Out of Pod Experience

bachelor - 3-4 years
master - 1-2 years

basically only the PhD students left with time to play...

this for greater justice.

Much of eve gameplay as i know it takes huge blocks of time. two hours up to ten for some of the more epic fleets i have been in.
While this is epic beyond all reason, it also does not jive with having a life outside the game.

If ccp wants to keep the bittervets who, as Florestan pointed out have finished their masters' and are now having jobs, they need to find a way to make a meaningful contribution to the grand political schemes of nullsec in the space of half an hour. I'm afraid this can't be done....

THIS.

Plus the demands of null sov owners, is why there are so many experienced players still making their living in hi-sec rather than null.

Bittervet = experienced player who has 'retired' to a less demanding life in hi-sec.

Then they get bored and eventually retire from EVE altogether. It's the EVE life cycle. Shame is, with a bit of work and attention from CCP, they could so easily keep folks from leaving by making the 'casual' player options more fulfilling.

Of course eve is dying. everything has an end at some point.

But to take online numbers or contact lists as a guide is a bit off.
If ccp would ban all those alledged bots at once you will see the numbers proberbly take a nosedive.
But that dip wouldnt mean it's dead, contrary, it would be healthier.

The launch of incarna went rather smooth at the server end, but caused some rather unpleasant issue's client side.
It was designed in a time where there was no economic dip and upgrading a vid card or even a complete new comp wouldnt be an issue for many.
If ccp manages to work on that issue and iterate on incarna to give it some proper meaning apart from some limited enviroment then it could attract new players or reinvite former players.

Eve isnt dead, at some point it will, but not anytime soon.

Yeah I think this is just about the size of it.

The "feel" of the game, to me, is that a lot of older players still had a thin thread of trust in CCP that was making them carry on subscribing to a game that they'd probably already gotten bored with long ago (and let's face it, the game's had a damn good run no matter how you look at it). But CCP's gross bumbling and fumbilng earlier this year, and the contempt for players shown in the leaked stuff, just totally broke that thread of trust.

Something really "popped" for many people - the bubble of immersion. Suddenly a lot of people realized there were other things they could be doing with their time.

So maybe this was partly deliberate. Maybe CCP decided on a leap of faith - that they'd be able to get more players in to replace the lost ones.

Time will tell whether the strategy worked. I think they'd have to "dumb down" EVE much more for it to work. It's simply not a casual gamer's game (unless you put a lot of effort into making it work for you as a casual player).

OTOH, maybe if CCP do "get back to basics" and concentrate on making EVE the best space game it could possibly be, maybe a lot of those older players will return eventually?

But I have a feeling there's only so far you can rely on "being the only decent space MMO in town" to keep players coming back. Maybe that limit has been reached? Dunno really, but it's fascinating to watch it all unfold.

Everything is dying slowly, including you.

Dying competently however.

It's also for the "free" content upgrades. Which is what the OP is bitching about.

I'm on my 5 free days here, only logged in to see the ambulation stuff, it was cool for about 5 minutes.

I wanted walking in stations in 2003 (Blame Earth & Beyond), ah, those were the days, when EVE was fun to play.

I'm too far removed from EVE to even comment on the current state of the game, quit about 4 years ago. However, I do see a lot more ppl complianing about the direction CCP is going with the game, too bad, it used to be a great game.