EVE General Discussion

Same here mate, I assume most of if floats on either impatient children with visa acces or guys with money to burn.

Jade: Very well thought out and persuasive arguments. I agree at the core and think Nex does need to be re-purposed. Swag and RL vanity items is a great idea.

Clothing bonus: I agree with only for in-station or non-flying activities. The faction bonuses ideas had great merit.

Nex in general: My first and continued impression is, "We already have PLEX, /ignore"

Microtransactions: (Here I'll get wordy)

MT are only a useful income generator if you're selling something that people either want or need regularly. That means ships or ammo or guns or implants or other things that go boom or wear out. I won't buy any silly clothing with real money or even ISK because it's pointless. It has no benefit in-game. I think Dust might work with this model at the outset, if they balance it right on the edge of being necessary and being an occasional splurge purchase, or can manage to follow League of Legends' example. Somehow LoL is making good money and I have yet to spend a dime there. :)

But if CCP put such items in the Nex store for EVE, I wouldn't buy them. I won't pay to play twice. The game is great, I love it dearly and keep coming back to it, but I won't pay a subscription and then pay more just to have to keep up with the Joneses.

You can monetize your game - pick a method. If it's MT, I'll do my best to play without spending and consider it a challenge. If it's subscriptions, I'm sold to the tune of at least 2/month. The game is good. But don't try and double-bill me and waste all that subscription money on finding other ways to milk money out of the game. That will just drive me away.

IMO, in the long run, MT games model will make less money than subscriptions. Every failing MMO so far has jumped to MT and "Free to play" in a valiant effort to regain players and tempt them into paying for something again. But if the game wasn't good enough to pay a subscription for, why would I come back and pay for bonuses to enhance my free play of a game I didn't consider worthy of 50 cents a day to play in the first place? It wasn't the subscription model that drove people away, it was the content.

A game worth it's salt will earn money via subscriptions and continuous content delivery. That, I'll pay for.

I think thats a bit harsh on WOT to be honest. I've probably spent around £150 quid on that game this year on premium tanks (which make money faster) upgraded xp/credits earning + "free experience" transfers. It seems a lot perhaps but its certainly in line with how much you pay for an Eve subscription for the year.

Wargaming Net remind me a lot of how CCP used to be in the first couple of years of Eve's life - rough and ready, idealistic about what they want to achieve, bug-ridden, wierd balances - but fundimentally fun and ther game reflects this. Its not a direct competitor to Eve as a game - but its combat ends up being a competitor to Eve fleet combat because its simply easier to get into with less anoyances.

But yep, the WOT model did make me think hard about how Eve funds itself and how Micropayments/transactions and such do interact with subscriptions. The reason I'm quite happy to have put down the money on WOT I have is that is a pretty honest offering - you know what your getting and why - I can't play the game as much as some other players (pure time limitation) so I've spent on Free XP to grind the core tanks faster. (I guess thats equiv to Plex funding in Eve). I bought an outrageous Lowe tank that cost the equiv of 2 domino's pizzas but it was very useful in grinding credits and I think I had a lot of fun with it. And the monthly premium account thing for increased earning is a take it or leave it affair - its nice to have when you're playing a lot but can be turned off and you can still play for fun.

Plus of course there's the comparison to subscription model:

For Example a month ago I moved house (in the uk this is a horrible stressful internet-less experience mostly) so knowing i'd be pretty much home net less for 4-6 weeks I let didn't bother having premium account for WOT and it cost me nothing. Whereas in the same period each of my Eve accounts continued to need payment at the premium costs CCP ascribe to the service.

Now this is fine when you have the trust and faith that CCP will honour the subscription arrangement and provide all Eve content within the terms of the subscription but it becomes a lot less fine when for the loyalty you show by maintaining support for Eve Online becomes "not sufficient" and CCP signal their desire to charge more for the service.

I suppose in Eve by contrast what REALLY annoys me about NeX is the fact the "premium account" (subscription) is supposed to come with all the content but the NeX shop subverts that and ends up devaluing the reward for being a loyal subscriber. For me Incarna just showed a glimpse into the future where there was NO content that wasnt through the cash store.

Perhaps in the future Eve does go more down the WOT route and you end up paying the subs for full rate skill training and ability to form corps/alliances/gangs etc. And free accounts train at 1/2 rate and need to join other people's fleets. All sorts of content ends up being stuff you buy incrementally for aurum etc. Whether that ends up working for Eve or simply signalling the descent into twilight would remain to be seen.

But for my money I'm convinced that for Eve to return to strong growth and success the developers and business side of CCP need to forget about this hybrid subs/MT model and be satisfied that they already have PLEX while committing ALL future content delivery happens in traditional ways built and produced by players in this player run economic sandbox.

World of Tanks is fine (I love my T30/Jadgtiger/E50 lots but there will come a time when I feel I've spent *enough* and will be content to coast along freely for the duration)

Eve though took my subs money for 8 years so far and at some point I'd like to think there would be a little more appreciation for long term player loyalty than is expressed by greedy double-billing at the nickel and dime cash shop.