For me, all it would take would be completing the development of the WiS systems. I know it's a game about spaceships, but the lack of any sort of face to face social interaction just ruins it for me.
I tried EVE several years ago and the only thing that was a drawlback to me was the lack of periprial support. With a physical disability I have trouble using a mouse as times, and my devices were not supported in game. Though I do believe the game is doing just fine and do like it.
As someone whos played EVE alot and quit and gone back many times the one thing I would like for them to add that would encourage me to play again and stick around would be meaningful solo play, as it stands EVE is centered around Corporation play and everything that entails. Theres no room for you to just hop on and get meaningful stuff done in an hour or so beyond mining an asteriod belt or missioning( which usualy takes longer then an hour per mission once you get past level 2 missions anyways ), you kinda forced into Corporation play to get any type of progression dont which leads to being stuck waiting around for a Corp group to form, meet up, travel to target location, and then you can start working on whatever it is your doing, all of which takes a large chunk of time before even getting to start on your objective. Also theres the issue of being War Declared, in a Corporation your pretty much guaranteed to get War Declared by someone bigger and better then you regardless of what type of corporation( Beyond the default corporations ) you are, and this makes soloing or really anything else that much harder as even in high sec space your no longer even relatively safe, and alot of the time your forced to sit in stations hiding and waiting till people get on or get to where your at who can help.
My other big thing is Progression, you can quickly get the story like Arcs done, and do plenty of missions farming Mods and ISK, but beyond that there isnt anything to strive for as far as progression is concerned, and alot of players are progression players. I made the mistake of buying a couple PLEX to give me a boost so that I could have 3 of everything so I didnt have to worry about loosing a ship because I had 2 of the same Myrmidon fully outfitted sitting in my hanger just incase, but once I did that I had millions of ISK left over and I realized EVE is really just a huge ISK chase and I didnt have anything else to strive for, we had a wormhole and built a station and turrets and all that there but I was left wondering what then? this quickly lead to me being bored most of the time because I'm not really a PvP player and Fleet combat takes enitrely too long to get together for short amounts of combat time as one side is almost always outpowering the other and it quickly resolves. If they found a way to add solo play, add constant progression, and give those of us who dont have more then an hour or two at a time meaningful stuff to do then I could see EVE getting a decent portion of players back.
I already played Eve for years. But if you want small changes to improve things a bit, here goes...
Tell those gate guns to stop shooting at my drones when I go GCC, shoot at me.
Make it so if you can't build a ship in a certain sec of space then it also cannot be fielded there either (yes I'm looking at you super-caps in low sec).
Allow bombs in low sec.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I'dlike genuaine stick and rudder cotrol over fighter craft, plus teh ability to offer close air support todust players. in a word...action.
you asked.
Not possible without completely re-writing the game engine. However Il-2 Sturmovik is often on sale on Steam.
Great combat sim. Though I'd venture a guess that if somebody doesn't have the patience for Eve then IL-2 Sturnmovik is out of the question.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I am an avid sandbox fan and I also like space sci-fi but for some reason I cannot get into Eve and this is why:
The UI is simply horrible... the icons for your targets are ugly, getting a list of targets in a table does not help you to visualize where they are at all and since the distance between ships usually are huge, zooming out just shows two pecks which leads me to...
Combat is ugly and boring. Most of the times the distance between targets are so vast so the times where you can see a space opera, i.e. two, or more ships, pummeling each other is rare. What you usually see are either you shooting at an icon, or two specks shooting at each other.
Downtime is way too long and boring. What I mean with that is that for every 5 mins of intense combat, you have maybe 55 minutes of either station hopping to replace your ship and then spend time finding good fights and this is simply boring. The reverse should be true or atleast 15 min downtime for every 45 minute of action.
So if they could address these two main issues; making combat more fun with less distance between targets and less downtime between battles as well as overhauling the UI, I could definetely see myself playing the game again but it is an otherwise excellent sandbox MMO.
How to do that?
Well for UI there is no simple answer, they need to hire usability experts and rework it, no easy way out.
However for the combat I think what needs to be done is to simply cut the visual distance by a big factor. This would need that you need to rehaul all the ships and weapons when it comes to their speeds, tracking speed and what not. But in the end you would get a much more rich combat experience where you actually see the ships duking it out.
Secondly, to reduce downtime, there should be instantaneous delivery of items. So if you buy module X or ship Y then it should be instantly delivered from where it is put on the market, to where you are (in empire space only). I dont see any point in hopping around from station to station to pick up the stuff you bought, what is the fun in this? What purpose does this fill?
Secondly to concentrate the action, they should make it so you can warp only to specific locations. Meaning you cant warp out to nowhere but rather only to fixed objects such as jumpgates, stations, planets, asteroids etc. And if you dont have the power for the entire warp journey then you cant warp at all, so you cant bunny hop around to avoid a fight.
Finally, they should provide you with training simulations where you can test out ships and modules in a safe environment and without having to grind tons of ISK. Dont see why that, which is possible in RL, would not be possible in a futuristic sci-fi age.
Originally posted by fuzzylogic11 I would like them to start a new server. They would also have to not offer server trasfers. Get all the people interested in starting over a chance. Everyone on equal footing and see the massive land grab in nul sec. It would be interesting.
It would end up very much like the current server. The real new players would not stand a chance against vets who choose to re-roll which makes another server pointless.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Combat is ugly and boring. Most of the times the distance between targets are so vast so the times where you can see a space opera, i.e. two, or more ships, pummeling each other is rare. What you usually see are either you shooting at an icon, or two specks shooting at each other.
[snip]
Well for UI there is no simple answer, they need to hire usability experts and rework it, no easy way out.
However for the combat I think what needs to be done is to simply cut the visual distance by a big factor. This would need that you need to rehaul all the ships and weapons when it comes to their speeds, tracking speed and what not. But in the end you would get a much more rich combat experience where you actually see the ships duking it out.
Secondly, to reduce downtime, there should be instantaneous delivery of items. So if you buy module X or ship Y then it should be instantly delivered from where it is put on the market, to where you are (in empire space only). I dont see any point in hopping around from station to station to pick up the stuff you bought, what is the fun in this? What purpose does this fill?
Secondly to concentrate the action, they should make it so you can warp only to specific locations. Meaning you cant warp out to nowhere but rather only to fixed objects such as jumpgates, stations, planets, asteroids etc. And if you dont have the power for the entire warp journey then you cant warp at all, so you cant bunny hop around to avoid a fight.
Finally, they should provide you with training simulations where you can test out ships and modules in a safe environment and without having to grind tons of ISK. Dont see why that, which is possible in RL, would not be possible in a futuristic sci-fi age.
Distance between targets: Fit up some close-range ships, and get over in their face. Also, I, myself, prefer having the bigger overview, but then I care little about graphics.
Downtime: This purpose fills up a job for people (with more time): Hauling and trading. Especially in empire space. Especially for newer players, which often have more time than isk. If you want instant delivery, buy the (often more expensive) items at your location. Alternatively, buy a bunch of stuff in advance, and have it hauled to your location (by yourself or others!)
Limit warping: Only warping to specific locations would (perceivably) lead to more camps. It might make sense in a 'tech-ish' kind of way (warp-drive needs to have a proper destination/lock-on point), but then it can also be explain in a 'tech-ish' way (warp-drive only needs coordinates/similar). It's an interesting idea, though, but I see a lot of negatives.
Training simulation.. You could try hopping on Singularity (or SiSi, the test server) - 100 ISK stuff (even caps). You can even get teleported to the "central" nullsec location which is a collection of FFA battle arenas. (:
Originally posted by Kalafax
If they found a way to add solo play, add constant progression, and give those of us who dont have more then an hour or two at a time meaningful stuff to do then I could see EVE getting a decent portion of players back.
You could go roam on your own in low- or nullsec. That's a viable solo-thing to do. Also ganking (all secs) and ninja-salvaging or similar. This can also be done with only a few people (so you could add the couple of people you know/like/are in your corp/...), and be a small-gang roam. You'll meet resistance, probably lose a few ships, mainly to bigger gangs - but then, what would you expect? (There are also chat channels (as well as forums, corps, and possibly more) dedicated to organizing quick, small-gang roams). <- this point is relevant to both your solo-play and your time-restraint.
Constant progression.. Well, you're always training a skill, aren't you? (In all seriousness, I half-heartedly agree).
Also, there are a lot of things which can be done in an hour or two, even besides missions/mining. Exploration is one, trading is another. I guess that mainly depends on what you mean with "meaningful".
As a side note: an hour or more to complete a lvl 3-4 mission? It's been a while since I've done missions, but that long? I seem to recall spending less than that for the majority of 'em.
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I guess I should have said this in my last post but I'll say it now: I do currently play and enjoy EVE, though I probably only play an hour or two a day. So that leads to my next idea I had:
The Gorilla in the Room: PVE
Need more engaging activities that DON'T require other players. I am not necessarily saying PVE, but something that someone can do that will yield little reward (or the reward it does yield is some kind of specific currency for items that just help with this hypothetical activity) but not require other players. PVE would ultimately be the key here, but I am by no means a fan of protecting people from PVP. The threat should always be there, and I think EVE accomplished this very well with it's current system.
At the end of the day the most successful games are successful because they offer a variety of activities for anyone to do. EVE seemingly offers this, but because it all boils down to PVP you are hamstrung if you are A) not up to snuff with skills/ISK, not in a good Corp, C) cant find someone to shoot at. When I started EVE about 2 months ago I wanted to jump right into PVP, so I joined an upstart PVP Corp and we would fly Frigs into lowsec in small 2-3 man gangs looking for fights. Very rarely would we FIND anyone to fight, and when we did we were always massively outgunned to the point where two salvos would destroy any one of us. We kept at it as a learning experience, but it was kind of crappy to fly all the way out to whatever system to get sploded and fly back to get another ship just to come back again. You get the idea.
I guess what I am saying is: PVP is not something you can jump into right away. Neither are incursions or wormholes really. You've got mining, crafting, and missions (or ninja-salvaging which admittedly is fun). Miners/Crafters have their place in EVE and most don't complain much and are happy to just war profiteer. Missions are the problem - they are downright awful. Especially level 1 missions, they require next to no skill and are mind numbingly boring.
Solution (IMO): Some kind of level1-2 mission group content. Maybe taking contracts from agents to basically do mini-POS battles, and ship restrictions could be Frigs/Destroyers/Cruisers only? Maybe even limit the number of Cruisers that can pass through the gate at one time? Just spitballing obviously.
The Age Gap
Alot of people are very, very, very put-off by the fact that the game is a decade old and some players have 10 years worth of skills over them. After a few months you can be competitive I think but for those few months you, honestly, are either just spamming missions or selling PLEX and queueing skills. Not fun. There needs to be a meta-game for newbies.
Solution (IMO): A new type of space (N-Space for this example) where stargates restrict ship classes to nothing larger than a Cruiser, but there is no Concord and it operates pretty much just like 0.0 sov. It gives newbies a place to roam and not worry about huge overpowering fleets and gets them broken into the concepts of 0.0.
I'm sure both of my ideas will be blasted, but I think the real area that needs attention is the "New Player Experience"
Also - I am one of the weirdos that wants to walk in station and shoot people in station.
Please visit my youtube channel for some H1Z1/DayZ casual roleplay videos!
I guess I should have said this in my last post but I'll say it now: I do currently play and enjoy EVE, though I probably only play an hour or two a day. So that leads to my next idea I had:
The Gorilla in the Room: PVE
Need more engaging activities that DON'T require other players. I am not necessarily saying PVE, but something that someone can do that will yield little reward (or the reward it does yield is some kind of specific currency for items that just help with this hypothetical activity) but not require other players. PVE would ultimately be the key here, but I am by no means a fan of protecting people from PVP. The threat should always be there, and I think EVE accomplished this very well with it's current system.
At the end of the day the most successful games are successful because they offer a variety of activities for anyone to do. EVE seemingly offers this, but because it all boils down to PVP you are hamstrung if you are A) not up to snuff with skills/ISK, not in a good Corp, C) cant find someone to shoot at. When I started EVE about 2 months ago I wanted to jump right into PVP, so I joined an upstart PVP Corp and we would fly Frigs into lowsec in small 2-3 man gangs looking for fights. Very rarely would we FIND anyone to fight, and when we did we were always massively outgunned to the point where two salvos would destroy any one of us. We kept at it as a learning experience, but it was kind of crappy to fly all the way out to whatever system to get sploded and fly back to get another ship just to come back again. You get the idea.
I guess what I am saying is: PVP is not something you can jump into right away. Neither are incursions or wormholes really. You've got mining, crafting, and missions (or ninja-salvaging which admittedly is fun). Miners/Crafters have their place in EVE and most don't complain much and are happy to just war profiteer. Missions are the problem - they are downright awful. Especially level 1 missions, they require next to no skill and are mind numbingly boring.
Solution (IMO): Some kind of level1-2 mission group content. Maybe taking contracts from agents to basically do mini-POS battles, and ship restrictions could be Frigs/Destroyers/Cruisers only? Maybe even limit the number of Cruisers that can pass through the gate at one time? Just spitballing obviously.
The Age Gap
Alot of people are very, very, very put-off by the fact that the game is a decade old and some players have 10 years worth of skills over them. After a few months you can be competitive I think but for those few months you, honestly, are either just spamming missions or selling PLEX and queueing skills. Not fun. There needs to be a meta-game for newbies.
Solution (IMO): A new type of space (N-Space for this example) where stargates restrict ship classes to nothing larger than a Cruiser, but there is no Concord and it operates pretty much just like 0.0 sov. It gives newbies a place to roam and not worry about huge overpowering fleets and gets them broken into the concepts of 0.0.
I'm sure both of my ideas will be blasted, but I think the real area that needs attention is the "New Player Experience"
Also - I am one of the weirdos that wants to walk in station and shoot people in station.
On the first point: Do faction warfare, preferably amarr or caldari so you can still access Jita even after you tank your standings in faction warfare. I got a friend doing em with an alt and by what he says you get mostly duels with very rarely bigger groups and almost no one brings t2s unless it's in a gang and even then they can get counter blobed quite easily.
On your second point.... do you have any idea what N-space would be like for the actual noobs? I am gonna tell you up front and honestly: tech 3 cruiser blobs with roving packs of assault frigates, heavy cruisers or just plain old rape fitted arbitrators (the kind that shuts down your capacitor after one suck and then just troll songs you to death with drones). It ain't gonna work with just cruiser hull limits, goonswarm would be all over it like a necrophiliac on a playmate zombie and test would give them a hand making sure noob behinds are bone dry before getting down to it. The only way N-space would work is if it was a patch of space where gates only allow certain ages of players in and this could work to be honest, you could have 0.0 pockets in noob systems where it's just basically a death arena style thing. But as is though they've put in duels for a reason, if you wanna pvp in high sec to polish your skills duel people .
I played EVE for 5 years (i was one the few hundered subscribers when game launched). But now nothing can get me back into the game. I play MMOS for its community and EVE has one of the worst playerbase of any MMO i have played in past 10 years. it is so damn rotten that i couldn't take it anymore.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Originally posted by Doogiehowser I played EVE for 5 years (i was one the few hundered subscribers when game launched). But now nothing can get me back into the game. I play MMOS for its community and EVE has one of the worst playerbase of any MMO i have played in past 10 years. it is so damn rotten that i couldn't take it anymore.
2003+5=2008, 2013-2008=5, ergo you've missed allot of community defining events :P (biggest of which was the blowout over the Incarna expansion and the Monocle-gate itself). Sounds like you had a run of bad luck though with corpies, shame really, I can sympathize, it took me around 5 years to find a good corp to stick it out with as well ^^.
Originally posted by Doogiehowser I played EVE for 5 years (i was one the few hundered subscribers when game launched). But now nothing can get me back into the game. I play MMOS for its community and EVE has one of the worst playerbase of any MMO i have played in past 10 years. it is so damn rotten that i couldn't take it anymore.
2003+5=2008, 2013-2008=5, ergo you've missed allot of community defining events :P (biggest of which was the blowout over the Incarna expansion and the Monocle-gate itself). Sounds like you had a run of bad luck though with corpies, shame really, I can sympathize, it took me around 5 years to find a good corp to stick it out with as well ^^.
Ofcourse when i say i played for 5 years i meant regularly. Although, now i have gone back and tried to get into the game again on many ocassions but my return was short lived There are so many things that have happened over last 5 years that leave bad taste in my mouth. Incidents that were not just limited to in game harassement or bullying but got extended to real life.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Originally posted by cura Unfortunately to attract me they would have to redesign combat system so it wasnt so dull. Other then that maybe they could make exploration worthwhile by adding huge amount of interesting lore pieces throughout the universe.
A lot of people in this thread need to realize that in the same way that not every game needs to have a pvp component, the reverse is also true. PVE has never and will never be one of EVE's foci, and that's a good thing. Part of the problem with the genre currently is too many games trying to everything.
1. JIta chat spam. Yes, EVE is a harsh place and seeing the Contract Scam in Jita was quite funny, but its soo old and needs to go.
2. POS UI improvements, already in the works (I hope)
3. A harder class of missions Level 1-4 to encourage teaming. Once you reach a certain point missions are too easy to solo, some teaming would make players have more interaction. Like the Dagan storyline Arc. I think the lack of interaction is what leads to the solo boredom and quitting.
4. Another kind of transport vessel. There is a huge jump between industrial ships and Freighters. Something in between the 2m or less industrial and the 1.6b Freighters.
5. Tutorial for new players, much improved since I last recall. Although a friend who I had try the game lost 3 ships in the tutorial missions and no, they were not the ones where you are supposed to lose one. The exploration one could use a re-write and the industry one can be problematic because some of those systems the manufacturing lines are full. In many of the cases, it was cheaper to buy the item off the market than build it yourself. I guess maybe its teaching economics 101.
I like the changes to the T1 ships so far. GL with your CSM.
1. JIta chat spam. Yes, EVE is a harsh place and seeing the Contract Scam in Jita was quite funny, but its soo old and needs to go.
2. POS UI improvements, already in the works (I hope)
3. A harder class of missions Level 1-4 to encourage teaming. Once you reach a certain point missions are too easy to solo, some teaming would make players have more interaction. Like the Dagan storyline Arc. I think the lack of interaction is what leads to the solo boredom and quitting.
4. Another kind of transport vessel. There is a huge jump between industrial ships and Freighters. Something in between the 2m or less industrial and the 1.6b Freighters.
5. Tutorial for new players, much improved since I last recall. Although a friend who I had try the game lost 3 ships in the tutorial missions and no, they were not the ones where you are supposed to lose one. The exploration one could use a re-write and the industry one can be problematic because some of those systems the manufacturing lines are full. In many of the cases, it was cheaper to buy the item off the market than build it yourself. I guess maybe its teaching economics 101.
I like the changes to the T1 ships so far. GL with your CSM.
1. Jita is Jita.
2. They're tweaking it by what I heard, it's a pet project really because there's other more important stuff but by what I heard it is definately in the works.
3. You mean Level 5 missions? yeah we have those, in low sec to boot.
4. You mean like Deep Space transports and Blockade runners? (tech 2 industrials, one of the deep space can hold more than the itty 5 btw without using tech 2 rigs)
5. haven't done the tutorial in years but I did recently help a guy fresh into the game and he said he finished up his tutorial missions and even the level 1 mission arc and was pretty well freaking based considering he only knew stuff second hand or through the tutorials... Hell he knew allot more than me when I was in my first month (christ in my first month of EVE I was autopiloting through 0.0 in a shuttle, granted that was in 2006 but still XD) so I say they've improved tutorials and the new player experience quite a bit.
I would start my sub right now if I got an invite to a relatively serious null sec corp and took the time to teach me the ropes.
That would/should never happen as I do not have a character with even 5 million SP and I have no pvp experience in eve.
Oh, and I have little isk.
I am basically a charity case.
Eve is such a great game though, I wish I really had the time to figure things out for myself.
Look up EVE-Uni, while I donno their policy for ships and stuff they're a helpful bunch when it comes to teaching you the ropes in pvp and there was a pvp class taught by some independent veteran players called agony unleashed I think which was strictly a frigate/destroyer affair with a big blob of ships (safety in numbers basically).
If CCP were to actually release a real walking around part of the game, then I would consider playing the game.
I was disappointed to see that walking on stations was basically an afterthought and CPP never intended to make it a core, real part of the game. I think they should have kept their current dev team on the spaceship side of the game and assembled a new dev team entirely to make walking a real, complete part of the game.
Sorry CCP, I can't play as a giant spaceship all the time. I need a human character to identify with, and to relate to the giant spaceships I want to PILOT, not actually BE.
Comments
As someone whos played EVE alot and quit and gone back many times the one thing I would like for them to add that would encourage me to play again and stick around would be meaningful solo play, as it stands EVE is centered around Corporation play and everything that entails. Theres no room for you to just hop on and get meaningful stuff done in an hour or so beyond mining an asteriod belt or missioning( which usualy takes longer then an hour per mission once you get past level 2 missions anyways ), you kinda forced into Corporation play to get any type of progression dont which leads to being stuck waiting around for a Corp group to form, meet up, travel to target location, and then you can start working on whatever it is your doing, all of which takes a large chunk of time before even getting to start on your objective. Also theres the issue of being War Declared, in a Corporation your pretty much guaranteed to get War Declared by someone bigger and better then you regardless of what type of corporation( Beyond the default corporations ) you are, and this makes soloing or really anything else that much harder as even in high sec space your no longer even relatively safe, and alot of the time your forced to sit in stations hiding and waiting till people get on or get to where your at who can help.
My other big thing is Progression, you can quickly get the story like Arcs done, and do plenty of missions farming Mods and ISK, but beyond that there isnt anything to strive for as far as progression is concerned, and alot of players are progression players. I made the mistake of buying a couple PLEX to give me a boost so that I could have 3 of everything so I didnt have to worry about loosing a ship because I had 2 of the same Myrmidon fully outfitted sitting in my hanger just incase, but once I did that I had millions of ISK left over and I realized EVE is really just a huge ISK chase and I didnt have anything else to strive for, we had a wormhole and built a station and turrets and all that there but I was left wondering what then? this quickly lead to me being bored most of the time because I'm not really a PvP player and Fleet combat takes enitrely too long to get together for short amounts of combat time as one side is almost always outpowering the other and it quickly resolves. If they found a way to add solo play, add constant progression, and give those of us who dont have more then an hour or two at a time meaningful stuff to do then I could see EVE getting a decent portion of players back.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
I already played Eve for years. But if you want small changes to improve things a bit, here goes...
Tell those gate guns to stop shooting at my drones when I go GCC, shoot at me.
Make it so if you can't build a ship in a certain sec of space then it also cannot be fielded there either (yes I'm looking at you super-caps in low sec).
Allow bombs in low sec.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Great combat sim. Though I'd venture a guess that if somebody doesn't have the patience for Eve then IL-2 Sturnmovik is out of the question.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
more PVE content
I am an avid sandbox fan and I also like space sci-fi but for some reason I cannot get into Eve and this is why:
My gaming blog
well you can steal kill exploit greif and just wreck peoples day no care bears stare here its and Adult game with real risk and rewards
It would end up very much like the current server. The real new players would not stand a chance against vets who choose to re-roll which makes another server pointless.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Distance between targets: Fit up some close-range ships, and get over in their face. Also, I, myself, prefer having the bigger overview, but then I care little about graphics.
Downtime: This purpose fills up a job for people (with more time): Hauling and trading. Especially in empire space. Especially for newer players, which often have more time than isk. If you want instant delivery, buy the (often more expensive) items at your location. Alternatively, buy a bunch of stuff in advance, and have it hauled to your location (by yourself or others!)
Limit warping: Only warping to specific locations would (perceivably) lead to more camps. It might make sense in a 'tech-ish' kind of way (warp-drive needs to have a proper destination/lock-on point), but then it can also be explain in a 'tech-ish' way (warp-drive only needs coordinates/similar). It's an interesting idea, though, but I see a lot of negatives.
Training simulation.. You could try hopping on Singularity (or SiSi, the test server) - 100 ISK stuff (even caps). You can even get teleported to the "central" nullsec location which is a collection of FFA battle arenas. (:
You could go roam on your own in low- or nullsec. That's a viable solo-thing to do. Also ganking (all secs) and ninja-salvaging or similar. This can also be done with only a few people (so you could add the couple of people you know/like/are in your corp/...), and be a small-gang roam. You'll meet resistance, probably lose a few ships, mainly to bigger gangs - but then, what would you expect? (There are also chat channels (as well as forums, corps, and possibly more) dedicated to organizing quick, small-gang roams). <- this point is relevant to both your solo-play and your time-restraint.
Constant progression.. Well, you're always training a skill, aren't you? (In all seriousness, I half-heartedly agree).
Also, there are a lot of things which can be done in an hour or two, even besides missions/mining. Exploration is one, trading is another. I guess that mainly depends on what you mean with "meaningful".
As a side note: an hour or more to complete a lvl 3-4 mission? It's been a while since I've done missions, but that long? I seem to recall spending less than that for the majority of 'em.
Follow my tweet (:
I guess I should have said this in my last post but I'll say it now: I do currently play and enjoy EVE, though I probably only play an hour or two a day. So that leads to my next idea I had:
The Gorilla in the Room: PVE
Need more engaging activities that DON'T require other players. I am not necessarily saying PVE, but something that someone can do that will yield little reward (or the reward it does yield is some kind of specific currency for items that just help with this hypothetical activity) but not require other players. PVE would ultimately be the key here, but I am by no means a fan of protecting people from PVP. The threat should always be there, and I think EVE accomplished this very well with it's current system.
At the end of the day the most successful games are successful because they offer a variety of activities for anyone to do. EVE seemingly offers this, but because it all boils down to PVP you are hamstrung if you are A) not up to snuff with skills/ISK,
not in a good Corp, C) cant find someone to shoot at. When I started EVE about 2 months ago I wanted to jump right into PVP, so I joined an upstart PVP Corp and we would fly Frigs into lowsec in small 2-3 man gangs looking for fights. Very rarely would we FIND anyone to fight, and when we did we were always massively outgunned to the point where two salvos would destroy any one of us. We kept at it as a learning experience, but it was kind of crappy to fly all the way out to whatever system to get sploded and fly back to get another ship just to come back again. You get the idea.
I guess what I am saying is: PVP is not something you can jump into right away. Neither are incursions or wormholes really. You've got mining, crafting, and missions (or ninja-salvaging which admittedly is fun). Miners/Crafters have their place in EVE and most don't complain much and are happy to just war profiteer. Missions are the problem - they are downright awful. Especially level 1 missions, they require next to no skill and are mind numbingly boring.
Solution (IMO): Some kind of level1-2 mission group content. Maybe taking contracts from agents to basically do mini-POS battles, and ship restrictions could be Frigs/Destroyers/Cruisers only? Maybe even limit the number of Cruisers that can pass through the gate at one time? Just spitballing obviously.
The Age Gap
Alot of people are very, very, very put-off by the fact that the game is a decade old and some players have 10 years worth of skills over them. After a few months you can be competitive I think but for those few months you, honestly, are either just spamming missions or selling PLEX and queueing skills. Not fun. There needs to be a meta-game for newbies.
Solution (IMO): A new type of space (N-Space for this example) where stargates restrict ship classes to nothing larger than a Cruiser, but there is no Concord and it operates pretty much just like 0.0 sov. It gives newbies a place to roam and not worry about huge overpowering fleets and gets them broken into the concepts of 0.0.
I'm sure both of my ideas will be blasted, but I think the real area that needs attention is the "New Player Experience"
Also - I am one of the weirdos that wants to walk in station and shoot people in station.
Please visit my youtube channel for some H1Z1/DayZ casual roleplay videos!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrQoK5VZlwBBzpsksmXtjMQ
On the first point: Do faction warfare, preferably amarr or caldari so you can still access Jita even after you tank your standings in faction warfare. I got a friend doing em with an alt and by what he says you get mostly duels with very rarely bigger groups and almost no one brings t2s unless it's in a gang and even then they can get counter blobed quite easily.
On your second point.... do you have any idea what N-space would be like for the actual noobs? I am gonna tell you up front and honestly: tech 3 cruiser blobs with roving packs of assault frigates, heavy cruisers or just plain old rape fitted arbitrators (the kind that shuts down your capacitor after one suck and then just troll songs you to death with drones). It ain't gonna work with just cruiser hull limits, goonswarm would be all over it like a necrophiliac on a playmate zombie and test would give them a hand making sure noob behinds are bone dry before getting down to it. The only way N-space would work is if it was a patch of space where gates only allow certain ages of players in and this could work to be honest, you could have 0.0 pockets in noob systems where it's just basically a death arena style thing. But as is though they've put in duels for a reason, if you wanna pvp in high sec to polish your skills duel people
.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
2003+5=2008, 2013-2008=5, ergo you've missed allot of community defining events :P (biggest of which was the blowout over the Incarna expansion and the Monocle-gate itself). Sounds like you had a run of bad luck though with corpies, shame really, I can sympathize, it took me around 5 years to find a good corp to stick it out with as well ^^.
Ofcourse when i say i played for 5 years i meant regularly. Although, now i have gone back and tried to get into the game again on many ocassions but my return was short lived There are so many things that have happened over last 5 years that leave bad taste in my mouth. Incidents that were not just limited to in game harassement or bullying but got extended to real life.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
There are
google the book of eve and here's a tidbit for you http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Talocan_Static_Gate_study and that's something the devs in charge of the lore and live events okay'd 
A lot of people in this thread need to realize that in the same way that not every game needs to have a pvp component, the reverse is also true. PVE has never and will never be one of EVE's foci, and that's a good thing. Part of the problem with the genre currently is too many games trying to everything.
Disclaimer: I'm primarily a pve player myself.
Malcanis,
Here are a few things I would like to see.
1. JIta chat spam. Yes, EVE is a harsh place and seeing the Contract Scam in Jita was quite funny, but its soo old and needs to go.
2. POS UI improvements, already in the works (I hope)
3. A harder class of missions Level 1-4 to encourage teaming. Once you reach a certain point missions are too easy to solo, some teaming would make players have more interaction. Like the Dagan storyline Arc. I think the lack of interaction is what leads to the solo boredom and quitting.
4. Another kind of transport vessel. There is a huge jump between industrial ships and Freighters. Something in between the 2m or less industrial and the 1.6b Freighters.
5. Tutorial for new players, much improved since I last recall. Although a friend who I had try the game lost 3 ships in the tutorial missions and no, they were not the ones where you are supposed to lose one. The exploration one could use a re-write and the industry one can be problematic because some of those systems the manufacturing lines are full. In many of the cases, it was cheaper to buy the item off the market than build it yourself. I guess maybe its teaching economics 101.
I like the changes to the T1 ships so far. GL with your CSM.
1. Jita is Jita.
2. They're tweaking it by what I heard, it's a pet project really because there's other more important stuff but by what I heard it is definately in the works.
3. You mean Level 5 missions? yeah we have those, in low sec to boot.
4. You mean like Deep Space transports and Blockade runners? (tech 2 industrials, one of the deep space can hold more than the itty 5 btw without using tech 2 rigs)
5. haven't done the tutorial in years but I did recently help a guy fresh into the game and he said he finished up his tutorial missions and even the level 1 mission arc and was pretty well freaking based considering he only knew stuff second hand or through the tutorials... Hell he knew allot more than me when I was in my first month (christ in my first month of EVE I was autopiloting through 0.0 in a shuttle, granted that was in 2006 but still XD) so I say they've improved tutorials and the new player experience quite a bit.
I would start my sub right now if I got an invite to a relatively serious null sec corp and took the time to teach me the ropes.
That would/should never happen as I do not have a character with even 5 million SP and I have no pvp experience in eve.
Oh, and I have little isk.
I am basically a charity case.
Eve is such a great game though, I wish I really had the time to figure things out for myself.
Look up EVE-Uni, while I donno their policy for ships and stuff they're a helpful bunch when it comes to teaching you the ropes in pvp and there was a pvp class taught by some independent veteran players called agony unleashed I think which was strictly a frigate/destroyer affair with a big blob of ships (safety in numbers basically).
If CCP were to actually release a real walking around part of the game, then I would consider playing the game.
I was disappointed to see that walking on stations was basically an afterthought and CPP never intended to make it a core, real part of the game. I think they should have kept their current dev team on the spaceship side of the game and assembled a new dev team entirely to make walking a real, complete part of the game.
Sorry CCP, I can't play as a giant spaceship all the time. I need a human character to identify with, and to relate to the giant spaceships I want to PILOT, not actually BE.
A new server. Or nuke the old one. doesn't matter. There wouldn't be 'encouragement' though, it'd just be me throwing money at them.
Response: Never ever gunna happen.
My response: Never ever gunna play.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.