Despite a year so far of extreme changes, future promises, vibrant lore, new ships, and continued balancing, 2015 looks abysmal from the 50,000 feet view.
 |
| From Eve Offine |
As I've said before, players logged in is the best measure of health of the game and right now it has a very disturbing trend. CCP is trying everything to get the excitement in the playerbase and for certain segments like high sec and low sec I think they have succeeded. I suspect a lot of the decline is coming mostly from null sec and a little from wormhole space, the former wither holding its breath in wait for Fozzie Sov coming next week or giving up altogether and the latter really languishing from inattention over the past year (last I heard, no new Down the Pipe podcast lately to update me).
The question of whether those null sec players are merely waiting for the changes before logging back in or have left the game entirely will be answered when Fozzie Sov lands next week. We will either see a significant uptick in logged in player numbers which doesn't have to be large but merely sustained to allow null sec vibrancy to recover, or we will see an uptick as people check it out followed by a return to low numbers (or worse, increasing decline) soon thereafter signalling that EVE is entering its twilight years.
To end the post on a positive note, eve in EVE is entering the twilight years it does not mean that the game will not continue to be fun and engaging for years, if not decades to come. There might be more ghost towns out in null sec space but people looking for action will move to where the action is, a kind of natural server consolidation. There can be decades of PvP and exploration left in the game for current and future players, just not at the concentration and locations of the past.
So don't despair, just prepare.
Posts
Interesting post. I've not been to null in an age, but where I am atm (hisec) it's much quieter than normal (foolishly I resubbed to play with T3 dessies and maybe try lowsec pvp roams with them).
ReplyDeleteThe starter systems are dead by comparison to what they were like when I last created an alt. Trade hubs are still busy but less people than there would normally be.
It's not just null that is losing players. Hisec players are heading for the exit as well. This is always the case tbh. Carebears get griefed, ragequit and more suckers come in to replace them but churn is no longer sufficient to keep the number of players active in hisec at their previous levels.
Also... PLEX prices. nearly 1bn isk now. There are less on the market than before. I suspect that less people are buying them from CCP to put on the market in the first place, not good. I'd suggest this points to less hisec players too.
Only CCP know the truth behind all this so we're all p*ssing in the wind with our speculation but I've a feeling this can get very interesting very quickly.
Good blog btw, some interesting stuff.
Most players are in high sec.
ReplyDeleteHowever nearly all the feedback, analysis and politicking comes from players in dangerous space.
I do wonder if CCP, in listening to its player base, is ignoring the majority of its players in favour of a loud minority. Where are high sec mining and missions, the content of very casual players, on the priority list?
They're invisible, silent, and totally ignored.
DeleteIf there's such a thing as regulatory capture for MMORPGs, then CCP has well and truly been possessed. If any of these acts are in the interest of high-sec players, then I must be truly mis-reading what CCP has professed and said.
When the null-sec players sit above the wasteland that they call peace, how long do you think CCP will last? Players have shown that they have influence. How long before the calls for Hilmar et al. to go are the only calls left?
Admire the passing of the storm, for it hits neither of us.
Rob K.
Practically all of the player loss is coming from highsec, while null, low and WH activity are stable. http://greedygoblin.blogspot.hu/2015/07/june-ratting-data.html
ReplyDeletehttp://greedygoblin.blogspot.hu/2014/07/if-more-people-log-in-more-x-happens.html
And it is going to get a lot worse in high sec. The enormous gift in anom quantity and quality, plus the sharp decrease in wh's opening into null sec, that the cartel lackey announced this week drives another nail into the high sec coffin. High sec income generation was again cut in half relative to null sec as null sec income was just more than doubled. We are going to see hordes of afk ratting carriers creating far more ISK out of thin air, and I expect we will see plexes near 1.5 billion by Sept.
DeleteHigh sec players will quit rather than try to compete in that kind of inflationary trend. On the plus side, deadspace modules are going to be very cheap. Of course, that will then exert downward pressure on LP based modules, driving high sec profitability down even further.
Brilliant move CCP, pure brilliance.
Assuming you're Dinsdale, there's no need to prophesy doom. It has come already. I used to believe you were absurd. Perhaps you were right.
DeleteDulce et decorum est, pro Highsec mori.
Rob K.
He is Dinsdale (Monty Python sketch... Dinsdale Piranha nailed Vince Snettertons head to the floor... very cheerfully).
DeleteThe tinfoil is strong in this one, but he's right unless CCP finds a way to change things for the better in hisec, big time and fast.
Good to watch though. /popcorn
And I'm not apologising for the Latin.
DeleteRob K.
In my opinion high sec is very close to be, to all purposes, broken=dead. There're a lot of markers, massive market overstock (even by EVE standard), zero content besides CODE (completely toxic for the game as a whole), almost no profession worth the time (ISK-wise). And CCP lacks the required knowledge of the metagame to solve it as it's already happenned with no-FW low sec, C1, C2, C3 wh, entire regions of null, bounty hunting, exploring, etc.
ReplyDeleteThis was meant to be a reply to Gevlon
Delete