Anne Smith
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Posted - 2007.11.15 05:24:00 -
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It's the PVP.
In your standard PVE MMO, you can take a break for some time and when you come back, all your stuff will still be there. Even if someone else lives in their parents basement and has absolutely no life while you have a wife, kids, and mortgage, all that happens is that the No Life King will level faster than you. In EVE, if you conquer some 0.0 space, then decide to take the kids on a week long trip to Los Angeles, you could come back with half your systems under new management. They'll probably be taken over by the aforementioned No Life King.
As such, there is a constant pressure in the PVP MMO to continue to work to improve your station. Unlike, say, Team Fortress II or Starcraft, in the world of EVE a loss can mean a very permanent setback. This adds even more stress and pressure to the mix and many people don't like that. Plus, there's a lot of math, and for many people if they wanted to play high stakes PVP competitions with lots of math, they'd just play the stock market.
Another factor of PVP: If there is are two jobs, one being fun and the other being profitable, the people doing the profitable will quickly edge out the people doing the fun thing, until the others adapt or die.
There's two other problems with this setup: 0.0 vs. Empire Profitability and Fun.
If 0.0 is more profitable than Empire, then it would be virtually impossible for Empire corps to move into 0.0. The 0.0 people would be already established, richer, and would only get richer because of their superior earning ability. If Empire is more profitable, then why move into 0.0?
Lastly, lots of activities are simply not that fun. Mining? Not fun. Hauling? Not fun. Playing the market is one of the more enjoyable activities I've engaged in, and when a stockbroking simulation is relatively entertaining, something is wrong. Instead of spending three hours staring at a mining laser (not fun) we could spend three hours combing through an asteroid field, analyzing sensor readings, avoiding pirates, sabotaging other miners, and finding a course so that you won't get pulverized between billion ton rocks. Once you find the perfect rock, you attach it to you ship and tow it to the station for refining. Same three hours, new fun flavor. I just spent most of my time online today doing nothing but moving ships from point A to point B. I'm watching YouTube and posting on the forums at the same time. This makes people think "Hey, I can post on forums and watch YouTube, without having to pay $15 a month."
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