EVE General Discussion

when was the last time something exciting happened here? goons lost space ? is that exciting ?something in game that made u say wow i love it here.

6vdt taking BOB space is the last time i was here and said wow

Proof or never happened. I recall CCP admited, that most player quited after their first PAYED month. You pay and got owned by local bully. Stay or adapt, but who want to stay under such conditions. I am sure it is not a game (awesome space life simulator) it players, who make a problem here. Most of the community do PVP with sense and honor, defending their space, fighting opposite race or simply hunting those, who agreed to be hunted by flying into low sec. But those, who try to fix their badly hurt RL selfesteem by killing unarmed ships in high sec defenetely no content creators but simply kill the game they play.

Go to CCP's youtube page, and find the fanfest video discussing this. He is correct. In CCPs analysis showed that 85% of the players who were not ganked stayed with the game the least amount of time. In fact, the ranking went as follows:

Most time in game--those who were ganked (1%).
Second most time in game--those who were killed "legally" (14%).
Least amount of time in game--those who engaged in no PvP (ship to ship at least--85%).

that was mentioned by a ccp dev that's no longer with the company during a fan fest round table.. when they opened up and discussed new player experience and began tackling the problem. ccp ytterbium (sp) was the one giving the presentation if i remember correctly.. and yes its very true.. many new bros come and stick around for the trial phase or 1 month worth of time to check out eve online.. just to meet its real sword by gankers, cheap shots, and the scum that exist.

sorry dude but its true.. unless the new player finds a decent group or is guided to a decent group.. his or her hopes for survival are slim to none.. too many jerks have ruined the chances of retaining players. this is the raw truth, they increase risk thinking folks enjoy the torture.. some do.. most dont and leave. only insane people will constantly continue trying the same thing over and over again and fail doing so.. this is what ccp continues to try to counter.. yet they keep on failing..i wonder why? perhaps the "play like me" mindset has taken far too much over and killed what was supposed to be a sandbox.. perhaps it was implementation of more gimmicks and ganker toys ( yes you can blatantly see some items were put in just to help out with ganking and griefing..catchphrasing it as "content" and new "gamestyle mechanic".. all of that was just BS. and the smart consumer can see it for what it really is.

take a quick look around these parts, you have some of the most rudest, condescending comments on a gaming forum. matter of fact i just read one which would be deemed hostile, overly aggressive and just plain out rude in other gaming forums ( and while the poster who did would be BANNED! from forums for life)..

Eve online, CCP, and ISD needs to begin really putting folks in check.. how else are new sign ups going to feel comfortable and welcome when we have so much "forum pvp" here. its no wonder our sub numbers are dropping faster than a rare piece of loot.

of course you can remain in denial but once again.. i say.. the real numbers of eve online are now showing and despite the banning of bots and isboxers (which is a good thing).. we have a huge hill to climb to get back up top and break the record for most active logins in a single day.


hey remember when ccp tried to brag about us having 500k subs.. where the hec did they go? ooh thats right they blurred truth. thats between two servers or something and surely not all on Tranquility where it matters atleast to main players.

will we ever connect to china? doubtful highly doubtful.. so what can we do as a community to get people to play, pay, and stay playing and playing?

EVE was growing at its fastest rate when there was a lot more pvp. As safety has gone up the player retention has gone down. The reason is very simple, less pvp = less content.

There is no evidence at all that any pvp has a negative impact on player retention, all the evidence shows the opposite. The problem is we have lost a huge amount of content over the last 5 years and it's the 85% that take part in no pvp at all that then quit is the problem that needs addressed. We need to reverse the trend of less pvp because pve is never going to keep people interested in this game.

I have to say, and this very well may be anecdote, the majority of people I have met over the years that played Eve and left, left due to 'grief' play or some experience related to it. Yes, I know this isn't an official poll. But not one implied they left because Eve wasn't hardcore enough or because it was losing its cold.

So when I see statements implying that Eve needs to be more hardcore to better retention, it pretty much goes against what I've personally observed. "But what about CCP facts and data and all that?"... I'll just say that CCP isn't exactly known for its transparency or its willingness to engage in topics such as these. In fact, as far as I can tell, devs bring forth bits and pieces of 'evidence' in accordance to their own personal promotional views and agendas, just like players.

Just as a side note, I think it's sad that while I typed this what went through my mind was 'have I gone too far in criticizing the devs and will my post be censored or deleted'?

Your definition of content varies slightly from my definition. I dare say your 'loss of content' revolves around the loss in ability to gank/scam/grief players with ease. And although there have been instances where this is true, you cannot take that statement as a whole and claim this is THE reason player retention is down. In fact, this proves my point that facts are presented in ways that accommodate our personal agendas, just like claiming the fact that worldwide piracy has been on a linear decline as global warming rises. It simply makes no sense to me.

If it were true and really that simple, why hasn't CCP simply just gone all out and have undone the changes plus add more gravy in the form of your definition of content? This means more subscription, more money, more pants.

Same reason why CCP has done nothing to balance t3 cruisers and t3 destroyers.

Content is content, be it chewing on rocks or firing a DD in a battle over a keepstar. Just because you don't like an activity does not mean that activity should be removed from other players. This is the big problem with EVE, over the years people such as yourself have demanded nerf after nerf to pvp in order to get more safety and protection. CCP listened, nerfed, and ended up destroying a large amount of content. New players that now come try EVE are faced with a game that offers very little risk and thus, no challenge or fun. Which is why the 85% who do not take part in pvp quit

Yeah, because it totally ruins your narrative.

This is a very nice summary. Ganking and PvP lead players to stay longer and retention is really a problem of those not experiencing that and (most likely) being bored out of the game. This is based on empirical evidence. IIRC they found 80,000 accounts (excluding alt accounts) where they were ganked in their first 15 days (note, this does not mean they were 80,000 trial accounts if were in game 2 years at the time of the study and had been ganked in your first 15 days you might have been in the study).

But people wave their hands, "That means nothing...." or "That method is flawed [more bullshit hand waving]...."

This is why I think ultimately empirical work is not going to change people's minds like Lucy Lollipops. Lucy's mind is made up and no amount of empirical evidence to the contrary will be sufficient. Lucy is best described as dogmatic.