Yet, I see this idea parroted frequently. Not only by carebears, but by hardened PvPers as well. The latest comment, which got my goat, is the notion that if (or when) CCP decides to do a public IPO, that they'll be beholden to profiteering, which means they'll have to carebear the game up to increase numbers. Whereas there's truth that profit will be more of a goal (though I don't see how moreso than currently, since they already have investors), turning the game into more of a theme park fest does not mean that subscriber numbers are going to increase.
Carebears thrill that CCP might have to soften the game. Hardened PvPers fear that CCP will soften the game. Yet, many on both sides of the fence agree that softening EVE Online equates to more people playing. That idea is baffling to me, because so few games that are soft and easy succeed. And those that have softened after the fact have tended towards failure.
One thing that is truth, if CCP were to limit PvP in EVE Online, they would certainly lose a large segment of the current subscribership. There's no guarantee that loss will be replaced by an equal number of carebears. Maybe over an initial "Hmm, I think I'll try EVE" period, but no guarantee that they'll retain any initial burst which might occur.
Why?
- There's no evidence at all that CCP can design engaging PvE content. That is the carebear game. PvE. Granted, EVE Online is currently a PvP driven game, but that's not because CCP hasn't tried to design engaging PvE systems:
- The mission system is dull and repetitive. It doesn't stack up to the quest systems of even the most lowly of theme park MMOs.
- Incursions are much the same as the mission system. Sure, they have a social aspect, but you're repeating the same content over and over again.
- Deadspace complexes? Again, not a whole lotta variety there.
- Mining? This is so engaging that miners are fapping to porn while the mining is being done, which is why their Hulks get blown up so often and so easily.
- Carebears destroy the games they play. Don't trust a carebear to know what's best for the games they play, because when their whines and complaints are adhered too, their games die. Star Wars Galaxies? Everquest II? Dark Age of Camelot? Vanguard? Where the hell are these games now? Either changed at the demand of the carebear customers or designed to be carebear utopias. They go down the drain, and the players who knew better say "I told you so." And then, what about Star Wars: The Old Republic? Even Warcraft is slowly losing their subscribers because of easy-mode changes made over the years. Carebears think they don't want challenge, think they don't want risk, but eliminate those elements of a game, they get bored and move on elsewhere. (The carebears never seem to realize why they got bored and left.)
- Four hundred thousand subscribers is apparently failure for an MMO. What the hell? Few games maintain those sorts of numbers. Because of World of Warcraft's ten million subscribers, people seem to think that every middling MMO must fall somewhere between 400K and 10M. Simply not true. Some games (like SW:TOR) might have expectations of millions, but that's not realistic for the vast majority of MMOs on the market or the soon to be released. 400K subscribers is a damned solid number for any MMO that isn't Korean, isn't World of Warcraft, and doesn't have the Star Wars franchise behind it. Check out some graphs at MMOData.net:
- EVE Online is the only non-Chinese, non-Korean MMO that's been around for nine years and had its subscriber numbers increase over that time. Most MMOs never reach the nine year mark. Those that do have a sliver of subscribers remaining. So, CCP is doing something right. Or more accurately, the players are doing something right, since it's player-driven stories and endeavours that attract new players to EVE.
You forgot about Runescape. But let's not even get into that one.
ReplyDeleteI didn't forget Runescape. I don't even know why they game is popular, nor do I know how to classify it. I don't many publishers are trying hard to emulate it.
DeleteQuite sure it has something to do with their quest system; think of them as epic arc missions with skill requirements and well written story content (subject to opinion) - maybe even entertaining sometimes - and there are now hundreds of them.
DeleteYou can only do them once, but they all have somewhat unique rewards, and the developers keep adding to it.
The other thing is that it is a browser game; you only need an internet connection and Java-capable browser to play it. This means that they have an extremely wide audience.
It's still a terrible grind-till-you-drop game though, but as a 'kiddies first MMO' you could find a lot worse. ;-)
"Carebears think they don't want challenge, think they don't want risk, but eliminate those elements of a game, they get bored and move on elsewhere. (The carebears never seem to realize why they got bored and left.)"
ReplyDelete^^ Combine this with the "entitlement mentality", and you may just be on to something there. ;-)
Seriously, 3+ post and this is what came out of it?
ReplyDeleteAlso: remove this remove that, and Oh! now EVE is at the top of the heap... how surprising. You are doing it wrong, as there ARE other MMOs out there and EVE SHOULD be compared to them. Because like it or not, they are the competition.
Arguing that EVE is a niche game is invalid because they are niche too: MMOs.
About the game getting theme parked: I don't think that will happen. Although I do hope that a serious reorganisation will happen. This game is repetitive, especially at the pve content (carebears are crying about it). If there is a way to amend the situation then make some things in the mission random, like they did with the incursions.
The post is not at all connected to the Theme Parker Guides. I was simply using the same graphic for this article. Since you were confused, I changed the graphic on this post so that you (and others) will not connect this post to the unrelated Theme Parker Guides to EVE Online.
DeleteThanks, much better... consider the theme park bit of my post invalid then.
DeleteAs for the content, I still think a little randomization would help a lot by eliminating the repepepepepepepepepepetitveness of the PvE side.
What do you think?
I'm not advocating better PvE for EVE Online. It's crappy PvE, to be sure, but that's fine. It encourages players to create their own content, rather than solo the PvE endlessly.
DeleteWhat "carebears" demand is not "easy", but "win". They want content that they can complete. But if a developer designs such content, EVERYONE will complete it and than it loses all its appeal and dubbed as "the grind".
ReplyDeleteWhat a "carebear" really want is to win over other people without skill or effort. And that's can't be given. You can give "win" to everyone (WoW) or you can give win to the those who have skill and effort (EVE).
Came here to burn this article to the ground...well played :P
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with the basic idea that making eve more theme park-ish would cause subscriptions to go up. But I disagree very strongly with the idea that CCP sucks at building PVE content. Incursion isn't it. Incursion is two things, a system for delivering content, and an attempt to shift PVE mechanics to PVP ones. And on the fulfillment of those two ideas, Incursion is a grand success. What none of the PVE content in Eve is, is a true attraction. The truth is, CCP has never tried to build engaging PVE content. They've built some great systems for delivering it. The Epic Mission Arc system is awesome, Incursions are an amazing idea, and so is the old COSMOS mission system. There are bits of genius littered throughout the actual PVE content, one off room mechanics and half formed ideas. But not ever, ever, EVER; not once, has CCP sat down and tried to crystallize all those parts into one grand AAA theme park attraction. I don't particularly blame CCP for that, they aren't in the theme park business. But after you've played for awhile and experienced all the gimmicks, it doesn't take you too long to actively wonder "what if". What if they tossed a few developers and artists into a room for a few months with the goal of taking all the pieces and melding them into one large raid style complex. Not another system for delivering content, but just a series of rooms with all the far flung ideas already in PVE layered on top of each other for one unique definitive experience.
ReplyDeleteTaking a look at the nosy gamers "digital dozen" posts eve online is really good. The subscribers it has are even active. WoW has about a million extra "subscribers" who used the pre order for Diablo III ;-)
ReplyDeleteJudging from the CSM meeting infos Seleene is providing over at his post CCP is heading in the right direction. Eve Online does not need more theme park content but enriched game play overall. POS improvements, UI overhaul, better mechanics for industries. There is an endless list and they are working on it.
Once UI and mechanics are improved i would not be surprised if subscribers go up. The complains about "spreadsheet online" are the biggest problem IMO. CCP is about to change that and once they done that a barrier for many will fall.
Can't say much about other MMOs. played wow and lotr for some times but nothing compared to 6 years of eve. (I even played eve beside lotr) First MMO was Jumpgate and if my memories are right there where a few thousand online the time i played it. Down to a few hundred in the ending days.
CCP had layoffs a few months ago for financial reasons so I think "doing quite well" is a bit optimistic.
ReplyDelete"You can't fundamentally change an existing MMO" - So "adding significant PvE to EVE would be a mistake" can be true while "CCP would have had a larger, more profitable game if they had originally designed EVE differently" is also true.
EVE is designed to be a niche game. None of the players want to see game changes to EVE that make it more popular. What that means is that if you are a CCP stockholder or bondholder, what you want is for CCP to invest its development resources in other games (DUST, WoD, TBD) where the players would not resist making a more popular & profitable game. The business term for this is "cash cow" a low/no growth, profitable business that you make minimal investments in and use the profits to invest in other products that will be higher growth.
Most of those layoffs came from the WoD group.
DeleteI read the title and came with my guns ready to blaze, but left with the clips still fully loaded.
ReplyDeleteSuch a tease...
If you make PVE too interesting, people will do it and keep doing it. Boring PVE is one of the things that pushes Eve players to try PVP. And then they never look back.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I don't think CCP should much (if any) resources on the PvE content. It works well now for what players ate using it for, as an income earner forPvP.
DeleteKey quote: "And then they never look back." As a reformed carebear, let's hope CCP forgets about PvE altogether.
DeleteHey great logic. "Remove all the MMO's that are actually successful, and EVE isn't doing so bad."
ReplyDeleteIf you call the top of the dungheap "not doing so bad".
Runescape was great as a first mmo for me. For the specs neeeded to play that, its your classic, down to earth, social mmo that seta the standard.
ReplyDeleteCCP calls "EVE Online" a highly profitable product. And I believe it is with the team that is left. The lay-offs were due to a bloated organization from wrong investments. The Eve Online product is profitable, so fourhundret thousand subscriptions are NO failure.
ReplyDeleteAnd why would m o r e theme park mean l e s s PvP ?! That is a shortcut in the first part of the blog, which is incomprehensible for me. Go ahead and make pretty mission sites! Or even INCARNA in-station mission objectives. While in space, you can be blown up any where by anyone. I see no conflict.
More theme park would mean less PvP. If CCP were to supply the story and the drama via theme park PvE elements, then players (not all, but a lot of them) but stop putting effort into player-driven conflict, stories and drama.
DeleteMost players will take the path of least resistance.
If you steer PvE content away from deadspace missions and toward COSMOS/Epic Arc style fixed, single-spawn locations, you throw people together. If they both want the same thing, maybe some will be more aggressive than others in getting it. Some people will just wait until there's nobody around, but as long as they have to work around the game rather than the game accommodating them, no hassle. You should be free to try and be alone in EVE if you want to; you just shouldn't be able to succeed trivially.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what, I agree that PvE should be a side dish. It keeps CCP lean, and it keeps the players hungry.
I'd say that "theme park" does not equal "PvE". There is such a thing as "theme park PvP", in the form of arenas, battlegrounds, warzones, WvWvW and even MOBAs such as World of Tanks or League of Legends - basically, any organized PvP between squads of equal size and more or less equal power that takes place within specially designed areas.
ReplyDeleteThe notion that better PvE content would mean less PvP is ridiculous. Better PvE would make EVE a better game. Do you think people choose PvP in EVE only because there are no good PvE options available? Of course not; they PvP because it's fun, challenging, and they like it. They're not going to stop PvP-ing just because decent PvE content is released. There are some lazy people who will take "the path of least resistance," but EVE is already quite good at weeding out those types.
ReplyDeleteWith that logic, you're basically implying that most PvPers are sitting on their hands, waiting, hoping that CCP will create some good PvE content to save them from the "boring" PvP that they've had to settle for. Do you really think that's how PvPers look at the game?