Another example of meta game becoming native game-mechanics are Corp Projects. Before them everything had to be conveyed via evemails, corp bulletins or dedicated websites outside of EVE.
Corp Projects allow for very structured and effective direction of members’ efforts toward corp goals with a support from game systems intricately intertwined with them, like:
- automatically measuring ores mined per member
- items produced
- automatic payouts
…and more of course
Thinking of what I write in OP seems a little intangible and hard to grasps. But in reality it is all the tiny manual tasks that are already doable and allows for achieving your goal but feel like a grind and leave you with a little of bad taste in your mouth or a disgust at yourself for allowing to be tricked to do it. And it getting worse when other players get involved and their collateral is their promise only in evemail or chat.
I know the saying: no pain no gain, but sometimes it feels like a taboo or EVE Creed that must be defended at all costs but prevents game-play from improvements making it stale.
EVE became too complex for managing everything manually and based on mutual trust to be viable and prevent players from burning out.
I would like to encourage you to look around you closely and try to identify those small meta games that would benefit from native game-mechanics support without breaking The Sacred Game Balance.
I wish we could hear from some mass industrialists and big alliance/corporations managers of what are their thoughts on this?