Time for less space

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

Subjectively though, I played for a week thinking omg eve is doing well for such an old game, more people logged on than I remember and its summer, then went to forums and realised that this is a drop and people are worried (though I remember eve is dying 2004,2007-2008 threads also).

What is the general consensus as to why numbers went up?

[CowQueen_MMXII]

What is the general consensus as to why numbers went up?

End of Summer.

[Railyn_Quisqueya]

Wow!

“personally, i believe less USAmericans in the gamr isn’t a bad thing, because apparently most carebears come from there. at least that’s what i see, and the totalitarian mindset in the west has its root in the USA.”

Comments like these is the primary reason I eventually stopped playing and haven’t regretted it. It will make you happy to know I cancelled two accounts because of people like you. Stand proud and glad and keep at it.

On topic: I think eventually CCP will have to consider this and other points (server maintenance costs, reduction costs, etc) to make a determination in whether to reduce the size of the universe. I think they need to sit down and think hard on the effects a change like this would cause and whether it is beneficial in the long run.

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

No, you misunderstood me, but I am probably not being clear.

Every year numbers drop in summer and go up in autumn- or at least that was the case pre 2009 and it seems to have remained the case from what others are saying.

What I am asking about is this: it seems from what everyone is saying that 30k peak, 20k off peak as now, and the numbers we have seen this summer, are particularly low, but I have had nothing to do with eve since early 2009, and they seem good if not great to me, so

I am wondering what caused them to go up from 2008/2009 levels to whatever levels you guys are missing, and when the decline started. Cause from my perspective it seems pretty heathy.

[CowQueen_MMXII]

On topic: I think eventually CCP will have to consider this and other points (server maintenance costs, reduction costs, etc) to make a determination in whether to reduce the size of the universe.

Universe size and costs are only loosely related. Server costs overall are already a lesser factor in game maintenance (compared to personnel costs).

What I am asking about is this: it seems from what everyone is saying that 30k peak, 20k off peak as now, and the numbers we have seen this summer, are particularly low, but I have had nothing to do with eve since early 2009, and they seem good if not great to me, so

You can first take a look here: http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility to see how login numbers where at what times. You will see that we are way down from the highest numbers we had between 2010 and 2014. The spike at the end of 2016 is the introduction of Alpha accounts, meaning that all numbers afterwards have an unknown amount of those included (which could make the same numbers now worse than before Alphas existed).
The current numbers are not that bad. The game still works and doesn’t feel empty. However, the downward trend is still there and many people feel that CCP isn’t doing enough to actually improve the game in the right places (whatever they are, there are lots of different opinions regarding that). However, we don’t really know how bad the downward trend really is (changed player behaviour and we are just recovering from the summer low).

I am wondering what caused them to go up from 2008/2009 levels to whatever levels you guys are missing, and when the decline started.

Nobody will be able to tell you. The reasons for people leaving are many, the reasons to start and stay in the game might be at least as many. Often, it hasn’t anything to do with the game itself, but with the spirit of the time or other external factors. Even though, Eve has changed a lot, it hasn’t changed fundamentally from a new player’s perspective (at least not compared to the times with most players online) and today there’s probably as much reason to start playing Eve as there was five or ten years ago.

[Ian_Morbius]

Hey, I seen what you did there. Approve of your message.

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

I think I agree with you that the reasons for the drop aren’t necessarily to do with the game or quantifiable even, and I think if it is to survive it needs to be able to retain a reasonable number of players, but I don’t think its necessarily a terrible thing for numbers to drop as long as they can go up again.

What I am interested in is the reason for the rapid growth 09-11 (I don’t think my leaving was that impactful ha ha), perhaps having 60k online simultaneously on one server just isn’t sustainable long term? Its strange to me that seems LOADS ha ha

[Austin_Blythe]

Obviously as a space MMO the virtual world should be enormous, but when you log in and see that you need to make a 20 gate jump or more it’s easy to just think “Ehhhhhhhh…” and go do something else instead.

Clone jumps, jumps bridges, Alts, travel ceptors… there are enough possibilities to get around rather fast. If you suck at planning ahead and are lazy on top, no sympathies from me.

Dumb response. Clone jumps are once per day and you can only have a small number of them. Alts? lol. I’ll be sure to have identically-skilled alts placed in every system in EVE, sitting in exactly the ships I want. I will be able to do this because I can see the future. Travel ceptors? Time saved is nice but that doesn’t help if I need to fly to my destination in a ship that isn’t a travel ceptor.

Fact is getting around in EVE takes a lot of time.

[yellow_parasol]

Just because you don’t know any better, doesn’t mean i’m wrong. i’m not.

unlike you, who spends a minute responding to something you have zero understanding of. something that took me far too many years to learn about, reading tens of thousands of pages, learning how political and cultural influence works, learning what makes people think the way they do, learning how politics and marketing abuse scientific progress by pumping hundreds of billions into research that turns people into stupid idiots who honestly believe that their artificially triggered desires are their actual will.

And you spend a minute writing a post declaring me as the reason why you quit playing, clueless of what i am talking about, clueless of your own behaviour and clueless about how you just prove me right with that irrational, thoughtless hate you carry in yourself.

you’re dismissed. feel free to leave anytime, quitter.

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

It always has taken a lot of time to do stuff in eve. It used to take a lot longer though, A LOT, I am not one of those who thinks that is necessarily a bad thing, but fact is the levels you have got now turned into 60k peak very rapidly, so these cannot be ‘unhealthy’ levels per se.

If it were just about pilots in space you would not feel this way, I guess its because you are used to something different.

One thing I have noticed, is that there seems to be less high sec crime and trouble making, and less fun on the forums as a result- I am talking about ninja salvaging and flipping and whatnot, perhaps with higher numbers, people have not had to make their own content as much and now it feels like work, where as to me eve was always ‘waiting online’ with occasional heart attacks. But that is pure speculation and I have not been here, don’t want to come off like I am saying I have it all figured out.

Honestly theres 35k on now and to me that seems a lot.

[CowQueen_MMXII]

Dumb response. Clone jumps are once per day and you can only have a small number of them. Alts? lol. I’ll be sure to have identically-skilled alts placed in every system in EVE, sitting in exactly the ships I want. I will be able to do this because I can see the future. Travel ceptors? Time saved is nice but that doesn’t help if I need to fly to my destination in a ship that isn’t a travel ceptor.

Fact is getting around in EVE takes a lot of time.

So you admit that you are bad at planning and preparing your in-game activities? Please tell us what activities require you to be at several remote locations (you don’t know up front) over the course of a single day repeatedly.

[Octoven]

The solution isn’t to shrink space, regular MMOs do not do server consolidation to drive players together and increase player density, in fact most MMO companies would prefer not to have a population be too dense as it is hard on hardware and contributes to lag and bad player experience. In fact the reason they consolidate servers is to turn off excess hardware to save of expenses and save resources until the day when the player base grows again.

In the case of EVE we are a single shard server and so CCP doesn’t need to worry about that aspect. If they did cut off systems they could divert those resources toward more populated systems; however, given how dynamic EVE is, we all know that fights arent all planned in advance and a huge one can blow up in an slow traffic system very quickly. I don’t think trimming systems would benefit the game.

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

Could it be that eve was always a niche game, some aspects of its core design just turn people off, it generally takes a fair amount of time to achieve anything and one second of ‘ill nip for a piss my gate cloak will last that long’ to lose the lot, in 2008 it went on Steam, and we are now in a position to say we survived the experience.

Not all growth is sustainable, if ccp are in it for the long haul we should be ok, if their business model is now like most other businesses, your not growing as fast this q as last your failing and we need to chase numbers no matter what, then we could see a big spike followed by rapid drop as people realise eve is a bit hard.

I dunno.

[yellow_parasol]

One thing I have noticed, is that there seems to be less high sec crime and trouble making, and less fun on the forums as a result- I am talking about ninja salvaging and flipping and whatnot,

Yes. There was, and still is, lots to learn about, but what i’ve learned so far boils down to this: (including, and not limited to)

(not necessarily in proper chronological order)

• crybabies demanded nerfs and got them.

• a reduction of gentlemen of low morale fiber happened.

• the relative amount of ego tripping tear jerkers increased.

• CCP may, or may not, know about the impacts they had to society and culture. I believe that they know. The name’s the game.

• More and more highsec content creators left due to inacceptance of CCP’s politics and voted with their wallets. a reduction of gentlemen of low morale fiber happened.

• the relative amount of ego tripping tear jerkers increased.

• crybabies demanded more nerfs.

• wardecs were nerfed as an activity easily pursuable by noobs (2 million isk), which had significant impact on culture. @Jonah_Gravenstein was almost almost 100% spot on.

• a reduction of gentlemen of low morale fiber happened.

• the relative amount of ego tripping tear jerkers increased.

• Erotica1 happened.

• Psychotic Monk happened.

• Solstice Project happened.

• Cannibal Kane happened.

• the culmination of the above happened.

• the failed attempt of the mainstreaming of ganking, as first step towards mainstreaming antagonism as a whole (again), happened.

• the “golden age” of highsec antagonism happened.

• an unhealthy amount of ego tripping antagonists happened, unknowingly working towards a new form of politics.

• CCP was at risk of losing the game to bad antagonist’s potential influence on culture. Yes, that happened.

• a reduction of gentlemen of low morale fiber happened.

• https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/introducing-the-new-and-improved-crimewatch/

Retribution happened.

punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act.

And with retribution the suspect state, kill rights and the protection button happened. The single biggest nerf to the game’s culture in the history of this game.

• CCP eventually took over new player retention, almost fully ripping it out of hands of the people.

With the Summer of Rage the idea of WiS died. With WiS, the idea of giving easier milkable players a playground, died with it. CCP had no choice but to turn space into that, which will be used to attract the mainstream. It were players themselves who forced CCP to nerf EVE’s culture into the ground, it were them who gave fuel to haters CCP kept listening to, and it were them who took the best opportunity for CCP to keep the mainstreamer’s impact on the game to a minimum.

What we have today: (including, and not limited to)

• too many players playing for fun instead of satisfaction, which has been the driving factor for the most time
• the consequences of everything being centered around income aka incentives, aka giving people reasons to log in (because too many don’t log in just to actually play a game for the sake of enjoying playing it, see also: the agency, 10k sp daily, events), aka lower instincts are good for business (but bad for the game)
• ego trippers unknowingly holding the borked, broken state of antagonism hostage
• certain questionable mindsets still demanding more nerfs until every antagonist is gone
• highsec being boring as ■■■■, and/because new players grow into a culture of PvE instead of PvP, in a game some called the gold standard of PvP games.

There. That’s a good tldr no one wanted to read anyway and people who spent a whole minute on this will write a reaction telling me that it’s wrong and stupid. I still keep gathering information, btw; I have an unusual hobby. Have a nice day.

[Matt_Spangher]

personally, i believe less USAmericans in the gamr isn’t a bad thing, because apparently most carebears come from there. at least that’s what i see, and the totalitarian mindset in the west has its root in the USA.

You may care to expand your narrative and enlighten us all.

[Patti_Potato_Patrouette]

that was pretty informative.
can you tell me about the golden age of high sec antagonism?

[Manwithdog]

I think what we need is more low sec space, to separate the four powers and nullsec from each other

[Marcus_Rintel]

So saying that the game has issues, just because the PCU is lower, isn’t validö most people do believe that it’s the case, though. personally, i believe less USAmericans in the gamr isn’t a bad thing, because apparently most carebears come from there. at least that’s what i see, and the totalitarian mindset in the west has its root in the USA.

More Solo players come from the US. That is what a lot of KMMOs are finding out when going into the North American Market. KMMOs force Teamwork, and US Players prefer Solo Playing.

[Octoven]

I think what we need is for low sec to be far more balanced as is there is PLENTY of low systems, it’s just not as frequented as high or null or even wh cuz of the risk/reward being out of balance. Frankly the rewards of going there are no where near the risk you take, hell to some degree null is safer than low as is wh space. Low sec has the risk factors of null with the police watching you as well thus you don’t get full use of pvp equipment. Balance the issue with low and more people will come.

[Nora_Maldoran]

Areas outside the crowded locations are deadly silent

Which is a great thing for solo exploration. When I find a wormhole into Null I always check it out. You never know what you find. Be it a friendly chat with the locals telling you to gtfo.