What is Eve Online?

Communications Center General Discussion
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Dude, seriously, you’re talking about being part of the fierce, loyal and brave empire-builders in Null and you can’t even own your trash talk? “I’m not gonna ad hominem but I want to make sure everyone’s thinking toxic burn-out here”.

Is that the doctrine for F1 blob-monkeys in Null now? “Avoid confrontation because it might be scary?” Well, I’ll let you off the hook - you can use all the insults you like, you won’t hurt my feewings.

Yes, 57% of the player base new within 4 years (a majority of those being Alphas, I’d guess), and 63% of CCP employees new since the previous Fanfest. Those numbers did not bode well at all, in my opinion.

Yes it’s nice that they can play the game now. However it’s been clear for a long time that the decision making is made at a higher level that’s completely out of touch with the game, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

So you and Shipwreck can keep beating the drums and sing “It’s okay it’s all okay just so long as that’s what we say”. Meanwhile I’ll just keep trying to focus attention on how disastrous the decision and design process at CCP is. And suggesting ways they could do better.

I guess that brings us to at least one more definition of “What is EVE Online?” though.

It’s on the ‘endangered’ list.

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Is it really all that bad? This sure is a lot of doom and gloom.

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Eh that depends. If we’re comparing it to “could they have done better”, then yes they’ve done some pretty harmful things. But you’re right, ‘disastrous’ was a bit of exaggeration on my part. A more accurate word would probably be “misguided” (but that’s nowhere near as fun to type when you’re on a roll).

But in all honesty, if you check around with other games, other developers, and other forums, making very poor marketing, design and player base relations choices appears to be quite common among online game developers. This is apart from the constant complaining of some players on the forums (because yes, your average gamer really doesn’t know much at all about running an MMO), but actual, factual, “you did this and then this and then your players abandoned you and your company shut down” type problems. (Or the game is sitting in maintenance mode.)

By that standard, CCP isn’t guilty of being unusually bad. They’re primarily only guilty of wasting more resources and a better market position than most MMOs enjoyed. And hey, at least they’re still here, which is something positive.

It’s almost like game devs don’t really take running a professional company seriously, because hey “it’s just a game”. Or maybe the talent pool just isn’t that deep at the salaries they can afford.

So I guess that leads us to yet another view of “What is EVE Online?”.

EVE is the game that, so far, has managed to hang in there long-term despite the sometimes very questionable directions the developers take it in.

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It used to be a nice goal to own a structure… (by that I mean POS - yet even that was hard for noobs since you needed standings)

However, once you had gotten over that hurdle things did indeed start to improve…

There were no more queues to research or copy BPO’s - No manufacturing queues - the entire bottleneck to industry was finally released and EvE thrived .

For many that excelled - Cap ships were a fun thing that you could undock at weekends and throw at your closest enemy…

It was just that - Fun, and affordable…

Now - we have Dr Who and Lego - Not quite sure how that makes content but hey ho…

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EVE online is a game that managed to grab my interest, attention and immersion at a level that no other game managed to do.

I don’t know for sure how it managed to do so, but if I compare it to other games I’ve played, factors that really made EVE a success to me were:

  • Always a possibility of PvP interference - so no predictable PvE can truly can be optimized to maximum ‘boring’ efficiency, because when dealing with players nothing will ever be completely predictable.

  • Hunter versus gatherer PvP gameplay - with resources spread throughout the universe as a means to draw players to gather them, opportunities are created to outsmart other players to either catch or outrun them. These different types of players in space then draw even more players to create a natural food chain as the ‘unfair’ PvP format, which is a lot different from the ‘fair’ team versus team PvP format which you find in many arena PvP games. (Not that I do not enjoy such games, it’s just a very different style of PvP.)

  • Persistent single shard universe - which means that we can make long term plans spanning months, years. And that we build our own bits of attachment to the game, like this ship that I’ve carried around through 4 different homes in the past few years. And as a single shard universe you get to know regulars in the area.

  • Training new skills happens automatically over time - because I really dislike the act of grinding skills and dislike the problematic effect skill grinding has on player run economies where most products flooding the market usually aren’t built for economic reasons but are side-products of skill grinds.

  • The player-run economy - where everything is built from resources gathered in the universe, in order to replace the ships and modules that were lost living in that same universe. This cyclic economy of production and destruction that encourages players to go out and become hunted is one of the basic pillars for EVE, I think. Add the player run markets and the concept of ‘no teleportation of items’ that creates price differences between locations and encourages hauling and you get a living immersive universe.

  • The community - it might be me, but I’ve never found a community as engaged with a game as in EVE. And I’ve never been as engaged with other players in a game as in EVE - usually I’m more of a solo player who enjoys grouping up with random players, but most other games make ‘grouping up with random players’ easy enough that those players will always be random, forgettable and easily replaced with the next group of randoms. Luckily EVE has not (yet) given us that (problematic) convenience, which resulted in me finding some players I like playing with.

And then there’s a few more things that I like, but wouldn’t mind if they happened to be different:

  • Space ships. They’re nice, but not my main reason to play EVE.
  • Graphics. They’re pretty awesome, but less important than good gameplay in my opinion.

and some things I don’t really like, but are defining for EVE nonetheless:

  • flying through space requires navigating multiple windows, rightclick menus, filters and folders, and feels like flying in different rooms (systems) connected with doors (jump gates) rather than giving the feeling of flying in open space.

It’s not really intuitive, but eventually I did get used to it, as did we all, I guess. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I read your posts with pleasure, truly well said. I did feel you were entirely too civil with Karzai, but moving on.

I want to address this point.
People feel good after completing a 5,000 poece jigsaw puzzle.
People feel good after successfully learning to flip bottles.
People feel good when they master billiards.
People feel good after completing all kinds of ultimately frivolous challenges.

People who try to tear people down for their personal accomplishments, no matter how trivial, are bullies and scum.

Whether you take pride in your first kill, flying your first exhumer, your first T2 frigate, completing Blockade 4 for the first time, escaping a gate camp, running a corp, running a station, making a profit on a big trade, manufacturing your first T3, whatever challenge you’ve set yourself in Eve, if someone is tearing you down for taking pride in that accomplishment, they are the kind of trash that needs to be put in their place.

My biggest issue with Eve right is in the quality and quantity of player definable ccomplishments that have been stripped from the game.

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image

Care to elaborate?

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Well, there is something to that. I think the issue is that the ability to design a game, is fundamentally different than the ability to program a game. Those are two very different skillsets, and game programmers often fail to recognize that their programming company needs people who are not programmers.

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EVE Online in 2024:

image
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That may be very well what their aiming for. Lucky for me, I already got my monies worth out of the game.

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Sure.

The complete lack of any kind of tutorial beyond the absolute basics.
The eve learning curve was a meme in it’s own right once upon a time.
Simple things like no skill planner, so planning your skills was a painstaking process.
Or having to visit systems to see asteroid belts they held, so finding a quiet well stocked system was a process on it’s own.

Finding a home base for whatever you’re trying to do as well. Need an agent? Free manufacturing/invention slot? A specific planet? An ore type?
The Agency UI has you covered, no need to explore to find what you’re looking for.

On the more robust side, things like standings for anchoring. It took real effort to put up a tower.

Or having to make high risk runs to pick up certain skill books.

Comparatively, new players are having their hands held and led gentle along a path.

PvP hasn’t changed much beyond it’s own ever-changing nature.

Some changes have added new challenges though. Skill injectors being a good one. I’m more engaged with the idea of earning isk to buy injectors and juice up than plexxing to be honest. My current goal is to see how jacked I can get my toons, just because.

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Uh… Excuse me? What ?

But finally people! This version of EvE Online already exists and it’s called EvE Echoes, and it’s a complete fiasco!

A quick look at audience ratings country by country and in two mobile worlds:

3.8/5, 3.7, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2, etc., in short, a flop, and our Viking friends who still and always wonder why, despite the undeniable wave of ratings = 1 star, their declension is still not praised by the public; I also bet that if customers had the option of putting no stars (ie 0), they would do so without hesitation. So this is what EvE Online has become in 19 years, and not in 2024, but for almost two years now; under the helmets of Veksø, would there be at least some brains?

Q. By the way, Blizzard would probably have done better to take into account the fiasco of EvE Echoes, before releasing its miserable Diablo Immortal stuffed with excessive microtransactions; in marketing analysis, these online game publishers are neither more nor less than arrogant morons without brains, and guided only by the lure of profit…

Moreover, even the specialized press services or the influencers with the most assiduous orders, have a hard time trying to reverse the trend that is still in progress, by tempting the buzz on incredible fake events, like here with the miracle arrival jump clone in EvE Echoes:

Certainly, dear Benzie! Without the slightest fanfare, as you say!

So good… Any questions lollipops?

Ully Loom

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I tried it for about ten minutes and unstalled. How did anyone approve that slop? They mustn’t have played it themselves.
Like when I read that CCP had their employees play EVE “… for the first time.” (!!!)
I think the least devs can do is play their game, at least to see what effects their work does on the game. Instead they have the customers waste their time to try the changes and give feedback.
If McDonald’s did that they’d be sued from here to Christmas.

Do they though? I doubt they wonder. I just think they put those things out there filled with microtransactions and let the ball roll, some fools will end up spending money on that trash for sure.

That’s the reason why there is no ‘0’ rating, same reason why we don’t have ‘thumbsdown’ in this forum. They want to keep it all under rosy glasses to fool the next customer.

My experience tells me they know exactly what they’re doing.
The explanation is much simpler:

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If that’s true then you’re a happy camper :smiley:

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Pay To Lose
Pay To Lose700×843 43.1 KB

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That’s old news, there are people who have spent five figures and also haven’t gotten one.

I’m in for $3k so far.

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They were playing, it’s just that there were restrictions in place -like, they had to keep their identities secret, and couldn’t join groups (or some crap like that). It apparently dates back to the T20 scandal, when a dev hooked up bob with T2 BPO’s. But after many years, the player base got over it, and became more insistent that CCP “play their game.”

They did actually play during the intervening years though. The difference now is that the restrictions were lifted.

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Please tell me you’re joking about spending 3k yourself.

Also, when I hear about people spending 5 figures on a game, I can’t help but feel like companies are less making products for their customers, and more preying on the vulnerable. I wish Blizzard would fail because of this, in order to discourage other companies from going the same route. Unfortunately, it sounds like psychologically exploiting players is good business.

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Which part?

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why would you spend money on that crap :confused: