Player Features and Ideas Discussion

That's not how niche games work. they collect players looking for something they can't find elsewhere. Many eve players make their home hear because ccp does not pander to common interests. We can get that in many other games.

To get bigger than wow eve wuld have to steal players from wow or appeal to people who like the wow concept. Generally when games do this it backfires. many games at some point went to varying levels of wow clone to draw in players....and their ship did not come in. These be the vast numbers of f2p with MT/p2w who instead of the consistent the $15 a month they made at release now hope enough p2w to cover the freeloaders expenses to keep up the game servers and such..

I didn't say I wanted WoW players in particluar, I just wanted more players in general... I never have and never will play WoW for a reason (not saying I have anything against those that do)

I want ccp to get more money because if they had more, they could do more so that maybe some of the features in the idea generation stage comes out in 9 years instead of 10 :P

I'm thinking turn based strategy game or online trading cards... Geez, if something like pogs can take off - there must be something "silly" or even somewhat serious that Eve can do to pull a profit...

Besides, every endeavor they take serves as advertisement to draw in a bigger crowd... especially if you start interfacing with stores like walmart, bestbuy, shoppers exc. (im in Canada)

LOL = league of legends?

32 million people play that garbage? LOL

See what I did there?

Hm... live longer then WoW (will be done soon... ish ), make WiS happen, include DUST and Valkyrie all into one unified game... make that game VR capable... AND do all that in next 10 years!

...easy, really.

This is sort of the point of it right here. If Eve were to grow as large as Wow, CCP would be saddled with problems Blizzard faced and is facing now: namely, their player base grew because Blizzard started catering toward "casual" players, which is just another way of saying players who aren't really invested in the game and who will take the necessary steps to grow (as players) and master the game. So, as the numbers surged with these "casuals," Blizzard became beholden to them, crying out for ever more easy-mode ways to play, and Blizzard was happy--obliged to respond in kind--so they wouldn't lose all these "casuals" who really didn't want to stick around for the game if it wasn't "easy-mode."

So what do you end up today with, then? A Wow that is five million--FIVE MILLION--subscribers down from its height during Wow's Wrath of the Lich King expansion. It's latest expansion introduced a Blizzard-themed Pokemon and playable Panda bears. Blizzard, wanting to hang on to its dwindling player base of "easy-or-flee" "casuals" introduced a game mode that automatically groups you with 24 other "casual" players so that you could still "kill the dragon" but where you essentially could be the worst player and still get carried along and "succeed" in fights. Of the 25 players required, it only takes about 10 to carry the raid, and you can "stand in the fire" or otherwise have very, VERY little situational awareness and skill at the game and still "succeed" and be handed your "epic" loot.

What's more, all the casual-pandering game modes introduced utterly and completely stripped the social aspect of the game. Players no longer have to even communicate with one another, nevermind having the "chore" to seek out others to group up with, form guilds, and foster friendships. There's little travel in the "world of Azeroth" anymore, too, as what was once required if you wished to enter a dungeon somewhere in the world--to define it and shape it as an actual virtual world--is replaced by instant travel of you and your 24 random "friends" to the dungeon so you can, again, "kill the dragon."

The side effects of this: the hardcore players--the very ones who stuck around to build Wow--were marginalized as the voices of the "casual" crowd grew. Hardcore players, indeed many a typical player of Eve, enjoy challenge and adversity, overcoming it and being justly rewarded. In Eve, it comes from deception, piloting skill, fitting knowledge, game mechanic understanding, etc. But a typical "casual" doesn't want to do any of this. They want to click "join Incursion" or "Faction Warfare battle" and it happens. They want very little risk of their assets actually blowing up, since if that's the case, they may as well leave, instead of being rewarded for their skill. Entitlement sentiment runs rampant on Blizzard's forums. And in response, Blizzard's community managers push out the company-line "spin" for the masses to devour. Hardcore players are silenced by backlash and QQ if they suggest keeping a feature that defined Wow, such as rewarding the best players with the best gear or best achievements. Casuals think that simply by paying for the game, they're entitled to everything the game has to offer, regardless of skill level or understanding of it. I'm not sure when gamers became this way, since I played games that required actual skill to succeed at and see the end, "beat" the game and feel a sense of accomplishment.

If Eve were to grow like Wow, we the players would lose our voice and our power to shape the universe the way us (typically hardcore) players want it. The 500,000 of us would be supplanted by 9.5 million "casuals" who'd want high sec to be a place where it would be impossible for any loss. Weapons would be disabled in high sec, since when you live in peace, there's no need for weapons, am I right? I'm sure that desire to "see the game" would eventually spill over into null sec, and casuals would demand a way to "see" null sec, too, since "why should only null sec get the best sanctums or asteroids?" Pvp would move into some sort of consensual monster, where someone would have to stay in nullsec for an hour or so before they became a "valid" target. Eve would be put on easy mode, and CCP would rake in the profits Blizzard has seen, yes, but at the cost of their souls.

I'd much rather a smaller Eve with a more responsive Dev team. I'd take a Dev team that's real and honest; a team that will tell us how it is, show their emotion, and sometimes say too much. That sort of Dev team shows me that they're passionate about their product, and they want the best for it. That shows me a Dev team that still dreams of what can be and works to make it happen. And I'll take a smaller player base of dedicated players wanting to keep the game the same as what all drew us in. The hardcore nature of Eve forced us to talk to others. It forced us to understand that our actions have consequence and meaning. We found corporations that took us in, showed us the ropes, and let us grow. We found corps that matched our play styles and corps that we shared our experiences with. When you're all in the same boat, the universe isn't nearly as scary as facing it alone, and that's the true success of Eve. And that's why I wouldn't change a thing.

You don't think though that any game company in their right mind would trade 500k hardcore players for a few million casual players in a heartbeat as long as they were able to do it in a sustainable context?

Also, eve is fundamentally different from WOW. EVE can support 5 million players without catering to specific users because users develop the content. WOW has introduced pokemon and pandas and all sorts of other **** to keep people entertained. 5 million eve players can keep themselves entertained without CCP being involved. This is completely evident by WOW's now unplayed original end game content. No one bothers with those old instances and simply rushes to the new content. A perfect example of this is that they now offer you a free level 90 character if you reactivate. Why? Because there's no new content at any level before that.

THAT is why EVE will never be WOW. There is a fundamentally different form of gameplay, and content creation. It's not casual vs hardcore, there are plenty of casual EVE players.

In wow, once you've done it all, you've no reason to sign in. In EVE, things are always changing because CCP has in effect 50,000-5 million (hypothetical) devs making content at any given point.

My teenage daughter likes making characters in eve. Except that there is not enough fashion options. She does the same thing in Sims 3 but she likes the modern non cartoonish eve characters.

My son (also teenager) wants to blow things up together with his friends. He likes warframe which has a level of investment and being able to lead a group of people and direct them.

There is scope to still broaden the social and pvp environments of the game without impacting the core game. They want to earn status not just isk, they want to look cool and not just in their captains quarters on their own, and they want to blow stuff up (eve does this relatively well, but perhaps more focus on more engaging group pve content in faction war could further accelerate this for casual gamers, whilst providing more content for the seasoned and... less pve oriented player as well).

I'm with everyone here that's telling ccp to keep quality a top priority and not cater to casual players like WoW did 100%

I'm more so focused on things to add that draw in a larger crowd

I don't think kongregate and mobile games are to be taken lightly

Like a 2D drilling game, someone sets up a PI drill and then releases contracts where people access it through a game on kongregate (NOM NOM NOM, I got a GEM! - you get isk to buy new gear and eve player gets gem - SIMPLIFIED)

There is little monster thingys you see at best buy where the kids put them on a device which uploads their unique code and lets them battle it out over the net... bit involved but it could be done with trading cards

Tower defense and games are popular...

Strategy games could be over the net for a twist, defend and attack from stations with various viruses and anti-viruses or have people fight over lunar bases with each moon being a different server

Yup, infinite possibilities... wasn't there even a strategy game planned that could be played in bars?

As far as FPS combat goes: Not sure if that should be the focus of WiS... not at first, at least. Stations/corp offices and bars could just as well be social areas only, for starters.