I'm not a business major or anything, but from the looks of CCP's books, this game can survive in it's current state, and snails pace development. CCP not only is continuously growing EVE subscribers, but with the prospect of Valkyrie in the future adding some life to not only the company, but also the whole EVE "franchise" . The bumps this game has had can be overcome. This does not mean that this game is in an acceptable state, it just means that CCP can continue to make this game grow on their end, with the development of feature that will bring in more players.

I come from EVE so I'm in this game for the long run, whether that means it ends tomorrow, or goes on for another decade. For the past couple of years CCP has been working on this game with no extra source of income, at least now they have a reasonable player base to partially support itself.

I wouldn't want them to take too many resources from EVE to prop up DUST. I honestly think that if that were an issue CCP wouldn't allow this to carry on, but the books don't lie that development hasn't hurt EVE yet. Now it is true that EVE has slowed some of it's development since Incarna, evidence being that we are still stuck in our captains quarters, but to be fair without something meaningful in it like cross game interaction, it's better the resources were spent working on other things (like the scanner changes in Odyssey).

CCP has a history of making a great game through player feedback but to be fair, EVE was allowed to grow at a snails pace because at the time, it didn't have any direct competition. In the MMO world you choose one game and EVE filled a unique niche, making it hard to push out, even with it's relatively smaller numbers. There have been no other MMOs since that have been able to sustain themselves like EVE except for WOW, which doesn't stand to compete with EVE too much anymore and is on a decline.

So now we come to where DUST has one of it's core problem. It has competition, even with F2P it has a lot to be compared too. Hit detection and balance could be overlooked, if hadn't been done and worked so well in so many other games. Not to mention basic matchmaking and single player modes that keep it fun for all while still remaining competitive, there are so many things that have become standards in FPS games that are completely absent in DUST. The only advantage of being an FPS is there not being a subscription cost, players don't have to play just one FPS, and can still come back to DUST in the future.

So where does that leave us now? Even with the fixes in the past few months, most of the games strength comes from the hope of it's potential, and the history of EVE.

To the players I say, be honest, fair, and reasonable. If you can't be patient, then please stop filling these forums with so much negativity, and go do something else, we are still just glorified beta testers and I can't imagine you would be paying to play this game if some of you are as upset as you are on these forums. The frustration comes from a disappointment we all feel, but we can't let that get in the way of progress.

To CCP, do what you have to in order to make the future vision a reality, but don't neglect all the time and effort so many of us are willing to put into helping make this game better through constructive feedback and ideas. I don't need the Aurum as much as you need my cash, but when I have enough I use my spare funds to support you guys and make this work.

The first step on the worlds of New Eden have been more of stumble, but you are strong enough to get up and take this game all the way.

TL;DR just read it, or reread the title