Once upon a time, this game was a big part of my life. I made friendships here that I would never have dreamed possible. We had so much fun together, no matter what it was we were doing. We did everything and nothing together. We built a community, and that community meant a lot to the people who were in it. (If any of you are reading this, know I’m thinking of you as I write this.)
We were part of so many wars we were never prepared for, and we loved it. I’ll never forget my very first one, against Lord Razpataz. The fear was palpable but I put up a brave face, talked some stupid smack to him, actually brought a fleet to meet him in his home system on the hour the wardec went active. Boy did he stomp us good. Funny thing is we ended up becoming friends of a sort. He would become someone I admired and even got to joke around with for a time because he honored us with his presence in our shared chat channel and became a sort of honorary member of our community. Part of me wanted to be that man. But I knew I never could be. I never had any delusions about that. I sucked at Eve pvp, but that never stopped me from trying. And there were others. They know who they are.
Things turned sour when the real bullies came, the greifers, the ones who are so miserable they have to try to make everyone else miserable too. You know the type. I think we were at war with them for nearly a year, but the thing I remember most about that time is that no one left our community to get away from them. I remember looking at our stats many, many months into a very expensive war – wardecced by half the high sec mercs in fact – and being absolutely gobsmacked (and deeply moved) that our community stuck together through all of it, because we had such love for each other. They couldn’t kill us. But burnout did: for me at least.
What do I miss about Eve? The communities that meant something to the people in them. I miss the people. And I see that repeated over and over again throughout this thread. It’s a sad testament, one I hope Eve can recover from, because there truly is no other game or community like it, and I’m not sure it could ever be replicated anywhere else. Eve is about the friendships and trust you place in others, meaningfully deep, despite the dangers and risks associated with opening your heart here. It’s magical.
I miss the original Aura, and several other of the older sounds.
I miss the time when the players were capable of leaving the piracy, scamming, and general “i’m a bag-of-dicks” role play in the game. That and the time when players actually took pride in providing up to date informational websites that new people could browse through to learn about the game.
Mostly I miss the old Aura. The modern one is almost the same tone and accent as the person who added a “voice” to newer elevators.
For me it’s definitely the feeling that my play time used to translated directly into skill points of my character. In old days usually SP meant how much you know about the game and how long you played.
Today SP means nothing. Anyone can create character and over night make this character to have highest skill points in a game using real $$$… It just stinks p2w. For me personally that was main reason why, sadly I stopped playing.
It could be the fine bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Clos du Mont-Olivet 2004 I just consumed, but I do miss ccp Soundwave and his no-nonsense approach to EvE while having his heart on the right spot. At least he would NOT have installed glass ceilings in the game but would have found more ingenious and creative solutions to fix “stuff”.
And … his public performances were at least informative and did make sense. Which is more than can be said of certain twitch performances …
Walking in stations, and what could have come later. Elite:Dangerous is currently adding these to their game. CCP should take a few steps back, and re-implement it back into the game.
Its always been p2w. The character bazaar and plex has always been a thing. Its been like this forever and the people who genuinely feel this way all of a sudden are just too stupid and naïve to see what’s been staring them in the face all this time. CASH->PLEX->SP AND GEAR, all the way back. Only the -> (Methods) have changed.
Which is not P2W, that’s at worst pay for convenience.
P2W requires them actually getting a meaningful advantage over what another player could have obtained in regular gameplay, since character bazaar someone else made the character via regular gameplay, and since these days there are plenty of people who are all V’s in the relevant ships they fly, SP can never be a meaningful advantage over other players that meets P2W definitions.
Will people ever stop that pedantic litany as the response to other people not liking the path to P2W that has been relaxing in the slowly heating water over the last few years?
, and log off. No real desire to do much more.