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CCP’s Most Calculated Endeavor
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Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#21 - 2017-05-10 17:37:11 UTC
A "Full FTP Model" would certainly be one without skill training. If time = skill generation (the only way to "mine" skills) that would confirm a total FTP agenda.

Last night after nearly a year I logged in after setting up on an older slower system (the new one still having GTX Win10 conflicts grrrrr) and saw that Omega symbol hovering over everything "nice". Two thoughts: first somebody must have had to put a LOT of work into that. This was no small task!

Second, dangling that carrot so openly and sickeningly every 2 seconds gets irritating.


Another feature of this model is this Achievement thing. I hit some menu option for "Look at my ship" and then some achievement comes up "Looked at your ship" or something like that.

Really, CCP? That's an achievement? Whatever marketer has convinced you that this is your target audience should be put in a sack and beaten with hammers. Or are we preying on the autistic kids who will have to "achieve them all!"? So they'll stick around? They'll be gone the minute the have all achievements, OR despair (endlessly) over the tallest ones and then quit.

Look, maybe the FTP model is "the future" but so is heat death of the entire universe. We should not have to embrace it and pretend it's a good thing.

My theory for Eve's lackluster competition is not that the game is diminished. It's the best it has ever been actually. The devs and designers have done a job of the sort that could be a textbook example of how to do it. But other games that lack grind and irritation now have the same kind of character/equipment/skill customization and people would rather play them.

But those games too have FTP as well.


The question, and I'll be hated for bringing this up, is this: is Eve's increasingly irritating FTP model a bulwark against rigging the game as Gevlon has found other FTP games to be? People will still play a game that might be rigged if they can play for free. But you cannot rig a game where grind and skills over time are required. It's practically a crime against humanity to rig such a game. Remove grind and skills over time, and you can rig it the way WoT (for example) is rigged.


Remember when a locked door and expensive pants were the thing?

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Captain Tardbar
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#22 - 2017-05-10 18:30:49 UTC
hmskrecik wrote:
As I understand the main theme of the topic is that buying SP is PTW. To some degree it is. But not entirely. I for instance, have more than 100mil SP, earned old way, and have almost perfect combat skills. And I'm still bad at PVP. How anyone new to the game who buys all the SP right away could be better than I?

It is constantly being reminded that having SP and gear does not guarantee win of any kind. One can buy a titan, one can buy skills for titan, but can one fly a titan? Longer than it takes to light a cyno?

Actually I see it as the perfect manifestation of Malcanis' law. Those who will benefit most from the new system are those who are already well rooted in the game.


Minor point.

It doesn't matter how good you are in PVP if you can bring exponentially more ships than your opponent human wave style.

Though alliance management is a skill in its own, you could in theory bank roll an alliance if you were wealthy, but so far no wealthy person has wasted their money on EVE publicly in such a matter.

Suffice to say, if an EVE tool won the lottery, he could in theory win the game by destroying the economy and just bribing everyone with PLEX.

Though the chance of any EVE players winning the lottery is so small that it most likely won't happen.

Looking to talk on VOIP with other EVE players? Are you new and need help with EVE (welfare) or looking for advice? Looking for adversarial debate with angry people?

Captain Tardbar's Voice Discord Server
Eleanor Roscommon
Bleu Femme Felis
#23 - 2017-05-10 18:40:51 UTC
We may not always agree with what CCP does. That has been going on since the games inception. And it will continue.

We have fancy clothes. Some items have to be purchased. Only ones who see them is ourselves. That might be a vanity issue to some. Now if we could get that door unlocked and mingle, we could see other and show off our wardrobe. But on the other hand, EVE is not a fashion show, and opening the door, would just be creating a chat room.

Almost same idea for ship skins. It really only matters when it's sitting in the hanger.

Sorry for the digress.

So, whether we like it or not, the company must make money. It has too. I want them too. CCP is trying different things to add to their bottom line, but it's not a desperate death rattle.

They are the ones creating the game, we are the ones playing it. So lets just play it.
Shallanna Yassavi
qwertz corp
#24 - 2017-05-10 19:53:19 UTC
"Pay to win" gives it too much credit. You don't pay to win, you pay to cheat.

A signature :o
Benje en Divalone
#25 - 2017-05-10 19:53:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Benje en Divalone
Eleanor Roscommon wrote:
We have fancy clothes. Some items have to be purchased. Only ones who see them is ourselves. That might be a vanity issue to some. Now if we could get that door unlocked and mingle, we could see other and show off our wardrobe. But on the other hand, EVE is not a fashion show, and opening the door, would just be creating a chat room.

Costuming systems in full avatar games (eg. WoW, SW:TOR, etc.) is an important feature for me and I'll admit to spending some RL money on that pursuit.

Even here I find myself fiddling with how my station clones look like. But for an audience of one I'm less inclined to indulge.

I did see that some of the pieces I had my eye on are only 10 nuPlex (40 cents US) which is right about my threshold. The irony being that it makes a skirt cost the same as a modestly fit T1 cruiser.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#26 - 2017-05-10 20:36:19 UTC
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
The expression "pay to win" does not mean that you literally pay to win the game. It usually means that you can purchase an in-game advantage be that currency, gear or speed up timers and such.

Minus timers this already has been the case for a long time, if not from the beginning. Why is it a problem now?

Timers, well, I myself am not 100% okay with that. But still the sky is not falling. No matter how deep pocket one can have, any given skill may be trained only up to V.
Salt Foambreaker
Greedy Pirates
#27 - 2017-05-10 20:42:45 UTC
*dons tinfoil hat*

I predict nothing will significantly change.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#28 - 2017-05-10 20:50:57 UTC
hmskrecik wrote:
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
The expression "pay to win" does not mean that you literally pay to win the game. It usually means that you can purchase an in-game advantage be that currency, gear or speed up timers and such.

Minus timers this already has been the case for a long time, if not from the beginning. Why is it a problem now?

Timers, well, I myself am not 100% okay with that. But still the sky is not falling. No matter how deep pocket one can have, any given skill may be trained only up to V.

I did not say this is a problem now. Actually I did not say this is a problem at all. I just said it is what people mean when they say pay2win and yes it started with PLEX. I don't say this is bad, I just say the "you can't buy player skill" argument is bad since that is actually true no matter what CCP does or even for any other game.

Also the argument that CCP gets a free pass with stuff they add to the cash shop because you can resell it in the market is pretty stupid in my opinion. It's like the market is laundering the money or something? I mean you could make the same argument if they would add gold ammo to the shop. In4b the guy who would be ok with that except if it is "soul-bound"...

Evil RatKid
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#29 - 2017-05-10 20:51:13 UTC
The biggest whales CCP can ever get are already in the game and have been since day 1 basically.
Those Null players who run 40 or 50 alts for spies etc, those are already whales. And CCP knows it. That is why they bend over backwards to keep those players.

So no, this is just a baseless fear mongering thread worthy of serious tinfoil.
CMDR-HerpyDerpy Hurishima
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#30 - 2017-05-11 01:37:16 UTC
Do Little wrote:
There is no question that CCP is making it easier to buy stuff in the NES. There was nothing in that store I wanted badly enough to trade an old PLEX for 3500 Aurum. Replacing Aurum with granular PLEX is one of the smartest moves they've made in a while.

I don't think Eve can work using a normal micro-transaction based F2P model. This game doesn't entertain you, you need to entertain yourself and the people who stay with Eve tend to get involved with the meta-game at some level - politics, economics, group dynamics. I don't see how to monetize that player to player interaction using micro-transactions.

Making ISK in Eve is easy once you know how. There have been days when I made a billion ISK overnight while I was sleeping. The markets don't care if I'm logged in or not. What CCP needs to do is make it more fun for me to spend that ISK in game instead of using it to PLEX my subscription. A rigged Azbel is roughly equivalent to a one year subscription but only needs to survive for a few months to pay for itself.

im about 3-4 months into the game and at the moment i only have 23million, all the other money ive ever had my brother gave to me (i need to pay him back RIP) how do you make so much money in eve so fast? i can barely manage to make 5 million in 2 hours :/
Shallanna Yassavi
qwertz corp
#31 - 2017-05-11 04:49:29 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
The biggest whales CCP can ever get are already in the game and have been since day 1 basically.
Those Null players who run 40 or 50 alts for spies etc, those are already whales. And CCP knows it. That is why they bend over backwards to keep those players.

So no, this is just a baseless fear mongering thread worthy of serious tinfoil.

What's better than whales? Moar whales!

A signature :o
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#32 - 2017-05-11 05:48:08 UTC  |  Edited by: hmskrecik
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
I just say the "you can't buy player skill" argument is bad since that is actually true no matter what CCP does or even for any other game.

You have a point. In every game player skills play a role and this is something you can't buy. Actually you can, you can hire such player ;) but this is not what we are talking about. We are talking about what's beside. It's avatar skills and avatar gear and in EVE presently you can, indirectly but still, buy both for real world money. Now the very important question is the balance of player vs. avatar. In my opinion EVE still leans heavily on player side and this is why, again in my opinion, this argument is valid. Not because it's universally true but because in EVE it matters. The problem would be if the game was relying on the avatar side (like I heard is in World of Tanks, with higher tiers available only via microtransactions and no matter what your player-skill, you can't compete with higher tiers).

Quote:
Also the argument that CCP gets a free pass with stuff they add to the cash shop because you can resell it in the market is pretty stupid in my opinion. It's like the market is laundering the money or something? I mean you could make the same argument if they would add gold ammo to the shop. In4b the guy who would be ok with that except if it is "soul-bound"...

I did not make this argument, but we can discuss it nonetheless. :) Turned out longer than I planned, sorry.

First the ammo itself. I believe that despite all the hate and ragequits the game would survive. However you want to call CCP employees, they are not stupid and would not release anything game breaking. So probably it would be powerful, maybe overpowered, and stupidly expensive. In certain situations it would be must-have but the second main usage would be the source of hilarious killmails.

And yes, the market does the laundry. Why? Because of the argument I would and I'm going to make.

All this present rage is touching the invisible currency in the game: the time. You can buy it, you can sell it, you can spend it. So it is already a commodity of a sort. BTW, it's only due to PLEX existence that following sentence is not true: "paying Omega players have an advantage which is impossible for Alpha players to achieve". So if you bought for ISK enough PLEX for the next millennium, you are the living proof that EVE is *not* P2W. But I digress.

The thing which become commoditized are SP. Before they were something you gained as you spent time. Now you can buy it. But you buy it with time again. Extractors cost PLEX and PLEX is time (and is also money but time is money so all is good ;). OK, you can buy them with ISK but ISK also cost time. Or if you have good player-skills, they cost you less. Which is my point. The shorter route $$$->SP the worse exchange ratio.
Hir Miriel
Elves In Space
#33 - 2017-05-11 09:42:16 UTC
The internet is shrinking in order to fit into the imaginations of those who want to control it.

The marketers lead the lawyers, politicians and investment bankers into a reality that is small enough for them to understand.

Because they only understand reality, not the cold space of virtuality.

EVE will become a game where you get ships, then blow up ships, to get better ships, to blow up other ships. It's a planned obsolescence, a recycling system of sorts.

With a handy credit facility in case you want to be fastest on the treadmill.

But hey, it is fun sometimes to log in and stare down the beam of a mining laser and wonder if there is a real life out there.

~ ~~ Thinking inside Schrodinger's sandbox. ~~ ~
Garia666
CyberShield Inc
HYDRA RELOADED
#34 - 2017-05-11 11:25:38 UTC
The thing is that players numbers are dropping the last couple of years.. they need to make some extra income. The aur did not do what they wanted however these plex changes will .

The things you can buy is only estetics. There is no better ships for sale only from the plex store..
The skill extractors is something new but there not didtributing skill points from plex.
The skills where trained and there for payed.

Now there are 2 currency`s instead of 3 .. = better.
I dont want to spend more money on eve but i do like the game so if they can keep it running for the next couple of years due to these changes then good
Enigma08
Viewer Discretion Advised
#35 - 2017-05-11 13:04:17 UTC
Garia666 wrote:
The thing is that players numbers are dropping the last couple of years...

These numbers are directly proportional to CCP's conscious decisions to force their views onto the player base. I think CCP managed to get rid of anyone that listened to players' input. The CSM is a feeble attempt to elicit a, "we have some say" into the way things are done around here. Pretty much everything that attracted me to playing Eve Online (beta) is gone. I believe that I'm one of two people at my work that still log in, out the of nine that started together. Back in the day, we'd remind each other to update our skill training or call into work to let someone know that their POS was under attack. Now all I hear is the every increasing sound of crickets...

✴️ 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕥 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 ✴️
Yebo Lakatosh
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#36 - 2017-05-11 18:21:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Yebo Lakatosh
CMDR-HerpyDerpy Hurishima wrote:
how do you make so much money in eve so fast? i can barely manage to make 5 million in 2 hours :/
You know, if you can't think of a better place than EvE-O to ask, then I know why you are poor.

Elite F1 pilot since YC119, incarnate of honor, integrity and tidi.
Sitting Bull Lakota
Poppins and Company
#37 - 2017-05-12 11:21:50 UTC
I had a less end-of-days reaction to the changes:
They've been beefing up their hardware.
They overhauled the NPE.
Both of those suggest they expect an increase in volume.

They've been watching PLEX price rise steadily suggesting that the option of paying 15 a moth is less economical to an increasing number of players.
CCP recognizes that their product/service is one in competition with others and likely has a relatively elastic demand.
CCP splits up PLEX and changes the price model slightly. This allows them to make some pretty big changes without collapsing the econony.

I think we are going to see a change in monthly sub price and a change in the number of PLEX to sub as well. I'm expecting a switch to maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the current monthly sub.

CCP stands to make a pretty good chunk of revenue over what they make now if a drop of 1/2 the price grows the active subs proportional to the spike we had right after the Alpha change.
Pohbis
Neo T.E.C.H.
#38 - 2017-05-12 11:54:51 UTC
There's no tinfoil hattery to this.

It's been in the roadmap for years now, at least since CCP partnered with Aria Systems in 2015.
Pohbis
Neo T.E.C.H.
#39 - 2017-05-12 11:58:54 UTC
Garia666 wrote:
The thing is that players numbers are dropping the last couple of years...
Accounts logged in have been dropping.

I don't really think all those cyno alts and multiboxing bots generated that much revenue for CCP – not compared to what they've been getting in return via the store and SP Extractors/Injectors.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#40 - 2017-05-12 13:54:36 UTC
Pohbis wrote:
There's no tinfoil hattery to this.

It's been in the roadmap for years now, at least since CCP partnered with Aria Systems in 2015.

Can you show us that roadmap plz?

Evil RatKid
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