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So how long will EvE last then?
LordSlater
Member Posts: 2,087
Just wondering what everyone thinks on this subject feel free to post your reasons why you think you do.
I think eve has a long future in it i can even imagine it lasting another 6 years easy.
Why to begine with the Devs seem very dedicated to the game itself. The player base seems pretty mature and the Graphics are about to be updated to DX10 status Or DX9 for those who dont want to have Windows Vista.
Also the Manufacturing syatem is pretty big, as well as the market which is player driven 100%.
Also i love the combat and no its not just orbit and fire till someone dies 
if it really was like that it definatly wouldnt last eve wont.
Also devs want to add planetry terraforming/colonizing/flight. Nebulas System wide asteroid fields cave systems in asteroids RTS planetry surface combat. now iof these do get added ill change to 8+ years 
Comments
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Killer 86%, Socializer 53%, Explorer 33%, Achiever 26%
I voted more than 8 years, that may be a wee bit high. But I trust the dev's commitment to EVE
I chose More Than 8 Years.
Why?
Because if people can continue to play EverQuest 1, then Eve will continue to keep people. After a while I wouldn't see it bringing in anymore new people, but I can honestly say that this game will be tough to beat. That, therefore, means it is the game I will stick with (and many others will as well) until something else comes out that just blows my mind. That I don't see happening for at least another few years, and by then Eve will most likely be able to compete with it. Games that break the mold are few and far between these days, and the distance is getting longer.
SobaKai.com
There are two types of people in this world - people that suck... and me.
CCP is doing far more tho. Working on a Cell Phone aplet allowing skill change. integrated VOIP in a MMO. Expanding the tech 1 ship lineup. And tech 2 items not all being released at once. The number of specialized ships is also expanding.
You have recon ships, command ships, logistics ships, cloaked bombers, and a whole slew of others. My only complaint is not enough US players
I've voted three more years, because no matter how much you update there will come a time when the game is no longer adaptable enough to deal with competition. That goes for any MMO btw.
At some point, assuming CCP gets some competition in the sandbox subgenre, there'll be a point at which reworking Eve will no longer be continuable when compared with the possibilities offered by development of a new title. Seeing how the MMO landscape is moving faster then ever before in terms of changing markets and intorduction of these subgenres with their own market and inherent issues I'd say that Eve's mechanics will not be able to be adapted in an econimical way in a few years.
It's like the topic of walking around with avatars, or planetary flights and so on. They're not going to happen simply because it would be so much easier and convenient (not to mention logical) to start work on a new title that incorporates mechanics and roles for these features from teh start rather then adding all kinds of difficult features along the way.
I've got no problems with that btw. Been playing since the start and never expected the title to last longer then somewhat above average for games that survive the first year. So a total lifespan of 6-8 years sounds good to me.
Some of it may be pie-in-the-sky dreaming but everything they've done up to now indicates that they have a strong desire to continue to evolve the game over time.
I don't see it lasting much longer than three, and if they move the game where I think they are going to move it, probably two.
I think EVE and CCP are in pretty decent financial shape now, but the future in terms of player retention looks grim...and they know it. Yes, growth was strong since 2005 in terms of subscriptions. The number of people playing these subscriptions though, I suspect, are far, far fewer than 100,000. I suspect 50,000...and falling. I think EVE, at least Tranquility, has peaked, which is one of the reasons they felt so strongly they had to go to China, while they still had a peak number of subs on Tranquility.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Right and the fact that ccp were required by law to setup a new server in china had nothing to do with this.
You do realise all Online games have to be Hosted in china due to censorship rules.
Also running eve in china from london was generating a HUGE load on the server due to the Large distance.
Also Eve-china had to be redesigned to apply to Chinas moral ideas such as no democratic races like the Gilent.
Right and the fact that ccp were required by law to setup a new server in china had nothing to do with this.
You do realise all Online games have to be Hosted in china due to censorship rules.
Also running eve in china from london was generating a HUGE load on the server due to the Large distance.
Also Eve-china had to be redesigned to apply to Chinas moral ideas such as no democratic races like the Gilent.
All the more reason why the China move raises some questions with me concerning Tranquility.
Yeah, the China move, as you say, was a big switch, and a big investment. Which makes me wonder why exactly they felt the need to go there, if they still had room to grow here?
I do not think, given everything you said, they are going to China because they wanted to. Everything I see makes me think that they went to China because they had to go, or risk collapse.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
The game is growing and looks to remain growing for the near (1-2 years) future. The competition in the space MMOG market is sparse and thanks to the failure of almost every other space MMO, looks to remain sparse for a few years (Star Trek Online being an exception, but I'm always leery of TV/Movie franchises brought to games).
The math just doesn't look like what you are saying is indeed the case, RollinDutch.
Oveur is a master of spin, but he unwittingly showed how much this game was in trouble in terms of subscriber retention in February of this year. It was when he posted the character stratics for the number of characters on Tranquility, and where their skillpoints were at.
Now I added up all the totals, and came up with about 81% of total characters having 1 million skillpoints or less as of February of this year. About the same time that they posted their 100K benchmark subscription totals.
However, what raised an eyebrow for me statistically was when he said this:
"...the average EVE player only stays for 7 months."
That statement was made by the executive producer in February of this year,and the first indication to me that the prognosis of EVE was grim. You see, that is an arithmatic average for a game that at that time was around for 32 months. The median retention, a much more accurate indicator for what we are trying to measure, is probably much lower. Maybe in the 1 to 2 month range.
But even if we use Oveur's statistic, it doesn't look good. You see, that 81% of characters with skill points 1 million or lower are at the time right now when according to the mean retention average, the players who play them as their mains should be leaving. That is, of course, unless the characters so listed are,
1) Alts of vets.
or
2) Trials.
Neither of these two things however shows the game to be growing in terms of new subscribing players. Only, at best, for new accounts from already established players.
If we take out the characters under 1 million SP, we get about 80,000 characters on tranquility who have existed greater than one month. Now that says nothing about the number of players behind them, and I would venture to say in terms of my corporation, and others I have talked to, about 3/4 of the people in my admittedly small data pool have multiple accounts. One has five accounts.
So let's just be easy on CCP, and say that 25% of the playerbase has two accounts. That comes to a grand total of:
60,000 players subscribing to EVE as of February of this year, and that's being more than fair.
The truth is probably half that. Maybe less, and even if we accept Oveur's mean retention rate of seven months (which is, I would argue, not as good of a measure as the median), most of those players in February of this year are already gone, or leaving in the next few months.
Now I'm no statistical expert like some I know, but it doesn't take a statistical expert to see that CCP and EVE is not a "breakout hit." From just that simple data from that February 22nd blog, its a game that has the uncanny ability to sustain itself with a suprisingly meager population of extreme long term subscribers through multiple account sales, "tourists" who perhaps subscribe for 1 to 2 months before leaving, and the occasional new subscriber who stays and "toughs it out" in a game that everyone admits is extremely difficult for a new player to gain a foothold without a lot of help from an established group of players.
Which brings me back to my point about China. It was perhaps the only place left where they could get new subscribers, because they ran through pretty much everyone here in the West who had even the slightest desire to play EVE in their three years, and by next year, subs will start to take a big hit.
If you get a record increase in subs beyond expectation for over a year, and your average player retention rate is less than a year, then what do you think is going to happen to the lion's share of those new subscribers in a year's time according to the facts you know about your players?
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
A very good post a genuine suprise to see on these forums usually spammed by fanbois from other games.
As for another reason to have an eve china server on its first day of beta 30 thousand people logged on with 50 thousand right now this sort of tells me that ccp is after the vast player market in asia now. And why not its a source of income after all.
And i do agree that one day eve will one day die but personally i think it will be a slow peoacfull death not a quick violent one like we have seen with some now defunct games.
Who knows what will happen in the future? But right now, CCP and Eve Online seems to be on an upward curve and IMO the devs passion for the game and the desire to keep the game at the cutting edge in space MMO's. Because they do this with little competition atm tells me that Eve Online is going to be around for quite awhile. At a rough estimate I'd say maybe 5 more years and that's only if there are no changes to the game. Seeing the devs attitude and their innovativeness (Eve-TV, integrated chat) and diesire to improve the game, it wouldn't surprise me if Eve is still around in 10 years and still going strong, probably long after I stop playing.
I guess it all boils down to the fact that eve has NO competition in its are.
Meaning there are no other Space MMO's out there.
And this is unlikely to change anytime soon as most other game companys seem afraid to try anything thats genuinly new or different. They all seem comfortable to stay with the generic Fantasy MMO right now.
Personally, I'd eventually like to see a merger of EvE and a BattleTech sort of thing, where the planets we fight above in EVE become ground combat zones as well. But that clearly would be years off if it could ever be done. It wouldn't be battletech, it would have to be something similar, I believe the Battletech license is scattered to the four winds.
Crusis
PURE Alliance
EvE Online
Do they clean up the exploiters and the greifers and do more to crush the isk sellers??
I have high high hopes.
If they let it go like it is right now???
I am not sure it will last more than a few more months for me.
I have had some really bad experiances here lately.
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock
do tell?
linkage please
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock
do tell?
linkage please
I had a quick serch for it cant seem to find it tho it was one of the dev blogs from this year tho if that helps.
And basically what was said was it would be RTS based.
currenttly eve uses alot of cpu to rend it graphics the new version that is coming is going to take advantage of those wonderful 6800gt and 7800gt and shift some more of the work off the cpu.
I have heard that they are looking at allowing players to colonize unpopulated worlds and gain ISK and market benefits from that. but that is dev blog way out stuff..
now bundling some planet side type mecha/ grav tank kind of stuff to this game could be uber cool.
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock