~or "Chasing Sweet Young Things in Fun Natty Sportscars…”
You know how I’ve said in the
past that I like that CCP keeps changing things up, keeping the game fresh, and
keeping us learning and striving…?? yeah, well… not always. You see CCP is now
going to let us rip out and sell… knowledge.
I have been trying to write about
this for some time now. I am highly torn… (1) I want EVE to grow, (2) I want
CCP to be profitable, but (3) I don’t want it at the expense of the Core of the
Game. (4) I don’t want WoW inSpace… and I am very very afraid that in order to
get (1) & (2) CCP will have to give up (3) and we will end up with (4).
Why? Because EVE is a niche game,
a very niche game. The guys who started CCP and created EVE wanted a game
similar to Ultima Online… with the same gritty, real, harsh, open world,
in-your-face almost completely unrestricted PVP gameplay… just set in Space and
as cutting edge as possible.
And it is all that and more… it
really really is. And that’s the rub. Because of the gritty, real, harsh, open
world, in-your-face almost completely unrestricted spying, lying, scamming,
ganking, blobbing PVP gameplay, EVE is quite simply limited in the number of
gamers who are going to want to play in such an environment. It’s just the way people
are.
Statistically speaking (300k EVE
to 8mil WoW) very few gamers are also going to spend money to play the game described
above especially when you add in EVE’s form of Levelling, IE Book Skills plus
Human Skills. Book Skilling takes ‘real’ time and can cost huge amounts of ISK
and unlike other MMOs, the live player must also learn some seriously in-depth
skills that are NOT at all your std WASD, ‘twitch based’, move and shoot mechanics…
He needs these new skills in order to understand and use what Book Skills give
his toon and they take real effort to learn…
Both Book and Human Skills are
absolutely necessary for a player to be able to “Level Up” in EVE and effectively
Fly and Fight better ships and fits and Gather and Create to increase and
improve ISK generation so he can afford those better ships and fits … And in a
game where after all that Skilling and Learning and Gathering and Creating and
Investing ‘in’ the game… the Risk and Loss are Real aspect combined with the
almost completely Unrestricted PVP aspect… can obliterate months, even YEARS of
effort… very real effort, in a matter of seconds.
You have to admit… EVE players are
a weird bunch even for gamers so as such there are even fewer of us. Hence EVE
(and CCP) has a sort of ‘cap’ on its potential total playerbase (IE
profitability) built into the game’s very core mechanics.
And this sucks. Because those of
us invested in the game are invested BECAUSE it is a niche game that fits our
mentality… our desire for an open world, our desire for real freedom and for
something of real value in a game… ‘real value’ you ask? Yes… because Risk and
Loss are Real and because in order to have anything in EVE one has to work and fight
for it… fight other players, learn and work the games mechanics, and claw and fight
your way up the vaunted skill cliff… so what you make and do in EVE has VALUE
to you. And because it all can be permanently lost, stolen or destroyed… that gives
greater value to creation and ownership.
***Chart Porn Warning***
And now CCP wants to Tear Down
the Cliff… or mebbe just undermine it…
And we have all seen the PCU
charts… the one that got me most was the one below from MMOData, which went dark in June ’14 cause it was getting
increasingly difficult to get any useful numbers from the various game companies.
And in a very sad note it was stated, “As
for the only growing subscription based MMORPG left, EVE Online, I no longer
receive subscription numbers. CCP no longer responds to my requests.”
Rather telling in and of itself.
But at that time we had this.
Just look at that red curve… if this was a true bell curve then we were at the
apex at the end of 2014 and that boded very well for at least the next 4 years
and it would mean EVE would not “die” until sometime near 2025…
I wrote at the time that I felt
EVE was maturing, reaching the plateau of its “middle years”. What others saw
was “If it aint growing… It’s dying!”
but I disagreed… I felt we had potentially reached a state of maturity for our
very niche game.
That CCP may have already signed up basically all the players
(at least in this generation) who are willing to pay to play this very different kind of MMO was a bit of a worry TBH, but I felt that was OK as we are a VERY dedicated playerbase… and the slow losses to
this and that would be balanced by those like us coming up in the gaming world…
those who wanted something more, something different... that was my hope anyway.
But again, if we look at the following
chart from I snagged today from EVE Offline for the
Tranquility server, we see a roughly similar curve… with what looks like approx.
2012 as the apex of the bell.
The sad part of both of these is
this though… the extrapolation going forward…
Sigh…. doesn’t look good huh?
Yeah… me neither. (Vince is gonna be ALL over this one I bet.)
Anyway, CCP shutting up about
subs and shutting down the numbers they used to so proudly publish, and the…
well, graphic, evidence that things are not ‘growing’ anymore… and the push to
“lighten up” EVE… to make it more noob friendly and easier… I fear CCP is having a bit of a Mid Life Crisis and chasing sweet young things and fun natty sportscars... oh, and yeah, they also wanna keep the lights on and pay the bills and staff n stuff like that too...
So while all these changes 'sound'
good, just don’t sit well with me when the level CCP seems to be willing to go to are, well… draconian at best.
The Right Honorable CSM
Sugar Kyle, in her post Conflicted
said…
“When this [Skill Trading] was
proposed at the CSM summit, I swiveled my chair and asked if they realized that
they were undoing the basic structure that characters and game progression
worked under. They said that they did.”
They understand they are changing
one of the CORE aspects of the game. Now this aint a new POS or a change in how
far you can jump… this is a change in the core of how we are WE in the game.
CCP Seagull said change was necessary
and it was time to stop being afraid of the fallout from Incarna… and I have backed
her every step of the way. I even stopped myself from going full retard after
the Discovery Scanner stupidity… Oh I spoke out against it, but I held my real rage in check and
I worked hard to see the why and any potential upside. For the most part I
held my tongue and I thought to myself, “You gotta take the bad with the good”… “Medicine,
while good for you, dunt always leave a pleasant aftertaste.” and shit like
that.
But this… personally, I really
fear it’s a step too far. I guess we’ll see, I’m not leaving… yet.
Fly it like you actually
know how… and I’ll see you in the Black
=/|)=
