As developers of the game, they can take it in any direction they want as long as people are still willing to pay for it. But are they even headed in the direction that will make them the most money?

Sorry for getting side-tracked there. The real issue is, are they ignoring the options that would make this game more accessible and more desirable to more people, and to us, the active players?

But are they even headed in the direction that will make them the most money?

What are the chances that they are counting the thousands of trial accounts that have expired as 'players', or the three accounts I have that I shut down?

Figuring out how many paying subscribers they have should be trivial, but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere.

Sorry for getting side-tracked there. The real issue is, are they ignoring the options that would make this game more accessible and more desirable to more people, and to us, the active players?

Ok. One example. CCP seems to think that High Sec ganking is a necessary part of the game.

Necessary for what?

That's because it's not trivial. There is almost no metric that can be used to reliably tie an account to a specific player GÇö every last indicator will be full of exceptions that mean that it doesn't actually indicate that two accounts do or do no not in fact belong to the same person.

I dunno, they got a clean sweep of my accounts when I was (wrongly) banned a while back. They can use email addy, they can use real name, they can use IP addresses. Plenty of ways.

What if CCP is building a game that isn't what people want to play?

GǪnone of which can be reliably tied to a specific person: does a different email address mean a different player? No, I have a near-infinte amount of addresses at my disposal. Does the same email address mean the same player? No, couples my have share accounts. Does a different IP mean a different player? No, IPs are quite dynamic. Does the same IP mean the same player? No, NATed LANs can contain any number of players and are still very common for some institutions and residential areas. Can two players share the same name? Yes. Can a single player use different names for different accounts? Yes, there is no verification process.

Are you suggesting the majority of people lie about their identity when prompted to give their full name and date of birth when making a new account?

lets see:

worried about company income? check

worried about sub numbers? check


i smell an ex-wow player... anyone else?

Ok. One example. CCP seems to think that High Sec ganking is a necessary part of the game.

Necessary for what?

Minus a mac address I guess.

Would you say this when you see 2000 online, and CCP close to bankrupt? probably yes, because some people are against new people in game or new ideas, some people are afraid from gaming evolve progres , some people want eve offline.

I've got a 'metric' I'd like to see CCP reveal that does not suffer from any inaccuracies or abstract difficulty whatsoever, and that's the number of accounts that are presently active, minus trial accounts. That report should be easily accomplished via one line of SQL, and I'm sure it's already being run.

/Imma' gonna' go out on a limb, and bet right now that number is significantly less than 450K.

Ok. One example. CCP seems to think that High Sec ganking is a necessary part of the game.

Necessary for what?

GǪare not transmitted across devices (but could conceivably be reported by the client); are not unique; and do not indicate a single person using the computer in question.