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Yeah because when wow made it free to level 30 it really helped

True, this. I was actually a little disappointed that such a forum regular as Josef didn't set out his views in more detail.

Josef?

I'm sure this was far more clever in your head than it is when posted.

I really think that the skill list should not allow cruisers, but definitely allow for Tech 2 fittings (including cloaking, but agreed not Cynos). Alpha clones currently exclude pretty much all solo and small gang PVP, which is unfortunate, and most importantly for experienced players returning to test the waters, will be incredibly boring and you won't see the conversion you're after.

They'll need much bigger fleets to do anything PVP related, which is problematic and tiresome.

My suggestion is to simplify the whole system, and let alpha clones ONLY fly tier 1 frigates and dessies that are in faction, with whatever fittings they want. You can still do very well, even in experienced low-sec piracy for example, with only those ships.

Anything else goes... (clearly with the exception of cyno's and other debilitating or abuse ready mechanics)

You do realise that every player who tests the waters is going to 'pay to win' ... I'm sure that's been brought up, and I'm not sure you care, but Eve is going to become land of pay to win if you restrict alpha's so heavily.

If this goes ahead (which seems like it will whatever we say), I actually think Alpha account should have accelerated training time, not slower one, or start with some of the basic skills already injected and trained to lvl 1.

It doesn't make sense that you want to attract F2P crowd who wants fast & cheap (actually free...) experience of the game, but they are stuck with very slow training time to use very basic (and limited) equipment.

I don't suppose it's CCP's vision to have missions of Alpha accounts swarming all areas of the space. Commercially I would imagine you'd want them to sub into Omega eventually.

Help them get into the action ASAP, with obvious and strict limitations that tells them what more cool things they can do if they subbed into Omega.

F2P or not, having to wait excruciating amount of time to train very basic skills to what is already hard-capped low levels is not conducive to attracting what I assume to be the target audience.

So again - get them into action and be able to hit the skill cap relatively fast, so they can enjoy the full Alpha experience as soon as possible, and the hard cap on SP could nudge them into upgrading to Omega (paid) accounts.

Otherwise I see loads of new players trying Alpha account and saying 'fock it this is taking forever to do anything' and just lose interest.

CCP aren't calling this "f2p". Marketing this change to your friends as an "unlimited free trial" might help, because that's what it is.

Incidentally, for those who are quitting because eve is getting unlimited free trial access, what's the longest trial account term you feel is ethical? Obviously it's at least 52 days, since we've had 51 day trials before. What's the maximum you'd accept?

It us in CCP's interest to have more people playing even if they don't convert. Recall that in EVE, the players are the content. More people playing means more.game for everyone else. An EVE with 500k accounts paying 250k subs is much better for CCP than an EVE with 250k accounts paying 250k subs.

It's truly amazing to me how many people think they understand how business works, but then go to spew so much BS it's not even funny anymore. So let's just debunk all this BS right here and now.

1. "CCP must be in financial trouble!"
No they're not, they're in one of the most healthy financial states they've been in in years, which is partly what enables them to do this in the first place.

2. "EVE is dying!"
EVE has been dying since 1999. GTFO.

3. "People are going to use hundreds of alts to ruin the game forever!"
If you really honestly think that CCP will allow a single person to log in hundreds of free accounts at once you are completely insane. I'd be willing to bet all my EVE assets that Alpha accounts will be IP/hardware restricted to a single session. Even Omega accounts probably aren't allowed to run a free Alpha account next to their main.

4. "Suicide ganking will be at an all time high!"
No it won't, because Alpha accounts will have their security settings locked to green and yellow. The Dev Blog might say that it's a 'possibility' but believe when I say this is going to happen. The CSM is pushing for it and it's the number one most mentioned feedback in this thread. Alpha accounts will NOT be able to suicide gank in High Sec.

5. "Free to play is bad and I won't be part of it. I'm unsubbing!"
K, bye. You won't be missed and no-one cares.

6. "They could have just lowered the sub cost."
And this is the largest issue I have. No. That's not how any of this works. That is not why this is being done. The gaming market has changed since 2003 when subscription models were entirely normal. Since then an entirely new generation of teenagers has grown up who simply do not accept the notion of paying for a game monthly. EVE Online is one of the very last games to have this model and it cannot be sustained with the current market trends.

The major number 1 reason why people quit EVE after their trial is because they can't or won't pay 15 dollars a month to play a video game. Check any user submitted reviews on Steam and other places. They simply don't understand the concept because they grew up in a time where subscription based games had pretty much died out. Most of these people actually seem to be offended by the mere notion of having to pay monthly. They perceive it as a money grab, greed, that sort of stuff. And what you need to understand is that it doesn't matter if they are right or wrong. They are the consumer base CCP needs to survive, whether they like it or not. So they need to appeal to a consumer base that does not want to pay monthly. And the very first step in doing that is to make the game free to play. No amount of lowering of sub costs would have fixed that because it's the sheer principle that people are against.

Subsequently, don't think that this free to play mode is the only change that's coming. This is a first appeal to a new modern market, but subscription fees will be completely removed within the next 5 years to be replaced with more microtransactions. You can argue this is a bad thing or a good thing or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that within 5 years CCP will receive more income from PLEX and Aurum sales than they get from subscriptions. The market is changing, consumer preferences are shifting. And if CCP doesn't change with them, they will get left behind and EVE will, in fact, die.

Now, I agree that microtransactions can be a horrible addition to a game in a lot of cases. But with EVE it hasn't gotten in my way much YET. Which is a testament to CCP's careful introductions of these things. You can buy ISK and SP, but none of it is ever generated out of thin air and that's the important part. As long as you can't buy items, ISK or SP directly for cash, microtransactions won't harm the EVE ecosystem.

In the end the age old adage applies as much in the real world as it does in EVE Online. Adapt or die. Accept change or you will be left behind, no matter how much you scream. And personally I would rather contribute to the discussion with valuable feedback instead of throwing a tantrum over something that is going to happen regardless of how loudly you protest.

So to everyone throwing a fit, threatening to unsub, etc; Shut up or provide some constructive and polite feedback to improve the Free to Play feature. No-one cares about your threats and your insults. Stop being a baby.

Exactly! The richness of the EVE is mainly the possible interactions between its players (whatever form these interactions take). That is why the single shard thing is so important and that is why the EVE experience will be greater for all involved the more actors are available for an interaction at any given time. It is a complex, nonlinear system where the end result is far richer than just the sum of its parts.

That is why it is important to retain as many of these "free" accounts as possible even when they will not end up subscribing. For that to happen they should be competitive with the paying customers in the niche which is made available to them. As it stands that niche seems to be intended to be T1 frigates, destroyers, cruisers and industrials but with so crippling limitations that I honestly do not believe EVE would retain any of the Alphas that are not alts of existing Omega accounts. With the exception of people just using EVE as a chat channel ;) I know few who are paying subs for couple of accounts just to log in and talk to people because everyone knows that everything is better with multiple accounts, even chatting :D Full EVE experience starting at 2 accounts and all that.

I can't believe I went through and read 42 pages, liked a bunch of the replies and quoted those that mirrored my own feelings about this topic which is basically NO, NO, NO.

Maybe I'm mistaken but for some reason I seem to remember years and years ago CCP saying quite a few times that this game would never be Free to Play or Pay to Win.

Within my 8+ years of playing this game, I've seen way too many good Dev's get fired and this game has been hurting for it ever since, especially in the last couple of years. Recently it seems the term 'New Content' mainly refers to graphics being redone or needless changes to UI or implementing drastic changes to game mechanics basically placing rules and restrictions on game play, etc.

Trying to portray the topic of this Dev Blog and thread as 'New Content' is an insult since it's actually an announcement about changes to subscription policy, more importantly, it totally goes against the core aspect that this game was founded on. Course the same was said years ago about introducing Micro Transactions into the game.

Anyway, despite all the objections posted in various threads about this topic, CCP will do what they want. I won't log into the game as much as I use to do but I'll definitely keep this account subbed so my character can continue training skills. I hope CCP will soon see the folly of their ways, come back to their senses and get back to releasing game expansions that produce excellent game content. That is what gains paid subscriptions. Having that content be bug free and not break any existing content is what keeps paid subscriptions.

If not, at least I'll be able to say I was there when Eve was real.


DMC