New efforts!

[Aron]

However, the contrast between something like 2009's pinnacle expansion Apocrypha, and this cesspool of human degradation CCP has sunk to in more recent years, is something I can't ignore.

Being part of that cesspool of human degradation I guess I'm a bit biased but I think you overstate the case a bit there.  I'll just continue to mine in my Orca with my limited edition ship skin.  The proceeds which CCP used to promote breast cancer awareness.

http://www.alpha-orbital.com/news/rosada-dawn-skins-available-in-support-of-breast-cancer-awareness

[LateNights]

Being part of that cesspool of human degradation I guess I'm a bit biased but I think you overstate the case a bit there.  I'll just continue to mine in my Orca with my limited edition ship skin.  The proceeds which CCP used to promote breast cancer awareness.

http://www.alpha-orbital.com/news/rosada-dawn-skins-available-in-support-of-breast-cancer-awareness

He's not saying it just because you play the game - more so that there is a toxic element to the game community sufficiently bad enough for him to avoid it at the cost of playing.

[LateNights]

What happened is bad enough without making up extra details. All that's left is the idea that the intention was literally that the other party commit suicide and I really still don't see any reason to suppose that's the case - any more than I think the (utterly toxic) anti-gankers literally want gankers to get cancer, no matter how often they say it.

Sure, but what if the guy actually had of commited suicide as a result?

A joke in poor taste is bad enough - but a personal attack (especially on someone in a vulnerable state), is downright criminal!!

[MegaWatt]

EVE is a large sand box, the only problem is that the owner is a jerk who left the cover off the sandbox and taught all the neighborhood cats to crap in it because he thinks its funny to have kids find turds in the sandbox to see how badly it ruins their fun.

[Surelle]

[Shadowsmith]

I tried Eve long ago. The fiction on the site caught my attention and I love the setting.

Then I played it. I made the mistake of thinking I could jump in and play without spending a few days studying the forums. I decided to play a former slave turned scientist.

It didn't take long for me to discover that I was better off paying the subscription and having my character advance his skills while off-line than actively playing him. So, I made an alt, but didn't want to pay another subscription fee so my first character stopped advancing.

This time I made an asteroid miner. And discovered that without dedicated bodyguards, I would never make money. I tried trading. I joined a Corporation but the corp's fees exceeded what I could earn with my early skills and gear.

I played for a year. At least once a month I lost a ship and my pod. Everyone I met suggested that I get multiple accounts so I could advance multiple characters and use one to protect another. In the end, I dropped out. I watched a friend of mine who had five accounts work about forty hours a week at Eve and earn enough that he could pay for three of his accounts with in-game earnings.

Eve isn't for me. If you enjoy it, awesome! I found some stuff that I loved. But for me, the community and the devs killed the game.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Eve Online is unique in many ways, so I don't think you can argue that its success or failure hinges on just one aspect of its gameplay.  But if you choose to do so, Eve Online actually represents the *success* of the open PvP model, in that it is a long-lasting successful MMO that has grown its subscriber base for most of the years of its existence, all while maintaining a relatively laissez faire attitude towards open PvP.  Lineage 2, if I recall correctly, has open PvP, and I believe it has a larger player base than many non-open PvP MMOs.

Probably equally interesting to note is that Eve Online is currently one of the most successful subscription-based MMOs out there.  In a world where F2P is squeezing the subscription market and stealing customers, Eve has resisted most of that pressure in recent years.  It apparently doesn't have quite as much subscribers as it did at its peak, but it is still flirting with around 400k of them.  That's a medium-sized MMO in general, but it is a pretty large subscriber-based MMO.

It is completely fair to say its success is probably based on multiple different areas.  I don't mean to paint the game with one shade.  But the free for all nature is a big part of its draw I would say.  Open PVP and bandit playstyles also lead to cooperation among players which leads to player run economies and eventually large coalitions.  I guess I was more so trying to imply the wild west style of it is a big reason why many will go, but others will stay.

[Arcana]

While Mittens was a complete drunken oaf on that occasion, and was very lucky not to get banned (especially given the bans handed out years later to the "Bonus Room" crowd), I don't think one can really suppose he was literally trying to get anyone to commit suicide; rather, he was making a joke in astonishingly poor taste.

Surelle I think describes the context of this fairly well.  The point I want to make is that drunkedness does not excuse poor conduct.  Anyone who believes that drunkedness can make people do otherwise abhorrent things beyond their control shouldn't drink alcohol.  If someone believes alcohol can compel someone to do abhorrent things outside their control and then consumes alcohol, I believe they are fully responsible for their actions because they were fully responsible for their decision to consume a substance they believe will eliminate their self-control.

Intent follows the bullet.  If you believe alcohol can be a cause of otherwise unacceptable conduct, then alcohol is a bullet.  Once you choose to fire it, you are responsible for all the damage it causes where ever it goes.  Saying I was drunk and that's why I did a bad thing is actually worse to me, in the same sense that setting off a bomb in a public place is in many ways worse to me than walking up to someone and trying to strangle them.

[Aron]

The Mittani and Goonswarm.  Making EvE look bad for a decade.  There was a reason darn near every other null sec corp finally kicked their ass last year.

[Tyger42]

CCP's own results suggest ganking improves player retention

How exactly do they test for that? It's not like they've had an alternate data point to compare to. Eve retains a bit of a niche player base, sure, but how did they test to see if that player base is larger than if they didn't allow people to be assholes? Comparing to other MMOs doesn't work because, well, those are other MMOs with a whole lot of variables. The fact they're retaining a player base now doesn't mean they wouldn't be growing a bigger and better one if things changed.

[Aron]

How exactly do they test for that? It's not like they've had an alternate data point to compare to. Eve retains a bit of a niche player base, sure, but how did they test to see if that player base is larger than if they didn't allow people to be assholes? Comparing to other MMOs doesn't work because, well, those are other MMOs with a whole lot of variables. The fact they're retaining a player base now doesn't mean they wouldn't be growing a bigger and better one if things changed.

This was actually addressed at one of the EvE fest panels.  Here is a link to the youtube video of the presentation.

https://youtu.be/A92Ge2S8M1Y?t=114

What it came down to is that they found that players who were ganked early on in their play time tended to have a higher retention rate.  The trend lines were apparently quite clear.

I suspect trying to change this in EvE would go over about as well as the New Game Enhancements did in Star Wars Galaxies.

[Brigadine]

The Mittani and Goonswarm.  Making EvE look bad for a decade.  There was a reason darn near every other null sec corp finally kicked their ass last year.

Honestly, I feel like mittens and goons are representative of the base. It is a sociopathy simulator. If you aren't a sociopath like me you don't really have much fun with it.

[JaguarX]

Well, NCSoft is resurrecting Statesman in their new game Master x Master, any thoughts guys? Lol. I'm torn, part of me feels like this is throwing salt on CoX fans wounds... The other side of me feels as though maybe this is a hint of a possible return? Not sure how to feel at the moment.

http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/21/master-x-master-announces-a-closed-beta-date-and-adds-city-of-heroes-statesman-to-its-roster/

hmmm. interesting. No telling the true intentions. Might just be a simple using IP they already have laying around. Not the first time a company done this and probably wont be the last.

Although for better or worse, it do dispel the rumor that they qould simply sit on it.

What is the punch behind this move? Hell that I know.

[Tubbius]

And in the RP section, I resurrect, after a long time, the ongoing story of Waddle the Penguin!  Enjoy, folks! 

[Stitchified]

Arenanet are still part and parcel of NCsoft.

Interesting thing about Arenanet is that there's only been the one founder (Mike something, I can't remember his last name at the moment and I'm too lazy to make a new tab and google it, yes, I'm THAT lazy at the moment.) out of the three at Arenanet for about what? 8, 9 years now?

[cmgangrel]

Interesting thing about Arenanet is that there's only been the one founder (Mike something, I can't remember his last name at the moment and I'm too lazy to make a new tab and google it, yes, I'm THAT lazy at the moment.) out of the three at Arenanet for about what? 8, 9 years now?

Not *all* that strange when you get down to it....

Mike O'Brien: Still present
Patrick Wyatt: Left in 2010 to become COO of En Masse Entertainment (TERA), Joined Undead Labs in 2014, then in November 2015 went to Amazon Studios
Jeff Strain: Left in 2009 to found Undead Labs (State of Decay)

Note: They all left Blizzard in 2000, where they all had relatively high ranking positions (O'Brien was a director and lead programmer, Wyatt was Vice President of Research and Development and a senior programmer and Strain was lead programmer on World of Warcraft)

[thunderforce]

Sure, but what if the guy actually had of commited suicide as a result?

I'm not saying it wasn't grossly irresponsible. All I'm saying is I don't think there's any reason to believe there was actual intent to make that happen.

Not only did he reveal the poor guy's name at the Fanfest,

He didn't. That link doesn't say he did; it say he revealed the guy's _in-game_ name. You've made claims about his IRL identity being revealed, which are obviously untrue since Mittens would have had no way of knowing it to begin with. You can watch the actual video of the incident; there's no IRL details at all.

CCP knew he was going to try and goad a player into committing suicide at said Fanfest

Of course they didn't; they're not idiots. As that thread discusses, it's not confirmed that CCP Soundwave was even on the recording (one we can't hear, so I don't think you should accept some random person on the forums' analysis of it as gospel truth), and the idea that CCP knew that might happen and decided it would be an excellent idea is frankly ludicrous.

The point I want to make is that drunkedness does not excuse poor conduct.

I'm not saying it does; when I say Mittens was a drunken oaf, "drunken" is just as much a condemnation as "oaf".

[Taceus Jiwede]

How exactly do they test for that? It's not like they've had an alternate data point to compare to. Eve retains a bit of a niche player base, sure, but how did they test to see if that player base is larger than if they didn't allow people to be assholes? Comparing to other MMOs doesn't work because, well, those are other MMOs with a whole lot of variables. The fact they're retaining a player base now doesn't mean they wouldn't be growing a bigger and better one if things changed.

If they changed the game they could risk losing their 400k sub base.  The game is fine the way it is now, it just isn't right for everyone.  It would be much worse to the ruin the nature of the game in an attempt to make it friendly for everyone to play.  In fact, I respect they won't change the game, nothing bothers me more than modern MMO's or games that feel like they have to appeal to everyone. 

[Solitaire]

This is an interesting read, things not looking so good for NCSoft at present, but I'm not an expert so it may even mean nothing!

http://massivelyop.com/2017/05/11/ncsofts-q1-2017-financials-show-tumbles-for-lineage-guild-wars-2-plus-new-leadership-for-lineage-eternal/

[Tyger42]

This was actually addressed at one of the EvE fest panels.  Here is a link to the youtube video of the presentation.

https://youtu.be/A92Ge2S8M1Y?t=114

What it came down to is that they found that players who were ganked early on in their play time tended to have a higher retention rate.  The trend lines were apparently quite clear.

Thing is, because the game is known to attract and encourage that type of gameplay, the players it attracts are prone to be ones that like that type of gameplay. So, of course they're going to be the ones who last longer. It's not really a valid study without a control group. And that's more than a little complicated to accomplish with something like this.