I’ve been debating whether to write this as I don’t know if it will just get lost in the noise. I am really striving to make this a productive article because I care a great deal for this universe. I’ve watched CIG grow from a small endeavor to the behemoth it is now and been through all the ups and downs. While not always agreeing with the path chosen, I’ve stuck with it because I believe in the dream of what this game universe can be. I’ve occasionally written posts to Spectrum around my very tactical thoughts but I don’t recall posting something of this scope. To that end, here we go. We’ve watched as CIG grow over the years and the path of the universe alter here and there from back of the napkin ideas to more fleshed out systems. Not everything has moved forward as originally described but much has been iterated over time and that’s a good thing. However, for myself and others I’ve chatted with, the 1.0 vision is very concerning. I played EVE online from Beta until about the time I backed Star Citizen. I see many similarities between the 1.0 vision and the world of EVE as it has evolved over the years, and I find this very troubling based on how much it deviates from the vision of where Star Citizen seemed to be headed. EVE began very much as a Star Citizen-like project where there were to be empires and entities that would be run by the system and players would interact. The economy was simplistic, and crafting was very primitive at the start of the game but evolved over time (not very well) into the resources/blueprints model it had later. Over time CCP backed away from the living universe and adopted the more “sandbox” style of gameplay where players ran everything. For PVE folks this was the slow death of EVE. As they took a more hands-off approach and allowed the players to manipulate everything and encouraged choke points and removed the net of player safety the game devolved into watching over your shoulder constantly and cutting off a lot of gameplay for more casual players. The sense of continuity vanished, as did the sense of your character and what you built. If you weren’t part of a large player alliance it would be stagnant. I could go on and on, but this is not what this post is about. What this post is about is Star Citizen. The dream and vision of this was to be a part of a larger universe where the players were a minority and forces greater than any of us would drive the universe and we would all be willing participants in that universe. Undeveloped areas would of course be a bit more sandbox-like, but even there entities would vie for player loyalty in a story-based struggle for a system. Players weren’t the storytellers, nor the manipulators of the game economy as there would never be enough of us in a universe of billions and billions of NPCs. UEE, Vanduul, etc would be forces to be reckoned with as they would have motivations and things they would be trying to do that we could help with, but in the end, it would be decided by CIG as the game masters of this world how things would develop. Dave and his talented group of people diving into the lore and bringing it to all of us. There is more but you get the idea. Players are participants and yes to a limited extent also story tellers for smaller chapters in the universe. The economies of systems are driven by the billions of entities that live there 24/7 and if a player force jeopardizes the welfare of those citizens the UEE or similar steps in to protect them. It’s the way our world works. 1.0 goals feel like major steps toward the EVE sandbox architecture in my opinion. I get that it is easier to implement, and we need to have a finished product here eventually, but we shouldn’t tread on that dream that attracted so many of us to this cause. There is a general feeling that focus is on PVP, and that PVE type players that are haulers, miners, industrial and scientific are going to be driven in some way to be targets as they were in EVE via mechanics that add artificial danger to activities. This is hidden behind the “risk / reward” argument so frequently used. Pyro is a classic example of this. Every day you log on and hear people just being gunned down for no reason. Nobody is pirating their stuff or looting (mostly because they themselves don’t want to be caught unaware by another) just senseless destruction because there is no progression and no fear of loss. EVE players perfected the disposable kamikaze player character. Nothing to lose but designed for an alpha strike so that others could come in and pick through the debris. No in game security system that CCP or successors came up with could deal with someone who had nothing to lose. By the time they were flagged it was too late. To be honest, if there is money in it, the UEE and other large corporations with hundreds of thousands of people would be going after it already. Pyro again is a great example of a mined-out hulk of a system where the lore says it’s all about picking through the bits the big corps missed. I don’t want to make this too long, but the bottom line feels like we are going from universe to sandbox. I’d love to be told I’m wrong and I’d ask Rich and other leaders at CIG to please comment on this either in one of Jared’s shows or here. Please clarify the goal of the role of players in the universe and document it for all to see so it’s clear. Many of us want to know if we are truly headed for 1st person EVE, or if we are still striving for the goal of a living universe that is curated by CIG (quantum). Thank you for reading this and I really welcome any solid information rather than everyone’s interpretation. I love this universe and the lore around it. I also love my PVP friends who play with a purpose. After a long day sometimes, I just want to be a space trucker to relax. :blush: Other days I want to blow stuff up. The point is I’d like to be able to do both and still feel like the world moves on.