As a newish player myself, The 30,000 is not a bad number when you consider the real world economy. The numbers are actually downright amazing. Eve Online and all other online games are luxuries. You are trying to get people who, at least in the U.S., are already working two or more jobs. Trying to get them to part with hard earned cash. And the world economy is heading for a decided downturn as is.
Thanks to a certain oompa loompa freak who has caused and still is causing chaos in world markets. The game is actually holding its own quite well. But here is the thing. When this current economy has passed. As these things generally do no matter what caused it to happen. I think we will see a better upturn in players either coming back to the game and new players trying the game.
It is amazing to me that there are still players coming into the game at all. If i did not already have my account paid for the coming year. I would have to be making different decisions. As it is I am fortunate that I did pay before things started to go sideways.
So the question is how to keep retention high. While still aiming for the new players. And fighting for the luxury money that is shrinking. That is not going to be easy. I do not envy CCP or PA marketing department. I hope they can thread the needle.
I would not dispute that generally things are ‘less active’ in some regions. For example Dodixie used to be a haven of ganking and you’d regularly find 20-30 people lurking outside. These days you can go there and find no-one lurking outside. You can literally undock from Dodixie with 26bn worth of implants in an Ibis and there is no-one there to gank you.
I wonder why this is….as there’s actually slightly higher concurrency and active players than there used to be when Dodixie was a scary place to undock from, which was only 3 or 4 years back.
I think you are perfect Aiko.. How could I not. You have let everyone know that. It must be real nice to be a legend in your own mind as perfect as you are…
I keep reading that hi-sec ganking is not leading to a major loss of new players but how could they possibly know that?
Player X quit while never leaving hi-sec but was never ganked therefore ganking is not the issue.
No one is stupid enough to believe that nonsense. You don’t have to be ganked to quit out of the fear of being ganked. “Wow I sure am having fun. Taking a lot of time and effort but I want to get this nice cool battleship and-whats that? People could just blow it up out of boredom? Well guess I’ll call it quits here.”
I refuse to believe CCP just thinks people that quit and were never killed in hi sec had zero issues with hi sec ganking. That would be a level of willful ignorance that no company could survive.
I don’t mind the use of ChatGPT to manufacture an outline, it doesn’t bother me when a thread gets necroed by the OP before the 90 day deadline, and I don’t have issues with controversial topics. What I do have problems with is, obviously the same poster making a new alts, about the same topic, over and over, again and again. If your not aware of this, it is called beating a dead horse.
While I have zero respect for the players who prey on unarmed miners and haulers, the fact is those players didn’t create the game. You have several options as a solo or group player. Hire or acquire armed escorts. If you hire an armed escort they will get a percentage, either upon delivery or upon harvest. You need a lot of trust on both sides of that fence. It best practice to fleet with the unarmed party in control of the fleet or the armed escort can flip the friendly fired switch.
Often on a solo operation, I took alternate routes, never trust auto-path through some blockade or pirate system. Being unpredictable has always been my strategy. Of course when hauling, never use the auto-pilot.
There is of course the method of turning the tables. Where I am in my PvP character cloaked and hanging off some random miner waiting for the moron to show up for an easy kill. They get podded by me instead, the miner gets spooked and flees. It often work well, but the waiting is very boring, I don’t do that often.
CCP sets the basic alpha miner up to be the clay pigeons and pinatas in this game. The players have nothing to do with the coding. As I said, I don’t respect a ganker but they can also be the prey.
As if there aren’t any honorable PvP masters spending every waking moment gatecamping low and null sec systems to wreck your battleship all the same.
Seriously, what do you expect is going to happen? Embarrassing yourself, dying pitifully with no hope of fighting back, that is the reality you are going to face in EvE. And only if you can embrace that, can you rise above and truly engage with the game.
And in my opinion, for a free for all “murder all players you want” MMO, the CONCORD implementation in high sec is reasonable and probably the fairest compromise you can make between your game being a murderfest and a complete hugbox. There might be a better and more fun solution, but CCP would have to pay me to figure that out (send me a dm ingame wink wink).
I mentioned this in other thread. Yes game really feels dead sometimes. The numbers are same for long time, but that is because of the multiboxing. And unlike real players who were doing stuff everywhere, multiboxing alts are almost exclusively in same system. So a lot of the systems and even regions are half empty. Sure you almost always meet at least 1 player in local, but he is mostly docked. Or sometimes cloaked - most likely multibox intel alt/bot.
In EU primetime + few hours after DT, there are players out there yes. Outside this, America timezone for example, the game feels completely dead.
This game also doesn’t kick AFK players. There are lots of players who are running EVE whole day not doing anything. Just undock from Jita and you will see about 10 of them undocked in space (Ryu and the kill right baits). There will be much more docked. Lot of players who actually plays this game still keeps it running for long time AFK, often because they are using autopilot function, or they do it on purpose to waste time anyone who would potentially wanted to kill them. Or the opposite to make the players you want to kill constantly scared by your presence in local. These players are counted in PCU, but they are not actually playing (a lot of a time).
At this point with multiboxing on the rise so heavily I think I will be generous if I make an educated guess that the actual real player count is about 20% lower than what games shows.
EVE is certainly losing players although it is not visible. Multiboxers are not replacement for an actual players.
It isn’t really about number of players online. The numbers that EVE has are still good and enough, those are players online at the same time anyway, the actual number of players who play during year at any time and any length can still be more than 200k which is great.
The problem is and I said that already elsewhere, that there is too many systems for players to hide from others. EVE is huge and each system is a place to farm. In other MMOs typically players do not have the need or reason to stay in low level areas when they are beyond that. So they all naturally gather at same places. Yes we have Jita, but even that is nothing compared to towns in other MMOs. So you travel around and half the systems are just dead. Even if there are players in local you won’t see them.
Compared to that, when I often look at my brother playing Albion Online (which is direct competitor of EVE and same genre), which doesn’t have multiboxers (as the game is too high-apm to make use of alts) all the tows have so many players in them that it is almost impossible to see anything other than name tags. And they are all moving around, barely anyone stays afk. Same when he leaves a town and there are 100+ players PVE raids. In EVE most of the PVE for fleets is now multiboxed or not done at all. The higher the number of players you need the less is that content ran.
Most of your top 20 PvP games have well over 10 million players active. Honestly it would be unfair to compare Eve Online to a top 20 first person shooter like Counter-Strike 2 or EA’s Apex Legends. If you can’t go with best seller, because Eve Online is free with the option to pay. If we pigeonhole it to war simulations, then Eve Online is beat by World of Tanks.
CCP advertises Eve Online as #1 Space Sim. However my research says X4: Foundations ( $50 ) is considered the best space sim, while Eve Online is the best free to play space sim. Yet most users will tell you, it is not free, unless you plan to die a lot. When you remove that “Free to Play” clause, it quickly drops from number 1 to number far below top 20.
It is up to the player to decide how they to quantify their search criteria. There simply are few space sims on the market compared to first person shooters and there are even fewer free to play. We could narrow the top 20 search further to ensure what we want to be on top appears as number one.
I think that for a ‘space game’ it’s nice that space is big and that we can find places away from others.
Still I often see others where I live, both friendly and hostile.
I think this is a strength of EVE, rather than a flaw.
So many games follow a design like World of Warcraft with tiered zones and only the latest highest level zones are relevant for gameplay and the rest is merely there for leveling. And each expansion adds a few new zones that now form the game while the rest becomes irrelevant.
I like that in EVE the entire universe is relevant for all players.
It makes the universe feel alive and relevant. Even those desolate systems as they’re desolate space for reasons like risk, distance and economy rather than ‘ghost town remainder of a past exansion’.
In EVE those systems are relevant as players can go there to hide or explore, while in a World of Warcraft you pass through to level your character and wish you played in a time that zone was relevant (hence the popularity of ‘Classic servers’ on that game).
Unlike EVE, there are no multiboxers in Albion online because it is not allowed in Albion online to multibox. (Yet still people cheat and do it.)
And the reason towns have so many more people in them than in EVE is because a town in Albion is their ‘safe docked up space’.
Albion towns are the equivalent of being docked up in Jita 4-4 if you had to carry your items between the market and your hangar, industry slots and repair shop.
Imagine how busy and non-AFK the Jita 4-4 station would appear if you could see people walk around as they switch between market and their industry and hangars and back. Even Amarr, Rens, Dodixie and Hek would seem lively if that were the case.
In other words, comparing the liveliness of a town in Albion to what you see on dscan in EVE is flawed.
Albion does have some nice PvE raids indeed, mostly because it forces allies and disallows friendly fire.
You flag up for the faction Lymhurst and now everyone in Lymhurst is your ally, you can only heal people from Lymhurst and cannot attack anyone from Lymhurst.
EVE doesn’t have such restrictions, you can repair and shoot anyone you like.
It’s always been weird for me in Albion that I wouldn’t be allowed to heal anyone I want. Come across a newbie who is about to die and I wish to be generous? Tough luck, have a healing stick but am not allowed to help them.
You find a potential hostile player that you wish to team up with to kill others? Too bad, you cannot help each other and will hit each other with your many area of effect attacks.
Albion’s grouping feels much more forced and simplistic than EVE’s, it’s very different.
As a result you won’t find unorganized 100 man PvE raids in EVE like you do in Albion because without Albion’s guardrails this doesn’t work in EVE.
While in Albion you can just flag up for the purple team and now anyone purple is your ally and anyone not purple your enemy, this doesn’t work in EVE as it isn’t enforced here.
Randomly sending 100 purple players to go after PvE objectives therefore won’t work without sone kinds of social checks in EVE.
If you can attack or heal anyone you want you need some kind of social organization to keep a group together. Without it if any player can join your group without vetting you get things like the awoxing problem in EVE’s Faction Warfare.
Instead in EVE you’ll have to join an organized group to find anything of the likes of those PvE fights in Albion. Either a NPSI fleet like incursion fleets or within your own alliance. If you do friendly fire at the wrong time there without good reason you get kicked and won’t be able to do that again - social checks and balances that aren’t necessary in Albion due to lack of friendly fire.
I rarely do organized PVE in EVE so but joined some PvE fleets of my own group last weekend where we had like 50 man out killing NPCs.
Different game, different mechanics, different outcome. Still you can find groups doing PvE if you like!
It just won’t be the same as Albion without the same rules of Albion.
Sure you can toggle “friendly fire” in corp settings, all that does is make it where a corpmate is attacked by CONCORD if you make it illegal. Otherwise you can attack other fleet members legally.
I never said or tried to even imply it is a flaw. It is just mechanic that contributes to players being scattered around universe and not “finding” each other.
Wrong.
First of all, multiboxing is not prohibited in Albion Online. They just don’t encourage it.
There are some uses for multiboxing in Albion like putting another client on a beginning of area transition, ie. intel bot as we have them in EVE, but even that is not done much because the game is so high action paced that there is barely any time to look. Perhaps unless you ganking others and are just sitting idle, but that doesn’t really happen that much unlike EVE as even gankers can still farm and craft in that area. If someone enters their area they have more than 5 seconds to catch him.
In Albion you need to dodge hitbox indicators, you need to use speed buff, you need to use various skills with short cooldown. That cannot be multiboxed. The gameplay is similar to League of Legends that I play sometimes and I can tell you that I am unable to watch my 6 clients while playing that game because it requires too much focus. Just the fact that you need to click where you want to contributes to “non-multiboxing-ability” a lot.
Did you actually play Albion? At least use Chat GPT next time you are going to make some claims about games you don’t play.
That is Jita and Jita only. And when there are 10 players AFK outside of the station, I wonder how many of them are AFK inside? I often see my prey to dock and then being logged for 4+ hours in station without undocking anything - sure he might be playing “market game” by underbidding others every minute, but after last changes to market I seriously doubt that. It is more likely that he just went AFK and left it open. I do that sometimes too. Mostly when I need to leave before the ship is actuallly docked. So I just press dock and go out.
I admit, it is quite hard to see if there are AFKers in Albion Online because of the name tags that ever visible above their heads. The towns and especially spots with vendors are way too chaotic for outsider like me who played it only little and didn’t like it to be sure. But I don’t think there are that many AFKers as they are in EVE. And even if all players are undocked in Dodixie, Amarr or Hek and Rens, that doesn’t compare to Albion, not even close…
So you are trying to claim that players in EVE are multiboxing incursions in lowsec or homefronts of wh sites or pochven sites because they don’t want to risk damaging their friends?
Are you serious? That is biggest nonsense you wrote. EVE gas fleet and filters. All commands are given from overview not clicking in 3D space on targets so misclicks doesn’t happen. Ships don’t have AoE weapon systems and if they do have them, they ignore allies by default automatically (EDENCOM ships). And please don’t argument with Doomsdays or bombs being used to farm some nullsec content Lmao.
‘Intel bots’ or scout alts as you mention are prohibited. They are against Albion’s TOS.
This didn’t stop players though, you’d still see scout alts everywhere.
The only multiboxing that was allowed if I recall correctly is (industrial) alts within the safe zones, the cities. Or something completely unrelated to what your other character is doing.
11.2 Multiple registrations, as well as setting up and operating multiple User Accounts at our Services are allowed. However, if the User wants to play the Game with multiple Characters at the same time, the following rules will apply: i) the Characters may not interact or cooperate with each other if they are located outside of a city, hideout, personal island, or guild island, ii) the Characters may not engage in combat together, iii) the Characters may not act as scouts for each other, iv) all Characters must have active Premium status.
In EVE terms you would be allowed to use a Jita alt or have a FW alt active while you mine in NS, but you cannot have a mining fleet with multiple characters, run your own combat fleet or scout for yourself.
I know, it’s much harder to multibox that sort of thing than in EVE, which is why multiboxing wasn’t used for fights but for scouting, hauling and resource gathering instead.
Did you?
You said your brother plays it and you seem to know about about the game but perhaps not enough of the details for this discussion.
I played the game daily for 1.5 years, joined various black zone groups but mostly played solo in those ‘big 100 man PvE raids’ of faction warfare that you mentioned.
No I don’t?
Why are you mixing my argument about bigger unorganized groups with my argument about multiboxing?
Those are two separate topics.
LOL
A very HS centric view of the game is showing.
In EVE AoE weapons hit enemies and allies.
Smartbombs, bombs, lances, bosons and EDENCOM weapons all hit allies as well.
HS is different. None of those weapons are allowed except smartbombs and EDENCOM weapons, the latter which were given a ridiculous buff in HS to only hit ‘legal targets’.
I guess that was done because otherwise HS players would not dare fly EDENCOM ships. If you ask me CCP should have used smartbomb rules instead: red safety required and if you accidentally hit the wrong target you get CONCORDED. But no, CCP gave EDENCOM ships a ridiculous buff in HS only.
Outside HS the EDENCOM weapons just bounce to any target in range and hit allies just as well as enemies, like any other AoE weapon.
HS EDENCOM weapons are the only exception: in EVE AoE weapons hit allies who are in the wrong place. Friendly fire with AoE damage is very much a thing here.
In EVE you can even kill your own bomber with your own bomb if you’re bad!
And besides AoE damage there are other area effects that can hurt or even kill friendlies without dealing danage, like badly timed warp bubbles.
I played only few hours, didn’t like it. So I give you that, you definitely know more of Albion than me. I just watch my brother sometimes and I often ask him about mechanics. It was he who told me that you can. And I know he used to use that “illegal” scout before. But he gave up because he said even when he could do it on a tablet (as albion can be played from android devices) via his phone datas opposed to house internet connection, it was too annoying to do long term. And I used GPT to verify my claim, got misleaded by its hallucination, sorry.
Technically speaking my answer isn’t incorrect though. So you can multibox, and specifically that EVE example of what is allowed in Albion is something that actually happens a lot in EVE, Jita is full of alts to sell loot/ buy PLEX/injectors/extractors or ship fits to be ready for main toon in advance. Also indusry alts do exists. I wonder how common is in Albion…
Really. I claimed that most of the group PVE content in EVE is either ignored or done by multiboxers and that there isn’t even content that would require this many players. You quoted this my statement and wrote that in Albion players can toggle friendly-fire. I assumed that it was an argument as to why this works in Albion and not EVE. If it wasn’t, then why did you even post it? It has no relevance.
Again. It is absolute nonsense to claim that friendly fire is the reason why fleet PVE content is either largely ignored or multiboxed. Even if you are right that there are some weapon systems that does harm allies or that EDENCOM ships does work differently outside hs, it doesn’t make your argument any less nonsense.
Smartbombs are not used in PVE fleet content and even if they were the very little damage they do can be completely mitigated by self-tank. EDENCOM weapon system has 10km aoe range (maybe Thunderchild has more I give you that), but can be used from much longer range than that. So thee is absolutely no problem with those ships being used in a fleet for PVE content if players wanted to. Bombs are hardly going to be used in PVE and if they would then you know exactly the range they operate at and you can count with that. And Doomsdays yeah lol.
Lmao.