I’m a former EVE Online player who decided to quit the game over a decade ago, right after the changes to capital ship jumping capabilities. My experience was primarily with NCdot, engaging in nullsec subcap and supercapitals warfare, as well as constructing them.
A titan cost about 125 billion ISK when I left, and I’ve noticed that prices seem to have changed considerably since then. I’m curious about the current economic and gameplay landscape, especially as I’m sniffing on a potential return to New Eden. Here are a few specific areas where I’d appreciate your insights:
Economic Shifts:
How has the in-game economy evolved, particularly in terms of capital ship costs and general market trends?
Game Mechanics and Alliance Dynamics:
What are the major changes in game mechanics, especially regarding capital ships and nullsec operations? How has the political landscape and alliance dynamics shifted?
Player Community:
What’s the current state of the player community? Are there significant new events or changes in player engagement?
Wormhole Corporations:
I was always interested in exploring the possibility of joining a wormhole corp, something I never tried before. How has this aspect of the game developed?
Returning Player Experience:
For those who’ve returned to EVE after a long hiatus, what has your experience been like?
I’m seeking straightforward, factual feedback from players, preferably those who’ve been part of the game for a long time. Your insights will help me make an informed decision about returning.
Hmm well straightforward feedback on 10 years of changes is a bit of a tall order. Instead I’ll point you at some resources.
Inflation: it’s dependent on certain areas. Some things are cheaper, some more expensive, some about the same. Depends which processes CCP decided to complicate, er, I mean, “improve for the benefit of the economy”.
EVE Tycoon Good for checking market prices. Seems Titans haven’t inflated all that much.
Community: Well, the player pop is about 60% where it was back then, and a lot of those are free/apha, and a fair number are bots. But there still seems to be enough action to satisfy people. EVE-Offline :: EVE-Online Status monitor (Slide the left marker back to 2013 to get an idea, and also to spot time periods that dip or raise significantly. Those are the dates when CCP did noticeable changes.)
As always, EVE University has some useful pages on whatever topic you’re looking at. As for Nullsec and WH space I’ll have to leave that to others.
Well I can’t speak for all of nullsec, but certainly in the south east things have been pretty busy and hectic lately. A lot of action. Had 800 people in one system a few days back. As always, Eve sov maps will show where the action is.
The questions are too broad to make an informative answer possible. As you can imagine there have been may changes and - as always - some good, some bad, and a few downright detested.
The strongholds of EvE remain the same: the community and the stories it creates, and the visual design of the game - the latter having improved substantially.
Politics and alliances/coalitions: the tendency is for coalitions to become bigger, until they break down under their own weight or due to poor decisions. Villains of the past have become the good guys of the present, and vice versa. Interestingly, a significant amount of in game-politics is driven by a concern to repopulate nullsec with smaller groups, without these smaller/new groups having to join big blocs, or to suffer the fate of being mere renters. For some large alliances it is a genuine concern, for others it’s merely a battlecry or RP reason for conflict. At the very least, it’s interesting and fluid.
The current focus of the devs is on FW, and the changes seem to appeal to that part of our community.
Wormholes are wormholes. What happens in w-space, mostly stays in w-space. They succeeded in putting their individual differences aside and vote a candidate into the CSM. Still one of the most mysterious, dangerous and lucrative parts of the game.
As a returning player, it’s probably best not to come with expectations to pick up where you left off. Too many changes have happened. One thing remains: your resilience is still needed to survive and succeed, and you still have total freedom to use that resilience. To get back into the flow it may be a good approach to create an alpha account (free)) and poke around, while re-learning and re-discovering New Eden. Yes, the biggest shock will be the economy and the current state of cap production…
Some of the upcoming expansions focus on null sec changes as well:
And of course one of the biggest changes is, now you can play for free. So you can always poke around as an Alpha clone for a while and decide if it’s worth subbing for a few months.
Yeah, it’s a real concern for them, isn’t it? They’re desperate to get some of these “smaller groups” coming in so that they can dogpile on them for easy kills so that the blocs’ members can avoid getting so bored of the game that they stop playing it. Kind of hard to collect that tax income if no one’s ratting those belts, you know what I mean?
So maybe we should be a bit more honest, and give some genuinely valuable advice to returning players, such as “stay away from null-sec cesspool, because it’s one of the least rewarding, engaging, and entertaining areas in the game.”
If OP is a true EvE player, who was involved in cap production at one point, I’m confident he can make up his own mind, and needs neither propaganda nor extreme bitterness.
Why? The presence of emotion doesn’t make advice any less valid if it’s based on truth and objectivity, and mine absolutely was. Meanwhile, your “neutral” approach is intentionally deceptive because the group you’re a part of is one of the guiltiest ones in terms of the issue I described. You’re putting out a hand and telling the OP “come on down with your small group, pardner, we’ll take good care of ya!” while holding a dagger behind your back with the other.
All I’m saying is that when you ask about “what you should do,” you’re going to get a bunch of groomers disproportionately pushing advice to “go to null-sec,” and it comes down to one of three reasons:
They need to recruit more drones to feed their military-industrial complex. You’d be paying tax on the PvE farming you do there, and would be filling out their fleet blobs that ensure the enforcement of that status quo.
They’re tricking you into becoming cannon fodder content for their members. There is very little natural PvP content in null-sec, so getting some hapless player into making a visit is akin to getting content “care package” for them.
They’re trying to get you out of high-sec so that you don’t compete with their farming. This one applies if you’re into the PvP/piracy aspect of the game, and the line you’ll often hear is something like “why don’t you go to null-sec, where the REAL PvPers are?”
Just be wary. There are many reasons to play EVE, and many places where you can have fun.
The OP specifically asked about the state of null-sec in one of their questions, and you immediately started to peddle a false narrative about it. All I did was call out attention to the dishonesty and told the OP to watch out for people who’d try to take advantage of them for personal gain.
I understand that you’re a good little soldier who will defend their masters to the death despite being in one of the most abusive, exploitative groups in the game (the amount of botting I’ve seen in your space rivals FRAT and you guys will drop caps on lone scanners poking out of wormhole connections), but I’m still perfectly entitled to say what I’ve said because it’s topically relevant.
