The reason is not the game, but people. In an actually not too distant past people were more likely to play with each other, because the game attracted people who wanted to pkay with each other. Isolationists like today existed of course, but the population balance only shifted towards them in the more recent years.
CCP themselves made the decline happen by catering to people who want to play alone in the one MMO that actually deserves to be called MMO. In all the ■■■■ games, people play alone next to thousands of others who equally play alone, who run the same content and who all are heros.
So, if ccp drives the game to be more solo friendly while society has changed in exactly the same direction, how do you explain that the growth did stop?
I would guess because it´s still a game where you need to work with others to achieve big things and other games are still much better suited for solo players. Despite the changes eve still fails to attract the mainstream gamers, but at the same time CCP made changes to the game that slowly but constantlly alienated a larger number of players.
The game might still be fine, and I don´t want to say it is dying. The above post is just my theory of why eve stopped growing, was in decline. Now we are at a sport where the numbers are stable, but that point had to be reached sooner or later :).
See, I have this weird personality quirk where if I don’t know something, I choose not to write about it on the internet about it for pages and pages and pages and pages and pages…
Because it’s a ■■■■ direction. No kidding, really.
We are now living in the early years of the era of Ignorance is Strength.
You … you actually have no idea how this makes no sense, do you?
The solo player will never achieve big things, because for big things he needs other people in at least some form. Everything else is worthless, scripted NPC ■■■■■■■■.
Your idea of what would be helping with growth, and the reason why it declined are more or less the same thing.
It is also important to add that CCP actively gave ways for people to reduce the amount of accounts using injectors and MCT. We do not know the impact, but it is unlikely to be small. Most people ignore this, downplay it (as if that made any sense at all), or just have no idea about it.
CCP has made some bad decisions and as a result the number of users has decreased significantly. That is why certain CCP employees are leaving and some others will have to leave soon. There will be new people in CCP with just one task: to increase the number of users and save EVE Online, because all the side projects have fallen away and now either EVE online will survive and develop or the CCP will close the door.
I like hunting in this game not because i am rude, but because i love the competition behind it. In real lfife i am just a normal person, i dont bite anyone. Most call me emphatic and relaxed. In this game, i am relaxed as well, there is no difference. The only difference is that i like to hunt down other players. Thats my competition. Creating a plan and trying to solve it. While doing so, i am very nervous - like in no other multiplayer game i ever played. Because in here, i have to farm my money for my ships and modules, while in other games i get the weapons at spawn.
People who mine, are doing a job. People that haul, are doing another job. The list would be long to complete.
If you try to hunt people while they are doing their tasks and earn money by looting them, it is not easy at all. People are cautious.
Take me for example. In highsec i was ganked only once in the past 7 years. The reason is, that i know how to pilot my t1 hauler with cloak and mwd. Also in nullsec i did lose my pve-ship only once - it was a drake, almost 5 years ago. Thats it. No more losses, that i was not intending to lose. I lived in Provi, so far from safe 0.0 space^^
While hunting i have learned on what behavior to take care of before i get caught by someone else.
And the other thing you mendtioned, that nobody can trust anybody - well thats not ture. Most people tend to think that way, that is true. But while doing solo pvp i found out, there are a lot of people willing to join my roam without the intention to shoot me, but with the intention to corporate.
If more people understood this and shut up about things they didn’t actually know anything about, most of the carp that happens in actual real life would stop cold lol.
You just named the biggest scum on the earth. More people have died in the name of religion than anything else. But they are “morally superior” to a simple hypocrite.
You sound like a narrow minded twit that is just out to impose their beliefs on everyone else.
Here’s an idea. Don’t like the game? Quietly leave like everyone else instead of ‘trying’ to change it to fit your warped sense of superiority.
Based on the data posted on Eve-Offline.net, I can only assume like you do, Salvos, that the PCU has generally stabilized. It has, for a time, declined since 2010 as per the data shown but it has recovered somewhat and then settled at a certain level that doesn’t indicate neither a rise or decline in population in terms of how many people log in at once.
So my answer, if it’s not obvious by now, is no. Population decline is not real and only fictitious at this time. It was real back between 2010 and 2011 for one very obvious reason but not today.