enough to have in access of 100 mil SP, is too afraid to engage in PVP, unless they know they can't lose. Being too afraid to play the game with any semblance of honor or risk is a huge part of the reason Eve is the way it is..

Unfortunately it is a very widespread play style that is encouraged by the developers of the game - So yes your right, what is left of Eve isn't much of a "game". Great or otherwise.

I must say that I am glad the developers do not listen to any of these threads and actually have started figuring out what is true and what isn't. And that is all which matters.