EVE: Obscurity

Should be the name of the new expansion when it hits. Why? Because EVE is a sleeper. It's the sleepiest of all sleepers. So sleepy that hardly anyone knows about it, and those that do end up discovering it will more than likely quit within a few days.

I'm an avid gamer, I'm also very computer savvy. EVE isn't that hard a game for me to grasp. Not everyone who enjoys games is a complete nerd, nor should they have to be. This is one of the things that is holding EVE back in my opinion. It is unintuitive. Even with the help of a spoken tutorial, the game can be difficult to learn. Yes, even with instructions, that tell you what to do, it can be hard to get that job done.

There are fetch quests, kill missions, money making professions, PvP, and so on. Just like any other MMO. The difference? EVE does these things less intuitively than anything I've played. The designer in me cries foul at the way some things have been implemented. But the user reaction to change is so harsh, and so unwelcome. Like the people who play the game don't want any more people to play, which is a sad thing. MMO's are generally about lots of people playing the game. Especially with the single server model, more players could mean great things for EVE.

But it won't happen.

When I spoke up in the in-game chat, saying that EVE wasn't intuitive, the response was "if it was more intuitive, it wouldn't be EVE." Another person said something (I don't remember what exactly) that would describe a job or school, something like "it requires you to work hard, and to learn it in order to get anything out of it." The gamers who partake in EVE, they don't seem to be gamers at all. The best words I can use to describe them now are employees, and students.

It's... Weird.

The majority of EVE players have what I would call the same mentality as the hardcore populous of WoW. That they take the game very seriously, and any changes to the game that would detract from their previous experiences. Things that would, in effect, make the experience for new users different to the previous experience of current users. These things are unwelcome. And like I've said, it's sad.

Given the sheer size of the in-game world, and the unique single server model. This game could more realistically portray the whole space-adventure thing. Having fifty- or a hundred-thousand people over thousands of systems. That instead of the twenty-five thousand people spread over some five thousand systems.

Well, my post about the first change that would help move things along is on their forums, and CCP is quite alright to use it if they wish. But chances are they won't.

From the company's point of view, it is not satisfactory to see customer after customer play your game for free (at your expense) for 14 or 21 days, and then disappear. Not only that, but they are losing out on word-of-mouth advertising. Are you going to recommend a game you don't like? Course not. I tried recommending EVE to one of my mates with whom I played WoW for 3 years, and he has quit before the end of the trial. My girlfriend, who I live and play games with has also not continued with EVE; again, before the end of the trial. In fact, my girlfriend's opinion is that the game is good, but a lot of it is just too hard, and not explained well enough.

If I didn't quit WoW, I wouldn't be playing EVE. If EVE doesn't change for the better, it will only lose more customers. Enough said.