EVE General Discussion

Now I don't entirely agree with that. Can you really go, in World of Warcraft as an example, from 1 to 85 in less than 57 days as a new player and be raiding the top-end content?



It is a slower paced game; that is just the way it is. The key is to set yourself intermediary goals and to not only focus on "ZOMG I iz getting more powerful !11!!". You can do a lot with other ships that you are trained to fly and you can accomplish a lot in-game.

But that is the design difference - EVE is aimed at people who can set goals for themselves in-game. It is not intended for people who need to see skill / power / gear levels increase.

Wow. I last played actively with Burning Crusade, dabbled a bit with Lich King but had no idea that it was so easy now to get to the top tier hardmodes! So what do people do when they are fully geared out and max level within a couple of weeks? They're basically out of content. Or do they just sit there in their pretty gear doing the same things over and over and over?

Same.

And yet subscription numbers continue to rise...

You want to play a single-player game.



Nobody is stopping you except yourself. Go for it!

(We were ganked, so this may be a double post)

Yes, it started happening very regularly for me since Sunday. Ah well, CCP. Got to love them.

Meh... you never know. It's about incentive. If EvE gameplay provides a significant challenge and is a well balanced, well-oiled machine, word might get out that EvE is in and of itself the definitive video game "end game". While I agree that may not bring in WoW numbers, it might just bring in a mil or two to the player base, and those players will represent the upper cusp of competitive players around the world. We could have a very long way to go until we see what EvE could be.

I don't think it's the ruthless PvP style that's holding EvE back atm though. I think the ruthless PvP style is a draw.

Yep, you totally can. At least when I was playing the game (vanilla and for a while following TBC, until Activision took over). I don't know more recently, but I'm guessing it's only gotten easier since then. Yeah, Molten Core with a bunch of new level 60s wasn't a walk in the park, but with proper crafted gear it was doable.

And it's also 57 days JUST to get to fly the ship. Doesn't include weapons, support skills, done skills. What is Ishtar without T2 sentries or heavies? Add a month for each. Drone Interfacing V? Another month! T2 medium hybrids? Another month, month and a half. Fitting skills? Another month. Etc.,etc. See the problem? In EVE, it takes months JUST to get to the hull.

For giggles, I just went to EVEMon and took Ishtar and the skills recommended for it with certificates. Result? 89 days! And this is on a character that easily runs L4s. Imagine what it would be for a brand new character. And this isn't "endgame", which is just a HAC.



There are limits to what is acceptable and what is not. As a new player, just trying the game out of curiosity, a 100+ days commitment is a little more than can be reasonably expected. Heck, I know people whose longest lasting serious RELATIONSHIP was shorter than 100 days for crying out loud. And this is a GAME, or supposed to be.

First, remember the learning skills? Yeah, they're gone now. But until about a year ago, they were a reality every new player had to face. You were basically told "Welcome to EVE. Unless you want to gimp your training horribly, start training learning skills." So you asked "OK, what can I do in the meantime?" And the answer? "Uhh, why around in your newbie ship? That's about it." That, by itself, must have cost the game tens of thousands of subs. Seriously, picture WoW, where before you could actually play the game you had to wait for a month for your character to learn how to learn, and meanwhile you are stuck at level 1 killing level 1 pigs. Can you see the game succeeding?

Now it's slightly better. But still far, far too slow. For example, a player decides he wants "endgame", to fly a carrier for example. Lofty goal. But realistically, how long before he can do it even remotely effectively? As a new player? 200 days, minimum? And that's without skilling up to V on everything. If you want to level V everything, it'll take you a little over THREE YEARS. I'm sorry, but some of us had pets that didn't live that long (it was a hamster! I'm not a horrible person).

That's the issue with EVE. Most people expect progress, and they want to have fun while progressing, without getting bored. EVE doesn't deliver on this front, not at all. Within a month of starting to play the game, you'll start hitting plateaus with seemingly meaningless skills taking up to a week to advance just one level. Good example is Mechanic V, which is required for a LARII. Takes a week to train it. And by itself, all it does it increase HULL hitpoints 5%. How useful is that, honestly? It's just a means to an end. But still far too slow.

I know old hands are really attached to their ginormous SP buffer and all the advantages it offers, but for a new player this is fairly crippling. Even if it can be argued that perhaps it's not so bad if you only come up against people who stick to frigates, just MENTALLY it's really depressing to be looking at a 3 months' wait before you can even get inside a ship you want to try. Now imagine if the ship doesn't handle the way you hoped it would, or the weapons system you liked doesn't quite work the way you expected it to. Time to retrain, starting with level 1?

Sorry about the gloomy post, but that's the main reason EVE was so hard to get into. For me, anyway. Very few MMOs do such a fantastic job of totally depressing a player as EVE. Especially now that time to train shows up in the info window. Nothing beats looking at a module and seeing 42 days, 68 days, etc. Yeah, not depressing at all...

I'm not asking for instant gratification, mind you, but EVE sometimes goes past ridiculous and goes right to...LUDICROUS SPEED! GO!

Given that the number of active accounts continues to grow at a steady rate and has since the day Eve went online, even through the utter filth that was Incara, why does this thread even exist?

I'll see if I can dig up a lovely graph made by a corp mate showing a nice gentle population curve with little dips and humps where the awful content and awesome content was introduced, respectively.