The players of the space MMORPG EVE Online have been through a turbulent time. Now the developers explained why it was necessary.
Why are players of EVE Online currently excited? About two months ago, the Drifter Invasion began, which caused quite a bit of chaos in the universe of EVE Online. There were fierce battles, which not every player appreciated. When a chat blackout occurred, the chaos was complete.
However, this phase of the game is now coming to an end. The blackout is over, and players are glad that everything is returning to normal.
Many players were upset
How did players react to this “era of chaos”? EVE fans are used to it that there is almost no interference from developers and that wars develop in PvP and are not enforced by NPCs. Moreover, many found the blackout annoying, as it became extremely dangerous to travel through the galaxy without chat.
Some players even stopped playing for this reason. During the approximately 2-month “era of chaos,” there was an increase in player numbers, but the longer this era lasted, the more the player numbers of EVE Online decreased again – even down to the lowest value so far.
How do the developers explain the “era of chaos”? CCP Games explained that this “era of chaos” was a limited-time event and also an experiment. The developers defend it because the player numbers of EVE Online are stagnating. Something needs to happen to attract new players.
Therefore, CCP Games also wants to use such events for regulation in the future. If everything in EVE Online is so entrenched that newcomers can no longer find a foothold, then the MMORPG revolves around a small group of regular players and does not receive any “fresh blood”. Such a situation can end catastrophically. Because even regular players can eventually leave, and without new arrivals, the player base continues to dwindle.
According to CCP Games, many important and interesting data has been learned from the experiment. This includes insights into the long-term behavior of players and how they react to changes. This is intended to help the team figure out in which direction the MMORPG will develop in the future.
Larger battles planned for the future
This is how it will continue: CCP Games also provided a brief outlook on the future. After phase two of the Aether Wars test has been completed, and 3047 players participated simultaneously, the developers can now optimize and improve the engine. The goal is to enable even larger battles than before.
One of the goals of EVE Online is to make the large-scale battles even bigger in the future, and that is exactly one of the things the community desires.
