Anyone watching CCP for the long term knows there’s a big difference between what they say and what they do. They literally have no problem with complete doublespeak because their base assumption is that players aren’t that smart, and exist to be fleeced for more subs.
“We are doubling resources” and “we are throwing away half those resource as waste for most miners” in the same breath, becomes “scarcity firmly ends”. Throw in “oh yes and we’re nerfing Rorqs and Orcs too” and you’ve actually got more scarcity.
Well, there is and there isn’t. Plenty of games get along fine without needing players to destroy other players stuff. And there are other ways to cause destruction (see Trig invasion). However, the real question here is “What sort and amount of destruction would make EVE more entertaining, more appealing, and more successful?”. It’s not a question of more/less, it’s a question of proper implementation.
Destiny will tell you that
because they’re a one-note player with a certain agenda that says “I need to be able to prove my worth by having a free hand to hunt and kill weaker players without much consequence to me.” It’s what bullies on playgrounds do, and it’s the same justification “It’s not my fault they’re weaker than me, they need to acknowledge who’s the boss around here”.
Pulling out the “players need to sacrifice their personal pleasure in a game for the good of the game” card is just another way of saying “I need people to volunteer to be my victims so I can enjoy my game, wth are they doing trying to have fun their own way anyway?” It’s an extremely self-centric viewpoint, disguised as “but it’s good for the whole community!”.
A decent game needs to be structured so that production and conflict happen naturally, for sensible reasons, and that the majority of players are getting what they want out of the game the majority of the time.
Now, as it stands, EVE already has that to some extent. The majority of producers/farmers are growing their wealth the majority of the time, and the PvPers can find some sort of conflict or target the majority of the time… for the current playerbase.
The problem is that the player base has been steadily shrinking over the past decade, because these balances aren’t really well balanced, and the types of production and conflict available aren’t really that fun. So you end up with a niche of a niche audience, steadily shrinking, with the producers blaming the PvP and the PvPers blaming the farmers for the downturn.
If destruction had more facets than “ambush smash and grab”, and if production had more opportunities than “boring repetitive grind”, we’d see a lot more interest in EVE Online.
Exactly.