EVE General Discussion

Yes, that is a valid carry of the analogy, and Im glad you picked up on the leaves being what prevented the ducklings from dying immediately after leaving the high perched false safety of the nest.

The NPE wth all its beautifully done UIs, voice recordings, great progressive scenarios (isolated from EVE proper), leads to an expectation that EVE proper is like that too, whereas it certainly is not. Id imagine for some its quite a shock when the tutorial ends and they "hit the ground".

It reminded me of the X series space sims. There too a guided tutorial ends, and leaves you utterly dumbfounded as to what to do next, or how, in a very complex game. My experience with the X sims would have immunized me against that shock had I started EVE for the first time, now, today, but most players have never, ever played anything like EVE before.

When I first started EVE, I did so fully with the understanding that I was beginning a journey in a dangerous, extremely complicated game, rife with risk, aggression and competition. That was exactly WHY I came to EVE! I didnt know the specifics of how, but I knew the above.

Thus I did not splatter against the ground when I hit it, though it still hurt, but tried to aim for a leafy landing, and immediately started waddling my little duckling legs off to safety from predators.

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EVE is not a game for everyone. Never has been, never will be.
There will always be a relatively huge attrition of new players, inorder to retain a fraction.
The best thing we and CCP can do, is to NEVER sugar-coat EVE as something it is not.

It must be made explicitly clear, at all times, with no reservations, how dangerous, difficult and different ("3D's") EVE is.

This is important cos:
A) False expectations are a real attrition generator. If new players are expecting EVE to be something it is not, they will be disappointed. Furthermore they will be unprepared to deal with the realities of EVE, and will make bad decisions which lead to even further disappointment.

B) Constantly pounding the 3D's into any potential new players head, will help attract those that want that kind of gaming experience, and prepare those that are willing to give it a shot for what they are jumping into (thus helping them survive).

C) Consider the experience/mindset of thousands of people that have played WOW or other MMOs, or never played an MMO. They naturally do not know, cannot know, what EVE is like. They will expect EVE to match their uninformed expectations, and be disappointed when it does not.

This must be prevented at all cost. It must be made utterly, unequivocally clear to them what they are getting into.

Relatively safe you boob, and it is. It is safer than LS and NS.

It is only easier to kill someone because of the changes people like you advocate. You keep restricting HS PvP and players respond with HS professional suicide ganking groups. That you don't see this just underscores the type of idiot you are.

It wasn't a failure cause I'm here again on a new account after forever away. If plex prices come down a bit I'll feel okay springing on one and be able to pay for my game with isk as couch potato gaming Jesus instended.

The problem with subscription number is ccps fault. Make subscription cheaper and more people will play.
It used to be 15$ a month, now it's 20 almost and to get a deal you have to drop 250 for a years worth. It's absurd.

I said it 8 years ago and I'll say it now.
Offer a $5 a month subscription for 1 character on 1 account. I dont need 2 empty slots I'm paying 10-15 extra dollars for.
They want to get rid of dozens of alts and encourage people to interact more limit accounts and make the accounts cheaper.
Overhaul the missions and make some legitimate story based quests with cutscenes and such.
They can't just keep raising the prices of subscriptions and plex.
Alphas can make enough money to plex on their own. I have 2b from alpha but I refuse to pay 1.1b for a consumable everymonth.

Those things used to cost 300-400m back in 2009. It's absurd they're over 1b now really, I'd prefer not to do the Pi thing because of how time consuming it is but I guess i dont have a choice if I drop a plex on it I can finish my Pi skills and that should cut the cost down significantly.

But seriously $5 a month for one character and no alts and it would be much easier for people to justify staying in the game. $20 is simply too much. Look at how bad elder scrolls online failed. They legitimately thought they could charge people $60 and then a monthly fee on top of it and the entire gaming community laughed at them and the game bombed.

High subscription prices never work, if subscriptions fall the answer is to lower the price to entice more people to join not increase them and try to squeeze everything out of a decreasing base and drive more people away and deter new players from a steep cost. For a game based on an economy they sure boobooed that up. when demand increases, prices increase. When DEMAND DECREASES, PRICES DECREASE. was true 8 years ago still true now.
Personally i dont mind low population but that's just me.

$5 - one character
$10 - two haracters
$15 - three characters
There ya go, the magic secret.
Hell if you really want to go over board do 5-9-12
5 for one, 9 for 2, 12 for three. You give people a dollar a head discount on three characters they'll get spring for paying an extra three dollars or 4 dollars over the first two options and you'll have a much larger pool of people doing it because it doesn't feel like a cashgrab.

1) Cheaper sub might help increase retention, but is very complicated and up to CCPs bottomline and customer retention analysis. Existing subbed players will be upset. It would also cascade into PLEX/Aurum(+item) value.

2) I dont believe suicide ganking is substantially causing player attrition, and a large part of those are the targets own fault. Having said that, there are some things about the mechanics/systems involved in suicide ganking I find problematic. But as long as suicide ganking remains at such a low rate of occurrence, Im willing to turn a blind eye to it as a "necessary evil", and as a culling of players breaking various golden rules, and a reminder that even in HS you are never truly safe.

So much emotion, so little sense.

F2P bum here who can't support subbing from an income generated in a poverty and corruption ridden country. If I feel great love towards a game and it's devs, I bring my moneybag friends in, and whoever else I can. That makes my opinion very subjective - but I was the target audience of the Alpha program, right?


The appeal of the old trial program for me: 0%

No matter how good opinion I had of EvE, jumping in a game with an innate timer that keeps ticking down before I have to pay up is felt like a trap. Just like how conservative parents imagine drug-dealers: "the first hit is free, we'll talk the price once you are hooked"


The appeal of the Alpha program on the first look: 20%

Hey I can play this infamous space epic for free forever! But wait, is this the kind of game that makes me face the choice of being the lowest of the low with an enormous grind-or-pay wall infront of every worthy content? It totally looks so when checking the Alpha limitations. We F2P bums jumped in these business models in numbers around 2010, but we learned to steer clear of them.


The appeal of the Alpha program after studying how EvE works: 80%

This game is like no other. The sky is the limit. I'm not sure how will I make it, but I jump in and figure it out. And it's working! Time to get those moneybag-friends in. "Wait, what do you mean by it's not your thing? I know you, and I know it is! What's the matter with the UI? Since when do you care about such? Ehh silly, in a year you will cry for wasting a year by not signing in. Mehh, your choice."

Too bad that it's a rare thing for F2P bums to do their homework. I still think the Alpha initiative is good, but it's late by 5 years. My kind had patience back than. The F2P market changed a lot since than. But it's still infinitely better than alternatives I can think of. From my perspective at least. And I'm convinced that the age and copmplexity of EvE is a much important deterrent factor for new players than the business model or whatever. Not that it can be helped.


I'm lazy to read the wrole thread, but I believe people more knowledgable than I are already picked your concrete suggestions to pieces, so let me not comment on those.

I must be thinking of plex then, my mistake. I looked at offer pages and I saw 19.95 and laughed. I must have looked at wrong item but i still think its too much unless they're offering the 1 for $5 too.
15 for three is fine. But i don't use the alt slots so it's not justifiable to me to pay 15 for 1.

Point 2. I know that's why I'm not buying one right now. Looks like they're trending upwards again. They dropped into the 900m range for a very short period when i came back but I didnt have the isk then. Looks like ill be waiting a while for the next down trend.

Point 3, yeah it is. It's a pain to set up new colonies and they require me to go out and refill them almost every other day and reset extractors for any real production unless I make alts on the extra 2 accounts and do pi on all three which is the current standard but I really dont want to check it more than once a week otherwise it's just a pain of clicking and moving stuff around between 5 or 6 planets. I have 2 in low sec right now full of stuff that i can't export until I get omega again for a long ticket response lol, only reason i tried it on the first place. I never finished setting up the other 3 to complete my system because of how laborious it was just trying to set them up and get all the little circles lined up perfectly. I can't imagine starting over in nullsec now and abandoning the other two to make 5 brand new ones. Way too much of a pain.

Man, you are playing a completely different game than I am.

With the way jump freighters and citadels work now, it doesn't take much to move a JF full of goods from null to market in near-perfect safety.

Trying to PvE outside of hisec without a capship blob a call away is a lot more interesting. I chased one 5/10 escalation two jumps into low with a dual-fit domi (PvP fit for the trip out, PvE fit in the station for the site, PvP fit for the trip back, all pretty cheap). Two different people tried to combat probe me out, and I wouldn't have been able to clear it if I wasn't able to be online while the locals weren't. I would have sold the site to the locals if downtime hadn't intervened.
The next 5/10 I chased into low had nobody actually trying to kill me, and dropped a B-type medium repper and EANM, but there was this one guy AFK in a station with a green killboard to keep me from falling asleep while sentries killed everything.

Why should i stay docked in station?
If no one shot to me ... it's ok, but If somes want to do it... so what?
What's the problem?

If needed i can run...
I like it to play Cat & Mouse.