Stitcher
Caldari
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Posted - 2011.04.11 08:43:00 -
[1]
ITT: people who I think should know better have suddenly become brainless "EVE IS DYING!!Ö" zombies. Kita, Andy, I'm actually disappointed in you guys.
You say EVE is dying? NO IT GODDAMN ISN'T and I will argue with you until England tips sideways into the ocean and sinks. You're acting like Chicken frakking Little. "The sky is falling! the sky is falling!" just because a leaf landed on your head.
EVE most certainly isn't "crumbling and dying" according to the standard metrics used to measure the health of an MMO. The figure that best represents the health of a game is how many paying subscribers it has, and that figure has done nothing but increase since day one. the PCU has broken 63K, the subscriptions are past 360K, the total activity and interest in the game has never been higher.
The problem isn't that you don't love the game - it's that you love it TOO MUCH. You're so desperate to see this game succeed that you're overlooking the indications of actual success in favour of some symptoms that you think point to failure and then MASSIVELY exaggerating them.
You have your opinions of how the game should be run. I hate to say this to my mates, but your opinions are total bollocks. They're founded on the assumption that there can be a faster turn-around of features. They're founded on the assumption that the sensible business model would be to release a feature, then spend the next several years polishing and polishing and polishing.
Let's take the example in the letter: Apocrypha. You said it "paved the way for a huge encompassing redefining expansion".
No, it didn't. It was a huge encompassing redefining expansion. If you read the QEN you'd know that W-space has become a remarkably well-populated and wealthy frontier. You'd know that the Tengu is now in the top ten list of most flown ships. The impact of Apocrypha on the economy of the game - and therefore on the game itself - was gargantuan.
But it is not finished, because EVE is not finished. Stuff is being added all the time. Sometimes old stuff is revisited and redesigned. The graphics, the sovereignty system, planetary interaction, the Tech 2 lottery/Invention, stealth bombers, scanning, motherships, titans, the new player experience...
Things that don't work get fixed in EVE. But it doesn't happen straight away because there still needs to be fresh, new stuff around as well. If CCP released an expansion then spent the next three years addressing every last little fault the community could find in it, we'd still be stuck halfway through Red Moon Rising and the game would really be dying thanks to the comparatively limited scope EVE had back then, the outdated graphics and the fact that there'd be nothing new to keep experienced players involved.
Maybe they'll revisit FW at some point, but it won't be tomorrow. Maybe they'll expand W-space and allow us players to start mapping those systems, add our own stargates, forge our own deep space empires, but THAT's not going to happen tomorrow either.
There's a difference between ignoring the community - which CCP most certainly does not do - and tempering their advice with actual expert opinions on what is best for the game. I firmly believe that CCP know what they're doing, and that while EVE will inevitably fade one day - it's a sad fact of life that nothing is eternal - that day isn't today. Be patient, keep some perspective, let them work.
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Verin "Stitcher" Hakatain.
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