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The business case for removing the NeX
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Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#101 - 2011-12-10 09:22:49 UTC
Azahni Vah'nos wrote:
The last quoted average age for EVE players was 31.


The mean average, the median, or actual averge?

Quote:

Please tell me that you can't in all honesty believe that saying to someone "yes come and play EVE where you pay $30 for a digital skirt" is going to attract a multitude of new players. This may attract some people, but isn't going to keep them long term because the items are meaningless in the context of the game.

Now if that same item was gained through LP for becoming an Admiral in FW as one example then it gives someone even new to the game something to strive for and gives the item meaning in the game "Hey look that person is an Admiral" or "Oh I like the look of that, how do I get one as well", a goal to work towards. Even something like the monocle, if that was from a rare BPC drop, imagine what that would be worth then on the market and it's exclusivity in game ... industrialists would be drooling.

I want to see EVE and CCP around for a long long time, but I don't believe the NeX is the answer to that goal. By polishing current content and diversifying EVE's appeal through additional gameplay that stays in line with the core philosophy of the game are what will give EVE the longevity it needs.



The adress was inferring to Avatar system as a whole as there is a deep end of the anti nex camp known as the anti anything having to do with avatars camp that would like to see incanra entirely removed becuase its considered offensive content to them. As it stands how unfourtunately nex is hte only real interactable item in there aside from some special tooling around with the TV. Though true we are arguing about the store the store only caters to people in the station, and there are some that go all hysteria over the chance at getting rid of avatars like zealot atheists getting chance to rid the world of religion.

BTW Skirt is 14USD cheapest item there is about 3USD
Price of WoW Poney that does nothign more special than a regular pony 25 USD.

Are you arbitarly suggesting an acheivement system? I thought you guys where the same sort of folks that would abhore the idea of stealing stuff from world of warcraft I dare say.

The next issue Ill point out some stressing factors

Eve has a low gain to increase gain one must have new shineies of any sort to break the idea that where nothing but spreadsheets in space. If it was a high gain wed be in the couple million subs like all those other games that constantly bump us to number 3 on the charts.

Eve also has high retention this is where your polish comes in handy, it does little to get new people period. New people are not interested in something that has been broke for years let alone do they even know its broken?

This is something that alot of the number 2's for a months dont have are players willing to stick it out for hte long run. Players complete all said content within that month and nothing new comes out fast enough to keep them in, which is why world of warcraft is slwoly dying as content is becomming to conquerable all to easily.

The only thing polish does is keeping older players in however inevibility no matter how much polish you do apply you will still wind up with loss of subscribers if you have 0 growth and that is just a matter of time, factors beyond customer satisfaction, and of course how lovely our community is at being able to **** off even the most sane of people into rage quitting to the point its a compettition.

No new players and eve is going to be doomed. Eve needs new players thus new features have to be constantly added in.

What eve needs the most though is the balanced approach polish and new stuff at the same time.

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
Morgan North
Dark-Rising
Wrecking Machine.
#102 - 2011-12-10 09:26:29 UTC
I think the only issue with NEX shop is the high costs, real-money wise for purely destroyable models.

I am, for instance, not abject to the notion of paying with NeX for costum paintjobs on ships. But they should be extremely cheap, and also available from LP stores (Also extremly cheap, since its just a costum paintjob). By doing this, you can actually keep a steady, albeit low, income via PpLEX, and leave the folks who get these via LP (every single carebear), freed of monetary obligations.

But even if the costum paint jobs were NeX exclusive, if they were unsurmountably cheap (Say a whole folder with 1 to 20 AURUM cost per skin), people would be activly inclined to buy these (Cheap mans they don't feel the loss), and once they got blown up, simply replace it. If you use a model that results in a 1 to 3 months PLEX expenditure in AURUM, you get more money overall, and people will hardly complain since its really "1 to 20 aurum, i can afford that, and if i can't, I can buy it off the market anyways".

Of course, in order to "buy it off the market" you'd have to buy a PLEX, convert it into AURUM, and go back to your NeX store for the shiny-guristas camouflage painjob for your phantasm. Either way, what this would produce would be a either income source (for money, since people would pay AURUM) or a ISK sink (for people who buy a PLEX with ISK), where you would essentially allow people to get whatever they wanted and fit it to their ships.

Further, if you allowed each single-starting player a very small amount of AURUM (say, 100 to 2000 AURUM), you could get them hooked on buying stupid paintjobs. Then they'd either grow up to see it as a waste of AURUM (But would buy it once they felt confident they weren't being blown up), or would stop altogheter (But then again, such low AURUM costs make it very worthwhile for that particular ship... Oh how i detest my turd-deimos.)

My view is that these things, if applied to easilly destroyable ships, should be cheap, and produce little to no feeling of loss. Costum paintjobs shouldn't trully be available to sell on the market (You can say that these are station-produced and lost once the shi is repackaged), but by using a very low AURUM costs for the associated skin, you always promote the idea of "its only 1 to 20 aurum... why not? Camouflage in space!"

If you had these availbe via LP, even at a high LP cost, you'd just see them on the market and allow people free isk-access if also purchaseable via NeX. So its either market only/LP only, or NeX only, low costs in my view.
Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#103 - 2011-12-10 09:40:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Nova Fox
Okay time to change things up

May I present the notion of the CCP Resturant anology.

This ol timey resturant, known as Resturant CCP, just opened its gift shop portion though visitors and regulars alike dispise its high prices and cheapness of the items offered. This resturant also the only breakfast resturant in the area that does what it does. Letting customers style thier own breakfast meals. Over the years the regulars come on by feeling that they tried everythign the free styled breakfast already had to offer them. Some are even upset that there had been no new menu items for a while nor has anything started to taste any better. Others have noted that the customer service really isnt up to par anymore either and threatened to never come back.

How to fix it this slow businessed resturant, get new customers in? make new loyal customers, and reinvite old ones back in? Decor? Advertisments? Fire the Head Chef? FIre the line chefs? Add new menu items? Add new stylings of breakfast? Star over? Raise prices? New flavors?

What may work for one group of people needed to stay regular may not work for antoher group it may even **** off the other group into leaving for good.

Recently Resturant CCP did Decor, Fired line chefs, advertised, added a few new flavors, and overall improved every recepie with fresher ingredients from the grocers bought the same day in order to try to get back the recnetly lost customers, while the new decor and advertising did managed to reel in some new customers not all will be comming back but a few may stay.

What must Resturant CCP do next? Gift store does sell profits and its ran by the same cashier for the resturant and rakes in a small profit that allows the place to buy new decor and a few fixes here and there and of course pay the electric bill.

What CCP was trying to do before the mass protest was trying to open two more resturants at the same time and going overboard with the gift shop while forgetting to build that entire portion of tha trestuant leaving the former pie display shelf full of gift item goods.

I for one rather have the pie back but its still there just not on display anymore.

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
thebarry
7-2 Ronin
#104 - 2011-12-10 10:18:07 UTC
HI!
Lucien Visteen
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#105 - 2011-12-10 10:22:01 UTC
I would like to see the numbers before I make myself an opinion.

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
Dragonzchilde
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#106 - 2011-12-10 10:47:14 UTC
I don't think CCP will provide any numbers. just as you see devs in every thread posting and posting and carefully staying out of this one.

Their first mistake was introducing the AUR currency. Up till now I don't get why they ever needed that one
Their second one was the price setting for the whole thing.


If those crap items were actually obtainable through ISK more people would probably have gotten them unlike now where the AUR/ ISK conversion rate makes items stupidly expensive.


Poor implementation of a poor idea by a cocky company.

The kick in the nuts was more than deserved, wish it was harder though. Still too much cocky attitude in CCP

So CCP what about providing us with:

- some numbers about this whole AUR/ Nex crap
- providing a quarterly economic newsletter that seems to have missed a few quarters
Solhild
Doomheim
#107 - 2011-12-10 11:59:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Solhild
Cipher Jones wrote:
Solhild wrote:
Covert Kitty wrote:
Quote:
Nothing wrong with NEX, use it or do not. For some players it may very well add value to the game experience and for others, they may never even touch it but to not have it at all....that doesn't make sense.

I don't want to get rid of the items that currently NeX is supplying, nor the idea of WiS, or better character customization. I like the idea of all these things. However they should be obtained from gameplay, and like any other item in the game, anyone given enough isk could buy it from other players on the market. It's the NeX itself that I want gone, replaced by gameplay for those items / features.


This.


That monocle came from gameplay. And to accomplish your goal PLEX would need to be removed from the game to boot.

Terrible idea and I'm super happy that CCP doesn't let the inmates run the asylum.


No - PLEX wouldn't need to be removed, it's price is earned by players to swap others players for game time or character swaps etc . CCP simply use PLEX as a method for players to trade real cash to each other. Your monocle can very easily stay in the game - and be built by players.
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#108 - 2011-12-10 12:02:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Jade Constantine
Dragonzchilde wrote:
I don't think CCP will provide any numbers. just as you see devs in every thread posting and posting and carefully staying out of this one.

Their first mistake was introducing the AUR currency. Up till now I don't get why they ever needed that one
Their second one was the price setting for the whole thing.


If those crap items were actually obtainable through ISK more people would probably have gotten them unlike now where the AUR/ ISK conversion rate makes items stupidly expensive.


Poor implementation of a poor idea by a cocky company.

The kick in the nuts was more than deserved, wish it was harder though. Still too much cocky attitude in CCP

So CCP what about providing us with:

- some numbers about this whole AUR/ Nex crap
- providing a quarterly economic newsletter that seems to have missed a few quarters




I too would like the numbers but I do think whats going on presently is CCP executives adopting a "wait and see" approach and some will be genuinely interested to see if a substantial segment of the Eve player base will talk itself into MT again by trying to justify the things.

I get frustrated because its turkeys voting for thanksgiving really.

What we really need is a nice clean chop for NeX store and reallocation of the content to proper Eve mechanisms of content provision to draw a line under the NeXCarna fiasco. Once that happens I'd love to get back to proselytizing on eve again through the genuine return of feeling that CCP is a different kind of gaming company that cares about its game and community rather than seeing us all as walking dollar signs to be harvested.

I'm also frustrated with the perception that the current CSM has appeared to let up on the pressure against NeX on the groups that "vanity MT" is somehow okay which is an opinion I consider immensely short-sighted as a thin end of the wedge backslide towards a divided cluster with content split between the RL $ haves and have nots.

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#109 - 2011-12-10 12:02:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Jade Constantine
double post

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom
Solhild
Doomheim
#110 - 2011-12-10 12:08:58 UTC
thebarry wrote:
HI!


Yo
Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#111 - 2011-12-10 13:51:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Nova Fox
Ill state it again, Aurum was a way to allow players to spend a half or a quater of a plex.

Letting it be tradeable however would be nice but it sorta already is just a lump sum of 3500 at a time.

I will not disagree with the statement that the prices where fubar on arrival.

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
Solhild
Doomheim
#112 - 2011-12-10 13:56:55 UTC
Nova Fox wrote:
Ill state it again, Aurum was a way to allow players to spend a half or a quater of a plex.

Letting it be tradeable however would be nice but it sorta already is just a lump sum of 3500 at a time.


ISK is rather more flexible - it can be traded or given away and IS the player economy. Aurum is simply a Latin word that tries to make a damaging idea sound cool.
Azahni Vah'nos
Vah'nos Family
#113 - 2011-12-10 14:24:33 UTC
Nova Fox wrote:
Comments

Let's look at what has happened to EVE over the life of it's existance.

EVE has seen good subscriber growth when real gameplay features have been added to the game, unlike the inclusion of the NeX. Now let's have a look at what has occured during the time that little was added to the game, like say since the start of the '18 months', amazingly the additional subscriber rate actually slowed down.

And regarding your comments about longer term player retention via fixing and polishing is correct, but you have missed what people in business know and that is that these people are the most vocal advertisers for your product. If they are telling potential players that things are broken or left unfinished then it has a negative overall affect.

Would you buy a television if you see people everywhere telling you there is a high likelihood of it catching fire, I'm guessing not ... or you may just be a thrill seeker and will buy one anyway.

For new players there has to be a draw for them to have interest in the game and diversifying gameplay means you widen that potential, the NeX does not do that.

Now since you are quoting WoW, we should look at what is happening with it shouldn't we. Blizzard have continually dumbed down the core of the game so much that people race through content and along with that added more monetization schemes as well, net result 1.7 mil subscribers lost in the past 9 months. A trend I believe is going to continue. So how is adding more cash shop items working out for them now, is that bringing in new players ... umm I think not.

Regarding your comment on achievements ... yep you missed my point entirely. Just in case you weren't aware FW has a ranking system, now take for instance when someone reaches a certain rank they then have the ability to purchase with LP/Isk a uniform or special paint job for their ship that shows everyone of what they have achieved. Don't you think that might have more meaning to the player that owns the uniform/paint job and also to other players that see them than a one off Aurum purchase from the NeX Store.

Nex (Cash Shop) / Aurum - removing sand from the sandbox since Incarna. Currently the only use for aurum is to buy virtual items in the in-game store, but Cockerill expects to expand its uses in the future.

hired goon
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#114 - 2011-12-10 15:23:32 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
double post


There's nothing wrong with micro transactions for cosmetics. Eve will not become the two-lane, pay-to-win wasteland you predict.
Cipher Jones
The Thomas Edwards Taco Tuesday All Stars
#115 - 2011-12-10 17:08:19 UTC
Solhild wrote:
Cipher Jones wrote:
Solhild wrote:
Covert Kitty wrote:
Quote:
Nothing wrong with NEX, use it or do not. For some players it may very well add value to the game experience and for others, they may never even touch it but to not have it at all....that doesn't make sense.

I don't want to get rid of the items that currently NeX is supplying, nor the idea of WiS, or better character customization. I like the idea of all these things. However they should be obtained from gameplay, and like any other item in the game, anyone given enough isk could buy it from other players on the market. It's the NeX itself that I want gone, replaced by gameplay for those items / features.


This.


That monocle came from gameplay. And to accomplish your goal PLEX would need to be removed from the game to boot.

Terrible idea and I'm super happy that CCP doesn't let the inmates run the asylum.


No - PLEX wouldn't need to be removed, it's price is earned by players to swap others players for game time or character swaps etc . CCP simply use PLEX as a method for players to trade real cash to each other. Your monocle can very easily stay in the game - and be built by players.


PLEX is NOT attainable like any other item in the game. So if you want all items in the game to be attainable from gameplay, PLEX is out, period.

internet spaceships

are serious business sir.

and don't forget it
Flakey Foont
#116 - 2011-12-10 17:13:12 UTC
I love when folks start expounding about business while on their break at Jack-In-The-Box....
Cipher Jones
The Thomas Edwards Taco Tuesday All Stars
#117 - 2011-12-10 17:15:12 UTC
Covert Kitty wrote:
Quote:
Even tho they don't effect gameplay in the slightest.
I am with the people who were and still are against microtransactions that effect gameplay. You're just making **** up at this point.


Look at this from a different vantage point. Think back to before Tyranis when pos structures were bought directly from npc's. Imagine that instead of adding PI and blueprints (and later corp owned customs offices), these structures were instead obtained directly from the NeX. Would we be better off today?

Now imagine a hypothetical future, where there's full WiS/Ambulation, manufacturing for various kinds of clothing. Rare clothing could be found in some missions or faction/officer ships, others might be obtained from LP. Maybe some missions would in part involve docking at an asteroid outpost. Establishments could be used, and decorated, via more industry gameplay, rare objects for said decorating might be found through the galaxy as well. Games and other activities would also be tied in with other gameplay.

While still imagining your in that hypothetical future EvE, think back and imagine how different the game would have been if instead of that, you just paid Aurum for opening and maintaining an establishment, or obtaining character / establishment customization's & clothes.

Can you understand where I am coming from now? Microtransactions *displace* gameplay. Even simple things like fuel blocks, there will be groups of people that dedicate themselves to providing those goods.


TBH I dont give a rats ass about your perception of what gameplay in EvE should be like, I only care about actual gameplay. As of today, NeX items effect gameplay by zero percent. You cant make *everything* in the game. You could never make quafe. You cant make implants.

internet spaceships

are serious business sir.

and don't forget it
Solhild
Doomheim
#118 - 2011-12-10 18:23:17 UTC
Cipher Jones wrote:
obvious stuff..
....me to be attainable from gameplay, PLEX is out, period.


Neither is game time - that's the point.
Solhild
Doomheim
#119 - 2011-12-10 18:28:04 UTC
Flakey Foont wrote:
I love when folks start expounding about business while on their break at Jack-In-The-Box....


I wouldn't presume - it's all here https://secure.eveonline.com/PLEX/
Feilamya
#120 - 2011-12-10 18:39:58 UTC
Ottersmacker wrote:
Why not let CCP have income from those willing to spend on NeX as long as it stays vanity and actual game development isn't hindered?

Because the op wants to play Space Barbie, but doesn't want to spend real money on copies of bits, which are physically worthless, like everything else you can "own" in this game.
(In fact, you can't own anything in this game, and CCP makes that clear in the EULA. So those stupid enough to buy NEX stuff for cash are actually spending money and getting nothing in return)

Protip: Do it on the test server. There, the fashion-aware capsuleer can get the latest collection for free. You don't need to wear it on tranq, because nobody but you can see your pants and shoes, except on screenshots and videos.