I’m a voracious consumer of EVE-related Twitch content, channels like New Eden Post, Imperium News Network, Eve Universe, and many others. Some are very informative; some are entertaining smack down contests. However, more and more on Twitch I see a trend of nostalgic disenchantment with the current state of the game. compared to the way it was in the past.
Those were the days my friend . . .
On one of the most recent episodes of New Eden Posts Slanderous Saturday, Luke Toir and Kevin Eagleeye discussed CCPs recent significant changes to ganking and Concord mechanics. Also very recently we are seeing the beginnings of a new round of protests in Jita exceeding 5000 player.
These issues have been hot-button topics this week, generating huge controversy among the CSM and the player community. Brisc Rubal has been very outspoken in regard to CCP’s conduct in declaring what is – and what is not – an exploit within the mechanics of EVE Online. CCP has banned players for violating these mechanics. Brisc himself was falsely banned during CSM 13, when CCP accused him of sharing confidential information, for which he was fully exonerated of wrongdoing. So, these latest bans can raise temperatures and blood pressures.
The Sound and the Fury
The last dev blog, outlining the new Quadrant, along with the latest news out of Pearl Abyss regarding future goals for EVE’s development, have further irritated the player community. The reaction reached epic proportions: the latest round of Jita protests have broken EVE’s previous Guinness World Record for concurrent players in one system. Despite the “End of Scarcity” adjustment to the game mechanics, we still see significantly nerfed endgame mining ships and ore yields are still cut in half. This would seem to fit into CCP’s apparent long term goals of reducing player income, cutting into alliance resource stockpiles, and making it significantly more expensive and time consuming to produce – and get into – capital ships.
Like your favorite brand of soap!
What do long standing members of the community want? It almost seems like they desire a return to “EVE Pure.” If another company released a space sandbox MMO, with skill point training at a set rate which cannot be purchased or boosted, a balanced roster of factions and ship types, a PvP focus with no capital ships and no cash shop, how many EVE players would jump ship?
Ultimately, instead of pulling all this math crap that players and devs are arguing over on the EVE forums right now, why doesn’t CCP/Pearl Abyss just roll out their new agenda? Remove all capital and industrial ships from the game. Double the ISK price of everything on the market. Slow down production and mining by 50%. Slow down skill training by 75%. Sell PLEX and boosters in the New Eden store at double the current price. Start openly selling advanced hulls for Bitcoin. Sell NTFs for $900 a pop. There: I just saved us 6-8 years of dev bullshit.
Once again, this controversy is a battle for the soul of EVE Online. The players protesting in Jita, and prominent members of the community, need to continue to stand up for what they believe in, or this will be the last input on the situation they will have for a long time.
