Why EVE is not a PvP game.
One of the most irritating things I come across in gaming is the relative ease in which players accept a game and a few of it’s goals as a rule of the game, or as the definition of a game. In example:
Raiding, by many, is considered to be THE game. Before raiding, you are doing nothing but preparing for raiding.
Role-play is the sole purpose of the game, some think, being that the very act of logging in is an act of role-play.
One of my favorite examples, one that fired off one of those fun Twitter arguments done in 140-word sections, (but great fun because I know so many damn smart people! 
) is that “EVE is a PvP game.” Not only is EVE not a PvP game, but PvP can be one of the smallest parts of the game.
First of all, the base of the game is the PvE environment. Picture EVE as a machine, a giant wheel turning with gears and motion. Many seem to think that EVE is somehow a perpetual motion machine, a series of gears and pulleys that create it’s own energy, just to keep running some more. Of course, like a perpetual motion machine, a player-fueled-only game is impossible. EVE players do not provide the energy to drive the machine. Without the environment and interacting with it, the game would grind to a halt within a short amount of time. There must be a stream of NPC missions, loot, and cash flowing into the game or the game would just stop. The PvE provides the energy that the machine needs to turn. The players play within the machine.
If you had (JUST an example, this is just a random number) let’s say 1 trillion ISK, and suddenly asteroids did indeed become limited in number, (they are unlimited right now) and all of the NPC ships stayed dead when killed, (there are endless numbers of NPC’s) and all the interactions with the PvE environment stopped, the game would die. That 1 trillion would quickly get ferreted away by a few huge corps, and nothing else would happen. The asteroids would be mined until they were all gone, and ISK would disappear. There can be no “player driven economy” with only players participating. Even the small amount that NPC’s put into the economy, with all their missions and buying of goods, equal enough energy to keep the machine going.
Here is a simple question: if you magically took away PvP, or made PvP impossible (like all of space became non-pvp enabled), would EVE stop being able to be played and enjoyed?
The answer would be no. Not only that, but there would be many players (off in their missions, the ones that sit in their stations and rarely leave like my podcasting friend’s do) that would probably never even know. Would it become a different game? Yes. But, instead of pirates you would have NPC ships camping you. Instead of other players attacking you, you could have spawned ships. The game can live (and does in many areas) without any influence from PvP.
Now, if you took away the endless NPC drops and all that the environment gives a player, could the game be played and enjoyed? The fruits of mining, for example, (the very basis for most of the game, the stuff that everything is made of) does not come from players. It comes from the environment and players interacting with it.
The answer would be no. There would be no EVE. The perpetual motion machine would grind to a halt, losing it’s energy to the frictions of PvP and player/player interaction. Without that supply of energy (in whatever amount) from the environment and the interactions with it, there would be nothing.
This is not an attempt to say “haha! Without the game there would be no game!”
This is simply an attempt to say that calling EVE a “PvP game”, indicating that PvP is the sole/majority game-play that players participate in, is not only false but impossible. The bulk of the time in your ship is an interaction with the environment. In fact, take away using “PvE” as the other way to describe EVE besides “PvP.” It would be more accurately described as PIE, or Players Interacting with the Environment. Versus is referring to players locked in combat with NPC’s, which is as small of a part of the game as PvP.
Using “PvP game” to describe any game out right now discounts all the other interactions and activities that have absolutely nothing to do with PvP.
In an example, a blogging friend of mine mis-understood my statement that “the death penalty in Darkfall was meaningless.” He went on to to confess that my statement was true when he considered that “glory”, or the virtual defeat of my enemies (just to be rezzed again to start the cycle over again) was not one of my goals, not important, and not meaningful. (I am not saying it had no meaning for him, though.)
In EVE, PvP is pretty much meaningless. Nothing happens when you die. Can something happen? Yes. But many things can happen in these games, many things that have nothing to do with Player versus Player, that can be meaningful. When I die in EVE, I get paid insurance and lose nothing that I cannot replace. My character isn’t hurt, and I resurrect just to do it again. And, after all, even if I lost all my skill points and were reduced to a penniless pod, ISK is endless. Why? Not thanks to players, but thanks to the environment. I can raise my nation once again, even after being brought to the lowest point. Thanks to that energy coming from the environment.
Now, if I accidentally hit my delete key and destroy a character I have raised for 5 years, I might feel bit of regret at that.
Point is, just because something can happen (like being effected by PvP) does not mean that the game is ruled by that possibility. I would not call EVE an “accidental deletion of your character game” so why should I call it a “PvP game”?
To any of you EVE vets reading this: you, of all people, know that a player can easily avoid PvP in EVE. That’s what makes EVE a successful “hardcore” game with a ton of players and PvP-featuring games like Darkfall or WAR barely live on two or four servers. Giving players that choice (to be a non-pvp’er) is a very smart thing to do. Obviously it worked for EVE. Again, I will bet good money that most players spend most of their time out of PvP.
So why do you refer to it as a “PvP game?”
Not only is it selling EVE short, with all it’s glorious lore and role-play potential, but it sells the player-base short. I would like to think that many players in EVE are pretty smart, creative people. Smart creative people have many goals in a game like EVE, and many of those goals have nothing to do with, or are effected by, or effect, PvP. If a player wants to follow some made-up set of rules, such as “if you don’t PvP, you’re not playing”, that’s fine. But I choose to take a “sandbox” like EVE and play how I want.
In fact, from now on, I am going to refer to EVE as a “Player Versus Mining” game, being that mining and the act of gathering materials, is more of an integral part of EVE than PvP or PvE. Does PvP effect some areas of the game? Of course. But it is not the all-powerful force in the game by far. The all-powerful force in any game will always stem from the environment and it’s fuel for the (almost) perpetual machine.
Beau
Well that’s a shot across the bow if ever I’ve read one. LOL “Player vs. Mining” Get ready for the outrage.
“[If] suddenly asteroids did indeed become limited in number, (they are unlimited right now)”
Only tangentially relevant to your example, but respawn rates are finite, hence the mineral supply is limited. CCP decided to boost the hisec Veld respawn rate substantially over summer because demand for Trit had been so high belts were permanently dusty, since players (mining gangs) with competing for their finite resources. Hisec mining had become quite unpopular in some quarters (see Julie Whitefeather’s comments on her blog for example). Mining pilots compete with each other for limited environmental resources – they hunt for quiet areas with decent belts, grumble when local gets too busy, take offence when someone starts mining in “their” belt.
Ice harvesting is closer to your intended example (finite asteroids but effectively infinite icicle supply) but that crosses over into the direct-fire PvP realm, since there are those roaming gangs of comedy exhumer-gankers that so worry people.
In your physics I think “energy” and “matter” are the wrong way around. Players provide energy (personal motivation, force, desire, action) to a gameworld. Their desires are the fuel for the machine.
The players act on the environment which responds to those actions by providing a faucet of matter (items, ISK, loyalty points, moon materials). Further player energy and that matter can interact with other parts of the game environment (industry, reactions, etc), and transform that matter into other forms. ISK itself does nothing, changes nothing. It is the players’ desire for ISK that causes them to take action, to attract it, to give it away in exchange for other goods, to change the world-state.
“So why do you refer to it as a “PvP game?””
I think an issue is the scope of the term “PvP”. You didn’t define it, but appear to be using it in the narrow sense of “shooting weapons at another pod pilot.”
EVE players usually recognise market activity as PvP (they are, after all, competing for sales and purchases). Via the market, the “direct fire” PvP arena has an enormous economic impact on risk-averse players. The price of mission loot meta-4 items or salvage parts is only so high because people out in low and null sec keep fitting them to their ships and getting them blown up, the same for implants. During summer Helium Isotope prices spiked by 30% thanks to nullsec tower spam? Another massive capital fleet loss, driving the trit price back up? Thank you very much, combat pilots, I’ll take my cut of those profits.
“[PvP] is not the all-powerful force in the game by far”
On the contrary, in the case of EVE, it is the item loss caused by direct-fire PvP (and occasional missioning losses) that causes player demand for replacements, driving the economy, driving other players to desire to interact with the environment and mine rocks – sometimes only veld-fumes will do. Players (particular those in the long Tech2/3 economy) interact in an extended economic web, where each interaction adds apparent value. Just like IRL economics.
“I am going to refer to EVE as a “Player Versus Mining” game”
Too late.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39keGwM1GtU
“The all-powerful force in any game will always stem from the environment and it’s fuel for the (almost) perpetual machine.”
No. The all-powerful force in any game will always stem from individual player desires. Their need to “do stuff/own stuff” is fuel for (almost) perpetual interactions. Occasionally with the environment, sometimes (in)directly with each other.
“hence the mineral supply is limited. ” No, it is not. I understand that you think it is, but it is not. If it was, the players would run out of asteroids. That’s very simple.
You can talk around it all you want, but the constant refreshing of the game by the game (the PvE environment) is the force that allows the game to be played. Players trading, fighting over, or scheming over the different stuffs that are being constantly (even if it is at a very slow rate in some cases) put back into the game does not mean that the game is fueled by that want for those items. I understand that the game is a simulation, but I would wager that EVE players think of their game as “closer to real” than most. And I understand that real time and it’s effects might be…boring at least…if played along at “normal speed.” But for an asteroid to re-appear within even the same week is a little much. For players to think that going to that asteroid belt over and over again only to have it re-filled for them within a day is somehow the result of players energies is, at the least, beyond crazy.
We want the sun’s heat, and harness it with solar energy. Our bodies use the light to help create vitamins which help us go. We fight over the materials on the Earth, and use the materials. We all want the materials. That does not mean that the drive for those materials is what creates the life. With no want for the materials the life can go on, and probably would be better for it. PvP is just one thing that players do in the game, among many things. You are presuming that all players want, need, or benefit from PvP only because quite a few players (again I will wager that, even according to CCP, that PvP is NOT the major activity in the game) participate in it. Even if that were the case, the game would be perfectly playable without the PvP.
I know it seems like it is the main thing that players do, but it is not by far. The main thing players do is interact with the environment, in combat and many other ways. All that has to happen so that some players can do things like engage in a few fights.
You can talk about what “most players” do or want, (although it would be strange of you to presume to know exactly what 300 thousand people would want) but it does not change the fact that they must interact with the environment in more ways just to play the game. There is no way around it, and no way to not participate in PvE MORE than PvP.
Beau
But mining asteroids isn’t working versus Environment, it’s working WITH the Environment. P+E, not PvE. The asteroids don’t try to prevent being mined, and don’t try to mine you in return.
If you’re going to tilt at windmills there are plenty of MMos that actually have some
Because I mostly only read your posts here and don’t listen to the podcasts or follow the Twitter feed or any of the myriad offshoots of the Spouse Agro Empire, it sometimes reads as though you’re mounting a passionate defence against an attack I’ve not heard, the details of which I can only try to infer.
There’s often a part where you take others to task for having a particular conception or interpretation of a given game, or for claiming to express what “most players” think, and then go on to tell them exactly How Things Are! Not that I don’t tend to agree with you more often than not, but I’m not quite as sure as you seem to be that the “facts” on offer aren’t just more opinions, albeit opinions I might share.
As for EVE, I have no opinions or facts because I have never played it and probably never will. It’s a game I generally find tedious even to read about.
I think the gist of this latest broadside against EVE being described as a PvP game boils down to the same thing I also believe, which is that most MMOs are a set of tools that players can use to support a variety of playstyles. I still maintain, for example, that Everquest is the most solo-friendly MMO I’ve ever played.
I’m not sure, however, that because I found the solo gameplay there endlessly fascinating that all the people who said it was a terrible solo game were wrong. We are probably all right. And the people who think EVE is a PvP game are probably right at the same time you are right that it isn’t.
Not sure that there’s actually an argument there to be had, let alone won.
That’s exactly what I said. PvE refers to combat, as does PvP.
That’s why I put the whole part about PIE! lol Combat is only a small part of most MMO’s. A lot of players don’t see it that way, being that they enjoy combat. But, compare how many times you fight something to how many times you repair, sell something, craft, mine or whatever. That’s my point. Calling EVE a PvP game is, like I said, selling it short.
Anyway, sorry to sound confrontative. Seriously, these are always good comments as usual!
I hear what you are saying, but I am not arguing a fact. It is a fact that PvP exists in EVE, and plays a large role. If you notice I am just saying that there is something playing a much larger role.
“hence the mineral supply is limited. ” No, it is not. I understand that you think it is, but it is not. If it was, the players would run out of asteroids. That’s very simple.”
The frequency at which the mineral content in hisec asteroid belts refreshes is limited.
In hisec, players really were finding themselves running out of asteroids on a daily basis. They were competing for a finite resource.
That’s very simple too. People who weren’t mining over the last year may not have noticed, but I assure you it was happening.
“Players trading, fighting over, or scheming over the different stuffs that are being constantly (even if it is at a very slow rate in some cases) put back into the game does not mean that the game is fueled by that want for those items.”
On the contrary, players trading, fighting over, and desiring those items is exactly what “fuels” the game. A player decision to interact with the environment is the “useful act”. Static items being generated into the environment do nothing, have no impact. Asteroids don’t come hunting players in their hangars. Water in a well does nothing until a human being comes with a pot, collects water, and takes it to use to cook, wash, whatever.
A player has to have the desire to take action before EVE’s physical resources “do” anything. If a human being doesn’t desire water, does not anticipate ever desiring water, then the well has no value and there is no reason other than idle curiosity to come and visit it. If they grow thirsty, parched, dehydrated, then suddenly the well and its water is a precious commodity.
“For players to think that going to that asteroid belt over and over again only to have it re-filled for them within a day is somehow the result of players energies is, at the least, beyond crazy.”
Static asteroid belts refresh on a scheduled basis, only during the scheduled 24 hour downtime, with ore amounts based (so I read) on the volume extracted elsewhere in space. Rumours had it occurring only on specific days of the week, but either that information was Old Miners’ Tales (there are a lot of them), or CCP have decreased the interval between refreshes. They’re quite secretive about it, and we only found out about the summer’s veld respawn increase several months after the fact. Many players thought it was because of the success of CCP’s ongoing anti-RMT/macro campaign.
There are other subsystems in the game (exploration sites, missions containing asteroids, etc) in which a limited pool of “events” are all triggered based on player activity, and as they are exhausted respawn as fresh instance elsewhere. Here player activity drives both the identification and extraction of resources, and the provision of fresh set, overall a much more dynamic system that scales with player activity.
CCP are steadily moving towards systems where player actions both consume environment resources and cause them to be refreshed, rather than the cold hand of Tranquility’s clockwork physics. With Dominion’s nullsec sov changes, player decisions, actions, and historical activity are now controlling the density, location and value of environmental resources. In upgraded systems asteroid belts and NPC encounters respawn at particular rates precisely because of historical activity of players. If they stop, the upgrades go offline, the item faucet throttles and will eventually stop entirely.
“That does not mean that the drive for those materials is what creates the life. With no want for the materials the life can go on, and probably would be better for it.”
Many august biologists disagree with you. Look up with the descriptive definition of life. Check for “Metabolism” and “Growth” in particular.
“You are presuming that all players want, need, or benefit from PvP only because quite a few players (again I will wager that, even according to CCP, that PvP is NOT the major activity in the game) participate in it.”
I am very aware that a large proportion of EVE’s player-base are risk-averse.
I am asserting that EVE’s economic web is sufficiently broad that there are many game activities players engage in for a number of reasons. One being because of the economic benefits they can achieve through those activities. Another would be because they simply enjoy the activity. Economic benefits are created because of the huge demand generated by direct-fire PvP usually occurring elsewhere in the game.
A miner doing nothing more than mining ore, and selling it to buy orders is losing out economically to another player. They did not intentionally engage in DFPvP, they may be unaware of the implications of their actions, but they have just been the “less-gaining party” in a market PvP interaction. They also may not care and be happy with a lower return on their effort.
“Even if that were the case, the game would be perfectly playable without the PvP.”
Without DFPvP to drive EVE’s item loss the economy would crash from an oversupply of minerals, mission items, implants, datacores, etc. Players would be left with “because its fun” as a reason to do something. EVE’s history shows that, while there are some players for whom this is a sufficient motivation factor, there are many others for whom the lack of a sense of “proportionate economic reimbursement” is a strong disincentive to engaging in an activity.
The game, I suggest, would need to be changed substantially to enable things to continue to function, to fake economic demand with large volumes of dynamically computed NPC buy orders. I would argue that even though the rises and falls of demand could be emulated, the knowledge that the consumption is faked and lacking in player-generated meaning, would remove another incentive some players may have – the immaterial belief (erroneous or otherwise) that what they’re doing “means something to someone.” These issues are reflected in the two main criticisms of the factional warfare system: firstly that there is insufficient reward for FW activity and second it has insufficient impact on the game world.
I doubt the game would quite feel the same if the primary use of minerals were to become battleship insurance fraud.
Now, we are in accord about many of your points. “Player-initiated environmental resource extraction” of the various types is the foundation on which EVE’s physics rests. Without it EVE would not function. A majority of New Eden’s pilots are probably engaged in it most of the time. To describe EVE as “primarily a direct-fire PvP game” would be an error.
But an economic demand for those non-direct fire activities only exists because of the “player-triggered resource sinking” that is direct-fire PvP. Both faucets and sinks are necessary to the functioning EVE’s economy and, without the economy, the game as currently implemented and played would essentially collapse.
“There is no way around it, and no way to not participate in PvE MORE than PvP.”
In EVE as currently designed I think that is correct on average. (Individually that is not always the case – consider the Tech 2 manufacturers). But, since you engaged in a “no DF PvP” thought experiment, it would be possible imagine the reverse, where the necessity of environmental interaction is removed, and players really can just shoot-shoot-shoot all day long.
This might work on some level, but it would not be the same game.
@Beau: That’s exactly what I said. PvE refers to combat, as does PvP.
Limiting the definition in this way sells EVE short.
Market PvP is just as valid an example of the form as with lasers on hulls.
Players cannot shoot shoot shoot all day long without first going through interactions with the environment.
The missles they are shooting come from the environment. The ship that they are flying, (all the way down to the newbie ship AND the free materials they receive) come from the environment. Take one newbie ship for even one third of the population: 100 thousand players. That’s 100 thousand newbie ships given out, by the environment, into the game. The free tiny pile of ore the game gives you? That’s 100 thousand tiny piles of ore put back into the game.
That means that no matter what drives many players, no matter what they enjoy doing, that everything is based around, centered on and pivots on interactions with the environment. Like I said, the game should be called “a game with mostly player interacting with the environment, with most materials not magically appearing from thin air but rather from the game and from players mining the asteroids that appear in the game, from the game, created by the game.”
But that title is too long!
And you are taking my example of “being able to be played” as “would it be fun to play as is EVE is now?” or “would EVE keep the same player base as it does now if PvP disappeared?” That is not my example. My example is that the game could not function without the environmental interactions, period. After all the dust settled, the game without PvP would just be a cool space sim without PvP. There would plenty to do, plenty to kill and see. And hell, it would probably attract more players!
But not all players that sell and buy in the market do so with other players. Your definition might work for some, but not for all. Again, the game can exist just fine without “market PvP.” You are simply discounting if not throwing away, other players type of fun.
When I interviewed the dev from CCP at GDC, he said he knew of someone that never left the station, just bought and sold many things. Now, he could have bought and sold from NPC’s, or from players, but he could not buy and sell from players without the interactions with the game.
Do not all interactions count as game-play? IS not speaking to, flying to, interacting with or role-playing with an NPC the same as shooting them out of the sky?
In other words, you might consider the ONLY other game-play other than PvP to be “PvE.” That’s not the case at all.
“Players cannot shoot shoot shoot all day long without going through interactions with the environment.”
Station traders can work the market, make substantial amounts of ISK, and then use it to go pewpewpew all day long. Same for Tech 2 manufacturers. It’s a local imbalance – those play-styles interact almost entirely with player events (buy orders, sell orders). Both types of sitting in the middle of EVE’s resource pyramid – they take items from people further down the industrial resource pyramid, and add value by producing new items supplying them further up the pyramid.
They can only exist, of course, because of other players mining at the wide base of the pyramid, and players at the narrow point above them consuming then (ship loss, ammunition consumption, etc).
“The free tiny pile of ore the game gives you? That’s 100 thousand tiny piles of ore put back into the game.”
Strange example. It takes a staggering volume of trit to build anything other than a small frigate. I’d take a guess that all the newbie trit heaps in the game wouldn’t amount to the trit required to assemble a single carrier. If new trit heap is ten units (probably not), then one carrier would require roughly 7 million newbie trit heaps. Given the 30 second timer that would be very inefficient way of “mining” resources in terms of player time.
“The missiles they are shooting come from the environment.”
The missiles were created by players using game systems from items (other) players harvested from the environment. A miner didn’t go up to a rock, shout “Boo!” and giggle as it dropped a heap of Scorch L. An industrial player took the necessary minerals, initiated a construction job using a blueprint, and placed the resulting missiles on the market.
The items required a supply chain to go from raw environment material to finished product. The player used the game system to “add value” to the raw materials.
Now, certainly, without the trusty miner, there would be nothing to make those missiles from. But without the capital, knowledge and skills of the manufacturer, the missiles would not exist either.
By focusing solely on the vital environmental source of all materials in EVE we would miss the equally important involvement of the “middle players.”
It would be akin to looking at a modern market economy and trying to assert that because everything is built from items that are dug out of the ground, grown on trees, or harvested from animals, the only important jobs in the world were miners, loggers, and farmers. The vast majority of our IRL economies run through a huge bloated middle tier. It would be interesting to know how EVE’s compares. I suspect the bottom of the Tech 1 pyramid is very broad, but Tech 2 to have a much narrow base in terms of pilots, thanks to moon mining.
“But not all players who buy and sell from the market do so with other players”
Have you seen how many NPC buy/sell orders there are on the market recently? The items I can think of are:
Trade goods – which act as a mild ISK sink (for the POS-fueling related items), and a mild ISK faucet for those wanting to noodle around in haulers.
Skill book sales – an ISK sink .
POS item sales – an ISK sink (control towers, etc)
Mission tag buys – an ISK faucet linked to the mission system.
Blueprint original sales – an ISK sink, producing the recipes from which items are constructed.
These are predominantly “single way” routes to channel certain items into the game, and pull ISK out of it, giving CCP direct control of capital costs (particularly the BPOs).
There are no-doubt others I have forgotten, since I have only modest experience in this arena, but the vast majority of usable/consumable items in EVE are being sold and bought only by players who “came by them” in some way. That includes missiles, tech 2 ships, tech 1 ships, named loot, commander loot, salvage parts, rigs.
‘The game can exist just fine without market pvp.”
There is precious little NPC buy/sell economy left in the game. They have phased it steadily out during the first few years as the player economy increased in its ability to support the complex interactions required. There’s a reason CCP employ a professional economist.
I think it’s reasonable to assert that the vast majority of market interactions are with orders posted by other players.
If the game phased back to NPC buy/sells, and deliberately eliminated player ability to sell to and trade with each other, then what exactly would that gain? We’d turn an active thriving market economy floating nicely around as player-generated events push and pull it one direction or another, into an abstracted synthetic environment. I only see negatives for that.
(Notwithstanding the elimination of RMT).
“You are simply discounting if not throwing away other players idea of fun.”
I don’t think I’m doing that at all. I am pointing out that players interacting with the market are doing so predominantly in a “player value generated” environment. I’m not sure how that throws away anyone’s fun.
“My example is that the game could not function without the environmental interactions, period.”
Right now, agreed. I assert it could be modified to do so, but the character of the game, the balance of risk v reward would be substantially changed. It would not be EVE.
“After all the dust settled, the game without PvP would just be a cool space sim without PvP.”
Right now, I believe that assertion is incorrect. The markets would die, industry would die from lack of demand. EVE as we know it would die. With the game as currently constructed that step would throw away a whole bunch of people’s risk-averse fun for the sake of… I’m not sure what.
I skimmed some of the comments, but what you seem to be ignoring with EVE is that the PvP is what DRIVES everything else, hence it being called a PvP game. You seem to be confusing that with the frequency of the PvP to the average player. WoW has PvP, but since that PvP does not drive a single aspect of the game, it’s not a PvP MMO.
Even if you never shoot a single shot at another player, the PvP in EVE has in impact on your game. That guy who never leaves the station and only trades is able to do so, in part, because of the effect PvP has on the economy (ignoring the fact that trading is itself PvP, and that buying and selling ONLY to NPCs is impossible to sustain).
I think you probably should read the comments or at least the blog. Inspiration for playing is not what keeps the game going. Without those pvp’ers inspiration, the game could still be played perfectly fine. If you took away everything from the PvE to simply interacting with the environment, the PvP (meaning player fighting another player in any number of ways) would cease to work because it would have nothing to work with.
Impossible to sustain? I beg to differ. I know that you are a goal-driven player, but your goals and the goals of a EVE player that plays mostly to fight other players are obviously not the goals of every player. It would be more accurate to say that the PvP in your scenario would have nothing to fight over if the trader/PvE’er/non-pvp’er did not do his part. I am also saying that the PvP’er, whether they like it or not, are participating in more NON-pvp than they would ever know or likely admit.
Beau
Why WoW is a PVP game, by Teau Burkey.
WoW is a PVP game because if you took away everything from the PVE, the game could still be played perfectly fine. PVP would not cease to work because it would have everything it needs to work with since PVP in WoW is self-contained and provides experience and pvp specific loot.
Now how many people would pay 15$/month for a PVE-less WoW is not hard to guess, not many. And the game would die quickly.
Same applies to EVE but with PVP. Remove PVP and you remove 99% of all the market demand. Only newbs lose ships in PVE in EVE, that is a known. So merchants can’t sell their goods, so they stop buying from manufacturers and quit. Manufacturers can’t sell their goods, so they stop buying from miners and quit. Miners can’t sell their goods so they stop mining and quit. Missions runners get fed up of running mission rather quickly, and that is also known because missions in EVE suck, and quit.
In fact all PVE activities in EVE are so boring and undeveloped, and that is a known fact acknowledged many times over many years by the devs during fanfest, that now how many people would pay 15$/month for a PVP-less EVE is not hard to guess, not many. And the game would die quickly.
So EVE is as much a PVP game as WoW is a PVE game, for it’s their raison d’etre.
I’m sorry, but your example holds no water. What you are doing is taking the PvP in WoW and giving it the free unlimited everything that a FPS has (what about their levels? Are you taking those away? If not, where did they get the levels from? Not from PvP.) You are self containing the games inside a world where the only goal is to play the FPS game. Sure, you could pull out space flight and no longer make ore or missles or materials in general NOT an issue, but you are simply bending the laws of space and time. Hell, by your example, we could make EVE not only a stand-alone PvP game, but we could release it in a box with no sub.
What you are not seeing is that, in EVE, the game requires these materials and this constant flow of the environmental energy.
Those are EVE’s rules of existence in their universe, not mine. The PvP has no base at all without the environment and it’s interactions, PERIOD. You also seem to be under the impression that I am saying that PvP is nowhere to be found in EVE, or has NO PART. Where did I say that? To state it one more time: to say that EVE is a “PvP game is wrong. It is a game that features PvP, like WoW.”
And you are using examples like “only noobs lose ships in PvP.” Could you possibly help me prove my case even more than that?
And then this: “PVE activities in EVE are so boring…” You realize that right now there are plenty of people that find EVE boring because of the PvP. Your example is not only one-sided, but full of things that aren’t even true. So, have you ever lost a ship in PvP? Do you know anyone that has? Gimme’ a break, man. And please do not quote anything from the players at fanfest, the 1500 or so DIE-HARD fans (99 percent men). That’s like quoting a hard-core raider about what direction he thinks WoW should go in.
Syncaine: “(ignoring the fact that trading is itself PvP, and that buying and selling ONLY to NPCs is impossible to sustain).”
Beau: “Impossible to sustain? I beg to differ. I know that you are a goal-driven player, but your goals and the goals of a EVE player that plays mostly to fight other players are obviously not the goals of every player.”
Beau, you seem sure there is a viable NPC-generated economy in EVE that – if market PvP and combat PvP was removed – could support the play styles of non-combat-PvP players.
Please, please, please, could you look and find it? Because I can’t.
Beau: “And you are using examples like “only noobs lose ships in PvP.” Could you possibly help me prove my case even more than that?”
I think ArgentR typed “Only nubes lose ships in PvE”. Offensive, and not accurate (a friend recently lost a Marauder to some bad aggro management and an NPC scram frigate), but there may be a grain of truth. Ship losses through mission-running occur relatively infrequently, or at least that’s not the intended outcome. Missions are often run by players for profit. Frequent loss of ships would put a substantial dent in their personal economy. I’d be fascinated to see the numbers, but I don’t believe most ship demand in-game is due to mission losses.
I wonder if there’s anything in the QENs about ship losses by location. I’ll take a look some time.
AGH for some reason it deleted ArgentR’s last two comments. I get so many spam that I always just hit the “delete all spam” vutton, but when I hit the back button accidentally I noticed that some of it was his! UGH. I wonder how many legit comments go THERE?? (steamed) I was able to copy and paste the comment though. You’re not on some kind of spam list, man, and don’t worry I always enjoy some friendly arguing.
Here is your comment, if you want to copy it from here you can and I can delete this paste:
“Before going into any of the points you put forward, I’d like to say that I hope you took my previous post in the spirit in which it was offered. I know humour and teasing is difficult to express on the internets, maybe I should have put tags like /teaseBeau and /parody.
Your original post is obviously very inflamatory and a sure way to set off fanboys (in fact you should post that one on the EVE forums lol) so I thought I would reprise your own argument against you (the first paragraph of my post is almost entirely copy-pasted from your own posts) to make the similar outlandish statement that WoW is not a PVE-game.
Indeed my “argument” that WoW is not a PVE game holds no water, in the same way that your argument that EVE is not a PVP game holds no water. And by the way in WoW you gain xp from PVP battlegrounds which was a problem with “twinks” in that they would out-level their level group until recently when I believe Blizzard let the player stop their character from gaining XP on a voluntary basis, so in that sense PVP in Wow is self-contained (you received XP and loot).
When someone says EVE is a PVP game it does not mean that PVP is the only activity in EVE. It’s just mean that PVP, directly and indirectly, is the reason EVE is worth playing. Furthemore PVP isn’t limited to mean PVP combat only, PVP, that is competition between players expresses itself in almost every facets of EVE game design. Miners compete amongst themselves for the best mine fields, not all systems yield the same ore nor the same quantities (long wars have errupted for the control of particularly profitable areas), sometimes with guns, sometimes with trickery (maybe they wake up an hour earlier than their competitors), then they compete with each other to sell their ore at the best prices. Speaking of the market, merchants compete amongst themselves on an hourly basis as other merchants offer to buy at higher prices and sell at lower prices and market orders needs be reajusted all the time. Explorers that make their living from the new worm holes or the older anomalies compete amongst themselves to find and exploit those ressources before they dissappear. And so on. The game itself is designed to have players compete with other players in as many activities as possible. In that sense EVE is a PVP game.
I do not mean to say that the environment doesn’t matter, on the contrary. Of course EVE requires the materials provided by PVE activities. Player control of the environment and its ressources is the source of most PVP in EVE. The environmental ressources and control thereof is used by CCP to create PVP. When an Alliance control an area of space then by definition it becomes scarces, i.e. unattainable to all other player factions. CCP allow player control of the environment and use PVP to create scarcity. And then use that scarcity to create more PVP as other faction wants to control that area for themselves.
As a tidbits did you know that large Alliances rent their controlled space to gold farmers macro-miners in exchange for a percentage of the ore mined? Again PVE is so underdeveloped and boring in EVE most player rather avoid it.
“EVE is a PVP game” doesn’t mean it’s 100% PVP. It means PVP, again not only PVP combat, but putting players versus other players is apparent in most aspecs of the game. It is what the game devs have in mind most of the time when designing the various systems and features of EVE.
Do you really believe that the PVP is WoW has the same importance to the game than the PVP in EVE? Lol at this point I think you may feel a bit too entrenched in your argument to be objective anymore.
Now to go back to your later points just for the sake of clarity. I didn’t say “only noobs lose ships in PVP”, I said “only noobs lose ships in PVE”. Meaning that if PVP combat was removed from EVE, then 99% of the market demand would evaporate which would make the game not worth playing for all those players engaged in PVE activities such as manufactoring and mining.
Yup I agree with you that PVP can get boring. I know I stopped playing EVE at the beginning of this year because even PVP got repetitive and boring. To be fair though I stopped enjoying EVE PVE activities 5 years ago and only engaged in PVE (30mn market trading in station now and again) for the sake of being able to PVP (2 to 8 hours a day, yay week-ends).
Of course I have lost ships in PVP. More than I can remember. Everyone does. There is destruction of ships and modules on a mass scale on a daily basis during PVP combat in EVE. That is what create the demand for the player run economy and give a purpose to crafters and miners. Again no one is saying EVE is 100% PVP, it’s just means PVP is the reason this game was designed and still exists today.
Finally I’m not quoting anything from the players at fanfest. Come on man. I’m quoting from the devs themselves, you can check the videos on youtube and the old EVE TV archives where everyone from Nathan the senior producer, to Noah the lead designer, even Hilmar the CEO (who himself was mainly a miner back when he still played the game and says repeatedly that mining is boring and needs to be improved), field Q&As and they all acknowledge, joke even about how PVE in EVE is boring and underdeveloped and needs more attention from the devs.
Lol for what I thought was going to be a funny parody joke “WoW is not a PVE game”, this had gotten in all sort of weird directions.
Anyway take it for what it is and know that I love you guys at Spouse Aggro. Oh and post your own argument on the EVE Online forums if you can lol, that is sure to set off fireworks.”
Before going into any of the points you put forward, I’d like to say that I hope you took my previous post in the spirit in which it was offered. I know humour and teasing is difficult to express on the internets, maybe I should have put tags like /teaseBeau and /parody.
Your original post is obviously very inflamatory and a sure way to set off fanboys (in fact you should post that one on the EVE forums lol) so I thought I would reprise your own argument against you (the first paragraph of my post is almost entirely copy-pasted from your own posts) to make the similar outlandish statement that WoW is not a PVE-game.
Indeed my “argument” that WoW is not a PVE game holds no water, in the same way that your argument that EVE is not a PVP game holds no water. And by the way in WoW you gain xp from PVP battlegrounds which was a problem with “twinks” in that they would out-level their level group until recently when I believe Blizzard let the player stop their character from gaining XP on a voluntary basis, so in that sense PVP in Wow is self-contained (you received XP and loot).
When someone says EVE is a PVP game it does not mean that PVP is the only activity in EVE. It’s just mean that PVP, directly and indirectly, is the reason EVE is worth playing. Furthemore PVP isn’t limited to mean PVP combat only, PVP, that is competition between players expresses itself in almost every facets of EVE game design. Miners compete amongst themselves for the best mine fields, not all systems yield the same ore nor the same quantities (long wars have errupted for the control of particularly profitable areas), sometimes with guns, sometimes with trickery (maybe they wake up an hour earlier than their competitors), then they compete with each other to sell their ore at the best prices. Speaking of the market, merchants compete amongst themselves on an hourly basis as other merchants offer to buy at higher prices and sell at lower prices and market orders needs be reajusted all the time. Explorers that make their living from the new worm holes or the older anomalies compete amongst themselves to find and exploit those ressources before they dissappear. And so on. The game itself is designed to have players compete with other players in as many activities as possible. In that sense EVE is a PVP game.
I do not mean to say that the environment doesn’t matter, on the contrary. Of course EVE requires the materials provided by PVE activities. Player control of the environment and its ressources is the source of most PVP in EVE. The environmental ressources and control thereof is used by CCP to create PVP. When an Alliance control an area of space then by definition it becomes scarces, i.e. unattainable to all other player factions. CCP allow player control of the environment and use PVP to create scarcity. And then use that scarcity to create more PVP as other faction wants to control that area for themselves.
As a tidbits did you know that large Alliances rent their controlled space to gold farmers macro-miners in exchange for a percentage of the ore mined? Again PVE is so underdeveloped and boring in EVE most player rather avoid it.
“EVE is a PVP game” doesn’t mean it’s 100% PVP. It means PVP, again not only PVP combat, but putting players versus other players is apparent in most aspecs of the game. It is what the game devs have in mind most of the time when designing the various systems and features of EVE.
Do you really believe that the PVP is WoW has the same importance to the game than the PVP in EVE? Lol at this point I think you may feel a bit too entrenched in your argument to be objective anymore.
Now to go back to your later points just for the sake of clarity. I didn’t say “only noobs lose ships in PVP”, I said “only noobs lose ships in PVE”. Meaning that if PVP combat was removed from EVE, then 99% of the market demand would evaporate which would make the game not worth playing for all those players engaged in PVE activities such as manufactoring and mining.
Yup I agree with you that PVP can get boring. I know I stopped playing EVE at the beginning of this year because even PVP got repetitive and boring. To be fair though I stopped enjoying EVE PVE activities 5 years ago and only engaged in PVE (30mn market trading in station now and again) for the sake of being able to PVP (2 to 8 hours a day, yay week-ends).
Of course I have lost ships in PVP. More than I can remember. Everyone does. There is destruction of ships and modules on a mass scale on a daily basis during PVP combat in EVE. That is what create the demand for the player run economy and give a purpose to crafters and miners. Again no one is saying EVE is 100% PVP, it’s just means PVP is the reason this game was designed and still exists today.
Finally I’m not quoting anything from the players at fanfest. Come on man. I’m quoting from the devs themselves, you can check the videos on youtube and the old EVE TV archives where everyone from Nathan the senior producer, to Noah the lead designer, even Hilmar the CEO (who himself was mainly a miner back when he still played the game and says repeatedly that mining is boring and needs to be improved), field Q&As and they all acknowledge, joke even about how PVE in EVE is boring and underdeveloped and needs more attention from the devs.
Lol for what I thought was going to be a funny parody joke “WoW is not a PVE game”, this had gotten in all sort of weird directions.
Anyway take it for what it is and know that I love you guys at Spouse Aggro. Oh and post your own argument on the EVE Online forums if you can lol, that is sure to set off fireworks.
Me: “I wonder if there’s anything in the QENs about ship losses by location. I’ll take a look some time”
I checked and, although there are some interesting ship loss numbers from the early DrEyoG devblogs in 2007, they’re stated unconditionally so their source (could be a player or NPC on the killmail). So it’s not really possible to drawn many conclusions from them. Dotlan’s evemaps site pulls shipkill stats down from the API, but they also don’t differentiate by the cause of the shiploss.
Even the locations of the losses doesn’t really help, since people rat/mission in nullsec/lowsec, engage in hisec wardecs, etc.
Bother.
You just hurt my head. hehe
I gotta admit, though, all that stuff is one of the coolest parts of EVE. For the record, I never say EVE is a bad game! lol