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Nothing is the least bit trashed unless your time only amounted to 220mill SP and nothing more. If that's the case the fault lies squarely on you, not CCP. I'm happy with my best char @ 7 years, 150m SP as I was back at the beginning of October before even the initial announcement. None of what I trained was taken from me, and I have no desire to deny it to anyone else just because the way I got it was mandated at the time.

This isn't underhanded. There is no deception involved. Everything is so incredibly straightforward and clear to everyone, so much so that no one denies a profit motive played a hand in this, that the claim of being underhanded doesn't even make any remote sense.

Beyond that note how the statement you point out doesn't say the loss mechanic was placed to prevent respecing, just rapidly doing so by introducing loss. It acknowledges that this is a thing people are expected to do with it and as a result their limiting efficiency, which they later raised to make it more usable for that purpose.

You're the one making the erroneous assumption that time investment means nothing to me. The real difference here is that for me that past time still has and future time continues to have value, which is why I'm actually having an odd time making sense of the whole "now I can just unsub and inject up later" approach.

With this mechanic in place I still have an objective best rate of return on investment that only requires patience. It also maintains my decisions, which is important to me. Even the ones I didn't really make persay (no, 2% reduction on manufacturing time was not worth ~10 days, but when skills change I don't get to determine how).

And the best part is my actual journey isn't and can't be touched by this. It doesn't work retroactively. Everything I did, said, and had done to me in the game is intact and in no way invalidated. It's not something Stromgren or Ironbank can take. But apparently I'm banging my head trying to explain anything to someone determined to be outraged by this rather than think about it.

The things which Eve was supposedly most about don't have credit card options, or so I thought.

Turns out it was just a skill ticker.

Edit: And even the ones that do have the option of a CC you have the option of adding meaning to by not swiping yours.

Going to have to cut that thought right there and point out first and foremost that for me as a player that was never something for you to determine.

So far as the wider reaching absolutes you're now trying to deal in: The social structure of the game isn't built on SP. If there's any mechanical building block it's the fact that regardless of SP individual players have limits to what they can do at any point in time and other players help bypass those limits in ways SP can't.

Unless you're meaning to suggest that gaining SP via injectors itself in a game that has seen desirability of it's members increase with their SP count in certain social circles will now shun greater availability of such increases. That's certainly possible. But at that point one has to question the value of such a connection when so many less "elite" groups are available.

And as far as perception, we've been "spreadsheets in space" and more relevantly "the game you don't play for the first year" for the very aspect you're now defending. Perception is an argument of convenience which frankly doesn't even amount to an absolute. The few places I've seen that have even cared are actually more positive than this and pretty even split overall.

Edit: It's funny because looking around eve has it's fair share and more of haters at a conceptual level considering the actual size/population of the game (that's in news unrelated to this mind you).

Some people are making statements about this not changing goals. Kinda like:

I did the London to Brighton Cycle run.

I did it on the Train, I guess that's the same yes?

To an extent and in a way your 100% correct .Hence removing the learning skills ... I was bloody furious when they were removed yes ok we got the a refund ...but we weren't refunded for the time it took to train them AFAIK .

Like I said in one of my previous posts this new crop of Devs don't have the same vision that the original devs had hence their "im stamping my foot on the game mechanics"

It's 4,630 days from Stromgren's birth on 17.6.2006 until today.
Assuming a constant training of the skills (with the maximum of 2.700SP/h) Stromgren would be at 300 Million SP.
Stromgren currently is at 411 Million SP. The spike on SP/time happened after the introduction of stkill trading. That's when he started injecting SP beyond the 238 Million he had.

I'm not sure if the 10+ years are wasted, as I'm pretty sure that Strommgren played eve all the time. It's hard for me to believe that anybody would stick with a game for that time if it's not fun, at least not for such a long time. You may ask him.

Any player in eve should discover and stick to their own defintion of fun with the game. Don't let your fun be ruled by what was, you'll end up wishing "vanilla wow" back. And don't let your fun be ruled by other players' definitions of fun with eve.

However, I see that skill trading already did and most likely will have impact on this definition of fun by some players. And new players, will most definitely discover the game in an environment where instant carrier is at least an option/something to strive for *1. New players don't have to experience the change of paradigm that some existing players have.
And they way CCP handled the disuccion of this matter before it got introduced. But that is just another example of CCPs dedication to open communication with the community (read:duck and cover).

It's the perception and conclusions of what eve is, that worry me.
At least the trailer which attempts to show "this is eve", though, would still be possiible no matter if skill trading existed back then.

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*1
Character Bazaar! some may scream now. I hear you. But did the bazaar get two Flight Academy training videos? Video, where "designed for new players" is stated three times? Did the Bazaar get that much of media coverage ("print" and social)? (Several differently designed) Banner ads in the launcher? It did'nt and does'nt. One might come to the conclusion CCP would rather hide the bazaar from (new) players.

What I don't understand is how them introducing the SP trading, changes the value of your time retroactively? That just makes no sense at all. You have have enjoyed your time playing EVE for X number of years. You made the journey, which according to some philosophies, is more worth than the end point. That they introduce something now, that you don't like, would at most ruin your enjoyment of the game now. It does not negate the X years you enjoyed, as you already have had your fun. That is not being taken away. If you feel like it is, then it is a mentality thing on your part. Just be happy about the time you enjoyed, and if you don't enjoy it now, then stop playing. Being bitter will severely affect your general life quality, and it is not worth that.

In the past I have played other MMOs that I have stopped enjoying due to tedium or changes they made. I just quit, leaving all my stuff behind and found something I enjoy ot play instead. I did not, bring a lot of drama to the forums, claiming the time I had enjoyed was wasted. I will probably never understand that mentality. The world is dynamic, and so are your gaming choices, don't get too attached to the pixels, it is just a waste of life.

So what we have then is a question purely of perception vs reality.

Since we're running this analogy for all it's worth: We all know not being in Brighton doesn't mean not having fun, or so I would have though since those of us still accruing SP for whatever reason never got all the way there. At the same time I'm assuming we're still here because we enjoyed the game for more than simply counting the steps to it.

Yet this conversation has done everything to paint that as not the case.

Another factor here is that the perception of "it's more fun in Brighton" didn't start with skill injectors/extractors. I'm certain that the sentiment has been exasperated because of the strong opposition. 2003 players speaking of their achievements and how it's all ruined by younger players using injectors certainly doesn't tell those newer players that low SP is something you can have fun with. It says that SP was something to be envious and covetous of, but would take over a decade to achieve themselves.

We have a decade thick brick wall of perception already. And it was actually a great deal sturdier before the first blog.

I won't argue there are no inevitable mechanical changes, though quantifying them as inherently harmful still seems a stretch. Most of the harm seems to rather come from the perception that being poor in game didn't hold you back somehow before and real life wealth was never employed to resolve that. And further we're reinforcing the notion that, per the vets insistence that this is P2W, it is necessary to have fun. Problem is that even if that argument killed the idea itself it also reinforces the notion that even isn't worth playing the first few years. And to many that means just plain not worth playing.

I get the argument of appearances, but since no one cares how bad the skill system looks overall so long as they can tarnish injectors we're not gaining progress either way.

Interesting how this threads ethos has turned in the past few days as players begin to realise the depth of this apparently simple change to the game. Seems you cannot take the skill out the player but you can now at a swipe of a credit card suck it out of the heads of your toons.

Apart from the obvious disgust at this change some now belatedly exhibit the real issue here is in that simple statement, were is the skill actually based, Give a ten years player a noob toon and they can work wonders in game with it, but give a ten year old toon to a noob player and is the reverse true, Very doubtful, more than probably all they will do is get themselves continually blown up, become utterly disillusioned with Eve and leave the game in short order. CCP will be happy they got the short term dollar injection but will soon find this dries up, Players on the other hand, Well not so much will they find that same dollar bought them the satisfaction they initially believed it would.

As with the so called 'New Player Experience'. That freebie grapple that CCP injected into the game to get players over the initial vertical learning curve and into Eve properly and quickly in there view, Has this been a success, again very doubtful it has as the reality of it by the nature of humans in general means that the vast majority not having to undergo that initial baptism of fire will soon find that not only have they been deceived by CCP, but that they have arrived in Eve proper utterly ill equipped to cope with day to day life in game. Soon loose interest as it bites them daily and find there ability to progress gimped simply because they never had the chance to learn even the basics.

Skill Extractors, Well you either take em or leave em, either way Players should never ignore what brought them into the game, Once fully understanding the implication of them there is only one way to combat this creeping disease currently making it's way into the game, and that is not to participate in it, a far more powerful voice than the CSM ever gave you.