If by "gives little back" you mean the only true, sandbox player-driven MMORPG in existence that is the only game that offers a real virtual economy, the only game with true total creation + total loss, the only game where player actions truly affect the game and not a marketing buzzword, the only game where everything, from each mined asteroid, to every component, every module, every ship is created solely by players and the only game with a meta political scene, only tactical/strategic space game where battles play out like real battles, players controlling fleets, commands, capital fights, defense of assets, controlling/owning space, then sure, "gives nothing back".
And here I'm sitting with 6 EVE accounts, 3 PLEX'd, 3 subbed for the past 10 years. EVE gets a lot right that many games can't. I guess if you've never experienced what EVE is (i.e meta) then you'll forever fail to understand what EVE is. I'm well known for "Clarion Call 3" where I was part of AHARM, it demonstrates exactly what EVE is. This is why I play it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrYe_4vHzgE
I wonder where there are games where players are creating freight corporations that now are the "DHL" of EVE, processing high-sec contracts for freighting goods around, special contracts for low-sec and null, where if you don't have a freighter or don't want to spend the time, you can engage in player-driven interaction and hire a player to freight goods for you by contacting a freighting company that'll ship goods for you. That's what EVE's about, creating tools/toys for players to create an experience in a true sandbox environment. If you don't interact with players, you won't experience EVE. Do I do trading? Need to do regional trading and sell goods from Jita marked up in a low sec hub that an alliance operates in or a 0.0 HQ? Don't want to transport your goods you want to sell yourself? Contract a freight company. It's not a "designed" system, it's something created by players. If you fail to understand what a player-driven sandbox is then you fail to understand what EVE is as a result.
There's a lot from EVE that ED can use as influence such as the Faction Warfare system. The FW system would fit PERFECTLY into ED for anyone that has played that part of the game, it's a perfect fit but instead ED got a system of portraits telling you to do same pre 1.3 activities but in specific systems. Why can't players run PP 100%? If ED is going to be a "multiplayer sandbox", why can't players control barely anything regarding PP for example?
Games can use systems from other games as influences, this is how the industry works. There's a lot of design issues that EVE has solved many years ago that all these current space games coming out are failing to address, there's nothing wrong looking at EVE in certain areas to see how design issues were approached.
Tired of people mouthing off EVE as if it has nothing to offer as inspiration or guidance for other games, there's plenty of good and bad of EVE, things design wise it has solved that other games can benefit from. EVE is a player-driven sandbox, everything is controlled by players, players are content. Games like ED are doing this whole "multiplayer sandbox" but players have little to do with what happens in the game, it's that entire marketing buzzword of "your actions matter!", the only game that truly can use that for marketing is EVE because it's actually true. If one is going to use that buzzword then you better take a look at EVE and understand its design and how you can draw from it and apply it to your own game.
