CCP, Wake Up — You Can't Sell a Sinking Ship

Communications Center General Discussion
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CCP, Wake Up — You Can’t Sell a Sinking Ship

I’ve been playing EVE Online since 2008. That’s over 17 years of my life poured into this universe—not just grinding missions or building ships, but becoming part of something that felt bigger than a game. I remember when PLEX cost 386 million ISK for a month’s game time. I remember belt ratting in null-sec, warping from belt to belt, popping battleships and leaving the frigates behind. I remember when you could steal from jettisoned cargo without getting suspect flags, back when ninja salvaging was a whole playstyle before CCP overhauled the crime system. I was there when Goons bought up Jita after their leader got banned for out-of-game behavior.

EVE was never just another MMO for me. It was this incredible living organism where player actions actually mattered, where politics and economics felt real, where you could spend months planning something that would reshape entire regions. Watching what CCP is doing now just breaks my heart.

EVE Frontier: Missing the Point Entirely

Look, I tried Frontier. Really tried. Spent about fifteen minutes with it before I realized this wasn’t made for players like me. It’s not the graphics or bugs that bothered me—it’s that the whole thing feels soulless. Like someone took a checklist of trendy gaming mechanics (blockchain! survival! physics!) and mashed them together without understanding what made EVE special in the first place.

The resource grinding feels tedious. The crystal gating is annoying. The whole thing screams “we’re chasing the latest trend” instead of “we’re building on 20 years of player stories.” And they want me to pay $30-40 a month for this? After I’ve already invested nearly two decades in their other game? Back when PLEX was under 400 million, that felt reasonable. Now they want premium pricing for a disconnected experience that ignores everything that made EVE work.

It’s like CCP forgot that their strength was never flashy mechanics—it was creating a space where emergent gameplay could flourish.

Where This Is All Heading

I hate being the doom-and-gloom guy, but I’ve seen this pattern before in other games:

Next year or two, Frontier launches to mixed reviews. The blockchain angle doesn’t catch fire like they hoped. Players try it, get bored, leave. CCP starts frantically patching things that should have been designed properly from the start.

Meanwhile, EVE Online gets less attention. Fewer updates, smaller teams. Those of us who’ve been around forever start getting frustrated. The community that took decades to build starts fragmenting.

Eventually Frontier either becomes this tiny niche thing or just gets quietly shut down. CCP tries to win back the EVE playerbase, but by then trust is shot.

Without some serious soul-searching about what they’re actually good at, CCP becomes another studio that had something amazing and threw it away chasing quick money.

What They’re Missing

Here’s the thing—EVE worked because it respected us. It trusted players to create their own content, their own drama, their own meaning. It gave us tools and got out of the way. The best EVE stories aren’t about game mechanics; they’re about human beings doing incredible, terrible, beautiful things to each other in a virtual universe that felt consequential.

Frontier doesn’t have that. It’s just another survival game with cryptocurrency sprinkled on top.

I’m not even angry at this point. I’m just sad. I know what EVE Online could still become with the right focus and investment. Instead, I’m watching CCP chase trends that’ll be forgotten in two years while the thing that made them special slowly withers.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Frontier will surprise everyone. But right now, it feels like watching someone sell their childhood home to buy lottery tickets.

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Another great essay by ChatGPT.

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Thankfully EF is funded by investment money, CCP were just paid to make the blockchain abomination, mainly because hilmar has probably the longest lasting crypto boner that i have witnessed in any man

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Maybe you are poisoning the well…and ironically it is posts such as yours that deter people. There’s really nothing fundamentally wrong with EVE, so perhaps you should be talking it up rather than talking it down. That is how you get more players.

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you remind me of a certain guy that was famous to using chatgpt and not playing the game while ratting about it :slight_smile:

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This is Eve. Our ships are in space. They can’t sink.

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There’s only so much that can be done to expand EVE, it’s not like in WoW where they can design new zones, sprinkle them with quests and call it an expansion, forcing you to grind it after suddenly being demoted to max level minus 10.

I started this game in 2004, took a very long break and was surprised with how little they created since I left. Abyss, wormholes (genius idea btw, too bad it’s under developed), PI, upwell structures, you name it. All in all, it’s not a lot. Actually, it’s very little for a studio with so many resources.

The reason is the most scarce resource in the industry is imagination. It’s incredibly hard to come up with new ideas. There are other reasons why all other CCP projects failed but creativity, IMO, is the main one.

Now, to prove me wrong, all they have to do is create a post-capital ship class, meaning it eats dreads for breakfast, which can only obtained with a new currency, putting everybody on a level playing field. Hmm… that kind looks like the WoW expansion thing, doesn’t it?

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curious how you think its underdeveloped?

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People seem to think OP is talking about EVE, he is not.

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You are wrong.

I live in a small waterfront town. Lots of fisherman hit the marker buoys and sink their ship. They still sell them.

Welcome to Eve Online!

Hmm ok then … Welcome back?

I remember when gas cost 69¢ per gallon. I am on the same page with you there.

Never talk politics, since my girl lost the last election.

Good! I hate all those guys telling me the world is going to end in 2012.

Maybe after this October, it won’t be theirs to sell. Somewhere around the end of October is the Korean national corporate tax deadline. My friends disagree, but I think that is when Pearl Abyss will officially announce what they plan to do with CCP in 2026. When they foreclose on that massive loan, it will be either put up on the block for sale or liquidated. At that point, CCP can’t do much but look for jobs elsewhere. I understand the tourism industry is very good option in Iceland.

Go play the game and have fun!

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Yes, I use AI. Not because I’m weak—because I’m ahead.
I pay for tools that sharpen my edge. I invest in systems that amplify thought, not replace it.
If someone thinks that disqualifies the message, maybe they’re more interested in the author than the argument.
I fly cloaked. I write cloaked. I operate with precision.
If you’re still stuck in 2015, blaming tools instead of mastering them—then maybe it’s not the tech that’s failing.
Maybe it’s you.

It’s been barely a month since my last post, and I’ve received a range of responses—some emotional, some resigned. What’s clear is that the negative sentiment toward EVE Online runs deeper than CCP is willing to admit. And it’s not just veterans feeling it.

I’ve been playing EVE Online since 2008, practically without any long breaks. This universe has been part of my life for over 17 years—not just as a game, but as a living system of stories, decisions, and consequences.

Many veteran players are returning to EVE with hope—searching for that old spark, the memories, the sense of agency. But disappointment often arrives faster than CCP could ever anticipate. It’s not about graphics or balance—it’s about the soul of a game that once trusted its players, and now tries to lead them by the hand.

As usual, new expansions favor null-sec—the domain of entrenched power blocs who resist change, not just to protect their assets, but to preserve their narrative dominance. CCP seems to forget that it’s not structures that keep EVE alive—it’s the people willing to reshape it.

Even the CSM elections feel hollow. I don’t even feel like watching them anymore. The system is tilted—null-sec dominates both the candidate pool and the voting power. It’s not just about who runs, it’s about who controls the narrative. CCP talks about representing all playstyles, but the structure of CSM favors those who already hold power—and have no interest in losing it.

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Or because you are just too lazy to invest 30 minutes in creating an in-depth, well-written post about what you want to say.

Go on, use AI. And live with the fact that most people simply don’t want to read it. If someone isn’t willing to invest enough time to write something on his own, he isn’t worth my time either.

Have a nice day.

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lol, gotta say that made me lol when I read it… :laughing:

Thanks, I needed that…

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LOL. No computer has ever matched the ability of the human brain, when suitably informed and intelligent, to think for itself. Any fool can ask ChatGPT to create a page of Shakespeare-like prose and try to appear smart. The person who is truly ‘ahead’ is the person who can do it entirely using their own brain….as they are genuinely smart. Being ‘ahead’ of the actual thinking capacity of a cockroach is really nothing to brag about.

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CSM
CSM612×258 138 KB

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Is that it?? try 30misk… back when you had to buy game codes from other players

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Is that why a lot of companies or organizations are making strict rules that when writing out requests or accomplishments or whatever, they say do not use AI… It’s one thing to have it help form your thoughts better if you have a hard time putting words together, its another to just plagiarize it

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I chuckled at the last part.

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Artificial Intelligence is not a replacement for Actual Intelligence.

Can you give me a tl;dr of your whine post? I didn’t bother to read it.

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I use AI too, not for writing, but it is a nice toy. I won’t berate a person using a spell checker, so why would I berate you for using AI. One must assume the response, when we all know, the AI algorithm is not personal, perfect. and just regurgitates what it finds online.

All gaming forums are brimming with “negative sentiment” since most people never come here to tell the developers what a great job they have been doing. It just doesn’t happen on any official game forum. The day you find a game forum with nothing but sunshine, unicorns, and rainbows about the game, the company is either in a dark pack with a very high level demon or they censor their forums.

Peter, I seriously hope the AI stated that and NOT you. It makes it sound like you are experiencing depersonalization (DPDR) a dissociative disorder and a serious mental illness

It is one thing to hope for the best, it is another to attempt to relive the “glory days” 20 years later.

CCP is a game company with the goal to make money. There is no band willing to play music for free, no entertainer who doesn’t want payment for making you happy. They are looking at those players who pay the bills and don’t want to lose them. I don’t pay for this, never have, I don’t matter to CCP and I fully understand why.

Although I cannot vote ( again not omega ) I could sway opinion, if I chose to do so. Whisper in other player’s ears, promote the candidate you want to win, bribe them with ISK, etc. it can be done and that alone would mean I have more than one vote. Many of the common omega players don’t know they can vote or even know about the CSM elections. They are here to play their game and nothing more.

Have fun!