Great article.

I started playing wow with rl friends and we had tons of fun back then.

Now most of us don't play. And when occasionally i join a trial i find myself wandering to some favorite places usually low level areas that many of the first mysteries unfolded for the first time and I try unconsciously to bring to my head all the vivid memories. So yes, it's kinda sad and nostalgic. Old magic is gone.

Its a weird attachment, I hope your next article can analyze the meaning of it.
 

excellent read !

Hey welcome ! :)

My rant about beta except this lame thing with CC is the way they approach the tester.
I tried to register 4 times (using Firefox and IE) and always I was getting an error at the end of the proccess.
The page advised me to print screen and sent the image to techical support which I found very strange.
Is very strange to get error in web browsers, the admins to be aware of it and to build a special page to submit your error. And since no techinal support has contact me yet I suppose it is a method to test your level of participate as a beta tester. Uber lame.

I won’t comment on your thoughts mango2 because my post was not meant to start an argument or a conversation of what sucks or what it’s good at EVE, it’s just a post that explains my own reasons of why I quit EVE. And I think some players may found it helpful.
You have the right to counter those statements and to express your thoughts (like Reed Hubbard did). I will only say that I found them all workarounds.
Oh and good luck when you will browse in-flight the market at Jk-Fix or while <<exploring>> the asteroid belts for Crokite..

On another note, after 14 months of playtime I state my reasons of why I have left EVE.

All those months I have tried almost all of the well-known and established mmorpg games in the market and after detailed thought I found that not even 1 mmorpg is near flawless or perfect. Every mmorpg has some serious gaps and problems to fight for. Some of those games try to focus in those gaps some other bypasses them and try to support and shape their other strengths.
But eventually I think the mmorpg scene has reached its own zenith and it’s proven that after ascension comes the descent. The mmorpg genre while still maintains to be popular and lucrative it seems that started to fall in decay. All those games that are released or prior to be released featuring and introduces various of different gameplay aspects and mechanics but not even one so far managed to solve all the problems that infest this genre...

Bellow is my (I think) objective analysis of what I feel is wrong with EVE or at least what I didn’t like.

1. (General comment) CRUCIAL=EVE is a great game but it lacks of content and goals within the game. The story fluff isn’t helping much since they are no major or regular world events. 
The EVE team has emphasize the load of work for fixing bugs and balance issues instead of adding new content (POS) or implement and finalize features like Factories (Reverse Engineering, *cough* planets –promised since beta but never seen the light of day).

2. (Gameplay) It can become very boring and depressing to travel to system after system doing completely nothing seeing nothing different and bypassing a whole solar system without any interest to it.

2b. (Explore) The absence of “experience” or of a sort of experience system, makes many things including exploring completely futile.
Not to mention there is nothing to explore most of the time. In fact I’ve noticed one the greatest sites, the last waypoint to Eve Gate has completely refaced thus -to fit the overall new mood of the game- the pirate bases and asteroids are removed.
One other thing with those sites is that most of them (at least those that are noted in the map and are within Empire space borders) may be nice to look but offer nothing special to the voyager.

3. I was tired from constant endless mining (which is very boring I must add) and useless npc fighting. Missions are very generic and indifferent.
 
4. The gameplay is very much PvP oriented. While I like PvP and I think the PvP system that EVE and Anarchy Online utilizes are the best so far, in EVE there is unquestionably a HUGH GAP between “PKs” and “carebears”. Whoever goes with the non fighting approach of things he is going to suffer a great loss of time and features, constraining himself into safe boundaries and 2 avocations: mining and trading. Both boring, slow profiting and uninteresting.

4b. (Harshness and Punishment) Venturing into non Empire - deep space is not only difficult from a money perspective but it’s also very dangerous. Even if you managed to own a Battleship it’s almost certain that you will die pretty soon down there. And you know what? BattleShips are VERY expensive for the casual gamer or even for the hardcore gamer (plus the money for Insurance, Clone and Implants or the loss of rare items +the time to obtain a BS).
While a hardcore gamer will be a high lvl character after 3-6 months of gametime in other mmorpg, in EVE he/she can lose everything in a moment…Veeery frustrating...

5. (Unrealizable rate of progress) The slow pace of the game is followed by the VERY SLOW skill progress. It is counterfactual to wait 30-40 real days time for a skill to finish! And ---forgive my words--- if you have done this to keep the player subscriptions active it’s sadistic and fascist.

5b. (Jack of all trades) while with the skill system you can virtually be whoever class you want and there’s no restrictions or penalties to undergo, sometimes you lose your place with this short of to personalization and soon you will discover you are forced to be a jack of all trades.

5c. (What module item should I use?) You may be a jack of all trades but even if owning a BS you will never have enough slots to fit modules. While all other mmorpg haves those “hotkey quick action bars” in EVE you have High, Medium and Low slots. I understand that isn’t very realistic to cast fireballs from a frigate spaceship and this isn’t what I meant, but the slots are very limited (8?). I believe there should be more slots categories like High Weapons, High Energy etc..

6. (Ship Demands) Even with Engineering /Electronics skills to lvl5 (or use of energy modules that cause the above problem) it seems that your ship never have the required power to load and fit your desired combination of modules.  And it’s a shame to have such penalties from modules like Micro Warp Drives and Cloaking Generators when they could have been used in such a strategic way (which the game fighting system doesn’t endorse).  

7. (Corporations and teaming) while in many other mmorpgs, teaming isn’t so vital for advancement in the game, in EVE it’s a luxurious necessity!
You will be virtually doomed if you decide to play EVE by yourself. If you want to make profit, fight, own big ships and good equipment or to travel to deep space you will certainly need to be member of a strong, big and organized corporation.

8. (Usual rant about..) Since beta the camping at waypoints harasses and instabookmark exploit hasn’t changed. Oh and I am still waiting for that new interface (like that in the box) that never introduced and better /faster  -more accurate drone control and drone effectiveness.

GREAT PREVIEW. I had a fear that will say about how amazing the game is and how overtops all other mmorpgs etc But I liked it. Because it's true, Blizzard since warcraft 3 took a more generic approach for their games and because of the reputation they have made, they risk less (anyone remembers how many phases war3 changed through development?).

Also I agree to another part about the genre and its problems. I am sure that npc features like those introduced with Morrowind 4 Oblivion, rich rpg dialogues and brilliant quests (Bioware games, Vampire the Masquarade)(quests no tasks :)) we will have to wait YEARS before we see them to mmorpgs.

I have played most of the well known mmorpgs of the market and to me mmorpgs look and plays like huge Diablo games only with more features.
For the time being nothing seems to beat good old classics rpgs.

 Omg…poor David… He finally closed and his second company…
I usually don’t read long articles in the web, especially for things that don’t interest me personally but this was very interesting.
With all those hundreds of games that constantly are releasing and others that are in development one can only wonder how many companies close (before or after the product’s completion), how many trickeries take place and how many dreams fall apart. Finally, gaming it’s a very cruel business like any other.

Ps. Make it sticky please or place it in a article archive.