I’ve been playing since Revelations (Late '06) and I spent my time enjoying the game. What made EVE special to me was how damn difficult it was. Nothing…not one thing was handed to you. You learned from others (if you were wise), or from your mistakes, but you learned. Mistakes were costly, they hurt…a lot. That is one of the things to me that made the game that much more memorable. Every ship, each isk, and every skill point lost was a lesson. Painful, but fun and memorable. And it was that way for a good amount of years.
Then I had personal issues in my life that I had to take a break from the game, about 3 yrs ago. Now this month I’ve reactivated my accounts and I am so disappointed with the game, it is totally different from what it was. I have not fully gotten everything that is available now as I’m “relearning” the game, however, it has been dumbed down quite a bit. Now please, if your not a Veteran of time yonder, don’t comment on this as you don’t fully understand what this game was, I am just saying what CCP Goliath told me to do in “rookie chat” this morning. Come here and have the discussion.
How has this game changed to make it easier, not better, but worse imo:
Medical clones : you didn’t insure your SP and you were podded you’ve lost SP.
War dec’s : you have to have a structure up now to be war dec’d? (still unclear on this one)
Safety buttons on modules : I mean WTF? How much do we have to slow down for people?
Instant Corvettes : so you don’t want to step out in your pod or expensive ship and, heaven for bid, you have to spend isk to buy a ship from a seller in that station.
Skill extractors : this is a maybe, arguments from both sides have merit.
Missions: Almost automatic reminders of missions destination settings and Don’t forget your cargo! (nothing like going 10 jumps only to realize your forgot your stuff) painful but fun,
And many other tidbits that seem to make the game dumbed down from yester year.
I’m going to give my 3 months sub a full work out, to really get a feel for what EVE is now, but I’m not holding my breath…and to answer all your questions before hand, No you can NOT have my stuff.
:edited update:
I’ve read the posts, and the people saying that “it’s better or don’t agree” let me further clarify.
Some posts are from players that played before me and some don’t agree with my assessment and
I’m ok with that. But this goes into the whole aspect (and videos from CCP), what is EVE? I believe it’s different for each of us. Some to mine, pvp, explore, control, gank, market control, whatever. It’s all those possibilities and more. I was drawn into that along with the beautiful graphics and the depth of play of such activities. You could do all of it fairly quickly, but to do it well, took time and learning the game mechanics of how stuff works. Once you got your first payout, kill, death, scam, find, anything, you FELT it. That feeling of win/loss that I never felt in any other game, and I’ve played plenty.
Older players have left and new ones haven’t replaced that amount gone. A what 2:1 ratio? So that tells me that something is wrong. Why? Cause the game got easier, and prettier. Gamers by nature want a challenge. We want the hard and difficult and we welcome it. As someone mentioned before, Blizzard is bringing World of Warcraft Classic back cause gamers don’t want wins handed to them, we want to earn it.
EVE had that in spades. None of this hand holding it is now. And unlike WoW or any other version of that genre, death here is supposed to hurt. And it does, to a point. But long term players and others with more RL cash can and will replace what is lost with out so much as a “meh”. I believe those number are small though, so aside from the ungodly rich, the game that it is, is left for the rest of us.
To point and rebuttals :
Medical clone : SP loss was a real threat if podded, also an isk sink. The memories and anger that came from when I was podded twice (once with a clone insured, the other not) wasn’t fully realized until I was in a drone heavy ship (don’t remember which) and I wanted to let loose my heavy drones and “I don’t have the skill for that” appeared, did I fully comprehend what had happen to me. The rant I yelled in teamspeak (no discord then) that day was memorable. I laugh about it now, and my corp mates all laughed, and I believe to this day they will remember that, THIS IS WHAT MAKES EVE. This hardship and lesson. Fun? not at the time but guess what…never did I not insure my clone again and now I have that laughable memory.
Wardec : I’ve read what CCP as posted to the reasoning behind the change. People will just stay logged off until the dec is over. I believe this is because the player base has changed. Why has the player base changed? Well that’s the reason for the post, it’s not the same game. And war deccing has to be fixed cause the new player base doesn’t like having to grow a pair and get out and fight. Make friends, hire mercenaries, get others involved to make it so the aggressor goes home and cries like a little girl.
Safety Button : This is stuiped plain and simple, and the arguement of real guns have them why not here? Cause this is pvp, you don’t have safeties in Fortnite, Modern Warfare, etc…this is a game. I applauded a player for using the mechanics of the game to kill a corp mate. He had 2 accounts and both on at the same time. I don’t remember his name but the difference was a slight one in between names. One name had a ‘l’ the other an ‘i’ . So one account steals from a can out in space and warps out, only to have the other account warp in. Same player different account with no crime committed. Yup, dumbass corp mate shot the “innocent” and got concord’ed. He paid the price for not having on the blinking yellow and was punished appropriately. Did he use the lack of knowledge against my corp mate? He did, and you know what, my corp mate learned.
Instant corvette : Again, if you wanted a corvette, you had to exit the station in a pod and have no other ships in the hanger. This is bad, cause you punish sellers of ships out, not just corvettes, but shuttles, and other small ones. This hurts players that work the game to sell ships, to help a few who don’t want to risk going out in a pod and come back in or save them isk. This can’t be good for the player base or economy. Rethink this CCP.
Skill Extractors and Missions : No further comment needed on this from my previous rant.
No notifications when players are on : How in the world are we supposed to extract revenge, bounty hunt, chat with friends, etc if we can’t see when they are on? /smh
IGB/Jukebox - oh why did you get rid of this? IGB, I can somewhat understand for malicious scripts and the such, but no workaround? (alt/tab not the same).
What I like that has changed (not much)
Ability to increase font size past the 13. Nice touch.
Explosions - Beautiful!!! Crapped my pants though when I was mining and the rock blew up right next to
me…thought I died.
I can only hope for change. This was the game to play for me. Now? I can only hope that they will see that gamers don’t want easy.
Update 2
Well, this being the internet, there are some trolls out by force, and to address those that just want to put down others for their opinion, “Thanks for sharing.”
Going on close to a month and re-figuring stuff out I’ve come to the conclusion that by far and wide this game has definitely has lost it’s edge, it’s free flowing form, in short, “this is not the wild west” by a long shot. But before I go into the bad (Game changing?) things, I point out the good I’ve seen (still ain’t much).
Graphics - It was beautiful in 2006, and now it’s very bit of breath taking for a 16yr old game. Ships, acceleration gates, wormholes, explosions, etc…Absolutely gorgeous. I really applaud CCP for being able to keep the game looking fantastic.
Variation of ships - Enough to make your head spin. The amount of new ships is just jaw dropping. I am no way familiar with all of them and what purpose they serve, but still, quite a bit to strive for if you want to fly them all.
Ability to put down space stations - And they can be destroyed. This was talked about shortly after I started in 2006. Glad to see it came to fruition. This keeps with the premise of what EVE is, anything player made can be stolen/destroyed. Kudos to CCP again for this.
2 of these 3 have nothing to do with gameplay. And in the end, that’s what matters most. I can not iterate enough that the “old” gameplay of EVE, for all it’s short comings with UI design, and imbalance, there was a fear…a true fear and excitement of what you could do or could happen to you.
Rage quitting was real, maybe still is. I have rage quit, but not for long. 2 weeks. That’s it. I was mad, sad, and frustrated. But I came back, with the intent of “winning EVE”. Because after my tantrums, I came to the realization of WHY I lost – It’s was my fault. Trade window scam? My fault. Mining in low sec and blown up? My fault. Joined a fleet for bonuses and blown up? My fault. Can this still happen? Sure.
But it’s not memorable or as memorable as before. Cause of the damn hand holding and prevention of making mistakes. Mistakes that are memorable and you can learn from.
To point -
Safety buttons : I can not iterate this enough. Prevents learning from mistakes. This is an enormous set back of what EVE was. Not only can you not accidentally shoot someone, but you can’t steal or break any “laws” with is feature. THIS IS EXCESSIVE HAND HOLDING. Giving an example, if someone stole from jetcan or wreak, you have a couple of seconds to decide (he might warp out and leave) “Is it legal? Does he have friends? Can I win?” Safety buttons take quite a bit out of that decision making process, and excitement that comes from that “Oh Sh*t!” moment.
Crimewatch : The above ties into this. So I turn my safety off (if I want to steal, I have to), but since concord doesn’t get involved in theft, screw it, let’s allow everyone to kill him. Huh? This is excessive IMO. The old mantra was (don’t know if it’s AS powerful as before) if you undock you have consented to PVP. You are open to anything happening to you, and you yourself are responsible to dish out punishment against the perpetrator. Not the entire playerbase. You afraid? Get friends (this is a social game, remember?)
Skill extractors : (Long explanation) If you trained a skill, it was yours. No take backs. If you realize later that you really didn’t need to train BS to lvl 5 and want to be a miner instead, you just bought and learned the new skill. It used to be the only remedy you had. Train new skill or go to the Char Bazaar forums and buy a new toon with hopefully the skills you needed or close to it. CCP got their 20 dollars and you got what you needed. THIS IS DIFFERENT. You keep your same toon and just adjust what you need when you need it if you have ISK or RL monies. This is a bad shortcut, sorry it is. You can almost instantly do what you want, when you want. That is not how EVE used to work. Everything took time and effort, even looking and waiting for the right toon to show up on the bazaar. Now you can fine tune your character on a whim if you have the isk. Those that argue, “just cause you can doesn’t mean you know how” doesn’t hold water on this. Those that do this, have been playing for a bit and with all the hand holding you have now, it’s hard to mess it up. Most will know how to fly and fit their ship to match the skill trained, so it’s a shortcut and makes the game easier. I don’t care how much your argue it, point to stats, pie charts, excel sheets and power points, it cheapens the game.
TL:DR - THIS is BAD.
Scanning : You used to have to do a general scan in every system to see if anything was available, As you know now, every system you pop into, you now know what’s there. This is a “meh” to me. It was very time consuming to find things, but others might see it as a quick way to get what you want. Again, a bit too much hand holding.
With that being said, it is with disappointment and a heavy heart, that I will not be renewing my subscription. The game is not as ruthless as it once was. Too easy to avoid what you don’t want, and too easy to get what you do. Some argue it’s for the better, to each his own. But this is NOT the EVE I loved.
I’ll keep my belongings and watch from a distance and pray that maybe, just maybe, CCP will realize the gem they had and will bring it back someday. And on that day, I’ll come back in full earnest.
I wish all fellow pilots a farewell, and try, and I mean really try to FLY UNSAFE
o7
) can reminisce and complain about how all the young whipper snappers got it too easy.