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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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CCP should move toward a pay-to-train model

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Freako X
Doom Inc
#1 - 2014-06-18 13:43:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Freako X
With the ever increasing world of F2P models showing up,

I think EVE could handle a P2T model - Pay to Train. Add a more robust item store (clothes, skins, etc).

I think it would increase the number of active accounts. How many vets do you know who would return if they could play and not pay because they have high sp characters? How many more PLEX would CCP sell due to pvp habits of casual vets?

How many would decide to sub here and there to add skills as the game changes? Yet it would still encourage longer term play for those players that come and go regularly?

Just a thought .....
RoAnnon
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2014-06-18 13:48:34 UTC  |  Edited by: RoAnnon
I thought EVE already WAS pay to train... can only train a character on an active account, need a plex to get a 2nd character on the same account to train... What?

I guess it's really the ability to train that's being purchased... if you let your queue go empty, well..

I promise to read the entire post before replying next time. Smile

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Owen Levanth
Sagittarius Unlimited Exploration
#3 - 2014-06-18 14:02:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Owen Levanth
Sadly, this model wouldn't work. People would just use their mining/PI/marketing/whatever-alts to make enough money to pay for their training account.

Think about it, there are people multiboxing dozens of accounts, with your model those guys would only have to pay the accounts they want to train with. Every other account could just flatly make money without ever being paid. A player using 12+ accounts for mining, for example, needs to mine enough money for 12+ PLEX right now. With your model, he only needs to pay for the training he wants to do. Combat alt, hauler alt, industry alt: Let's say 3 PLEX for the fun things. So CCP's revenue goes down from 12+ PLEX to 3 PLEX for that one player. See the problem?

****, if it weren't for the long-term side effects, I would be all over this: I would simply make 1-2 other accounts, train/buy PI-alts and use the combined money to pay for training on my two old main accounts. After my PI-alts are trained up, I would simply stop paying for Eve forever.

Now multiply this problem with everyone who uses PI-alts or is using multiple accounts: CCP's income would drop so fast, Eve would be dead in less then a year.
Freako X
Doom Inc
#4 - 2014-06-18 14:19:00 UTC
Owen Levanth wrote:
Sadly, this model wouldn't work. People would just use their mining/PI/marketing/whatever-alts to make enough money to pay for their training account.

Think about it, there are people multiboxing dozens of accounts, with your model those guys would only have to pay the accounts they want to train with. Every other account could just flatly make money without ever being paid. A player using 12+ accounts for mining, for example, needs to mine enough money for 12+ PLEX right now. With your model, he only needs to pay for the training he wants to do. Combat alt, hauler alt, industry alt: Let's say 3 PLEX for the fun things. So CCP's revenue goes down from 12+ PLEX to 3 PLEX for that one player. See the problem?

****, if it weren't for the long-term side effects, I would be all over this: I would simply make 1-2 other accounts, train/buy PI-alts and use the combined money to pay for training on my two old main accounts. After my PI-alts are trained up, I would simply stop paying for Eve forever.

Now multiply this problem with everyone who uses PI-alts or is using multiple accounts: CCP's income would drop so fast, Eve would be dead in less then a year.


I thought about that. I think that would take a lot of time and energy. I'm of the opinion that the majority of players are more casual than the average forum poster. I'd imagine that a look at play habits, login times, etc could be done by CCP to determine a cost analysis of doing something like this.

I'm a fan of thinking of active accounts as increased cash-flow. And cash-flow is king unless you're stupid wealthy. Given the recent organizational changes at CCP, I'd assume they are not stupid wealthy.
Khan'Wulf
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#5 - 2014-06-18 14:29:01 UTC
There already is a pay-to-train model, we are just given a minimum of 1 training slot to have access to the characters on that account.

I came to this thread thinking it related to payments for increased training, which I think would help bring back old players, who may have lost/disposed of their characters, plus attract new players with resources but less inclination to wait months before reaching minimum viable fits.

So... why not provide an option to pay for increase training speed?

Or, to recycle skill points, or some fraction of skill points, from unwanted characters (biomassing them) into another character on the same account (transferring to a different account would be... problematic).

The second option has the appeal of "conservation of training time", so to speak.

Currently the only options for returning players are to either reactivate a high-skill point character, start from scratch again, or purchase from the character bazaar.

--Khan'wulf
Tabyll Altol
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#6 - 2014-06-18 14:50:33 UTC
Freako X wrote:
With the ever increasing world of F2P models showing up,

I think EVE could handle a P2T model - Pay to Train. Add a more robust item store (clothes, skins, etc).

I think it would increase the number of active accounts. How many vets do you know who would return if they could play and not pay because they have high sp characters? How many more PLEX would CCP sell due to pvp habits of casual vets?

How many would decide to sub here and there to add skills as the game changes? Yet it would still encourage longer term play for those players that come and go regularly?

Just a thought .....


No i don´t think so. As soon as the game would be free it would be very difficult for ccp to get enough money to develop eve and pay the server rent.
Antillie Sa'Kan
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2014-06-18 14:55:18 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Khan'Wulf wrote:
There already is a pay-to-train model, we are just given a minimum of 1 training slot to have access to the characters on that account.

I came to this thread thinking it related to payments for increased training, which I think would help bring back old players, who may have lost/disposed of their characters, plus attract new players with resources but less inclination to wait months before reaching minimum viable fits.

So... why not provide an option to pay for increase training speed?

Or, to recycle skill points, or some fraction of skill points, from unwanted characters (biomassing them) into another character on the same account (transferring to a different account would be... problematic).

The second option has the appeal of "conservation of training time", so to speak.

Currently the only options for returning players are to either reactivate a high-skill point character, start from scratch again, or purchase from the character bazaar.

--Khan'wulf

No

*Snip* Please refrain from distorting the forum lay-out. ISD Ezwal.
Daoden
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2014-06-18 14:56:14 UTC
So once I finish training everything I want to train on all my characters I can just stop paying but still play and be just as effective. CCP would go broke in no time because a lot of older players would either stop paying and just use the skills which they have plenty and as for multi boxers who do that solely to make enough isk to plex all their accounts would stop having several paying accounts for 1 free one. It would also mean if I missed a plex day, id just have to farm until I had enough isk to get another.

Overall NO
Owen Levanth
Sagittarius Unlimited Exploration
#9 - 2014-06-18 14:58:52 UTC
Freako X wrote:
Owen Levanth wrote:
Sadly, this model wouldn't work. People would just use their mining/PI/marketing/whatever-alts to make enough money to pay for their training account.

Think about it, there are people multiboxing dozens of accounts, with your model those guys would only have to pay the accounts they want to train with. Every other account could just flatly make money without ever being paid. A player using 12+ accounts for mining, for example, needs to mine enough money for 12+ PLEX right now. With your model, he only needs to pay for the training he wants to do. Combat alt, hauler alt, industry alt: Let's say 3 PLEX for the fun things. So CCP's revenue goes down from 12+ PLEX to 3 PLEX for that one player. See the problem?

****, if it weren't for the long-term side effects, I would be all over this: I would simply make 1-2 other accounts, train/buy PI-alts and use the combined money to pay for training on my two old main accounts. After my PI-alts are trained up, I would simply stop paying for Eve forever.

Now multiply this problem with everyone who uses PI-alts or is using multiple accounts: CCP's income would drop so fast, Eve would be dead in less then a year.


I thought about that. I think that would take a lot of time and energy. I'm of the opinion that the majority of players are more casual than the average forum poster. I'd imagine that a look at play habits, login times, etc could be done by CCP to determine a cost analysis of doing something like this.

I'm a fan of thinking of active accounts as increased cash-flow. And cash-flow is king unless you're stupid wealthy. Given the recent organizational changes at CCP, I'd assume they are not stupid wealthy.


The problem is, I'm pretty casual myself and my super-lazy PI alts are already producing half the money for a PLEX. And I literally just log in once a week to make sure the colonies are still runing (and 1-2 time a month for hauling and selling the stuff). So hell yeah if CCP gives me the opportunity to do this, I would literally just have to have one more account, fill it with three PI-characters and use the money per month I'm making to pay my "casual-fun" account.

And this is not a lot of work. You just log in once a month to collect and sell, a lot less "work" then simply playing normally.

From CCPs perspective, instead of getting paid three times for those accounts, they only get paid one time (one PLEX used instead of three). This is a problem.

You seem to think CCP wouldn't mind implementing an idea actively hurting them, which is really, really dumb.
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#10 - 2014-06-18 20:51:31 UTC
Oh god, not this **** again.
Fer'isam K'ahn
SAS Veterinarians
#11 - 2014-06-18 21:04:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Fer'isam K'ahn
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:
Oh god, not this **** again.

Give me a moment, going through the locked threads...

K, just this week ... and its not long yet °°

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=352131&find=unread

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=351653&find=unread

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=351548&find=unread

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=351385&find=unread

Should say enough, and stop with your sneak Skill buybackremovalcleansing.

And for those who can't see or won't read stickies:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=6342&find=unread

Miscellaneous:

---> Skill buybackremovalcleansing .. each word is a link°°

Now seriously, cut it.
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#12 - 2014-06-18 21:06:21 UTC
Freako X wrote:
With the ever increasing world of F2P models showing up,



What the **** do you imagine that has to do with... anything? The only compelling reason to change Eve's business model would be if there were reason to believe that their current model is faltering, and there really isn't.

You don't change a business model solely because some other business model is popular - you change it because yours isn't working.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
ISD Ezwal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#13 - 2014-06-18 21:25:57 UTC
Thread locked.

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