EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello!

I'm an old EVE veteran that used to love this game very much, ever since beta. I was lucky enough to be a part of CCP's bug hunters team during the castor/shiva days, and got to show my appreciation by helping the devs make the game better. It was a great time!

I took a break from the game a couple times, because the game got so incredibly meta, with alarm-clock timezone warriors and starbase spamming. Blob warfare was also pretty bad. There was also quite a bit of internal corruption back then that really disgusted me. I still came back to the EVE website, and read the dev blogs. I have read about the many changes this game has went through, some of them really impressive! Though at one time, the corruption got so bad that I felt I had to speak out against it, because I love this game and believed in supporting the player's voice in getting CCP to clean things up. I had an unknown dev/gm retaliate against me and revoke my gifted account (for being a bughunter) without explanation. It left me so disgusted that I decided to leave for good. The players won in the end, and CCP made some serious reform. They disbanded the aurora team and revamped the entire way ISD works, and many other things. It was a happy ending! (though I still miss my vol account )

It's been a while since I've dipped my toes into this game. I've still been keeping up with the dev blogs, and I'm really impressed with the new graphics and server optimization. Time dilation looks very cool! The $80 monocle scandal was really bizzare, but that seems to be in the past now, and I decided to start up a trial account and take this game for another spin.

My question: Is this game worth getting back into? I have an inactive character that has 40 millions SP, and I also have some specialized characters (traders, covert ops, etc) scattered around. I'm probably a little behind the end-game, but not by a lot. Is alliance warfare any fun? Or is it still massive blobs and shooting stations? I know a lot of things were changed with fleet/alliance warfare and territorial control. So has it gotten better? Is it worth playing now?

What fun things am I missing out on? Ever since Exodus, each new expansion seemed to push this game further and further into a grind. Castor is still the most fun I've ever had playing this game. The only exception is when I joined Red Versus Blue, which was an amazing concept and a total fun time. I'm glad I was able to be part of that, but the internal corruption and dev/gm retaliation drove me out of the game around that time.

I'd really like to hear your opinion! I've poked my head out of the station a bit and I really like the new graphics! There also seems to be a lot of new PvE and PvP content added into the game (some of it is daunting ). But messing around with a trial account doesn't answer the end-game questions that I have. I wish I could ask these questions in general forum, but restricted to only posting here. I hope some veteran players see this post and can answer these questions for me.

Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think!

Well, I'm only 3 1/2 years playing but I love this game.

I can't speak about the PvP aspect but the PvE content is great. Mainly I do exploration and missions.

For missions it's mostly Cosmos and Epic Arcs. They have a very good storyline along with some excellent eye candy. I do them for standings, not to make ISK.

For ISK, I find that exploration makes me quite a bit. Usually I just sell Decryptors and Data Cores found in Radar sites along with most of the salvage found in Magnetometric sites along with any skillbooks found. Most everything else I find is packed away in stations. The combat sites are an excellent way to gain Faction / Deadspace modules along with Implants such as Snake, Halo, etc.

As for your past experiences with all of that political stuff, sounds like you got a raw deal. Anyway, I'd just forget about that mess and jump back in with more of a user type attitude instead of a helper type attitude, if you know what I mean. Basically CCP has plenty of paid employees and if you're not on the payroll, no need to do that extra work.

Other than that, I hope you decide to come back and enjoy the game.

I'm afraid if any MMO tried that angle, they would not get very far. I don't think anyone likes to waste their time or money, and there are many other games competing for attention. I'm just wondering what has changed in EVE to make it more fun and enjoyable since the last time I played. I'm hoping someone can answer that question!

You might try Worm Holes, but other than that, there is nothing here meriting your entertainment dollar. I'd go try World of Tanks, if I were you.

There has never been a point in EVE's history where bringing more ships was disadvantageous. There are no mechanics which really favor the smaller fleet, nor are there likely to ever be ones...and there hasn't been in the past, either. I suspect that EVE mechanics never changed, but as EVE grew, its highest-scale combat (nullsec alliance) grew too big for your tastes

However...as said before, Dominion overhauled the sov system in a few ways, one of which made sieging systems less blobtastic. The way it used to be, you needed to anchor X number of starbases in a system to claim sov, and the only way to take sov from someone was to blow them up and replace them with your own. This was replaced with a new system which involves less POS-bashing.

If your main problem is "there are too many ships involved in combat here" you have a number of options. NPC-0.0 alliances and conflicts are naturally going to involve smaller numbers than sov-holding 0.0. Faction warfare engagements tend to be pretty small. There's also wormholes, introduced in Apocrypha. Wormhole space has delayed mode local (e.g. no one shows up in local unless they speak), as well as mass limits on wormholes which pretty much hardcap the amount of bullshit you can fit into one.
them there are just various 0.0 entities which may work in and around the space of large sovholders but do not directly participate in blob warfare - the number of covert ops corps (corps that generally use cloaky fleets of black ops, stealth bombers, and whatnot) is pretty sizable.

I'm in the same boat as you, I just re-subbed and took the 2 month offer for 15 bucks.

Things I've noticed so far (I'm a more I industrial minded pilot)

Planetary interaction is pretty cool and a casual way to earn ISK though I've just done setups and have not profited yet.. But fun to manage

I tried eve when wormholes just came out and were fun but no one knew what to do inside them yet... It was more scan and find the wormhole and stare at it and jump back and forth through with glee but terrified to go anywhere else inside wormhole space.

Now it seems corps are settling wh space with pos and PI allowing the ability to be completely self sufficient inside

Settling WH space is supposedly the new 'endgame' how true this is I do nt know yet