That downside is actually a non-risk, due to social psychology of both ad hoc and planned gameplay. There’s a video on this somewhere by CCP’s former economist.
The problem is quite simply that to CCP this would herald a return to a model of game design where they follow emergent behaviour, as opposed to guided behaviour, complete with high resource allocation required and all the old trauma’s popping up again.
So, they just prefer easier and more predictable metrics. Ergo, no rocking the boat, cause it has a hole in the bottom - as Hilmar puts it. You don’t fix the whole, that highlights painful limits to required post-mortems, you pick up the ship and dump it in another ocean.
Here’s the thing though. EVE is life. Life changes, or it dies. Sometimes the forest has to burn down, by dumb campers, or by lightning, humans aren’t masters of their environment. Only users.
Yup, fits, but the cause was not behaviour, it was a decision. Leads right back to Torfi, who was finally removed from CCP not too long ago, several mishaps too late.
How to get players to reach inetermediate levels of progression.
How to keep most players possible as longterm paying customers.
Issue 1. This one is easy, make a big expansion with new content and some major game changes, advertise the crap out it. New players will come, old players will come to check out the new stuff.
Issue 2. This one is a bit more tricky. General gamer demographics have vastly changed since 2003. A lot of people are leaving when they get turned off by the snail pace of progression, or alternatively, the amount of $$$$ it takes. Injectors were meant as a catch up mechanic, but they are not. Instead they are $$$$ wall mechanic with added side bad effects of more bots etc. while at the same time further enabling people that have stockpiles of ISK, plex, various assets, thus widening the gap even further. Get rid or at least reduce the wall, and introduce a true catch up mechanic that is based on active gameplay.
Issue 3. Game needs vast overhauls. Complete drastic changes to multiple metas. Starting with various huge balance changes such as supers-caps-subcaps then go down from there. Content needs to be updated, everything that is doable AFK is basically a joke and lacks player engagement as well as provides a breeding ground for bots. Almost all AFK activities need to basically go extinct, be updated so that they are both engaging for the players to actually play while at the same time making them more difficult to bot.
Anytime anyone is “playing Eve” and is actually tabbed to another game and playing that instead, points to the gigantic problems that Eve has.
your question is self defeating. in order to get new players, you need to ban all the old bittervets that go out of their way to ruin the gameplay of new players.
to get old bittervets to come back, you pretty much have to ■■■■ on all new players.
Whenever I show pictures of EVE with the UI on to my friends, they get intimidated by the UI alone. I know it sounds silly, but bunch of spreadsheets and tons of buttons seem scary to many. “I wouldn’t know how to play that game” is something I hear way too often.
I wouldn’t remove any of the UI functionality, but it should be kind of… Softened? Streamlined?
For example the basic ship piloting is really easy in this game, just click and go. But the UI makes it look more complicated than it actually is.
I think what Eve needs most atm is a “all-hands-on-deck” effort like they did after the WiS debacle / the following Crucible expansion where they took a real effort to fix or reintroduce so many things players have asked for for years. Still one of my favorite expansions ever.
The largest influx of new players followed either huge newsworthy wars or exceptional vids like the ‘This Is Eve’. Yes we need to make a push towards new markets but we also need to remind folks why they play (or played).
I see new players every day, just not enough of them, not yet.
REAL live events.
Not these cut and dried loot crate “events”. The kind we were having right up to Incursion. Make it epic, make it noteworthy, make it worthwhile.
Wait what are you saying here more PR to do what ?
They did what PR do it shows fake battle clogged in a TiDi in reality and fancy vid with"real players" new players join an masse and then they leave even harder?
If they are not coming for the eve of old what needs to happen for people to stay?
Think of EvE as sandbox not PVP with sandbox elements.
-if this doesn’t change eve will stay small and niche forever. Provide more safety for more of high sec
-split current high and low sec in more zones 1.0/0.9 Green setting 0.8/0.7 as usual 0.6/0.5 is border zone no green setting can flipping etc is back,0.4/0.3 is border zone concord at gates system wide cyno(BLOPS yes) sub cap play ground easier assess to low sec space.(income adjustments increase of space and all that good stuff need to happen.) Fix all thing null sec for bob sake
Other things
PVE needs changing upon undock you need to warp to stuff in space and find ppl there it needs to be more interactive sansha cant be in sites abyssal cant be in 100km fake spheres missions cant be behind warp in pockets.
Sansha incursion need to occupy sectors not acceleration gates.
Damsel need to be in more places than just whore house.
Agent should spawn world collide at local DED site so new player can interact with older player.
More "live"events that are not at beacons.
Start producing expansions again.
I believe what you are saying, but I find it hard to identify with. What kinds of games are your friends playing that make EVE look so visually complex by comparison?
I’ve heard the “spreadsheets in space” metaphor before for EVE, but it’s never made much sense to me. As someone who actually creates spreadsheets periodically (and something I did for EVE once for my manufacturing alt), they don’t seem much like EVE at all or vice versa.
(And I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that I created a spreadsheet once for a small part of EVE. That’s nothing compared to the many spreadsheets I created once for a browser-based game that involved colony simulation.)
Frankly. Eve will probably never again reach the peak population it had. At least not without another drastic shift in gaming culture.
But that’s okay, eve may not be growing. But in the current mmo market it is doing insanely well.
The genre as a whole is in decline, with Korea really being the only place left where mmos are popular. And even Then, most only last a few years.
Meanwhile, eve is a 15 year old game. With a population holding fairly stable at about half it’s peak users.
Meanwhile almost all of its contemporaries are either gone and long forgotten. Or on life support.
Even the behemoth of wow only has about 10% of its peak population left.
That shows some incredible staying power. Especially in the current climate. When a market is in recession, like the mmo genre is right now. Success isn’t measured by growth, but by who holds on the best. And by that measure eve is doing amazing.
Overview, for example, seems like a big spreadsheet for some. I don’t really get it either, but that’s because we are used to the game.
My friends are playing lots of roleplaying games and such, sometimes FPS games. Those games usually have very clear UI’s, to stay out of the way of the player, but provide all the info player needs. It’s ofc possible that my UI layout in EVE is too “wild” looking for some, I like to have lots of info available when I’m playing…
But anyway, when they see lots of brackets, buttons, etc. the reaction is usually “There’s a lot going on, I wouldn’t learn how to play that game.” Not many other games have so much info on screen at the same time as EVE does, imo.
I am not arguing with you, I agree but I was trying to stick to the original question. ‘get more people to play eve’ THEN we can answer ‘what to do to make them stay’.
I LOVE live events but have you been to them? Makes me wish ISD could/would mute local more often. But then it is a play and not an event. (Ala the Dust event) I especially love events upon which the storyline will change depending on how we capsuleers succeed or fail (the choosing of the new empress)
The two concepts do go hand in hand, get them to come and convince them to stay. Whoever solves that pair of riddles at the same time has a winning game. One side solved is not much good without the other and I would posit that ‘have a reason to stay’ takes priority otherwise the game is just a revolving door. If the crowds come and do not get engaged? It is as if they did not come at all.
