CCP dev blog about the longest and one of the largest battles in MMO history. If you consider yourself an MMO fan, consider it required reading, start to finish.
A few quick notes:
CCP gets it. Not only does the blog contain a ‘sales pitch’ at the end (something I know from personal experience hocking DF1 works amazingly well), but they also acted quickly to immortalize the event with the in-game monument. How many other MMOs have done that? How many devs have been so quick to do it? How many MMOs are even capable of anything close to this type of event?
This is the type of event that hammers home the sandbox theory of peaks and valleys and its importance to retention. I think its very safe to say that not only will this battle result in thousands of new players learning about EVE and giving it a shot, but will also server as reason for current null-sec players to keep going. This is the type of event that justifies shooting structures, mining ore, or running PvE content for ISK. And a large part of WHY it works so well is it’s rarity. If a battle of this scale happened often, it not only wouldn’t make news, it also wouldn’t serve as such a huge catalyst and motivator.
This type of event is also why EVE is the only MMO still growing after 11 years. It simply has content so unique to itself that it’s impossible to ‘burn out’ on all of it. Players take breaks, yes, but most pilots that get beyond the training stage never fully leave, because you are never really ‘done’ in New Eden, and there is always some hook pulling you back. It’s amazingly discouraging that seemingly no other developers are capable of creating anything similar in the genre, even after the blueprint has been out for 11 years.
Finally, there is a bit of sweet irony in the timing of all of this; as SOE shuts down so many of it’s failed MMOs, the ‘niche’ MMO that dwarfs all others in scope has one of its biggest event to date, one that will likely trigger at least a bump in continued growth.
Hardcore Casual 
I started January bitching about things being slow in EVE and mostly playing the training queue game. And then this happened. Now I am good for at least another six months of everyday life in New Eden.
Unfortunately this also shows perfectly EVE’s biggest problem: it’s way more fun to read about it then to actually play it. Case in point: you (and me). You’re not out there in 0.0, in the thick of it, shooting structures, sitting on a titan for 2 hours listening to DBRB talk about his lunch ribs, waiting for that rare one time mega event etc. You’re mostly playing “A lot of non-MMO stuff”, “occasionally change stations in EVE”, and wait for the next non-terrible MMO that will never come – while your EVE fun mainly comes from reading about cool stuff, singing its praises on the blog, and bashing its critics on forums. I know… cause I’m in the same boat.
Currently true; WH space and running a Corp burned me out a bit, and for me the barrier to fully return is whether or not to rebuild the Corp, something that I’ll either do all-out or not at all.
On the other hand, if events like this didn’t happen, would I still keep my accounts subbed and handing CCP money every month?
So you effectively have an EVE Annual Pass?
Not sure what you mean?
Subscribing is so much fun that you don’t actually even have to play the game! Subscriptions are magic!
Now I see what your problem with free to play is. Maybe if you burned $15 every month and then proceeded to not to play Lotro, you would enjoy that as well.
If only playing EVE Offline wasn’t more fun than actually playing LotRO or other F2P garbage, sure.
Well good for you. I actually enjoy playing games that I enjoy playing, I rarely enjoy being able to not play them. But luckily you’re paying a subscription fee to not play it, so it’s not a complete waste of time and money — by paying a subscription fee, you surely enjoy these stories about Eve a lot more than I do as I just free to read them.
Your lack of ability to understand long term engagement speaks of weakness of character.
I was subscribed to Darkfall and never played until they forum banned me.
Too bad it wasn’t an interesting in-game event instead of more of the same tired zoom-out-until-you-no-longer-know-you’re-playing-internet-spaceships zerg.
The only reason people read about this shit is because of the meta drama. The actual gameplay is worse than watching paint dry, and since CCP is an actual game developer, it’s a pretty epic fail on their part. Though to their credit they know how to milk the ignorant non-MMO-playing media like no company I’ve ever seen, and bloggers such as yourself fall dutifully in line.
I’m sure it will result in a temporary player uptick, and then when said players realize how a) rare and b) meaningless things like this really are, most of them will quit.
“I’m sure it will result in a temporary player uptick, and then when said players realize how a) rare and b) meaningless things like this really are, most of them will quit.”
Seriously. WTF is CCP doing. They should a) add in more high end items and ships for everyone (BoP officer mods?!?) and b) write more epic arc quests where capsuleers can be the star in a storyline where they personally singlehandedly save the cluster from a spacevillian! Meaningful stuff like that – quickly save EVE before the temporary player uptick goes away.
He makes a solid point, I mean, an 11 year player uptick is basically nothing. Gonna fade shortly and then its bankruptcy time for CCP.
Lol, when you can’t win the argument, put words in the other guy’s mouth!
You had an actual argument?
I was just out to troll a troll.
Where is ASL when you need him?
I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.
A-SL, you know very well that there is no point in any exchange of words with you so just stop wasting your time. It doesn’t make any difference whether, and what you say.
ASL is literally the best free entertainment I have ever encountered in any genre. I would sub to ASL forever if there was a way I could.
Yes EVE has a huge bleed off.
Any game that targets a specific kind of user with complete conviction should.
Most of them will quit.
The point is however, every user that they do in fact, retain, tends to be users indefinitely. Thats the business they are in because they are providing a service unlike any other.
If other games targeted a particular type of user with the same level of brilliance, we’d have more high quality sub games for everybody.
Too much zerg for my tastes. Condolences to the smaller zerg.
Eve’s still not as good as vanilla wow.
I’m on my second attempt to get into EVE (I have ~3m sp). I’m curious when you say, “most pilots that get beyond the training stage never fully leave”… what do you consider to be “beyond the training stage?”
I would say once you have found a Corp that is doing something, and really gotten into whatever they are doing (be it PvP, group PvE, Industry, WH space; plenty of options). Once you have a goal greater than “get some ISK, fly some ships, see some content”, and you start digging into that goal, you start to see the real depth of EVE and how things are connected. Then the stories of EVE go from being “stuff happening in some game” to “stuff happening that effects me in one way or another”.
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