EVE General Discussion

My knowledge of software development pretty much stops at

10 PRINT "Christ, computers are SO boring"

So NDA or no NDA, I simply lack the competence to even understand the answer I'd get even if CCP were to give it me and even if I were able to pass it on.

I'm gonna let you in a little secret: My laptop's current graphicsdrivers are so botched up, the old lightversion of EVE would look absolutely incredible compared to it.
I almost literally play EVE by overview. I still consider a minor patch that solved a few glitches for the DX9 drivers the best ever. Made my day. Week even.

Then again, I played stuff like Pong...

If their current businessmodel is to improve on what is here now, then I'll be here for a while. I will choose less TiDi over cooler graphics any day (for fairness lets assume I would have a properly working computer).

I'm not against wormholes, incursions, faction warfare or any of that. Nor do I hate new stuff in general. I usually try all that at least once. But I played long before any of that came to be and fell in love with EVE nonetheless.

While I don't imagine CCP sitting on their asses being slow all day, there are truly some areas currently in the game where I'm wondering how long it can possibly take to fix. POS's being a good example, people have been asking for a fix for these since I started playing in 2006. We've all noticed they were REALLY up for a major overhaul very soon in 2009 and should be near the top of the priority list. You'd expect that at least someone somewhere is working on at least creating some basic outlines or concepts. But then you read the CSM minutes and come to the stunning conclusion that no-one has even bothered looking at POSes for the last 8 years, let alone come up with a plan to fix them. Same goes for simple things like a log-off button which can't be done because of old nested code. Okay it's a hard thing to fix, but aside from taking a glance at it and coming to that conclusion, I think it's safe to say that no further effort has gone into actually attempting to solve the issue.

What I'm getting at, sometimes it feels as if CCP looks at hard to fix code and just puts it on the pile of other things that are hard to fix and then covers it up with a sheet to pretend it isn't there. Then they proceed to fix all the relatively easy stuff, even though those things aren't very high on anyone's priority list. That is not the right course to take. All that happens when the community brings up something important is CCP saying "yes, we know. It needs to be fixed." and then not doing anything except fix some unimportant stuff.

I know I'm sounding like some bitter 'EVE is dying' bittervet or something. That's not my intention, just frustrated at the apparent lack of priority with the devs.

EVE is going to be around long after all other current MMOs are ancient history.

CCP can use this current engine indefinitely, I imagine. Who but they know how they've structured their corporation, and which Peter is being robbed to pay which Paul. Yet, even they (and their blindly loyal following) must admit (and quite possibly accept the fact that) obsolescence will catch up to them just like it does everyone else.

Unless, of course, their plan is to sell tickets to view antiquated gaming. Then of course this present method is eternal.

Scuttlebutt gets it right for once.

I don't think it's very sustainable.

If you think CCP makes close to the kinds of profits other MMOs make you are mistaken. Their subscription numbers that actually pay are far less than their real subscription numbers.

For the longest time I had 18 active accounts "subscribed". I was PLEXing all of them manually none the less.

With how easy it's become to make ISK, I don't think the business model is sustainable in the long run. They should be charging a base subscription fee IMO; if you can make enough ISK you can then PLEX secondary, etc. accounts

The point is, there may be too much stuff. Of course all the new stuff is awesome. And future new stuff will be, too. But those that have been around the longest, haven't stayed around because of unknown stuff that would come into the game years in the future. They stayed because the general atmosphere of the game is captivating. I came back after 5 years absence, not for any of the new features. I didn't even know what the new things were, until I logged in and noticed differences. Then I figured I should go read what was all different. I came back because I remembered what exploring the "universe" was like. Yes, the new features were cool. But once I was playing again, I went back to doing what I was doing 5 years ago: building up my space empire. And succeeding at it again with things that came into the game back in the mid-2000's. And, yes, I'll eventually get around to all the new things. But those new things aren't what keeps me *cough*addicted*cough* to EVE. Its the fascination of discovery, along with the thrill of the risk, all bound together with the lust to blow up other player's spaceships.

The business model is fine.
Spending the revenue on projects doomed to fail is a completely different matter.

Eve supposed to be a strategy game when I started playing, and now is a chat client focused on graphics (strange choice). Also seems to be less and less original people and content creators in this game because of being rigged patch after patch (changed to favor a certain category of players), so I'd say is not sustainable.