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Alphas and F2P Have Failed

Author
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#81 - 2017-03-11 05:06:33 UTC
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Arthur Aihaken wrote:
Jenn aSide wrote:
The usual suspects will be along shortly to proclaim that EVE is dying and that the only way to save it is to cater to their very specific and very selfish demands (which they will unsuccessfully try to cloak in standard "think of the Children" language).

EVE has as a point of fact been dying for years - it's just now accelerating past the point of no return. There are far too many players in high-sec, so a kick (rather than nudge) is desperately needed. This only works if low-sec folks have a chance to stand on their own, though - so supers need to go.

How does forcing players opposed to a play style into that play style boost subscriptions?

MMOs have traditionally had around a 1 / 10 PvP to PvE ratio - that means around 1 of every 10 people will go to low null the others won't. The other 9 will be happy to farm / mission / manufacture while paying their sub.

Trying to force those people to do something they don't want to do is idiotic and counterproductive to EvEs longevity


The worst thing about Alpha accounts is you. Just an FYI.

Nobody is forced into any play style. Playing the game is a voluntary action. What you do in game is largely voluntary. When you overload your freighter with 7 billion in cargo, nobody made the player do that but himself. Clicking undock is a voluntary action. Nobody made the player do that but himself. Warping into a 0.5 system that many ships have to pass through is a voluntary action, nobody is making him do that. Not using a scout, webs, or even fitting a tank are all voluntary actions the player took.

You are whining on the behalf of players who have take several steps, each of which has increased their risk of gank. You are whining for people who are taking on considerable risk....in a game where is you take on too much risk other players will take advantage of it.

Seriously, answer this question: If I take on too much risk why should I be shielded from that decision?

I bet you can't answer that question.

Economics


You have to be the most quintessential fool on the forums. Economics tells us that private profits and public losses does not work well at all. That market discipline, private profits and private losses in fact provides a self-regulating mechanism. Or if you prefer trial-and-error. You try something new, and it it either works and benefits you, or it doesn't and it costs you something and you stop. This kind of thing was common in banking. Prior to deposit insurance it used to be that depositors were worried and bankers were scared. Because depositors were worried that a bank might take on too much risk via lending, the banker would be more prudent in making loans. Because if he were not then his bank would face a run and he'd be destroyed. In fact, it was this kind of thinking that lead FDR (and Carter Glass...yes the Glass of Glass-Steagal) to oppose insurance on bank deposits. On top of that every state level deposit insurance scheme had failed leading up to 1933. Any state that implemented deposit insurance collapsed because once the insurance program was up and running depositors stopped worrying and bankers made riskier and riskier loans until the insurance scheme collapsed under the weight of bad loans.

How does this relate to EVE? Suicide gankers and war decs impose risk on players. You want to overload your freighter, fine go ahead but the way the mechanics work somebody might come along and suicide gank your freighter and scoop the loot. What does this do for the game? It keeps the market going. There is the first and most obvious part. Stuff is destroyed. Then there is the second and maybe even more important: it keeps regional price differentials. If suicide ganking were eliminated price differentials would drop to near zero. That is, the careful and prudent pilot can find profits in New Eden by being careful and prudent. He can take advantage of price differentials. Remove the incentive to be prudent and everyone will fit their freighter one way, and in fact everyone will likely gravitate to just one freighter, the one with the biggest cargo hold. People would be moving stuff to eliminate price differentials between regions and even constellations. Over time those price differentials would become smaller and smaller until hauling provided only a small level of income. And why not, it is something you can do while largely being AFK--autopilot for the win.

Suicide gankers and wardecs put risk into the economy. And that is what makes the economic aspects of the game fun.

Remove that and you reduce fun.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Infinity Ziona
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#82 - 2017-03-11 05:16:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Infinity Ziona
Teckos Pech wrote:
goudaMob wrote:
wtb 6 years ago.


I wish it were that simple. When you have a process that has spontaneous order and emergence, a sandbox, you can't "go backwards". Evolution is such a process and we cannot ever go back to the time when dinosaurs walked the earth (outside of the movies). As such we cannot go back to the "Good Ol' Days". What can be done is note that catering to the whiners like Hakawai and Infinity Ziona is not a recipe for success. Reducing PvP, reducing player interaction in EVE is not going to save the game. In fact, it has been very bad for the game in terms of players logging in, IMO.

I have to agree with Jenn aSide. When EVE said, here is your rookie ship, here are few things you need to know, now **** off. That was when the game was growing. Ganking was actually easier. Can flipping was a thing. If you were jet can mining you had to be on the watch for some can flipper. Hulkageddon was a thing, yet outside of that miner ganking was reasonably rare. War decs were cheap, yet there were lots of small corps doing war decs. 2-3 corps could band together and stand a chance and even force the war deccers back into station. All that is gone now, and gone forever. I doubt you can bring back any of it.

I also agree with Salvos, a NPE that is too good might be more detrimental than helpful. Too much hand holding can be bad. When I first started there was practically nothing on the capacitor other than these announcements that "the capcitor is empty". I was like, "WTF is the capacitor?" I was on my own to find out lots of stuff. That is called learning by doing and you know what, when you figure something out for yourself you tend to learn the lesson better, understand it better.

My son was a competitive swimmer. And one thing I learned from that experience is encapsulated by this little anecdote. He had some very bad habits and we hired one of his coaches for private lessons. She and I were talking one day and he was in the pool, he was like 7 in t he deep end with the diving well (i.e. very deep) and he was in the water "goofing off". I turned to him and told him to stop goofing off as he disappeared again under the water. His coach said to me, "No, that's good." I asked, "What?" She replied, "What he is doing. He is goofing off sure, but he is also learning. He is learning the path of most resistance. And he has to do that to learn the path of least resistance." I looked at her for a few seconds, looked at him as he disappeared under the water again while smiling, and nodded. Yes, he has to learn what will slow him down in the water so he can "not do that" in a race. It was counter-intuitive at first, but upon reflection it made sense. Eve is like that, first you must learn the "path of most resistance" before you can see the "path of least resistance".

Hakawai and Infinity Ziona are bad, not because they have ill intent, but because their good intentions will enervate new players; leave them less capable than if they had been left to their own devices. Yes, initially those devices would be ineffective and even ridiculous. But by having to figure things out for themselves they'd learn the mechanics better and in the end be better players. Players who can survive in the harsh environment of EVE. Yes, it is not a game for everyone. But so what? It was doing fine as a niche game. CCP should have not panicked if the PCU number stopped going up at a given rate. Bass diffusion models predict that kind of thing. The response the Hakawai-Ziona response was most unfortunate in that it is likely why the PCU started to trend down.

The solution, IMO, is not to make the game progressively safer. That has not been working, IMO. The solution is to return to the notion that in EVE you aren't safe anywhere except while docked and maybe while cloaked at a decent safe spot. Stop worrying about ganking, scamming and all the rest. You get that kind of thing in a sandbox game and it is fine. It teaches players who are overly trusting not to be. It teaches players who take on too much risk not too.

EVE players do not need to be molly coddled.

You don't know what you're talking about. I do because I saw EvE growing when highsec was safe. I saw it declining when the new devs lost the original vision and started the push to move players into areas of the game those players didn't want to go.

Its somewhat like opening a coffee shop that serves tea and coffee then trying to force your customers to drink tea even though the majority of potential clients want coffee. Bad business choices lose customers. You cater to as many customers as possible ideally adjusting your business to suit them. Not the other way around. It's why you can buy lamb big macs in India and halal big macs in predominantly Muslim areas here in Australia.

CCP are not the brightest and neither are you.

I suggest you read Alexander The Greats Art Of Strategy by Partha Bose

CCP Fozzie “We can see how much money people are making in nullsec and it is, a gigantic amount, a shit-ton… in null sec anomalies. “*

Kaalrus pwned..... :)

Kaivarian Coste
It Came From Thera
#83 - 2017-03-11 05:19:29 UTC
Wasn't CCP's revenue up by 30% last year?
Infinity Ziona
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#84 - 2017-03-11 05:22:46 UTC
Kaivarian Coste wrote:
Wasn't CCP's revenue up by 30% last year?

Profits != Revenue. You can have a terrible few years then double your revenue and still be going broke

CCP Fozzie “We can see how much money people are making in nullsec and it is, a gigantic amount, a shit-ton… in null sec anomalies. “*

Kaalrus pwned..... :)

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#85 - 2017-03-11 05:29:31 UTC
mkint wrote:


You're reading too much into that comment, I think. The context is "take everything even remotely interesting away from highsec and put it in low/null." The comment you're getting worked up over I think can be summed up as "if you do that, then 90% of the players will just choose to not play, as that is also an option." I didn't interpret it to mean the game should be risk free, only that the majority of players are risk averse, which I don't think can even be reasonably argued.


Yes, virtually all players are risk averse. In fact, anyone using the term risk aversion like some sort of insult is, IMO, fool who does not understand the term.

Still, HS is pretty damn safe if you are prudent. I was autopillocking around on some alts in shuttles with clones that had no implants. I figured the risks were minimal so why worry about it.

The problem with Infinity Ziona, Hakewai, et. al. is that they do not seem to grasp that risk in this game is not simply a function of mechanics but also of player actions. If I put 400 million into a freighter it is a very "ungank worthy" target. If put 4 billion in it becomes very "gank worthy". What is the difference here? Player action. So do we insulate players from the foolishness of their actions or not? The EVE view is "No! Do nto insulate them! Let them learn the errors of their ways."

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#86 - 2017-03-11 05:30:41 UTC
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Kaivarian Coste wrote:
Wasn't CCP's revenue up by 30% last year?

Profits != Revenue. You can have a terrible few years then double your revenue and still be going broke


No that is true, but CCP has reduced staff and even other aspects of their O&M spend. So it is probably a safe bet that profits are up.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#87 - 2017-03-11 05:32:57 UTC
Infinity Ziona wrote:

You don't know what you're talking about. I do because I saw EvE growing when highsec was safe. I saw it declining when the new devs lost the original vision and started the push to move players into areas of the game those players didn't want to go.

Its somewhat like opening a coffee shop that serves tea and coffee then trying to force your customers to drink tea even though the majority of potential clients want coffee. Bad business choices lose customers. You cater to as many customers as possible ideally adjusting your business to suit them. Not the other way around. It's why you can buy lamb big macs in India and halal big macs in predominantly Muslim areas here in Australia.

CCP are not the brightest and neither are you.

I suggest you read Alexander The Greats Art Of Strategy by Partha Bose


HS was never "safe". In fact, back in the day CONCORD could be tanked. Suicide ganking was easier because of insurance. Then there was can flipping, war decs were cheaper.

This notion that HS was "safe" is nothing short of a bald faced lie on your part. Yes, you are a liar.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

mkint
#88 - 2017-03-11 05:38:37 UTC
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Kaivarian Coste wrote:
Wasn't CCP's revenue up by 30% last year?

Profits != Revenue. You can have a terrible few years then double your revenue and still be going broke

Not only that, but standard accounting principles let a company amortize different losses and gains in different ways that can present a different picture from what actually happened. It could have had something to do with paying off loans or investments or something. It's even possible some of the valk tech was sold or licensed to occulus showing an increase in revenue regardless of what has happened in EVE. It doesn't change the fact that activity in EVE has been steadily dropping for years. Eventually will come the day when EVE is shut down, and I'd say hopefully CCP has a backup plan, except I'm not sure I will particularly care what happens to CCP after EVE's gone. My loyalty such as it is is to EVE rather than to CCP.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#89 - 2017-03-11 05:46:05 UTC
mkint wrote:
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Kaivarian Coste wrote:
Wasn't CCP's revenue up by 30% last year?

Profits != Revenue. You can have a terrible few years then double your revenue and still be going broke

Not only that, but standard accounting principles let a company amortize different losses and gains in different ways that can present a different picture from what actually happened. It could have had something to do with paying off loans or investments or something. It's even possible some of the valk tech was sold or licensed to occulus showing an increase in revenue regardless of what has happened in EVE. It doesn't change the fact that activity in EVE has been steadily dropping for years. Eventually will come the day when EVE is shut down, and I'd say hopefully CCP has a backup plan, except I'm not sure I will particularly care what happens to CCP after EVE's gone. My loyalty such as it is is to EVE rather than to CCP.


This is true of virtually all companies. Find me a company that is over 100 years old and there are probably 10s of thousands if not more companies that were "born", "lived" and "died". Someday people will be saying the same thing about Walmart...and ironically in a nostalgic almost wistful way, "What is the economy coming too when a long lived and profitable company like WalMart can no longer go on?!?!?"

Pfftt...complete nonsense.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Infinity Ziona
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#90 - 2017-03-11 06:18:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Infinity Ziona
Teckos Pech wrote:
Infinity Ziona wrote:

You don't know what you're talking about. I do because I saw EvE growing when highsec was safe. I saw it declining when the new devs lost the original vision and started the push to move players into areas of the game those players didn't want to go.

Its somewhat like opening a coffee shop that serves tea and coffee then trying to force your customers to drink tea even though the majority of potential clients want coffee. Bad business choices lose customers. You cater to as many customers as possible ideally adjusting your business to suit them. Not the other way around. It's why you can buy lamb big macs in India and halal big macs in predominantly Muslim areas here in Australia.

CCP are not the brightest and neither are you.

I suggest you read Alexander The Greats Art Of Strategy by Partha Bose


HS was never "safe". In fact, back in the day CONCORD could be tanked. Suicide ganking was easier because of insurance. Then there was can flipping, war decs were cheaper.

This notion that HS was "safe" is nothing short of a bald faced lie on your part. Yes, you are a liar.

Hmmmmm

CCP Fozzie “We can see how much money people are making in nullsec and it is, a gigantic amount, a shit-ton… in null sec anomalies. “*

Kaalrus pwned..... :)

Milla Goodpussy
Garoun Investment Bank
#91 - 2017-03-11 06:20:08 UTC
my loyalty to ccp games is beginning to dwindle all because it was this awesome trailer promised that we'd eventually get to.. the start of the 3 year roadmap which would lead us into the PROPHECY expansion


so can anyone here alpha or omega tell me .. what happened to the stargate? what came out of it? what and when will that event take place.. since its officially been 3 years later..

ill wait.


Infinity Ziona
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#92 - 2017-03-11 06:24:33 UTC
Milla Goodpussy wrote:
my loyalty to ccp games is beginning to dwindle all because it was this awesome trailer promised that we'd eventually get to.. the start of the 3 year roadmap which would lead us into the PROPHECY expansion


so can anyone here alpha or omega tell me .. what happened to the stargate? what came out of it? what and when will that event take place.. since its officially been 3 years later..

ill wait.



We've been waiting almost 14 years for a decent non buggy drone interface - don't hold your breath.

CCP Fozzie “We can see how much money people are making in nullsec and it is, a gigantic amount, a shit-ton… in null sec anomalies. “*

Kaalrus pwned..... :)

Kanya Jade
#93 - 2017-03-11 06:36:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Kanya Jade
Arthur Aihaken wrote:

* Limit Alphas to high-sec only. No venturing into low-sec, null-sec or wormhole space.

So you want to kill a number of corporations and alliances that attempt to give new players the training and education they need to survive and thrive in hostile space and make enough money in the game to become omega accounts via buying plex?

Pretty counter productive.
morion
Lighting Build
#94 - 2017-03-11 06:58:12 UTC
echo ... echo ... echo ...
morion
Lighting Build
#95 - 2017-03-11 07:00:05 UTC  |  Edited by: morion
When players stopped complimenting bias crap had hav identity
well.
game of alts 14 years Fail
morion
Lighting Build
#96 - 2017-03-11 07:30:13 UTC  |  Edited by: morion
I think /
my opinion /

We agree<--

+ alts is cancer
Linus Gorp
Ministry of Propaganda and Morale
#97 - 2017-03-11 08:02:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Linus Gorp
DeMichael Crimson wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
EVE players do not need to be molly coddled.

What's hurting the game is CCP dumbing down everything making it easy mode for the Instant Gratification crowd. There's no more 'Specialized' careers left in the game.


DMC

I've complained about that for years. Was always laughed out and otherwise ignored.

When you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the illiterate.

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#98 - 2017-03-11 08:03:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Infinity Ziona wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Infinity Ziona wrote:

You don't know what you're talking about. I do because I saw EvE growing when highsec was safe. I saw it declining when the new devs lost the original vision and started the push to move players into areas of the game those players didn't want to go.

Its somewhat like opening a coffee shop that serves tea and coffee then trying to force your customers to drink tea even though the majority of potential clients want coffee. Bad business choices lose customers. You cater to as many customers as possible ideally adjusting your business to suit them. Not the other way around. It's why you can buy lamb big macs in India and halal big macs in predominantly Muslim areas here in Australia.

CCP are not the brightest and neither are you.

I suggest you read Alexander The Greats Art Of Strategy by Partha Bose


HS was never "safe". In fact, back in the day CONCORD could be tanked. Suicide ganking was easier because of insurance. Then there was can flipping, war decs were cheaper.

This notion that HS was "safe" is nothing short of a bald faced lie on your part. Yes, you are a liar.

Hmmmmm


There you go lying again. Black Pedro already took that one down.

As Black Pedro pointed out that post points out that piracy in 0.6 systems is not supposed to be easy. And it isn't compared to 0.4 and lower. But a complete liar like you will gloss over this point.

The bottom line is you are simply a liar.

Please report me, I don't care. Pointing out a person is lying when they are in fact lying is not disrespectful nor an attack. In fact, it is your post that should be removed as it is an affront to any reasonable player, CCP, and CCP Oveur who is no longer around to defend himself.

Liar.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#99 - 2017-03-11 08:06:27 UTC
Linus Gorp wrote:
DeMichael Crimson wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
EVE players do not need to be molly coddled.

What's hurting the game is CCP dumbing down everything making it easy mode for the Instant Gratification crowd. There's no more 'Specialized' careers left in the game.


DMC

I've complained about that for years. Was always laughed out and otherwise ignored.


We are all, to varying degrees, saying the same thing. Most players who come to EVE and stick around are reasonably intelligent. We have learned not only how to survive, but how to thrive in a harsh environment.

Some players think this is unacceptable and want to change the core nature of the game. I hope CCP stops listening to them, but I fear they won't.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Linus Gorp
Ministry of Propaganda and Morale
#100 - 2017-03-11 08:17:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Linus Gorp
Teckos Pech wrote:
Linus Gorp wrote:
DeMichael Crimson wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
EVE players do not need to be molly coddled.

What's hurting the game is CCP dumbing down everything making it easy mode for the Instant Gratification crowd. There's no more 'Specialized' careers left in the game.


DMC

I've complained about that for years. Was always laughed out and otherwise ignored.


We are all, to varying degrees, saying the same thing. Most players who come to EVE and stick around are reasonably intelligent. We have learned not only how to survive, but how to thrive in a harsh environment.

Some players think this is unacceptable and want to change the core nature of the game. I hope CCP stops listening to them, but I fear they won't.

CCP started this magical journey of micro transactions, casualisation of the game and catering to the instant gratification crowd 7 years ago. The game has been on a steady downhill ever since and the surge of players they're chasing after has yet to materialize.
In their chase of profits in making EVE a mainstream MMO, all CCP has actually accomplished is alienating their trusted player base and telling the vets that supported this game for over a decade to "kindly **** off, we don't want nor need you anymore".

Some parts are greatly better to what they were 10 years ago, but CCP has also made a non-negligible amount of really ******** decisions that will eventually result in the death of EVE. It's too late to turn around, as those bridges are all burned, so all we've got left is hoping that CCPs plan actually pays off because if it doesn't, there is no alternative to EVE we could aggregate to.
But then again if there were, EVE would have died a long, long time ago.

When you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the illiterate.