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CCP business model of EVE is quite relevant to any EVE related subject. [b]IIF/b]you had read my post i never even mentioned their finances, since that is their own worry, I have explained what impacts it might have on the player base and why.

But then again, reading something and providing counter arguments to it is not why you are here ;)

he'll earn it in jita scamming.

You misunderstand me, which is fine since I didn't elaborate enough on this point initially.

I will always tell newbies, that SP does not matter and you can always find a goal to work towards in EvE, since it is a sandbox. The game is what you make of it yourself.

That being said, when I've tried to convince my friends to play (and they did try out the trial), they quickly got bored with the opportunities they were given. Trying to make ISK for more ships, was not really that attractive since they would still not be able to fly them. Trying to make ISK for PLEX was also not that attractive, since they have no problem just subbing. A Plex just means a month of sub, but an additional free month of play does not change the perception of slow progression.

Basically, they would get the same amount of enjoyment out of the game by just going offline and keeping the queue running. That first month with almost no skills, is really not that exciting. And yes, we all have gone through it, but it is very hard to sell a game to someone, when they get almost the same result by just paying the sub and going offline.

The proposed change, will however give the incentive to earn ISK in order to quickly progress to whatever they want to do. Keeping players motivated to be active in space, opposed to just keeping the queue running for a month while they do something else. While such a feature already exists, in the form of the character bazaar, I understand CCPs attempt to simplify this service. The character bazaar is simply just too clunky.

A quick summary:

1. Character Bazaar: made easier and better visibility and access. GOOD IDEA
suggestion: something like the contract system?

2. Ability to change name of character after sale, limited physical re-spec: GOOD IDEA
How many times did we start with a "smart A**" name and after a while wish we had named it something less "shocking".

3. Strip Skills from my character for ISK: HMMMM
Sell the skills back to a "University" for Isk ... was not the direct thought of the thread but a natural progression. Another way to make isk from older characters, or "cash in " on a bad / no longer used skill path.

4. Sell Skill points as discussed in the thread: BAD BAD IDEA
while the concept might work in a hyper-capitalistic theory, it will explode upon application because of very crafty player base.

5. general comment on buying/ selling characters. Buyer beware!
however, better Visibility of what the characters history was and other factors should be easily reviewed by the buyer. more information about the Character would reduce " less then honest" selling intentions.

6. Specialized Clones - it's time to look at attribute /skill enhanced clones , not just implants to augment a characters Skills. Risk is if killed you loose the clone and implants...

Oh sorry, I just pulled classic "Dave Stark posting" on you, hoped you would like it :/

This is such an epic bad idea that i cringe just thinking about it.

Here are my 2 cents.

- Cent 1 - Having a perfectly skilled character in any specific field used to be a testament to the patience and dedication of the player who built the character. These characters are rare because the investment in time and sacrifice is significant.

But no longer. Want a perfect (insert major ship type here)? 30 min and currency (poof). The fact that a character with the combination of these skills were so rare was a testament to the player who invested years in their creation. Remove the scarcity, remove the value. This idea so cheapens the game and the existing characters that it is hard to take it seriously.

- Cent 2 - How does this make any sense at all. The whole point of clones and transfer of memories is that you transfer your memories. How can you transfer someone else's experiences.

Bottom line, this is a sickening and obvious cash grab and I predict it will make eve just another (play to win) (fail) game.

Thanks,

Vodar

And this is most likely the minimum price generally speaking. It could go below this price for short periods, but it would not stay there for long (IMO, there could be some rare instances where it does...and IMO those instances should be rather alarming). And if the predictions of people wanting prestige characters with 500 million SP come true I would imagine the SP price would be quite high.

And if the price is quite high it could very well price many new players out of the market.* Sure players could go and buy a PLEX market, but not every new player will do this. I'd love to see a statistic on the average number of PLEX a new account buys (for cash) per month. This can be easily determined and can, IMO, be shared without violating any customer confidentiality.** For example, is it 3 or 0.45? It is just a ******* number CCP and tells us nothing about individual players, FFS. And you just told us some information about the character bazaar and new players.

Black Pedro has already shown how a player with N accounts could in theory PLEX them in perpetuity by using one character to farm SP which, thanks to Dave Stark, will likely be linked quite nicely to the price of PLEX. To recapitulate,

7.7 days of training yields about 500,000 SP. 7.7 days is just about exactly 1/4 of a month. Thus, the price of 500,000 will probably be at least the cost of 1/4 of a PELX. So by having an alt continuously training a skill and then extracting and selling those SP would ensure enough ISK to buy a PLEX for that account. And as PLEX prices rise, so will SP prices. So in other words, a player with N accounts could in theory push the RL cost of paying for those accounts onto other players who would have to pay a premium price for those subscriptions. Granted in return he'd get a pile of ISK, but is that healthy for the long terms success of the game? Who is going to be paying for those PLEX BTW? Not the people using the above strategy, they'll be buying the PLEX in game. They are not going to be both buying and selling PLEX in game. This would suggest new players. Hi, welcome to Credit Card Online, be sure to buy your PLEX to sell to the people who've been playing longer than you, don't worry they'll give you lots of ISK though and you can use that to buy SP to try and keep up. Yeah, the subscription is only $14.95, but if you really want to keep up you'll need to fork over an additional $40-$60. And those players when they cross 50 million SP probably wont see that as a good deal anymore and will likely stop, so we'll need a continuous influx of new players willing to shell out money for PLEX.

Why am I thinking of various housing market bubbles here....?


*And to head off the inevitable response of, "Irrelevant this was not intended to help new players." First, yeah it was not pitched as bringing in new players, but guess what I'm looking at the broader effects on the game. Will this be beneficial such as bringing in new players. Second, wake the **** up people, the average number of users online for the last 4 weeks is 20,000. That is like 2006 levels and the trend is still downwards. This change might bring existing players back online, but I'm doubtful of that. These players already have characters and probably even alts with lots of skill points.

**I work for an utility company and in our various proceeding before regulatory agencies we have to provide lots of data and do so while protecting customer confidentiality and when that data is provided it pretty much in the public domain. So hiding behind customer confidentiality for such an aggregated summary statistic is a ******* bullshit lie. And given the huge and generally overwhelming negative response to this I would hope CCP might be a bit more forthcoming with such aggregated data to either help get some better insight to the effects of this proposal or even assuage the fears of the player base. But I expect nothing.

cent 1 - those characters are a dime a dozen because they can be sold on the bazaar for profit. that and the fact that the game's over a decade old and most things don't actually take that long to train perfect skills for. i had a perfect miner in less than 2 years.

cent 2 - if, on the moment of death i can take my entire consciousness from one body to another... or, whenever i please with jump clones... well, pretty sure that right there points out how it makes sense. we already shift our mind around at will.

How about $25 for 100,000 SP?

$25/million(or 1/10th of that) SP? I'll take the long way thanks...

But if others think it worthwhile, I won't stand in the way.