So what does Eve need to get back on track to get some new players and bring back some old players. What addition could CCP add that would within the framework and fiction of the game that could breath a sense of adventure and life into the game?
I think the answer Lies in the Jove Empire.
From a game mechanic point of view, It would be a new 5th Race that players could choose, however the existing races could not cross train ships like they already do with all the other races. There would be no skills that would translate into Jove Technology.
So any new alts / new players / new accounts would be starting from the begining / Jove Classes maybe the same Frigate sized/ Destroyer sized/ Cruiser Size/ etc. However their Biology and Technology has veered so far away from anything else they could not be usuable with existing races.
Now the space exists already within the game. Some modifications would have to be made to it however we as players dont use that space currently anyway. Jove Empire space would stay where it is at, on the other side of nullsec, secondly, it would have a high sec region for begining new jove players. It doesnt have to be more than a few constellations. Weapon/System development would be slightly different also I would think that Jove technology could be “Hotwired” into existing Eve Technology through use of skills and revers engineering like sleeper tech. However It would be one shots that could temporarily mod one unit that once activated would be used up like the Capital type dmg control mechanic. This would encourage players to hunt down and salvage Jove ships also. Including the PvE variety and it would create a market for PvE Jove players.
Jove ships in general would have systems that still had ROF/DPS it just would be more along the lines of maybe Plasma Cannons / and Organic Hull Plating.
Jove technology is thousands of years ahead of what contemporary Empire/Pirate factions can develop. In order to make this work, you would have to nerf Jove technology so much that it’s nothing but a sad joke of what it is supposed to be according to lore. In the EVE fiction a few Jove battleships obliterated an entire Amarr navy armada. This kind of power in the hands of players is not feasible, in other words, toning down the power is necessary. But that means they are not Jove technology any longer. What this would create is a striking implosion of dissatisfaction, not a sense of adventure.
I would argue that is a pessimistic view, and that in order to be part of the solution maybe come up with a way it could work instead of pointing out how it couldn’t. I may be wrong but didnt the Jove have some sort of declining health across its space, Maybe their technology has them hardwired into their ships and they are starting to deteriorate so that their ships are still more powerful and/agile/whatever , but their overall dominance has started to wane. Remember it is space fiction, write it dont fight it.
This.
The lore on the Jove is pretty well established.
They are suffering from a terminal condition brought on by tampering with their genetic code for thousands of years. There is no cure because the tampering/damage runs too deep.
Regarding their tech…
They were the ones that “gifted” the rest of the map with capsule tech.
One of their battleships can tank several capital ships (there are videos of this on youtube).
It was tech that was stolen from them (and poorly reverse engineered) that allows Sansha to “teleport” fleets around the map.
They administrated over the remaining tech of an even more ancient human civilization and incorporated it into their own… before the star powering said tech went supernova and blew out all their stargates.
Their tech is apparently so similar to organic constructs that it actually “rots” when not maintained.
Oh… and there was a rather nice Chronicle (cannon) that detailed how one of the last Jovians gifted the SoCT (Society of Conscious Thought) all their access codes and permissions to CONCORD (yes, the NPC police) before they closed themselves off to (presumably) die in their last enclaves.
Oh… but the Jovians are not TECHNICALLY dead though. You still have the Drifters and their one-shot-KO battleships of lol-death.
Yeah… Drifters are Jovians too (though from a couple thousand years back).
They came out “hibernation” after we started messing around with and pillaging their VR interfaces in Wormhole space.
Tech 3 ships are the result of our poor understanding of their tech.
Lore isn’t the problem here. Lore can be changed, if the needs of the game require it. The real issue is that adding more ships and skills to the game doesn’t address any of the concerns people have. It’s a solution in need of a problem, and a waste of development resources that could go towards fixing the real problems.