EVE General Discussion

This is a tinfoil hat type post, enjoy.

TLDR; CCP is slowly turning EVE into a FTP game.

Preface

The EVE community always throws out the term “Adapt or Die”, this applies to CCP as well. EVE is great as a niche game, but the problem is that the number of people willing to play this niche is declining. Most new gamers are accustom to the FTP/PTW model with instant gratification at the tips of their credit cards (I blame smartphones). Due to this shift in the attitude of the majority player base, EVE must also Adapt or Die.

FTP Basics

There are two key characteristics that are at the core of all successful FTP games. The first is, at minimum, dual currencies. The first is a currency that is one that is easy to earn in-game and is used for the most basic of transactions…ISK. The second is a currency that cannot easily, if at all, be obtained in-game and is used to purchase special equipment…PLEX. The next characteristic is the special equipment store. This store must contain items that are not “required” to play the game, but make it faster and more enjoyable…the NEX store.

Now that we have the core characteristics of a FTP EVE established, we need something in the store that makes people want to spend PLEX. My theory is SP Injectors. CCP will either reduce or remove the acquisition of SP through training, and instead sell Injectors (note, not Extractors).

The Signs

We can look at changes that have already occurred or have already been announced to see the trend in this direction. Looking at what has already been introduced, we have SP Extractors/Injectors, Clone States, and to a lesser extent the NPE. These features were never requested by the community, but still showed up. They were received with many rage quit posts, but since their release they have shown to be successful introductions.

SP Extractors/Injectors

The SP trade has shown CCP that the community is willing to buy SP packets even after the arguments that SP are sacred. With the path forward to a FTP EVE, this feature facilitates an easy transition by removing Extractors from the NEX Store and adding CCP filled Injectors. This allows them to be the sole source of SP once again.

Clone States

The clone states have shown CCP that not only did the “false” advertising of “EVE is Free” bring in lots of players, new and old, but that the community as a whole accepted players who do not want to pay. It also showed them that many of those players were eventually willing to pay to increase the quality of their gameplay.

NPE

This is a minor change that hides a hint at the FTP EVE model. During the NPE, all new players get a packet of unallocated SP. This is further compounded by the new Buddy Invite reward of even more free unallocated SP. Neither of these Free SP features caused any uproar in the community, which is odd considering the previous complaints about how SP should not come from nowhere. This is also key to the FTP EVE because it shows that CCP is planning on providing new players with the needed SP to start earning ISK to buy PLEX in the future. It also shows how important they think unallocated SP will be to new players.

We can also look at the upcoming features, Granular PLEX and no PLEX for Character Transfer, as signs of the impending FTP model.

Granular PLEX

When this was first announced, many players asked why CCP is using the 500:1 ratio. Why not something divisible by 30 for the days in the month, or by 3500 for the PLEX:Aurum ratio. The reason I see is that neither of those numbers work well with the 1.5-2m SP a character can train in a month. If CCP sells Injectors in 1 newPLEX units then new players will be able to buy 3-4k SP for 2.4m ISK at current rates, which will be a lot easier on them than the 1.5-2m SP for 1.2b ISK.

No PLEX for Character Transfer

CCP recently tried to hide that a “technical” issue will prevent newPLEX from being able to be used for Character Transfer. This has been a tough pill for many players to swallow. But once again, I see this as misdirection from CCP. If the control of SP is going to be the key method of CCP earning capital if it goes FTP, then the Character Bazaar is a problem. This change will allow them to obsolete the system, just like the dead Timecode Bazaar. The change will most likely cause players who would normally sell their character to use PLEX to extract SP and sell those instead of pay the $20 for a whole character transfer. As the numbers draw off, either a “technical issue” or “feature” will make it so that the Character Bazaar is no longer a method to transfer SP.

Future Changes

The biggest change that I could see happening that will help support the idea of FTP EVE would be the removal of Attribute Implants. CCP can use the player requested reason of “It makes PVP more inviting”. But it would also help move in the direction of no more Skill Training. And Attributes with no training does not make sense.

time to add 24 hour invul POSes that you can anchor anywhere in space for a low price of 4.99 bucks (one use item)

i was kinda hopeing i could buy like 6 days of omega time for 100 plex but you know that's to complicated to add in

I loved this game, I play it since 2006.

The changes made by CCP however related to FTP and P2W are stupid.

Loads of old and new players will dissapear like snow for the sun and imo CCP doesnt care about you me or CSM.

Not sure what do you mean. Playing since january, plexing two accs, never payed a dime.

EvE is F2P. Deal with it. It makes awesome people like me to arrive.

It's also very cleverly disguised as pay-to-win, so whales spend a lot only to realize it's not.

It's not too complicated to read the appropriate page.

I play too much. With some passive incomes, it takes about 3 afternoons of active grinding to PLEX an acc. Working on turning more and more of that to passive, and trying to increase my active ISK-printing efficiency too.

But I spend the majority of my time by going on fleets and spinning ships, like everyone else.

Small point here, but this 'has shown' nothing, except the fact that being competitive and generating ISK is far more 'sacred' than any idealistic wish about how the game should work. Those who are not 'willing' but are able are handicapping themselves, and in EvE, that is not okay. Like it or not, approve of it or not, Skill Extractors and Skill Injectors are another tool, and if they can be used, they must be used.

There is no question that CCP is making it easier to buy stuff in the NES. There was nothing in that store I wanted badly enough to trade an old PLEX for 3500 Aurum. Replacing Aurum with granular PLEX is one of the smartest moves they've made in a while.

I don't think Eve can work using a normal micro-transaction based F2P model. This game doesn't entertain you, you need to entertain yourself and the people who stay with Eve tend to get involved with the meta-game at some level - politics, economics, group dynamics. I don't see how to monetize that player to player interaction using micro-transactions.

Making ISK in Eve is easy once you know how. There have been days when I made a billion ISK overnight while I was sleeping. The markets don't care if I'm logged in or not. What CCP needs to do is make it more fun for me to spend that ISK in game instead of using it to PLEX my subscription. A rigged Azbel is roughly equivalent to a one year subscription but only needs to survive for a few months to pay for itself.

The expression "pay to win" does not mean that you literally pay to win the game. It usually means that you can purchase an in-game advantage be that currency, gear or speed up timers and such. There are a lot of f2p games out there which make their game by selling only vanity items, hence it is not possible to purchase an advantage, EVE is not such a game.

Also it is usually the case that all players if p2w games will make up some seriously weak arguments like "if you are bad at PvP you can't just buy win" to convince themselves that they are not playing such a game. I like EVE, but I accept that it is pay2win and so should you. There is no gain in deluding yourself.

The fact that EVE is a dynamic player driven sandbox means that in most cases this advantages have an impact for you but not necessary for everyone else. At least it does not make a difference for other people since they will judge your strength by the stuff you fly and your kb history and if necessary just bring more people or not engage at all.

A real problem only manifests if you have some really really rich dude who starts to influence the sandbox by actually financing whole wars with his credit card, which is actually possible and indeed happened. How can anyone in the light of such events pretend that EVE is not p2w is beyond me, but here we are again.