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This idea seems to me to be more about CCP needing money (less folk logging on - see Eve-offline.net) than 'improving' the game.

They should just pass a tin-foil hat around and ask the players to donate some money as thay see fit.

Of course, CCP could just introduce and improve gameplay to both keep old players and attract new ones.

Sometimes, the obvious course is actually the best course of action.

This concept is clearly pay-to-win, and it's a horrible idea. The abuse would be terrible.

1. As some others have mentioned, it's easy to imagine someone running 5-10 accounts with 3 alts each dedicated to skill point farming. Some players would be willing to spend a large amount of real money for an in-game advantage, and others have massive ISK revenue streams from nullsec and wormhole space to spend on PLEX.

2. This could invite a whole new level of griefing: imagine an alliance like CODE hounding players or even smaller corps to give them skill points in exchange for freedom from harassment.

3. Preventing SP farming would be difficult. You could try banning players from transferring SPs between characters from their own accounts, but players would just work around this by transferring SPs between themselves in SP farming rings. Defeating the latter would be difficult as well: banning exchanges in private contracts would not work since players could just use closely timed exchanges in the open market in regions with low trade activity and/or with mutually inflated prices to prevent third-party interference with the exchange.

4. Making it so easy to acquire new skills is the equivalent of adding a mega-implant / meta-implant to characters. It's like adding an implant that affects all clones that cannot be lost and takes on whatever form you desire with the potential for several years worth of skill improvements. Such an implant would clearly imbalance gameplay too much and would be rejected by most players.

The potential for abuse and game imbalance is pretty much all one needs to know to see just how bad an idea this is for the game. Please devote CCP resources toward something else that might actually improve the game.

From a strictly selfish business point of view, I could see SP market as a booming market to profit from.

I understand that not only I could profit from joining that as a market, but profit by making that a tool for my trade.

It changes EVE into an entertainment source of investment internally profitable game-financially wise.

It is effective to boost all venues of profit from a person willing and prepared to invest real money into creating a powerhouse for financial or military superiority into the game.

As I am a person of estabilished IRL career in a field I am left with lots of free time, and not in the mood for night-life or drinking and such, just your regular gym rat, I could simply use and abuse SP market to oblivion.

If I did not care about who else will be left playing the game, I would very much enjoy this proposal, as it makes space for the Idiocracy of Money in EVE plain simple.

There's no way I can catch up to Querns.

Unless I can get a Post Packet and inject someone else's posts into my count!


Also, Querns was aiming for 10%, but I guess they had to sleep or something, thus they slid to 8%...

It really does seem that monetization never really left the ideas table since summer of rage and they've been waiting for a way to shoehorn it back in. It may be a slippery slope argument, but I fear what they suggest next if they manage to get skillpoints for cash through the door.

If they really wanted to make they game more quickly accessible to new guys there are so many more things they could do.

Increase new char SPs even further (a million say)
Remove learning implants, add points to attributes.
Lower skill point requirements or adjust training time multipliers on various non "end game" skills (with appropriate reimbursements)

these would be accessible to all, not just cash rich players... but I suspect this is about CCP getting paid and getting paid quick.

Let's not call it harassment. Otherwise, great idea!

that's literally how your subscription works.

also; if we were just creating SP out of thin air - do you really think people would be defending it? i don't.

besides, this idea does the direct opposite, SP vanishes in to the void with this idea.

I have zero issues with making SPs easier to come by for new guys, but make it accessible to all not just cash rich older players and credit card happy new guys. All this will do (since supply will be limited and expensive) is setup another divide/barrier of entry between rich new guys and poor new guys where it just used to be young player vs old players.
There are so many better ways of getting *all* new players into the game quicker... this isn't one of them.

I wouldn't be interested in this - I'm not interested in the character bazaar either. My characters are a reflection of myself with their own narratives and history. I'm totally against renaming characters too, because those characters fair or foul are a part of the framework that make Eve special.

While I would appreciate a way to train a low SP character quicker with no risk, I wouldn't appreciate being able to do it in any old way. Pretty much every character needs core engineering skills for a good fit - it's more necessity than choice in my opinion. Everything else is a choice from tank or weapon choice to prop mod choice; those choices define who characters are and their strengths and weaknesses are the backbone of Eve online. So I'd be fine letting players pay to get assistance training core engineering skills, but nothing else.

Short term cynical crash grabs will only reap short term rewards in my opinion.

No because they removed consequences for death remember. And now they want to remove consequences for skill training too. Pick the wrong skill or remap, it won't matter, just liquidate the SP and use it however you want.