EVE General Discussion

I enjoyed the blog. I also appreciate you advocating for the player-base and vision that will help advance the game.

I did start to think outside of the box regarding underlining reasons for this vision-drift. I have to admit that part of my thinking started during a cable news story about the US Bail-out of the Banking Industry. So here are my thoughts:

• CCP and White Wolf merged in 2006 and started to develop WoD. I assume WoD as an MMO was part of that agreement. Kudo's for picking an IP that would take off in 2008 with the Twilight movie series starting!
• Developing a new MMO takes time and I'm sure a couple year's of planning were started to move WoD forward.
• Iceland had their economic melt-down in at the end of 2008.
• Anybody trying to get a loan to consolidate debt, refinance their home, or get a business loans would know how difficult that process became after the global financial melt down.
• I imagine that CCP's plan hit a road-block (Large Warp Disruption Field) on their way to diversifying their services (WoD, etc). Where would the financing come from? How would CCP maintain its obligations to White Wolf?
• Why ... they have an internal money tree! 300K subscriptions x $15.00 USD per month is approximately 54 Million dollars in revenue per year. Question is, how much is left after salaries, ISP, overhead, marketing, etc? What if we reallocate some of our talent and revenue to help us follow through on our business obligations?!?

I guess I'm trying to say that I think CCP is doing their best to continue with business obligations and agreements surrounding a merger, while developing spin-off titles like Dust 514 that will indirectly provide free advertising for EVE. I can't blame CCP for reallocating resources to meet their obligations. I do hope that a 'soon' launch of Dust 514 will provide more financial reserves to develop EVE again. As those projects come to closure, CCP may be able to reallocate some of the talent to help develop EVE again.

Thinking about this also helps me understand the micro-transaction idea. More quick revenue in a loan-free world.

Just some thoughts on how real world economics may impact long-term goals. Just a guess that CCP may have reallocated internal resources to help them potentially meet those goals.

Why are you spending time responding to Malcanis? He's a bigger troll than I am.

Also, to the OP: I appreciate your good-willing. I have nothing more to say.

U Jelly?

Damn that was well done.

Exactly that, thank you and well said (or typed)

Of course. This only makes sense but, as you pointed out in your post, CCP / Iceland hasn't had the best ride in the past few years. Part of that is self-inflicted though, as we've seen CCP stumble on multiple occasions with their messaging. The fact that their focus seems to shift every other expansion and never finishing major features doesn't help either. None of this adds up to an environment for going bigger, better, faster at max speed.



EVE would, quite bluntly, be dead by then. DUST is slated to come out ~sometime next year~. Between now and then, CCP needs to define just what the magical link between EVE and DUST is, then implement a mechanic within EVE to support that. Nothing I've seen so far indicated that DUST will be anything more than another FPS with an online gimmick attached and don't get me started on the PS3 only release (lol). Regardless, EVE's numbers are flat-lining right now and without an immediate effort to change that, everything else CCP has in the pipe is threatened.



The NeX was a good idea but, as I've noted multiple times, the pricing structure and marketing(??) do not lend themselves at all to making a lot of money. I'm sure CCP had made something out of the NeX, but I've not purchased one item on any character because 1.) The prices are literally ******** and 2.) The selection is lacking in the extreme. CCP needs to look at how Valve runs Steam to get some ideas on how to actually do this sort of thing.

For an interesting read, check out BitGamers Micro-transaction Investigation.

One snippet:

"EVE Online
Brought in with EVE's recent Incara update, these are all cosmetic items for the new in-game avatars and, bloody hell, they are expensive. They are technically available for free for a substantial amount of in-game currency - 'substantial' as in that some are the same price as huge space ships."

There's also this nice graph that shows how EVE's prices compare to other games.



I guess we shall see.

I don't mind CCP using resources on other projects, partially paid for by EVE. I don't mind CCP having a "meh, lets do something different for a while instead" because you can't keep your focus on one product for 8 years and not get worn down. I don't even mind CCP's eternal little fuckups.

What I DO mind is CCP taking us for idiots by REMOVING valuable resources from EVE development (rather than excess resources) for a long time, using all that to create something I didn't pay them for and then introduce something that's quite obviously a money grab while having the gal to tell make belief stories about it.

Things aren't "awesome", and if one messes up he doesn't have to publicly humiliate himself over it but at least he should go "ok, we ****** up lets rethink this", without the PR minutes nonsense. CCP doesn't need marketing or PR idiocy nor does it have to be politically correct, that's all just managers (read; waste of oxygen) folks. EVE is a niche sandbox that evolves about people bashing eachother's heads in, in space. Everything should focus and evolve around that basic premise (doesn't mean I can't have other stuff ofcourse).

The whole "you must grow because if you don't grow you're failing" is nothing but nonsense, told by clueless people who followed some economy study and think they know it all. Being stable is FINE, even being small is fine.

Let me guess: They let PS3 people chat on our global channels and thats pretty much it

I have 5 days left on AWU 5, and I have been in and have had good and bad experiences in nullsec PVE and PVE, wh PVP and PVE, im also starting to get into manufacturing and Research.
and I am starting to get bored with this game.

I would have loved to see the different station interiors before they replaced them with the 4 generic ones. heck, I now fly amarr and caldari T3s, I could fly a golem AND a paladin in under a month. I used to do exploration in a cloaky interdictor-nullified T3 making shitloads of isk in hostile null sec, and would almost **** my pants when i jump into a bubbled gatecamp afraid the lag might kill me.
and then they removed the ship interface and replaced it with a non-functional door with the message "you don't like CQ? well theres the door, now GTFO"

I love the efforts of the majority of CCP's employees, its just I am getting more and more irratated at CCPs lack of attention to EVE and space. granted we occasionally have these new fixes and overhauls, but you only have like 10 people actually working on Eve, and the rest being told to make something that in my opinion will hit a brick wall in an already oversaturated market. we have M.A.G., Everquest, Ultima Online, WoW, and various other MMORPGs which I remind you, more are being crapped out of the ****** game mill every day.

this is EvE Online, the one and ONLY game that exists in a single shard where ANYTHING you do can or WILL have an effect on the rest of the universe. I have no ******* idea why CCP's managers are trying to expand into other areas and putting the strangulation on the only thing they have going.