I can no longer in good faith recommend this game to anyone. It boasts of being a sandbox with ‘player-driven economy’ yet the devs keep putting their thumb on the scale with their artificial ‘resource shortages’ and contrived ‘loss mechanics’. I joined in 2015 during Citadel. They went from ‘we want you to own structures’ to ‘we want you to lose structures’ to ‘we want you to lose everything you own and be happy about it.’

EVE had been on my ‘to do’ list for years but I’d never gotten around to it before being busy with other games. I tried it, played the tutorial missions and, having done crafting for guildmates in previous mmos, almost immediately fell in love with industry. I’d dabble in pvp and missions from time to time but mining and building gave me the greatest enjoyment. I used to love building ships for friends. I’d GIVE friends ships. I started getting into reactions but stopped when every base I tried moving to kept getting blown up.

Last year about this time the devs decided to gut mining across the board. They actually said something to the effect of ‘we feel like people had their fun now it’s time to take it all away’. Well to no one’s surprise but the devs, people I knew for years quit the game en masse. There was an ice-mining multi-boxer with 12 accounts that helped me get my start early on that dropped off the face of the planet. A single parent with 5 miners ended up quitting to. Fully 95% of people in EU I’d gotten to know since I started quit the game thanks to the devs’ abhorrent PLEX price-hiking money-grabbing scheme. An entire corp based in Germany quit. Practically every single EU miner I’d cut my teeth with either unsubbed or quit outright. I remember there used to be a guy from Finland who told me he once worked in Texas and it took him 2 years to rid himself of that Southern accent. I remember there used to be a Scotsman with a voice that sounded like whiskey and marshmallows. I miss those people, and the devs drove them away.

For all the boasting of ‘player-driven content’ the devs seem hellbent on stripping out everything ‘player-centric’ about the game. They’ve actually REMOVED content since when I started, and this Triglavian Invasion bs they promoted with ‘changing the game forever’ just sliced and diced space and turned things into a nightmare for people like me that work long shifts and come home to unwind. I had such high hopes when they teased new enemies in the previous year, but I feel like they squandered what could’ve been good content. If you fought for EDENCOM you basically got nothing for your efforts as they completely removed certain sites and nerfed others into obsolescence.

Long before the nerf to mineral composition, I had to vigorously defend bases against poachers who would come in odd hours and abscond with as much rare ore as they could get their grubby mitts on. We actually caught a streamer red-handed who bragged about how much rare ore he could find in our belts, and when the local German miners defended their bases, he said “wow, X corp does NOT like us in this system”. THAT was “player-based” content! There was no shortage of conflict even in high-sec. If it wasn’t poachers it was gankers, griefers, extortionists you name it.

You should lose ships if you’re careless like if you autopilot a freighter with billions in goods through Uedama. You should lose ships if you fit EM resist when the site requires Thermal. You should lose ships if you do a mission and don’t read up that there are rats that warp scram and neut you dry if you’re not careful. You should lose ships if you try gas mining by a wormhole and don’t book it before the Drifters show up. Not because the devs ‘really really want you to lose things’.

Now I see devs are teasing ‘dynamic’ changes to industry to ‘revitalize’ and ‘improve’ what they spent over a year completely destroying. There is no ‘new hat’ that will get me to recommit to playing. I don’t have the disposable income to justify what’s become yet another sunken-cost fallacy. The devs are making the EXACT same mistakes that drove me away from previous MMOs where they decided they were going to start behaving like nannies instead of making a good game that engaged players. They’ve fully nerfed everything that drew me to the game in the first place, and every time its the same excuse: ‘we have to discourage behaviors that lead to botting’. HOW ABOUT YOU BAN THE BOTS!!! Oh no but they pay subs too apparently. If the devs want the game to be nothing but whales they can have it. I’m just done. I canceled 4 of my accounts previously and they expire in May. I will be canceling my ‘main’ account once I get back from fast. I’m just done. Stick a fork in me I’m done. The devs have let the most repulsive, abhorrent, toxic people rule the roost. Instead of addressing problems its all just nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf and I've had it.

If a game is going to dictate to me how to play, I’m just going to stop playing. If devs feel like they don’t have to make a good game I feel like I want to spend time playing, then I don’t have to give them money. I don’t exist for the sake of putting money in their pocket. When I quit the first MMO I’d ever played, a dev there actually said something to the effect of ‘deal with it. You don’t like it, go play Skyrim’. Well you know what? Guess which game I’m still playing and which game I’m not?

Update: I logged in Easter Sunday I had given up EVE for Lent and entrusted care of a station to a friend only to find out she dropped into the Twilight Zone, the stations were not fueled, and as a result I've lost everything within. This included multiple mining barges and capitals, millions of m3 in ore, loot from various sites, event items, everything. It doesn't matter to me if I have assets elsewhere, this was stuff I personally worked hard to build and just like that it's gone because CCP decreed that unless you shelled out bookoos of isk for their stupid 'quantum cores'-which I did- a structure goes abandoned and everything is lost without going into safety. Thank you CCP for cementing my decision. They actually said something to the effect of 'once those who quit see what is coming with the update they'll come back". Um, no, they won't. Because there are people who've played the game far longer than I have and have invested far more that quit much earlier than I did and never came back. Congratulations CCP you lost a paying customer of over 6 years and you've actually stated you don't care.