For the TL;DR start at paragraph 3
I realize by penning this thread I’m inviting attacks from the vocal and edgy minority that prowls these forums. I’m writing it anyway, in the hope that I can make a place for people who feel like me to discuss the matter, since the main reaction thread is so one-sided.
When the industry changes began I was excited, because they opened up the economy and economic opportunity for a much wider section of the population, and they did it without destroying anything that couldn’t be rebuilt. Sure, the industrial mogul’s operation would be disrupted on almost every level, but they will adapt to new conditions and be moguls again. They’re perfectly positioned to do so, having access to the institutional wealth, knowledge, and resources needed to weather such a storm with little to no long term impact.
The changes that have been announced since have made it painfully clear to me that this game is not the game I thought it was. I imagined this game a complex a vibrant universe with a vast multitude of ways to play: alone or with others, against the environment or against other players, for hours a day or every once in a while, with one account or many. These game modes interacted with each other in an even wider array of ways, often unforeseen and exciting ways. To me that was Eve, the breathe and scope of it. All these modes of play and all these activities having a place somewhere in the universe was the magic.
With each change since the game developers destroy more of the player culture that developed in the sandbox the last 18 years, and these modes of play and activities cannot simply be rebuilt like the industrialist’s spreadsheet. They destroy more of the game I like to play. New gates, the destruction of nullification and stabilization, the endless pandering to the CSM and its entrenched pvp nullsec interests, all of these changes are designed to force people into massive pvp blocks with fewer and fewer valid modes of play. Fewer choices. Less control. I am brought nearly to tears with frustration and a sense of hopelessness, while they sit here and call it ‘adding subtly.’ All I see is a shrinking game world controlled by players who’s only joy is to prey on everyone else and who always get what they want out of CCP at the expense of everyone else.
I will always believe that this game should have room for every kind of player, no matter what the community, or CCP, or the CSM or anyone says. I honestly don’t know if I’ll survive the destruction of much more of my gameplay, and that’s the saddest part. I’ve played MMOs for 20+ years, and I’m not usually one for doom-saying, but I feel as though there’s a noose around my character’s neck and CCP is only interested in tightening it.
UPDATE:
I was working on an update to this thread and a revision to my predictions concerning the nullification change and softening it somewhat based on my experience on SiSi, and I made the mistake of listening to the CCP interview on TIS (link: CCP on Foundations Quadrant - YouTube).
I’m not going to continue updating this thread, because I’ve become very overloaded and very overwhelmed by the reinforcement of my worst fears. This interview caused me to swing hard back into the direction of my original post, especially as it applies to nullification, the new gates, and the influence of CSM. I also have new concerns about the forthcoming but as yet unannounced cloaking changes. (I am happy to report the fears about cloaking appear to have be incorrect, and CCP appears to have gotten this aspect of things right.) The short of it is I don’t think CCP is taking their game in the direction that drew me to it in the first place, and I’m just going to admit defeat on the matter. I’m in an extremely jaded mood at the moment, and I don’t know what that means for me in the long term.
I’d like to thank those who participated constructively on either side of the debate during this discussion. Fly safe.
storm hits.