The more CCP attracts the masses, the more whining, demanding and complaining about things we’ll see on the forums.
We’ll get more and more people not happy with the game’s fundamentals and CCP will give in. What we see now is just the beginning and it will dwarf the threads of the past by a wide margin.
The more the playerbase shifts towards consumers, the more content CCP has to provide, because the creators leave. The more CCP creates content, the more people will demand. the more rewards they give for logging in, the more rewards people will demand. the more people who are being attracted, while not being interested in logging in without bait, the more this game turns into a zombie.
Is this accurate? History proves it to be accurate, but i want to know some smart thoughts.
Fixed that for you. MMO forums are that way, didn’t find one that was any different.
Go to a game, ask around what the “good old days” were (those are always in the past, when the game was still challenging and the gamers skillful/dedicated). Then go for the forums archive and look at the posts of those days of past glory. Only to find the same ranting as always.
I’m not sure this is a truism. Yes CCP wants more people playing the game. That I will agree with. It is a good thing. However that does not mean the same as CCP wants to attract the masses.
Think of it this way… Ferrari would love to sell more cars to generate more income. Heck Ferrari would probably love it if everyone bought their cars. However, Ferrari will not compromise their image or design principals to make a cheap subcompact car that the masses can afford.
CCP is the same. They have a vision of a challenging game in a dysyopic universe where choices have consequences and PvP is ever present. They also believe that the challenges should not come from poor or confusing game design.
Now here comes some of the issues. Often times people confuse game design improvements as dumbing down the system. For example, the changes to crime watch. It,s not a challenge to kill someone because they are confused on when they can attack someone and when people can attack them. It’s a challenge when you get them to attack you despite knowing they shouldn’t.
People also seem to confuse a desire to get people out in space doing stuff with daily rewards in other MMO. Events are designed to get people in space. Some worked better than others. Some generated more content, some fizzle but at least people are unlocking and taking risks.
People also forget that CCP is constantly breaking new ground and trying to figure stuff out. This means there will be times of trial and error. No other game has a sov system like eve or jump mechanics like eve. This means when they need or want to make a change they may not get it right, but each time they learn a little more.
So to sum up, I think the statement the OP is asking about is flawed. The statement confuses trying to attract more people with trying to attract the masses which is not the same. The notion that history bears this out is also a fallacy because the OP is assuming that changes made to the game are to dumb it down for the masses when reality is, these changes are to improve the game and maintain CCPcs vision.
heh. you should look at my 6 pages long (on paper, at least) post; you might like it. i admit i made the mistake of assuming most people actually know what i am talking about, but the above posts show that that’s not actually correct. which is worrysome, but also hilarious. i will adress the above ones, once i get to a keyboard.
in the meantime i hope someone posts what i’ve actually asked for.
Posting in a stealth"nerf PvE and Hi-sec" thread.
Actually, I do look forward to your longer explanation of your theory; you usually present a nice argument. I haven’the noticed any large difference in the amount of complaining in the forums over the eight and a half years I have been playing, but perhaps I have been conditioned to ignore it. What I have noticed is that CCP’s amount of development resources have been drained by their VR and other projects and player style factions are jockeying for position to claim the remaining resources to support their style of play. I expect that we will see an increase in complaining by all play styles, but null-sec and large alliances will continue to dominate the debate and CCP’s attention. We’ll have a better idea at what direction the developers will go when we see the winter expansion: will any new meaningful PvE/hi-sec content drop or will it be another buff to null-sec/large alliances gameplay with the previously announced PvE content “delayed”?
PLEX, Alpha Accounts, Skill Injectors, Removal of clone upgrades, Daily chore log in “events”, removal of faction requirements for high sec, all minerals added to ABC …
Don’t confuse improvements to the game with catering to the masses.
Look at PLEX. If you mean the introduction of PLEX in the first place, it was a good way to combat RMT. Is it perfect? No. However it is far better than the nothing that WoW or Everquest had. If you mean combining PLEX and Aurum into one currency, seems like better game design to have one premium currency instead of two. Plus having one allows for a more universal exchange. If you are complaining about what you can buy with PLEX now, vanity items seem to be a general trend in the gaming market. Blame the market and consumer, not CCP.
Alpha accounts… Gee in a complex game like EVE, let’s only give people a 2-3 week window to try the game. Seems like it falls under the concept of having the game be a challenge because it is dangerous not because it is overly complicated and convoluted. It also seems a good way to encourage former players to see that their stuff is still here instead of making them pay for a month subscription. Not seeing how that isn’t stick to CCP’s general vision.
Clone upgrades were an isk sink and seemed detrimental to getting people out and taking a risk. The oak sink was not needed. The idea was not the best game design because it was more I got punished by an annoying game mechanic instead of my choice has consequence, so CCP replaced it. They created a skill point sink through the use of injectors which has a choice consequence. CCP also managed to use the concept to give people more time to try the game. Still not seeing how this isn’t stick to their vision.
Skill injectors, they are a game mechanic with real consequences. Sell it for isk… Use it for an alt… Speed up training and possible fly something you shouldn’t and get killed. Heck… There’s even the question of is it worth it to sell the skills or reinject them at a possible penalty cost. Sorry, they seem to match CCP’s vision well.
Daily chore login… The last two were trial and error and not that great. The others… Man it was fun trying to rob the drop and either escape or bait. It created conflict and fun, and it wasn’t based on convoluted mechanics. Seems like it fits. Better than other games which just give you a daily log in bonus.
All minerals added to ABC…you assume that this wasn’t a reiteration of a failed idea. CCP tried to make nul sustainable. People had problems and were doing convoluted things like making 450mm rail guns to compress ore for shipping. Instead CCP made a balance pass. It took a bit, but it enabled more people to live in null where there is more risk vs reward and consequences. Seem a to fit CCP’s vision.
So be a naysayer as much as you wish, but all the things you mention seem to fall into improving the game or at least trying while still maintaining the vision they had.
Seriously, people whinge about how CCP only listens to whiners while ignoring all the times CCP has looked at whining and gone “nah, we’re good” and just shrugged.
Really this whole post strikes me as needlessly alarmist, paranoid, and pretty heavily divorced from reality. The only way history proves any of this to be accurate is if you take a really limited and biased view of Eve’s history and cherry pick your examples, not to mention giving basically no credit to the average player in the process.
Seriously this whole post is a lark, but it’s not useful.
What masses? I don’t see any masses coming in. Do you mean “more” in relative or absolute numbers?
We already have them. No matter if High-sec, Low-sec, Null-sec or Worm-sec population, they all have something to rightfully complain about. Unhappiness is also contagious and grows over time and all those small things here and there pile up…
What you describe is the typical theme park: new attraction → yeah → getting boring, want more → new and “better” attraction → yeah → …
CCP is not really good at building attractions most of the time and there are already much better theme parks out there. Eve also doesn’t fit the play style of ‘resubbing and consuming the new content and staying away afterwards until new content has arrived’ very well.
You seem to be convinced that CCP is actually bringing in relevant masses of new players - mostly of a different mentality that doesn’t fit. I don’t see that.
The influx that Alphas brought seems to be already gone (we will know for sure when winter is coming) and we are back to activity levels form last year. Players coming in now don’t seem to be that much different from those a few years back, but that’s hard to tell from a few lines in help chat. But we will see how this will develop when CCP intensifies its marketing.
What I do see is an aging playerbase, tired and tardy, that is slowly crumbling away. Many people just logging in because of “social reasons” or because they can’t let go.
Sorry, saw that part only after I was half done typing.
We don’t know that, because only CCP has numbers regarding accounts, active accounts and so on.
What we do know is this: EVE-Offline :: EVE-Online Status monitor and it doesn’t fit your statement (assuming PCU and account numbers are heavily related). Currently we are back to 2007 player activity (as we were in August 2016). Consider that this is after the introduction of Aphas which brought activity levels from November to ~March to much higher levels than the year before that. And before someone says “summer”, look for the summer that had a similar loss in activity that the game actually recovered from.
