pancho72

When people invest in the stock market, they invest in companies that produce things, add literal value in some way thats why there is a return on investment.

A game like this is a closed system, the only value that can be taken out is the money others put into it. The closest comparison is a pyramid scheme or gambling. For someone to make money others need to lose money, and since the developers of this game probably want their money first the player base as a whole will have a net loss.

@Utakata
Playing a game for the enjoyment seems to me to be almost the definition of casual.

But if we remove the term casual that means i can't use the argument, "We casuals demand...." *sadface*

Seriously though I always thought the hardcore/casual distinction was weird. It seems the professionals has switched to the term 'core', not that it makes it any better.
These days casual is a boardroom excuse for dilluting gameplay and saving money.

On another note I kind of like the word 'mob'. Reminds me of times of old that I never experienced. And I don't quite know what 'mob' means, but I have a faint idea. Mobile object...Movable object... Some kind of aggresive sprite I'm sure. Maybe monster object.

@Pelti

All races are identical now, except for the system they start in and some very basic initial skills. The character creation process is only for aesthetic purposes now.

They have changed the early game quite a lot.

Nice article. It's good to see a different point of view than the sensational news in the press.

In my experience some players give up on EvE because it is very different from their expectations. EvE has some mechanics that seems similar to other MMOs but works very different in practice. EvE doesn't have progression as a game mechanic for instance, this seems to take many people by surprise. A lot of people also look for a type of avatar or persona central to gameplay. This doesn't really exist. In EvE you are not your ship or your character the way people are used to from other MMOs.

Leveling is a side dish. It's a great metric for progress and can make for some interesting meta gameplay. But when leveling becomes the whole meal it feels unsatisfying.

/stereotype mode on

When women get bored with gender stereotypes they start a revolution.

When men get bored with gender stereotypes they roll female and start drooling.

@Fakeassname

It does seem to be an odd pyramid scheme they have going, I wonder if they thought it through ;-)

Or it could be just bad wording on the site.

With Paradox' weird scheme in mind I'd better post an innocent link as well
http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=35e51470ffb

*whistle*

"To solve this problem, CCP plans tailor each to a specific combat role. The Slasher might end up being a specialised tackler, for example, while the Rifter could remain a heavy-hitting combat ship."

I think this illustrates the daunting task that CCP faces, because how can a frigate become a heavy hitting combat ship in competition with larger ships like BCs?
Making a niche for one ship can easily push other ships out of the spotlight.

I think one of the issues is that some ships are too versatile in an already versatile system. The new tier 3 BCs are probably how all BCs should have been designed in the first place. Fast and heavy-hitting but without the drones or weapons to defend against smaller ships. That could create a niche for combat frigates as anti-BC or BC escort ships. This probable wont happen unless the old BCs get redesigned along the same lines, and then we may run into the issue of only having one viable BC pr. race.

It's like a multi-headed hydra, kill one head and another pops up. :-)

@tenfootgoatman

I might play that as well. And WoW has such a huge userbase that splitting it into various rule servers wouldn't make much of a negative impact.
WoW could experiment with alternate rule servers in many ways, they are one of the few games with a big enough user base to pull it off.

Another thing I would love to see, would be F2P games having subscription servers without cash shops. I would start playing Lotro again if that happened. Quite a few other games could also benefit from that.