Since you tagged me, I went ahead and completed the survey but I doubt that it will be very helpful to anyone. The survey mostly concerns things that I don’t have much opinion on.
I can tolerate just about whatever. I’m the sort of person who just looks around, sees what they have, and then figures out what can be done with it. Scarcity doesn’t really affect me. Specific changes to gameplay I would just shrug and work with whether I liked them or not. I’m also not really interested in PvP in terms of personal participation, whether it be market PvP or ship to ship. I’m not greedy, I don’t really want money, I don’t really want to blow people up. I don’t think I’m the sort of player Eve is designed for to begin with.
So why did I play it? I suppose for the freedom it gave me to do what I want. In Eve, I could be as nice as I wanted to be. I could give people whatever I wanted to. It didn’t have items locked to my character, or a clear progression I had to follow. Most importantly, though, Eve had people in it I could meaningfully help in some way that mattered. I’m not a self motivated person and it’s a lot harder to do something if I’m the only one who benefits so having other people around to look out for keeps me from sitting idle for too long.
Of course, being nice in Eve does come with its drawbacks. You go to help someone with something, you trust them, and it turns out to be a trap and you lose your ship. That’s the way it goes sometimes and people might expect that this would make me want to quit, but it’s really the other way around. It’s really hard to be the ‘good guy’ when there are no ‘bad guys’ around. It’s hard to claim you are ‘good’ if you’re not willing to risk losing some stuff to be ‘good’. Thus do I always defend suicide gankers and other ne’er-do-wells outside the context of the in game universe where we are natural enemies. I need them to make the game worthwhile.
The universe has become increasingly safe, and nowhere is this more apparent than in highsec where I made my home. The people are so safe they need not reach out. The people are so coddled that they won’t even try to address a problem in game in a healthy way. I can’t help these people. There is no other area of space, though, where I could meet random strangers uncolored by the flag and arbitrary prejudice of an already existing organization to be of service to for no particular reason.
My home was in Ala where I had a small setup of structures that the locals used. I had to fight real hard to earn trust enough to have the honor of providing services that I inevitably lost money on, but this is what was keeping me in game. It was not exactly what I had in mind, but in some sense I was still being helpful and it gave me a reason to log in, get ice, and make fuel to burn or the isk to buy fuel blocks. Ala was taken by the Triglavians, though, and with it went what was left of my obligations, and reasons to keep playing.
This would not be the only reason I left, and I don’t think it would resonate with very many people, but it did put the final period at the end of ‘I quit’.
