I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.

No, it encourages Skillqueue Offline.

If you want to encourage creative gameplay solutions through asymmetrical power balances, you do it with a standardized power limit. You can see this type of gameplay in ship combat - each hull will have its strengths, weaknesses and specializations. With SP however, the motivation is skewed. For most activities the path of least resistance is to simply wait until your SP is high enough to compete. And for very mechanical ones like manufacturing, there isn't really any choice. Get your materials efficiency to max, or be priced out of the market.

I do find a special sort of irony in being told over and over I've got no imagination or creativity, but then being told that if it wasn't for the game stopping people from doing what they wanted, they never would have tried something different.

Fallacy: appeal on tradition.
Fallacy: no true Scotsman

Eve is not a game for the faint hearted. It's a game that will chew you up and spit you out in the blink of an eye if you even think about letting your guard down or becoming complacent.

While every other MMO starts off with an intro that tells you you're going to be the savior of the realm, holds your hand, protects you, nurtures your development and ultimately guides you to your destiny as a hero along with several other million players who've had the exact same experience, EVE assaults you from the second you begin to play after you create a character, spitting you out into a universe that under the surface, is so complex that it's enough to make your head explode.

The entire design is based around being harsh, vicious, relentless, hostile and cold. It's about action and reaction, and the story that unfolds as you experience these two things.

True, we're working hard to lower the bar of entry so that more players can enjoy EVE and can get into the game. Our NPE (New Player Experience) is challenging, and we're trying to improve it to better prepare rookies for what lies out there, but when you start to play eve, you'll always start out as the little fish in the big pond.

The only way to grow is to voraciously consume what's around you, and its your choice whether that happens to be New Eden's abundant natural resources, or the other people who're also fighting their way to the top.

EVE is a playing experience like no other, where every action or reaction resonates through a single universe and is felt by players from all corners of the word. There are no shards here, no mirror universes, no instances and very few rules. If you stumble across something valuable, then chances are someone else already knows where you are, or is working their way toward you and you better be prepared to fight for what you've discovered.

EVE will test you from the outset, from the very second you undock and glimpse the stars, and will take pleasure from sorting those who can survive from those who'd rather curl up and perish.

EVE will let you fight until you collapse, then let you struggle to your feet, exhausted from the effort. Then when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel it'll kick you flat on your ass in the mud again and ask you why you deserve to be standing. It'll test you against every other individual playing at some point or another, and it'll ask for answers.

Give it an answer and maybe it'll let you up again, long enough to gather your thoughts. After a few more steps you're on the ground again and it's asking more questions.

EVE is designed to be harsh, it's designed to be challenging, and it's designed to be so deep and complex that it should fascinate and terrify you at the same time.

Corporation, Alliances and coalitions of tens of thousands have risen and fallen on these basic principles, and every one of those thousands of people has their own unique story to tell about how it affected them and what they experienced.

That's the beauty of EVE. Action and reaction. Emergence.

Welcome to the most frightening virtual playground you'll ever experience.

Come on, thread. Discussion is really simple.

Beyond that quote being an Appeal to Authority (fallacy), here's some constructive criticism:

The game and its options can't be voraciously consumed if they're locked.

Did you just call what CCP's own staff said was the intended direction and spirit for the game they made a fallacy?

Except, what I'm posting is nothing about opinions, but it's also from CCP.. and scientific research.

For simplicity: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6073567#post6073567

LoL Dror still trying to convince people that an MMO shouldn't have character progression?

It would be funny at this point, if this thread wasn't taking up a vital slot on Page 1 of F&I every day. With all the dev stickys we have so little room for player threads y'know?

Just biomass already. You don't like EVE? Don't play it.

Why can't you train skills the more you use something instead?

Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of GÇÿnew playersGÇÖ, that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players

You can only have so many quotes, else we would.

So, if learning how a ship plays is limited by SP, that's a problem for intrinsic motivation.

The problem with what you're saying is that it's completely inaccurate for motivating intrinsically. It feels unintersting to be limited to a tiny selection of ships and effectiveness. It seems nothing like a sandbox, that basic gameplay is behind something that nothing can really be done about. These are objectively common ideas. They're established philosophies.

The last set of responses portray a very low resolution of the research definitions and media. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations being exclusive is unnecessary. I've provided a lot of links for the information. It's really simple.

So instead of replying on established science, it seems more interesting giving anecdote?

Do you have a point, or is this literally just projection?

The amount listed for the PC gaming demographic is 900M. Every day, there are over 18M fresh internet users. Maybe you guys should explain why you believe the game's fresh sub retention is low -- why the game's PCU is declining. I've listed research, so that should obviously be required.

Enjoy.

You're projecting. CCP getting randoms on the street for playtesting their game shows clearly that there's no specific demographic. Even if there was, the game's PCU should be increasing or should be staying steady.

Frankly, that sort of reply is obviously unhelful; and it's a worthy suggestion that the mini- ad hominems stay out of the thread.

The reply is coherent. CCP discusses the lowest common denominator and improving that experience.

The point of discussing motivation being objective is that "demographics" are irrelevant. Saying that demographics are relevant requires sourcing.

You have a valid point but IMO it's the same as having no skills. I'm sure CCP figured-out that LVL5's XP equivalent represented a target time/$$$ level they wanted ambitious players to have to play to in-order to be maxed but really, if the core philosophy is player skill over time investment then why have them at all as the OP suggests. It's a bit of a tease and borders on the pointless. Yes you need it but really, it seems like a case of it being a good idea back in 01/02 when they were designing the game.

Great point of course and just playing devil's advocate here:

If your point is valid (which it is) then why not just forbid recreating a new character unless X days have passed? So that no matter what you do, "John Smith" is the same person for (example) one calendar year. After that the player could have the option of resting their character or lock it in for another year.

That should alleviate most of what you mentioned and also remove the need for skills.


Remember, I'm not for removing skills...I'm the other end of the spectrum but I see the point of it being more all or none rather than mix.

But what is the reroll time-period was 6 months or 12 months?

Well no as there would be no restriction on alts as it is now...but those alts would also be under the 6/12 month lock. So any shenanigans due to old/new character creation would really have to be elaborate.

Motivational theories are nothing exclusive to "general gaming statistics". That's what objective implies.

Demographics are fine for marketing, but the discussion is what comes with actual play.

There can literally be one character per account without an SP system.. ever. Creating a fresh character can require a fresh account. Rep can be tied to that as well.

Awoxing/etc. already happens with bought toons. If that's happening on a main, it's unlikely that they're experienced enough, or that the corp is experienced enough, for there to be enough stuff for that to make the news. Most of these ops are completely invested as well. There's very little opportunity for hitting rank 1 with a corp, and it's fine if there's slightly more in the manner of corp restrictions for their ranks. If that includes helping newbies learn the game and other pro bono play, then that actually benefits the status quo. Spending PLEX on multiple characters for every spy op is probably limited to a very small percentage of the player base. The problems of multiple characters can obviously be dealt with simply.

With that logic, the freedom of any type of gameplay would increase all of them, including from more subs.

That's a direct rationalization for the initiative that's promoted by freedom.