I am curious why you think this will bring players back or make any long term change on the game.
If CCP took away all the skill points that I have accumulated by paying for my Omega account over the years I would walk away from EvE and never consider looking at it again.
Because of the sense of noobs that they can “never catch up”.
Yup. I get that. That’s why I suggested the alternative of a voluntary Fresh Start server, rather than a mandatory re-start of the existing one. Sure, I would be competing against people like you with vast experience. But, I would get to dream we were all on a level playing field. Just for a few days. Like when New World started. That was glorious. Until you learned to level up in a long weekend! EvE is not like that I believe?
@Veinte_Decembrem seemed to think this would bring older players back, not attract noobs.
Last year my son (who is also a video gamer) expressed interest in EvE. I happily helped him get started and explained the game to him. He quickly lost interest in the game because “EvE is like having a job” and does not provide the constant excitement and instant gratification that the first-person shooters that he likes to play provides.
That is the problem with EvE, and why EvE is never going to have a million paying subscribers. EvE is a niche game with a small but dedicated fan base who like how EvE works. Most of us are a little older, and are looking for more of a long term challenge.
Anyone who is staying away from EvE because the vets have an advantage that they cannot compete with may come back to a server reset of some kind. However, I suspect that it will take the large power blocks a week to reestablish themselves as the power blocks again, and all these people who don’t play because they can’t compete will quit after a month’s subscription because again, they can’t compete with the large power blocks.
The big alliances in EvE are who they large largely because they have numbers and an organizational structure in place that is outside of the game itself. A server redo of one kind or another will not change this organization.
Some kind of a server do-over is much more likely to alienate loyal players and cause them to leave the game that it is to bring in new long term players, at least this seems to me to be the case.
edited cus I spel gud
Thtat is the problem with the latest generation, they don’t want to work for anything, wan’t everything FREE and NOW!
Both, either. “Noobs” was just a generic place-holder for the currently uncommitted.
A Fresh Start should at least provide more excitement. All those solar systems. No player bases. No bubbles. No smart bombs. Just … T1 ships with scrams and webs. An open oyster. With lots of fairish fights. For how long … ?? That would be for players to decide/ find out.
Exactly. Both points “pander” to maintaining status quo. Not to attracting the thousands who have come and gone. For whatever reasons(s). This including 95-98% of noobs, like your son, who try each year but are not retained. True, these peeps might still be put off, but no longer by large volumes of already “forbidden space”, ruled by folks with several hundred million SP - 'cause neither will exist. As early as Post #5 in this thread:
There most def WILL be such people in any Fresh Start server. In fact, it has been suggested they would drool at such a chance to troll. However, they would have to do so without any assets. Or SP. For a while.
It is always suggested as one week. How? How long to physically skill for a 50 person corp? Or 500? Sure, alliances could still be made informally, in interim. Then, where located? No need to go just to old volumes. They could go anywhere. Albeit, with no player bases to set up in. Or anti-jump beacons. Not that anyone would have skills to jump anyway. If your son wanted relatively equal pew pew in low/ nul it would likely be coming out of his ears in “the early days”. Which is what this aims to partially recreate.
Yeah yeah, eventually alliances. But these would either have to be set up by folks with only ONE toon each. Or, by folks who pay cash and would therefore have some commitment going forward. In which case, the loyalists would stay on the old server instead, with the F2P noobs, with all their assets and SP. Undisturbed. Seems like a win-win to me, with also increased cash flow for CCP.
While true to an extend there’s a different issue at work. BECAUSE the game can very much feel like a job it attracts people who enjoy it that way and make it even more into a job. And then some newbie asks one of those people to “help them get into EVE” and those people (who love EVE being a job) explain the game and show that newbie plays styles… that are like a job.
So very often a newbie gets told “must have this skill plan arching two years”, “must mine and do industry”, “no T2 = ■■■■”, “must mix max X, Y and Z” to then be told to do things that are “fun” (that ARE fun to the person saying so, at least it seems to be: they do whine a lot about the game) but are actually fcking boring.
And then they show newbies ships (almost like they’re boasting and it’s more about them showing off than actually helping that newbie) and that newbie is told “yeah that’s gonna take two years of training”. Instant uninstall.
That is why there would be no alpha accounts on any Fresh Start server. Ironically, the idea would be that everyone could pick up fights, or have a good chance of surviving unwanted ones, NOW. But you have to pay for that in cash upfront.
Oh good. The NPCs are trying to lock a thread that has miraculously managed to stay open for more than three years. I guess y’all have run out of other threads to pollute.
@ISD_Drew Please just clean it. Don’t lock it.
Mr Epeen 
Yup. And that’s why I’m fairly confident enough folks would stay on existing server if a Fresh Start option was also set up. Because they like it. That, and making sure trial accounts could only be played on the old server should ensure sufficient critical mass.
No, it’s a dumb idea.
Easily tested. Ask CSM. If they hate it, it might have more merit than you believe.
Jesting aside, simply push out email to all the old player addresses CCP maintains. And ask folks if they’d be interested in some sort of “start again” option. Doubt they’d get a 10% response but still enuff numbers to judge if idea stays on back of envelope or not.
Just because someone says “sure” on a non-commital survey doesn’t mean they actually will do so and will stick around.
It’s a dumb idea.
Yup. That’s why you would eventually ask for a prepaid commitment. Say a quarter year sub, perhaps 4-6 weeks in adavance of launch. Time enuff to judge hard commitment and/ or to then pull out as required.
Lol. A silly notion if there ever was one.
They’ll be „behind“ again during a new server start too. The veterans that are good at the game will rocket „ahead“. The newbs will just „fall behind“ again. Because being good at the game and your friends is what matters, not the state of the server.
How am I so certain? This has happened before.In 2007 the space sandbox PvP MMORPG Pardus created a „new start“ server because the old existing one was stale: a group of players got very good and dominated the PVP. You know what happened when they released the new Start server Artemis? An exact clone of the old server but everyone starting new?
All the old server (Orion) friends rolled together and min-maxed the hell out of the Artemis server in ways they couldn’t in Orion because they could do so from a fresh start. They became so dominant in the „fresh start“ server that the new server became theirs even faster.
Eve would have the same exact „problems“ as today, but bigger scale. If „catching up“ we’re a problem in Eve. It isn’t.
If someone feels bad about „catching up“ in Eve Online, they need to get a grip with their emotions. There is nothing to catch up to. And if that’s not consolable, then consider that PVP is the great equalizer. Blowing up others stuff gets them „down“ to your „level“. And if someone wants to „never harm a fly and doesn’t like PvP yet wants to ‚catch up‘“ then they have a mind rot gaming mentality (due to gaming culture out there in the wider world) which deserves no space in the Eve community, IMO.
True. In their T1 ships. And don’t get too focused on “timeline” - “noobs” is used here as a clumsy place-holder for anyone who perceives themselves to be behind. Otherwise, also true, about their potential to lag eventually. Albeit from the same standing start as everyone else.
What many people on this forum … whingers, other NPC’s, even existing players … state is a decreasing playerbase, including consistent failure to hold 2%(?) of new annual players, IS a problem. Whether or not falling behind is/ is not related to that, the chances are that a fresh start would still be a good enuff incentive to bring folks back…
… to “try again”. If, for no other reason than the only way the old Pardus folks won the re-start was by clubbing together. And THE consistent point, repeated many times,on this thread, is the lack of the old community(ies) feeling. Why those folks don’t feel that community now, and whether a fresh start would re-engender it? … I have no idea. Yet, I have a suspicion it would be fun to find out. For at least a few months. And that that would be the case for a lot of folks who don’t currently play. Plus, it would generate cash for CCP. No alpha, no trials, just cash upfront.
These two are very different problems. Your general bloviating is not really convincing that your particular solution can solve either of these (let alone both).
Evidence? Evidence that reduced playerbase cannot be linked to perception of a reduced community-feeling? Either way, you might still be correct.
Oh! Oh! The music player!
you should be aware of EVE Jukebox
Mining omber in a Probe in the starting system… those were the days.
Jumping 30+ systems to mine Ark & Bis and all you had to worry about were NPCs aggroing you.