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If CCP wants more money then why don't they offer more services?
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Webvan
All Kill No Skill
#41 - 2014-05-18 22:56:36 UTC
Because they would need to get rid of the majority of the existing player-base and replace them with p2w players, which are also generally f2p players. EVE doesn't stand or fall by marketing schemes, it increases by the general pop expressing positive views of EVE to their friends and internet connections (yes we are all prisoners of this game hehe). CCP knows this, which is why we get the buddy program and such related player reward programs for bring in new and retired players.

If you upset that balance you get negative review from your player-base, no interest in promoting the game we play, a decline in subscriptions, less earnings. They could try your hyper micro-transactions idea (and almost did), but it is unlikely EVE/CCP would survive the transition from one player-base to a new player-base. Others have tried and failed in different ways in regards to trying to bring in new players but ignoring the existing players. When you shift the general play-style of your game in such a way, it is usually looked on by the existing community as a deal breaking negative, and bad results tend to follow.

I'm in it for the money

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Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#42 - 2014-05-18 23:10:17 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
I'd be willing to have that source of income wiped from the game by having characters locked the the acct that created them. That's how strongly I feel it's slowly ruining the game.

As for ebaying accts because we can't legitimately buy characters any more. It's not our problem to deal with. It's CCPs. They'll figure out a solution sooner or later.

Mr Epeen Cool


Except that it's not just a source of income for people who trade characters. CCP makes $20-35 for every character trade and this allows them to offer their players a safe alternative to the grey market for EVE accounts.

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
Felicity Love
Doomheim
#43 - 2014-05-19 00:38:31 UTC
CCP offers a great service...

We get to travel to exotic star systems in shiny spaceships, meet strange little people of questionable parentage, and get medieval on their asses.

What more could you want ? Roll

"EVE is dying." -- The Four Forum Trolls of the Apocalypse.   ( Pick four, any four. They all smell.  )
Mallak Azaria
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#44 - 2014-05-19 00:50:53 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
Black Panpher wrote:
There is a massive difference between people buying high SP chars on the bazaar and devaluing SP by adding boosters.
What a stupid comparison. -.-



How so? How is 40 million SP in a year game breaking but 200 million SP in a day not?


You had best explain to us all how it is possible for a character to gain 200 million SP in a day.

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Haiiro Aurgnet
Celestial Phoenix Industries
#45 - 2014-05-19 01:32:54 UTC
No.


But really though. As mentioned a hundred times these ideas break the very core model of the game. No "If"s "and"s or "but"s. The ONLY way any of these could work is

Quote:


Names - yes, provided characters can be searched on both/notifications are sent to anyone with the character in contacts/watchlist, and there is a clear record of the change

All of these should be moderately expensive (2-5 plex minimum imo) and limited to once p/y, otherwise it'll be abused in various ways



or race bloodline stuff which would be useless anyhow. ANYTHING regarding to SP is a HUGE no. 100 million times no. What the should do- as discussed on another thread (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=327347&find=unread for those interested) is offer more merchandise, expand the NEX store to include various new ship skins and character customization, and so on. offering a special advantage like SP boosts in a subscription game is taboo and will result in a massive abandonment from many players.

we already pay a sub, lets not make this a pay to win any more.
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#46 - 2014-05-19 02:07:06 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
Black Panpher wrote:
There is a massive difference between people buying high SP chars on the bazaar and devaluing SP by adding boosters.
What a stupid comparison. -.-



How so? How is 40 million SP in a year game breaking but 200 million SP in a day not?

Because that SP is attached to a character, that existed for a time, with a history. Even if it never left an NPC corp and was created solely to be sold, that will show in it's employment history.

Not to mention, the second you allow "buying SP" in any official format such as what you suggest, no new player would EVER be able to play, because as the game got older, more and more corporations would just keep raising the bar for minimum SP for entry, since no one can argue it since "They can just buy the SP". Dont even argue people wouldnt do this, because i can list several MMO's with a "premium" version/service that have vast groups of players who will refuse clan/guild/corp membership unless the player is "premium" because if they arent premium they wont be as good as someone who is.

not to mention this would heavily compete with the dual-character training service
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#47 - 2014-05-19 02:09:36 UTC
Rowells wrote:
If the government wants more money, why don't they sell drugs?

Fun fact:

Amsterdam makes alot of money.
Quinn Hatfield
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#48 - 2014-05-19 02:35:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Quinn Hatfield
As bad ideas go, on a scale of 1 to telling Cersei Lannister you know all her secrets, OP gets a score of trusting Peter Littlefinger Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish.

Nope.

TY for the correction James Amril-Kesh

I don't burn bridges, I merely steal a bolt a day.
Jur Tissant
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#49 - 2014-05-19 02:42:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Jur Tissant
Jarod Garamonde wrote:
Jur Tissant wrote:
Please keep PLEX away from skills. No remaps for PLEX, definitely no skillpoints for PLEX. EVE treads a fine line between pay-to-win and pay-to-play, and this would send it tumbling in the wrong direction.


It's actually a pretty broad line. The only AUR items in EVE are cosmetic. Nothing you can microtransaction gives you any kind of advantage, unless it's in the department of simply looking better than the other guy.


I'm not talking about cosmetics. I'm talking about buying as many PLEX as you can afford and selling it on the market for hundreds of millions of ISK.

Don't get me wrong, I like this system. It lets me play the MMO for free without getting caught up in the usual trappings of free-to-play games. But EVE has some pay-to-win aspects, even if they are bottlenecked by skills and experience (i.e. you can buy a carrier with PLEX but you can't fly it).
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#50 - 2014-05-19 02:58:58 UTC
Quinn Hatfield wrote:
As bad ideas go, on a scale of 1 to telling Cersei Lannister you know all her secrets, OP gets a score of trusting Peter Littlefinger.

Nope.

I enjoyed this post, but the pedant in me has to point out that his first name is Petyr and Littlefinger is his nickname.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Quinn Hatfield
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#51 - 2014-05-19 03:42:16 UTC
^^ Thanks for the correction, posting at silly'o'clock after a few beers is not conducive to accuracy with regards to names and nicknames.

I don't burn bridges, I merely steal a bolt a day.
Cipher Jones
The Thomas Edwards Taco Tuesday All Stars
#52 - 2014-05-19 04:44:59 UTC
Webvan wrote:
Because they would need to get rid of the majority of the existing player-base and replace them with p2w players, which are also generally f2p players. EVE doesn't stand or fall by marketing schemes, it increases by the general pop expressing positive views of EVE to their friends and internet connections (yes we are all prisoners of this game hehe). CCP knows this, which is why we get the buddy program and such related player reward programs for bring in new and retired players.

If you upset that balance you get negative review from your player-base, no interest in promoting the game we play, a decline in subscriptions, less earnings. They could try your hyper micro-transactions idea (and almost did), but it is unlikely EVE/CCP would survive the transition from one player-base to a new player-base. Others have tried and failed in different ways in regards to trying to bring in new players but ignoring the existing players. When you shift the general play-style of your game in such a way, it is usually looked on by the existing community as a deal breaking negative, and bad results tend to follow.



I started in 2009 and since then Eve has been a one time fee F2P game for anyone who wants it to be.

It simply does not follow the same model as other games (except Wildstar, which utterly blows).

Also, no matter how they spin it, it's no more popular than it was in 2009 either.

internet spaceships

are serious business sir.

and don't forget it
Angelique Duchemin
Team Evil
#53 - 2014-05-19 04:46:04 UTC
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
Because that SP is attached to a character, that existed for a time, with a history. Even if it never left an NPC corp and was created solely to be sold, that will show in it's employment history.

Not to mention, the second you allow "buying SP" in any official format such as what you suggest, no new player would EVER be able to play, because as the game got older, more and more corporations would just keep raising the bar for minimum SP for entry, since no one can argue it since "They can just buy the SP". Dont even argue people wouldnt do this, because i can list several MMO's with a "premium" version/service that have vast groups of players who will refuse clan/guild/corp membership unless the player is "premium" because if they arent premium they wont be as good as someone who is.

not to mention this would heavily compete with the dual-character training service


The game is already a decade old and the requirements are the same as they were 5 years ago. The really elitist has Dread/Carrier as requirement and it goes down from there.

What corporations need first and foremost are actual people playing the characters.

And the dual character training service is a joke.

You can pay 1 plex a month to have a whole extra account that you can dual log into and that has 2 extra character

Or you can pay 1 plex to unluck dual character training and then another plex per month to start using. The first month. Dual character training (besides its other disadvantages) costs two plexes. You're paying an extra plex to not be able to log into both characters at the same time and to have two less character slots.

Jur Tissant wrote:
Jarod Garamonde wrote:
Jur Tissant wrote:
Please keep PLEX away from skills. No remaps for PLEX, definitely no skillpoints for PLEX. EVE treads a fine line between pay-to-win and pay-to-play, and this would send it tumbling in the wrong direction.


It's actually a pretty broad line. The only AUR items in EVE are cosmetic. Nothing you can microtransaction gives you any kind of advantage, unless it's in the department of simply looking better than the other guy.


I'm not talking about cosmetics. I'm talking about buying as many PLEX as you can afford and selling it on the market for hundreds of millions of ISK.

Don't get me wrong, I like this system. It lets me play the MMO for free without getting caught up in the usual trappings of free-to-play games. But EVE has some pay-to-win aspects, even if they are bottlenecked by skills and experience (i.e. you can buy a carrier with PLEX but you can't fly it).


But then you can buy a character with plex who would then fly it.

The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance shewed concavity after the first shewed convexity.

Mayhaw Morgan
State War Academy
Caldari State
#54 - 2014-05-19 07:25:33 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
If CCP are want more money then why don't they offer more services?

Many people are going to answer this by saying that CCP would go bankrupt because everyone would rage-quit after losing their "hard earned" skillpoint advantage that they are unwilling to admit is an advantage.

I would actually speculate that CCP doesn't want to blow up their server from all the new and returning people coming into the game. Having a horde of new players would cause traumatic instability to the delicate ecosystem of EVE, and it might create a cascade of growth that CCP wouldn't be able to keep up with. 100k players on the server every day and 200k players on weekends would stress the server and the company probably beyond their breaking point.

On the other hand, CCP can't really prepare for massive growth because there is the risk that leveling the competitive playing field in game might NOT lead to such growth. Then they'd have expended lots of resources preparing for a windfall that didn't materialize and potentially given up some creative control to investors.

It's a Catch 22.

What I don't understand is why certain players don't have a little more faith in the company? They created EVE Online, after all. By default, we should trust them to make decisions that make the game better.
Sibyyl
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#55 - 2014-05-19 07:44:35 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
And the dual character training service is a joke.

You can pay 1 plex a month to have a whole extra account that you can dual log into and that has 2 extra character

Or you can pay 1 plex to unluck dual character training and then another plex per month to start using. The first month. Dual character training (besides its other disadvantages) costs two plexes. You're paying an extra plex to not be able to log into both characters at the same time and to have two less character slots.

The point of MCT is to quickly train alts who only need a limited skill training plan. Instead of being tied to a perpetual subscription, paying MCT for a few months can make you an alt or two who can easily recover the PLEXs you spent for MCT.

You can move back an alt to your main account with 2 PLEX if you want as well.

CCP offers you this flexibility. Can you restate what exactly your problem is? Using terms like "is a joke" is also pretty unnecessarily disrespectful. Not sure why you need to be that abrasive.

Joffy Aulx-Gao for CSM. Fix links and OGB. Ban stabs from plexes. Fulfill karmic justice.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#56 - 2014-05-19 07:54:16 UTC
This thread, though. Cripes.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#57 - 2014-05-19 08:00:44 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
Like SP buffs for money/plex or bonus remaps for money/plex


Or race/bloodline/gender change for money/plex.


People want these things and they have money to throw at you for providing it so why not?


Say a 100% SP gain buff for 30 days that cost 2 plex. You can't even argue that it causes any form of imbalance because you can already spend money on plexes. Plexes for isk and then use the isk to buy any 200 million SP character of your choice on the bazaar.


I'd even argue in favour of name changes for money/plex. People argue that a characters history is important in Eve. So add a big red line of text in the employment history that says "Changed name from X to X"


we had riots about this...

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...
Domanique Altares
Rifterlings
#58 - 2014-05-19 08:05:33 UTC
Ramona McCandless wrote:
Ill tell the OP this;

While this thread is fail, they have really gone out of their way to make a hellacreepy avatar.

Seriously, its like what if Pinocchio had been created in 1936 and Mr Geppetto got a visit from Mr Gestapo shortly after the puppet learned to use the telephone

its like the anti-Golem or something


Have I told you lately that I love you?
Ramona McCandless
Silent Vale
LinkNet
#59 - 2014-05-19 08:17:07 UTC
Domanique Altares wrote:
Ramona McCandless wrote:
Ill tell the OP this;

While this thread is fail, they have really gone out of their way to make a hellacreepy avatar.

Seriously, its like what if Pinocchio had been created in 1936 and Mr Geppetto got a visit from Mr Gestapo shortly after the puppet learned to use the telephone

its like the anti-Golem or something


Have I told you lately that I love you?


Shh its ok hun

Deep down inside, I already know

"Yea, some dude came in and was normal for first couple months, so I gave him director." - Sean Dunaway

"A singular character could be hired to penetrate another corps space... using gorilla like tactics..." - Chane Morgann
Samillian
Angry Mustellid
#60 - 2014-05-19 10:32:38 UTC
Angelique Duchemin wrote:
Or you can pay 1 plex to unluck dual character training and then another plex per month to start using. The first month. Dual character training (besides its other disadvantages) costs two plexes.


OP your wrong there, you pay one plex and start your second character training straight away unless of course they changed the system since I used it to skill up a logistics alt last month.

As to your original proposal I and many others will never support in any shape or form any type of payment for an increased training speed or for SP gain. It would be the thin end of a wedge that would be used to lever open the pay2win door.

If I'm honest I wouldn't even allow the trade in characters. That said do I understand that the Character Bazaar exists as means of keeping a cap on the RMTing of characters outside of the game.

NBSI shall be the whole of the Law