EVE General Discussion

These past weeks I have had to take stock of what my own feelings towards playing EVE are at this particular moment in time and to that end have begun several in depth discussion sessions with Alliance members looking at various aspects of the game, it's history and it's future which to quite honest at this moment in time looks rather bleak. Then came Ms Seagulls little bombshell, and I have to admit I could not resist putting a view forwards, some of make up this article, There will of course be those that have differing views but that's ok, My view are my own and though I am sharing them with you today your own personal thoughts on it are to be quite honest irrelevant in the scheme of things simply because they cannot detract from what is in essence the true scale of the problem CCP face currently with EVE and why I and others feel they do not have the foresight to solve these issues themselves without prompting, So what's wrong with EVE overall, On the one hand CCP are stating that it's great, that there long term goals whatever they might be are for the better and that constant improvements in game mechanics will see the thousands we once saw flock back to the game, On the other however there are a large number of players that disagree with this view intensely and it's the cause of this focused disquiet that is the main theme of this post.

Way back in the day, EVE had a certain edge to it, Empire and Lo-Sec blending out into Null-Sec was in itself an adventure for players starting out on that long road to the riches they could at one time avail themselves of, if they had the stones to go do it, That said the first thing they had to decide was which region they wanted to set up shop in, Why so, Null-Sec was after all Null-Sec was it not, lawless rich and fertile systems ripe for the picking, Or was it. Well looking back to those days not really as the wealth creating potential of a region was dependent on the types of Resources, Moons and Minerals to be had there, North, South, East & West were in relation to each other different in many ways, The Drone wars were and are often talked about, but go further back into EVE folklore and you find the Dysprosium wars and the Technetium wars are well documented, but why was this so, after all are they not just Moon Goo, Well that all depended on were you lived, Take the Tech based wars, mostly directed at the North were fought by huge fleet battles simply because that is predominantly were the Tech was and if Alliances wanted that wealth generating potential under there control they had to go fight for it, Pure Greed drove them to fight for it and Pure Greed drove them to defend it and, they were so driven they would put up with the issues like 'Lag', and still fight for weeks for systems, expend billions in days, trillions in a few weeks, all to gain a slice of the Pie that the region offered them.

Today however after years of homogenization EVE has become as bland as a supermarket bread loaf shelf, and it's that simple factor that now causes such issues in game that people simply cannot be bothered to cross space to fight for something that they already have, why bother as ice is the only real difference in regions now so there is no real impetus to drive Alliance to fight for anything much, all they need to do is defend what they have and everything will be fine, Everything CCP has done has added weight to the lid on this one to the point now were even the burden of fatigue timers is of little or no interest to players, after all if there is no reason to go there what's the issue with 'Space Aid's, don't go you don't get them simple as that.

This being established, That the real reason for these massive Alliance fights when you dig down into it is that Greed is Good, nothing more nothing less, it was the driving factor, You took space to make your Alliances rich, CCP's efforts took that away from players making each region in effect the same as any other the Empire market filling in the gaps for them so they could still exist even without the extra space, in fact taking that space now became a task few wanted to endure, keeping it, one even less.

Now this is were it gets really messy...Or interesting depends on your point of view, Don't care here goes anyway. Crash the market, utterly destroy it ability to function in the stable form it currently enjoys, How, well simply make Null-Sec the place to be if you really want to build stuff, Buff mining out of this world, 50% bonuses across the board on station facilities for industry and refining, increase yields for minerals, put PI and obsolete Moon minerals back into the mix for building Rigs and modules, but most of all make Moon Goo regional again in a big way, depleting yields if you must but it has to be worth the effort of taking it and most of all defending it, The market will first wobble, then it will crash, it must do this to rebalance itself and it will.

People complain about the bland nature of PvP, make building all types of ships profitable in Null-Secs again so that Alliances will be happy to use say Battleships rather than the usual list of T3 and T2 cruisers, shorten timers for copy and research, build timers and module manufacture timers, make T1 a thing to consider in fleet warfare once more over T2/T3.... a lesson the war capable nations of the world are currently learning the hard way, were many cheap and cheerful items beats few expensive all singing and dancing items every time, its a numbers game gentlemen, you must have more and be prepared to loose them and not care.

For the individual players make ratting, anomalies and plex's profitable again, Put belt ratting back on the map in Null-Sec and make scanning something worth undertaking again, not something as bland and tasteless as we currently have, a pastime that requires real skills to perform well and the rewards commensurate with that investment, Some sites solo, others fleet stuff required, you get the picture.

Take Plex off the market and sell them in only in the Nexus store, make it difficult for Macro-traders to run the market, allow the little guy to get in there and make a profit. There is that word again..PROFIT, In a game were the very Ethos of it has always been one were players should if so motivated be able to accrue wealth for themselves, the amount does not matter, it's that they can if they invest the time and effort into it reap the rewards and those rewards need to be far in excess of those available to them in Empire, The prime mover for getting players out of that cursed place into Null-Sec, into fleets, into wars and most of all into communities again.

In conclusion, All of this has one purpose, that is to make players feel as if they have something invested in there space, there Corps, there Alliances, Currently to be quite honest, and more importantly for players to be honest with themselves, those same players really feel as if they have little or nothing invested in these things simply because if it all goes South, they can move on and do the same thing in another place, after all EVE is so same ole, same ole it really does not matter to them were they set up there flag, PvP'er, Industrialist, miner, in the end it makes no difference to them, Scalding Pass, Drone regions or Fountain, they can do it all there, were ever that might be so they feel nothing for the place in reality, or there Corps or there Alliances and even less affinity to the Community they find themselves a member of, And there you have it, That is what has died in EVE, died a death caused by a thousand cuts maybe but what ever killed it the current state of the EVE universe is what is holding it into this downward spiral, locked in until the only inevitable end and nothing CCP do will change that unless they give the players the tools to change it themselves.

The above is only one view point, the conclusion however is an inescapable fact, EVE is dying, by it's own hand, Long standing players that have played EVE for years, Supported CCP through thick and thin times are leaving in numbers, Yes new players are joining, but evidence points to the fact they find little to hold them here as the hype just does not live up to the reality, Ms Seagull asks that players support CCP Dev's by simply playing EVE, in short continue to pay your subs and shut up, Some will heed this plaintiff cry, far more I am sure will see it for what it is an attempt to avoid admitting they screwed up big style, Hubris now prevents them from admitting these facts and Hubris will see them take EVE to the wall rather than redact changes that caused this to become an inevitability, like a train hurtling towards a wreck or a rabbit in the headlights whatever the reason they need to act and act decisively, give back the right to players to feel they belong, to feel they are engaged and invested in there home systems and regions, Alliances and Corporations again, Only then will you have a chance to save the game for the future.

tl;dr please.

Eve is dying.

Buff Null is the TLDR.
Because they don't have enough income already so need more.

You win EVE when you don't log in.

I gave up on playing the game for fun a long time ago. I play for the people and the community. And I technically don't have to log in to play with or manage them most of the time.

The people make it worth it. It can help to play other games with your Alliance/coalition mates to cleanse your palette. Have you considered looking at the Imperium's invasions of other games?

If only I could take that big multi-post wall of text and apply it to my Vengeance as armor, Invincible!!

Trust has a value in EVE.
Maybe expand on their good work and do a tutorial on scamming, both how to scam and how not to get scammed.
Maybe have an agent scam them for half their stuff, but give it back.
;-)

TL;DR: fix my issues with game and win the day!

That's a very common claim.

Unfortunately, we do know that nullsec dwellers are just a majority within a minority, and in terms of subscription income, they represent about 25% of EVE.

It's been 4 years since Incarna, and what I said back then still holds water now: what is killing EVE is not the striking hemorhage of PvPrs, but the slow and steady bleeding of PvErs.

I would feel a lot more confident with the future if CCP had attended that issue in the last 4 years, and had plans to improve PvE based on what PvErs pay for.

2011-2013 saw the plans to gain back PvPrs. CCP Unifex was the hero who called back 5,000 PCU.

But in the long run, two years after the end of that stimulus, 11,000 PCU are gone.

Gaining 1 PvPr for each 2 PvErs who quit is not taking EVE anywhere.