I’m of the same opinion. I also prefer grouping up, it’s a more fun experience.
Although I’m of the opinion that money can be used to give an advantage in the game, what we’re talking about most of the time is a very minor advantage when outside of PvP. Within PvP it definitely can, but that’s also fringe cases when it’s taken to the extreme and it doesn’t bother me, which is why my first post was to tell the OP that even though it is in the game, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun without doing it.
I also think that a lot of what the OP says is down to inexperience and not really grasping what Eve is about. I suspect they don’t know about things like instant docking/undocking, warp cloaking, D-scan, etc, or have the ability to know when they’re in a dangerous situation / making themselves a target. I don’t even think that there’s a high proportion of gankers that are straight up jerks. They enjoy a gameplay style that’s more disruptive to other peoples gaming, but we’re on a PvP game here. If you don’t like the thrill of danger, you’re probably in the wrong game.
Yeah, it’s just blatantly pay2win and it’s just one of many things about EVE that is this way.
But as in every game, people get triggered by that term and will never admit that their beloved game is pay2win. They will find all sorts of excuses and invent new terms on the spot just to avoid confronting the reality.
Also they try to sell many of this mechanics as “for the new player to catch up”, when in reality it’s to milk new player for the benefit of veteran players. I played 4 accounts for free for years, because I had the in-game resourced from playing for over a decade and could just PLEX those accounts. New players getting pressured into “catching up” with their credit card literally paid my 4 subs.
That is just how EVE is, and we have to be honest about it, otherwise this will never change.
It is the exact opposite. Nobody wants to just sit at a gate doing nothing but watching local and grid. Nobody wants to just scan haulers’ cargo and nobody wants to be just a cyno beacon that might not be even used in 3 hours.
That is the main reason why players multibox.
You specifically just don’t know how to multibox properly. Either use windowed mode and position the second client behind the first so you can see full screen on your main and overview + local at the right side of the screen. Of course this requires to have overview in a logical position not somewhere in middle as I see many players to have it. You can put local behind it with transparency. Alternatively you can use EVE-O which will show you all your clients in a scaleable overlay mini-windows which also lets you instantly switch to that account.
If you need some examples let me know, I will gladly share some screenshots.
Since I play on Linux, I’m blessed with a tiling window manager where you can just arange multiple clients per virtual desktop and switch between them instantly. At all times you can navigate directly to the client you want with a single key press. It’s hard to imagine how awesome that is compared to alt-tabbing between floating windows if one hasn’t experienced it.
There are many different viable setups to multibox easily. Some people are just incapable of coming up with anything.
As a counterpoint, though what you say is indeed very common, not everyone in EVE follows the path that CCP try and force players down.
I have 1 character.
I have played almost 10 years.
I’m still happily in a NPC corp.
It’s entirely up to you what you do of course but you do have the option of being so stubborn that you refuse to be pushed into anything that needs an alt or player group to achieve and still have the capacity to enjoy the game even after many many years.
You don’t need alts.
You don’t need to be in a player group.
you don’t need anything CCP sell other than the subscription, and you don’t even need that.
Solo characters are the bravest players you get in this game. Balls of steel as everything is out to get you. You don’t have to be a sheep and hide behind alts or a gang.
The only aspect I disagree with is the last part of this statement:
In order to fully engage and play the game, you most definitely need to be subbed as Omega.
Alpha status was not originally intended to be the baseline option for playing this game. It was originally meant to be a trial testing of the game leading to Omega subscription. Unfortunately CCP kept adding to it, eventually turning it into the current baseline option for playing this game.
And all those people who keep rattling on about how Eve is a ‘free game’ with some sort of unfair paid element don’t seem to grasp that CCP is not a charity and someone ( i.e the people with Omega ) is paying for and thus subsidising their ‘free’ account.
When I do my low sec hunting, I sit in a SS, and watch local, and d-scan. Waiting patiently for my prey to show up. But then again, I can’t stand roaming, preferring to stay in one system.
In the world of Azeroth I use to multi box so I could roleplay with myself.
In New Eden I did the same thing though found that having more pilots makes a Capsuleer less social.
I had found no one really talked to me and then I just ended up grinding away at making Isk.
After awhile like every multiple pilot Capsuleer will discover that true roleplay requires more than one person.
That probability has more to do with your incoherent blithering, then actually multiboxing. When people can’t understand you, they are left with 2 options. Ignore you, or try to engage you in a conversation which just ends In you having some sort of awkward cringy monologue about who knows what.