Not to forget that, for the biggest part of the game’s existence, players took care of retention themselves by injecting adrenaline.
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EVE is currently stuck in a “Groundhog day” circle of “Everyone knows what the ‘top 10 alliances’ is going to read for the next 5 years”.
If No one needs to log in and check daily no one will login to check for content.
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Yes, but remember to blame the one who is responsible for this mess. the one who attracts consumers depending on content being handed to them, because these consumers can’t create their own. nullsec = whalesec. ccp is bad and should feel bad.
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Yes, but I think the correctly informing newbros is not working well. When I have a new toon and try around a bit I get a lot of people saying your fit is bad, look at our corp fit. But they need to take more time per player. We need to become more inclusive. People still need to play diverse as most are just into “This is a sandbox game, you can do what you want and that is play solo, small group and large fleet PVP. NO, you cannot mine, mission, haul or do any of those PVE things CCP mistakenly added to this game. CCP is wrong, this is a PVP game not a PVE game.”. Just saying what I experience if I create a new toon and start redoing what I did 10 years ago. In a Venture because you get that expensive ship right after the starter quest!
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Gotta love how EVE was a niche MMO and stayed small as MMO market grew large, but now EVE is considered a typical MMO and so it should be dwindling because MMO market is dwindling…
Frankly, EVE was and is a niche MMO and must be interpreted in term of its niche rather than industry trends.
And what CCP has done is to focus on a certain population and backburn the needs of others, based on satisfaction rather than population. They’re struggling to keep the highly satisfied and their opportunity cost is to lose the larger population that was not so much satisfied but contributed to pay the bills.
It used to take 2 years to burn out as PvEr, but now PvErs can just be 2 monthers if they’re really determined to. In the process CCP gets their money sooner and faster but in the long run they will just lose money.
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There was actually a time when CCP based their development on the things the players where doing. They looked into the sandbox and saw what they where doing and implemented stuff so they could do it better.
I still think the problems started when some guy at CCP who was a former EVE player and very sure about what was best for the game actually started to make fundamental changes to the sandbox by replacing emergent gameplay with “designed” systems which resembled only his vision was EVE should be. He replaced a emergent sandbox with silly minigames and a fixed purpose.
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Regretfully CCP’s concept of “diverse gameplay” is to clone PvP as PvE: PvE Burner NPCs with PvP fits, gankable NPC miner fleets, or a Fleet Commander AI to defend NPC structures with NPC fleets versus player PvP fleets.
All in total ignorance that a key point with PvE is that PvE is what players do when they don’t do PvP, so making new PvE like PvP means that players will not do it, else they would be doing the actual PvP.
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The problems is always more revenue. The corporation does not owe the user/buyer (player) anything at all. The board and the shareholders decide where it goes. Just look at Star Wars Galaxies. John Smedley’s vision ruined it all. They aimed for more and ended up with less. Then shut it down as the core game (like EVE Online) still had the subscribing fanbase that would sub until death or unable to pay and was competitor to SWTOR online. Not in gameplay/options/player happiness but in subscriber count. People had to leave Star Wars Galaxies and go to SWTOR because of financial reports looking better that way. That’s all. Money. No matter how good or bad the reviews are, the only thing that counts is $$$.
I think this was the beginning of the real trouble.
I will always think it’s ironic how much has backfired for CCP. CCP wanted to make the game ‘more accessible’ but those changes probably accelerated a decline in players for the game (that had been growing when it was ‘less accessible’).
It’s like who they wanted to ‘break up the big power blocs’ and ‘open up null sec to smaller groups’…so they created the DOMINION SOV system that resulted in the blue donuts…
My advice to CCP would be “whatever you are planning on doing, do the opposite” lol.
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This cannot be said enough.
CCP has been trying to open up the game to non EVE players, trying to coddle the loudest ‘carebear’ EVE players, and actively punishing anyone who did anything creative.
But the “make EVE friendly to new players” crowd ignore all of this. They ignore who CCP has focused a lot on PVE since 2009 (when I started there were no incursions, no FW and wormholes PVE, no burner missions, no clone soldiers, about half as many missions as we have now, half as many anomalies, no respawning null sec anomalies, no epic arc missions of any kind, no Ghost sites, no seasonal events like Crimson Harvest, no Mining NPC fleets, no mission guidence system etc etc).
In fact, they act like CCP hasn’t added a drop of PVE or safety ever, they act like all CCP ever did was add pvp stuff. That’s a delusional lie.
EVE is more accessible than ever, easier to play and understand than ever, there is more PVE than ever. It’s safer than ever. And yet the flood gates of ‘new players’ the anti-harshness crowd foresaw never showed up.
The reason is simple, yo can’t please everyone, you need to either make the best hard core and exclusive game you can, or the best soft core and inclusive game that you can. CCP (goaded on by aforementioned anti-harshness crowd) tried to make a game that appeals to both, and it just does not work that way.
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I joined in 2009 and I saw a large number of casual players who were happy to mine in hisec, then CCP changed it in 2011 so that a destroyer could kill all the mining ships easily and ignored this for two and a half years.
All those people that I started with left the game. So much for coddling those player, CCP coddled the gankers and it cost them and it still does.
The damage was done before all this new content…, which is why the OP said last two years, yeah right…
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this game takes too long tbh
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Well, you can at least do household tasks while gaming! 
I like some of the slowness as it enables me to check mails, forums, make phonecalls, go to the toilet and still be back on time to bring my drake.
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Meh. You’re not actually addressing my post, but it’s not your fault.
The problem is that it’s not happening like it did when it worked. You’re confusing “informing” with raising retention. You’re so misguided by these people who consistently talk about things that don’t matter for the big picture. They delude you, anf many others, into only looking at details that are about them and them only.
Let’s drop the nonsense.
I am talking about adrenaline. I’m talking about actually playing.
What you do has no relevance for the bigger picture.
PvE vs PvP is a delusion created only by those who hate the idea of PvP. No PvPer would ever come up with this, because the vast majority of PvPers also PvE, while PvErs do not PvP at all. How’s that for being “inclusive” ?
To get into the proper mindset, remember and feel the first rush of adrenaline you had in this game. It’s what gets people hooked long term. Always works. Always. Every single time.
I personally initiated quite a few people and it never failed, because it can’t.
Adrenaline is one hell of an awesome drug.
Be it forcing a fight (i tend to go soft on noobs in situations, to make it last longer), be it just blowing them up and then talking about it (those who only get angry i block after one attempt of reasoning), be it me bumping the ■■■■ out of them in my Tornado, or taking them to lowsec to get a feeling of adventure, and trying to kill someone.
Taking them into lvl4 missions i let them scan out themselves, then flying through battleship crossfire in high speed AB fitted frigates (“WOAH!”), making them shoot stuff and stealing the mission loot. It’s dangerous, daring and they put their own ■■■■ willingly on the line.
Adrenaline. ■■■■ the NPE, no one of value needed it in the past, no one of value needs it today. Quality > Quantity. Bringing EVE’s culture back on the road where it belongs is the definitely proven way of fixing retention rate, and i dare writing that, because history proves me right!
If you must, combine that with easier access to necessary information, but scrap all the false gameplay that does nothing for long-time retention and only hurts not onky natural selection, but an organic progression! (as proven by PCU/player numbers).
Adrenaline is one awesome hell of a drug, free black jack and hookers included.
Before we can talk about the same thing, you have to think about all those in the past.
“My style of gameplay” is being used by ego trippers, as justification for opting out of the necessary mindset needed to enjoy the dangers and nature of this game.
PvE vs. PvP does not matter. What you do does not matter. What matters is that, before CCP continuously attacked the game’s healthy culture, the vast majority of players was aware of the dangers and the mindset necessary, **throughout all “playstyles”, because that’s how they grew up. Thanks to others sharing it with them.
“Playstyles” as arguments have zero meaning in the big picture. They are nothing but a justification for opting out of a mindset. Individualism never is an argument for anything! Play however you want, but accept when the world spits you out for it.
The PvE/PvP “debate” is egomaniacal nonsense continuously spread by ego trippers who share a mindset of exclusion. When we scrap that, we can see that “inclusion” is equally irrelevant, because playstyles don’t matter at all.
And i certainly don’t share your experience when creating a new character, and i did that plenty.
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I understand your post. But you can’t force some people to PVP. I still remember the reply on my Charon getting blow up during a wardec. You can freely investigate as I see people who appear to be PVPers whine about how long it took and how happy they were I wasn’t tank fitted. I don’t know about perception. For me it was a small excitement to see if I’d make it to the station or not. But to be honest I went to get a few cans of Coca Cola during the event as for me PVP is more boring than mining asteroids. The ship + fitting has its price in ISK, so i’ll be slowly mining that amount back and i’ll be back to flying it in a few weeks (best case) or months (worse case). In general I think younger players will have a bigger adrenaline rush as I do remember the first times my ship exploded I got angry and almost ragequit! Man, imagine all the fun posts I would not have made and people would have missed out on that! But you do have a point even if we experience PVP in a different way.
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“Whine”
Stop the tripping.
No, you don’t understand at all. “PvP” has nothing to do with it. If you understood, you’d not write such post.
It’s not PvP to be dropped into the jungle with only a stick, having to make your way through.(=the original EVE ONLINE experience). To survive, you need the proper mindset. How you survive, or how you make it through, simply doesn’t matter. Anyone complaining just dies in the jungle.
Any and all arguments around individual preferences are irrelevant, because they only move attention from what matters: the big picture.
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That’s true, I hope we find whatever is the main driving reason that pushes people out.
On a lesser related topic, I want my hammock to hang in the jungle while my fishing net in the nearby river catches fishes and I might get up to find some dry wood and make a campfire. Meh, reminds me of “The Forest”… quite a strange game.
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The main driving reason?
CCP, likely deliberately, pushed out those who caused continuous retention and believed they can do it themselves. They nerfed the culture and player content in highsec, the heart of the game, where everyone starts and where everyone used to grow into EVE’s culture. They target consumers who have no care about the game itself and need incentives to play.
This question is already solved, but i’m not yet willing or able (time!) to write an all-conclusive, all covering ten twenty three pages paper about it. And i’ve proven that i can do that.
I hope you don’t expect these to be handed to you by the tutorial…
Why not, easy kills are handed to gankers by the bumping mechanism…
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Ego tripper.
I’m too mature for this ■■■■, so don’t expect me to go into back-and-forth arguments like you always do with others. have a nice day and please stop the tripping.
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