Yes, it’s a long post. But hopefully you’ll find it more interesting (and comprehensible) than the average rant. I also provided a TLDR at the bottom.
Background Info on Players as Content
Matthew Woodward (formerly CCP Greyscale) said in a GDC lecture that players are the content in Eve Online (IIRC, it was this one).
Now, from a developer perspective, this has the advantage of being extremely economical. Unlike themepark content, which can be burnt through, players can provide each other with infinite content (see Street Fighter, Mario Kart, Team Fortress, or any other PvP game that people can play for years and years).
Naturally, infinite content is also good from a player’s perspective, but there are other advantages as well.
- Infinite Content
- Challenge- Players are smarter, more adaptable, and more unpredictable than NPC A.I.'s… well, at least some players are.
- Variety- Players are not only unpredictable, but in a persistent sandbox, they can change the world state (i.e. mine out belts, erect structures, set up gate camps, etcetera)
- Relatedness- competition set in a persistent world provides relatedeness, or the feeling that you are connected to, can influence, and be influenced by a larger world and the players in it (this comes from Scott Rigby’s psychology research on intrinsic motivation, which apparently influenced Eve Online’s design).
- Optimization Towards Boredeom- All of this also makes it harder for players to optimize towards boredom (which is the tendency for players to try to find the most efficient way to make number go up, and then do it over and over and over and over). And according to Woodward, this is the 3rd most powerful driving force for players after variable ratio schedules (see skinner box) and Time To Penis (which is the amount of time it takes for players to make a penis using any mechanics that allow for a penis to be made).
Of course, players as content does have some disadvantage, such as:
- the need to have friends or an internet connection
- they tend to provide a higher level of challenge than many players might prefer
- and the need to have some sort of mechanics in place that allow players of different player skill levels and/or character power levels to coexist together (i.e. matchmaking, a flat power curve, and/or what I refer to as “fight or flight mechanics”)
So, like many things in game design, there are tradeoffs with this approach.
Players Are the Content In Eve Online
Yes, players are the content in Eve online, but this is not the bad interpretation. This is one of the things that makes Eve great -and I say this as someone who is invested in, and values, both, PvP and PvE play styles. Let’s face it -the PvE in Eve kind of sucks. No one is going to gush about the minute to minute game play of PvE in Eve, like they do forgames like Warframe. Eve’s PvE, in and of itself, is serviceable at best. However… however, the presence of UPvP (unrestricted PvP), the competitive nature of the game, and the ability of players to alter the world state elevates it. It takes repetitive and boring content, and introduces danger, unpredictability, and excitement. It facilitates emergent game play opportunities. It leads to fights, harrowing escapes, and opportunities to play the hero. It means that players can’t just optimize towards boredom, and instead have to adapt to changing circumstances. And it makes their achievements more satisfying and meaningful. Needless, to say, I think that players being each other’s content is a good thing.
However, as you may or may not have noticed, many players have a different take when it comes to players as content. They don’t look at like, “we are each other’s content,” and more like, “CCP is setting me up to be other people’s content.” They will complain about things like CCP designing alphas to be content for Omegas, newbros designed to be content for vets, and say things such as, “I’m not against PvP; I’m against PvV -or player versus victim.” Which I think really cuts to the heart of the matter -their victim mindset.
No one is a victim because CCP has designed certain types of players to be victims. They are victims because they have a victim mindset. Instead of using the tools available to them in order to figure out PvP avoidance, risk management, and/or how to fight back, they cry about being other people’s content, how unfair the game is, and/or lobby for CCP to nerf their enemies.
And, unfortunately, this is a mindset that reinforces itself. See, if you have a strong external locus of control and believe that there is nothing you can do to get better outcomes, you will give up easily, or not try at all, which will lead to more bad outcomes, that will reinforce your belief that there is nothing you can do. However, if you have a strong internal locus of control, and believe that you can get better outcomes through improved knowledge and execution, it will make you want to improve your knowledge and execution, which will lead to better outcomes, which will reinforce your belief that Eve is harsh but fair, and that the only thing standing in the way of people’s success is their brains, attitude, and determination. Naturally, the tendency for these perspectives to lead to outcomes that “confirm” the correctness of the perspective, makes it really hard to talk someone out of their mindset once they start thinking that way. So, one of my main motivations for making this post was to try to catch some players before they fell into the trap.
The other reason is that I lament how much CCP has been trying to cater to the guys that want a kindler, gentler Eve. I know, I know, everyone and their grandma thinks that Eve’s falling player numbers are because CCP has failed to cater to their particular tastes. But here’s the kicker -they might actually be right. In fact, we all might be right. See, it looks to me like CCP has been trying to have it both ways. They have been trying to cater to the more casual mainstream audience, as well as to the HTFU guys that want a challenging UPvP game. The problem, however, is that these are audiences with mutually exclusive values and priorities -and the end result is a compromise that no one is happy with.
TLDR:
Yes, players are the content in Eve Online. However, that doesn’t mean that CCP designed for you to be other players’ victims. Ultimately, whether or not you play the victim will be decided by your attitude, and how you respond to adversity and setbacks.
Second, I suspect that Eve is having a bit of an identity crisis, by trying to appeal to players with very different tastes -those who actually want Eve to be a cold, dark, and harsh world, and those who want a “Westworld-style” game, where players can pretend that they’re overcoming adversity in a dangerous world, when in reality, they can’t lose and are in no danger.
Context for ISD's
The following quote came from a thread that was closed for being redundant (i.e. the question was asked and answered in the official patch notes thread). However, I saw a post in the closed thread that I could not let go unchallenged. And no, I do not consider this to be in violation of the rule of reopening closed threads, because I’m not trying to discuss that which is related to the original question asked, discuss anything that is more appropriate for the official dev thread, nor am I trying to circumvent forum moderation. I think this is an interesting topic in and of itself, and one worthy of discussion. It just that it so happens that someone said something that is relevant to this discussion in a thread that got closed for being redundant.
So, here we are.
like a champ one might say.
