EVE General Discussion

Did you never log in a character to add something to the skill cue, then notice a fleet or something else you could do, so stay logged in and create content for you and others?
Unlimited skill cues means many players aren't logging in as regularly and so are not looking for or adding to content.

I was recently asked by a 3 day old account holder - Is it always this small (21K online, US prime time), is it worth playing a space game that is so big with so little players?
New players and old alike look at how many are actively online - If the numbers are too low and it seems there might be nothing to do - They go play something else.

There is no way to prove that people are using the unlimited queues and never logging in either. CCP doesn't give us sub numbers anymore, ever since they stopped growing about 3 years ago. Someone did the math on their corporate reports and matched their reported numbers with income and came to the conclusion that CCP is down 18% from 2013 to the end of 2014 (Riptard). http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-many-subscriptions-does-eve-online.html

But, again, we don't know either way. Skill queuing forever does suggest people plan on coming back in the future, but since we aren't seeing that it would be safe to assume the number of accounts skilling to eternity is probably small.

Then perhaps folks should stop using them as bullet points to their arguments.

Indahmawar Fazmarai put it bleakly, as is his wont, but my sense is that he was essentially correct that the current rapid pace of change is prompting a lot of people to hang on and wait. Capitals are up in the air; structures are up in the air; sov is up in the air; the overview and large swaths of the UI are up in the air. Even PVE is up in the air, even in high sec.

Given how much of EVE revolves around planning and preparing, I can easily imagine enablers in a holding pattern. And the way things currently are, for every enabler in a holding pattern there are a much greater number of players playing something else until the enablers give them something to do in EVE.

Nothing that CCP have been doing for the last year or two makes any sense unless they are planning for EVE in the long term. You don't do stuff like ban multi-broadcasting or spend 3 years replacing legacy code otherwise. They either think EVE is going to last a long time or they've raided the facilities stores and are huffing carpet glue like crazy.

They have been weirdly sanguine about the declining PCU and there are several possibilities here. Note that these possibilities are not exclusive.

1) They're all high as kites on that carpet glue and CCP was in fact a shadow operation to cover the smuggling of high quality uncut rotting shark the whole damb time. There were never more than a few hundred people actually playing EVE. Most of the people at fanfest were actors. We've been tricked.

2) EVE has already been sold to EA/Rockstar/Riot/ The Reptoids, and CCP staff don't give a toss about what happens between now and the official announcement: they're just packing in as many as possible of their personal pet changes that they always wanted to implement because screw it, they're all getting fired soon anyway.

3) The carpet glue is really working, and they believe that EVE is going to last at least another 10 years, so they're clearing out a bunch of longstanding code- and customer-centric issues, including but not limited to too many damb alts, too many whiny bittervets who just can't quite bring themselves to quit but stick around to **** up the party for everyone else, botters, RMTers, 5 digit numbers of supercapitals, tidying up horrible legacy code, etc., so that when the SeagullSpace™ or direct control or PvE that isn't horrible whatever amazeballs feature they think is going to turn the ship around kicks in, the decks will have been cleared.

4) PCU is down a lot, but subs aren't down by nearly as much, so it's not as bad as it looks, not just yet anyway. CCP assume that their customers are skillqueuing and waiting for Excitement, Adventure, Really Wild Things. They think that they have something up their sleeves that will convert all those skillqueuers into logger-inners.

Yeah exactly. That's why it's weird that CCP seem to keep on making these "short term pain, long term gain" type decisions for EVE. I've met these people; quite a lot of them are kind of weird, but most of them are equally definitely not stupid. If EVE was staring into the abyss, I am certain that we'd be seeing some very different decisions being implemented.

I mean come on, as an exercise, I am pretty sure that you can easily think of half a dozen major points of difference if you wanted to make a short term cash grab: cheaply implented, populist options - Leave the ISboxers alone. Custom skins in the NEx or whatever it's called now. Spawn a bunch of new space. NPC corp standings tokens for AUR. Special edition ship giveaways. Pirate bloodline Player characters. And those are just the ones that wouldn't really touch the sandbox too hard. If you're willing to cross that line then AUR for SP would just be the start.

Maybe pure hubris and arrogance is driving the boat off the edge of the waterfall now.

I don't believe these are mutually exclusive, and they're the only explanation that makes any sense to me.

More succinctly, they're simultaneously addressing the problem that there are a lot of player who minimally engaged in their game and the problem that their game is minimally engaging.

Yes, there's ~the metagame~, but that's shaped by the game as much as the players. The fact that the game not only requires but encourages detachment has led to the current situation where there are three guys busting their tails for every three hundred who only show up for the good part--which you can engage in with most of your attention elsewhere.

In what manner? If you're referring to the gameplay changes of late, then they are merely doing the things that needed to be done over a two-three year period, but now compressed in just a few months.

2 is a really scary prospect

4 is the preferred option. I would like to see this as an outcome.

1 and 3 just bring back horrible (I think, I can't remember) memories from younger days.
1 would also imply, the owners of CCP are filthy rich to pay all those actors attending fanfest. So Eve will survive into the unforeseen future or as long as their money lasts