Everyone agrees that EVE isn't a WoW clone. However they are wrong in figuring out what the difference is. The common answers are all wrong, leading to various games that end up being a WoW-clone and fail as they are all worse in being WoW than WoW:
The reward structure in WoW has two effects: at first it forces players to unite completely according to in-game merits. No matter how terrible X is, if he spams buttons faster than Y, he is in your team. When Blizzard started the nerffest, they focused on this. They wanted to allow people to play with their friends, even if those friends totally sucked in the game. They failed because no-friend teams are still winning WoW. The only effect is now everyone, including the average player finds the game trivial which is necessary to allow an average one to play with below-average friends.
The important effect is that WoW endgame is a positive feedback loop. I mean if A and B are equally good teams, but for some totally random reason A kills less bosses in the first week than B, then in the second week B will be stronger than A due to more gear and will kill more bosses becoming even stronger. In EVE having a space empire costs you resources. Sovereignty structures costs money. Towers costs fuel and manpower to keep them running. Fleets need ships and manpower. If A and B are equally good and for some totally random reason A loses some systems to B, the next month A will be stronger due to less Sov costs and less people spending their time babysitting towers. This allows A to counterattack and win again. A new player can catch up by focusing on making money in highsec, a defeated alliance can regroup by no longer being bound to Sov. On the other hand in WoW if you are not in the best teams or just came late, you have no chance to catch up ever, the difference between you and the established one just grows, this is why Blizzard needs to reset gear time and time again.
The "failed" economy design is the very reason EVE lives after 10 years with little new content added, while a WoW content patch has the maximum lifetime of one year. The year CCP "fixes" the EVE economy, making living in Sov-null more profitable than living in highsec, will be the year the total Sov map becomes conquered by one entity and everyone who matter will be blue to each other. In short: the year EVE dies.
How could WoW be changed to be "sandbox"? Raids should have high gear demand, high consumable cost and provide absolutely no reward at all besides achievement and cosmetic stuff. Create an official scoreboard celebrating the guilds that raid well! To get gear and consumables one has to do lot of non-raiding activity. This will have the following effects:
With all this, we reached the true definition of "sandbox game": where the "fun activity" or "winning" is completely separated from "grinding in-game wealth". In a sandbox game only the "not fun" farming (or paying in the cash shop) creates gear, currency or other useful items. This is the only way to prevent players "optimize the fun out of the game" as they can only optimize the no-fun time. It is impossible for someone who mines for fun to ruin the ISK/hour of his "serious" teammates as no one mines for fun. On the other hand a "for fun" player in your dungeon is the most common source of annoyance of gear-farmers in WoW. Similarly, the "no lifers" won't ruin your fun on a roam since they don't go a roam as the game gives no reason to. In WoW the players looking for rewards are mixed with "for fun" players ending both parties annoyed.
Of course the results of grinding and fun/winning are connected: your ISK limits what kind of activities available to you. If you have little, all you can do is frigate roams. If you have a lot, you can doomsday down supers and own regions. The grinding part is necessary to give a meaning to winning or even fun, without it all sinks in "who cares" nihil that can be seen in WoW.
Yesterday I was primaried first time in EVE - and lived. It happened in LGK where some small fleet was doing random things when -A- jumped on them and needed reinforcements. By the time I bridged in, there were a serious Foxcat fleet already. As soon as I started clicking things and moving, I had target painters on me and yellowboxed by every red in the system. Broadcasted for reps but was in hull in a few seconds. Luckily for me I did not have time to start repping anyone before they aggressed, so I simply docked up in LGK, repaired the ship and undocked. We won soon after, they docked up, the battle ended. -A- considered themselves winners because their "capital killboard is green".
Thursday morning report: 178.4B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 6.5 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.8 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 37.4 sent as gift)
- "Open-ended" is wrong because you can do countless things in WoW too. OK, the quests are linear, but so are the EVE multi-step missions. You can fly anywhere in EVE but so in WoW. You can collect minipets, build a museum, gain exalted with some obscure faction and countless other options are available in WoW. Also the raiding toplists are still third-party, WoW has no official scoreboard.
- "Losses" are equally wrong. The resources are infinite in EVE, therefore getting ISK is only matter of time. If your ISK/hour is 30M then losing a 15M ship is losing 30 minutes. In WoW you also lose time if you die. The honor/hour of the losing team is lower than of the winners. The valor/hour of a team steamrolling a heroic is higher than the valor/hour of a usual LFD group where the #1 is the tank, the #2 is the healer. Losses in EVE and WoW are merely decreasing the average income/hour.
- "Non-consensual PvP" is both a blatant lie and irrelevant. 80% of the EVE players don't even leave highsec where PvP is extremely limited. Unless you do something really stupid or bump into one of the few pre-announced ganking events, you can't lose a ship. Also you shoot a red cross in EVE, an avatar in a game. If one would make properly coded AI that can't be distinguished from players, he could create an equally engaging PvE game.
The reward structure in WoW has two effects: at first it forces players to unite completely according to in-game merits. No matter how terrible X is, if he spams buttons faster than Y, he is in your team. When Blizzard started the nerffest, they focused on this. They wanted to allow people to play with their friends, even if those friends totally sucked in the game. They failed because no-friend teams are still winning WoW. The only effect is now everyone, including the average player finds the game trivial which is necessary to allow an average one to play with below-average friends.
The important effect is that WoW endgame is a positive feedback loop. I mean if A and B are equally good teams, but for some totally random reason A kills less bosses in the first week than B, then in the second week B will be stronger than A due to more gear and will kill more bosses becoming even stronger. In EVE having a space empire costs you resources. Sovereignty structures costs money. Towers costs fuel and manpower to keep them running. Fleets need ships and manpower. If A and B are equally good and for some totally random reason A loses some systems to B, the next month A will be stronger due to less Sov costs and less people spending their time babysitting towers. This allows A to counterattack and win again. A new player can catch up by focusing on making money in highsec, a defeated alliance can regroup by no longer being bound to Sov. On the other hand in WoW if you are not in the best teams or just came late, you have no chance to catch up ever, the difference between you and the established one just grows, this is why Blizzard needs to reset gear time and time again.
The "failed" economy design is the very reason EVE lives after 10 years with little new content added, while a WoW content patch has the maximum lifetime of one year. The year CCP "fixes" the EVE economy, making living in Sov-null more profitable than living in highsec, will be the year the total Sov map becomes conquered by one entity and everyone who matter will be blue to each other. In short: the year EVE dies.
How could WoW be changed to be "sandbox"? Raids should have high gear demand, high consumable cost and provide absolutely no reward at all besides achievement and cosmetic stuff. Create an official scoreboard celebrating the guilds that raid well! To get gear and consumables one has to do lot of non-raiding activity. This will have the following effects:
- Social: every player is a valuable addition. If he picks just a few flowers for the guildbank, he became an asset as his flowers will provide elixirs for the raiding team. He would rightfully consider himself a member of the guild and not just a carried casual friend.
- Easy to catch up: a latecomer who focuses on getting gear gets gear faster than those who spend their time raiding.
- Open: various different activities are useful for the progress of the guild.
- Competitive: only those would raid who want to raid for itself or for the scoreboard position. Lootwhores would have no reason to raid.
With all this, we reached the true definition of "sandbox game": where the "fun activity" or "winning" is completely separated from "grinding in-game wealth". In a sandbox game only the "not fun" farming (or paying in the cash shop) creates gear, currency or other useful items. This is the only way to prevent players "optimize the fun out of the game" as they can only optimize the no-fun time. It is impossible for someone who mines for fun to ruin the ISK/hour of his "serious" teammates as no one mines for fun. On the other hand a "for fun" player in your dungeon is the most common source of annoyance of gear-farmers in WoW. Similarly, the "no lifers" won't ruin your fun on a roam since they don't go a roam as the game gives no reason to. In WoW the players looking for rewards are mixed with "for fun" players ending both parties annoyed.
Of course the results of grinding and fun/winning are connected: your ISK limits what kind of activities available to you. If you have little, all you can do is frigate roams. If you have a lot, you can doomsday down supers and own regions. The grinding part is necessary to give a meaning to winning or even fun, without it all sinks in "who cares" nihil that can be seen in WoW.
Yesterday I was primaried first time in EVE - and lived. It happened in LGK where some small fleet was doing random things when -A- jumped on them and needed reinforcements. By the time I bridged in, there were a serious Foxcat fleet already. As soon as I started clicking things and moving, I had target painters on me and yellowboxed by every red in the system. Broadcasted for reps but was in hull in a few seconds. Luckily for me I did not have time to start repping anyone before they aggressed, so I simply docked up in LGK, repaired the ship and undocked. We won soon after, they docked up, the battle ended. -A- considered themselves winners because their "capital killboard is green".
Thursday morning report: 178.4B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 6.5 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.8 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 37.4 sent as gift)
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