Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In other words, you feel EVE is getting too crowded?

I think combat probes can already do that, so I'm not sure what new probes would be needed.

As for scarcity of players, a friend of mine recalls playing EVE many years ago when it first came out and setting up his corp in null and low sec. As more players came on it got too dangerous to operate so he left. He's often said a new server would bring back the scarcity of people again, which would achieve the same result you're suggesting by expanding space. But that would break CCP's idea of a single sand box concept, which to me I'm not sure makes any valid point.

Why? Because it seems the outcome is inevitable, as the sandbox gets crowded there's more conflict, that's it.

Anyway, have you tried wormhole space? I think you can get the same sense. Just watch for combat probes if you do

Why?

'Because I'm bummed out at seeing people in local' is not a reason.

yeah.... there are already large expanses of space with only handfuls of people in them

CCP Seagull said in an interview last fall they would add new space in "the next one or two years probably".

I will add here, echoing some of the posts above, that adding more space just for the sake of adding more space is not necessary or desirable. There is plenty of space in New Eden that is under-utilized and there are 2500+ wormhole systems that are intentionally designed to give that sense of an unexplored frontier where you are cut-off from the bulk of civilization of the Empires.

However, I will agree with you that some new space would invigorate the game, at least for a while, and draw people into the 'land rush' to explore and settle the new space. It really though needs to have some new mechanics to distinguish itself from our current space, and they better be engaging and different enough (like wormholes were) for there to be any lasting interest, but in any case, it will be completely claimed by players in short order.

So you are mistaken if you think new space is going to level the playing field in any meaningful way. Larger groups, and established players will still have the same advantages, and if they want to settle this new space, they will. Players and player groups get displaced from systems all the time and their ties to any particular place mean little. Their strength lies in their size and organizational abilities, not the fact they have lived in a system for a while.

The reality is Eve is not really an exploration game, but an Empire-building one. There will always be a finite number of systems and there always will be someone who has visited a particular place before you. There is a lot of barely-used space already though, and the map or API will tell you where that is if you want to fly mostly by yourself in the void.

New Eden currently has about 8000 star systems. A few of them are inaccessible (Jove Space). That may change once we get player built stargates but it will take a fairly large organization to build and deploy those stargates - not much for a solo explorer.

The Inheritance chronicle documents a Jovian wormhole drive that might allow access to space that isn't connected to the stargate network - Sansha stole this technology and use it for their Incursions - maybe someday it will be available to players but ships that can jump without gates or cynos would definitely change the game!

Don't try to get to jove space by mwd in the general direction for quite a long time.

It won't work. I swear it won't work so please not even try to.

You mean like wormholes?

Exploration from a gameplay perspective is scanning and hacking sites, to that end exploration to make isk doesn't need any more space than we've got. If you're talking exploration from a sightseeing perspective then yeah sure, I can see desiring more eye candy but I'm not convinced there's a gameplay need for more systems. Have you roamed around the barren empty sections of our current null regions? Does more regions far far removed from the central systems mean more interesting sights or more systems with 7 digit codes for names?

Most systems are empty. Even hi-sec has loads of quiet systems.

I completely and whole heartedly agree with you. As an explorer on my main character, with my alts just serving to support my explorer, I get a heavy feeling everytime I jump or scan and see I am never alone.

I look at the map at places I've visited, and dots are in the thousands. I look at the places where capsuleers have been in space in the last half hour, and nearly everything lights up. There are some exceptions, but if you think of this for a moment, and the unreality of the reality of Eve... Such vast space, and tine of day depending about 18,000-38000 players online. So few players, such a vast space in distances, yet somebody has visited almost every place in the last half hour alone!

I thought my solace would come from nul or wh space, but as I delve into these I find them even more crowded than hisec at times. The most remote parts of New Eden seem to lay in hisec in areas on the fringe, and losec. I won't say where my favourite place is -i don't want droves of company there. But even there, my solace is interrupted about once every 10 minutes by another capsuleer hunting someone such as me.

Myself and many others whom choose exploration as a path would welcome an addition to the map. I suspect though, that this vast empty track of space would have to limit the types of interaction and content available due to server load. PI, most mining, structures... These would likely be prohibitive. But I would be fine with that as long as there was treasure to be had! Scatter some relic and data sites, or some new sov system using the entosis as the main tool... We could chart new territory every day. Random NPC intergalactic battleships or something would keep the threat level high, and risk such as gravity hole anomalies that will suck you ship in and destroy if you don't pilot appropriately... A new breed of ship could be offered, a covert long range sniper/explorer ship that can scan over vast distances and warp in at 20au and nab you if you don't warp out in time... Of course the ship would have to be illegal in regular space.

We could have anomalies that are not made by life forms, but natural instead
We would find use of our current analyzers however, in abstracting ultra rare expensive material from these. Oh and emphasis on expensive. I apologize for typos if any, I am typing on a phone and can't zoom to see what I am typing here.