Winter Expansion - Desperate times

[MahrinSkel]

An in-game monument to a successful player revolt?  Yeah, I think that's pretty cool.  And I'm the guy who thought the only result from the revolt would be the disbanding of the Council.

--Dave

[tgr]

Good thing CCP isn't EA etc, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd banned the CSM and the people actually protesting.

[Simond]

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/winterupdate

(Context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJJ94uw05KQ ) 

[tgr]

god damnit, you had to bring out the damn ponies.

[Simond]

Hey now, this bloke -

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/winterupdate

- started it, not me! 

[Gets]

i cried from joy irl

[Phred]

LoL. Skyriim comes out and the Eve topics dry up completely.

[Sir T]

Sounds rational to me!

[Kageru]

My interest in Eve has dropped off a cliff (but still need to set skills to train) on the realisation that:

1) The fun you can find yourself isn't.

2) The fun that exists in the game depends on the vagaries of other people. Fights at the right time, when you can commit a potentially sizable but unknown amount of time online (since you can't easily leave), in the right place, with a good FC, against a reasonably balanced enemy force and at a scale the servers can handle. plus Australian time-zones tend to be pretty dead generally.

3) CCP are terrible and solutions are mostly futzing around at the boundaries of the core problem.

Ultimately it's not so much Eve's fault. It's inherent in the open-world PvP model. It was pretty much exactly the same in Kings-Age in that there'd be long periods of tedium followed by a one-sided war (generally while you are sleeping if it's defending) against people who invest scary amounts of time online. Darkfall looked to be exactly the same. Then you play something like Skyrim or Oblivion (Oscuro's makes it such a ball-breaker) and find the amazing comfort of gaming at your convenience.

[ajax34i]

Some of it is CCP's fault, though.  Their 18 months, combined with craptastic game mechanics and ship balancing have resulted in the current situation (fewer players online, stagnated wars).  Up to last year, people were more than willing to contribute their vagaries almost nightly, for everyone's enjoyment.

So far, CCP have only promised things via dev blogs, they haven't delivered anything yet (ok some stuff is on the test server).  They're releasing mostly bugfixes in this expansion, and I don't see how that can compete with new games coming out.  I'm not gonna go back just cause they fix bugs when I can play all these other games.  So I guess it's time for my 18 months, as far as EVE is concerned.

Once you cancel the subscription and stop the skills you'll see that it's not the end of the world.

[Sir T]

Yeah, you don't even have the comfort of feeling that your research agents are working away and you have a nice little nest egg to get going again when you return, because research agents stop now when you are unsubbed (I only found that out in the last 5 day free trial when I took a look in) So, you now have the fun of being broke when you come back, in a game that is brutal. Fuck that.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, you don't even have the comfort of feeling that your research agents are working away and you have a nice little nest egg to get going again when you return, because research agents stop now when you are unsubbed (I only found that out in the last 5 day free trial when I took a look in) So, you now have the fun of being broke when you come back, in a game that is brutal. Fuck that.

This is why the first step in MMO problem solving should always be asking "Do we really have a problem?" and the last should always be "Does our solution really fix anything, or does it make a new problem?"  Problem: People are subbing old accounts for a month, collecting the LP rewards and setting a long skill, then un-subbing until the long skill finishes.  Obvious solution: Don't let them skill up or gain LP while unsubbed.  New problem:  People aren't re-subbing old accounts anymore because they don't have anything to come back to.

Whoops.  Put that one on the list of "Perfectly reasonable mistakes in game design."

--Dave

[Gets]

Yo, I don't like people who don't even play the game driving down my datacore prices, yo.

There's been a lot of devblogs about smaller UI additions and tune-ups not worth posting about. I don't agree with the sentiment that Crucible will be mostly bug fixes. Some of the changes, like Player Owned Customs Offices, will be affecting things quite heavily.

[5150]

Yeah, you don't even have the comfort of feeling that your research agents are working away and you have a nice little nest egg to get going again when you return, because research agents stop now when you are unsubbed (I only found that out in the last 5 day free trial when I took a look in) So, you now have the fun of being broke when you come back, in a game that is brutal. Fuck that.

Actually they just stop........even if you are subbed.

I'm not sure what the trigger is but they are supposed to send you an email when they do so you can kick them off again.

Unfortunately the email has been broken since like forever and you only get it when you access the agent (via your journal for example).

[ajax34i]

So you're staying subscribed because of datacore income?  Are you getting more ISK from datacores than you would by buying a PLEX with the monthly subscription cost?

If I reactivate I'm not going to be broke, I'll be as rich or poor as I was when I left (minus the effects of ISK inflation).  And if I don't pay for a year but then spend 2 months' subscription costs on PLEX-to-ISK I've still saved dollars, and won't be poor in-game.

[Amarr HM]

3) CCP are terrible and solutions are mostly futzing around at the boundaries of the core problem.

Ultimately it's not so much Eve's fault. It's inherent in the open-world PvP model. It was pretty much exactly the same in Kings-Age in that there'd be long periods of tedium followed by a one-sided war (generally while you are sleeping if it's defending) against people who invest scary amounts of time online. Darkfall looked to be exactly the same. Then you play something like Skyrim or Oblivion (Oscuro's makes it such a ball-breaker) and find the amazing comfort of gaming at your convenience.

So damn true and the main reasons why I quit playing, sometimes I just wanna login and start shooting something at least within ten minutes. In regards to your third point, I've always wondered what it is about CCP and game design.In the end I've come to the conclusion the people who do the game design lack creativity, the game world and a lot that surrounds it would fool you into thinking otherwise.

[Gets]

Right now datacores get you as much ISK as saying "Hey, I just resubbed can I get some ISK?" in corp chat without all the time hauling across Empire dodging suicide gankers. PI makes you enough ISK to cover subscription almost risk free, more if done efficiently. Incursions net you silly amounts of money, but it's active group PvE and it takes more skillpoints but still little brainpower.

I pay for multiple Eve accounts using PLEX and I am terrible at making money. I can't tell the difference between a spreadsheet and a take out menu. Plenty of space rich people on this forum who decide against playing Eve even though money isn't an issue for them. People have just accumulated large doses of bittervetness in them. There's good things the Winter Expansion and what we're doing in-game trying to fight that.

I can attest though that creativity at CCP is as abundant as trees are in Iceland.

[tgr]

what, there are no treeooooh I see what you did there.

[Sir T]

I love the usual "Hah, if you cant make money after resubbing yuuu suck and I'm great" conversations. I mean seriously, your solution is PI, paying CCP money for isk and freaking incursions? "Hi there, its pay us money or grind like a mother fucker, and thats if you have access to 0.0 the day you resub. Good luck!"

It's not about whether its possible or not to start making money right after resubbing. Its about feeling like you have a little shot in the arm a s a little welcome when you come back, not have to hand them even more money or fight some other poor asshole for a planet to get an income. And as for incursions you have to dodge gate camps to get to them. Fun eh? Welcome back to Eve!

And by the way I never had to travel anywhere to sell my datacores. They tended to be buy orders right where the agents were. The most I've traveled is one jump.. no tell a lie I did 10 jumps once in my cloaked transport ship. The horror.

[Amarr HM]

Not really sure if I agree with the datacore welcome back pack (this is coming from someone who made a lot of ISK from them over the years). The way I see it if the average money making operations in Eve weren't as aspergers syndrome inducing then we wouldn't even be discussing the need for passive income.

[Sir T]

Good point, and very true.

[Phildo]

I've had 5 datacore agents running continuously for the last two years without a break and I've only visited the agent once.  I'm not sure why anyone else's would have stopped if they remained subbed.  And there are still plenty of ways to make isk without ever shooting a rat.  Try scamming?  I'm told Jita contract scams are actually very lucrative.

E: One time I made 500m isk by selling heavy neuting drones for 100m each in Amarr.

[Gets]

I love the "I'm such a bitter vet your options disgust me." mentality. Honestly, where did I say you have to pay CCP any money, Sir T? Pretty sure I said the opposite. No one has had a problem with gatecamps when doing Incursions, fuck, part of the fun of Incursions is fleet fights with other players doing Incursions. Don't blame me if making money in Spreadsheets Online isn't thrilling or too thrilling or too effort or not enough effort or whatever your beef is with Eve.

There should be more passive or quasi-passive income. I'd revamp the whole mining rocks with lasers thing. You could deploy auto-miners that gather ore without you having to resort to botting to keep your sanity, giving residents something to protect and fight over like they want to do with POCOs. CCP is in a very reforming mood these days, so I'm hoping they'll see the light on this one. I'd change the mission system as well to be more about the politics game between the Empire and Pirate factions and less about grinding in mission hubs. Giving players more choices for grouping up or going solo, but eventually doing less missions for better rewards.

[tgr]

I wouldn't be opposed at all to have an AFK way of mining ore, but I think that if CCP does implement this, they'll keep manually mining as the more efficient option. But this would still be a step in the right direction to make nullsec more independent of jita, because at least it'd make me start mining some.

[eldaec]

I've probably turned over around 10 billion isk from incursions, never seen a lowsec gatecamp in that time.

[Amarr HM]

Here's a problem with mining (generic Eve ISK design) the way I see it, there's no extra reward for sitting on your ass mining for hours, when you remove the chance of accidentally drilling into some superprecious ore. In the first place why do you know which ore comes from the asteroid you are mining? Surely the whole point of mining in Spacegames was that you had absolutely no idea what the return was going to be? isn't that the fun?

This goes for exploration too, upon arrival to the site (the fun part is over) I know this site & if I go to eve explorers-wiki.com using an OOG browser (creating a disconnect between the virtual space experience and the player) I will find out that this particular exploration site returns x,y or possibly z, instead of a to absolutely anything. You nearly always know the potential rewards before you carry out the task, that's not as much fun as never knowing the rewards.

[Endie]

I love the usual "Hah, if you cant make money after resubbing yuuu suck and I'm great" conversations. I mean seriously, your solution is PI, paying CCP money for isk and freaking incursions? "Hi there, its pay us money or grind like a mother fucker, and thats if you have access to 0.0 the day you resub. Good luck!"

If you think PI involves any sort of grind then your crusade has dimmed your grasp on facts.

God damn you CCP for a system which requires me top pay attention to it for ten-fifteen minutes every couple of days.  You have made a powerful enemy.

Himo, you are coming across as the crazy ex or the evangelical, anti-smoking ex-smoker or something.  Maybe its time to just let go?

Anyhoo... I'm getting thoroughly excited about next week's patch.  It's full of delight and I suspect that we're only seeing the start of it with this initial expansion.

[tgr]

While PI is a fairly chill way to get isk (I think I have 500-600m in robotics lying about in s-d, now, and I haven't been the most efficient miner out there), I'd say there are still a fair few UI-related issues that could be done away with. Like not zooming in on where the extractor is, setting up routes and processing types etc being a cockstab etc. That said, those are somewhat minor issues, at least compared to what the extraction process was in the first iteration.

[Sir T]

I love the "I'm such a bitter vet your options disgust me." mentality. Honestly, where did I say you have to pay CCP any money, Sir T? Pretty sure I said the opposite.

Uh, you mentioned plexing

I pay for multiple Eve accounts using PLEX and I am terrible at making money.

That's giving CCP money whether you realize it or not. SOMEONE is paying CCP realbux for your spacebux. You are just moving the bank account, that's all.

And its true that PI came in right about the time I quit eve so I have little direct experience of it, but I would imagine that the high and low sec rewards are far less than the 0.0 planet rewards, and I would also imagine the planets in high and low sec are very crowded and contested compared with 0.0 planets, which has a lot more people with far less real estate. Once again, you have to remember that the majority of players are not in 0.0 and simply don't have access to the same level of income as you do and have to have far stiffer competition to get to that income. You have thousands of empty planets to chose from, that's not the same for everyone.

I love the usual "Hah, if you cant make money after resubbing yuuu suck and I'm great" conversations. I mean seriously, your solution is PI, paying CCP money for isk and freaking incursions? "Hi there, its pay us money or grind like a mother fucker, and thats if you have access to 0.0 the day you resub. Good luck!"

If you think PI involves any sort of grind then your crusade has dimmed your grasp on facts.

God damn you CCP for a system which requires me top pay attention to it for ten-fifteen minutes every couple of days.  You have made a powerful enemy.

Himo, you are coming across as the crazy ex or the evangelical, anti-smoking ex-smoker or something.  Maybe its time to just let go?

Oh bloody hell, here we go again. What Crusade Endie? Are you giving out to Mahrin or Amarr for more or less agreeing with my comments even though they don't play anymore either? Should I stop commenting occasionally in WOW threads too for you?

I'm really sorry that somehow you think I caused you some inconvenience in your space game polyticks, but you would up more virtually powerful than ever in any case. In short, grow the fuck up. And drop the grudge and the passive aggressiveness already. It was old when I pointed out you were trying to pretend to everyone that LOVEU was booted just for one member who you thought casued you problems at the same time you were you were doing a recruiting drive. Making out that the leadership of Goons were complete unfair assholes while trying to attract people into the alliance run by those selfsame assholes just to get at one person is the definition of a crusade, don't you think? Not to mention dumb as a bag of hammers, and you were the guy who always ranted about context.

I've moved on, Endie. You should too. Get over it.

[tgr]

Sigh. Here we go again.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

[Sir T]

My thoughts exactly. 

[squirrel]

Who needs ISK? Seriously unless you want to play for free ISK isn't really important. Or is it that you feel entitled to have lots of ISK and play for free because you were subbed before? I honestly don't get the issue. I've been playing for months space broke - doesn't matter. With the reimbursement program and super minimal effort I've always got combat ships to fly. Sure maybe I'm flying birds instead of falcons but really I don't care. If I did, I'd go make ISK, which is not as hard as its being portrayed. Hell in 45 minutes last week I made 500m in a scam without logging in, just using eve gate at work.

If the argument is that making ISK in eve is dull, well yeah, it is. That's really not new though.

[Sir T]

I'm trying to talk about the game in general, not the game as it is with the really good reimbursement policies in goons. Most people cant resub and be in goons the next day. I mean sure I used to grind for a night and then spend weeks in fleets when I was in goons, but that's not the experience for most of the game. Hell its not even the experience for most of 0.0. Hell I was talking with an ex cry havoc guy in STO the other day who lamented on the hours he had to spend managing 6 freaking towers (his words)

[tgr]

The phrase work smarter, not harder, comes to mind.

[eldaec]

I'm trying to talk about the game in general, not the game as it is with the really good reimbursement policies in goons. Most people cant resub and be in goons the next day. I mean sure I used to grind for a night and then spend weeks in fleets when I was in goons, but that's not the experience for most of the game. Hell its not even the experience for most of 0.0. Hell I was talking with an ex cry havoc guy in STO the other day who lamented on the hours he had to spend managing 6 freaking towers (his words)

I think everyone can agree that eve is basically unplayable without a corp to support you. And pretty terrible if your corp is terrible.