It's a truism that lots of folks don't play EVE for the PVP (though I firmly believe that everyone in EVE should at least understand it). So why do you play? Alternately, why did you, and why don't you now?
I play for lots of reasons.
Some days I play for the PvE. A relaxing evening while brain dead after work, not having to think to hard, seeing the isk rack up...
Some days I play for the PvP. Chasing pirates around lowsec, or wardeccing people and camping them into highsec station. Occasional explosions, mine and theirs. I have a love hate relationship with the intense PvP - the shakes and heart-pounding don't come nearly so often as they used to, and I don't like it in advance, but afterwards I really do. *shrug*
Some days I play for the casual RP. Meeting people, learning about them, sharing conversation.
A lot of days I play for the people. The ones in my corp and alliance, and the ones that are outside that that I talk to, both IC and OOC.
Hanging out in IC Corp chat listening to the latest drama about various corp mates. Bar RP listening to friends talk about their new loves or failing relationships, broken hearts and bitter histories (I feel so old sometimes - I remember doing
exactly this sort of stuff 20 years ago at parties IRL.) The IC channels where we try to organise alliance or corp stuff coming from the point of view of our characters rather than the players. The places where I try to RP a person with the basic world-view that kin and the clan are important, and that believing this is normal, even when other people have very different ideas. The slow build up of relationships over months that allow one cryptic comment to be
exactly the right thing to say in a situation, but impossible without the shared history of normality. The web of relationships that become more real the longer you have them.
Shooting the shit on OOC or Red's District or the various EM OOC channels; mispronouncing
Saisa as
Sisal just to hear Kohiko laugh OOC while being dreadfully polite IC; hearing how people's day went, giving them pretend beer to get through the heat waves or floods. Having someone to gripe with about work; rolling eyes at Bacch's epeen, the RK people saying "Nobody will fight us - waaa - just cos we have supercapitals, it's not fair!", gently poking fun at Esna "No really, Ulf should talk with Esna IC, he'd see Esna isn't that bad!", occasionally infuriating Miz (occasionally taking her bad advice) ... It's a community. It's a bunch of people who are interesting, frustrating, different, the same. Just people. But once you get to know them, it's another tie to the game.
