Because the masses a) want instant gratification and b) are creatively inept and incapable of building sandcastles.

Jumpgate came out in 2001

It's far to easy for people to experience the disassociation and lack of empathy that some mistake for being a sociopath when online, most communication it via dry text and we all have avatars that show no emotions and disconnect the real person from their online presence.

I find it amusing that so many throw the word sociopath around when it bears little relation to the person behind the character. You don't hate an actor that plays a really despicable bad guy in a film, you hate the character, that's the step you need to take with games like EVE too, we can play the good and bad guys because in the end it's only pixels, a bit of fun, generally nothing personal. If you get blown up you're just a name on a killmail or in local chat, you may never encounter that character again and they'll be just a face in the crowd by the next day.

In the end it's just a game that allows people to play a character, whether that be a hero or villain, or in many cases a bit of both. It's all just pixels and we sit behind an avatar that removes that connection and thus absolves the conscience of having done any real harm. I blow your pixel up, you blow mine up, who cares in the end, that's part of the game, it doesn't make either of us a cold hearted sociopath out to wreck someone's day.

3) EVE has never been stagnant, its player base has increased every year since it went gold. It has also grow from a handful of guys to a company employing hundreds of people, which equals successful and growing in anybodys book.

And some people take drunken jokes too seriously.

I don't recall CCP telling anyone to HTFU when they expressed a legitimate concern.

You mean the one that people were interpreting incorrectly that showed a minor lull in population which was likely due to the fact that it was SUMMER?!

To simplify.

New players should be allowed to start out with a certain amount of SP in skills they select. Equal to about two weeks or a month of training time.

This has no real effect on balance, but stops the idiot "have to log off till I get Level 3 of X so I can get Level 1 of X and even equip the *bleep* module.

That seven hour log off does nothing but *bleep* people off big.

Most gamers do not like PVP without rules and safe zones.

Why do you ask stupid questions?

It doesn't have appeal to the general public because of its unique skill/leveling system and the fact that death/loss means something.

It did plateau, and then started right back up again, ending up with again a larger subscription base than the year before. As it always has.

Perhaps catch up on all of the retractions and revisions in the press before you ride that bandwagon too much further.

A mistake happened, a reasonable punishment was determined. If you aren't happy with it still, you really need to get over it.

No, but fortunately the level of hysteria has dropped to tolerable levels, and more people have been educated on what "Cyber Bullying" actually is.

What Is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. By definition, it occurs among young people. When an adult is involved, it may meet the definition of cyber-harassment or cyber-stalking, a crime that can have legal consequences and involve jail time.

As somebody who is fairly new to the game (my main account is about 45 days old), here are the reasons I think the game isn't more successful:

1) Not heavily advertised

2) Extremely steep learning curve (I spent hours and hours digesting information on the web.. a lot of people don't have that type of patience.. or they just spam the general help channel with questions and get angry when people don't respond to them.)

3) High-sec Griefing: You run into some griefers very early in the game and are told that nothing can be done about it (for example, I did the newbie quests, then ran the sisters of eve quests.. when I was doing the dagan quest, some guy tracked me down, killed dagan, looted it, and then tried to sell it to me for 100 million ISK - when I barely had 20 mil to my name). I had only been playing the game for about 2 weeks at that point, and if I didn't come from a fairly hardcore gaming background (e.g., if I was a younger gamer), I probably would've quit and never come back. I still can't continue that epic chain because the quest doesn't reset and you can't find Dagan's for sale. Eve encourages griefing, and most players don't like that. A lot of players like open and engaging PVP, but not griefing. If this game didn't allow griefing in high-sec, I would think that subscription numbers would be significantly higher than they are now. But at the same time, being free from worry about attack in high-sec would entirely change the concept of Eve (never safe from attack) and how it functions. I'd like to think there's a balance somewhere in there, but I haven't played long enough to come up with any great ideas. FWIW, I don't think high-sec griefing should be removed entirely.. but I just feel like there's something that could be done to restrict when/where it can be done and to be a little more forgiving for newer players or even carebears (who fill a necessary role in the game).

4) The inability to train more than one character on an account at a time. Just a money grab. And being able to train all three characters at once would allow newer players to achieve functionally useful skill templates earlier in time (e.g., I could train up a logi, a dps and an exploration character all at the same time and then switch between what I need).

5) Perceived gap between veterans and new players in terms of ability to be of value or to have any chance of winning in PVP. A fully trained PVP griefer in his destroyer who ninja salvages and loots in the hopes of being attacked by a lvl 2 mission running noob is going to wipe the noob regardless of the ship the noob is flying.

6) The UI - I tried to get a buddy of mine to join me in this game a few weeks ago. He's a big PVP'er in pretty much every game he's played and he's into the spreadsheet/calculation/market games as well, so I figured he'd love this game. Instead, he logged on for about 30 minutes and then emailed me that he was going to play LoL because the UI on this game was so horrible. I've tried to get him to give it more time, but haven't had any luck. Given that he would love this game if he got into it, it's pretty sad that potential customers like this are being chased away by a bad UI (I'm not sure why he disliked it so much.. it can be fairly unresponsive at times, though).

honestly? its probably because its sci fi.

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