EVE General Discussion

By allowing character trade?

Think about it, if it weren't for character trading, would we really have the proliferation of Supers/Titans? The training time is long, many people are never willing to spend the time on it, but people are always willing to buy such characters. If there were no market for them, would so many have been trained up?
Would there be huge fleets of ISBoxer alts if people had to train each character themselves?
Would there be big blue doughnuts in 0.0 if Alliances couldn't just go out and buy all the alts they needed?

Really too late to do anything about it at this point, but I wonder how the game would have progressed if PTW wasn't a reality.

None of those seem particularly connected with character trading.

Let's not forget the transfer fee. I think CCP is happy with that.

CCP has made many many mistakes...unfortunately OP hasn't touched on a single one.

Nullsec entities prepared to send hundreds of billions of ISK on supers and caps would be quite happy if need be to PLEX as many characters to train the skill as they need. The bazaar means players can make a living training hauling and PI and cyno and cap alts for other people. If the bazaar did not exist the big alliances would just do it in house anyway.

The only downside I can see to the character bazaar is it rains on the parade for people that want to somehow feel "elite and special" becasue of the SP they have accrued. Obsession with accumulating and micromanaging SP is a bad thing. Actually playing the game is a good thing.

In a perfect world it would be a mistake, yes.
However the world isn't perfect and people would trade characters regardless of it being allowed or not.
By allowing it through the bazaar CCP has at least some control over the terms at which character trading happens and even makes a small profit from it.

OP's name really says it all.

Character trading is awesome.

However, as to your question, why not just nerf/remove supercarriers/titans?

its better that CCP allows a secure avenue for it to happen legitimately. CCP profits from doing so, and customers don't have to bend the rules or risk getting scammed just to compete. Its a win-win, even if its also a necessary evil.

Every character sold is the equivalent of 2 months gametime paid on top of the already paid gametime for training the character. So no, I don't think CCP made a mistake by making more money. If they didn't allow trade people wouldn't just go "oh no! no titans!", they would simply train more up.

Most isboxer alts take very little training. A mining fleet can be operational in 8 days, and can earn their plex while training, so people who go out buying isboxer miners are pretty dense. Isboxing gankers are better, they actually shouldn't train too much, otherwise clone costs can become an issue. PVE isboxers again, short train to become operational and pay for themselves. Character sales just pay CCP to let someone else do your leveling up.

By the way, it's not even remotely PTW. There are a lot of people that could take a 2 day old frigate alt and demolish most people in combat. The big blue doughnut is a result of people being too risk averse to fight back. In any game that allows cooperation, the bigger group is going to have an easier time. So instead of armchair critiquing the game from the safety of a high sec station, you complainers should actually learn how to fight back. The vast majority of the game's population is not part of the doughnut you complain about, so it's not like you are short of recruits.