EVE General Discussion

There are too many disincentives to compete in Eve at the moment. Researching 0.0 options to deal with the upcoming changes to industry, the simple fact all 0.0 alliances charge approximately the same amount for 0.0 renter alliances and can promise some degree of relative peace suggests a fundamental shift has taken place. This is one way the SOV model is broken. It's a form of favoritism that favors the wealthier players. At core, as a PVP focused game, CCP should incent PVP play styles.

Further, as I've said elsewhere, the upcoming changes and the rationale behind the changes are also further disincentives to play the game, that is, to produce goods.

Do away with SOV. Consider what this would look like. Do away with an industrial fee scheme based on % of total values and map it to the innate logic of the game like the concept of distance and space.

There probably are many "fixes" one could make but I also think the development decisions are detached from what drives most "for profit" businesses. Developer design decisions arguably acknowledge such changes will decrease subscriber dollars. When CCP was releasing quarterly reports, this was evident in the data and how CCP discussed the data.

This suggests the drive to keep the customer happy is not the basis for making development decisions. One can extrude this idea to argue that unfavorable game changes increase the appeal of the game over the long haul, but that is a tough argument to make on a decision-by-decision basis. I'd say, in this sense, CCP has been the victim of its own success. I love Eve because it took the road less travelled but very few players, and by extension, very few dollars actually have ownership stakes in the game and the basic mechanic of keeping the customer happy doesn't seem to apply either.

Of course, the factors that weigh against that are community, invested energy and fun. I am not preaching revolution but it would be great to have real input in design ideas. The CSM model is not really more than a special interest venue. The surveys about industry were not substantial in how they led to design decisions.

Do away with sov, stop making it easy for the 0.0 cartels to set prices and agree to not wage war. Do not disincent industry and production. If you want to take on the meta aspects that really facilitate longer term revenue streams and customer retention, take on longer design cycles and build consensus.