I’ve played off and on for 16 years, and I’m returning after about a 3 year hiatus. This isn’t the first time I’ve returned to EVE after a long break. This time, however, things feel much different.
Frankly, the game feels dead. Players seem less likely than ever to take a risk. Any given activity, especially PvP, seems less likely than ever to result in a fun experience for anyone involved. The forums are a ghost town; some boards’ top threads are showing 7 days since last post. Everything is crazy expensive, especially PLEX. There seems to be little reason to actually go PvP, and I’m seeing this reflected in players’ statements and behaviors.
Various sources seem to suggest that EVE’s numbers are consistently declining. Generally speaking, player morale seems quite low, and I’ve yet to see positive sentiments about the direction EVE is heading. Attitudes that CCP cares only about profits are more prevalent than I’ve ever seen, and I haven’t been able to find any substantial reassurance or an acknowledgment from CCP.
Remember the Captain’s Quarters blunder? The negative response from the player base was overwhelming, and CCP renewed its commitment to the core gameplay and audience of EVE. From that debacle came plans and prioritization that restored a lot of faith in CCP and excited players for the future to come. Is CCP still pushing forward with the same vigor, or have they lost all of their steam?
I love this game. It makes me sad to see it in such poor shape. So, I’m asking all of you…
Does the wider player perception of EVE and its direction match what I’ve outlined above?
Is EVE dying?
What can be done to turn it around?
Does CCP care anymore?
Has CCP made a statement about or acknowledged EVE’s downward trajectory?
Your post reads more like a thinly veiled “Doooomm!” post from a bittervet.
You’ve been gone 3 years, but love the game? You just got back, but are in touch with overall player morale? You’re spoken to how many people to judge attitudes towards CCP?
Frankly I have many reservations myself about the state of EVE and CCP lately, and the fact that actual real development and progress in the game structure seems extremely slow to me.
That said, your post seems disingenuous at best, or possibly just setting up for a troll rant at worst.
Skill Injectors and cap proliferation brought EvE to the point where any roaming fleet or even solo player on cruiser+ ship size in null will get dropped by carriers/supers. You are highly likely to get dropped by supers in low sec as well. Some player groups have so many titans/supers that doing anything with them is … too late, imo.
Nice reading comprehension fail. Weren’t so good in school were you?
Yes, I’ve been gone from EVE for three years, but since I’ve dumped thousands of hours into the game over more than a decade, I think it’s fair to say that I love it.
Yes, I just got back, and after spending several hours reading the forums, reddit, and capsular blogs, while also speaking to corp and alliance mates in-game, I was able to make a cursory assessment of general player morale. And it seems quite poor.
I’ve either read the opinions of or spoken to a fair number of players, probably around 30, who express negative attitudes toward CCP. I haven’t spoken to a single player offering a positive attitude toward CCP.
If my post seems disingenuous or bait-y, it’s probably due to your lack of basic reading comprehension skills.
You’ve echoed what I’ve been hearing from my own corpmates. Though I haven’t witnessed this just yet, it is apparently quite prevalent. What I have witnessed is… well, nothing. No one’s doing anything really…
I recently came back to eve after a 4 years. Not sure why, was just bored one winter night and saw an email from CCP inviting me back for a fraction of the regular subscription price. I’ve been playing for 3 months now. Yes, a lot has changed, IMHO some of the changes are good some are bad. Some of the changes have turned away most of the players I used to play with (I know since they still login as alphas from time to time). Personally, it seems to me that everyone is so obsessed with making ISK there isn’t much PVP action going on (at least in the null region I live in). There are definitely not as many players as there used to be even though the game seems a lot easier to play now (perhaps that’s reason, not as challenging as it used to be). Give it a go and see how it goes…
CCP in general have been reducing ways for players to mess with eachother (especially in hisec) and that has turned players looking for the pvp sandbox off the game.
CCP is no longer publishing subscriber numbers, but from the average online player count we can see that for the last two years it was pretty stable.
However, I do share the feeling that development is significantly slowed down. And that there is no one left at CCP that has at least a vision where to go next with the game. Maybe that would be OK, it is an old game after all, if this wasn’t the only game that makes CCP any money… which makes this pretty questional again.
The last grand vision about colonization, player built stargates and new space resulted in no new space and a simple jump bridge replacement. The wardec revamp they hyped is an extremely simple tweak more than a revamp. The PvE is as dull as ever and no amount of adding new dull PvE changed that so far.
I’m currently at a point where I can’t motivate myself to login anymore. Maybe that will change again in the future, but the lack of something to look forward too isn’t really helping to motivate me to play again.
Your point about the lack of vision and leadership from the development team is what is disturbing me the most. Like you said, EVE is an old game. Generally, that doesn’t bode well for the future. But with proper guidance and vision, even old games can persist. Seems to me like CCP needs to define the path forward… not just to keep disgruntled players happy, but also to ensure the future of the game.
For PVP, all the punching bags have left the game, leaving the bottom of the food chain basically empty, now it’s just predators praying on lesser predators. There’s no more real emergent pvp anymore because everyone is basically a predator with a cyno fitted and it all has become so tiresome for people who used to play eve in a very different era.
The forums were replaced by reddit, this place is now just a containment zone for a small number passive-aggressive people who never quite cross the line but nevertheless have nothing to say. They’re posting is a reflexive act which if it were on reddit it would be downvoted into invisibility. It’s also worth noting the new forums are bad with few handy features like a block feature. A far cry from the days when CAOD had thousands of posts per day.
As for PLEX, CCP artificially increased the cost of everything a number of times so they could sell PLEX to newbies, remember when a domi or geddon was 60 mil? Sorry friends you can’t be having fun for cheap!
One thing about this I’d like to add is although low and null may seem empty we need to keep in mind that in free for all PvP a lot more buffer space tends to develop.
Think territorial predators compared to a pack of poodles at a feeding bowl.
