What My Year-End Review Taught Me About EVE Online

This last post of the year will look back on CCP's look back on my year playing EVE Online. Every year CCP sends out a personalized video summarizing a player's activity in the game. The video showed my activity across all of my Omega accounts. I didn't play very much this year. At least, I thought I hadn't played much. Watching the video, I discovered I ranked fairly highly in a few categories. Looking at those categories told me something about the state of EVE Online at the end of 2021.

Skill points gained across 3 accounts

The first item that struck me was my ranking for the number of skill points acquired over 2021. I have 3 paid accounts that I kept training all year. I didn't buy any skill injectors or packages with skill points. I did, however, take advantage of every login event that gave out skill points. By doing those things, I wound up in the top 6% of players, not just accounts, who gained skill points in 2021.

One of the accepted truths in EVE is that most players have multiple accounts. But do they really? If someone with three accounts is in the top 6% of players, then I don't think they're are that many people with more than three Omega accounts. Of course, the flip side is also true. Perhaps so many players bounce off of EVE within the first few hours that my position is artificially inflated.

My participation in events

Next is my ranking in the category "Agency & Events". I know I mostly logged in for the events, but I really don't think I participated in eight. Four or five sure, but I took a pass on some of the faction events. So does CCP count participation in an event as only logging into the character select screen? Because I know I only did that for 2-3 events.

And a top 8% ranking in number of event points earned? I really wonder how many players actually participate in the events. I even had a higher ranking in the category than for skill points earned.

Travel in known space

Finally, my travel raised an eyebrow. I only averaged 20-25 jumps per week in 2021, which isn't a lot. My travel in low security space, with only 206 jumps, still managed to rank in the top 24% of players. We always hear about how low sec is dying, but that is an awfully low number to still rank in the top quartile of players in the category. But I don't know how to get more people to enter the space.

I've finished the Endwalker MSQ so I should have more time to play EVE in 2022. In that sense, these year-in-review videos work as they give me goals to try to surpass next year. But the data also reveals some things which I don't think are good signs. With my playtime in the game in 2021, I should not appear near the top of anything.