If CCP/PA are following the “AAA game” patterns that are common today, it won’t be too long before Omega accounts are the less desirable ones in their eyes (if not already. Really depends on the numbers coming out of the cash shop via Alpha accounts and how many Omega accounts are being paid for and then used for purposes that they believe could just as well be accessed by all accounts via the cash shop).
Much as people have bashed on PA, they should be thankful that PA is the company that bought CCP. Had it been any other company, it’s quite possible that the removal or separation of PvP from portions of the game (if not entirely) would be on the road map.
If CCP looked at Eve and saw that they could profit x amount per year with the sandbox PvP playstyle, but that they could make x * 10 amount if they split PvP up onto it’s own server or otherwise created “safe space” for bears, they would choose to just make x amount. However, can the same be said of PA? I guarantee you that investors would kick PvP to the curb in a heartbeat if it meant a vast increase in profitability.
In that respect, DeMichael is correct in regards to CCP being a business, just as PA is a business. In the end they have families to feed and bills to pay. If the winds waver, they can stay the course, but if the winds outright change, they have to either adapt or find new employment. The vast majority of investors have nothing to do with video games, and likely don’t even play any. Whether it is PvP players, farmers, or bots, the game company that their money is invested in needs to cater to the largest pool of cash.
What the players of those games experience is based on how game companies choose to appease that desire. They have leeway to try and provide a game experience that still caters to the “veterans”, but in the end, they have numbers that have to be met.
The question to ask is one that employees of CCP are not necessarily free to answer, legally, on the forum or on Reddit, etc.: Would CCP choose to close the sandbox over transforming it into something that goes against all that Eve has been to people over the years?
Well then I guess it’s my fault for misinterpreting the words …
… “make no money” …
… as “make no money” …
… and not your fault for not expressing yourself properly.
@Arrendis had a few lines to say about this and I tend to believe her.
Read her posts. It’s not just this one.
She makes sense and she’s at least an honest person.
A child can tell you that a business is a business.
That doesn’t mean a child knows how to run a business.
It’s like you weren’t around for the last years, or were living under a rock.
It’s like you’re trying really hard to make an argument.
CCP makes dozens of millions of dollars profit per year.
They are, in no way or form, in a state where they need money at all costs.
Well, they did that. From CrimeWatch 2.0 to Black-Out they did exactly that.
Since BlackOut they’ve taken a 180 and now they’re apparently repairing the damage they’ve done in the last years.
A nash equilibrium is impossible in the current climate, because PvE players openly support symbiotic cooperation between them and the PvPers to achieve net gains for both groups, yet PvP players continue to only refer to PvE players as inferior players and targets.
Some PVP players are playing for fun, considerable portion of gankers are playing for greed. Is it not PVP anymore? Edencom fleet guys grinded for an idea, that wasn’t even fun or greed.
This is all you guys are basing your arguments on, double standards, whitewashing PVPers as pure idealistic good-for-the-game crowd. Pathetic tribalism. My side is good, your side is bad, just cause I say so. Dehumanizing miners/indies/PVEers. Oh you are a farmer, you are greedy, you are afk menial grinder, you are 100% safe, you are a coward, you are a whiner. Going circular, you’re bad for the game cause you’re bad for the game, thus your whining doesn’t count.
What net gains? The only thing a PvE player has to offer to a PvP player is the destruction of the PvE player’s ship, preferably with as much expensive loot as possible. There is nothing else they can do that can’t be done by a PvP player, and PvE players like you are constantly lobbying for CCP to remove even more PvP threats so you can farm without interruption.
PVE players build PVP players their ships and modules. And add isk into the system. Without isk farmed by PVE players you would have to farm it yourself to trade goods.
If you personally build your own ships, its anecdotal. Besides then you’re also being PVE player, and just don’t want to admit it.
No, it’s about the ISK too. I’ll confess I like seeing my ISK levels going up. That said, I also like flying all sorts of ships, so what I’m really after is enough that I can say, “I wonder what that ship is like?” and be able to find out.
The division of labour is the separation of tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialize (specialization). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialized capabilities and either form combinations or trade to take advantage of the capabilities of others in addition to their own. The division of labour is the motive for trade and the source of economic interdependence.
Historically, an increasing division of labour is associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and the increasing complexity of industrialised processes.
@Merin_Ryskin I think you’re advocating for general self-sufficiency. PVP players in your opinion, as I understand it, should also mine their ore, and farm their PVE, and trade their resources, and build their ships.
There are many things in a sandbox game a player can specialize in. Make it a profession. Mining can be full time activity, industry, PI, PVE, etc. They all need isk to exchange results. According to MER there are 3 main ISK faucets - rat bounty and incursion payouts, and OPE/red/blue loot. Making isk is a profession, a specialization which benefits the rest of the game.
You often send players back to WOW, but you are the one who advocates WOW playstyle. You can’t trade everything there, you have to farm it, you have to attend raids etc. You can’t specialize. Dedicated PVP player as you are would still have to grind PVE.
With no isk in the system you’d have to settle for T1s. Or build T2 yourself. But then it’s anecdotal, everyone can’t build everything themselves. That’s what themepark game players do.
PvP players can build their own ships and modules. In fact, with fewer PvE players doing it the profits would be better for PvP players.
Besides then you’re also being PVE player, and just don’t want to admit it.
PvE player =/= anyone who ever engages in any form of PvE.
Not should. Can. There is nothing wrong with players who want to engage in the competitive capitalism side of EVE and have little or no interest in combat PvP. But even if all of the nullbear farmers ragequit PvP players will replace any of their “contributions” just fine.
With no isk in the system you’d have to settle for T1s.
Why are you assuming that:
There is no ISK in the system.
and
That players, even in the absence of ISK as a medium of exchange, are incapable of engaging in trade of finished goods.
I would argue that the main feature of sandbox games is specialization.
But that is ineffective. Specialized player would win the competitive capitalistic game against a player who does it all himself. Sheer SP difference. You wont reprocess you minerals as maxed out miner does. You wont have researched BPCs. Won’t build you stuff as efficient as indy guy does. Your self build stuff would cost more. More effort, more time.
That’s why you want these players to leave. You cant win fair competition against them. Because they specialize and you don’t.
In the absence of ISK as a medium of exchange, you return to natural economy and stone age.
I know of many PvP players that have specialised alts that can do those things as efficiently as anybody else that partakes of that part of Eve; in all likelihood they have as much SP tied up in their industry alts as they do their PvP mains.
Not really. Even ignoring the existence of alts, and the fact that SP has a cap that veteran players can reach, the people I want to leave are farmers, not ruthless capitalist industrial players. The farmers are not the ones running fully optimized industry chains and crushing anyone who tries to compete with them.
