I’ll affirm that I had fun playing Eve, and I’d be willing to acknowledge a suggestion that this was thanks to playing with the right people. Perhaps participating in large-scale nullsec alliance warfare and industry could also be considered “the right way”.
That was a decade ago, however. When I peek in on the goings-on today, it looks like the game is on life support.
For me it was w-space (wormhole systems with no gates to their systems, you have to constantly scan for connections an map them - there are tools… - and no list who is in the same system as you) with a small tight knight group.
We ran PI (some sort of industry) and Escalations (PvE in a group with defined roles) for income and hunted other players (doing the same) for fun.
I would even go so far, that the exploration, mapping, hunting & killing lifestyle of wormholes is how EVE really is supposed to be played. But I can see that if that was the only way to play EVE only a few hundred would play it at all.
That was a decade ago, however. When I peek in on the goings-on today, it looks like the game is on life support.