captainclaw posted:

Allow me to save you the journey to that poo poo heap


Here's the history summarised (Edit not really in chronological order mostly!):

1. CCP years ago turned the Rorqual into a capital that could mine obsence amounts of ore. Everyone at the time said "This will screw up the game economy." CCP ignored the people because having a "Mining Capital" encouraged people to skill inject into it; stimulating the $ market (as it's required for extracting and injecting.)
2. After 2-3 years of rorqual mining, the entire game economy was hosed up. Mineral prices fell massively as super blocs concentrated Rorqual fleets on strip mining the infinitely respawning ore sites. Capitals were being produced in hours as rorqual fleets stripped entire systems. The titan, once a noteworthy-for-existing goal for an alliance of thousands of players, became attainable in weeks for a guy multiboxing \~8 rorquals (in range of an alliance's super fleet to be dropped on anyone attempting to kill the rorquals).
3. CCP decided the only way to unfuck their mistake is to introduce an "age of scarcity" and remove 90% of ore from the game in most places, sites don't respawn anywhere near as fast anymore.
4. After 2-3 years of scarcity CCP announces "The End of scarcity!" and reintroduce ore back to (Edit, ty for who told me) 10% of it's original values and after protest uncreases it to 20% of original values. (Still -80% compared to pre-scarcity). The playerbase is unhappy.
5. CCP announce sweeping industry changes that make it harder to manufacture almost everything. The playerbase is unhappy.
6. The industy changes vastly increase the cost of capital ship production. Industrialists and players who like to use capitals are unhappy.
7. Due to the cost of capitals being so high, people are using them less (too expensive to replace). The people who like to hunt capitals have nothing to hunt, these players are unhappy.
8. The changes made many faction ships not worth producing, blueprints fall in value. Players who used to like hunting pirate faction ships for blueprints are unhappy.
9. The new industry changes require people to do more PI. PI is a chore clickfest shitpile that people have asked for saved layouts, quick updating etc for years. CCP doesn't address these. People interacting with PI are unhappy (and more people are forced into it).
10. CCP introduced the "Dynamic Bounty System", reducing ISK payouts on bounties in nullsec based on how much PvP is in that system. Because inherently people who want to do PvE would prefer to be in areas with little PvP, the vast majority of systems have their DBS rating fall to 50%, cutting nullsec PvE'ers income in half. Nullsec PvE'ers are unhappy, many stop doing it, leaving mostly bots or afk pilots (launch drones and then go afk until the site is done) because the sites no longer reward enough for people's attention. Nullsec PvEer's are unhappy.
11. Because there are only bots or afk people to hunt, there is less active players doing interesting poo poo (smartbomb Machs in havens, carriers in havens, etc) to hunt, so people who used to hunt nullsec PvEer's have fewer targets, fewer interesting targets, so they are unhappy, many stop playing/hunting.
12. Well before the DBS CCP introduces instanced PvE (abyssals), anyone who liked "Eve is a sandbox" is unhappy. Initially, to run the most valuable "T5" abyssals, you had to be in lowsec or nullsec to encourage risk. This is rapidly reverted so that abyssal farmers can operate in highsec in relative safety. CCP even later introduces T6 abyssals, still usable in highsec. PvEer's who switch to abyssals and lose valuable ships to disconnects because CCP can't make the server stable, and these losses aren't reimbursed, are unhappy. Anyone who cares about number of players in space in the "real world" aka not an instance is unhappy.
13. In the "End of Scarcity" CCP altered ore values everywhere, making it so that certain minerals are concentrated in lowsec, attempting to revive the "dead area" that lowsec has substantially been activity wise for 15 years. This didn't really work very well at all. Lowsec denizens who liked it as a lawless and un-ownable space disliked the fact that now giga blobs of Rorquals mining mandatory minerals was what their outlaw zone was for. These players were unhappy.
14. CCP's "End of Scarcity" adjusted how mining is done, adding "loss" to inefficency, generally making the "End of Scarcity" even more laughable, and they also made asteroids much smaller, forcing miners to more actively change asteroid targets - taking the "relaxing" style of mining (one of the most boring activities in the game) and forcing greater activity into it. Miners were unhappy.
15. AFTER ALL OF THIS CLUSTER gently caress OF BAD DESIGN, MORONIC DECISIONS CCP announces that the cost of subscription (via $ or plex) is increasing by \~35%, far more for countries with unfavourable exchange rates to the USD/Euro.
16. So previous design changes made: Industrialists, miners, nullsec PvEer's, nullsec PvPer's, anyone who liked "Eve sandbox", almost all of lowsec, people who liked flying capitals, people who liked hunting capitals, and anyone who cares about the games economy/ecosystem unhappy. Now the price was going up. Everyone becomes double unhappy, and new people who were fine with the catastrophic changes above (i.e. highsec miners, highsec mission runners, traders) aren't happy about the price increases.
17. CCP says "Just wait for fanfest, we have the biggest content update ever." (almost actual quote, can't remember exact wording).
18. At fanfest nothing substantive is announced at all. Some new cosmetics for ships. "We are going to try to finally fix faction warfare after 10+ years of abject stagnation." Anyone who trusted CCP (lol) becomes more unhappy.
19. Almost the entire playerbase is now "TRIPLE unhappy", many are leaving.
20. CCP is already selling Skillpoints for money (Which they promised not to do in writing) and then begin selling Ships for money! Buy a mining barge pack for $15. Industrialists, miners ingame become "QUAD unhappy" at the idea that their value ingame, their time, investment, manufacturing skill, shipping, is replaced by "magic poo poo that appears for real money". Anyone concerned with the state of the economy also becomes QUAD unhappy.
21. When CCP introduced Citadels they made the explicit promise that assets were safe via the specifically named "Asset Safety" system. When a citadel dies (except wormhole space, where everything drops!) assets are automatically recovered to a nearby lowsec NPC station or even the same system if there is a NPC station it in. Except in Forsaken Fortress, with something like 2 months notice, "Lol we changing it", so unfueled structures become "Abandoned" and then everything drops. Many long dormant players unsuprisingly don't read emails or have activity - relying on the solid information given by CCP that Assets were safe. Smart players exploit CCP's stupidity, and start shooting structures on the test server, the ones that drop good stuff also drop that good stuff on the live server when the patch hits it. Some dude scoops 5 Tril of TII BPOs (not an exaggeration) and many other vast fortunes staked in structures CCP promised were safe are lost. Almost everyone is unhappy about this, particularly as a broken promise.
22. By this point anyone with any kind of view of the game's metastate/condition knows that CCP has absolutely no idea what they are doing. Repeated negative changes that make the game worse for entire playstyles keep coming, CCP continues to lie about what they will not do or what "biggest update ever" will be announced. Many players no longer have any faith in CCP at all - like getting to see inside the cockpit of the plane you are on and finding the Pilot is eating glue and the co-pilot is the corpse of Amelia Earhart.
23. Playerbase craters - playercount begins to drop to 2008 levels, then 2007 levels, and currently towards the lowest number of online active players since 2006, and continuing to fall. CCP takes no action, and worse, claims "It's just summer lol". That glue-eating Pilot just said, over the intercom "Well we might be falling but we're still in the air lol, don't worry about it." and continues eating glue.
24. Everyone who loves Eve is now QUINTUPLE unhappy because we are powerless to save something we dearly love. The playercount is falling so much that space feels empty. The ISK velocity is plummeting because there are no longer people buying and selling items (Imagine human population of your country falling by 500% in 5 years and the impacts it would have...)
25. The pilot, serene in the knowledge that this is his rodeo and he "must" be qualified enough to fly the plane due to the fact that he is the one piloting it (Looking at you, Hilmar), takes no course corrective action at all, and the descent continues.

For context, I have two accounts and I am subbed until 2025. I love this game. I have played for 17 years.

Edit - removed the pubbie reddit gubbins

Johnny Five-Jaces posted:

it owns that they're forcing that model on eve and also charging one of the most expensive subs i can think of for an mmo

Stubb Dogg posted:

What happened to economist they had? I know all the mobile games these days obsess over their in-game economy to make sure people keep on buying coins and poo poo, while keeping it still fun enough that retention doesn't sink, but EVE was kind of forerunner in that they had someone who actually knew their poo poo looking at the in-game economy.

That Works posted:

Probably the typical cycle of most libertarian/conservative economists. Make the point that they want to make / the bosses want to hear. Cash the check and vanish when the consequences of failed predictions come to pass. See also the present UK government.

FirstnameLastname posted:

best fix (imo) outside of dropping sub prices would be to massively increase the income from non-instanced pve & add content in that area

that creates reason to have players in space, counters the increased burden of plex subbing, creates income streams to support manufacturing efforts, etc.

Durendal posted:

I wouldn’t be surprised if CCP is pushing or being pushed to make the only viable way to make ISK is through PLEX.

FirstnameLastname posted:

most of what I've written here is a few find->replaces away from being a chapter of das kapital, not exactly groundbreaking poo poo.

FirstnameLastname posted:

floppyspud posted:

It seems that everyone understands this, except CCP. Aren't they the ones who should know how to do this stuff?

dragonshardz posted:

they're too busy getting high of the fumes from their rotten shark delicacy and theorizing about how people SHOULD play the game, instead of building from and understanding how people ACTUALLY play the game.

dragonshardz posted:

they're too busy getting high of the fumes from their rotten shark delicacy and theorizing about how people SHOULD play the game, instead of building from and understanding how people ACTUALLY play the game.

FirstnameLastname posted:

if it's possible to sustain a subscription with Plex, one account can become ten over time, regardless of irl income, and in turn, increase the amount of money a customer can ultimately bring CCP, regardless of their own actual income.

PhilippAchtel posted:

A very important point. It's weird to see a company that built its game around this model try to back pedal into a more standard model now.

EvE will never have millions of subs like WoW, but it every PLEXed account is a virtual sub, as you say, not simple dead weight.

Edit: In a way, it's the opposite of moving to free to play. EvE already had the whales subsidizing the time intensive players, but is choosing to move *away* from that.

FirstnameLastname posted:

exactly! it's so shortsighted to walk away from a system that worked so well. they should've dropped direct subscriptions and made it plex only, if anything, and had a system that could let you pay like $7.50 & 250 plex etc. with 3-6-12 mo deals. it would've opened the game up to way more people, especially in places with lovely currencies. it does not matter who it is, only that the demand is there. They threw it away v@_@v

Rutibex posted:

They should let you cash out PLEX into real money. Pay the people who actually create the content for your game. Make people play EVE like job for real.

Paramemetic posted:

CCP is gonna kill their poo poo and then in 2 years they're gonna fire up a classic RuneScape style reboot and rake in cash as everybody who played and everyone who heard about it but never played ground floors in on empty space without permanent superpowers, and poo poo, it might actually be fun

Rutibex posted:

They should let you cash out PLEX into real money. Pay the people who actually create the content for your game. Make people play EVE like job for real.

ded posted:

lol yes

bring back the era of deathstar pos and no way to fight them without huge losses of battleships because dreads dont exist yet

Stubb Dogg posted:

What happened to economist they had? I know all the mobile games these days obsess over their in-game economy to make sure people keep on buying coins and poo poo, while keeping it still fun enough that retention doesn't sink, but EVE was kind of forerunner in that they had someone who actually knew their poo poo looking at the in-game economy.

ded posted:

FirstnameLastname posted:

This would honestly probably work. If other crypto stuff works, i don't see why it wouldn't

Rhjamiz posted:

I wouldn't go so far as to say "other crypto stuff works"

Ajaxify posted:

Eve Vegas news: Dynamic Bounty floor is being raised to 100%!

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

They absolutely need to neuter how much goes into the reserve bank to make this worthwhile. And again, this is something that should have been looked into three months after the DBS launched - remember how CCP admitted that the DBS wasn't tracking NPC and PVP kills correctly for months because the relay between the game server and server that processed the DBS calculation was hosed?