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So by repeating the same thing 5 times does it make it seem like your getting an even better deal, Alpha's are designed for new players and to be honest why a 20 mill player on returning would just want to recycle his assets if there is new kit to be used is beyond me unless they're used to walking like a duck.

I foresee all sorts of unforeseen problems UK readers might get this

I have no doubt whatsoever that the Eve playerbase will test the system to destruction & CCP will play catchup (hopefully within a month) but the basic problem for me is that its not F2P.

I think it needs to be marketed as an extended/unlimited trial otherwise I foresee lots of crap heading CCPs way.

Edit - for example I play Real Racing 3 on a cheap phone. You get gold currency there by the usual route of completions or watching adverts. You can access 80% of races or complete series without paying a penny. The rest you'd have to pay for. That's fine with no real server costs, but I doubt CCP can do it the other way around. We'll see...

Does anyone else know players/ former players who left EVE because their budget was so tight it no longer allowed them to pay? Maybe they were students, maybe had a family size increase, or maybe an employment decrease, bottom line was some good friends have left the game because their budgets needed breathing room.

If this allows some of them to return as Alphas I will be pleased. I don't live in fear of high sec ganking hordes of Alphas burning Jita, that is something paid account holders can do and have done anyway so nothing new. I hope the upside counters the downside. I think getting back some old players and luring in some new blood will be/ could be a very good thing.

If you fear casual ganking of your mining vessels move to low sec, it's takes a pair to sneak up on miners here and the cowards of high sec ganking who give us real pirates a bad name fear to tread here.

When I get the drop on you in low sec if you pay the ransom at that moment, no bs permit crap, you fly away free, if not you go pop if your friends don't show up to stop me. The clock is always running on me, will an NPC rat show up and shift the balance of my capture of you? Will some others show up in local on D-scan and blap both of us? Real risk and possible real reward, EVE at it's best imho. No guaranteed outcome for any conflict, because playing against another human being is unpredictable, infinitely better than any programmed NPC response. Another of EVE's finer qualities which makes play fresh even after a few years of subscription. Real live people with real actions and choices that impact everyone else potentially means you can't predict with certainty what tomorrow or the next jump will bring. That I embrace and want more people to participate in and make the EVE universe even better.

EVE is a place for honor even among us pirates it also is a place for the lowest common denominator. Those who want to have a good experience and make it interesting for other players to not rage quit will make the right choices, the others will mature and grow up one day eventually.

EVE is not a place for fear avoidance, it's a thrill seeker's roller coaster ride when done right. Embrace the risk, have the fun, don't try to nerf others into non-existance, CCP has tried this and never seems to get it quite right. Let's work for the best outcome while keeping our eyes open for bad outcomes without whining too much.

You are rolling the dice here CCP and I for one want you to win.

Does your definition of deluded mean whenever I don't agree with you? If is does okay, your opinion, if not, it is an insult not merited by my comments. I have an alt account I created so that I could participate with my old NPC corp in corp chat. That account is not trained up and is several years old. A lot of why I play EVE is for the corp mates and people not just the bigger and bigger ships.

I wanted the player corp experience and had to leave my old NPC to get it, CCP doesn't let you go back and instead sends you to a different NPC.

I am proof that your hypothesis is not correct, because I don't need all those extra skills to enjoy EVE even as a multi year vet. I use accounts like you might use ships, each has a specialty, something they do pretty well at the expense of being able to do it all. So yes some players will return when the financial barrier is removed, some will stay. Yes some will be frustrated by the Alpha restrictions but perhaps not all. Getting them back into the game is better them keeping them away imho.

I was wondering if it would be possible for the alpha clones to be able to use non-standard fits. it seems really limiting to me to force an armor tank on Galentee ships for the sake of a smaller skill tree. In a way, it seems like there's very few fits that actually would work really well for an alpha, which gives huge counters (1 omega killing 10+ trials because they have no way of countering that omega).

I would love to recruit alphas into the game and have a good time, and plan on doing exactly that, but on my end, I love having strange doctrines, and unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's possible with an alpha account now. like, what's the huge disadvantage of putting smart bombs on a caldari ship, or nuets on a minitar ship? if you allow smartbombs and nuets on an amarr ship. You could say that person should have made an amarr alpha clone, but I don't see my friends liking that restriction, nor do I see a huge advantage to having that limitation.

My 2 cents:
Allow all forms of E-War on all ships.
Allow non standard tank (including emission / remote armor repair) on all races.
Allow other non standard modules / weapons? (ex: lasers on a caldari ship)


As far as security restricting for suicide ganking, I'd be curious to see about restriction, the fact is you can do a lot of damage if you have a large enough swarm, but the as far as I can tell the investment is actually higher after this update due to security status requirements.

If you allow one race to do it, and it's not considered game breaking in the most powerful form, who cares if there's some guy with a nuet on a tristan that has a shield tank.


Honestly though, I'm really excited, I have a few friends that have expressed interest, but wouldn't try the game because of the "heafty" price tag. I am fairly certain they would find the idea of screwing around in some weaker, silly ships quite entertaining while getting smashed to bits (only to make that kill in low/null sec so much more satisfying when we actually, finally manage to pop something).

While subscription would be indeed nice to have out of them I would argue that even if the Alpha does not subscribe he/she benefits the game through all the interactions with other (probably paying) persons. For that reason I do believe it would be best that the restrictions on the Alpha account should be light enough for it to remain competitive with Omegas in the niche that is intended for Alphas to fulfill. Which currently is T1 ships up to cruiser size but with so severe restrictions on relevant skill levels that Alpha has no hope of winning an engagement against an Omega if Omega is even half competent.

See, for example comparison of Omen with Alpha fit against the same Omega fit: http://www.overclock.net/g/i/2864021/created-with-gimp/sort/display_order/

Omega is doing 20% more dps (plus applies said dps better) at 22km (scorch) than Alpha can do at 6 km (imp navy multifreq). On top of having better hp buffer, 230 m/s faster and better cap life.

Yes. Interaction is good. Competitive, however, is not. Why? Because there is no 'intended niche' for these clones -- I resent the notion that certain playstyles are handed out for free whilst I have to plex a separate account for cyno alts.

It may sound harsh but these clones fulfill two duties:
(a) allow to play through the tutorial
(b) be cannon fodder

When I have to field a 200 mil cruiser and a subscription to be competitive to droves of fully skilled 20 mil T1 cruisers, there is a problem. Spectre fleet runs frigate, destroyer and cruiser fleets all the time. FW is full of them. Were these to be fully skilled vessels for nana, I couldn't help but feel scammed.

Sure I have the option of flying something else, but quite frankly I want a better clone than theirs in any ship class. My T1 frig needs to make bigger holes than theirs. Shipclass is a tactical decision, you see... we don't always fly the biggest ship; we fly the most suitable ship. Those are more often than not cruiser and down.

Allowing one but limiting another can only lead to resentment: no free barge for miners, but a free dessie pilot for gankers? No free cyno frig for me, but free FW fun in tristans and vexors for you? No free scout for us in nullsec while others happily play around in highsec for nullpay? That can't be right man. Limitations are necessary.

Back in the day, by the time I got my first cruiser and the skill to sit in it (level 2 it was), meta 2-4 mods and darn few engineering skills, I knew it was time to decide. Tutorial was over: stay or go? Now the winds are blowing another tune, and that's dandy, but consider there are players who never fly anything but Thrashers, Caracals, Punishers or Slashers. Be that as it may, as far as I'm concerned I'd still like to see a tangible difference between an Alfa slasher and an Omega slasher.

Here I would like to depict problems of EVE online on the current stage of development. Though being not prominent now, they could become leading factors of destabilization in our virtual world after Clone States release. This will happen because of multiplification by all this "fresh blood". According natural laws quantity is transformed into quality. And you will loose the control over the situation.

Here are this factors:

- bots in market and mining (at the current moment CCP have no effective mechanisms to prevent bots being exists at the New Eden. One mining bot cannot change mineral price on a critical way but one market bot at Jita can derail this "train");
- brittle market (unstable and unbalanced market inside EVE could be crashed of just single simple impact. Being ruined it may never back to previous state);
- imperfect CONCORD (mechanic of this wonderfull organization requires updating. It cannot counter challenges of today. Ganking possibility must be seriously restricted);
- "dead" industry (CCP developed PVP very much and now this part of gameplay is good enough. But industrial branches are now more like imitaion rather than real alive path. In the current state there's no place for uindustrialists to perpetuate their real talents, to turn their individual gifts into reality. Industry must more complex and there must be place for diversity if you want this direction to be called real.).

So one should think twice if he is ready to face all the problems and chaous after november. Or he will be trying this virtual world like a kid or he bring computations and analysis into his steps.

Perhaps one way to square this circle would be a rethink of meta turrets and launchers. At the moment, as you have so articulately elucidated, T2 are strictly better in every stat except fitting (and cap use for many turrets). I think it would be may more interesting if meta weapons were comparable - or even superior - to T2 in their specialist stat (eg: range, tracking, RoF, etc), but with the T2 variant being no worse than second best at anything. This would obviously leave T2 as a preferrable general alternative, but would make the meta weapons viable for specific builds - and therefore Alpha-compatible fits also.

Secondarily, a rework of faction weapon costs is LONG overdue. They are ludicroucly overpriced because the LP store cost of these items seemingly takes no account of the fact that you need 3-8 weapons per fit, unlike most other items which you need only one of. A straight up change to the LP store BPCs giving 5 runs would go a long way to making faction weapons an actual viable choice, and this again would make things better for Alphas.

What happens when an explorer jumps into a WH i can assure you most of the kill mails dont list a 1v1 fight , But as long as the explorer has a T2 fit and the team that gank him have a T2 fit in your eyes this is fair then . Its not just the kit but how you organise your resources, SWArm used to have a blast on there roams with anyone who wanted to join them and 95% of there shield or armour ship fits were pure T1. You dont need to have an elitist attitude to have fun. Just a willingness to learn and follow simple commands

The whole purpose of this is to give them a proper taste of the game without the shackles of time, naturally after there pinnacle of free learning expires at 5 mill skill points i would also expect anyone who has a genuine interest in the game to either of already subbed or would be ready to to further advance there use of higher tier modules.