Older versions of eve would not work. Not only would it split the already dwindling player base, but it would be the start of years of training, just to get back where you were now.
Wow classic works because the player base consists of millions of people. Splitting the population isn’t a huge problem.
That being said, wow classic consists primarily of mediocre players that want to be the cream of the lame crop. There is nothing new, nor will there ever be. It’s rehashing old content for the sake of rose tinted goggles.
Can we at least get a PvE server then?
I just want to rent a private system from CCP.
Apply to the Little Bees.
Mr Epeen 
The operative word is (private) no visitors able to enter just me.
The reason people demanded WoW Classic is because vanilla and the first expansion were considerably more challenging than most of the content that came in future expansions.
The reason why some people want EVE Classic is very similar. EVE was much more open-ended and unpredictable in its earlier days. Today, all the guesswork is gone from the EVE experience. All forms of player interaction have been narrowed down so much that it’s possible to predict how most of them will turn out. And predictability and ease go hand in hand. with each other.
CCP won’t likely make an EVE Classic but I think doing a ‘Time-Walking’ type event like WoW isn’t out of the question. I am newer to EVE in the grand scheme of things, but I enjoy the stories of old with broken mechanics and experimental ship fittings.
I would love to see CCP implement old/pre-nerfed content in Abyssal Proving grounds just for fun. Want to fly the pre-nerf drakes & HMLs as it was years ago? Diminishing returns on damage modules…gone. Want to stack multiple MWDs on ship…go for it! Want to fly that 32km Nosdomi going 6000m/s or a Torp Kestrel again?
Make it once a month for 3-5 days and just rotate the theme/expansion that the proving ground represents.
Not sure how they would pull this off since you can’t physically fit your ships like this anymore, let alone be undocked to queue up for proving grounds. But I like the idea of letting players experience some of the days of old in a controlled, limited time, environment that isn’t going to affect the game/market in a major way.
The reason WoW classic is a success is because WoW is a themepark MMO which adds new content regularly, so the old content becomes irrelevant. Old zones and old equipment is irrelevant once you’ve passed that point.
WoW classic makes that old content relevant again.
In EVE, everything is relevant. Those cruisers you were flying years ago as newbie? Just as relevant today as they were then. That region you were living in back then? Still relevant today.
EVE classic wouldn’t make old content relevant again.
Next, EVE is all about player interaction. Not just player interaction with the guys you fly with, or the guys in your corporation, but also all the rest of the people in the game - those you fight against, those that keep the industry and resource gathering in the rest of the universe up.
In WoW, you could play most of the game with a single guild on one server. Player interaction beyond people to fill your party and raid is limited to some PvP fights which are fun but aren’t necessary for the gameplay. As a result, WoW classic can live with a couple hundred people on a server.
But if you have a ‘classic EVE’ universe you face 2 problems:
- Not enough people playing EVE classic to make it feel alive, most of the universe and markets will be dead
- People playing EVE classic will not be playing EVE at the same time, heavily cannibalizing into the single shard EVE population.
WoW can deal with less people on their main servers, but EVE relies on player interaction much more than WoW to have a lively universe.
EVE classic wouldn’t make old irrelevant content relevant again and it would cannibalize into the EVE population. That means EVE classic is both pointless and destructive for the game.
Let’s not do that.
5 Likes
I think the point is that the older game mechanics and the near non-existence of Super Caps in pvp back then as a whole; made for a far better game for a lot of players.
There were aspects about the old game that were just terrible, but if given a choice, I would play the older game over any version since just after Wormholes were introduced.
Ask 20 vets and you would get 20 different answers though.
Sounds like a great idea.
Why not go all out and take us back to Cold War or RMR?
Amen !
I would roll back to Apocrypha any day with some tuning, like the heavy missiles , but not such a hard Fozzie nerf as it was and with tuned down T3Cs , but not such as they are nowadays … worthless…
2 Likes
This is exactly the point I tried to make, but I’ll try to make it again more clearly.
There is no “classic EVE”. It does not exist. Because what people think “classic EVE” is varies depending on who you’re talking to. I doubt that anyone playing EVE today would consider the pre-Castor game to be anything more than a minor novelty if it was brought back, because there was nothing to do before Castor. I started playing EVE just after Castor dropped, so I can’t imagine the game without deadspace or even agents. EVE’s expansions were micro evolutions of the concept and the mechanics, and I doubt anyone could agree on which level of development would be broadly playable enough to bring back.
Castor? Exodus? Cold War? RMR? Rev 1 or 2? Trinity? Where would everyone like us to start? Because if you want classic classic EVE, believe me, you don’t. Seriously. You’ll be bored out of your skull in 5 minutes. Because it won’t be like it was. It will be full of misanthropic bittervets ironically enjoying its complete lack of substance and some new people who quit after a single session, because “wtf is this garbage?”
Again, there was nothing more open about these old iterations of this title. There was less to do, much less variety within what few things could be done, and major limitations on interaction given everything we’ve become used to. It would be a massive waste of resources to make it happen, and regardless of what iteration was chosen, it would fail to satisfy anyone.
I’m happy to entertain fun ideas that make EVE better, but copying Blizzard on this one is no bueno. It would be a niche within a niche niche.
2 Likes
Admittedly I was drunk when I wrote that reply but you explained it better than I probably could have sober.
It’s extremely subjective as to how far you roll back. Lets say we do roll back to Cold war. Say hello to the T2 BPO lottery (and expensive as ■■■■ T2 mods), can flipping in hisec (which imo was still funny as ■■■■) and basically unkillable pre-nerf ECM fitted nano-domis?
1 Like
I wish we could have “nanophoons” back. It was fun tying to catch them, at first.
I’d prefer an online version of the Danger Game.
This is real Eve.
oh look, someone still isn’t getting over the loss of niarja :D.
Not really, you can’t count a test server.
But they were over the day we got instanced content.
not that this idea is ever realistic but why trinity how does its graphic update market as the ‘classic’ point
I mean trinity was part 3 in a set of 4 expansions and had components delayed iirc.
most people (myself included) normally point to Apocrypha as the point any project like this should reset too (namely the 1.5 patch) it the expansion that completed the HSLSNSWH dynamic but it was also many players favorite expansion for that reason. It was also the last expansion before dominion and its sov changes. including dominion three of the four expansions after Apocrypha were also some of if not the most controversial expansions with dominion, Incursion, and the infamous incarna only broken up by the relatively well received tyrannis. and that is relatively when compared to the other three as there were still quite a few not thrilled with the idea of the PI minigame.
honestly writing this was kind of uncanny remembering all the people against features being added from these expansions. Dominion sov going to be the death of eve. Incursions taking away from the player run story, and the pi farm vill. and well… we were right about incarna
now not only do we have people that swear dominion sov was the best system but people would call you insane for suggestion the removal of the rest (except maybe incursions and the micro transactions started in incarna).