Sunday, April 8, 2012

The EVEolution : How can we help?

As I stated in the previous blog: I have a desire to do more. I want to promote this game.

I love EVE and want every gamer on the planet to play EVE.

I want to help make David Reid's vision of EVE being the world's largest gaming universe happen.



As a player in a sandbox game I believe it is upon us to dictate how we are seen as a community. It's not sufficient enough to shrug our shoulders and say "That is CCP's problem". No. It's not. It's our problem. CCP is a business. If there isn't enough of us to sustain the business then good bye EVE. Poof. Gone. And we all lose.

They can only say so much and do so much precisely because it IS a sandbox. They would have to remove the sandbox element to be able to have full control over the game universe to the degree where they could dictate the vibe of the community. Look at other MMO's as examples. I don't want EVE to go down that path. EVE is hard. EVE is tough. EVE is unforgiving. But EVE is ours. Every CCP employee from Helmar and David Reid on down has talked about the EVE community, the uniqueness of our universe and how WE WRITE THE STORY. They are telling us we ARE stakeholders. And as such we as the community have to take ownership and act as stakeholders for the success of this game. Yes, in the end CCP and their investors are financial beneficiaries of our game play. But we also enjoy a benefit. It is what brought us here and keeps us here: To enjoy ourselves.






Every action has a counter reaction.



In the context of EVE an event at fanfest reinforced a perception about EVE that the majority of EVE players know not to be true. The natural response is to counter that perception. The dark side of EVE is as much a valid part of the game as any other area. It is a necessary part of the beauty of EVE. Without it we would not have the complex ever changing world that we love to participate in. I for one am looking to tap back into the energy of the community and of CCP in a way that supports David Reid's vision of EVE being the world's largest gaming universe.

It boils down to a simple question:





How can we help?




One of the first steps in my mind is to get all the bloggers, podcasters, radio people, etc. to come together. And then identify the correct people at CCP who should be working with us. Aradus Gunnell of T.E.N. tv started a great forum post to that end. Please go find it here on the EVE forums and speak up with your support and ideas. I have also posted some ideas but I want to be clear about one thing: I don't want the thread to turn into a pissing match about who's ideas are better. Lets just farm ideas! Then we can start working with CCP on what is and isn't possible.

Of course we should also start working on what we want our image to be. A large part of our community energy, messages and our information flow has been focused inwards towards existing members of New Eden. That is already dramatically changing with the inclusion of Dust 514. For EVE to be the largest gaming universe we now need to focus our attentions outwards. Towards those people who just don't know it yet that they will be pilots in New Eden.

What is our message outside of EVE? Our image?

I'll start: EVE Online is full of good people.

Please share your own thoughts and ideas! More next blog!

4 comments:

  1. EvE is a sandbox and in that way ccp gets a lot of controversy because it hasn't been tested and tried before, that's the true innovation for me....the sandbox fills all dreamers with stories to tell and people who don't even play eve would want to play this legend of a game(ps. I dont play Eve but i sertenly will play dust, I am still knowlegdeable about eve and its core(tried Eve four times but still couldn't get into it becouse of money and school related problems)I have been with Eve from 2009.


    but still I love this f**king game!!!!

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  2. I actually wrote a post on that subject the other day. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you can use my opinion some way: http://www.machine9.net/?p=813

    I love EVE.

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  3. I am new to EVE and it took me all of 24 hours to fall in love with this game. There are so many things to do. I have played other games but have not received support from veteran players like I have in EVE. There are so many places to get information in game and out of game. I will do my part to advance the player base because I would like to play this game for many years to come.

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