Buster Gonads
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Posted - 2007.01.16 10:10:00 -
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 Originally by: Olixia Castitatis
Eve has been steadily increasing in player numbers since its release. This is the opposite of what most other MMOs do, whereby they peak in number shortly after release, and then slowly lose players as time goes on. The reason for this is because of the nearly unrestricted PvP. It draws people to the game, its something different.
Of course, this post is redundant. People have stated ten thousand times before that PvP is what makes Eve the game it is, but people always seem to want to whine about it, to change the game into some kind of "WoW in Space".
You know firstly, WoW is an incredibly successful game, so I think there should be less talking it down - it isn't successful because it doesn't have hardcore PvP, it's successful for a whole host of other reasons, the PvP thing is just one of them. Secondly, yes the Eve playerbase has been increasing. I was in at the start (from beta), when there were 3 - 6k players online.
One thing I've realised is that Eve is better to play with an Alt or two. This is especially true when you factor in research agents (the ISK I-win button if you get lucky) or needing that hauler or industrial character to compliment your PvP character. I would love to know what proportion of the "playerbase" consists of alt characters. I would suppose it's about 50%.
Now unrestricted PvP making Eve what it is is something I don't believe. I think Eve exists despite it, rather than because of it. In 0.0 it's fun to play in that way, apart from blobbing and POS wars, which are I believe the ultimate in tedium but unrestricted PvP in high sec, especially as it often involves meta-gaming (alt characters, recycling, etc.) is not something I would say does justice to the term "PvP".
Ultimately, gameplay like this attracts ass-hats into Eve - precisely the kind of people who don't get on with consensual PvP games. This is why you see so many "go play xyz" and "this makes Eve what it is" posts. It's a no-brainer that the two things are correlated. Most people ignore/put up with it because they get enough of a hit from other aspects of gameplay. They also complain the least, mainly because the ass-hats smack them down on the forums when they do voice their concerns.
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