Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yeah, I have a character with over 100 million SP....if I stop I get to play for free.

Noobs who can't afford are stuck forever in crap ships, with crap modules and a seriously gimped ability to grind for isk...in a game with a learning curve that is steeper than a wall.

Yeah, I don't see any problems for CCP.

No, horrible idea.

And just stop posting.

Not Supported.

There are a number of professions that need a minimum of skills (less than 1 month) to affect the game in profound ways.


Mining? You only need a character to use a Retriever. Get 5 accounts to do that. Once trained, let them lapse into "free" accounts and earn a steady "free" income stream (until the prices for minerals crashes from oversupply as everyone and their mother does the same).

Same with Planetary Interaction. Train 1 or 2 accounts for a month so it can use a hauler and manage planets. You never need to train it again and it will generate income (until the prices for PI goods crashes from oversupply).

Do you like trading? Enjoy manipulating the market? Train up alts or two in each trade hubs then manipulate the market in grand ways that pisses off everyone else.
Now watch everyone else do that.

Does a newbie want to be a scout for your fleet? Forget it. You already have a "free" account in a Rookie Ship to do that for you. No need to possibly compromise your fleet or your sanity by allowing someone you don't know and doesn't know exactly what to look for.

Do you like PvP? Train 3 accounts for a month so they can use a frigate or destroyer semi-decently. Get the rest of your alliance to do that too (which is easy if your alliance has a large income stream).
Now use multi-boxing software to create "zerg swarms" of cheap cannon fodder to assist your more expensive contingent.
Watch everyone else do the same.


Basically... it won't take much for people to create multiple characters to create "free" income streams for their main character (which will probably be the only account they will continue training). I know more than a few people who would let their alt accounts lapse into "free" ones if this idea went into effect. And I'd be stupid not to take advantage of it as well.



As far as CCP having terrible New Player Retention... if I recall correctly... more than 50%(?) of the people who try EVE for the first time quit within the trial period.
New players mostly quit not because of the subscription model but because...

- of the ruthless nature of the game (see: no "non-PvP" zones, scams and blackmail are allowed, no newbie protection outside of certain systems, AWOXing ("friendly fire") is allowed, corp/alliance theft is allowed, anyone is allowed to affect you whether you like it or not, etc).
- there are few, if any, artificial rules that enforce the concept of "fairness" as people usually understand it.
- bigger, more expensive, and more skillpoints does not confer automatic dominance over others. A faction-fit battleship can still die to a half dozen destroyers worth a tenth of the ship.
- skills train in real-time. This makes the game awesome for many people (as we can actually play the game) but utterly infuriates those who are used to "grinding" for more power.
- there is no "endgame" in EVE (you have to set your own goals).
- teamwork and diplomacy (even poorly executed) can exert FAR more influence and power than ANY amount of personal skill in all aspects of the game (enraging the "lone wolves" out there).
- there are few, if any, twitch mechanics in EVE. This pisses off people who expect EVE to be more like Freelancer than Starcraft.
- ship fitting is diverse and extremely complex. The saying "you will always fit your ship wrong" is quite true and often angers people who are looking for "the best."

The real kicker is that many of us who currently play EVE find these same thing endearing. They are the reason we play. And the developers are aware of this. They understand very well that this is a "niche" game that will not cater to everyone. It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy EVE.



Not true. I personally pay the subscription not because I don't have enough to train but because I enjoy playing the game. Fifteen dollars for unlimited 30 day access to a persistent world filled with tens of thousands of other players at any given time? Few other RL activities offer such a bargain.
Constant skill training (online and offline) is just the cherry on top.

Shah raises and excellent point. With 2 accounts and a few weeks of training (say 2-3 months) you could have 6 characters who could churn out robotics and not pay a cent for those accounts once trained. All that isk is then transferred to my main who buys a plex and has plenty of isk left over.

And I'm a fairly old player. This model will disproportionately benefit the older players relative to the newer ones. While you can argue logic (i.e. I've paid subscriptions for years to get where I am) it could create a very strong perception of "unfairness" and be bad for the game. So CCP would lose 2/3rds of its current revenue from me, and possibly more as new subscriptions take a hit.

Bear in mind... many of those things that I listed are "cornerstones" of EVE and why many of us players love it. If you try to change or alter them too radically (or at all) you will run into extremely stiff resistance from a very large chunk of the player population.

Some no-go areas are, but not limited to...
- PvP-free zones (or "flags" or any variation thereof).
- removal or arbitrary restrictions to non-consensual actions.
- grinding for skillpoints.
- arbitrary strengths for one player against multiple.
- twitch mechanics (technical issues with this one).
- giving people with lots of (or less) skillpoints arbitrary boosts
- combining ship/modules effects/specializations into one (there is a bit of a grey area here but, generally speaking, specializations helps newbies more than veterans as it means they can become very good at one thing relatively quickly).


I will also add that more than a few of us are refugees from Ultima Online and have bad memories about that happened to it (see: "Trammel Server")... and many people here perceive "quality" (see: difficulty, depth, complexity) of the game as being more important than "quantity" (of players).

A favorite quip of mine is this: "Which is more successful; A local restaurant that sees less than five thousand patrons a year and has a diverse menu of world renown food... or McDonalds which serves tens of millions of orders every month and has a homogenized menu that many people consider to be 'just above substandard'?"

I personally will take the "local restaurant" thankyouverymuch.

What about "homemade style" food at a restaurant? I make some awesome bolognese sauce and shrimp scampi and used the same recipes at the restaurant I used to own.

Then how about this, admit that the idea is not as good as you first thought...and stop defending the indefensible.

Most of my real life friends did not make it past the trial of EVE either. My solution was to make friends in-game.

What you're suggesting will allow new players to try the game longer, but many current subscribers will unsubscribe because they could play for free. You can't promise that free to play pilots will ever subscribe, or subscribe in such numbers to offset the loss of subscriptions. I don't think anyone can make that calculation without a lot of guesswork.



Each year the game has more subscribers than the previous year. It is doing well for being its tenth year around. Well enough that the surplus funds are used to develop new games.

Total rookie.. looked at the game long ago and decided it was too hard. Long time period passed.. Then Benghazi happened.



I read about Sean Smith/Vile Rat... and saw a community come together (I saw it from afar/not in game).


More time passed.. couldn't get Vile_Rat out of my head for long... kept coming back to it. FINALLY decided to tackle the game..


Pay to play.. with a CHANCE at making it free thru skills and earning money. Sounds better than World of Warcraft subscription every month with NO option of making it free and they have anywhere from 6 to 10 million subscribers at any given time...

From what I see this 'older' game continues to GAIN subscribers as time passes.. unlike other older (WoW) games..



Leave it alone I think.. (Trial Period gives them a taste) ....and don't call people a jerk or after I learn how to play I will come hunt you down...



Long way to go before that though... so how do I find an asteroid belt again?

Not an idea that sits well with me because i can't imagine the number of gankers that would appear if it went F2P because it's bad enough with that Goonswarm crowd running around suicide ganking other players not to mention the number gate campers would go up.

Well, I believe EVE is a free to play game already. While it requires some time to earn enough ISK to buy PLEX, it is the same or worse in other f2p games.

If you want to play for free, yes, this means it will be hard. It has to be hard because otherwise everyone would play for free and no one would ever pay for the game. I've played several F2P games on my tablet, and it was always "play at least x hrs a day or pay real $". If you consider the fact that it's possible to earn enough ISK to buy a PLEX in high sec (provided you have enough time), and it's even easier in null (anoms, 10/10 combat sites) I'd say EVE is F2P already. Yes, it requires effort, but is sustainable. And it's IMHO much less broken than if CCP went full F2P mode (with microstransactions and other ****).