Yes many of his points were valid, and some people tried to make constructive posts in reply, with how they make the game an enjoyable experience for them, however when the ego came out and the attitude started it made all his words invalid in my mind. Rells, you arnt the only person to start and run a great corp but if all you have is negativity to the game and its players then you know what to do.

I don't mean to derail your thread OP, I'm a big fan of Agony BTW, but for all it's faults are there any better games than EVE out there?

Not a derail really.

I can answer the question one of two ways.

1) There are no games out there that are either what eve was or promised to achieve in its early days.

2) As for Eve's current situation. Strip away the graphics and get right down to gameplay and it is 99% identical to every other PvE centric MMORPG. Eve, Everquest, DAOC, World of warcraft. Not a hell of a lot of difference between them.

The really sad part is that people like you and I used to be the majority. The non-pvpers were decried as whiners and weak. They were told that this was a PvP game and they better get with the program.

Now they have taken over and turned the game into World of Warcraft.

Like another poster in this thread it is easy to fall into a comfort zone and just grind up isk. When i used to play a lot more i would grind up about 4 billion isk and then just stop pveing and do more risky things and then i started building and ive never got enough isk.

Getting started and creating a logistics chain is impossible for most people in this game.

If this really is a sandbox people should be able to do as they like, but your mechanics would only allow for a streaming of professions towards large alliances and pvp only.

"people do PvE in high-sec and PvP in 0.0" - that's true for me but i could earn significantly more in 0.0 (running sanctums in a -0.9 system) than I do with lvl4 missions.

The reason I earn most of my isk in high-sec is that I usually do it while being in a PvP fleet (which means having to divert attention away from my PvE character, sometimes for minutes at a time).

"T3s make movement to easy" and "bubbles make ratting systems too safe" choose one or the other.

"capital proliferation makes movement too easy" and makes hotdrops a common threat.

easy logistics enable solo players to have fun in 0.0 without having to be aligned with any large "blob" - last year I packed my carrier and was off to a 2-3 week vacation in Stain maybe an hour after I had made that decision.
If we had to run big convoys to get stuff into/out of 0.0 you would probably complain that this leaves solo players completely in the cold and only serves to make the strong even stronger.

wormholes were a pretty huge change that enables roaming gangs to come from "nowhere", bypassing all your gatecamps, bubbles and intel channels.

[quote=Florestan Bronstein]moon minerals hold a lot of value for the average player as they lift the burden of having to earn ISK in order to replace pvp losses from his shoulders. this only works because they are static sources of income on corporation/alliance level whih individuals can generally not tap on their own.
try to fund a comprehensive ship replacement program by redistributing personal income - probably won't work unless you have a very special corporation culture.

Well since quitting the game three years ago, I come back for a month every year or so to see what is going on in the game. I log on and see improved graphics and clients but alas I also see things that haven't changed. I end up playing off and on for a month and then quitting the game again. Now I realize I am probably wasting my time and the devs probably doesn't care but I will say why for the third year I am not renewing again.

Back in 2004 CCP had a game that was dedicated to PVP warfare and it was grand but then they started adding stuff for the non-pvper. And they kept adding and adding and in the process nerving 0.0. Many of us warned this would have a disastrous effect on the intended gameplay focused on player organizations. We ware all flamed like burgers on the 4th of july. Of course it happened. When concord was put in to protect non-pvpers, CCP assured us they would be defeat able and wouldn't become invincible as we warned. We were told to shut up again and flamed again. When they added megacyte to empire space, we warned of the disastrous economic effects to 0.0 economies and we were flamed and told there were only trace amounts and that we were full of it. When they introduced level 4 missions we warned they were pushing all financial incentives to empire and were again flamed to hell. We complained that other than a couple of areas most of 0.0 was now worthless. We were told to shut up.

In the meantime we asked for things. The ability to secure our empires with gate guns and implement real border warfare. We asked for the sovereignty system to focus on border, not jumping 500 capitals into the main heart of the player empire. We asked for low sec to be declared a disaster area (as it always was) and just added to 0.0. We asked for many things to assist players in making their own game.

Some 8 years later all of the bad predictions have come to pass and none of the requests have ben granted. Over the last two weeks I have flown through deserted 0.0 space where the only time you see anyone is occasionally in passing and the deeper you get in 0.0, the more the population density looks like upper siberia. There still is no way to create player made empire, sovereignty management is still a joke and 99% of the population is in empire. Don't take my word for it, log on and pull a star map. I just logged off when there are 43k people online and 99% ofthem are in empire. Empire is a bright star of population and 0.0 is all but deserted. Some people camp the entry gates but otherwise it is largely empty. Once you are past the high sec and low sec chokes you can fly for hours without seeing a soul.

What's more it that nearly 10 years after the start of the game players still can't secure their empires against marauders and form real communities and nearly everyone in the game makes their money in high sec lucrative pursuits and trays 0.0 like a glorified arena. Its very sad and depressing given what it could have been. I still think of the player made content that could have insued from this game and shake my head sadly.

In short, Eve has become a care bear game. I used to make fun of people that played WoW but at least that game has stayed true to its vision, a game with corporation generated content and only a fleeting nod to player content. Eve still says it is sandbox on the front page but its a well regulated, tightly controlled sand box with concord over each child's shoulder ensuring they don't play dodgeball because someone might get hurt. There is almost no incentive to take risks, to move into high sec.

CCP might as well get it over with and keep a couple of 0.0 regions as arenas and make the rest of the game high sec. Say the jovians finally invaded the galaxy and get it over with. Since CCP has been making the game slowly a care bear game for years, they might as well get it over with.

This is the last year I will be back and trying it out. It is a lost cause and that, strangely, makes me sad. CCP, you started something wonderful and then let bean counters and hand wringers mess it up. Its too bad really.

I agree with some of what you have to say, but it's not as bad as all that.

I didn't start EVE years ago, but what you describe is the game I would like to play.

Making hisec as it is today was a mistake, it brings people in that think there is separate "PVE" and "PVP" in EVE. Basically it just serves to grow wrong ideas into peoples heads.

Without exposure to violence from other players, MMO stops being an MMO and you could just as well play alone against a debile AI.

However, I have found a home in a wormhole with lowsec static, and enjoy the game immensely at the moment. Whole concept of wormholes is a hallmark of stellar game design and as an environment solves many of the problems of null, and is feasible for microscopic corps like ours.

Hope Inferno improves both null and hisec- obviously territorial wars is something I want to get into, but at the moment I rather do my own thing in whs.

maybe you should go to war, that's where the real pvp is. what? too scared? carebear.

Well since quitting the game three years ago, I come back for a month every year or so to see what is going on in the game. I log on and see improved graphics and clients but alas I also see things that haven't changed. I end up playing off and on for a month and then quitting the game again. Now I realize I am probably wasting my time and the devs probably doesn't care but I will say why for the third year I am not renewing again.

Back in 2004 CCP had a game that was dedicated to PVP warfare and it was grand but then they started adding stuff for the non-pvper. And they kept adding and adding and in the process nerving 0.0. Many of us warned this would have a disastrous effect on the intended gameplay focused on player organizations. We ware all flamed like burgers on the 4th of july. Of course it happened. When concord was put in to protect non-pvpers, CCP assured us they would be defeat able and wouldn't become invincible as we warned. We were told to shut up again and flamed again. When they added megacyte to empire space, we warned of the disastrous economic effects to 0.0 economies and we were flamed and told there were only trace amounts and that we were full of it. When they introduced level 4 missions we warned they were pushing all financial incentives to empire and were again flamed to hell. We complained that other than a couple of areas most of 0.0 was now worthless. We were told to shut up.

In the meantime we asked for things. The ability to secure our empires with gate guns and implement real border warfare. We asked for the sovereignty system to focus on border, not jumping 500 capitals into the main heart of the player empire. We asked for low sec to be declared a disaster area (as it always was) and just added to 0.0. We asked for many things to assist players in making their own game.

Some 8 years later all of the bad predictions have come to pass and none of the requests have ben granted. Over the last two weeks I have flown through deserted 0.0 space where the only time you see anyone is occasionally in passing and the deeper you get in 0.0, the more the population density looks like upper siberia. There still is no way to create player made empire, sovereignty management is still a joke and 99% of the population is in empire. Don't take my word for it, log on and pull a star map. I just logged off when there are 43k people online and 99% ofthem are in empire. Empire is a bright star of population and 0.0 is all but deserted. Some people camp the entry gates but otherwise it is largely empty. Once you are past the high sec and low sec chokes you can fly for hours without seeing a soul.

What's more it that nearly 10 years after the start of the game players still can't secure their empires against marauders and form real communities and nearly everyone in the game makes their money in high sec lucrative pursuits and trays 0.0 like a glorified arena. Its very sad and depressing given what it could have been. I still think of the player made content that could have insued from this game and shake my head sadly.

In short, Eve has become a care bear game. I used to make fun of people that played WoW but at least that game has stayed true to its vision, a game with corporation generated content and only a fleeting nod to player content. Eve still says it is sandbox on the front page but its a well regulated, tightly controlled sand box with concord over each child's shoulder ensuring they don't play dodgeball because someone might get hurt. There is almost no incentive to take risks, to move into high sec.

CCP might as well get it over with and keep a couple of 0.0 regions as arenas and make the rest of the game high sec. Say the jovians finally invaded the galaxy and get it over with. Since CCP has been making the game slowly a care bear game for years, they might as well get it over with.

This is the last year I will be back and trying it out. It is a lost cause and that, strangely, makes me sad. CCP, you started something wonderful and then let bean counters and hand wringers mess it up. Its too bad really.

Why on Earth are you trying to revive/troll a thread that died over a week ago?

I built what I think is the best corp in the game. Still they kick ass. Agony Unleashed has done more for this game than most corporations. That doesn't change the fact that CCP has boiled the proverbial frog and has you all playing world of warcraft now.

Cooperations to get things done is still on and the corp I'm in are building towards that - be part of a strong alliance in all aspects and if null sec is so empty, great - room for expansion once we get there and my bet is eventually we will have to defend it.

I am sorry that you have lost the feeling of the game but sounds to me you have to move on.

And then once you get to null you'll realize that whilst you hold sov raiden still control all the valuable moons in your territory, your members will be making less ISK than they were in high sec and when you go out roaming for PvP all you'll find is a bunch of bots that warp to pos when a neut enters local.

Then you'll come to the forums and make exactly the same complaints we've been making.

Might be - might not be.

My point is - games changes, sometimes to the good and sometimes to the bad. In situations like this I ask myself these simple questions
- Can you do anything to change it? y/n
- Can you live with it? y/n

If you do not like the changes or get you icecream and candy there's a very simple solution - /game

Living on dreams and what once was does not bring it back.