I stopped playing and refuse to rejoin because of this:
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=423
and their actions against the people that stood up against dev abuse.
Everyone with a forum avatar or signature that featured a defiant fist was banned. Most of them without any chance of the ban being removed.
To summarize for those who do not read the above article. A dev from EVE stole high tech level blue prints by using the code his co-workers wrote to acheive the item in game before any of the other players, and then sold it to his guild...which was among the most powerful guilds in EVE...
This blueprint item allows for the development of next level tech, at that time level 3 tech I beleive, which is the equivalant of having an Ultralisk when the enemy only has zerglings.
In the end the situation was handled poorly and the player base suffered horrendiously because of it. The dominance this guild acheived due to this level of...misuse on the dev's part...remained for quite some time. I am unsure if it still does.
From a gamers stand point...yes EVE is beautiful...but the people running it are not, and their level of ehtics are questionable at best.
There was a request on behalf of the russian government for EVE online to ban over 216 accounts that were connected to the russian mafia in a money laundering scheme.
If we went on the in game quality alone I would say the game play is awesome, but no longer is the macro dynamics of the galactic economy or galactic scale design available for full play effect as the player base on longer supports what was a major design goal of EVE's "galactic expanse" immersion. Slowly I see signs it is returning to life, but their development staff and continual bugs in high end play sacrifice the competative gamers desire to rush to be first in the new content.
Overall and in conclusion...EVE was once a great game, but now I feel others have stepped up and are doing better what EVE brought forward as an original game design idea...specifically Lineage II.
