The real reasons player population is declining

Communications Center General Discussion
#1062

And you know this how? Also, even if it was true, the reason would be suicide ganking, or would it be something else? Is it less appealing now than it was some years ago, and if so why? Be more specific, please.

Even if that was true, so what? Why should EVE be a game for people that want peaceful and quiet gameplay? Are you saying all games out there should be liked by people that want peaceful and quite gameplay or what? What about all the other people that want to play some other kind of game?

And you know this exactly how? What evidence do you have that proves this? Other than perception and personal bias against suicide ganking, that is…

The funny thing is nobody quits for that reason… That’s what some say and want to believe because eluding self-responsibility makes them feel so much better… The real reason they quit is they make wrong assumptions about how much protection of their assets they’re entitled to and are unwilling to learn how to protect themselves and avoid being ganked.

The only thing you could blame the game for in that regard is the complexity that makes difficult to figure it all at first. Not everybody wants to spend so much effort to learn to properly play a game, and that’s perfectly understandable. But that complexity is mostly due to the depth of the game, which is actually one of its strongest selling points…

Of course, so what? They don’t have to… All they have to do is learn to not be punch bags, the tools and game mechanics are there…

How comes everybody that doesn’t like some particular feature thinks they know better than CCP what are “the real reasons player population is declining”?

Do you even know whether the number of players is really declining in the first place? Even if it was, how do you know what are the reasons? How do you know the reasons are what you say and not something else entirely different you’re not even considering? Do you want to know or do you just want to believe what you say because that lets you push against a feature you don’t like and you don’t really care about the facts?

Let me get this straight… You have no other data, but you don’t see a problem claiming you know what are the real reasons the player population is declining… If it is declining, that is, for which you’re not providing any data either… And not only Ima, but also CCP themselves apparently can’t understand their own data… Or maybe they can, but they’re not willing to, because, you know, they don’t really care and the sole reason they conducted the survey is they were bored and were looking for something different to do… But fortunately you know much better than all of them… with no data…

Now, can you please enlighten us all how the only data we seem to have could be interpreted in a way that would support your claims? Thanks.

3 Likes
#1063

While I appreciate your break down, I’m kind of opposed to pursuing a conversation where one of us pretends they don’t know exactly what the other person is talking about. (I referenced that in my post, Knowledge.)

For the record, doing a blow-by-blow breakdown of my statement changes just as little as the statement itself. (Nothing.)

(Edit: I see you were doing this high-powered analysis of the posts you don’t agree with. I have to be perfectly honest. I don’t know you from Jack, but this is the sort of thing that strikes me as a surface-level defense of the play style you enjoy playing. And much as in real life, if you can justify it to yourself, you can do everything.)

So, knowledge, let me be abundantly clear here: I do not care about griefing in EvE. There is literally no way for you to spin that statement, there is no supposed misinterpretation, there is no deliberate mischaracterization. I do not care about ganking, I do not care about newbies getting pushed out of the game, I do not care about players having a great time, and playing for many years. EvE has worked for as long as it has, and I would not change a thing about it.

But I am not the one needing to start endlessly repeated threads about new player retention, griefing, ganking, Etc. I am also not the one who scratches my head in wonderment as to why things may look stagnant from a certain angle, or why things may never grow beyond the glory years that everyone fondly remembers.

EvE is many things, but its reputation as an asshole simulator precedes it. If you have the gumption to stick around in such a game, you will doubtlessly feel a sense of inflated pride in being tough enough to hack it. That is part of the game’s charm, and a part of the game’s curse.

The problem is, that there is definitely a ceiling as to how far being an asshole can take you. And eventually, the only people you have left to play with are assholes. That is the Crux of this thread, that is the Crux of so many of these same threads over the years.

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#1064

Translates to “your facts and logic don’t mesh well with my narrative, please stop hurting my safe space. We’re all winners and everyone gets a prize.”.

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#1065

Yeah, that is mainly because people like you who “do not care” and have no idea what they are talking about but talk about it anyway.

Why are you even writing in this thread if yoz don’t care? Why are you playing this game if you think it is full of bullies? I wouldn’t if that was my perception.

I have a really nice time when I play EVE and most people I play with are really nice people who know this is a game and can separate it from reality.

Also @Knowledgeminer is in fact my enemy IN the game, but if we are talking ABOUT the game he is on the same page. Because he is a decent player who enjoys the game and can separate it from reality, which some people are obviously not capable of.

5 Likes
#1066

I haven’t seen such useless translator for a while. :rofl:

Good old days of word by word translation?

#1067

Just going to leave this here
Again

(This is for the ganking makes more more people leave QQ" crowd

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#1068

IMO, if the pace of this game was 10% faster, it would retain a lot more players.

#1069

so many words … for nothing

#1070

In the sense of you are literally not worth talking to?

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#1071

I would just like to say that your two last posts were pretty damn spot on.

Excuse the rest of the post as I have to point out something on a certain gankbear who is being especially dumb.

@Ima_Wreckyou Except that you don’t separate it from reality based on your posting on the Eve forums where you go after people on a personal basis:

such as

And

He answered it but your brain could not compute it as per normal, ### ######## (censored by a sensitive soul who might want to go and play hello kitty on line, but the hissing might upset them. I have flagged the post where it is quoted to be hidden too, after all can’t go around upsetting people can we.)…

PS Your whine on injectors was classic…

#1072

:rofl: You wish it were that cliche, man. :rofl:

Brother, if you disagree with what I say, you can just dismiss it and say you disagree. You don’t have to try your hardest to warp my sentence into something that fits your belief of the narrative of the people you don’t agree with.

#1073

Domo arigato.

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#1074

I don’t think at this stage you are being disingenuous with what I said… But let me clarify. When I say I don’t care, I mean to say that I have no butthurt over anyone’s play styles. I don’t care if you are the squishiest, whiniest Care Bear, and I don’t care if you are the most steely-eyed killer of the Void.

If you are having fun in what you’re doing, by all means do it. I do not care if you are hurting people’s feelings in this game.

I merely point out to you, that other people do care. Being an asshole has consequences, and if you choose to knock down everyone sandcastles, you cannot be surprised and unhappy when they choose to leave.

There was a comic I saw posted here on the EvE forums that I cannot for the life of me find. It was a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a handful of dinosaurs, and then wondering why it was all alone. Very apt. Do as you will. Gank until you just can’t move your fingers to fire your weapons even a single extra time.

But then don’t come into threads where people wonder what’s happening with the population, be it increasing, decreasing, or staying stagnant… And then act like you don’t know you had a hand in it. Or if not you personally, people who farm for Tears.

Deliberately pissing folks off is going to cause them to not care about logging in to be fish in a barrel for you to shoot at gleefully. There isn’t really any way to change that. I sincerely doubt that CCP has an objective study showing that folks who were goaded into being emotionally responsive in this game were charmed by the idea of it, and resubscribed in droves.

There is a particular zeitgeist on this forum, to conflate ganking, and griefing when it suits, and ascribing them as two different things when it doesn’t. I am not talking about ganking. I’m not talking about having your ship blown up, I’m not talking about being blapped by 15 catalysts at the same time.

But “bonus rounds”? Post Gank survey mails? Posting peoples mistakes (and temper tantrums) on a third-party website? Soundclouds? Manifestos written (admittedly) to irritate the reader?

You aren’t going to actually stand there and pretend as though you don’t understand the point I’m trying to make, are you? As I said in my original post a day ago, there is a world of difference between being a Cutthroat, merciless PvP’er, and being an asshole. I think you know the difference. I think you find the things that you do to be amusing, and in a certain perspective I agree with you.

From another perspective, I fully realize why it would be that people would wash their hands of the entire game based on those attitudes. I realize it is easier to hide behind platitudes like “They don’t belong in EvE”, and “Carebears are foul-mouthed sperglords”, but that, as always, dances around the notion that you deliberately drove them to a sperging rage, and you deliberately push them out of the game. The end goal is not to see if a new Bro can handle your ■■■■… The end goal is to get content for your website. Or your SoundCloud. Or even these very forums.
(Or if not you, players that do.)

Hence why I say the arguments are disingenuous. You know you are being a dick head. It would be better to just admit it, then to hide it.

5 Likes
#1075

Is there an example of an MMO that has gained a higher active player base year after year during a period of 15 years? Perhaps the reason for decline with any MMO is because people eventually grow bored with it and move on. Reasons for boredom can be as varied as the number of players.

#1076

I’m fine with you presenting your point of view in whatever way you think is more appropriate… as long as you don’t pretend lack of argumentation is proof of anything and don’t say I’m doing something I’m not…

I’m certain I know what you’re talking about. That you think I’m not, without providing any proof, simply because I disagree with you, and use that as if it was a valid argument to ignore what I’m saying is not a problem I have…

Of course doing a breakdown of your statement changes nothing about your statement. That’s precisely why I do it, so you can see I do know what you’re talking about and am refuting your statements, not talking about something else…

You have it backwards. It’s not that I decide I disagree with someone’s point of view first and then find excuses to justify it. It’s that I disagree for the very reasons I say during the breakdown. I wouldn’t take the trouble to do such a breakdown if all I wanted to do is a “surface-level defense of the play style I enjoy playing” like you say…

I find it amazing that you seem to see this breakdown and rational argumentation as if it had no value or there was something wrong with it just because you don’t agree with the conclusions it leads to…

That’s fine and all, but let me be abundantly clear here too. I don’t care what you care or don’t care about. All I care is whether what you say is correct or not…

And this is what really matters… to you at least, I guess… The only problem is you seem to be using that “reputation” as if it was proof of anything and didn’t have to be analysed to see where it really comes from and whether it’s justified or not…

You don’t understand. I don’t feel any pride for “having the gumption to stick around in such a game”, for the simple reason that I don’t think EVE is the “asshole simulator” that you seem to believe it is in the first place…

There are two reasons I play the game. One is I simply enjoy it, I wouldn’t play the game otherwise. (I mean in general, there are things I hate about the game too.) The other reason is how much you can learn about human nature in this game. I don’t know any other game where I would have learned so much in that regard.

I do agree there are psychopaths, sociopaths and all kinds of assholes in EVE, but that’s because that kind of people do exist in RL too. What I don’t agree with is that the game encourages or promotes that kind of behaviour, or that the shooters are the assholes for the mere fact of playing a spaceship shooting game according to the rules and the victims the nice people for the mere fact of being “harmless” and “defenceless”.

I’m glad scams and other kinds of griefing are allowed in EVE, even though I’d never do it myself, because they give players the opportunity to experiment and learn to deal with those situations in a controlled environment with no real harm being done. Victims of scams, for example, should actually be glad they had the opportunity to learn from the experience in game instead of encountering them in RL for the first time. And this is not a matter of pride, it’s a matter of willingness to learn and know more than I do…

People really concerned with such behaviours in RL (I am) should actually encourage others to play the game for that very reason alone, so they can learn to properly deal with those situations and with the emotions triggered by irreversible asset losses in a controlled environment, and be thus better prepared when they encounter those things in RL, which will eventually happen sooner or later…

You’re wrong and being a victim of your own lack of rigour in the argumentation here. You should be more precise and define first what being an asshole means in this context, and then you’d see that either your premise about what being an asshole is, or your conclusion about what the consequences will eventually be, or both, are wrong.

3 Likes
#1077

You, I like. Let me revisit this when I get out of work, and see if I have anything to refute it with.

#1078

Calm down failed ag general, I’m a bit worried about your blood pressure.

This seems to be a regular whine of yours when you get triggered by my posts and I really wonder why? Do you mean the thread where I asked Why should I renew my subscription?

The only thing I always say about injectors (and I said that in the very first thread they announced them) is that they are a really dumb addition but that I have no problem abusing the shite out of them. They pay all my accounts which I have more than ever since they are basically free now. The injectors benefit my play-stile especially and still I’m against them because I think they are bad for the game. I know this must somehow completely break your brain, hence the childish “your whining about injector”.

Grow up man.

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#1080

Oh yes I know full well what I have a hand in and what not.

This is a game man. This is a game about shooting spaceships! I shoot spaceships and people get angry. If you ever played a game anywhere in the internet you would know that that is just how SOME people react. I don’t make fun of them to get a reaction where they threaten to kill my family or wish me cancer. Actually if they respond like normal humans do I help them secure their stuff. And MOST players do respond like normal human beings.

I agree that some things like Bonus-Rounds are way over the top. That was one guy who did that and he is long gone now because CCP banned him. Like they ban other people who show unacceptable behaviour.

But what you do is actually whats part of the whole problem. It seems to me you defend the absolute horrible overreactions certain people have when they lose at a computer game, as already said that is not limited to EVE, and try to lay the blame on the player who supposedly triggered that reaction.

Then please show us some examples of what constitutes an “asshole PvP’er” for you. You are extremely vague here.

EDIT:
About the whole “people get angry and abusive about losing to someone on the internet”. Have you ever played something like LOL? I mean you don’t lose anything permanent there but the verbal abuse you get is like hundred times stronger and more common than here. And you know what the creator of the game does? Do you think they will change the game of it or rather attack the real problem, which is those toxic players which just ruin everything for the rest.

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#1081

Where did I actually fail? I had a 40% save rate in doing something loaded against us, and I have never lost a ship to you lot and added to the cost of each gank as and act of resistance with two T2 logi, if that is failing I wonder what winning is like. I decided that the game play was stale and boring and not worth my time so went back to nullsec and I am winning all the time there. :stuck_out_tongue:

My blood pressure is perfectly fine, but yours does not seem to be, calm down gankbear.

You are whining about it, how noble to think of CCP but I am so unimpressed…

They have the data on their clients, they made their decision with data that you do not have. By the way something that you throw around at others, you have no idea what the impact is, you assume it is bad for them.

I have seen a lot of people having more fun because they inject and get better content, but that is an observation, same as you observing your SP farm and saying lots of people are doing this so their revenue will be down…

They decided on balance it was a good thing for the game, I also noticed them doing injectors which are rewarded for active game play at different times, did you notice that?

So throwing grow up at me is rather amusing, the growing up is needed by you in understanding that you are making an observation which is worth jack, an emotive response to your own feelings…

#1082

Want more players? That’s easy! Just make declaring war in hi sec harder! :man_shrugging:

I know, i know, carebear bla bla bla, but you know it would work, newbies won’t get shot out of the sky, won’t lose their expensive toy, which they weren’t prepared to lose and will remain in the game longer.

Will this turn EVE into WOW? Maybe… I dunno…

1 Like