EVE General Discussion

Hello General Discussion. I am an old player who created a new alpha character and am going to share some of my experiences. I am going to crosspost this to the EVE subreddit as well. To be honest I haven't spent much time on the EVE forums, and therefore don't know what kind of content you enjoy, so hope you find this interesting, and if not I apologize for the post. It is going to be a huge wall of text, there will be a slightly smaller TL;DR at the bottom, if you just want to read that instead.


I started playing EVE in December 2007, days after the release of Trinity. I was almost instantly hooked, and played pretty regularly on-and-off for about 6 years, until mid 2013, at which point I let my subscription lapse. During that time I took part in many of the gameplay opportunities EVE offered. From high-sec mission running and mining, to solo or small-gang lowsec pvp, to nullsec duke-fests, I can truly say that ‘I was there’ for much of EVE’s storied history. By far my favorite gameplay feature was the addition of Wormholes in the Apocrypha patch. The mystery of it was intriguing, the staggering income was alluring, and the small-gang, tactical pvp was intoxicating.

Around the fall of 2009 was the first time I let my subscription lapse. I started playing much less. I was getting a bit burnt out on the game, and had other things going on. Needless to say, I decided a break was in order.

Like any true junkie I couldn’t stay away however. In 2011 I decided to start playing again, despite some of the controversy that happened a few months prior. I saw an EVE deal on steam, but it was only for new accounts. I was going to start a new character anyway -- there were a few things wrong with my old character. He had some baggage attached to him, like any character that sticks around New Eden long enough. His training was also a mess. He was created during a time when there was no training queue, and often times I was away from my computer for a week, so couldn’t keep up on his training. On top of that I was a noob, and would undock from a station, see a shiny ship, say “I want that”, then do the bare minimum training to get into it before starting the process over again. I could have trained up his core skills sure, but I wanted a fresh start -- so I decided to make a new account to take advantage of the Steam sale.

I played pretty regularly again for another year. At that time it was 2012, 4 years after I originally started playing the game. Still just a noob to the bittervets who had been playing since 2003. Anyway, from 2012-2013 I was barely playing at all. I found I was pretty much just logging in to update my skill queue, and decided it wasn’t worth my money. I decided to cancel my subscription and quit the game. I thought that Dust 514 would be a good game to transition to. It would be free-to-play and more casual, while still giving me my daily injection of the New Eden atmosphere. I actually did enjoy playing it for quite awhile, but this story is about EVE. I did end up purchasing a 3 month subscription for EVE once again in December of 2015 just to check in, but I didn’t renew it.


That brings us to the now. I saw a news story that EVE would be going free to play, and I was excited to get back into it, as well as try to persuade some friends who were never interested due to the subscription cost. I downloaded it the day it became available, and logged onto my old character.

I was disappointed to find that there was practically nothing I could train, and literally nothing to train in my field of interests. I heard there was supposed to be some fancy new-player-experience, and I knew I needed a refresher course anyway, so I once again created a new character, to relive the glory-days in wide-eyed-wonder.

Instead of the rumored fully-voice acted, story-driven tutorial, I got text based opportunities explaining the absolute basics of the game, which despite my hiatus were still like second nature to me. I then went on to do some of the career agents, a nice addition to the game. One of the first things I noticed was the large amount of inflation that has overcome the game - both in terms of ISK and SP. Back when I started my original character I started with only 5,000 ISK and probably less than 50,000 SP. On my new character, after doing the basic opportunities, I already had more than 500,000 ISK, and fresh-out of the creator, my character had 350,000 SP, able to do on day one things that would take at least a couple days of training during Trinity.

I remember back in the day grinding level one missions, earning only 20-50k a pop including bonuses, trying to earn 1 million isk so I could simply buy the skill-book for training destroyers. Some of that is definitely attributed to me being a noob, but money was definitely handed out slower back then. In these ‘new’ (I have no idea when they were actually added) career missions however, I was easily making 200k each, plus being handed skills, modules, implants, and ships left and right. After I finished the military and advanced military career missions, I had more than a couple million in the bank, and thought I was doing pretty well for myself as a new character - that is until I checked out the market. I may well be looking back through rose tinted glasses, but I seem to remember being able to buy a Rifter for less than 200k ISK, and getting a really decent fitting for another 500k-1mil on top of that. Now it seems to get the hull of a combat frigate is closer to 500-750k isk, and the ship plus T2 PVP loadout is at least 5mil.

[. . .] continued in next post

First?

This appears to be another one of those posts, after having read the addenda.

I'm a BitterVet©. Like you, I fired up a brand new char on an existing unsubscribed account to get the new player experience to relive the glory days of being an EVE virgin and was disappointed to only get the robot-text-to-speech version of the opportunities. After running through those and also being surprised by the amount of money and ships thrown at me, I thought it might just be because my account wasn't flagged as "new". So, I made a brand new account and then another new character... and voila, new player experience with the cool voice acting and stuff.

I think you're coming at the free-to-play(F2P) from the wrong angle. You're looking to get what you want without paying for the goods...which is fair, but only to a certain extent. You seem to want "the good stuff" that's kept in the back while basically asking "hey can I bum one?" That's not going to happen. The whole point of this F2P business is to drive subscription growth. You're at the point where you can't do what you want because it's beyond the scope of the Alpha limit.

So ******* pay the $15.

[. . .]

To be completely honest, I feel extremely entitled whining about being allowed to play a game I love for free, but I do it in hopes that CCP will see this, and give me - and others I know who don’t like subscribing to games - options to pay for the game, that fit our lifestyles, so we can support further development and keep the servers running.

My sole problem with the current funding model, is that you don’t get to ‘keep’ anything you pay for. For example, let's say I decide to spend $30 on a 3 month subscription. I train up a bunch of new support skills, and manage to even get into battlecruisers in that time. After my 3 months is up, I am back in the same limited alpha clone I was before I spent anything. Yes, I got improved gameplay for 3 months, but after that 3 months is up, for all intents and purposes it feels like my money didn’t get me anything. I am right back to where I was before I spent a dime.

Subscription-based games were the order of the day for most of EVE’s life, but the market has changed, and I feel that while alpha-clones are a great first step for EVE, more needs to be done to truly and sustainably increase the paying customers of EVE.
I know this is a tricky situation for CCP. The dedicated player-base have been the ones funding the game, and they need to be kept happy. As well as being kept happy, they have shown they are willing to pay the subscription fee, and CCP would be foolish to throw that ‘guaranteed’ income away. So, finding a funding model that works for everyone will truly be a challenge.

I also accept that I may just be a single whiny, entitled voice, and that nobody else minds paying the subscription fee. If that is the case, kudos to CCP, you did a good job. However, I believe that there are many people like me who are opposed to paying a ‘mandatory’ subscription, simply for the fact that it is a subscription.


Once again a disclaimer: I am one person, who shares an opinion of a few people. I completely understand I am probably in the miniority with this, but as this is the internet it is almost required that I share my stinky opinion.

If CCP could make some changes to the funding model, I would instantly drop $100 on the game, and would even subscribe to get some benefits. The most important change, is that you get something permanent and tangible for your money.

I think alphas being limited to flying cruisers and smaller of their race is fine. However, I think they should be allowed to train whatever skills they want. They should be allowed to train into battleships, even if they can’t fly them. Instead of battleships being unlocked via Omega subscription, instead they are unlocked by a one-time payment.

I would be willing to pay a one time cost (of around $20 or less) for the ability to:

• Use all of the races ships, including faction.
• Use ships up to battleship size (for all races if you bought the above option, for only your race if you didn’t).
• Use T2 items and ships (for all races up to battleship if you bought the above two options, only for your race up to cruisers if you didn’t).

I would also be willing to pay a monthly subscription if it included this:

• Double training rate, and you keep the skills after your subscription expires.
• The ability to train two characters at once (one at Omega speeds, other at Alpha speeds).
• Ability to use capital ships, PoS’s, and other ‘end game’ items that aren’t available for one-time purchase above.

Obviously this is simplified, and CCP would need to find a way not to anger the long-time subscribers, and give them a reason to keep subscribing, while also still getting new alphas to fork over money, while at the same time keeping it in the spirit of EVE and avoiding pay-to-win. In the end, I am just a keyboard economist, and it is all in CCP’s hands.

[. . .] continued in my next post.

needs more letters

With reference to the tutorials, the new NPE is only available to new accounts, fresh characters on existing accounts can't access it yet; some kind of tech problem with rolling it out IIRC.

I agree with you and thought of that as well. The current model will bring lots of alphas and a good number of permanent alphas will stay alpha which will keep the game alive for subscription players. But i really doubt the amount of subscriptions will rise significantly because of the nature of the game. What CCP should have done would be 3 models of accounts:

1) Alpha - F2P limited as it is

2) Beta/whatevername you like - F2P with microtransactions to open all sort of game options (they would make MUCH more money through this than any subscription they imagine they would think was great)

3) Omega - Subscription mode with everything unlocked and 3x training speed compared to Alpha and the ability to train a second chacarter in the same account.

Beta/whateveryoulike players would be the ones really funding the game, not only due to the fact that some people rather drop 100-1000 dollars/monthly in an account and still have it F2P rather than subscription (the majority doesn't like the idea of commitment to any game even if its 1$), but the whole microtransaction mode would allow CCP to make much more money (though not going into P2W).

IMHO the worst thing that CCP could have done what introducing Skill extractors/injectors. This will be the core of gameplay in the future and will shorten the life of the game by a lot. Combined with a rigid subscription mode that is a dead concept nowadays for MMORPGs (only WoW, FFXI and FFXIV have subscriptions and WoW makes much more money nowadays through various optional services) this will probably the true end of EVE Online.

I hope i'm wrong on this.

sorry i didn't understand.... can you repeat all from the start but with more and simpler words?
thank you much appreciated

Ah, it's the old "It would just be better for me... err THE GAME if this change would happen".

Apart from that you type a lot but you actually say a whole lot of nothing.

what I think regarding Alphas...


CCP wanted more players paying for a subscription so they have the bright idea to advertise for free to play.

It's not a free to play.

It's a free to try with the hope ( for ccp staff ) persons will love the game so much they will pay for a subscription in the future.

Problem is most of "free" players have no intention to pay every month 10 to 15 bucks.

They want the same game experience totally for free.

It will not happen because ccp intention was another one.

Thank you!

I do hope however that you, and many alphas will like their time in eve so much that they will subscribe.