EVE General Discussion

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it. Judging by the Eurogamer article it would seem that they are not consciously deploying DUST as a P2W game:

"It's very important as we take steps into this topic to unambiguously state that it is not a pay to win game," Laurino pressed on. "There is no micro-transaction that you can do that gives you an unfair advantage over someone who hasn't paid anything."

However, CCP does not deploy DUST as a community service. They fully expect to earn lots of money from a well-stocked micro-transaction store "We already have hundreds upon hundreds [of micro-transaction items]. We have a cache of nearly a thousand different things at this point" A store which also include weapons and combat gear. And lets face it, Console FPS players are probably less inclined to grind for ISK than a PC RPG player.

So, CCP expect people to pay – offering Aurum credits that can be bought in currency bundles that range from $1, $2 or $10 up to $20, $50 or $100. You would think that this means that CCP expects high player turn-over, like what happens in World of Tanks.

But what kind of player loyalty are CCP really expecting? Well, by copying the EVE online skill training method, access to a persistent virtual world and encouraging DUST and EVE players to share corporations and alliances, they clearly see the average DUST player as a stayer. A loyal customer playing DUST for months and years. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anybody that would be willing to endure a P2W game for years. None.

The way I read the excerpt is that "we have a few hundred/thousand MT sparklegear items" not "you're gonna have to get the MT gear to be viable"

That's how I understood it. I don't see what's the big deal about playing a free-to-play game. I played WoT* and I progressed just fine on my own.




Interesting, isn't it? How people react differently to a free game that allows you to progress on your own free time compared to a game that forces you to cough up money up front to play it.

* In regards to my comment about World of Tanks, I just like to point out that the only reason I stopped playing it is because first, it lacked social interaction among players. I mean, do you have any idea how difficult it was to coordinate with a bunch of kids who just want to run in like lemmings wanting to be slaughtered? It's like looking at a bunch of morons jumping a gate when an FC told them not to jump. On top of that, I didn't feel like I made impact at all on how the game progressed. You either teamed [randomly] with either veterans or noobs and you have no control which way to choose.

With Dust, I can see a lot of social potential in this as players will be required to be more careful with their soldiers. Just like chess, you will have to plan and strategize. This means coordinating with other players to achieve a goal. I see this quite often with Halo fans who love doing team slayer. In fact, Halo fans might be among the first to actually try this out. I have a friend who is a dedicated Halo fan who is interested in trying it out because of the level of interaction it brings.

In addition, the fact that players can influence the outcome of the Eve Online battlefield and its in-game economy means that this game has some serious replayability potential, which is what a lot of game developers for first-person shooters aim for.

Double skill points mean nothing if you don't know how to use it. Besides, this seems to bear some similarity to the character bazaar in which players buy characters with ISK, which can be acquired through PLEX which is generated by a converted GTC bought with cash. See what I did here?

Even in games like WoT, players who spent money on buffed up tanks were still overwhelmed by the vast number of players who decided to progress without paying.

Indeed. A skill point boost or stat respec is NOT pay-to-win... no more so that buying a PLEX to get some learning implants or a buy a new character. Especially when you can accellerate your training (to a degree) through game play as you can in DUST.

I know you don't mean it as an overly negative point, but people use the term without understanding what it is all the time.

Ah yes.... gotta love the "DUST will work stfu" comments, reminds me of the "INCARNA will work stfu" comments.... wonder what happen to those guys?


What you MMO nerds (DUST will workers) don't get is that you are looking at this from a MMO perspective, and not a instant gratification FPS standpoint. Not even MW3 or Battlefield 3 could do what Dust is about to do..... charge people real money to play on a console AND expecting them to give a damn about what happens in a internet spaceship game they probably never heard of.

And seeing how its just gonna be fights over planets there's not much incentive for EVE players to give damns about the Dust players other then grief them out of the game.


Someone at CCP should just say "Lets stop this idea now, its not gonna work"

Alternatively, you might spend some time and actually understand what DUST will be and how it will tie into EVE.

By the way, the pro Incarna crowd went "Whoa, you're screwing this up. Take it back to the drawing board and do it right this time."... which is exactly what is happening.