A few parting thoughts before I leave Eve for awhile

[The_Larold]

I have this philosophy - the two kinds of customers’ whose thoughts matter most are:

1. The people who recently paid you money for something
2. The people who recently stopped paying you money for something.

After 5 years of renewals, I’m acknowledging that I hardly log in any more, so it’s time to give my wallet a break for a service I’m not using.

Since I’m taking off for awhile, I figured I’d share some (hopefully) valuable thoughts to help the devs and CCP make Eve an even better place. No deep thoughts - maybe just some stream-of-consciousness meta stuff.

I think CCP should invest significant care and time into creating an expired-subscription player survey. When someone stops giving you their money, it’s a message (sometimes negative, sometimes positive.)

One has to be careful before publishing a survey. If you haven’t been trained on how to write good survey questions, figure out the data you’re going after and how it should be presented, you want someone else to do it. There are external companies who will do that kind of thing affordably, and they aren’t biased.

My personal experience:

I still love Eve, but I never log in any more. Over time, my interest has ebbed and flowed. Even in the ebbs, I’ve still been interested enough in passive skill training (firing up EveMon every couple of days to watch my progress) that I didn’t want to let my subscription lapse.

But even my desire to watch my character advance has ceased for now, so I can’t in any way justify the subscription.

In my particular case, looking back, I lost interest when Events stopped coming back in their “true” form. We all freaked out about big consequences of small design mistakes, and CCP seems to have taken Events off the table instead of continuing to iterate. (I’m talking about the classic formula of find a beacon in almost every system, warp, kill some rats, loot some wrecks, kill a boss, loot it for better stuff, fly to new system.)

Eve is one of those weird things that I highly recommend to any of my friends who like a complex, steep-learning-curve, long-term sandbox style of gameplay, even though I’m no longer subbing myself.

Sorry, back to other suggestions.

Positive feedback - I liked the revamped look of the agency window; I think it will help a lot of new players.

Lore seems great. Looks like a lot of effort into Trig and Sleeper stuff going on that players have to adjust to.

I like the experimentation that you pulled chat from local in nullsec. Unfortunately I don’t like exploring without local because I’m legally blind and the hacking window takes up my whole low-res screen; no room for dscan. So that eliminated one activity I do in the game, which didn’t help. But I applaud the change - I think it will shake things up nicely.

Final quick thought -

I’d say the only thing that would have definitely kept me around, 100% for sure, was if Events, in their old form, were still going on somehow. I really liked two key parts: Collecting skins during and afterward, and acquiring enough standard and advanced cerebral accelerators that I could eek out some faster training. Events are what helped me learn to brave nullsec and lowsec without a cloak, get into some PvP even when I didn’t really want to, etc. I’m sad they didn’t seem to come back after we all freaked out on the couple of mis-steps.

I wish you, the player base and community, continued health and fun play. I’m sure I’ll be back when the desire strikes me. Sorry I don’t have more useful thoughts at the moment, but the coffee has run its course.

Give my toon a wave if you pass by the mission-running hub in Lanngisi.

Special thanks to @DeMichael_Crimson @Anize_Oramara and @Chainsaw_Plankton, as the guides and advice they have created over the years really helped my character grow to the powerhouse he is today.

Fly safe. o/

• The Larold

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Well thanks for the mention, it’s great to know ‘The Plan’ helped and also thank you for your contribution to it.

I gotta say I’m inclined to agree with you about the events, CCP had a good thing going there for a while, I think most players were looking forward to those happening every couple of months. For years now I haven’t been spending much time in-game, basically just run the Epic Arcs then wait 90 days to redo them. I must admit those events actually got me to log in and play a lot more than what I normally was doing…

Even though this game is enjoyable, it’s also stressful at the same time so taking a break at various times is definitely needed. Granted that I rarely log in, I still keep my account subbed so my character can continue training Omega skills, plus whenever the urge hits I can quickly jump into the game and do all the Omega content that I’m use to doing.

Anyway, sorry to see you go, Eve needs players so definitely keep your character and all it’s stuff. Even as an Alpha character you can still log in from time to time to check out new content, maybe run a couple of missions, do some PvP, etc. I hope you’ll come back to the game soon.

Until then, good luck to you and fly safe.

o7

[Kezrai_Charzai]

Thanks for taking the time to post the constructive thoughts.

Giving up on old-style events and their experiments with the new, grindier, less rewarding, buggier events certainly put a damper on my play time as well. CCP obviously can’t/shouldn’t run continuous events but each (playable and reasonably rewarding) event would give me a reason to log in several pilots. Often during that event, I would find something on at least one of those pilots that I would decide I wanted to work on next, and that would keep me going for a little while after the event.

Currently I am basically marking time until CCP offers something more interesting for me to do. Not saying nothing in EVE is interesting, just that I’ve done most of the things I’m interested in and until something different comes along (or they unbreak many of the broken mechanics in the game), I have other games that are more engaging than EVE is.

Enjoy your time off, stretch your boundaries, and auf Wiedersehen!

[Salt_Foambreaker]

@The_Larold

In my particular case, looking back, I lost interest when Events stopped coming back in their “true” form. We all freaked out about big consequences of small design mistakes, and CCP seems to have taken Events off the table instead of continuing to iterate. (I’m talking about the classic formula of find a beacon in almost every system, warp, kill some rats, loot some wrecks, kill a boss, loot it for better stuff, fly to new system.)

Best reason ever NOT to have events.

All it is is hamster wheel content and the more the devs do the more they are expected to do.

[Chainsaw_Plankton]

o7 Enjoy the break I know I’ve needed a few over the years, I’d probably be on one now if I couldn’t afford the plex with my in game earnings.

[M_Cincinnatus]

I agree about surveys, the way a question is worded is just as important as what the question asks, especially more difficult across many languages, and cultures even.

I also agree about events. There is indeed the danger that they can be perceived as just more theme park. But even though EVE is supposed to be dark and dystopian, doesn’t mean that people still don’t want to party sometimes. I’m sure even in the bleak Dark Ages, people in villages threw festivals when possible to at least feel alive. It makes sense that even though much of the EVE community enjoys the dark nature of the game, they would still like a good festival or two at times.

It seems to be a missed opportunity for CCP to give back to the community and introduce new interesting risks, and appropriate rewards. And events can possibly bring people together in-game that otherwise may never have met. The devs have said they intended EVE to be a social game, and what better way to bring people together than celebrations. IMHO though, I feel events should have been seasonal, perhaps four times per year. Too often and I felt it interrupted my gameplay, too little and the game felt stingy.

But best of luck to you during your absence, hopefully if/when you return, EVE may again suit your playstyle. I don’t think I’ve thanked you before, but your past event guides were very helpful, so thank you.

o7