That’s actually the point. Although I disagree that the ‘boredom’ has to be there first. People look at all the options currently in their field of interest and go with whatever attracts them the most.
It’s a very clearly established phenomena that as visible choices multiply, people spend less time evaluating and trying each before they decide to move on to the next thing.
However if the boredom factor starts to kick in, then having more options will certainly push more players to move on. In 2008 there weren’t a lot of options for major, space sci-fi MMOs (or non-fantasy MMOs in general). Now there are many more options.
And as for boredom factor, CCP effectively stopped releasing “new content” around 2010, and since then has gone through endless cycles of nerfs, buffs, tweaking, balancing, mechanics changes, content removal, and an extremely limited amount of actual “new content”.
For a game company with one viable product and a $60+ million a year income, that’s essentially criminal neglect. That’s where the boredom that drives players away stems from.
You honestly don’t have the time and background to properly evaluate EVE’s trajectory over the years, and your beliefs that “the doomsayers and bitter vets” are the cause of EVE’s decline reflect this. But at least you’re engaged and trying (for now), so hey more power to you!
And if you’re still around in 3 or 4 years, we’ll see how you feel about it then.
Wait… I mean “in real life I’m sure I’m as much of an asshole as I am on Eve” is what I’m supposed to say.
To me a game is meant to be leisurely, fantasy, and sport. There are ways to bully in the game, but I do not view PvP as inherently bullying. Just because it is possible to lose things in a game, or lose a game, doesn’t mean it’s also bullying.
That’s the possible difference in analysis between us. I am not pro bullying (I don’t think you said that either to your credit) but games that are actual sport and competition are inherently tough. It’s not a free everyone-gets-a-blue-ribbon season. I see folks that think they are entitled to exclusion of PvP so that numbers only go up. That fundamentally alters the game and makes it blue ribbon season instead of what it is today.
Fair criticism, but I also differ in your point. I don’t categorize players as “PvE” or “PvP”. To me, warping around only in high sec is PvP, just “not being an easy target”. Every thing is PvP, just PvE fits and activities are gimping PvP viability to do certain activities faster or more efficiently. But with a tradeoff in risk.
Not everyone shares the view, and I’ve been told I am “extreme” in this thought. When I was a newbie though, my mentors impressed upon me how nowhere was safe so at the time it felt reasonable.
Ack.
Yes, the point of mine was to make 1 crack in a statement I found very absolutist about how productive PvE folks “will not” change.
I take your elaboration to mean most players. And I would only differ in degree. We can leave it at that level of disagreement.
Here’s the brass tacks of the whole situation. CCP might have been, and even still be, fine with being “niche”.
However, CCP doesn’t call the shots any more and what they want frankly doesn’t matter. Pearl Abyss bought them for millions. Noone buys another company for millions because they want a “niche”. They buy a company for millions because they expect billions. A niche doesn’t provide the financial growth for large ROI.
Sure, but that’s the crux of the issue. PVP is good for EVE, and is not inherently bullying. But that doesn’t imply that every possible form of PvP is good for EVE, and certainly doesn’t imply that the game mechanics don’t support and even encourage bullying-style PvP.
In fact, the game mechanics of EVE do inherently encourage bullying-style PVP. It’s built right in. “If you’re in a fair fight in EVE, somebody did something wrong.”
Bullying - seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce (someone perceived as vulnerable)
That’s pretty much the definition of 3/4 of EVE PvP right there. You and I are both pro-PvP. You and I are both, if not “anti”, at least “not supportive of” bullying. We differ on how that applies to EVE and what possible effect it has on potential EVE game design.
EVE was never intended to be blue-ribbon, no-risk participation awards, and should never become that. However the primary issue is that since EVE PvP poses the risk of true loss, and loss/gain is basically only measured in ISK/resources, then EVE PvP is inherently designed to lean away from “combat” and lean towards “slaughter”.
And that’s where you end up with large numbers of wolves who only want fat, juicy, paying sheep to feast on, and a very small portion of “warriors doing combat”. And in EVE, there’s really not a lot of reason for those sheep to stick around and be slaughtered.
Blockquote
In the EVE Leadership meeting the CSM was presented with numbers resulting from research
into the state of war declarations in EVE and those numbers quite starkly showed how
asymmetric the situation is, and how war declarations allow a small number of players to
negatively affect a huge number of people, with low risk
It was after these numbers were shown that wardecs became optional.
Yes, and niche games are fine. But there’s a significant difference between “niche game with a wide enough audience to be viable”, and “niche game where even the core audience has been whittled down to the point it can’t continue forward”.
This is very key. CCP’s mismanagement over the years has driven them into a lot of tight corners. Disastrous business decisions, mass layoffs, financial shortages, etc. And eventually it got to the point where their investor/owners wanted out, and so they had to sell control to an outside entity. (Who apparently got the deal at half price because CCP failed to meet the performance goals. Or so I’m told - I haven’t verified this myself.)
And if PA was still riding high they might let that slide for a while, but since they’ve got performance issues of their own lately, CCP really really needs to think about just how long they can remain lazy, stubborn and complacent before their masters decide it’s time for a major change.
Hey as long as the number of omega players is at least 7/8 of it’s peak, the game is still healthy. I mean actual players. If 2/3 of the players disappeared and the last 1/3 tripled their subscriptions, CCP’s wallet is fine at the momment, but that’s 2/3s less players who can get their friend caught by the EVE bug.
I find myself agreeing with you – including on your identification on our disagreements. I don’t have much more to add at the moment, I just want to express that I greatly appreciated our back-and-forth discussion.
I actually do not understand why they bought CCP to focus on EVE, there is in reality what?? Maybe 3000 to 5000 unique players an average day. The 10-20k number is in reality 60 to 70% alts.
I just can not see how this can be profitable with a price tag of 425m usd.
They bought the entire IP, they want to make back that money on lots of Eve game’s based around the same IP. I just hope the games tie into each other some how so your progress made in one can reduce the grind in another.
The value of a team that can attract and sustain a core playerbase for nearly 20 years. PA has a lot to learn about not milking their cash cows completely dry.
In Dust514 you could call in orbital bombardment strikes on enemy troops. The strikes came from players in EVE flying ships in faction warfare systems. A friend of mine still has tons of EVE killmails of Dust players and even a few tanks. I’d love to see more interactions like that. Perhaps even things like having FPS fights happen among the PI installations players have built on planets as the players designed and laid them out.
Kind of stabilized a bit thou lowest was last 2 weeks but this week is already higher than last.
20.5k today I remember seing 16 and 18k last week which freaked me out.
That is exactly what i proposed in dust 514 to the other dusters. The merc corps and PI intertwined rather than a planetary version of null. It could have had a lot of possibilities. Eve pilots hiring and paying mercs on contracts etc.
But alas, they liked their pointless tdm’s in MH. It turned into a rental scheme very quickly which was also kind of funny and they had no idea they were being completely manipulated by Capsuleers. It was funny to watch how innocent they were.
Yea the problem is “cool stuff” can a lot of the time get abused some how. Like lets say you liked doing PI in wormholes.
Drifters could invade your planet’s lowering your PI income from those planet’s but you can pay a price to hire merc’s which get’s seen by the dust players to accept that mission, if they beat it your PI planet gets saved or w.e. If you own both games you can take the dangerous PI location which produce more and save it solo if you’re good enough.
