Back in February I did a post in which I used Eve Offline's charts to evaluate if the Retribution expansion was doing well or not based on Peak Current Users numbers after two months in. I wrote:
Based on the weekly averages of the peak logged in accounts, Eve has not been as busy since the launch and heydays of Incursions in early 2011. I feel that this is primarily attributed to the improvements in ship balancing done by Team Game of Drones which has allowed a rebirth of cheaper ship fleet doctrines that can compete better with higher end battlecruiser, Tech II cruiser, and Tech III cruiser setups. Coupled with the excitement of the new features like bounty hunting and new ships and UI enhancements, things look good for Eve.. right now.So how does Odyssey look in comparison?
Next summer's patch is crucial.
Personally I thought Odyssey was a decent expansion but we appear to want a combination of iteration on existing features and large new content expansions. Odyssey 1.1 was a good step, but more is needed. The malaise in null sec especially needs to be addressed somehow too.
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I'm a new player (5 weeks in the game), and flitted around many of the features in Eve, eager to try as much as I could. I guess I'm the intended target audience for the exploration feature.
ReplyDeleteI became disenchanted very quickly with Exploration, which I had read that CCP wanted to be a viable alternative to mining for new players (is that true, did they?)
Well, with mining I can make a steady few million per hour AND be AFK by using a Venture with two mining lasers in 0.9 or 1.0 systems (no rats). A quick glance at the screen from across the room every ten minutes or so keeps me informed and I can easily fly the ship back to the station, drop off the ore and head back out to repeat. Dull, but I can play with my kid, talk to my wife and make ISK.
Exploration requires my full attention (stupid hacking game) and that random bullshit can-chasing exercise which after 5 sites had yielded mostly crap. Yes, I used a cargo scanner, which often told me there was nothing there. Oh good, I'm back to guessing.
But before I even get to hack a site, I have to contend with the main factor slowing the process down (as compared to mining), is that I have to hunt for the sites, vs knowing where the belts are automatically. Yes, "the joy of exploration" etc, but the time it takes to find the cosmic signature that *isn't* Another Bloody Wormhole, and leads to an exploration site that *hasn't* been cleaned out, that *might* contain something valuable....it's not worth the hassle.
Meh. After about 5 sites I gave up and will probably not try it again. Anyone wanna buy some Carbon?
Seasonally adjusted trends? It's hard to tell since you don't have a time axis displayed, but don't numbers normally go down in the summer?
ReplyDeleteThere are seasonal dips but the dip in the past three months is more than previous years IMO.
DeleteI had a similar thought as Jakob above. Wouldn't it have been better to compare Odyssey with Inferno - both being post Incarna summer expansions? Are huge spikes in PCU driven by alt proliferation when a lucrative ISK generator is created (Incursions/Faction Warfare) and subsequently fall back when those same ISK generator rewards are ammended?
DeleteRegardless, it will be interesting to see if PCU numbers bounce back during the October/November period, prior to the winter expansion details being released.
Once again proving that "Ship Re-balancing" was simply juggling numbers. I don't know what CCP will be doing in the near future because DUST is going to Die and the more vets I talk to the more have taken semi-permanent breaks from the game.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is CCP better pull their collective heads out of their Icelandic asses post-hate before the damage is permanent. They have years of info on changes that players have BEGGED for but have always been shuffled of as too difficult.
Its a question of Priorities and guess what players....you ain't one.
Don't worry tho, by this time next year the expansion will be called "Hail Mary...This Time We Really Really Care".
But with the recent departures, the hiring of Stooges from known idiot companies and their general dumbing-down of EVE over the past 2 years to bring in a "wider" audience....yeah...we're almost at "Stick a fork in it" time.
Couple of things - the ship rebalancing has gone extraordinarily well given the potential to make the Jita riots look like a church picnic. I think the crew involved can certainly take a bow on that.
ReplyDeleteExploration was a major disappointment for me. Major. To the point it has gone from being my primary activity to not doing it at all. Not just the hacking game which is meh at max skill levels, and the horrible, horrible can spew (yes it needed to be said twice), but the fact that it was an overlay to existing sites.
They've changed the gates in some cases to prevent Tengu. They've made some anomalies instantly locatable on undocking or hitting system (which I don't agree with, but ok), but the sites themselves have not changed.
The rats are the same. The AI is the same. The layout is the same. In almost all instances the loot drops appear to be the same. As far as I've found anyways.
This was not an exploration expansion imho except to lower the barriers for new players. I've hit up one of the CSM and said they need to leverage the new mechanics and soon. We need a HOLY #$%^! moment, not training wheels.
Two things you may want to consider. First is the Fountain war ending. How many TEST members just stopped logging in. Heck, how many Goons stopped because the good fights were over? I think there was a similar falloff when the Northern Coalition collapsed.
ReplyDeleteThe second is the recent escalation in the war on RMT. Stillman and Peligro are working hard and I have the feeling the next time they release a ban graph there will be a big spike beginning at the end of July. Add to that the limits to ice belts and I think its natural that the average daily concurrency rate would go down.
Too bad we can't see paid subscribers rather than logins to help distinguish the bots. yeah, yeah, bots buy plex from paying customers, but still if you want to know full up players...
DeleteEven if those two things are true, it means that few or no returning or new players joined after the expansion to replace them. In that heuristic, Odyssey is a failure.
DeleteThe ship rebalance was a major success in my opinion. There are a lot more different ships used and I bet the ships destroyed graph has also spiked through this adjustments.
ReplyDeleteAND PvP has become a lot cheaper with it. Those who run there 3 to [open end] mining char events to fund there PvP don't have to do that so often.
Yes the players active graph is a nice indicator but I don't think it represents the "satisfaction" with an expansion completely. It is an indicator, but only one of many.
If you have the time and fun with it, would be cool to see overlaying graphs with users online and destroyed ships over same time.
the MMO market is a shrinking market with some major new entries recently. External factors may also be a factor.
ReplyDelete