RE: "The Big Four" -- I'm sorry, but you can't expect a company that is on the financial rocks (yes, due to past decisions) to prioritize something only the hardcore lore nerds will enjoy. That's not a growth market. Or a market.
To be frank, CCP owes you nothing except access to the game you still choose to pay for.
I couldn't disagree more. Most successful fiction IP's prioritize setting, story, and character with no shortage of profit, avid fanbases, and attention to lore detail. They might only be a derivative/ straightforward FPS like say, HALO, but there's thousands of lore nerds pouring over all of the details and the game is a cohesive vision working within that fictional world. Or say, Starcraft, which is just a twitch based RTS, but they spend ridiculous amounts of time on the story, characters, and plot.
I'm not shitting on the drifters per se, I'm shitting on a static world. Hell even spawn of satan WOW does big expansions now where they drastically revamp longstanding NPC locations with both new npc content and huge aesthetic changes.
Also regarding the pithy money/access comment, I haven't given them any money in a long time. I paid for the game when I enjoyed the content, and then kept paying for some additional time while I enjoyed the content less, until paying them nothing for content I actively disliked.
I like the wonderfully creative and smart players and friends I've made in game and here on backstage, and I like the IP. I really, really like the IP in it's original form. If I'm critical its because I like it so damned much that I'm scared/disapointed in the direction it's going, that's all.
But you are right that it is of course not MY IP, and I'm guilty of the common fanboi trope of feeling part ownership and criticizing an IP's direction. But so much of that story is the work of players, so it's complicated.
