Fix this CCP. You keep losing players

Communications Center General Discussion
253

It’s not confirmation bias, as much as you would like to believe it is. It is quite well known in the PvP circles that many of the PvEers that do not want PvP in this game also have serious attitude/personality issues. It comes with the territory afterall. They did choose to play a PvP game while having no interest in PvP, then expected to be catered too.

It’s an entitlement issue, and you see it from this exact same type of solo PvE isolationist in every MMO. They want all the advantages that player interaction brings to the economy and ecosystem except they do not want to interact with other players at all (which is obviously unrealistic and extremely selfish).

You see the same thing in WoW. They have PvE servers, yet many PvEers would choose to instead play on a PvP server for all the benefits (more competitive Raiding Guilds, more competitive marketplace) and then come complain on the forums about the (perceived) downsides (They get ganked in world PvP, they have more competition for resources, are unable to farm ect.)

As a matter of fact, I think CCP sees WoW attempting to pander to that player and attempts to do the same. What CCP doesn’t realize is pandering to this type of player is EXACTLY why WoW lost 75% of their subs and the EXACT same thing happened to CCP when they started doing it.

I have a feeling MMOs in general don’t have much longer before they die. Mainly because of the attitude of the gaming companies themselves. It’s much easier for them to pander to the masses for short term gains and they’re typically so out of touch that they wouldn’t even know HOW to attract the loyal players even if they wanted too.

@Levi_Devereaux You have to realize that you are being a part of the problem when you make posts like this. Your profession would be MEANINGLESS without groups like the one that ganked you. To reference WoW again, they have no player driven economy. The resources are all controlled by bots and the marketplace is controlled by RMT and prices are so high no new player compete. The only real profession is swiping your credit card. The only difference between WoW and Eve is the DESTRUCTION bit.

TLDR: You can’t have a player driven economy without player driven destruction.

4 Likes
254

That number is scary, they went from 12 million subscribers in 2010 to 1.7 million in 2018; I understand that the classic client dragged some back but I doubt the numbers are anywhere near those of 2010.

255

I am absolutely flabbergasted by this phenomenon.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I play a lot of survival games (think DayZ and Rust). In the forums of those games, carebears constantly demand the addition of PvE servers. Now, some of these games cave in to the demands, and either add those functions, or are released with them already built in.

So what happens?

Carebears go on their PvE servers, get bored, and then start making posts demanding that selective PvP toggles and other similar “safari” mechanics be added to PvP servers, where there’s actually excitement happening, and loot is valuable due to scarcity.

I’ve also brought up this example before, but will again because this was one of my favorite games for a while:

In Planetside 2, a game about massive player battles, there’s no loss of items upon death (aside from regenerative points you spend on vehicles and such). There is, however, character progression. As in abilities, new guns, camo, etc. So what did certain people start asking for shortly after the game came out? A PvE mode in which they could go and grind their stats against bots. In order to unlock abilities and guns. Abilities and guns that are only useful for fighting in the massive player battles. Which they aren’t interested in doing.

I swear I’m not making this up.

Carebearism is a disease. It’s literally a mental condition, because this behavior isn’t rational. This isn’t a “one person likes coffee, one person likes tea” kind of thing. It’s more like hoarding, e.g. stockpiling massive stacks of old newspapers, empty pickle jars, and worn shoes “just in case you need them one day.”

There’s quite literally something wrong with these peoples’ brains.

5 Likes
256

Damn! They’re losing their A!
I hope nothing like that happens to EVE.
I’ve been flying in lowsec and null during peak time and a lot of the systems are empty.
I hope CCP wakes up and get to really understand why new players don’t stay. I read a lot of reasons in the forum but I think it’s much more complicated than a lot here want to make it seem like.
30,000 is already very low for an MMO but one of the problems is that it’s a niche game and not for the faint of heart.

257

Ran out of Hearts :frowning: but this post is AAA

1 Like
258

3000 online people doesn’t mean there’s 30000 account.

259

That 30,000 isn’t subscribers, it’s players that are logged into the server. Actual subscriber numbers are a mystery but at a minimum I’d guess at 100,000 +

260

Undertood.
Still though, 30k active players on any given day vs 100k subscrbers is worrisome. Even the 100k is worrisome.

My mistake.

261

That’s not 30k on any given day that’s an average throughout the day; the peak numbers can be 10-15k higher.

My guess at sub numbers is exactly that, a guess that’s very conservative when you consider that people will be logging in from different timezones for varying amounts of time. The actual number of unique users is probably way higher than the averages shown via the graphs that @Chribba provides over at Eve-offline.net.

262

Oh, ok.
Shows you how much I understand MMOs, lol.

Thanks for the link!

263

and a correlation only shows the beholder stance.

You see a correlation because you want to see it. That’s what confirmation bias says : you have a stance, and you try to extract specific data that match that stance, and ignore those that don’t.

A correlation is not a proof of an underlying causation. The only thing it proves, is that you were searching for such a correlation.

264

No worries, happy to help; you appear to be willing to learn which gives you an edge over those that aren’t.

265

I’ve always told myself this: A day durring which I haven’t learned anything is a wasted day.

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266

For some context:

Time Subscribers Average Online* Reference Average online
Mar 2012 ~400K 30K PC World 7%
Feb 2013 ~500K 35K IGN Article 7%
Mar 2014 480K 28K ** 6%
Apr 2015 ~390K 29K Massively Overpowered 7%

* - Average Online taken from EVE Offline
** - The 480K is the number of names on the EVE Monument, with the census taken on 31 March 2014. The figure was later let slip at Fanfest 2015

Historically, it seems that the PCU is around 7% of the number of subscribers, though it get’s more difficult in recent years following the addition of alphas.

If we make the assumption (I’m not sure how correct) that CCP’s income hasn’t suffered as a result of alphas being introduced, then the current 23000 online would equate to the equivalent of ~330K subscribers.

In March 2020, CCP Hellmar said there were 300K active users per month (Gamesbeat), which might suggest that the assumption above to get to equivalent subscribers is reasonable (but happy for others to suggest a more accurate approach).

In any case, the latest authoritative figure we have from Hilmar is ~300K active users (and CCP always use unique users, not alts, when describing the number of users).

2 Likes
267

I like you, you shall be the last to die :stuck_out_tongue:

@Scipio_Artelius so much better than my sad explanation :smiley:

268

300k isn’t so worrisome.
Still though. I’m in 0-WT2D right now, just exploring what nullsec has. I traveled about 10 jumps so far and all the locals combined amount to 7 players.

I’m on London time.
Why is Null so empty?
I’m more worried about NPCs at this point than getting ganked.

269

Fine. “Take your time in Val Verde, have a few beers. Would leave us a little more time with your daughter.” :crazy_face:

270

Population distribution in Null is very uneven. Go far enough and you should find a “welcome party”.

271

I hope so. I’d rather get blown up than jump back through all those damned gates.

1 Like
272

It’s almost the population of Iceland, and at one point I think the economy of Eve was the size of Iceland’s.

There again in US$ Everquest once had a currency stronger than the Yen and an economy that was close to that of Russia and Bulgaria.