Say what you will about CCP, they started Eve with a vision and they stuck to that vision. A bad ass do what you will PVP game.
They most likely could have opened a new set of PVE servers long ago and made a lot more cash. But that was not the game they wanted.
I think they have about peaked though. If Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, or maybe Ascent the Space Game, or the others ever take off and draw from that pool of people that like space games in the west, will not be good news for them.
Not that i think the game will fail or anything, Just the numbers will drop a bit and become stagnant. Which is still not bad.
The corp i am in had a 'miner' with 4 accounts, just about everyone else only had the one, multiboxing is really not that effective in Eve, especially for PvP, in the recent NEO tourny, there was a guy multiboxing, and we're talking a highly experienced player, but, all his ships were wiped out without inflicting a single kill on the opposing team. In PvP a multiboxer is a liability imo, little more than cannon fodder, though they probably do reasonably well in PvE, mission running etc. For the most part i would say the majority of the player base is single account.
EVE =/= PVP and multiple accounts does not neccesarily means you are multiboxing, especially in case of EVE.
Multiboxing in PVP is viable - scout, cyno alt, logistics and ECM ship, CS with links.
However, I would still like to see some evidence that there are more accounts per player in EVE than there are in other games.
I'd say looking at the nature of the game and basing that off tendencies in SWG, it would make sense for a high level of alt accounts for things like muling, utility for mining ops, etc... I think it's a logical question to ask when discussing that overall 500K, how many run alts. OF course jumping to conclusions is different than asking the question.
You can have up to 3 toons on a single account, its highly likely that there will be any amount of alts used for different things, but alts on the same account, not seperate ones. They can be handy for doing mission running or mining etc, when you can't use your main toon, either through location issues - in null sec especially, if you need to have your pvp toon ready for an op and want to do something productive in the meantime, or just wardec avoidance even.
A previous poster mentioned the chinese server, given that before the advent of this, Eve had around 350k players, i would be interested to know how many are on either server now.
I'd say looking at the nature of the game and basing that off tendencies in SWG, it would make sense for a high level of alt accounts for things like muling, utility for mining ops, etc... I think it's a logical question to ask when discussing that overall 500K, how many run alts. OF course jumping to conclusions is different than asking the question.
Really, it is just all jumping on baseless conclusions.
In the end the number of actual players isnt really that relevant at all either. The number of payed accounts is, as that is the indicator of how much they make on the game.
I actually think you would find a few in the market who would say that if the number of alts where indeed as high as some think it is, that would be a good thing, as it indicates that their players are willing to pay more on avarage to play a game, which makes them "good" customers to have.
I'm glad they dropped WoD. I would have loved to have played it but I think it should be left to another company because CCP has enough on their plate with the New Eden universe and I would hate to see them try to take on both WoD and EVE/DUST: LEGION/Valkyrie all at the same time.
I also can't wait for this ship rebalancing to complete, I want some actual expansions. The last couple of years have honestly just been content and balancing/tiericide patches and I'm hoping they have something game changing in the works. The prophecy video they put out hinted at the player made stargates they talked about last year before rubicon so lets see what they do after they finish the rebalancing. (which by the way, we the players all begged them to do and they warned us it would take a long ass time.)
The corp i am in had a 'miner' with 4 accounts, just about everyone else only had the one, multiboxing is really not that effective in Eve, especially for PvP, in the recent NEO tourny, there was a guy multiboxing, and we're talking a highly experienced player, but, all his ships were wiped out without inflicting a single kill on the opposing team. In PvP a multiboxer is a liability imo, little more than cannon fodder, though they probably do reasonably well in PvE, mission running etc. For the most part i would say the majority of the player base is single account.
EVE =/= PVP and multiple accounts does not neccesarily means you are multiboxing, especially in case of EVE.
Multiboxing in PVP is viable - scout, cyno alt, logistics and ECM ship, CS with links.
However, I would still like to see some evidence that there are more accounts per player in EVE than there are in other games.
I'd say looking at the nature of the game and basing that off tendencies in SWG, it would make sense for a high level of alt accounts for things like muling, utility for mining ops, etc... I think it's a logical question to ask when discussing that overall 500K, how many run alts. OF course jumping to conclusions is different than asking the question.
Basing it off of experience and observation along with the fact that it's freaking trivial to maintain 2 accounts on isk for any account over 6 months for the most part. That's not a wild assumption. Add in things on top of what you listed like titan pilots, capital pilots, people who manufacture, pos alts, real time training limitations (just being able to do something different), on and on and on. No other mmo is it more beneficial than Eve to maintain more than one account. Because of real time training, compounding benefits in certain tasks, or what's at stake in trusting others to do something you could do on an alt, or to open up other aspects like pilot specializations. He made the crazy claim in my eyes. Because no other mmo stands up to what Eve offers.
Who gives a shit about multi boxing or anything. I am addressing his statement in red but he's been cherry picking quotes to make it look like I am saying something else. WHo gives a shit how many of the 500k are actual players as long as the game world feels full that's all that really matters.
Say what you will about CCP, they started Eve with a vision and they stuck to that vision. A bad ass do what you will PVP game.
They most likely could have opened a new set of PVE servers long ago and made a lot more cash. But that was not the game they wanted.
I think they have about peaked though. If Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, or maybe Ascent the Space Game, or the others ever take off and draw from that pool of people that like space games in the west, will not be good news for them.
Not that i think the game will fail or anything, Just the numbers will drop a bit and become stagnant. Which is still not bad.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the looming prospect of increased competition in the "space-sim" genre didn't have a role to play in this sudden sharp re-focusing of CCP's priorities. They may even be "trimming the fat" in anticipation of reduced revenue streams, because it's inevitable that quite a few of the less invested EVE players will "jump ship", if only for a few months.
I don't see any fundamental threat for EVE though, as none of the upcoming games are as "sandboxy" as EVE or appear to have such strongly player-driven economies.
I'm not suggesting that the new games are themeparks, just that their PVP options seem to be leaning more toward "optional" rather than being an integral (and unavoidable) part of the game world. Those games might end-up with more players than EVE (they almost HAVE to, seeing as they are F2P), but that doesn't mean that EVE will lose its existing fanbase.
The corp i am in had a 'miner' with 4 accounts, just about everyone else only had the one, multiboxing is really not that effective in Eve, especially for PvP, in the recent NEO tourny, there was a guy multiboxing, and we're talking a highly experienced player, but, all his ships were wiped out without inflicting a single kill on the opposing team. In PvP a multiboxer is a liability imo, little more than cannon fodder, though they probably do reasonably well in PvE, mission running etc. For the most part i would say the majority of the player base is single account.
EVE =/= PVP and multiple accounts does not neccesarily means you are multiboxing, especially in case of EVE.
Multiboxing in PVP is viable - scout, cyno alt, logistics and ECM ship, CS with links.
However, I would still like to see some evidence that there are more accounts per player in EVE than there are in other games.
I'd say looking at the nature of the game and basing that off tendencies in SWG, it would make sense for a high level of alt accounts for things like muling, utility for mining ops, etc... I think it's a logical question to ask when discussing that overall 500K, how many run alts. OF course jumping to conclusions is different than asking the question.
You can have up to 3 toons on a single account, its highly likely that there will be any amount of alts used for different things, but alts on the same account, not seperate ones. They can be handy for doing mission running or mining etc, when you can't use your main toon, either through location issues - in null sec especially, if you need to have your pvp toon ready for an op and want to do something productive in the meantime, or just wardec avoidance even.
A previous poster mentioned the chinese server, given that before the advent of this, Eve had around 350k players, i would be interested to know how many are on either server now.
I'd suspect there's some uses for an alt by having two accounts logged in at the same time. There were plenty of such uses in SWG.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The corp i am in had a 'miner' with 4 accounts, just about everyone else only had the one, multiboxing is really not that effective in Eve, especially for PvP, in the recent NEO tourny, there was a guy multiboxing, and we're talking a highly experienced player, but, all his ships were wiped out without inflicting a single kill on the opposing team. In PvP a multiboxer is a liability imo, little more than cannon fodder, though they probably do reasonably well in PvE, mission running etc. For the most part i would say the majority of the player base is single account.
EVE =/= PVP and multiple accounts does not neccesarily means you are multiboxing, especially in case of EVE.
Multiboxing in PVP is viable - scout, cyno alt, logistics and ECM ship, CS with links.
However, I would still like to see some evidence that there are more accounts per player in EVE than there are in other games.
I'd say looking at the nature of the game and basing that off tendencies in SWG, it would make sense for a high level of alt accounts for things like muling, utility for mining ops, etc... I think it's a logical question to ask when discussing that overall 500K, how many run alts. OF course jumping to conclusions is different than asking the question.
Basing it off of experience and observation along with the fact that it's freaking trivial to maintain 2 accounts on isk for any account over 6 months for the most part. That's not a wild assumption. Add in things on top of what you listed like titan pilots, capital pilots, people who manufacture, pos alts, real time training limitations (just being able to do something different), on and on and on. No other mmo is it more beneficial than Eve to maintain more than one account. Because of real time training, compounding benefits in certain tasks, or what's at stake in trusting others to do something you could do on an alt, or to open up other aspects like pilot specializations. He made the crazy claim in my eyes. Because no other mmo stands up to what Eve offers.
Who gives a shit about multi boxing or anything. I am addressing his statement in red but he's been cherry picking quotes to make it look like I am saying something else. WHo gives a shit how many of the 500k are actual players as long as the game world feels full that's all that really matters.
He always does that, he's the almighty qualifier of MMORPG.com
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I believe that Eve probably has a population that has more multi-account holders than most MMOs but there is still a substantial portion of the playerbase that runs single accounts and even moreso now that you can activate dual training for alts for activities listed above.
I''ve been in an Alliance for many years full of older EO gamers and there are still alot of them that only have one account. Those pilots that have Supercapitals have multiple but entities like the one I'm in are quite Supercapital heavy so it will be higher in the entity I'm a part of.
Alts probably happen more in EO because of the different ways you can keep an account active whether it be subscription, game-card or in-game currency (traded for a PLEX - basically a game card). That's not to say that you see many ISBoxers out there (people who run many accounts using a 'bot' program to duplicate keystrokes and mouse movements).
Eve has steadily grown in Subscriptions and I don't remember them releasing how many actual subscribers they have (even if they could accurately produce such a number) but even if the subscription numbers are muffled by people who have multiple accounts, I haven't seen a direct increase in the amount of accounts people own (albeit this is anecdotal like much of the evidence in this thread but at least it's better than people making up numbers and assumptions biased by hate of the game). This all leads to the inevitable conclusion that it's growing in subscribers and with it coming up to it's 10th anniversary, it's pretty amazing.
Oh well, besides ignoring the usual suspects spewing vitriol and lies, I wish the best of luck to all of those affected. Transitoriness based on demand of projects is the crux of IT. That, and the wrong decisions.
I think we can agree DUST was a mistake, not conceptually, but it's development, implementation and commercialization. And about WoD, it pains my heart.
No - you do agree with the "vitrol and lies". Your first sentence totally contradicts everything else you just wrote.
You do agree with the rest of the critics on this thread, it's just that you wrote your critisisms in a slightly different way.
We get it, you don't like the game. Beyond that what you wrote was complete nonsense. The game is not for everyone, but it is still quite successful.
Short-sighted fanboys like you are why CCP is in the shitty predicament it's now in.
You give praise to every single stupid, obvious, mistake that CCP make.
Oh well, besides ignoring the usual suspects spewing vitriol and lies, I wish the best of luck to all of those affected. Transitoriness based on demand of projects is the crux of IT. That, and the wrong decisions.
I think we can agree DUST was a mistake, not conceptually, but it's development, implementation and commercialization. And about WoD, it pains my heart.
No - you do agree with the "vitrol and lies". Your first sentence totally contradicts everything else you just wrote.
You do agree with the rest of the critics on this thread, it's just that you wrote your critisisms in a slightly different way.
We get it, you don't like the game. Beyond that what you wrote was complete nonsense. The game is not for everyone, but it is still quite successful.
Short-sighted fanboys like you are why CCP is in the shitty predicament it's now in.
You give praise to every single stupid, obvious, mistake that CCP make.
You are the worst sort of fan sir.
He likes the game and you don't, so obviously he's wrong.
Now we understand where you're coming from.
I suppose it would be fitting to ask you if you're still playing or did you stop in 2010 like your KB activity reports. If so, you're 4 years behind and giving a viable opinion on 4 year old game content is quite laughable.
Originally posted by rubydragon5 Good, I hope this shady corrupt company goes under
someone didn't get through the EvE tutorial, huh?
Throughout the history of mankind, hearsay has always been considered "sufficient proof" as long as it supports the bias of the listener. Isn't it a true internet forum fact that SOE, EA (and now CCP it seems) are evil, corrupt companies ?
While I think the debate about multiple accounts is a debate worth having, I think the true concern is the amount of accounts that the alliances can leverage to influence development. EVE has gotten to the point that if one major alliance, like the Goons, decides to move on to a new game, CCP is toast.
And so you find that these alliances have far more weight than they perhaps ought to have...and you can see it play out whenever CCP tries to do something that doesn't go over well with the major alliances. If the major alliances don't like WIS? WIS doesn't get in. If the major alliances don't like Empire? Empire gets neglected. If the major alliances want Carbon upgrades to make 1,000 ship battles less chuggy? They get that...even if this doesn't do much to help the majority of players who have never seen, nor do not want to be a part of, the 1,000 ship battles.
Nobody over there has any incentive to care about things that would grow the game, or make the game more appealing to ten years worth of subscribers who tried EVE, found nothing there for them, and moved on. CCP might know what's wrong, but they can do nothing, because they are afraid of losing a block of their deeply committed players who want the same old thing.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
While I think the debate about multiple accounts is a debate worth having, I think the true concern is the amount of accounts that the alliances can leverage to influence development. EVE has gotten to the point that if one major alliance, like the Goons, decides to move on to a new game, CCP is toast.
And so you find that these alliances have far more weight than they perhaps ought to have...and you can see it play out whenever CCP tries to do something that doesn't go over well with the major alliances. If the major alliances don't like WIS? WIS doesn't get in. If the major alliances don't like Empire? Empire gets neglected. If the major alliances want Carbon upgrades to make 1,000 ship battles less chuggy? They get that...even if this doesn't do much to help the majority of players who have never seen, nor do not want to be a part of, the 1,000 ship battles.
Nobody over there has any incentive to care about things that would grow the game, or make the game more appealing to ten years worth of subscribers who tried EVE, found nothing there for them, and moved on. CCP might know what's wrong, but they can do nothing, because they are afraid of losing a block of their deeply committed players who want the same old thing.
At the end of the day, listening to the player base they currently have has resulted in 500K subs after 10 years, while you are suggesting they listen to some unquantifiable audience and design the game they might want it.
One reason for EVE's enduring success is they listen to the player base that is paying for the game and actually playing it instead of chasing rainbows.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by Garlona They killed WoD on grounds of unsupportivness, among other significant things (for example, it's a fact they stopped sharing technology with Atlanta, even to the point it was Atlanta sharing their theirs with Reyjavik entirely, instead of using their time to work an develop WoD). Oh, and greed too. Enough said.
Oh well, besides ignoring the usual suspects spewing vitriol and lies, I wish the best of luck to all of those affected. Transitoriness based on demand of projects is the crux of IT. That, and the wrong decisions.
I think we can agree DUST was a mistake, not conceptually, but it's development, implementation and commercialization. And about WoD, it pains my heart.
No - you do agree with the "vitrol and lies". Your first sentence totally contradicts everything else you just wrote.
You do agree with the rest of the critics on this thread, it's just that you wrote your critisisms in a slightly different way.
Difference is, he's able to discuss issues the company's faced without the gratuitous vitriol and hyperbole others have.
One is conducive to a reasonable, and reasoned conversation. The other isn't.
I'm glad they dropped WoD. I would have loved to have played it but I think it should be left to another company because CCP has enough on their plate with the New Eden universe and I would hate to see them try to take on both WoD and EVE/DUST: LEGION/Valkyrie all at the same time.
I also can't wait for this ship rebalancing to complete, I want some actual expansions. The last couple of years have honestly just been content and balancing/tiericide patches and I'm hoping they have something game changing in the works. The prophecy video they put out hinted at the player made stargates they talked about last year before rubicon so lets see what they do after they finish the rebalancing. (which by the way, we the players all begged them to do and they warned us it would take a long ass time.)
I agree... I thought they were spreading themselves way too thin. They had Eve already, plus WoT. Then they had Dust. Then Valkyrie...
It's already played out that they've been unable to sufficiently implement new content that lives up to their hype for it.. if it's implemented at all. Even among friends of mine who are huge, die-hard fans of Eve Online, they're in a pretty constant state of dismay at how often CCP falls short on its hype/promises.
I think they need to just focus on one, maybe two, games. And that's it.
'course, it don't help that they seem to be at the beck and call of a certain portion of their playerbase, whom seem to hold a lot of sway over what CCP does, and how they do it.
While I think the debate about multiple accounts is a debate worth having, I think the true concern is the amount of accounts that the alliances can leverage to influence development. EVE has gotten to the point that if one major alliance, like the Goons, decides to move on to a new game, CCP is toast.
And so you find that these alliances have far more weight than they perhaps ought to have...and you can see it play out whenever CCP tries to do something that doesn't go over well with the major alliances. If the major alliances don't like WIS? WIS doesn't get in. If the major alliances don't like Empire? Empire gets neglected. If the major alliances want Carbon upgrades to make 1,000 ship battles less chuggy? They get that...even if this doesn't do much to help the majority of players who have never seen, nor do not want to be a part of, the 1,000 ship battles.
Nobody over there has any incentive to care about things that would grow the game, or make the game more appealing to ten years worth of subscribers who tried EVE, found nothing there for them, and moved on. CCP might know what's wrong, but they can do nothing, because they are afraid of losing a block of their deeply committed players who want the same old thing.
At the end of the day, listening to the player base they currently have has resulted in 500K subs after 10 years, while you are suggesting they listen to some unquantifiable audience and design the game they might want it.
One reason for EVE's enduring success is they listen to the player base that is paying for the game and actually playing it instead of chasing rainbows.
I'd call EVE "enduring", but I'll stop short of "success". They are successful in doing one thing, creating a visceral clan vs. clan game. What proportion of these accounts are single accounts or alt accounts is beyond our knowledge, but either way, CCP seems incapable of catering to diverse players.
Why do I say this? Well, the ones who have left are, in fact, quantifiable. There was an article on Massively a month ago (May 6, 2014) that explained these EVE players quite well. Half of the new subscribers left within a month, and four out of five of the ones who stay leave soon after, because they either can't or don't want to get into the alliance game (which is the only game CCP seems to care about).
Now assuming that all 500,000 accounts are each owned by one player each, all this means is that at least five million people tried EVE and rejected EVE. Five million. One wonders how many people are left out there in the market for a game like this who haven't already tried EVE at some point.
Now CCP has tried to address this problem by getting rid of game tutorials and make corporations themselves do the orientation. It sounds good in theory, until you start to see the list of demands corporations like EVE University require to join, demands like Mumble use, profile identifiers and limitations on game activity. The voice chat requirements alone might scare away a great number of new players, maybe a half or more. And then you also have the problem of data management and how this will be used. EVE is famous (infamous?) for its scams, hacks and cruel metagame.
Will it work? Well, I think that players who are in it for PvP and clan on clan warfare won't be phased. But I'm not sure a lot of these players are left or, if they are still around, whether they wouldn't prefer having their own clan, rather than assimilate into one of the clans that are already around.
But roleplayers? "Bread bakers"? Explorers? I think that these demographics might give EVE even less of a chance when they are find out that they aren't welcome unless they are a power gamer.
This is just a classic example of how "listening to the player base they currently have" is hurting EVE in the long run; if you aren't into clan on clan warfare, you don't have developer support, and you'll have to make due with the vestigial remnants of when EVE was something different (things like the missions, Empire space, NPC corps, public research slots and complexes).
CCP doesn't develop the habitually underdeveloped parts of Tranquility, because they themselves abandoned their own design. One gets the sense that they are almost ashamed or embarrassed of Empire space and the NPC corps, which is a shame, because you can tell that a lot of work went into them and they make you feel like a part of a great fictional universe.
And why? Because they are held captive by the l0l0gaggerz and the power clans who have no use for immersion, lore, background or context. They don't want a developed fiction; all they want are killboards and 0.0 maps.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
First off, you can count on one hand the people that can handle more than 3 accounts at once and there is not that many that even manage 3. So much for excesses of imagination.
Secondly, I think they maintain a decent balance between the high sec people and the hardcore people. If they didn't, high sec would be pretty empty, which it is not. I think a lot of people don't have the time to learn the game, it can be quite complex. One of the main reasons people leave. The important thing about Eve, you have to find your niche. You can't do everything, so find an area that you like and train it.
As to Eve corporations there are good ones and bad ones. If you find a corporation that does not play together find another. This is not a good solo game for most players, it Is meant to be played with others. Yes there are some who shine at soloing in this game, but that is because they spent a lot of time researching a particular area and got really good at it. Not everyone has that kind of time.
If you don't think that Eve is successful, you have bats in the belfry. Wod was mishandled. Who knows why the people in charge blew it, but they did. It seems to happen a lot in this genre. There are a lot more failures than successes.
Comments
Say what you will about CCP, they started Eve with a vision and they stuck to that vision. A bad ass do what you will PVP game.
They most likely could have opened a new set of PVE servers long ago and made a lot more cash. But that was not the game they wanted.
I think they have about peaked though. If Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, or maybe Ascent the Space Game, or the others ever take off and draw from that pool of people that like space games in the west, will not be good news for them.
Not that i think the game will fail or anything, Just the numbers will drop a bit and become stagnant. Which is still not bad.
CCP lost their vision around 2008-2009.
Also, their vision was never a "PVP game", their vision was a sandbox.
You can have up to 3 toons on a single account, its highly likely that there will be any amount of alts used for different things, but alts on the same account, not seperate ones. They can be handy for doing mission running or mining etc, when you can't use your main toon, either through location issues - in null sec especially, if you need to have your pvp toon ready for an op and want to do something productive in the meantime, or just wardec avoidance even.
A previous poster mentioned the chinese server, given that before the advent of this, Eve had around 350k players, i would be interested to know how many are on either server now.
In the end the number of actual players isnt really that relevant at all either. The number of payed accounts is, as that is the indicator of how much they make on the game.
I actually think you would find a few in the market who would say that if the number of alts where indeed as high as some think it is, that would be a good thing, as it indicates that their players are willing to pay more on avarage to play a game, which makes them "good" customers to have.
I'm glad they dropped WoD. I would have loved to have played it but I think it should be left to another company because CCP has enough on their plate with the New Eden universe and I would hate to see them try to take on both WoD and EVE/DUST: LEGION/Valkyrie all at the same time.
I also can't wait for this ship rebalancing to complete, I want some actual expansions. The last couple of years have honestly just been content and balancing/tiericide patches and I'm hoping they have something game changing in the works. The prophecy video they put out hinted at the player made stargates they talked about last year before rubicon so lets see what they do after they finish the rebalancing. (which by the way, we the players all begged them to do and they warned us it would take a long ass time.)
Basing it off of experience and observation along with the fact that it's freaking trivial to maintain 2 accounts on isk for any account over 6 months for the most part. That's not a wild assumption. Add in things on top of what you listed like titan pilots, capital pilots, people who manufacture, pos alts, real time training limitations (just being able to do something different), on and on and on. No other mmo is it more beneficial than Eve to maintain more than one account. Because of real time training, compounding benefits in certain tasks, or what's at stake in trusting others to do something you could do on an alt, or to open up other aspects like pilot specializations. He made the crazy claim in my eyes. Because no other mmo stands up to what Eve offers.
Who gives a shit about multi boxing or anything. I am addressing his statement in red but he's been cherry picking quotes to make it look like I am saying something else. WHo gives a shit how many of the 500k are actual players as long as the game world feels full that's all that really matters.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the looming prospect of increased competition in the "space-sim" genre didn't have a role to play in this sudden sharp re-focusing of CCP's priorities. They may even be "trimming the fat" in anticipation of reduced revenue streams, because it's inevitable that quite a few of the less invested EVE players will "jump ship", if only for a few months.
I don't see any fundamental threat for EVE though, as none of the upcoming games are as "sandboxy" as EVE or appear to have such strongly player-driven economies.
I'm not suggesting that the new games are themeparks, just that their PVP options seem to be leaning more toward "optional" rather than being an integral (and unavoidable) part of the game world. Those games might end-up with more players than EVE (they almost HAVE to, seeing as they are F2P), but that doesn't mean that EVE will lose its existing fanbase.
I'd suspect there's some uses for an alt by having two accounts logged in at the same time. There were plenty of such uses in SWG.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
He always does that, he's the almighty qualifier of MMORPG.com
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I believe that Eve probably has a population that has more multi-account holders than most MMOs but there is still a substantial portion of the playerbase that runs single accounts and even moreso now that you can activate dual training for alts for activities listed above.
I''ve been in an Alliance for many years full of older EO gamers and there are still alot of them that only have one account. Those pilots that have Supercapitals have multiple but entities like the one I'm in are quite Supercapital heavy so it will be higher in the entity I'm a part of.
Alts probably happen more in EO because of the different ways you can keep an account active whether it be subscription, game-card or in-game currency (traded for a PLEX - basically a game card). That's not to say that you see many ISBoxers out there (people who run many accounts using a 'bot' program to duplicate keystrokes and mouse movements).
Eve has steadily grown in Subscriptions and I don't remember them releasing how many actual subscribers they have (even if they could accurately produce such a number) but even if the subscription numbers are muffled by people who have multiple accounts, I haven't seen a direct increase in the amount of accounts people own (albeit this is anecdotal like much of the evidence in this thread but at least it's better than people making up numbers and assumptions biased by hate of the game). This all leads to the inevitable conclusion that it's growing in subscribers and with it coming up to it's 10th anniversary, it's pretty amazing.
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Short-sighted fanboys like you are why CCP is in the shitty predicament it's now in.
You give praise to every single stupid, obvious, mistake that CCP make.
You are the worst sort of fan sir.
He likes the game and you don't, so obviously he's wrong.
Now we understand where you're coming from.
I suppose it would be fitting to ask you if you're still playing or did you stop in 2010 like your KB activity reports. If so, you're 4 years behind and giving a viable opinion on 4 year old game content is quite laughable.
someone didn't get through the EvE tutorial, huh?
Throughout the history of mankind, hearsay has always been considered "sufficient proof" as long as it supports the bias of the listener. Isn't it a true internet forum fact that SOE, EA (and now CCP it seems) are evil, corrupt companies ?
While I think the debate about multiple accounts is a debate worth having, I think the true concern is the amount of accounts that the alliances can leverage to influence development. EVE has gotten to the point that if one major alliance, like the Goons, decides to move on to a new game, CCP is toast.
And so you find that these alliances have far more weight than they perhaps ought to have...and you can see it play out whenever CCP tries to do something that doesn't go over well with the major alliances. If the major alliances don't like WIS? WIS doesn't get in. If the major alliances don't like Empire? Empire gets neglected. If the major alliances want Carbon upgrades to make 1,000 ship battles less chuggy? They get that...even if this doesn't do much to help the majority of players who have never seen, nor do not want to be a part of, the 1,000 ship battles.
Nobody over there has any incentive to care about things that would grow the game, or make the game more appealing to ten years worth of subscribers who tried EVE, found nothing there for them, and moved on. CCP might know what's wrong, but they can do nothing, because they are afraid of losing a block of their deeply committed players who want the same old thing.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
At the end of the day, listening to the player base they currently have has resulted in 500K subs after 10 years, while you are suggesting they listen to some unquantifiable audience and design the game they might want it.
One reason for EVE's enduring success is they listen to the player base that is paying for the game and actually playing it instead of chasing rainbows.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Actually... There's a lot more to it than that...
Interesting and insightful article here
Difference is, he's able to discuss issues the company's faced without the gratuitous vitriol and hyperbole others have.
One is conducive to a reasonable, and reasoned conversation. The other isn't.
I agree... I thought they were spreading themselves way too thin. They had Eve already, plus WoT. Then they had Dust. Then Valkyrie...
It's already played out that they've been unable to sufficiently implement new content that lives up to their hype for it.. if it's implemented at all. Even among friends of mine who are huge, die-hard fans of Eve Online, they're in a pretty constant state of dismay at how often CCP falls short on its hype/promises.
I think they need to just focus on one, maybe two, games. And that's it.
'course, it don't help that they seem to be at the beck and call of a certain portion of their playerbase, whom seem to hold a lot of sway over what CCP does, and how they do it.
I'd call EVE "enduring", but I'll stop short of "success". They are successful in doing one thing, creating a visceral clan vs. clan game. What proportion of these accounts are single accounts or alt accounts is beyond our knowledge, but either way, CCP seems incapable of catering to diverse players.
Why do I say this? Well, the ones who have left are, in fact, quantifiable. There was an article on Massively a month ago (May 6, 2014) that explained these EVE players quite well. Half of the new subscribers left within a month, and four out of five of the ones who stay leave soon after, because they either can't or don't want to get into the alliance game (which is the only game CCP seems to care about).
Now assuming that all 500,000 accounts are each owned by one player each, all this means is that at least five million people tried EVE and rejected EVE. Five million. One wonders how many people are left out there in the market for a game like this who haven't already tried EVE at some point.
Now CCP has tried to address this problem by getting rid of game tutorials and make corporations themselves do the orientation. It sounds good in theory, until you start to see the list of demands corporations like EVE University require to join, demands like Mumble use, profile identifiers and limitations on game activity. The voice chat requirements alone might scare away a great number of new players, maybe a half or more. And then you also have the problem of data management and how this will be used. EVE is famous (infamous?) for its scams, hacks and cruel metagame.
Will it work? Well, I think that players who are in it for PvP and clan on clan warfare won't be phased. But I'm not sure a lot of these players are left or, if they are still around, whether they wouldn't prefer having their own clan, rather than assimilate into one of the clans that are already around.
But roleplayers? "Bread bakers"? Explorers? I think that these demographics might give EVE even less of a chance when they are find out that they aren't welcome unless they are a power gamer.
This is just a classic example of how "listening to the player base they currently have" is hurting EVE in the long run; if you aren't into clan on clan warfare, you don't have developer support, and you'll have to make due with the vestigial remnants of when EVE was something different (things like the missions, Empire space, NPC corps, public research slots and complexes).
CCP doesn't develop the habitually underdeveloped parts of Tranquility, because they themselves abandoned their own design. One gets the sense that they are almost ashamed or embarrassed of Empire space and the NPC corps, which is a shame, because you can tell that a lot of work went into them and they make you feel like a part of a great fictional universe.
And why? Because they are held captive by the l0l0gaggerz and the power clans who have no use for immersion, lore, background or context. They don't want a developed fiction; all they want are killboards and 0.0 maps.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Some pretty harsh comments here.
First off, you can count on one hand the people that can handle more than 3 accounts at once and there is not that many that even manage 3. So much for excesses of imagination.
Secondly, I think they maintain a decent balance between the high sec people and the hardcore people. If they didn't, high sec would be pretty empty, which it is not. I think a lot of people don't have the time to learn the game, it can be quite complex. One of the main reasons people leave. The important thing about Eve, you have to find your niche. You can't do everything, so find an area that you like and train it.
As to Eve corporations there are good ones and bad ones. If you find a corporation that does not play together find another. This is not a good solo game for most players, it Is meant to be played with others. Yes there are some who shine at soloing in this game, but that is because they spent a lot of time researching a particular area and got really good at it. Not everyone has that kind of time.
If you don't think that Eve is successful, you have bats in the belfry. Wod was mishandled. Who knows why the people in charge blew it, but they did. It seems to happen a lot in this genre. There are a lot more failures than successes.