As you might know, CCP put stuff regarding the proving grounds on Singularity in December here: Hoboleaks: Singularity_Previous (Build: 2448204) to Singularity_Next (Build: 2454901)
This includes abyssal glory skins for various pirate and navy ships, including the newly added aligator. This build also included 2 events that should have taken place in January. A 1v1 destroyer and a frigate FFA with serpentis themed effects. So far so good, everyone that was looking forward for the return of the arenas became really happy.
Then about 2 weeks later, a CCP dev said in a player owned discord that the destroyer 1v1 gets delayed a bit and that it looked like “the last week of January” for the Destroyer 1v1 arena. Then the last week of January came and who wonders, no destroyer 1v1 arena took place at all. Also, any communication regarding the arena has vanished and it is again like one year ago. And all those that looked forward and missed the arenas are now even more dissapointed than before. Like how can it be that events get put on SISI and CCP actively engage with the community, to drop this again. I don’t understand this. This makes 0 sense at all.
The reality is, when this kind of stuff gets deployed publically on SISI and when CCP even actively engages with the community like in this reddit post here: Reddit - Dive into anything then people expect that these events are going to happen.
The result of all this is that everyone that looked forward for the return of the arena is now more dissapointed than before. Just why does CCP do something like this? Announce a feature, engage with the community about it and then drop it and stop any communication about it? I do not remember having seen something like that in the past in EVE.
So can we still expect the proving grounds to return or what is going to happen with them?
Dear CCP, spend that miniscule amount of dev time on something that people want back, instead of burning crapload of $$$ on Vanguard that nobody cares about and has nothing to do with actual EVE gameplay… And if we also get thousands of PLEX rewards for arena, like there is currently for grinding alpha versions of Vanguard (which is like wtf…), then there will be 100x more engagement
Not to mention that only thing that ever made good content for streaming and didn’t require 90% of the screen to be blurred out or be worried about getting ganked… was the arena… think about it a little…
Yea exactly, it’s just going to die same way the previous stuff did.
Instead of putting the extra effort into EVE itself.
I don’t understand why can’t get the damn arena back, why they can’t put 1 guy to work on it few hours per month, to set up 2 events… to provide content for people who enjoy it and don’t have time to put commitment in wormholes and don’t want to get blobbed after hours of looking for a fight in null or lowsec…
So you say it is good that CCP announces new features and then drops it and stops any communication? I don’t think this is a good thing developers can do
You’re right, it is incredibly disappointing that there are no regular proving grounds currently running - there is nothing quite like them available elsewhere in the game, either for participation or watching on streams.
And it is quite sad to have had their return dangled in front of us, then seemingly cancelled or extremely delayed - again with a shocking lack of communication!
All the while we hear rumors “there wasn’t enough participation” when the events I remember from a year ago were packed with near-instant matchmaking, and the rewards were very low compared to the thousands of PLEX being thrown about to encourage participation these days. Not that it really matters to me, I’d play the arena just for the opportunity to PVP on my main without screwing up status and spending hours of preparation for the slim chance of a fair fight.
I realize more work goes in to it than simply setting up a few parameters in a script, but even with designing skins and writing up lore it is baffling that CCP can’t find the time for some staff to get these running once or twice a month. Something quite off with the priorities imo.
Admitting such a fundamental mistake with wasted efforts may not be easy. Seriously I think they project all arena gameplay now on Vanguard, where it rightfully belongs. Win-win, we can keep the EvE sandbox, and the lobby shooter fans get their spin-off.
