Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I came back just to check things out because of alpha clones... I quit playing about a year ago. After playing the grind game to make isk I had managed to turn a couple hundred thousand into about 3 billion in less than two months. BUT... IT WAS A SERIOUS GRIND. I don't know how many hours, probablywell over a hundred just to grind out that isk.

I think the conflicting thing about this game is just that everything is tied to isk. You really can't do much of anything without it. That's why I just can't wrap my head around playing this game much. I'd say my logic probably follows along with a lot of people and it doesn't really matter if you have the money to pay to play or not.

I want to play EVE and I don't have the money to pay for a sub.
- Let me spend hours grinding out isk to pay for a sub...
- I still need isk to do the fun things I want to do.... but I just spent my isk for a PLEX...
- Crap... lets grind some more to get isk for the actual fun I want to have.
- EVE online turns into job...
- I quit...

That is the situation I played through when I tried to play without paying a sub.... even though I could (and did for those couple months, even an extra for an alt account one month).
Now, even considering coming back and paying again, my logic goes something like this...

I want to play EVE and I DO have the money to pay for a sub! YAY!
- Well I have paid for my sub, but again I still need isk to blow up space pirates and have fun.
- I can spend some time farming isk to have fun, or I can buy another PLEX.
- I can afford it, just an hour at my actual job can afford me a sub PLEX and a PLEX for fun! Saves me countless hours grinding....
- Buys 2 plexes...
- Why am I paying $30 a month to play a game again? I can go play guild wars 2 or any number of games that are just as much fun without the reliance on in game or real life money.
- Realizes other games are just as much fun without being $30 or even $15 a month....
- Does not compute...
- End Sub


I think currently Alpha Clones do have too many limitations. They shouldn't be able to do everything, but they should be able to do a lot.

The real underlying problem is there isn't really enough fun to be had without constantly worrying about isk. Also, since you are capable of losing a lot of isk just by simply playing the game or making mistakes that makes the point even more sharp. Maybe change up the structure of the economy a little by having NPCs offer a wider variety of ships and mods for purchase very cheaply so there is a broader range of things that can be done without sinking in tons of isk. Let the whales have access to cap ships, personal stations and top of the line modules and such with their abundance of isk and/or money if they want to spend it on the game.

When people come to play the game, they don't want to just fly frigates around all the time. They want to be able to have their battleships too but may not ever be able to get them or continue losing them stupidly resulting in them just quitting because they can't afford to replace them. Maybe instead of just getting game time with a PLEX you could get NPC currency that could only be used to purchase those cheap ships and mods I mentioned. Make them non transferable if you want. This would allow people to still pay for a sub but then also have access to things that make the game fun. Slightly better versions of the ships could be available as usual with isk and just have a moderate advantage over the NPC varieties. So there would still be incentive for people that want to spend the money to acquire isk and these other ships.

Just my opinion. I did enjoy the game for a time... but if it just ends up turning into a second job for farming isk... people won't tend to enjoy it for long.

git gud?

Join a real corp, do something that makes a lot of isk for not a lot of effort (PI for example, or incursions if there's still a group who runs them in something other than blinged out pirate BS), abuse free ship and reimbursement programs run by whatever real corp you join, dabble in things like industry...there's lots of ways to play the game without grinding for months.

But I neither pay for plex nor grind for isk? I used to sub two accounts purely with PI ISK, which was about ten minutes a day.

You're making an awful lot of claims and assumptions, and providing nothing to back them up with.

I think the conflicting thing about this game is just that everything is tied to assets. You really can't do much of anything but sell them. It results in isk that you cant do anything with but spend it.
that spawns moor assets that then require selling .
it's a vicious cycle.



- EVE online turns into job..
having a job and a subscription turns EvE into a game?

-10 trole

I really don't know why you're throwing around isk per hour figures, that's really not how PI income works.

Ten, perhaps as many as twenty minutes a day to reset extractors, maybe half an hour to an hour once a week to extract, load stuff onto a factory planet, lose haulers to roaming gangs and generally be quite terrible at the game. That was enough to PLEX, and for clarity at the time I was running three accounts, two of which were plexed in this manner. I've changed my setup since then which makes it harder to keep track of things, but I'm still pulling in hundreds of millions every week or so when I can be bothered to extract properly. (I have half a bil sitting in a poco right now, for example.)

There is only a grind in this game if you want there to be a grind in this game. PI isn't grinding, markets aren't grinding unless you're trying to compete with the jita crowd, production, importing and contract sales aren't grinding...

Frankly, why does it even matter how much isk you have? If you're in a decent group, they'll help you with money and ships. If you're not, frigate PVP or FW shenanigans are hardly boring and you can do those with an alpha. Or you could try joining a decent group