Alaric Faelen
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
3
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Posted - 2011.11.19 22:31:00 -
[1] - Quote
Back to the OP- I'll expand on your point with this, and it's sure to ruffle feathers, but, the truth always hurts someone.
The reason so many people aren't terribly interested in PvP, or even co-op play in PvE, is the harsh reality that the weakest link in any game, IS OTHER PLAYERS.
Yes, sounds strange considering Eve is an MMO. But the fact is that Eve is a great game with years of development and tweaking and expansion. The players never change though.
Simply, in my time in Eve, the only time I've not enjoyed the game is when playing with other people. Not even the QQ over being blown up by enemies- I've been blown up by 'friendlies' just as much during nerd rages and team boredom.
Read these forums, about half the threads are people not wanting to PLAY a game, but rather just ask for the 'win button' skill build or ship fitting. Many more threads are about the best way to run alts and other acct's- which IMO is completely missing the point of the game.
Eve isn't a game for the vast majority that play it- it's a complicated calculator and gameplay is just the means to the ends of number crunching. Jumping in a ship and melting things with lasers is cool- endless math to figure out that 2% more DPS loses it's shine quickly. PvE largely lets you ignore that level of obsessive math for fitting a ship- while PvP is more the numbers than FiS.
When people first try out a fleet op, then spend two hours of the FC dictating load outs for 20 minutes of roaming...not once, not an anomaly, but more often than not.....don't wonder why they aren't rushing to PvP or co-op.
The demand to run third party programs like TS also means that you can't just play Eve, to play Eve.
And for the PvP folk that think everyone should be forced to play Eve their way- when you aren't running a platoon of alts and a whole other acct to support that one character- then your opinion matters. But the fact is that Eve's PvE and solo stuff is the only CASUAL way to play Eve. Pretty much the game-geeks that turn games into mini-careers and invest that kind of obsessive behavior, have made it so being 'casual' essentially means being left out of PvP for the most part. I'm a middle age guy that likes to play video games- but I'm not interested in managing a half dozen 'lives' across multiple accounts just to even play a game. That, is ridiculous. And it's a big reason why people end up solo or forever carebear- because far too many Eve players mistake a game for a career and life- and they just aren't any fun to play with.
I've only played one other MMO, but it was identical there. The game itself was just fine- but as soon as you team up with others or take them on- the game becomes just numbers and code, with those players willing to find every exploit, run a gaggle of toons or acct's dominating and complaining why no one wants to play with them anymore.
There's some very cool people in Eve- even people like me with just one toon (in Eve, there is zero reason for an alt that isn't just exploiting the nature of it being a video game), and certainly one acct. But you'll probably find them doing carebear activities so they can just chat and enjoy the game.
It may sting- but the truth is that all those carebears and solo players aren't scared nor is there a problem with the game's combat mechanics- they are simply not interested in spending more time on EFT than in game, they don't feel like running a grip of alts much less have multiple accounts, and they don't want to dedicate more effort to a game than to real life.
When care bears say they don't want to be forced to play the PvP'ers game- it's not fear of video game violence for the most part- it's that by and large the PvP'ers 'game' is not terribly appealing to anyone not more dedicated to a video game toon's life than their own. It's not the PvP in Eve that people don't like- it's the PvP'ers.
Hey I am all for PvP, what I'm not for is working a system like alts, dual boxing accts, and the like just to participate in a meaningful way. I am too old to care that much about a video game to fear loss in it so much to need to resort to playing it that way. At least for me, that is even less appealing of a way to play a game than mining space rocks for hours on end. |