Agreed, there is a huge difference between a campaign or war and the mechanic of same name in highsec.
Regarding retention … when I joined EvE (from playing X3 for a couple of years), I joined and approached the game as a solo player, with the “mission” to master everything on my own (first). I read a lot and watched YouTube videos, scanned killboards for fits, learned the mechanics also by trial and error. My first PvP expierence was solo, and I won fights against much older players with my trusty Tristan.
EvE is not difficult, you just need to invest time, make up your own mind, set your own goal and plan next steps. With story-based tutorials only teaching you the basic (PvE) mechanics, you make new players stop thinking because they have learned enough to play successfully, right?
Like the discobot here EvE needs Aura as an artificial intelligent bot, who answers questions, comments behavior, gives hints (try this, try that). CCP relies too much on players, to teach newbies the “real” EvE. But players will teach only their EvE not how yours can be …
I came into eve rather recently, but have followed the game for a few years. A positive about Eve going f2p, is that is has given the opportunity to take your time to find out more about the game without any cost.
Regarding expectations, the message is conveyed that there is risk, but what may not come across fully is what that means in practice, which basically is that anything, both positive and negative, can happen at any time but that this is central to what makes eve exciting.
Acclompishment in eve should perhaps be portrayed more on being able to plan for or react to unexpected things in the best possible way or finding a way to avoid it whilst doing your planned task. Then it may feel even more rewarding when you succeed at the task itself or less painful if you fail because of something unexpected happening.
These unexpected events put together is what creates a unique path in eve, like the eve butterfly effect trailer tries to show.
I think i said often enough i dont want to say eve is dying because i dont think so. Between well and dying there is still a big gap.
Well, yeah, the planning is what you have to do, and it mostly determines if you “win”. Thats what i say to people often, especially after saying things like this gank was unfair. Plan so you dont get into this situation, because when youre in it, you already lost.
But a sandbox always has this problem of people needing to find what keeps em going, while a lot just want someone to entertain them (thats what they pay for, theyd say).
Yeah, I would play again because Eve is basically the same. There are changes, but those changes don’t seem huge to me. They’ve changed the rules on current mechanics. I actually like a lot of the changes, although I’m worried about the low online numbers because personally, I love this game.
Funny. EVE is almost 15 years old, which in the scope of MMOs, is a game that refuses to die.
I know totally where you are coming from with the repetitive, boring PVE. EVE is not a game that provides good PVE content. It is a game that rewards initiative though and it takes a different mindset to the typical type of game where content is handed out and easily consumed.
You have to go find it, or make it and there is a tonne more to do than be eaten by gate camps (avoiding those is very easy).
I didn’t read the OP. My attention span on the internet needs a TL;DR.
However, looking at my own play trend over the last couple of years from 2014 - 2016:
Taking 2014 as the base for the first 2 comparisons:
Hours played:
2014: 100%
2015: 80%
2016: 25%
Logged in sessions:
2014: 100%
2015: 78%
2016: 39%
Days played (as percent of the whole year):
2014: 85%
2015: 80%
2016: 45%
From the actual data of my play, clearly in 2016 something changed for me. I logged in far less and when I did, the sessions were also much shorter (logged in 39% as often, but only played 25% of the same hours). If I break the 2015 data down, I’m sure I’d find that the first half of the year was like 2014, but then towards the end of the year I began not logging in as much.
My attitude to the idea of EVE hasn’t changed, but I think personally, the increased safety and less consequence for choices that has crept into the game over the last couple of years has definitely impacted how much I’ve actually played, although I’ve stayed subscribed the whole time.
If I started now, and began with the sort of hours I am now playing, I suspect I wouldn’t stay around. I’m committed to the game and to the relationships I’ve formed, but if that wasn’t already there, I probably wouldn’t find the game to be as challenging as what I fell in love with in 2013.
But almost everything in the game is PvP of one kind or another. This universe is driven by other players and many of them are not very friendly; even some of those that are will shoot you, steal from you or abuse you in some way.
The NPE doesn’t prepare you for that. It doesn’t even fit the same theme.
When I started playing, a little bit over 7 years ago, there was a universe, dangerous and unforgiving, with lots of stuff to do and to discover. There was so much to find out and try.
I subbed for three months on my third day of trial. Did a little mining, even in low sec, did a lot more missions and probably also tried some exploration and other stuff.
When my three months were over, I had the feeling that I had seen most of what the game had to offer and what I actually wanted to do and I were ready to leave the game again.
Then a friend suggested to ove into wormhole space and, even though I wasn’t ready, I agreed to go along. Half an hour after I moved in, I was mining some Arkonor in my Prophecy, just to find myself waking up in high sec again after a few more minutes. That was the moment where Eve finally got exciting and, even though I didn’t realize at that time, where I felt what Eve was really about: other people and playing with them or against them.
Eve is in many aspects a much better game than it was back then (and those aspects that are lacking now are mostly not very obvious to new players). There is still a lots of fun and excitement out there and it can be a fulfilling game (or hobby) for many more years to come.
On the other hand, the new NPE would annoy me, as well as all those “buy plex” and “upgrade to omega” buttons and the “free to play” promise (that is only partially kept, which I may or may not be realizing as a new player) might give me the push to quit early.
The main problem is, and was back then, that people that come into Eve do very rarely have the right expectations and that the game is not really helping to set those straight - on the contrary: sometimes it is even distracting them further: NPE again, those awful Starter Packages …
If someone would ask if it “would be worth to” start with Eve, I’d say yes, if:
you are willing to learn and read and your English is good enough
you have a lot of time to invest
your tolerance towards frustation, stupidity and rude people is somewhat high
you like games with a certain depth and bulkiness and of course space ships
It’s natural that you play more often when everything is still new and you have to work in order to setup yourself and find the right place to live. Once most of the inbuilt challenges (SP, knowledge, ISK, …) are mastered, PvP and people, and occasionally new mechanics, are the only things left (at least for me). But this is fine and more than other games offer.
All these Alphas and player count is still 20k lower than in summer 2013 … 10k lower than in summer 2014 …
Player count now is the same as in 2015, which was the weakest year since 2008.
I wonder what the player count would be without the F2P expansion …
It would be interesting to know if the decisions for reckle… err … “daring” monetization (skill injectors) and change to F2P were made in summer 2015, after CCP looked at player numbers.
The PCU count isn't a direct measure of player count and there have been several major changes in recent years that make a comparison of PCU in 2013, a totally unreliable measure of total players.
Even 2014, where the PCU averaged 42,000, that equated to 175,000 unique players online each day and 420,000 unique players per month.
PCU =/= player count
I’d love the PCU to be higher; and surely there is a relationship there, but trying to use PCU as a good indicator can’t be done.
Were not talking about PCU (only), but about players online. Yes, you cant see the actual player numbers, but i think currently online players is a quite good indicator, because even if lets say the player numbers are the same, the log-in motivation is down then.
Current players online is no different a measure than the PCU. Pick either/or, it still just indicating something similar whether you pick the peak concurrent users, or characters online when you happen to check.
Reasons to login have definitely changed. Just don’t mistake a figure of players logged in, with player numbers. They aren’t even close to each other.
Thats something that was known for years. But still, if logged in players go down by much, you either got less players or the same that do log on for shorter periods. Both isnt quite good.
But this isnt an eve is dying thread and shouldnt become one. All im saying is, that it indicates some people may feel the same about current situations.^^
because i dont think so. Between well and dying there is still a big gap.
