Out of Pod Experience

So, i saw Rixx made a blog post a few days ago where he kinda talks about what would make him quit eve. So i kinda got me thinking, and i figured we could have an interesting discusstion on people feelings about eve.

Some background on me.

I am 34, married, with a 4 year old. currently going through what i call 'life issues' no i won't go into details, so don;t ask. I have played eve for 11 years and 2 months. I started in 2004 after the Earth and Beyond sunset announcement was made.

I have taken a few breaks over the years, once in 2006 for 2 months to get married and have a honey moon, and once in 2011 (before incarnia) due to the birth of my son, this was for a year. but the bug of eve never quite left and i can back.

Anyway, i have thought about this, and though at times i get bored, and play skills points on line, i tend to check eve at least once a day everyday, so it made me think, what would make me leave eve?

There are not many things that would. I am an eve fan boi, self professed and i love this game. However, if the following three things changed at the same time (i could prolly adjust to one of them or two but not all) i'd be forced to walk off.

1) The skill poiint system shifting from a time system to a grind system.

I hate, repeat, HATE, run around, kill crap with sticks lvl up, get a knife, kill crap, leve up, get a short swoard.. etc games. I find that kind of play dull and borning. Don;t get me wrong, i'll play the **** out of a Final Fantasy stand alone game any day of the week, but for an mmo? no that crap is boring. If the time based system changes into a grind i'd be very hard pressed to stay.

2) Fracturing of the eve universe.

What i mean by this, is sharding. One of the things thta has kept me here is we all play on one server (china is the exception and i barley accepted that) If the new eden custer began to split into different regional servers... yea i don;t think i could stay for that.

3) Complete lack of eve things/changing eve into a theme park.

This si a big one, after incarnia i figured eve starts getting that bad again, and ccp gets too pie in the sky with there other projects, id be hard pressed to stay. Or if the sand box elements of eve vanished and we woke up to WoW in space, complete with the new Panda race... i'd bounce.

Now of course real life crap can change this and make me take mild breaks. But even then would be breaks. This damn game is in my blood, i find myself seriously eatting, breathing, sleeping, thinking of eve. she is, for lack of a better term, a vicious mistress, but damn fun too.

TL;DR: Three things that will make me leave eve.. whats yours?

^ Real life it will stab you in the back.

I cant see quiting eve it is simply most complex thing out there and i dont think that will change anytime soon.

Skill que is not going enywhere and if CCP decide to stop eve than there is little i can do.

What interest me OP is your second point shards....for the sake of it lats say eve start to grow like mad and tidi become bigger issue than it is now like it hapens often and to many places...and ccp decide to create another eden(different not copy) that is server for it self to offload some trafic,so one can exist either in new eden or "new" eden (one can travel there but cant have copy of it self there)

Would you consider it deal braker...just curious.

Pretty much same here but:
[hop on my motorcycle and go grab some beer or just sit at the beach and watch the chicks.]

er now for the topic, same basic thing I say when like any EVE killer thread is started (e.g. EVE vs. ___ ), meh. I mean there is just no replacement and doubt anything would ever be made in the current game design environment to match this. Not that this is one of those threads, but same answer works. I've been playing mmo's for almost 20yrs, know what I like, and understand the current trend (eg f2p trash clones), and it's not headed in this direction like UO was or SWG did (pre SWG:NGE anyway).

Will CCP change direction? Doubt it. They are too invested in the current design and with the existing playerbase, I think they know better from other companies doing so and those results. Their major changes are from without coming in (e.g Valkyrie, Dust, Legion), and I doubt CCP is going to hire John Smedley anytime soon



You know it's funny about that, I mean with most of them that flood into games and demand:
1. WoW features so to become more like WoW
2. The game to become easier so they can have more time to play WoW.
In the end, after they get everything they want, they leave the rotting carcass of another failed game because it's just not WoW.

hmmmm a night ride down PCH is sounding so good

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but haven't you quit EVE completely once already? Something about CCP not working on space-barbie, I think it was...?

Don't worry, they were thinking about ganking in avatar exploration sites.

Killing the predator role would I.e. disallowing us to **** with each other anywhere for no reason mor than just because,
that would kill eve for me.
without that edgy fear this place has I would struggle with logging in or justifying the sub.

I love this game because it's the only one that still scares the **** out of me regularly,
losses, the memory of losses, the thoughts of potential losses all give planning and exicuting anything with a moderate chance of failure massive weight and impact.

that weight matters because I share it with my friends,
without our actions having any meaningful impact,
why bother when we could all be playing elite or gta or battlefield,

without what would be the difference?

i think you are stuck with us.. for-ev-er... for-ev-er.... for-ev-er....

If I had no PLEXes anymore.

Interesting of you to say that.
I was giving it a lot of thought lately, and I actually think the predator/prey roles are one of the things fundamentally wrong with eve.
Eve is a sandbox pvp game where the players generate content (mostly revolving around pvp), and yet the core design severely limits your options to engage in pvp. The ship you chose determines what you can and cannot do in space- so eve is limiting your options every time you undock (like: pvp, pve, mining, hauling etc).
Not sure if it is reasonable to proclaim that pvp should be everywhere and yet have a huge range of ships or roles that are victims by design. The choice of either running away or dying in a fire is not really rewarding gameplay.
If pvp is supposed to be everywhere, than why the hell isn't every ship pvp capable? A freighter is as big as a city and filled with riches that every pirate desires, am I really supposed to believe there is no room for at least a few medium turrets on a freighter?
Specialization does not create content, it destroys it.
While "rock beats scissors beat paper" sounds good on paper, it also means that paper won't fight scissors, scissors won't fight rock and rock won't fight paper- so in the end everyone stays docked.
/rant

You have constant problems with balance in every game where you have pvp. That is why they just balance it infinitely with many passes. Fozzie did not hide that fact from anyone at EVE Vegas.

As for features, the map and scanning especially need a lot of work to be at least as good as the old one.