epicurus ataraxia wrote:A good post.
This is a really well-reasoned post. You are correct that most people are essentially selfish cowards who have to be coaxed or coerced into taking action or accepting risk on behalf of a larger group. We see this in our society today, where despite the fact that the U.S. has been at war for nearly 13 years, less than 1% of the population has served. Within that 1% an even smaller percentage has been in actual combat. Those of us who have been there, however, know that it can be an exciting, terrifying, addicting feeling. There is nothing like the thrill of working alongside your brothers and putting your lives on the line, particularly if you believe in a cause. My Marines get so addicted to that feeling that many of them want to go back to horrible places like Afghanistan or Iraq. Others seek to mimic that feeling by riding motorcycles 120mph on I-5 or doing lines of coke off a hooker's ass.
To me, Eve has the potential to mimic that feeling. Eve can be about working alongside your brothers, putting your virtual assets and lives on the line, to achieve a common goal or further a cause you believe in. Will that work for everyone? Of course not. Some just want to blow **** up and cause mayhem. That's fine too, but how much mayhem are you really causing if you are not actually destroying anything? If you get your thrills from kicking over another kid's sand castle, how much would you like it if every time you did it, they instantly had a new sand castle? Eve needs valuable items at risk to appeal to the psychopaths just as much as it does to appeal to the empire builders, industrialists, explorers, and everyone else who make up Eve.
You brought up gambling, which I think is very appropriate. So, certainly that 1% of Americans who volunteered for our military represent people who are willing to make the ultimate gamble. Without getting into politics, more Americans might have been willing to make that gamble if they believed in the narrative (as in WW II). Believing in the narrative is important - we have seen how events such as the T20 scandal provided a rallying cry for the anti-BOB forces (whether it was the equivalent of "Remember the Maine!" or "Remember Pearl Harbor" depends on your perspective). Or consider the spark that Mittani's scandal at Fanfest had, for both sides.
So, one thing we could do to improve Eve is to improve the narrative. Give people a reason to care about what happens in Eve. Give them an other to hate. Both CFC and the grrr Goons crowd have been decent at this historically, but the Botlord agreement has killed that narrative. It made sense for me to hate the elitist cheaters in BOB seven years ago, just as it made sense for the other side to hate the immature emotional terrorist scammers from the Something Awful forums.
Today, the narrative has broken down, because the coalitions are basically the same. Both sides have vast wealth from moons and renters. Both sides have vast capital and supercapital fleets. Both sides AFK-cloak in each other's systems. Both sides suicide gank in highsec. Both sides practice warfare by seeking to crush the morale of the opposing side, whether by covert attacks on C2 systems, director-level spies, blue-balling, hell-camping, etc.
Eve in the current iteration is
Animal Farm at the end of the book...
So, in the absence of narrative, we are left purely with gambling and cool explosions.
The loss of internet space pixels will never match the emotions from putting your life on the line for your brothers, but it does essentially require you to place a sizable bet. Why do people go to Las Vegas? Some go from the naive belief that they may strike it rich. Most, however, go to be entertained. Putting money on the table, whether it is a bet on the outcome of a game (Las Vegas's largest revenue stream is sports gambling), hoping to make black jack, or throwing dice, is exciting. Las Vegas doesn't really have a narrative, but it does have thrills for all your senses.
Eve is a game. Games are supposed to be entertaining. We are entertained by thrilling events. Putting our lives or our money at risk is thrilling.
SRP takes the thrill away from the game, especially when the ISK behind it is produced passively. That ISK represents a value only that other people are willing to attach to it - it does not represent hours of labor or any investment of time. So what value do people place on ISK? A lot less than they used to...
One could look at the current PLEX price and see that Eve is much less exciting now than it was a few years ago. People are no longer willing to invest real time and money in Eve. Where is the Russian tycoon who spent $100,000 on Eve? A few years ago $20 bought you only 250m ISK. Today, it buys you 750m ISK. Yes, it is it easier to make ISK today, but the number of people who are willing to convert real dollars into ISK to get enjoyment out of Eve is much lower than the number of people who are only willing to maintain Eve accounts as long as it does not cost them real money.
Eve needs a new narrative and it needs to give value to ISK again. Cutting out the passive income gain will help with the second part. It is also one step on the path to opening up space to the have nots of Eve, thereby enabling new narratives to begin.
As I said, it is not the whole solution, but it is part of it.