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Dev Blog: Exploring The Character Bazaar & Skill Trading

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Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3781 - 2015-10-19 17:55:40 UTC
The more I think about this the more I can think of negative examples of possible side effects. AFK bought up a lot of very good points on how this is really going to open up so many possibilities on the training of alts, eve will become alts online even more so, and they will be one day old alts without any traceable history. I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.

Dave this is not going to benefit you at all my friend, and it definitely won't help the new player unless they are willing to splash out loads of real money for PLEX; it will only really benefit the big alliances with loads of ISK to throw around on creating these alts.
Niko Lorenzio
United Eve Directorate
#3782 - 2015-10-19 17:57:04 UTC
CCP Terminus wrote:
Daniela Doran wrote:

Very good point.

CCP has squandered the revenues they made from Eve on other non-profitable ventures as stated in the post above. And now in order to compensate for those losses they're trying to dig in deeper and milk their only bread winner even further??

CCP is a company, not a product and it is the goal of any company to outlive any one product they create. If a company relies on a single product for the entirety of their revenue, this is not possible. At some point the product will be replaced, even one as long lived as EVE Online. If that's the only thing making us money, the company collapses at that point and a lot of people lose their jobs.

While I don't see EVE going anywhere any time soon, it makes perfect sense to branch out in to other projects, to hedge bets against the future. The current projects in the works like Valkyrie have a lot of promise and hype, while at the same time having a much smaller development budget that EVE does right now.

Any losses incurred from past projects are already taken care of. This new feature is not being developed to compensate for them.


Speaking of which, there's been quite a few questions as to why the feature is being developed? What players are the target for this feature? I think it's fairly clearly described in the dev blog here:

"By putting more control of your characters in your hands we hope to improve the game for everyone. Whether you’re an older player who would rather have ISK than those mining skills you don’t use any more, a clever new player looking to invest your fortune into your character, a Corp leader trying to move everyone into a new doctrine or someone like me who just realized that they would rather fly Armageddon’s than Stilettos, this feature has you covered. This all fits nicely to our overall game design philosophy of giving you control over your experience through cooperation and competition with each other."

The feature is intended to allow players to trade resources. Whether that's real-world currency, ISK, or time. It is the same philosophy behind PLEX, and why PLEX is both effective and sustainable over long periods. We don't create a way for players to buy their way to victory. We aren't injecting new SP in to the game. We simply allow players to trade the resources they have for the resources they want.


I wouldn't count on Valkyrie too much. IMO it's going to fail like the rest of the products unless CCP rediscovers itself and what made it great in the first place. Hype doesn't mean anything if you remember the fact that both walking in stations and dust were very highly anticipated.

This is not to say anything bad about CCP developers. I think you guys have one of the most talented and awesome people on board. The problem lies in the lack of cohesion and identity. CCP in current form reminds me of a ship drifting around the ocean. It has an awesome crew but they all have different ideas where and how the ship should go. The screaming passengers are constantly brawling and demanding it change course this or that way. The captain meanwhile never comes out of his quarters to set the course straight. Nobody remembers anymore why they set sail in the first place and where they were going.

You guys really need to figure out where and why you're going and make it known. It might mean that some people will disagree and bail out but if you stick to your vision and communicate it properly a lot more will join on board. I really hope you guys can figure this out even if it means someone like me will no longer want to be a part of it it would be better for the ship as a whole. in its current state it's not going anywhere.

The CSM XI Election are now open until March 25th, 2016. Consider Niko Lorenzio for CSM XI.

CSM matters, your voice matters, your vote matters!
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3783 - 2015-10-19 17:59:08 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Jared Khanar wrote:
Lets talk also about the social effects this feature could have, instead of focusing on payment and the pure mechanic.
If it has been mentioned before - well heres another one repeating it :)

The Training Queue is in fact the most beautiful and elegant feature in eve. All these "problems" people are complaining about are imo. the needed core of this game.

Not beeing able to skill everything you want in a short time forces players to whisely specialize their characters and forces them to work together. Maybe i need someone who processes my ore, hauls my assets, produces my ships and so on.

The introduction of alts and multicharactertraining enabled players to refuse cooperation. Why should i work together with someone else, dividing the income, if it´s simply possible to train an alt that does exactly what i need, instead of this other person. (High Plex prices are only further adding to this - it´s simply not economical to do so, depending on where you live in the universe.) Also the character bazaar has added to this. ofcourse there is a cap in the amount of alts one is able to sub, the offered chars on the bazaar, it softens this problem a bit.

But i think we all know the negative effects and how eve, it´s economy and community is suffering due to this.

if we are allowed to buy sp, create alts in the specific way we need them within a few clicks, this problem will potentially only increase. The imo skyrocketing plex after introduction will also add to this.

I have the feeling that the calls for sp transfers have it´s root in the selfish greed for more, not to be dependend on others, not beeing forced to cooperate with others that can do something oneself doesn´t. And ofcourse ccp happily tries to deliver cause they are also driven by their own greed for more money, ignoring their own facts and statements.

Isn´t it so that players, socialising with others are most likely to stay, while others, playing S.ingle P.layer O.nline are more likely to quit?

Isn´t this furthermore forcing eve to become more the game of alts than it is now?

And if theres a (high) chance that something like this is happening - why is ccp introducing it, although they tell us that the opposite is needed for a healthy game: cooperating players?

I found post for you in that bloody mess.
P.S. Could be much easier to find it if forum had bookmarks of liked posts.

Main source of concerns and side effects

Typical loyal customer with eleventy accounts
Dave Stark
#3784 - 2015-10-19 18:00:21 UTC
Moac Tor wrote:
Dave this is not going to benefit you at all my friend,


at 50k sp per packet, you're not wrong. :(
ColdBeauty
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3785 - 2015-10-19 18:10:57 UTC
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#3786 - 2015-10-19 18:22:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Mr Epeen
ColdBeauty wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.
I've never been accused of pandering to the little bees, but I'm going to do so now.

Of course they're in favor of this. They are one of the largest content creators in the game and one of the corps that has introduced the most new players into the game. This is an amazing recruiting tool for them and the other large alliances.

It will allow them to bring more people in to the game.

How is bringing more people in to the game in any way a negative?

Mr Epeen Cool
Fantus
State War Academy
#3787 - 2015-10-19 18:23:45 UTC
I'm a 2003 player that stopped playing around 2011 (sporadically in 2012 then I didn't log in until 5 days ago).

I stopped playing regularly back in 2009, but by 2011 I was turned off from EVE for more than a few reasons. I felt that pay to win was going in full effect in EVE. I felt like things were being crammed in to increase quantity instead of quality. Most of all, my personal life changed with kids and work and I don't feel EVE allows a casual game style for those not rich enough to buy fully into it.

Here are the two classes left in EVE (and this is my opinion):

Those that play it almost as a full time job - logging 30+ hours in a week.

Those that have a lot of RL money that can buy PLEX to get in game ISK.

By 2011, I felt the game was exploiting the player base even more with AUR and the Character Bazaar, and an exorbitant amount to transfer characters from account to account.

Most of all CCP seemed to loose sight of what made the game great:

Exploration
PvP
Community Driven Content


I understand that CCP set their sights pretty high (Dust integration, Station walking, etc., expanded planetary systems), however in that process the changes have been a mixed bag or complete failures in some cases.

I think skill trading is bad. I think it further divides the game into the two classes I mentioned. It also changes the dynamics of what I thought was one of the most unique aspects of EVE as an MMO - it's skill system. I would rather see new players start out with 3 or 4 million SP then go and pay CCP and another player to trade them to the account. Make the game a little less grind and more reward so people can get out and fit and fight. Skill Point Trading - It smells of desperation and greed.

I just came back to the game - partly out of curiosity - partly because my life circumstances allow a little more game time. I was hoping maybe CCP was moving away from the divides and the pay to win systems. Instead I find they are embedding them more. I'm not surprised the weekend numbers are about half of what they were when I left the game.
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3788 - 2015-10-19 18:36:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Dror
Jenn aSide wrote:
CCP Terminus wrote:
Mag's wrote:
CCP Terminus wrote:

Which is why we're taking extra care with this feature. In this case the dev blog came out before any implementation.

Ahh so a PR exercise, but it's still a done deal?

Nice.

Daniela Doran wrote:
Yes I also really like to know if this is a done deal? The $144.00 usd I'm putting into Eve every month hinges on this decision.


If it was a done deal we'd have put the dev blog out when it was going to be shipped. The whole point of the dev blog is to gather feedback and assess.


In fairness to CCP, there have been lots of devblogs about things that never came to pass so I don't believe this is a necessarily done deal.

And i get where y'all are coming from Terminus. But I hope y'all understand where many of us are coming from when we say we don't like the idea. It has nothing to do with killing the game or the sky falling. Like other past ideas (like for instance the "perma death" character idea) this one raises alarm bells for some of us, it feels like a well intentioned but ultimately misguided thing that strikes at the core of the game for no good reason, a fix for something that doesn't need fixing since the Character Bazaar works fine already.

Why not just enhance the character bazaar?

They obviously believe that the progression system is negatively impacting sales. This idea is providing a method of "play to progress" by making it in-game (it's unheard of, for most games, selling characters; and that probably affects throughput) and more modular. It must surely require more than making the character market an in-game feature, because then why wouldn't they just do that?

SP is an awful reward system, for undocking potential, for creativity and exploration, and just for immersion. It's the fresh sub wondering about reprocessing his cool ores.. and instead selling it on the market because his efficiency is low. It's wondering what the margins are on producing ships ..and them being absolutely without profits. There's a deep game beyond SP.

From ancient text: "[Because it's of no greatness finding nothing that you're there for.. nor talking about those finding nothing that they're they're for].. The essentials.. do not consist in the profits of gain, honor, and good name; nor even in the profits of observing moral rules; nor even in the profits of knowledge and insight; but the sure heart's release -- that is the meaning.. that is the essence.." The greatest result of EVE being great is that CCP feels great about it. If the best game EVE can be is without SP, so be it.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#3789 - 2015-10-19 18:40:58 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
This is an amazing recruiting tool for them and the other large alliances.
Getting the SP necessary to play the game is an amazing recruiting tool you say?

Oh, if only there were some way for CCP to address that directly instead of hoping 5,000 Goons will build a NPE support system.
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3790 - 2015-10-19 18:43:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Moac Tor
Mr Epeen wrote:
ColdBeauty wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.
...

It will allow them to bring more people in to the game.

How is bringing more people in to the game in any way a negative?

There is no way they are going to hand out these skill packets to new players, they'll use them primarily for creating alts for various tasks. It is very efficient to use the skill packets to boost a character up to 50mil SP, and with 50mil focused in a specific area you can do a hell of a lot.

This will not help new players at all. Like I said the only new players who will benefit are those that can afford to spend loads of real money on purchasing them.
Montecore Qubaal
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#3791 - 2015-10-19 18:45:24 UTC
It took me awhile but I’ve finally figured out how I feel about this SP trading proposal. I'm against this SP trading scheme because of it's possible negative effects on new players and potential new players. I have two concerns.

My lesser concern is that SP trading makes Eve look even more p2w then it currently does. We, the current Eve players, know that buying skilled characters and buying shiny ships doesn't give you the win but people outside the game, potential new players, don't know this. Looking more p2w will scare away some potential players. It’s bad but Eve already looks p2w to outsiders so that’s why it’s a lesser concern to me.

My 2nd and larger concern is that there will be new players who think SP trading is the mechanism by which they "catch up" to veteran players. Maybe that’s not what they think exactly but there is potential that new player will come to feel like they need to buy SP to become skilled enough to have fun. I just don’t like having this possibility in Eve, this game that I love. Getting new players past the new player SP hump (real or imagined) should not involve new ways to spend money because it feels sketchy and makes Eve and CCP look bad. It can make a player feel exploited.

Keep in mind that us veterans perceive things differently then a new player. We know what Eve is about and we know what kind of company CCP is. (I’ve heard stories about bad times but I’ve been playing for 2 years and during that time CCP has been awesome.) Please think about this from the perspective of the new players who are still trying to figure out the game and don’t yet know how to make ISK. Keep in mind how the community already has to dispel misconceptions that outsiders and new players have about the game. We have to explain that new players can be competitive with low SP. We have to explain how the game is not negatively affected by those spending real money for ISK and characters.

I feel like I didn’t do a good job explaining my fears and I didn’t explore solutions but I’ve run out of my time to refine this message. Sorry for this mess.

TL;DR: The NPE needs work. Don’t fix the NPE by telling new player to spend more real money, it feels dirty.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#3792 - 2015-10-19 18:47:13 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
This is an amazing recruiting tool for them and the other large alliances.
Getting the SP necessary to play the game is an amazing recruiting tool you say?

Oh, if only there were some way for CCP to address that directly instead of hoping 5,000 Goons will build a NPE support system.
The Goons already have the best NPE system in the game. This will just make it better.

I'm not a fan of them, but I have to give them credit where credit is due. When CCP said, "Here's a sandbox. Go play in it.", the SA community actually did.

Mr Epeen Cool
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3793 - 2015-10-19 18:49:13 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Moac Tor wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
ColdBeauty wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.
...

It will allow them to bring more people in to the game.

How is bringing more people in to the game in any way a negative?

There is no way they are going to hand out these skill packets to new players, they'll use them primarily for creating alts for various tasks. It is very efficient to use them up to 50mil SP, with 50mil focused in a specific area you can do a hell of a lot.

This will not help new players at all. Like I said the only new players who will benefit are those that can afford to spend loads of real money on purchasing them.

How I already said I'm newbie that will benefit from it without any RL money involved.

Main source of concerns and side effects

Typical loyal customer with eleventy accounts
Maximus Aerelius
PROPHET OF ENIGMA
#3794 - 2015-10-19 18:54:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Maximus Aerelius
Lost pages back but this:
Maximus Aerelius wrote:
There are already in-game items to help new players called Cerebral Accelerators albeit with severe character age restrictions. Lift the bar a little more on the age that these will work at and add them a bit more to loots\DEDs\Data and\or Relic sites to make them more available. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say give them it as a starter item but link in how to use it and what it's for. There are far better ways to get new guys into ships faster than this.


The best of which is this:

Advanced Cerebral Accelerator

This booster will cease to function for pilots who have been registered for more than 7 days.
Bonuses: +17 to all attributes

+17 to ALL attributes. Give that to a new starter from Day 1 or even bump it to +25 to ALL attributes

Benefits:
It kicks in from Day 1
Training is amplified so skilling is quicker.
They don't skip the content that comes from finding your feet but get to toddle quicker
It's free from the start
You could seed more so they are available on the market ie new player friendly corps (E-UNI etc) can buy them in Data\Relic\Combat sites or in special mission drops\DED sites\COSMOS
It stimulates the economy
You still have the choices equal consequences so key to EVE Online
Free the dev time required for the £££ for SP and bring the Character Bazaar in-house to the EVE UI

Drawbacks
No increase demand for PLEX\Aurum so price doesn't increase
You'd have to write a new tutorial on boosters\implants\accelerators or have Aura tell them about the thing that's in their head.

Just some thoughts I'd had. Carry on Big smile

EDIT:

And this from the wiki:

Please note: Cerebral accelerators are destroyed upon clone-jump, but will otherwise remain, even if your capsule is destroyed.

If that doesn't encourage some PvP then what will. All other implants apart from 'Golden Pods' are destroyed on pod-kill.

[b]Fast Character Switching "XP Stylee" Undocking - More Routes Out of Station[/b] Here's my tear jar > |_| < Fill 'er up!
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#3795 - 2015-10-19 19:04:54 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
The Goons already have the best NPE system in the game.
I haven't thrown in with them, so I can't say. I hear their late game is a bit boring though. Lol

I'd just really love to see an EVE which manages to avoid that 'bugger all to do' SP wall. I'd love to think the goonies might do that (and even had a thread to that effect), but it shouldn't be their burden in the first place.
darkchild's corpse
Rens Nursing Home
#3796 - 2015-10-19 19:06:13 UTC  |  Edited by: darkchild's corpse
Maximus Aerelius wrote:
If that doesn't encourage some PvP then what will.


pump all noobs up to all5, let them choose a pvp role/ship (dd, logi, ewar) and throw them into a big team based deathmatch against other noobs when they are one day old. after that, reset their skills and let them find their way in eve.

edit: this is not my idea and not well thought out but i like it \o/

Kinda suits the SP trading discussion (lyrics in description)
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3797 - 2015-10-19 19:07:52 UTC
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
ColdBeauty wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.
...

It will allow them to bring more people in to the game.

How is bringing more people in to the game in any way a negative?

There is no way they are going to hand out these skill packets to new players, they'll use them primarily for creating alts for various tasks. It is very efficient to use them up to 50mil SP, with 50mil focused in a specific area you can do a hell of a lot.

This will not help new players at all. Like I said the only new players who will benefit are those that can afford to spend loads of real money on purchasing them.

How I already said I'm newbie that will benefit from it without any RL money involved.

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming. You'll be priced out the market. I've seen it many times, new players coming into the game with wild dreams of being able to PLEX their account and play for free but when reality hits they can barely even scrape together enough to afford their ships let alone a PLEX.
Zenethian
Perkone
Caldari State
#3798 - 2015-10-19 19:21:16 UTC
I sincerely hope that this isn't going to actually happen. This is an absolutely terrible idea. There's so much wrong with it I can't even begin to articulate it; thankfully a lot of people already have, so I won't repeat what they've said.
Josef Djugashvilis
#3799 - 2015-10-19 19:42:01 UTC
The single best thing about Eve is the skill system.

Edit, the single best thing about Eve, WAS the skill system.

This is not a signature.
Primary This Rifter
Mutual Fund of the Something
#3800 - 2015-10-19 19:43:17 UTC
CCP Terminus wrote:
Mag's wrote:
CCP Terminus wrote:

Which is why we're taking extra care with this feature. In this case the dev blog came out before any implementation.

Ahh so a PR exercise, but it's still a done deal?

Nice.

Daniela Doran wrote:
Yes I also really like to know if this is a done deal? The $144.00 usd I'm putting into Eve every month hinges on this decision.


If it was a done deal we'd have put the dev blog out when it was going to be shipped. The whole point of the dev blog is to gather feedback and assess.

It's pretty obvious from where I stand that the possibility of scrapping the proposal entirely is not one you're willing to consider. You want feedback on how to improve it, but it seems you're not interested in addressing arguments as to why you shouldn't do it in the first place.