After looking at player numbers last night USTZ and talking to other players, does anyone want to bet on the date when EVE player count is less than 10,000 during prime time?
This is sad for a game I love to play!
No, because then there will be a lower standard and some would say, we can have a better game with less than 10000.
I think, and forgive me to mix it up… the right questions would be:
What is the minimum sustainable concurrency? both in game (enough for New Eden to be enjoyable so it reverts the decline rate) and out there (min req for CCP to still make $)
At present rate of decline, how long will both reach a break point?
Because internally, we have already reached those numbers but people still have not figured them out.
We have reached a state of affairs which dictates a minimum requirement for a group to survive in Null. That minimum was not important before BO, simply because survival was not directly dependent, to put it somehow.
What is that number?
How many pilots are needed for an entity to survive in Null nowdays?
I have visited those numbers and of course! there is a bar to everything and exceptions to the rule.
But the closer I get to survival minimum, the more it becomes similar to donutbrella numbers.
We have to account that and calculate a minimum of concurrency for the game to be healthy and/or balanced in terms of enjoyability, which is now a complete mess as lack of traffic / content in Null began metastasis the whole system. Not easily predictable.
As for the break point, well it’s subject to speculation and stupidity plays a role but it must be a known number within CCP’s desks. They know that number, they know the risk posed by the decline rate, they know the edge. I suspect that number must be around 50% of today’s current, simply because they don’t look to be in panic mode or they are good damn actors. Which means, by the moment it reaches a 8-10K 36Hr average during weekdays, the break point would have been reached.
At that moment, the entrance doors will be exhibiting chains and padlocks the next Friday morning.
And at present decline rate, with the acceleration derived from BO and what’s yet to be seen from cyno changes, we have either 4 or 8 months left of EVE as we know it.
Why the gap? 4 Months if winter wasn’t upon us and some miracle reverts at least the decline rate, not the totals. In other words, and as the TiS CSM meeting guys said : “something good better happen to EVE”.
But we do not know of anything good coming, not good enough for the winter (expansion) release to make the urged change.
So, you could count on 6 more months average left of EVE Online, if at least the decline rate is not miraculously stopped. I still think it must be reverted: The effects of chaos in the decline rate must be reverted ASAP.