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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Mourdeeb
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#1 - 2016-12-05 04:25:56 UTC
Well it's finally here, and noobs and veteran players alike are coming to the game to try out the F2P aspect.
I've herd a lot of Veteran Players complaining about this, and a lot of new players complaining that the F2P is too restrictive.

Why doesn't CCP adopt the methods of other successful MMos that have a F2P model, and make a ton of money with out making it a pay to play? Games like DDO and STO, have the basics for the F2P players, and they charge for additional content.
DDO actually had a HUGE conundrum when they started out, because they were getting Far more money from the F2P community than they were from the subscribers!! How? Players would pay to unlock content like Dungeons, and to gain access to events that subscribers got just for subscribing. In the long run the F2P players were shelling out more money Over Time, than the subscribers' monthly payments were. Why can't CCP do the same?

Players could pay to Unlock skills on the Alpha tree. Something like $5 for a 5,000 point skill unlock with larger packages for bigger skill demands. (Not to train the skill, JUST to unlock it) In this way the players would be "Upgrading their own Clones" (Kind of like we had back in '07). So You pay to unlock BC I, then pay again to Unlock BC II, and so on. The idea is to allow the players to pay when they are ready. In the long run they would wind up spending more and more to unlock individual skills, or just subscribe, once they realize how much money they would save in the long run. Either way CCP makes out. It IS working in so many other games, WHY NOT HERE???

I hope this is helpful. I truly want CCP to be successful.
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#2 - 2016-12-05 04:40:38 UTC
Well, first of all this isn't apples-to-apples. Even though EVE is an MMO and those other games are also MMOs, doesn't mean they are like enough to use the same strategy. Eve has the highest age demographic of all successful MMOs, Eve is not a clone MMO but has truly unique gamplay, and Eve is also a long-term MMO, where the goal isn't to maximize the returns on a game, until a new game comes out and all the players migrate to the new game.

Eve also listens to the players to a degree that is also unique in MMOs, and Many of the restrictions are actually there because PLAYERS want those restrictions in place. No cyno or cloak for is going to happen, and not even with a $5 unlock either. I did argue for a specialized limited version of cloak, but then the player sentiment was overwhelmingly negative.

EVE is a game where exploiting is not only common, it is encouraged, we exploit the game to the furthest extent possible, and many of those restrictions are to limit or eliminate certian exploits by unpaid accounts.

Eve is successful, and profitable. So it's not going anywhere. BUT, Eve has a problem, the learning curve is so hard, and the gameplay is so in depth, that the 2 week or 30 day trials are simply not enough for people to even get a decent glimpse into what the world has to offer. So the current FTP model is mainly there to enable players to participate in an effectively unlimited trial, but be able to fly ships and fitting that would make alphas still strong enough for existing corps and alliances to desire active alpha players. The goal is to increase subscriptions, not to increase micro-transactions, because the eve player-base is generally very negative towards the entire concept.

Increasing the trial duration, and increasing the number of players participating in the trial are the primary goals. And the new model has been very sucessfull so far in that aspect. Now CCP is just looking to see how many new subscriptions they get.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#3 - 2016-12-05 04:51:35 UTC
My understand is that the F2P aspect of Eve is supposed to be like an unlimited trial. In that respect I'd compare it to WoW's free up to level 20 thing.

I personally do not care for F2P games and insist that any MMO that I play is a monthly sub. I hope that Eve never becomes an actual F2P game.

Eve is not a game that has "content" that can be unlocked. It is a playground for us to goof around in together. We pay to keep the playground up and going and well maintained.

I for one won't pay to be marketed to and am not willing to suffer marketing to "play for free". It blows my mind how much some people will pay for TV that is a third commercials or what people will pay to go watch a movie that you have to sit through a half hour of adds before hand and then most of the movie is embedded marketing. For the amount of time that I spend in the online games that I play it is well worth a $15 per month sub. Most people pay at least that much to see one movie at a theater. Don't even get me started on how much some people spend on cable or satellite TV.

As far as CCP making money the've been doing fine at making money for a long time. I actually think that what has hurt CCP the most is chasing after a larger market and ignoring their loyal playerbase. If they continue to chase after more instead of focusing on better then I think that would be a mistake.

Eve has never been the biggest game but it has always been a trail blazer. I hope it keeps that trend up. I'd much rather play one of the best games out there than one of the biggest. Almost by definition to become big you have to dumb the game down. A bleeding edge game almost has to have a smaller audience.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Trevor Dalech
Nobody in Local
Deepwater Hooligans
#4 - 2016-12-05 06:08:20 UTC
In a sense EVE has always been free to play. You could reroll a new trial account every two or three weeks. This gave you roughly the same gameplay options as the unlimited trial now, except now you get to keep your character.
Gregorius Goldstein
Queens of the Drone Age
#5 - 2016-12-05 09:23:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Gregorius Goldstein
Mourdeeb wrote:
WHY NOT HERE???
I have a few ideas:

- Because it failed and DDO is now in maintenance mode with almost empty servers?

- Because DDO and EVE are quite the opposite of each other. DDO is no PVP at all (Tavern Brawls are a long abandoned joke) and EVE is all PVP. DDO is a Dungeon Crawler with a matchmaking tool and shared non-combat zones between quests. Most of the time players are alone in an instance or together with max. 6 (12 in raids) other players. EVE is the game with that genuine “everyone on the same server” thing featuring large battles everyone can join

- That all content in DDO was allready seperated in small chunks made it easys to sell it bit by bit. In EVE you had to sell ship classes and that wouln't work out because the players would just buy the few classes they play the most and ignore the rest.

- The business model is kind of a trap: Sure things look good when you go FTP and sell what you got so far. Players are enjoying an online game for a one-time payment. But after that initial influx of fresh money all further income is only generated by creating and selling more contend. And if a DLC fails it’s game over, because you don’t get enough steady income from subs anymore. And darn are those players toxic, no matter how god/bad the new stuff is, the forum is gonna hate is with a passion.
Vigirr
#6 - 2016-12-05 09:26:55 UTC
"why is this new game that I just started playing not exactly like the game I stopped playing", probably because there's a reason you and everyone else stopped playing it.
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#7 - 2016-12-05 09:39:59 UTC
Eve is a sandbox. We are the content. CCP gives us tools to make stuff in the sandbox and blow it up. There is no end game - you set your own criteria for "winning". Some people measure success with ISK, others with killmails. It's very different than the theme park games where the developers provide the content and are happy to sell you a ticket for individual attractions if you don't want to subscribe.

As mentioned, Eve isn't for everyone. Some people want a guided tour and feel lost in a sandbox with no structure. That's why new players are strongly encouraged to join a corporation and get involved with the community.

Unlocking skills is not the same as unlocking attractions. As an experienced player, I know which skills I need to earn ISK in the game. I could buy those skills with a micro transaction and have a free character that makes a billion ISK a month and requires less than an hour of my time each week. The Alpha system is designed to prevent that kind of exploit.

An annual subscription to Eve costs 37 cents a day and, once you have some experience, you can easily earn enough in-game to pay the subscription using PLEX. So Eve is free to play on 2 levels - the Alpha "unlimited trial" or the Omega "earn your subscription in-game".

Obviously someone needs to be paying real money - CCP is a business and their employees want paychecks. This is reflected in the price of PLEX - which enter the game because someone bought them with real money and sold them for ISK. Then someone like me buys the PLEX with ISK to extend my subscription. Supply and demand set the price.
Gregorius Goldstein
Queens of the Drone Age
#8 - 2016-12-05 09:52:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Gregorius Goldstein
Just picture the Turbine/Warner way with EVE for a moment: CCP would get hardly any cash from subs anymore, but they had to fund the server and further development by selling the update itself. Like every player had to decide to buy the "citadel" feature or not. You can only lose that way:

- If you make the new feature very powerful it sells good and keeps the game up (for now). Yay, Svipul style stuff for every update! But you get a lot of powercreep that way and the players that didn’t buy the feature are all over the forum with their “gggrrrr Pay to WIN”. The powercreep part isn’t to bad in pure PVE games like DDO. Players are enjoyed when the players next to them kills mobs/rats 10 times faster, but how much more would they be enjoyed if they get killed 10 times faster because they didn’t get the latest feature. (For the pen and paper players: In dungeon and dragons online your hero can reach level 30 and use items +15. Your main attributes for high level characters should be over 100 and you can buy (but hardly find) +7 tomes.)

- If you make a more or less balanced features a lot of players won’t buy it at all because “it does not enough for my playstyle” and the players that bought it complain that was not enough bang for the buck

- There is hardly any money left for Quality Management and Bug Hunting. You can’t sell a “we got a couple of bugs” update

- Now that we sold citadels to some of the players, what do we do with the others? Let them dock and some players will complain about the freeloaders and if you lock them out you separate the player base. Sorry, only “all features” players in this corp allowed.
dogiebag
Conoco.
3OB POCCUU
#9 - 2016-12-05 11:13:57 UTC  |  Edited by: dogiebag
Well i was subscriber few years ago but now im alpha and i must say its ok im satisfied theres many things for alpha but for ones that begin and instantly want a big,better,best ship and all other stuff ingame thats a problem or just stupidity EvE is a different game than other MMOs and you have many info on that and ppl who cry on forums so why complain again and again ?=??=???
oohh yeah and for OP i agree with you in a part i would really like that what you said and its a big thing what CCP did with EvE being part free
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2016-12-05 11:21:50 UTC
Vigirr wrote:
"why is this new game that I just started playing not exactly like the game I stopped playing", probably because there's a reason you and everyone else stopped playing it.

This post right here makes me angry that I can only hit the "like button" once.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Memphis Baas
#11 - 2016-12-05 12:26:50 UTC
Where have you heard veteran players complain about this? We want to wardec them. Or, if you're inventing these "complaints", we'll wardec you. Most of the veteran response has been overwhelmingly positive.

And second, CCP, just like the other MMO's, do have an Aurum store for ship paints and costumes and such, so the issue isn't that they aren't getting the idea, the issue is that the "dark and ******" color theme isn't very popular, and their prices are backwards (too expensive).

Otherwise, pay-to-unlock wouldn't work because this game does not have soulbound items, so it would absolutely suck if you had to pay for every frigate you lose in PVP. Skills are cheap, and skill injectors are only acceptable because they're negative-sum (people have to extract points in order for points to exist and be sold).

If CCP starts flooding the market with skillpoints, the game will go to ****; people will plug skills in to max, plug in a few PLEX for cash, and find that there's nothing to do in high-sec, and nobody wants them in their corp because they're whiny entitled brats.
Baggo Hammers
#12 - 2016-12-05 18:41:21 UTC
No MMO retrofitted for F2P is making "tons of money." It is typically a move to staunch bleeding. But the crowd you attract, after making a few buys, stops spending.

There needs to remain a sub only model for the grownups that can actually afford 15 bucks a month.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
Marcus Blackthorn
Royal Assassins Guild
Chained Reactions
#13 - 2016-12-05 19:44:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Marcus Blackthorn
I had to look up "DDO", now I think I know why I keep hearing players calling missions "quests".

Out of curiosity are there any good FTP games? The few I've tried were just pay to win and their content was lacking. I'd much rather pay a monthly fee for EVE and have the scope of content that EVE offers.
Mara Pahrdi
The Order of Anoyia
#14 - 2016-12-05 20:17:35 UTC
Mourdeeb wrote:
Why doesn't CCP adopt the methods of other successful MMos that have a F2P model, and make a ton of money with out making it a pay to play? Games like DDO and STO, have the basics for the F2P players, and they charge for additional content.

It's hard to charge for players, so CCP settled for the second best.

Remove standings and insurance.