Come buy the Salvos Rhoska Doll now!
It comes with a string attached to itĀ“s back and if you pull on the string, he will repeat the same nonsense over and over again.
(I think that is a rather fitting image)
On the topic itself: (Warning this will be a long one)
While it seems like the numbers are actually quite stable now, there used to be quite the decline. I have played the game daily from 2003 to around 2012 myself. And while I still hold the game in good memory, CCP over the years made too many changes to the game that actually reduced the amount of interactions between players, with the goal of either helping the ālittle guysā or simply changes to make life more convenient.
When I started playing the game back in 2003 the game was really ruthless to the unprepared, lazy and egoistic people.
1. Mining
Back then a few friends from other games convinced me to start playing the game. So I went and got myself a good old boxed version of the game, created a character and met with my friends. We started out with a group of around 20 people and were mostly mining. Since most of us had no alts this meant: Working as team was rather important to mine decent amount of ore. There were no special mining ships, just our good old t1 frigs, cruisers, battleships and industrials. So most of us were sucking on roids, and spitting out cans for our dedicated hauler guy(s) to pick up. Since you had to empty your cargo almost after every cycle, you actually had to constantly pay attention to the game.
While the actual mechanic of mining has not changed since then, back then it was fun to just mine and interact with people in a team. In todays EvE mining for the most part is a solo activity, thanks to orcas/rorquals and mining barges. Especially for people with just a single account it has become an activity which does not really require teamwork (no haulers needed and no jetcanning required thanks to huge cargoholds).
On top of that it made running multiple accounts for mining a lot easier. The people running whole fleets of mining ships back then were really rare, as I can only imagine what a hell it would have been back then to run around with something like 20 mining apocs, when each of them had to jettison the cargo every few seconds, as you did not even have enough cargo space for a single cycle on all your mining lasers.
Mining pretty much has become a "semi-afk activity which does not require much attention or interaction between players -> in my opinion that made mining more convienient in regards to the input required for the same result, but it also made it a lot more boring.
The change of certain game mechanics, that could be used to force interaction on other people.
2. Changes to cime watch
(At least to a small degree, with the addition mining barges and orcas, canflipping other miners for example was bound to die anyway)
3. Introduction of jump freighters
Those damn things surely made it more convenient to transport stuff from high sec into lowsec / 0.0, but at the same time again teamwork took a big hit with their introduction. As well as player versus player interaction has been nerfed a lot!
Sure, we all did moan when we had to escort a freighter convoy into deep 0.0, but it still was something we had to do as a team. An important task, other than just sitting around waiting for the next big battle to happen or to get blueballed.
On the other hand it also meant, that you had options to actually block enemy supply lines.
Their introduction in my opinion also was a huge nerf to life as low sec pirate. There is no need to ever actually fly through low sec. Need anything? Just give a shopping list to one of the JF pilots in your alliance or assign a contract to him) -> less traffic in low sec, no more incentive for alliances to keep the supply lines clear and frequently break up gate camps. -> less options for encounters between players.
4. Jump fatique
People kept complaining about the ābig boysāā ability to to move their fleets around the map in a matter of minutes. While that was only possible for alliances that were well prepared and organsid. It was not like you could just move a capital fleet around all of nullsec without having a large number of people with dedicated cyno alts. Sure it was harsh on the little people, that it was acually a much bigger risk to undock your capital ships without support. But it allowed people to get into some quick action a lot faster. Even if it was just a quick carrier gank and not actually a good fight. Still better than sitting around doing nothing.
That situation certainly was not helped by the fact, that shortly before itĀ“s introduction PL stopped working as mercs and started builing up their own coalition and renter empire. (Looking back at things now, I could imagine someone in the leadership knew about the introduction of jump fatique before it was anounced). I remember that back then I asked someone why we donĀ“t keep going is mercs and started installing renters and have gotten the reply that there was no other option. And that certainly was right, PL could not have kept playing the way they did back then, PL needed to change the playstyle, because the old one was impossible to maintain with these changes.
Now while this is just speculation on my part: If my suspicion is right, CCP`s plan to introduce jump fatique and certain people knowing about it, caused a big shift in 0.0 towards tighter and larger coalitions, quite simply because the mechanic makes it impossible to maintain a pretty much nomadic lifestyle and at the same time making sure you have a steady income to keep your SRPs, and super programms running.
I am not saying renters did not exist before, but with that change the whole thing has been taken to a whole new level.
To sum up point 4:
-> less chances to get a quick kill
-> no short term deployments
-> possibly did itĀ“s part to create the blue donut (specualtion)
-> big impact on a more nomadic lifestyle
ā> less fun
5. Removal tricks like the good old lofty and awoxing (at least in high sec)
Some people will argue that those things just had to go, but for they were actual fun elements of the game. It was more important to build up a group you can actually trust (even in high sec) and often could also bring people closer together. Even non PvP High-Sec corps could be put to a test with those things:
If you someone in your corp became a victim of those things it was a good chance to actually show your members that being in the corp actually means something. It was a chance to support the victim either financially (if needed) or to get revenge on the person who did the killing. For some people this could actually even have been an incentive to actually start doing something other than just grinding.
While I could keep going, I everyone should see by now where I am going with this so, let me get to my conclusion, which certainly works as TLDR as well.
These changes have certain things in common: These changes and additions reduced the need to work as a team, reduced the options to create player driven content. They made the game less interesting
With the direction EvE has taken, people will get less attached to their corps as they donĀ“t have to rely on each other as much as they used to. Tight bonds between players however are something that will also get you attached to the game and people who have formed these kinds of bonds will stay in the game a lot longer than the ones who havenĀ“t.
For the early years of the game, CCP basically forced us to forge those bonds, which is why a lot of us have stayed in the game for such a long time and why for many years, even though the number of new players coming in was rather low, the population did steadily rise. This trend stopped when ccp started to take the game into a different direction, as described above.
DISCLAIMER: This is just my personal theory, based on my own experience of why I got bored of the game (as did many people I knew to be real no lifers, who also pretty much quit in the same time period as myself).
edit: I hate my keyboard!