Are there any first-hand statistical details available on this? Just trying to figure out what the whole flame is actually about and where the fuel comes from. It’s an interesting matter to consider.
In a nutshell, gankers like to think they’re God’s gift to EVE and everyone else thinks they’re wrong.
Mr Epeen 
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Certainly not everyone, but those that do, think more along the lines of gankers are sosoipaths, psychopaths, neo-nazis, fascists, the equivalent of rapists, basement dwellers who gank because they’ve failed at life, etc., etc. etc.
I think CCP loves it. The tension between the playstyles and the emotions that result are part of what makes EVE successful.
Both statistical (check out presentations by CCP Quant between 2014 and when he left CCP), as well as direct statements.
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Here’s a fine example.
I made a neutral statement and he took immediate offense and went off on an ad hominum tirade.
Mr Epeen
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They do list “intensity” as part of their human interaction theory.
Friendship = Proximity + Frequency + Duration + Intensity
Seems like, as long as they can fix the social support part, then they would actually prefer people getting suicide ganked left and right, since devastating loss is a key contributor in getting invested in the game.
Didn’t they have some talk at some point, about how eve is about the stories we build between each other?
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I didn’t take any offence and didn’t make an ad hominum.
If this is a neutral statement (about what gankers think of themselves), then outlining what those that are against ganking think, is just as neutral.
It’s just what people on either side of the divide think. Everyone is free to think what they like; and there’s no attack intended.
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Can you please kindly recommend the most enlightening flat-out source where the lack of correlation between HS ganking and player loss is explicitly stated and statistically substantiated by a CCP official?
Yes:
There is one is particular where he identified that the #1 indicator of whether a new player is still playing in month 4 (after the 3-month on boarding period) is whether they had their ship destroyed or not.
That wasn’t specifically looking at ganking, but ship loss in general.
The most direct statement as to whether their analysis specifically of new player griefing, including through ganking, has a marked impact on new players is this one:
Unfortunately, that has been jumped on (like a lot of the information presented) to suggest ganking helps player retention (CCP have never stated that. Only that they have never found that it has a pronounced/significant/marked negative correlation).
He also went on in the same thread to point out specifically, that this isn’t causal (ie. claiming ganking helps player retention is just as wrong as dismissing CCP’s analysis):
Of course, as I’m sure some will point out, those are older statements (when ganking was occurring at higher levels than it does now), but this isn’t the sum total of what CCP have done. As above, they’ve specifically looked at ganking and it’s impact on the game over several years, because it has such a high focus among the playerbase.
So far, they haven’t found anything that has caused them to nerf ganking any more than they’ve buffed it.
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What you are suggesting leaves new people who start off at 0.0 kind of screwed, as others in here have mentioned.
As for why new players stay or go, I don’t think Concord figures into it, I didn’t know about them for close to a month after I signed up. Heres how I think it happens: they died, they discovered they were flying an egg and they don’t yet know what that means. Now they have to figure out how to dock and hit the “board my Corvette” button. If they get past that, they have to contend with an unreadable flood of noise in Rookie Help Chat, deal with being relentlessly spammed by copy and pasted crap mail from corporations who suck nine kinds of ass, and try to finish the tutorial or whatever career mission they are in at the moment. Hilmars magic moment is different for everyone I suspect, but blowing up might be a big one.
At least that’s how I saw it. The relevance of Concord, or total lack thereof didn’t sink in untill much later. The impossibility of revenge however did, I knew I wasn’t getting revenge anytime soon in very short order. Looking back on that I remember the instant I realized that it was largely because of Concord that I wouldn’t be getting revenge and this has stuck with me as a desire to see them removed completely.
While I still want to blame Concord for preventing me from getting revenge the fact is who ever it was who blew me up the first time has been getting better at PvP the whole time since, and so what is really stopping me is myself, Concord is nothing but an unimportant standings hit and quick way to be back in my pod.
As far as why new people quit so quickly I can think of lots of reasons and prove none of them other than the people I have gotten to try Eve, some said that they didn’t like flying from outside of their ship, (first person view is terrible), others said they didn’t have time for the learning curve and found faster paced and more intuitive games more fun. Several flat out said “it’s friggin boring” and that (in all but one case) was because they were sucked into mining.
For me, and this is just one person, I wound up in my pod on the first day after breaking the tutorial by doing something else (jumping out of the system I think) and zooming off into oblivion. I didn’t even know I had been blown up, I was on my way to the far side of the map. I actually got there in my pod and didn’t know that being in my pod was at all unusual untill I got sent home by someone blowing me up again. Seeing my corpse in space got my attention, but even that didn’t mean much. The first time I felt any inclination to quit was months later after joining a corporation and discovering that while there were a number of great people in it, there were others that were real life neo-nazis and they wanted me out of the corporation, I left happily, made my own corporation of one, and never looked back. During that time I also made some new friends who I still play with when we are on at the same time, ones in France, ones in Russia and ones in Australia. Our timezones don’t overlap much.
Anyhow, the Concord issue is not going to be fixed by this change for anyone other than people who want more safety and who already have standing with them, so no, I think this is a terrible idea.
I think I have a better idea but that’s something for another thread I think. But here’s a hint: you won’t like it, you would have to build your own safety, not suck it out of CCP.
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I want CCP to be Nerfed. Nerf CCP so that player retention will be buffed.
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This is not necessarily a response to you, Ice, so much as a comment on this.
The data CCP has is people who have signed up, it has no data beyond that. We all know Eve has a reputation of being less than friendly to new players, is a hard game, etc. Most of us have heard sentiments such as “it’s full of greifers, cheaters, liars, scammers, and so on”.
So, how many people have never even bothered to visit?
We should also remember that the general topic’s information data has become far more detailed over the years, hopefully leading to improvements in the game’s mechanics to increase player retention. Most recent and profound example was the relatively recent war dec changes. For years, many of us had been discussing the important “chokepoint” in player retention where a small group of players decided to play together and create a small corp, only to be almost immediately wardecced. This resulted in a huge loss of relatively newer players who simply never returned to the game; a game mechanics issue that remained in CCP 's blind spot for years only until, apparently, the new data mining capabilities were added and even the devs could then see it.
CCP wants to remain true to their original vision of a cruel and cold universe, but they have started to realize that in certain areas and at certain levels, some compromise or evolution on their dreams enabled for the business aspect of their dream to support their game vision. Almost everyone playing EVE understands that conflict and destruction is an integral part of what makes EVE such a great game. Nowhere should be safe; even in stations you need to watch your market orders and contract offers. All that being said, CCP’s private game data should be detailed enough to pinpoint the most common events that occur around the time players stop logging back in to play. For the health of the game, us players should welcome logical analysis and pinpointed improvements in game mechanics by the devs at those break points.
Beats introducing red dots, ship kill gongs, or other “improvements”.
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Security standing for the PKers should have draw backs. Like not being able to dock or not being allowed to except contracts in high sec or Concord pre spawn when negative security standing players are there or not being allowed to be in high sec at all till their security standing is increased.
The players that have positive standing should get buffs. Reduced reaction for concord or increased LP or bounties or anything to reward good behavior.
Let the Pkers be active but slap them around for being PKers in high sec.
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dude you kinda lost credibility calling them PKers
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lolno
To build on this with regards to ganking:
Surgical Strike. The biggest buff to ganking in years.
Yet more proof! Friends are the problem! People who fly with other people are too STRONK!
CCP NERF FRIENDS!
Honestly, I disagree. I think the biggest buff to suicide ganking was being able to fly a thrasher with an account you don’t have to pay to PLEX.
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‘In years’.