EVE General Discussion

CCP needs to find a way to drive conflict back to LS/NS/WH's, and out of HS. When you have more ships getting blown up in what is supposed to be the "safe" area of Eve than the dangerous ones, there is a problem.

Removed some off topic posts.

Interesting ideas.

The key problem of EVE is that it is almost entirely anti-social for a newbie. Once locked out of the rookie channel, just about the best social content EVE offers is Jita local. Of course, the standard answer here is "join a corp", but that answer is simply part of the problem.

First, it means that social contacts are by and large locked away into corps, leaving the rest of the world largely deprived of anything social (unless you consider blowing each other up or market PVP as "social").

Second, it means there is an unholy mixture of business / work and friendship in corps. Joining a corp is more like joining a clique, but at the same time it is about ISK and ISK-making opportunities, "political" power, etc. There is a reason why most of us separate these matters in real life, and EVE breaks this by design - with potentially ugly interpersonal consequences.

Third, it sets a high entry bar simply because it reverses the order in which we usually acquire relationships. In real life, friendships typically grow over time and one becomes part of a clique by living one's life with people. In EVE, you are supposed to join a cabal cold, with very little prior insight into who these people are and what they do, and then sort out your relationships with everybody afterwards.

EVE is really is like an autistic idea of how human relationships should be organised: everybody choses a batch of convenient people to join, and then they all become friends. Right.

I would suggest two things:

1. Casual places to hang out at and do nothing but socially interact - but importantly, where one is encouraged to hang out both by the environment and through offering low-key entertainment and consumables. Basically, space pubs. I should be able to sit down and have a virtual beer while chatting with a friend about some indy jobs I'm doing. And now a newbie wanders in, looking lost. Well, I might just shout him a beer and ask if he want to sit at our table. That sort of thing...

2. Meaningful collaborative tasks that pay out reasonably, for which one can casually sign up with other people, and where the game provides dedicated meeting places, easy sign-up mechanisms and a modicum of built-in protection against victimisation through other group members (not outsiders). Basically, space adventure guilds. The best way of finding out that one can have fun playing with someone is to play with them, yet currently this is largely restricted to corps. One can shout for assistance in local, but there is little in-game encouragement for this. It should be possible to log into EVE, think "I fancy doing this mission, let's see if I can find some people", warp to a specific place where people congregate, arrange for a group and then head out to do it without having to worry overly about backstabbing (other players attacking the group is a different matter).

Details of how this could be implemented without breaking the game or development budget would have to be discussed. But the point is simply to encourage strongly social interactions apart from corps. I think this would do wonders for newbie retention... In fact, I think it would also make corp recruitment way less painful.

EVE doesn't have a problem with attracting players, the problem is keeping them.

Not empty quoting

If you want more players in eve, find someone who plays eve and works at SyFy or Space channel and have TV advertising during something like the expanse. 100% of the viewing of expanse would be blown away by eve.

TV advertising might be out of budget so you need someone at one of those channels who loves eve to negotiate some type of agreement.

SyFy/Space received 25% of all sub rev's generated from people using the game code from the commericals. Forever in perpetuity.

Part of the problem I would guess is that other scifi gamers dont know what eve is or dont know how fun it is.

Agreed. The problem for me isn't anything to do with attracting new players or holding on to them. You either engage someone instantly in the game or you don't and this is purely down to human interest and is why we choose to buy from shop a rather than shop b.

If you are involved in business you will know engaging customers more who are already engaged with your product is much easier and cheaper so really once those people decide to stick it out from the beginning CCP needs to do a better job at retaining them.

Now over the last 2 years it feels ccp changed it's direction and this offended a lot of loyal customer/players. But, once again, rather than listening to our feedback about certain monumental **** ups over time these changes are actually starting to make sense.

We want engaged players who are "active" in the game. So making people active in the game is a big enough job for mechanics that have been in place since its existence.

I will say this though, for players to be active there needs to be somewhat of a mind change in what game CCP really want. A few years ago Eve was promoted as a game where choice causes consequence in reality choice these days causes 2 or 3 consequences. I've also seen Eve promoted as a game like no other where complete armies go tooth and nail to fight for territory and resources..... This again was really only aimed at a very small number of people who play the game as a null seccer.

The game I want to see is about territory, e-honour, badges, isk and power, negotiation and conflict. its got to be tough and harsh and dynamic and a have a sense of loss and the ability to survive another day. It should never be about who can bring the biggest alliance with the most logi and ecm.

Eve is not an arcade but what makes arcades fun to play whilst managing to retain players is quite sinply good game design built on true gaming theory. May be 10 years ago what we see in the game now was revolutionary but not today.

Now this brings me onto the next point which is why I completely disagree with this concept everyone needs to play in null sec. No - JUST PLAIN OUT NO. In todays world people want choice and personalisation. It would go against every piece of evidence of retaining engaged customers by forcing them to play in null sec. No this doesn't promote carebearing no this isn't the reason why people lose interest in the game. This is just purely a statement made from guess work and has no bearing on real evidence.

If that was true, CCP should allow ganking in starter systems, no?

I tried to bring RL-friends into the game. So far without success, guess age has something to do with it. My wife who was addicted to another MMO (Ryzom) doesn't want to get into that addiction another time, so not even her I was able to convince.

Maybe they're just smart in staying away from the time sink called Eve.

No they woudn't, they do want people to get a toehold in the game before anything happens.

I've seen 2 people now dispute the fact (related to us by CCP) that people who get shot in game early stay longer. Where is the proof that you used to come to the conclusion that CCP is somehow lying about that? and if they are lying, WHY would they lie, what do they gain from it?

Like I've said before, this is a small example of why the real world is screwed up (and probably doomed), because people choose to believe what they want rather than what is and can be proven.