Today is not the day to measure USA player count
Absolutely correct!
I think they are very late with the updates that make people to come back.
I do support blackout! But it came too late for me and there is many more things that need to be changed.
I think you haven’t been looking at the update logs very well, because they’ve constantly been adding content for the last few years.
All you are saying is you know nothing about WH space. The rewards are very limited and cannot support many people.
Wait, CCP is doing a lot to get players exited. There was a cooking contest !!! Name the new office !! And the wonder new wormhole Graphics !!!
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The game is literally fine. As CCP Rise said in his last interview, the top level metrics of New Eden barely budge even with the changes that induce the loudest wailing in the community. Like people are still killing each other at the same rate as before:
And people are jumping around New Eden as before, with perhaps a noticible drop the weekend WoW classic was released:
And people are trading with each other, basically as much they did before:
These numbers are from Adam4Eve but come from ESI and the same ones used by DOTLAN. There are very noticeable changes in some metrics, like NPC kills, that do reflect the significant changes CCP are bring to the game, but top-level activity is barely affected, at least much less then the alarmists fixated on the PCU graph would lead you to believe.
The game is fine, or perhaps more accurately at least still undergoing the same gentle decline that has been the trend the last few years. All CCP has done is finally grown the balls, or perhaps more generously found the resources and courage to sweep large numbers of multiboxers, botters and AFK idlers aside and refocus the game some on active, and less scale-able activities, something many of us have been asking CCP to do for years.
This disruption is not the total solution though. Now that the weeds have been cleared out some, let’s hope CCP can find something to plant and it will have some more success growing and attracting/retaining players in this healthier environment.
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We got rid of a lot of bots and a lot of nullbears who should have stayed in high sec because they can’t HTFU, and play the game when they face adversity.
So all is good. The game is better now.
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Thank you for posting that.
That was a good read.
Dude a business is made to make money, and money comes from subs. Take a look at https://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility, and take ANY period of time of your choice that includes the Blackout introduction date and stop standing in the line of the Kool-Aid delivery claiming that everything is fine while awaiting your turn.
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The Peak Concurrent User number is a problematic metric for many reasons. But the numbers don’t lie: despite the PCU shown on eve-offline droppling significantly, players are trading, jumping and fighting each other at a similar rate to before the Age of Chaos. I’ll speculate much of that PCU drop was bots, extra characters and risk-averse krabbers that added little to the game, but regardless, most things are truckin’ along in New Eden largely unchanged from the spring despite a lower PCU.
But your point is taken. None of these metrics tell how much money CCP is taking in. I’m willing to wager it also isn’t that much different than before the Age of Chaos, but we can’t really know.
I would say though that even if CCP is seeing a noticble hit to their pocketbook, they aren’t going back. That would be suicide at this point. A big loss of veteran players might influence how their split their future develop, skewing it back more towards veterans and away from new players, but things aren’t going back to they way they were.
I think as a community we’ve made it mostly through Denial, Anger, and the Bargaining stages, and are now mired in Depression as threads like this and basically all of /r/Eve these days clearly show. I think though that we are right on the cusp of Acceptance, and all that is needed is CCP to make a couple announcements of exciting things to come and we’ll have made it through to the other side!
I’ll predict by Eve Vegas, the PCU will be back on the upswing and everyone will have made it through the grieving process (or just quit and moved on) and the mood will be much more cheery on both the Eve-O forums and on Reddit.
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WoW, you’re stupid.
Look, Pedro, if we wanted to believe in pretty fairy tales we probably wouldn’t be playing EVE Online.
I’m pretty sure that “Users Playing the Game” is the toppest of ‘top level metrics’. I’m pretty sure that bots and alpha accounts can trade and jump and kill. I’m pretty sure that comparing numbers over the past 6 months, most of which were slow summer months, and ignoring the fact that they are down over even that period, is what we call “cherry picking your numbers”.
Lets spread that view out a little further. Let’s just look at “things being killed”, since that’s what EVE is supposed to be all about. (Numbers from Adam4Eve.eu, to compare apples to apples)
From these longer time periods, we can see a few things:
- Mid-2016 was the lowest player count, and fastest dropping player count, ever (since EVE’s peak).
- Introduction of Alphas led to a large increase in activity.
- Introduction of Alphas led to a much larger increase in player kills vs. NPC kills (this speaks to the often-mentioned but never backed up by data comments that “Alphas suck, Alphas are not content, Alphas are farming Null in VNIs, Alphas are botting missions” yadda yadda yadda. Proportionately, Alphas contributed more to PvP activity than they did to PvE activity.
Most importantly, we are currently at lower levels of activity than we were in the slump of mid-2016. That means even with Alphas and with the so-called “Alpha bot hordes” and with the FW Atron bots etc. etc. we are at lower logins and lower activity levels than in EVE’s lowest slump ever.
So yeah, you just keep slurpin’ up that corporate spin and slappin’ on those rose-colored bifocals. In the meantime, some of us will focus on what desperately needs to change in order to keep EVE viable.
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Why? What do you plan to do about it?
Apart from call people names on the forums like usual ?
I intend to keep countering biased opinions and people who do nothing but uselessly criticize other people’s posts by putting up the most fact-based, relevant information I can find.
I intend to keep making CCP’s blunders so glaringly obvious that eventually they are forced to take action.
I intend to keep posting ideas on how to improve various game features and mechanics, rather than playing useless “he said she said” games with other forumites.
If you don’t think players can change CCP’s direction on issues, please refer to all the posters who talk about “CCP listening to all the whiners and nerfing the life out of the game”. Also see The 2011 Summer of Rage, it’s aftermath, and various similar periods.
And if people are being silly, sitting in denial, or trolls, or simply doing nothing but bitching about other peoples posts while contributing nothing, then yes, I will continue to call them out on that.
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I’ve been a recruiter for a long time. Entire communities of people have left over this. Go ahead and say what you want to say…they are botters. they didn’t really deserve to be called pilots of New Eden…its summer, the moon phases are lined up with Wow classic.
Activity is way, way down and the number of people logging on is down too.
More importantly morale is down. A lot of people feel like ccp has given up on them.
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Why? Their opinion is of no more consequence than me or Pedros.
I know that you are only replying to troll me, so kudos on getting a reply.
But really you arent actually doing anything but calling people names and being unpleasant.
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I think ‘Users paying CCP’ is probably the top level metric. But I don’t know why you equate concurrent characters logged in to that. Certainly the hard data I linked above shows that a similar amount of trading, jumping and fighting is going on in New Eden as there was a few months ago.
Yes, Eve activity has delined in the last 4-5 years. No one is saying things are peachy and CCP is going a bang-up job. But those running around in circles flapping their arms like we are in End Times because one (admittedly highly visible) metric has declined sharply are being irrational. Especially a metric these changes were at least partially targeted at decreasing by making it harder for botters and multiboxers. The reality is most other metrics have barely budged since the onset of the Age of Chaos.
In fact, the slump you mention is real and needs to be addressed. But it is in fact for this reason CCP is jerking everyone’s chain so harshly and trying to shake up the game and restore some meaning to time/effort spent by. Pointing out that the PCU shows less people botting/multiboxing is probably going to be taken as a job well done by CCP, not as a problem.
Now if their private financial metrics are showing a similar pattern, they might be regretting their strategy, but even then everyone knew this would be a short-term pain, long-term gain kinda play. However, neither of us have that data and CCP is not likely ever going to tell us, so all we can for sure is based on the numbers the ESI is telling us - and most of those are just fine as CCP Rise said.
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they’re still blaming the bots
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CCO very obviously aimed these changes at AFK and bot accounts, in an effort to lower the economy-destroying grinding and, in the process. create the room and opportunities for active players to take their place.
Anyone who is thus surprised by the lower login numbers, or is using it to further their (not so) hidden agenda is ignorant to the extreme.
First comes the spring cleaning, then you add some new furniture and stuff and THEN the new players can move it (both new and existing).
CCP isn’t even done with the first phase yet. More spring cleaning to come. This is a typical example of a short term bad, long term good strategy. It’s EXACTLY what is needed.
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You can have no idea what proportion of those that left are bot account. I personally unsubbed 3 rorq accounts and I know of many more that have done the same. That’s all lost revenue to CCP for expansions and further development.
A better change for me would have been large isk sinks. Make the faction capitals purchasable with isk. Molok for 250b and the MER isk balance would be in a deflation state straight away.
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