There is no more honest marketing than this:
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It is not possible to win EVE since it has, like many other games, no winning condition per se.
Other question: can you name a single game where you can buy win?
To clear this up, I only said the style of the advert made the game look rubbish. I donāt think EvE is Pay-to-Win actually even with PLEX etc. Iām annoyed that the advert makes EvE ālook likeā a Pay-to-Win game and as such will attract dickheads.
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I completely agree with you. But I have seen this now time and time again that some people on this forums donāt seam to understand what it means when someone tries to tell them that this will look like āpay2winā to someone unfamiliar with EVE. They somehow get completely triggered by the term and start to defend EVE with the most idiotic arguments possible.
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The marvels of modern marketting, where itās assumed the customer is a fool. And it works!
Yup. Letās give it another try, though:
A new player will not understand and/or read all the sometimes calm and well worded, sometimes angry and jumbled arguments for why this or that new or old feature is not actually āpay to winā. But they will see that it takes a lot of time and effort to get shiny things in this game. They will see that other players have those shiny things. They will (often violently) get taught that these other players can roflstomp them using their shiny things, and they will eventually learn that they can effectively buy these shiny things for themselves with cash. And whether or not that means that anybody in the game is actually is winning by cash, that is exactly what it looks like.
Now, from the viewpoint of an older player, who has been around since before PLEX, Aurum, Skill Injectors and Starter packs, one might after all those additions to the game get the notion that this is what CCP wants to advertise. After all, for a profit-oriented company it seems to make sense to attract customers that are actually inclined to pay some extra cash for no extra service in return. It means more money for the same work, and thatās just economic thinking. My impression is just that it may be a bit short-sighted, like so many things in modern economics.
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Now, from the viewpoint of an older player, who has been around since before PLEX, Aurum, Skill Injectors and Starter packs, one might after all those additions to the game get the notion that this is what CCP wants to advertise.
I keep saying this, yet thereās a lot of people with lots of opinions and no clue who will absolutely deny that this is a thing. they will deny that there is a significant amount of such players around, or try to reduce it to an irrelevant amount.
Years of changes affecting the culture, with many of them being aimed at people who never had a place in this game before these changes.
anyone still not getting it, should be forced to look through all these ads. anyway, we should not worry too much. the old playerbase is slowly being replaced by these new guys, one stupid feature at a time. and the worst part is how even reasonable players, who donāt like what happens, are too stuffed, self absorbed and spoiled to care (care, as in: effort. just look at these so called mercenaries) about the future of both the game and the generations to come.
The thing with :effort: is - what can you do? There are basically two possibilities:
-
Speak your mind, and tell CCP as well as the community what you think. Plenty of people are doing that. So far, this has not stopped the trend. Perhaps it has slowed it down a bit, but thatās difficult to tell.
-
Vote with your wallet and stop paying CCP money. I think plenty people are doing that as well. Provided that the aforementioned thesis holds some truth, this may only speed up the process of āreplacing the old playerbaseā as you like to put it.
So, what do you suggest? Assuming there is a supply of effort, where is one supposed to put it?
Thatāll take a bit, but Iāll post something.
In the mean time Iād like to suggest you find more options, because these two options arenāt actually any options worth considering. Itās not for me, but for you.
Your options are the real-life equivalent of:
- writing to your newspaper, complaining about a politician and hoping they care. They wonāt.
- Voting for the other guy. Again: No one cares, thereās enough actual idiots, who fall for marketing, left out there. (btw, i did not forget to post in the other thread. i avoid posting in haste)
EVEās not just a game. Itās a society and it has culture. Thereās a good reason smart people write scientific papers about it. Donāt think of it as a product; think of it as a virtual extension of real-life. like one, or several, big countries.
If you understand that CCP makes decisions that influence this society for the long-term, then you will figure out more, better options.
Disregard that thereās lots of apathy from people who think āwe canāt do anythingā (because we always can), and disregard the fat, wealthy ones who hopefully eventually drown in their own richness. (because theyāre a cancer who only care about their own wealth)
I should be done in a few hours.
Curious what you can come up with.
PS: Remembered that you are a goon. I donāt know if you care, but in case you know him, you can ask Vanilla/Chocolate Mooses about me. He can assure you that Iām not just a random troll talking out of his ass. 
And now: Lunch!
edit: iāll post it tomorrow. itās already written, but i want to have it read by at least two people and itās too hot outside and too late for me. yes, Iām serious. 
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Hey again and sorry for the late reply. Iām sitting on my notebook now, under my window. 
I apologize in advance for any mistakes I make. I also apologize for possibly sounding like a teacher, or writing with the assumption that you donāt understand. Itās not meant to be demeaning, Iām simply thorough and donāt rely on the idea that you might know enough about everything I talk about.
I also apologize for writing books, Iām simply used to speak, which offers a completely different experience and allows me to cut down the amount of conversed words considerably.
Try to notice any bias you might have and simply ignore it for a greater good. Iām not spending over three hours writing this post just for the fun of it. No, I actually try to help and I really know what I am talking about.
Thereāll always be people who will completely clash with what youāre about to read. People lack understanding of how the life of the modern, domesticated ape (including myself, of course) works beyond āeat, sleep, work, repeatā. Theyāll disagree and thatās okay. Iām not going to demean anyone for disagreeing; itās not really their fault, or my fault.
What can you do. What can I do? What can we do? The similarities to real life are amazing. In real life, people say āWhat can you do?ā as well and nothing changes, because the system is made to protect itself. It discourages people from doing anything political, constantly feeds them new things to be angry about (so they switch topic regularly: distraction) and also feeds them so much wealth and food (Bread and Circus), that theyāre too degenerated to care about anything but themselves.
Survival instincts are a healthy thing to have; without them, oneās priorities tend to get lost in things that one, who still has these instincts, would deem unnecessary luxuries, silly, or #FirstWorldProblems.
Some of the above and allof the above apply to different kinds of people all pretty much sharing the same problems. Their respective perspectives simply do not matter, because what matters is what they share. The root of most issues, which people apparently have forgotten to consider over the generations, or maybe never actually realized as a force which has significant influence over their lives and their society as a whole.
In real life itās politics, in the game itās CCP. Again ā¦ the similarities are amazing and I love the everlasting 
out of this! 
We absolutely can equate CCP with āThe One Political Partyā. Iām not even the first or only one to do this, which struck me as a pleasant surprise.
So, what can you do? To figure that out, first one has to look at how āthe authorityā is influencing the culture of the society it governs. Itās a fluid process. Cultural changes happen when the norm of the former generation is changed into something different, which becomes the norm for the next generation. See also: repeated demands of nerfing highsec suicide ganking, aka āone last nerfā.
One generation demands a nerf, aka increased protection, and gets it. The next generation grows up with this new ānormā and eventually deems it insufficient, demanding even more protection. A vicious cycle also noticeable in real life, where (example playgrounds) politics forces protection onto children that wasnāt needed even a few decades ago, which makes them more vulnerable due to the fact that they donāt get to learn all those things that prevent them from hurting themselves.
Or, more relatable: If the government had tried making playgrounds safer 50 years ago, people would have ridiculed that government for such a nonsense. Children got hurt, they survived, they improved and didnāt hurt themselves again. They harden up, one mistake at a time.
Dismissing this as ātimes changeā is invalid, because politics made these ātimes changeā and saying ātimes changeā completely ignores the fact that there are a few people making decisions which influence the lives of millions. They donāt even seem to realize, because theyāre so busy with work or themselves.
Politics eventually made sure that, with each generation, the norm is slightly shifted towards something they want, over time disconnecting more and more people from a relatively natural way of living, and then combining that with providing an actually insignificant vocal minority the power to change everyones elses lives. See also: CCP catering more and more to carebears, slowly increasing the general amount of them every generation. Carebears crying on the forums, with CCP following suit, because it fits CCPās agenda. Not to forget that, at the same time, they take measures to get rid of the non-carebears of āold timesā.
How do you counter this, when the authority is virtually untouchable? The predictable, and actually politically abusable way it always worked, was that eventually thereās a tipping point when people are so pissed off that they grab the pitchforks. A possible scenario where this game is heading, with CCP possibly having a plan ready for when it happens. Then theyāll get praised for saving the game from an issue theyāve created in the first place. Itās a possibility! vOv
In real life, politicians have an advantage CCP doesnāt have. Politicians can set measures which, in the long term, make sure that children become more and more disconnected from their parents. They can add measures which (or donāt add preventive/countermeasures), in the long term, force people to work more hours (or force/make both parents work) to cover their costs of living, which translates into less time for their own children.
The āstateā āhelpfullyā jumps in, providing some sort of day-care for the children with the added benefit of being able to raise the children, of course, with the mindset necessary for them to be good workers, voters and obedient citizens. No one, but maybe the brain-deadest person, would argue that a government intents to raise ācritical thinkersā, unless ācritical thinkingā means āopposing anything which goes against the intended narrativeā.
In the game, though, CCP does not have such luxury. Even banning people who openly conspire against them would be of no use (and actually counterproductive), because people can organize outside of the game and ways of circumventing bans are certainly achievable even for a big amount of people.
āHow the hell does this translate to EVE ONLINE??ā
Before CCP introduced the security-button and suspect state, the playerbase raised their children by themselves. The benefit of this was that EVEās culture got passed on from generation to generation and those who were ātoo weak, or not cut out for itā eventually left. This culture was built around can-flipping, daring, theft, awoxing, etc. You know, the things EVE (highsec) once was pretty (in-)famous for.
NOW we have a situation where CCP has control of the children. Theyāve nerfed highsec player interaction to the point where the old culture can not flourish anymore. When people say highsec is boring, then thatās damn right, but not because of a lack of CCP-provided-content. The content is still mostly the same, but people were quite happy for a very long time, because the players themselves provided the content for everyone else.
CCP now has this great new NPE, which more so than ever puts the children on a specific path CCP lays out for them. Theyāve been doing that for a long while already, which was okay, as long as the āold generationā made sure it works out anyway. As Tippia often kept pointing out, a big amount of negative influence came from carebears in starter corps negatively influencing new players, thus often preventing proper injection of ācultureā. This issue only grew, as far as i am aware. Exceptions like CAS exist, of course, like thereās always exceptions.
The ābad guysā, from the carebears POV, despite generally knowing that this happens, didnāt actually counter this. At least not to my knowledge. i do not know if a proper counter-movement ever happened, or how long it took until such counter-movement happened. It is apparent that even if something happened, it did not have any effect whatsoever. Again: As far as i know this never happened and the carebears actually had significant control over the new players.
And not to forget New-Player-Corps lead by people who, in no way or form, should have power over new players.
The modern path, now even more so than the last one, has absolutely nothing to do with other players. There was a time when there even was barely a path at all (āHereās a Rubickās Cube, go ā¦ā), yet the game kept growing due to exactly this fact. It attracted intelligent people and rejected anyone who couldnāt survive in this game based on the laws of nature. Back then also no one needed incentives to play. People loved playing because it was challenging. The rest of them, the āweakā, dropped out.
The future becomes even more dystopian. CCP hires a Ghost, who tries to figure out how to inject āadrenalineā (the primary drug that got - in the past - most people addicted to EVE in the first place!) by providing children with artifical stories they play through and later on talk about and connect with.
So what do you do?
You take back the children. You apply natural laws again, like in the āolder waysā and take care of āretention rateā yourself by getting people hooked on āadrenalineā, like in the olden days. Highsec, the only place that matters for this, where new players start the game and EVEās culture evolved to what it was before it got utterly destroyed by the very company that wouldnāt exist without it.
Anyone who doesnāt like adrenaline (thereās people who canāt live with that) shouldnāt be discouraged or dismissed at all, though. Theyāre still our children and need to be supported; but not protected, hand-held or flooded with ISK. They need to grow up in ways of making-mistakes, learning-by-doing and daring-to-be-bold. That beating challenges and working hard for what you do (what people willingly and happily did in this game for a long time) actually feels way more satisfying than how it works nowadays.
It is of utmost importance that the place where all this happens has to be highsec, because highsec is the very first place they are going to be around. Highsec is like the big city where a lot of people, who (seemingly) have nothing to do with each other, all live together. Highsec is not just an āarea for noobsā, it is actually the centerpoint of the game, because there is where it has evolved and still continues to evolve, despite being crippled.
So what do you do? 
(āYouā, from now on, means a lot of people all sharing the same goal)
- You act within the EULA and heavily punish anyone who doesnāt.
- You swarm relevant starter corps and make them your new permanent residencies.
- You swarm starter systems with small, but meaningful delegations and make them your permanent residencies.
- You record as much about your doings around and with the children as you can. It is important to prevent and punish ābad applesā (aka spies) from making your efforts look bad.
- You get the children hooked on āadrenalineā, which is - so far - still only possible through (whatever form of) PvP.
I know enough about the goons to be absolutely certain that all of this is within their capabilities. Iām not talking about KarmaFleet"Goons", btw, and I wouldnāt even call those goons in the first place.
When you do this, then you can turn around all the efforts CCP puts into it. They canāt and wonāt ban you, because you will actually prove that doing this helps the game gaining more players. Apply the ways of the old, which all based on natural laws, and you will learn that there is a huge amount of people who actually love to play this game for what it offers and not for incentives.
It will allow you to make CCP reconsider their former and future choices.
Nowadays people need incentives to play. You can blame the game, or you can blame the players. I blame CCP, because theyāve created this modern environment, where creators, tinkerers, thinkers and socially disruptive donāt have any more ways of creating content in the big city, where actions actually have wide reaching, social and cultural influence.
There is, of course, also an even bigger amount of people who hate it exactly for that what the game was, but who really wants these people around anyway?? I donāt! If that makes me an elitist, so what? I bet this game has been filled with elitists being proud of the fact that they didnāt need to play any of these other games that care way more about appeasing to the masses than about providing interesting mechanics and gameplay. See also: The learning cliff.
Looking at the facts, itās actually really easy to figure out which kind of player actually makes a healthy game: The thinkers, tinkerers, curious and daring. The exploring, the survivalists and socially disruptive. The game-changers and movement-creators.
This is not an easy task. It is literally effort by lots of people, for several ingame-generations, which translates to many months. In the past, these people simply were the players, but this has been changed. A counter to this change if of utmost importance, but asking CCP for it is like asking politicians to actually care about their people when thereās no election coming.
Please note that not once I implied that there is anything you canāt do. Not once did I imply, or hint at, a need for CCP to providing help. Nonsense. The best politicians are those politicians who stay out of the lives of the people they govern, as much as possible.
In case I eventually stop posting on the forums Iāve probably been banned for this post. Iāve actually enjoyed writing it, though. Do with it as you wish. My time for actively playing EVE has passed, but itās a great hobby to follow its development and evolution, and besides: I am only one man, while this needs many.
Have a nice day and thank you for reading. I again apologize for any mistakes Iāve made, despite looking through it several times)
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Apparently there is no character limit. 
iāve asked two people to read it and Mooses himself helped ironing it out.
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See, thatās how you do it! Not like that shitty blog post you linked a couple of days ago.
I wonāt go into the real world politics part much, as all that would serve to do would be to start a discussion that would eventually get this thread locked. Only so much: Although itās enjoyable to read, itās still a bit pointless. I donāt think most people understand real world politics any better than they do Eve. I know I certainly donāt. So, whatās the point in bringing the latter into the discussion about the former? "Here, let me explain this one thing you donāt fully understand by giving you examples about this other thing you probably understand even less of."
It is admittedly quite interesting to read about how Eve is similar in many ways to how things work in the real world, but not intereseting or even relevant enough to dedicate half of your 2000 words long article to it, when itās supposed to be about something else.
The Eve part is on point, though. This is exactly what has been happening over the years, and interestingly enough, this ties in with other thrads I posted in in the last couple of days: The one about what made people decide to go Omega, the one about the new Rookie Griefing Rules and the one about PLEX prices. When I started playing, there was no PLEX, and while trading GTC was legal, it was not advertised. So, going into this, I did so knowing that this would cost me 15 bucks a month. And I bet it was the same for almost everyone else. I said the thing that ultimately made me stick with Eve was a violent run-in with a canflipper (a now dead profession). And if I remember correctly, this actually happened in Todaki - a starter system.
I had no Epic Arc and my tutorial was āHereās a gun, thereās a pirate, welcome to Eve!ā. I was taken advantage of as a rookie in a rookie system, and here I am, nearing my tenth year. And it is exactly like you say: There was anger at first - āWho is this guy? Why can he just steal my ore?ā. But then there was adrenaline, and then I was hooked.
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thank you! Thank you, also, for taking the time reading it!
This time i really forgot about that thread, but itās because i eventually figured out the likely best response and then my mind just skipped it. I hope the weather cools down soon.
Iāve brought politics into it, because itās related. Iāve used real-life examples, to point out the similarities to what CCP does and the general trend thatās going on in the west, which is softening the people to a point where they canāt take care anymore of themselves, because no one stops the āvisicious circleā iāve mentioned.
We need to remember that the very people who want to play EVE the āmodernā way, are the very people influenced by decisions made by politicians and CCP acts the same ways. I guess thereās a big pool of knowledge about this somewhere, but i prefer figuring things out on my own.
You really understand me, and thus the point. You understand the difference. You understand what actually got people hooked into the game and that means you also understand pretty much everything thatās wrong with how CCP operates now and how it slowly changes the player base.
When Iāve started the game in late 2009, Iāve spent a few weeks just reading up on mechanics and stuff, without ever logging in. When Iāve logged in, I skipped the tutorials and instead explored the UI, my options and just went ahead. Scrapping ISK together for a hauler, to haul npc goods through high- and lowsec. That got my heart pumping back then. I even went to the toilet first, before I jumped in the first time. 
I feel like Iāll come across like Jenn aSide when I start with this now, but Iāve expanded on the protection button and suspect state in a post in C&P here with a better explanation further below. You canāt possibly miss itā¦ 
I donāt know if youāre interested, but I feel like making more people aware of what is actually going on would be helpful. At least before itās too late and the population simply doesnāt care anymore.
On a personal noteā¦ I have a question.
Iāve actually always wondered why the Goons, of all communities, are just letting all of this happen. I have doubts believing that others donāt know whatās going on, especially because of all those players whoāve quit, because theyāve seen this coming.
Mooses, iirc, said that there arenāt many Goons around anymore. I donāt know why that happened and thereās always more than one reason, but maybe all of them share a few particular ones.
You know how the game worked back and I offer you an actual working solution to the problem, which attacks it at the closest thing to the root that we have available. I know that the modern goons arenāt like the Goons you know and Iāve only heard of, especially with corporations like KarmaFleet, which I believe actually helped making the issue worse.
My actually short question is:
Is there actually any interest in such political shenanigans, so we can fix the situation all by ourselves?
I mean ā¦ is there any interest in fixing the situation? From Goons, or anyone else you know?
I donāt think so. Iām not going to discuss that in this thread, though. Itās way too far off topic. Does this fancy new forum have a PM feature?
PMs are only available to forum-staff.
http://gate.eveonline.com is still available, offering evemails. Iām on linux here now and not cared about making the client run. If I knew how to fork a thread, Iād do it.
evemails seem to be a good solution; i canāt offer any alternatives at this point in time.
how does that sound?
Helps if you quote the entire thing, taken out of context i can see why you would think as you do, it clearly says above that youāre getting 2 frigates that are more powerful than your starting corvette
THAT is the problem dude. 2 frigates for $5 with āmore tank!ā
well thing is, i made a prediction a few years back where i once said, mmos are fun as hell if youāre unemployed living in bad economies, but i made the assertion that once the overall global economy starts to recover, mmos in general will start to shrink as no one has the time to play time sink games anymore, and that reality is now playing out, unfortunately for eve, it could be the first mmo to fall face first, then itāll be guild wars 2, then rift
Only if you feel superior because of it.
I think, thatās a state which we already have reached in big parts of our Eve population.
But they do. Probably more than ever. They just donāt like to pay (a set amount) anymore.
Here some numbers (revenue doesnāt directly reflect player numbers, of course, but actual player counts, especially measured in a comparable ways, are very hard to find) and there are a lot more like this out there, all indicating that f2p is steadily growing and p2p in decline:
Alternatively, you could also look at the steam charts. Most games on there are either competitive (potential time sinks) or on the content heavy side (rather actual time sinks). I really donāt think, declining player numbers have anything to do with Ā“people having less time, itās much more dependent on what currently the āinā thing to play and the payment model. Just imagine how much hours of fun you could get at a steam sale for just one year of Eve subscription.
Micro-transactioney is decent and the trend.
This ad is funny.
More weapon slots, more damage and more tank?
However Itās right in some terms.