EVE is not a proper PVP game, since every proper PVP game requires the quick and ready availability of resources. You fight, you die, you respawn - either with what you had previously, or with the same opportunity to pick up what you had previously - you fight, you die, you respawn… This is true not only for FPS games, but for any game that has as its main point to lock people into constant battle with each other. For that matter, it is true for chess. The only “grind” involved for setting up the next chess game is to put the pieces in their positions again.
EVE is more akin to a 4X / RTS / strategy game. In principle the point is to “conquer the map” by stringing economy, politics and aggressive expansion together, and costly PVP in spite of finite resources then makes sense as an investment, as a means to achieve objectives. Here all this happens in a multiplayer setting, so that not everybody will or can do this alone. Anyway, this is how you get current “nullsec” and their “overlords”. The problem is that once the map has been conquered in a 4X / RTS / strategy game, or things have become too static to remain interesting, you need to reset it all, so that people can have a fresh game (and yes, the same people can win if they are good, so what?).
But CCP is not doing that, hoping that it resets itself with time. Sure, it will, that’s basically the geopolitics we see all around us in the real world. Unfortunately, the time scales of that change are too long if you are just there for playing a game, rather than for living a life, having kids, etc. So, we get a stalemated game out of which CCP desperately tries to shake some action.
So, have EVE hard reset every year, or maybe every two years. Call it a campaign, or age, or something like that. Who wins the first age? Who wins the second? Etc. Adapt skill / production progression accordingly, so that the endgame after two years could be fought with a completed skill tree and Titans, by the most dedicated players. Make starting conditions for every age somewhat different, so people stay on their toes. Done. That would be appropriate and exciting for the kind of game EVE actually is. And then we do it all over again. Eve has a lot of replayability, if CCP could just finally let it replay.
P.S.: It should be noted that from this perspective it is not surprise that all null powers ever do is to re-create high sec for their people within their null boundaries. Of course, if your aim is to “conquer the map” then the last thing you need is disturbance in your occupied territorities. That’s where you are spooling up the economy to drive further expansion, having PVP engagements in there just reduces efficiency. The calls to remove high sec are hence ironic, given that the game basically is about turning the universe into high sec, just your high sec rather than theirs…
