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[Merdaneth]

I haven't played EVE for 6 months now. Have been playing and-and-off the 18 months before that. Even though I still like the game, I don't feel the desire to return anytime soon. Why? That got me thinking a bit.

My issue with EVE is basically that it requires too much of my time to do what I would like to do. When one starts to play EVE, as a player one experiences a journey of discovery. You learn about the mechanics of the game, the backstory, and the people that inhabit it. Once you mature and start to go beyond that initial wonderment, that first phase where you operated largely inside your own little pocket universe, you either stop playing, or you set up a serious of ambitions and goals you would like to achieve in-game. 

EVE is one of those MMO's that becomes more fun the more time you put into it. At an average of 2-3 hours of play a week, it is really hard to RP as a full-fledged character. It is not enough time to establish and maintain IC relationships (let alone IC and OOC ones), not enough time to develop character arcs, or properly participate in arcs by others, its barely enough  2-3 hours a week is barely enough time to just keep up to speed with the latest developments in EVE.

Want to run a corporation? Want to actively participate in story arcs? Want to help shape the RP lore? Want to be a PvP pro? All of these require significant investments in regular EVE time. And with that I mean *regular*. You cannot compensate for a month of not playing by playing for 8 hours in one weekend. The lack of play will cause you to lose touch with what is going on.

What results is what I call drive-by-play. You might get a brief RP snack at the summit, sneak in a bit of fast-food PvP in Faction Warfare, make a few iskies, read up on a few news sites, forums and blogs and perhaps post a few snarky comments on the IGS.

I'm tried EVE snacks for some time and found that they're not for me. I prefer to achieve more ambitious goals, develop more intense relationships. I would dearly want to develop interesting story arcs others can particpate in, and participate in those of others, but spending 5-6 hours of play every third weekend just isn't going to work out. I have the sense other RPers in particular are struggling with this too. I sometimes see story arcs fizzle because the time and regularity isn't available to make it into a success.

Which just leaves the bite-size pieces of RP. Pieces less rich with flavor and not as nutritious as those wholesome meals you get when you spend a lot of more time. And honestly, when it comes to bite-sized gaming, I much prefer some of the other games which I can actually play for a few hours, leave for a few weeks, and then continue where I left off before without diminishing my experience a lot.

CCP's vision is to create an EVE that functions as a kind of alternative world to this dreary world we live in. But to really get the sense of immersion and satisfaction, doesn't one need to spend 10-20 hours per week each week in EVE minimum?

[Lyn Farel]

Well yes, I have been there too for years now.

Maybe the only thing that makes me stay are a few people and opportunities. Thanks to them all, it's not much, but it's appreciated.

[Vic Van Meter]

I stay active on the IGS and RP where I can, but I'm in the same boat.  Not only am I pretty busy, but I play another MMO with most of the rest of my free time.  I log in every now and then to shoot a few pirates and do some low-rent pastimes, but the inter-corporate intrigue the game is prized for feels too much like high school for me.  The RP is fun and really the reason I stick around, but I couldn't see myself getting involved in the endgame.

I'd stick around, though.  You don't necessarily need to be in the game to RP; most of what I do is handled through mail and through my Gtalk account, where I can sort of RP when I have time, no matter what I'm doing.  If you aren't really pulling the enjoyment out of the game, take a break and play something else a while.  Just make sure you keep contact with people and you can keep up the RP.

[Arista Shahni]

Yeh.. I don't just RP in game.  If I'm docked (out of game) I'm docked, but can still talk to people, as realistically my character doesn't just vanish if I'm logged out. 

[Etienne Saissore]

Spot on. Once mentioned about the same issue in a customer survey. It's hard to see an easy way to fix it though because the time required to engage in collaborative gameplay seems to be related to the people and community more than to the game mechanics.

It's frequently proposed that various out of game tools should be introduced to add more flexibility to how and when you can spend these 10-20 hours, but since that in turn might have an adverse effect on the daily in-game player stats, I doubt they will go very far in that direction.

[Saikoyu]

Yeah, all true. 

[Vieve]

I'd stick around, though.  You don't necessarily need to be in the game to RP; most of what I do is handled through mail and through my Gtalk account, where I can sort of RP when I have time, no matter what I'm doing.  If you aren't really pulling the enjoyment out of the game, take a break and play something else a while.  Just make sure you keep contact with people and you can keep up the RP.

Funny.  That's how I've been managing the vast majority of my EvE RP for a while now.

[Isis Dea]

Funny enough, I've recently taken to Roll20 for some occasional EVE arcs. That and Skype for I can take that in and around the day-to-day. That's also how I maintain IC relationships. I've also found that if you are ambitious, it is best that you lead. Should that be running your own community or hosting your own corp and managing/voicing for characters who can't be on as often.

I think a lot of the vile community is those who care only about their character and are incapable of referencing a partner or anyone outside their IC relationship.

[Dreygun]

I know exactly what your talking about. Playing the game by itself is hugely time consuming and its the reason I never wind up staying with it, real life gets in the way and I can't get into anything really enjoyable.

but this all seems really fatalistic. Isn't there some way we could work to change this. Not change the game per say but change how we all play it?

I know I have a lot more time available to be on a computer than I have to actually play Eve. I can use the computer at work or check stuff on my phone. I used to use Roleplaygateway alot because the way it allowed for people to play on their own time at their own pace.  Couldn't we do that here to? develop forum/chat room RPs in character that set up scenes and foster relations that make it so the limited amount of time you have in game is more meaningful and you get more accomplished?

[Vic Van Meter]

I know exactly what your talking about. Playing the game by itself is hugely time consuming and its the reason I never wind up staying with it, real life gets in the way and I can't get into anything really enjoyable.

but this all seems really fatalistic. Isn't there some way we could work to change this. Not change the game per say but change how we all play it?

I know I have a lot more time available to be on a computer than I have to actually play Eve. I can use the computer at work or check stuff on my phone. I used to use Roleplaygateway alot because the way it allowed for people to play on their own time at their own pace.  Couldn't we do that here to? develop forum/chat room RPs in character that set up scenes and foster relations that make it so the limited amount of time you have in game is more meaningful and you get more accomplished?

Honestly, I think it would be better if we just formed up small flights for mining and nullsec ratting action.  Then, we wouldn't necessarily have to spend the time, resources, and patience of our loved ones holding a worthless piece of nullsec, but we'd still be able to throw together enough of a presence to work out there.

The problem is that you can't trust anyone in EVE, so we have no reason to help each other out in-game and no guarantee things would run smoothly if we did get together more often.  That's probably the major reason EVE doesn't expand so much.  You can't usually throw together a group of random people to do something with the guarantee that you won't get screwed.  That's just not how EVE works.  So, unless you want to put your time into a much larger corp (and they're the people you'll always really be running with), it's not like you can just jump on for an hour, hook up with random buds, and go do random fun stuff.  EVE has no mechanisms for that.

Your best bet is keeping a game on the side to play when you don't have enough time to play EVE.

[Dreygun]

I know exactly what your talking about. Playing the game by itself is hugely time consuming and its the reason I never wind up staying with it, real life gets in the way and I can't get into anything really enjoyable.

but this all seems really fatalistic. Isn't there some way we could work to change this. Not change the game per say but change how we all play it?

I know I have a lot more time available to be on a computer than I have to actually play Eve. I can use the computer at work or check stuff on my phone. I used to use Roleplaygateway alot because the way it allowed for people to play on their own time at their own pace.  Couldn't we do that here to? develop forum/chat room RPs in character that set up scenes and foster relations that make it so the limited amount of time you have in game is more meaningful and you get more accomplished?

Honestly, I think it would be better if we just formed up small flights for mining and nullsec ratting action.  Then, we wouldn't necessarily have to spend the time, resources, and patience of our loved ones holding a worthless piece of nullsec, but we'd still be able to throw together enough of a presence to work out there.

The problem is that you can't trust anyone in EVE, so we have no reason to help each other out in-game and no guarantee things would run smoothly if we did get together more often.  That's probably the major reason EVE doesn't expand so much.  You can't usually throw together a group of random people to do something with the guarantee that you won't get screwed.  That's just not how EVE works.  So, unless you want to put your time into a much larger corp (and they're the people you'll always really be running with), it's not like you can just jump on for an hour, hook up with random buds, and go do random fun stuff.  EVE has no mechanisms for that.

Your best bet is keeping a game on the side to play when you don't have enough time to play EVE.

See I don't buy this statement, its thrown around way to much. I trust people all the time in game, and more often than not it works out fine. I run wormholes, if I manage to get a dialogue going with a another player in the hole more often than not I can gauge whether or not he is going to kill me.

If we get to know people out of the game on forums and chat channels RPing and doing OOC stuff you reach a point where you have at least a modicum of trust. Honestly if I get betrayed by someone after I have spent hours of time chatting and RPing with them and their character does something real devious in game i think I would love it.

[Morwen Lagann]

See I don't buy this statement, its thrown around way to much. I trust people all the time in game, and more often than not it works out fine. I run wormholes, if I manage to get a dialogue going with a another player in the hole more often than not I can gauge whether or not he is going to kill me.

If we get to know people out of the game on forums and chat channels RPing and doing OOC stuff you reach a point where you have at least a modicum of trust. Honestly if I get betrayed by someone after I have spent hours of time chatting and RPing with them and their character does something real devious in game i think I would love it.

Generally speaking, you're not likely to have to deal with this from another roleplayer. It's a pretty fast ticket to the ostracism and can't-be-trusted-even-OOC trains.

[Silas Vitalia]

See I don't buy this statement, its thrown around way to much. I trust people all the time in game, and more often than not it works out fine. I run wormholes, if I manage to get a dialogue going with a another player in the hole more often than not I can gauge whether or not he is going to kill me.

If we get to know people out of the game on forums and chat channels RPing and doing OOC stuff you reach a point where you have at least a modicum of trust. Honestly if I get betrayed by someone after I have spent hours of time chatting and RPing with them and their character does something real devious in game i think I would love it.

Generally speaking, you're not likely to have to deal with this from another roleplayer. It's a pretty fast ticket to the ostracism and can't-be-trusted-even-OOC trains.

*Polite Disagreement*

Plenty of us like plenty of us ooc, but will lie cheat and steal and pewpew IC at the drop of the hat. 

Violencing your ships and assets after being nice IC is part of things

[Morwen Lagann]

I said not likely, not never.

People like you are an exception, but people also catch on and talk about it within the community, so the odds of continuing to snag other RPers over time diminishes because you're a known factor.

[Ollie]

Funny enough, I've recently taken to Roll20 for some occasional EVE arcs. That and Skype for I can take that in and around the day-to-day. That's also how I maintain IC relationships. I've also found that if you are ambitious, it is best that you lead. Should that be running your own community or hosting your own corp and managing/voicing for characters who can't be on as often.

The use of Roll20/Skype as described sounds interesting. I'm away from the game for a week or two but wouldn't mind talking with you about how you use these things when I get back.