I am not sure what the motivation for asking this question is, or if my answer even counts since I don’t play, so this could be a waste of time. I considered including a developer priority I am dissatisfied with, but opted not to since it would make the post longer and I’m not convinced you would find it interesting.
Eve has its roots in the earlier days of MMOs, and as such there wasn’t yet a pigeonhole to put it in or an established audience to appeal to. People who were used to games like Stargate, Duck Hunt or Pac-Man were still fairly young. That is to say, we had an audience and developer pool of people who were used to games where, if you’re going to win, you have to define a win condition yourself because the game will eventually beat you. You could go for a high score, try to reach a level or board you’ve never been to, or whatever else you want, but each time you start the game you’re starting over with a, shall we say, fresh clone.
Eve was, and still is, sort of like that. You don’t lose everything when you die, but you do tend to lose everything you bring with you on any occasion. Your competitors are the other people trying to reach a higher score or higher game level than you. The state of the art can always be pushed a little further because the game has no defined end. The points you get and the levels you reach have no defined value, but only what value you or others ascribe to those achievements.
Eve’s core foundation, then, is self determination, or so I think. This is in contrast to the idea of ‘progression’, which is where I think a lot of friction with the current generation of players comes from. Progression requires externally defined values. Isk and SP are among the most easily assimilated into this progression mode of thinking and so are often points of contention. The idea is that the playing field can not be level if they can not ‘progress’ as far as you in a reasonable timeframe like can be done in other games.
Eve is meant to be a progression of personal goals as opposed to ISK, SP, stats, or what have you. There were lots of people with more ISK, SP, and combat skill than me who I would classify as having achieved less of actual meaning or value. Those other people would likely disagree with me. That is fine because we’re all free, in Eve, to determine what we value or what it means to progress. People looking for extrinsic measures of progress are in for a bad time.
