These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Information Portal

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Dev Blog: Exploring The Character Bazaar & Skill Trading

First post First post First post
Author
Dave Stark
#2901 - 2015-10-18 08:12:16 UTC
Portmanteau wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Portmanteau wrote:
Be nice if an ISD could give you two your own thread so we could see what the rest of the playerbase think without wading through pages and pages of your tedious spamming


at least our posts are discussing the topic rather than whining that we're discussing the topic. don't be "that guy".


Neither of you have said anything new for the last 100 pages or so, but I apologise, don't let me stop you.


most people haven't said anything new since the character bazaar was introduced.
Astroyka
IXXAXAAR
#2902 - 2015-10-18 08:13:25 UTC
General Lootit wrote:

Mike, what personal reasone you have to dislike this idea? How it will affects you personally?


I really hope Mike is not speaking too much from personal opinion, he's a CSM and should be speaking from a wider viewpoint, which I believe he is.

Astroyka

A New Eden pilot, fighting against slavery in New Eden

www.astroyka.net

@Astroyka

shaun 27
Brothers of Tyr
Goonswarm Federation
#2903 - 2015-10-18 08:14:15 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Portmanteau wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Portmanteau wrote:
Be nice if an ISD could give you two your own thread so we could see what the rest of the playerbase think without wading through pages and pages of your tedious spamming


at least our posts are discussing the topic rather than whining that we're discussing the topic. don't be "that guy".


Neither of you have said anything new for the last 100 pages or so, but I apologise, don't let me stop you.


most people haven't said anything new since the character bazaar was introduced.


And most people will have most likely missed this because you added an extra 50 pages for them to read.
Daniela Doran
Doomheim
#2904 - 2015-10-18 08:14:50 UTC
Gully Alex Foyle wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
1) A system that doesn't cost any one a penny of RL currency. (unless they choose to go plex > isk > sp. but that's optional)
I initially was in the 'CCP is greedy' crowd.

After some thought, I realize that CCP is also taking some risk with this thing.

Today, not losing out on SP was an incentive to not unsub accounts you're not using so much.

Tomorrow, you could just unsub and then resub and use skill packets if necessary.

Those skill packets will at least partially come from draining unnecessary SP from accounts that ALREADY paid their subs years ago.

So in conclusion, CCP risks a loss of revenue vs. today if they don't make some money out of this.


Another example of this. I'm currently training Minmatar Dread V on an alt that I may not actually use for some time because RL. I could drain the necessary SP out of other alts and attain that skill immediately on that alt while mothballing him 1 month earlier.


In other words, making SP accumulation much more flexible comes with a risk of losing subscription months for CCP.


They are gonna lose more in the long run. There are still plenty of veteran players who's unsubbed atm waiting to get back into Eve when the time's right. What do you think they'll do when they discover what's become of their Eve. Just how do you think they're gonna react when they come to realize that their 100+ SP char that took them 4-5 years to create no longer possess any distinction from the rest of the "Specialized SP bought Chars" that can fly and do exactly what he can do that was created in only half a year? It will be clear sign to them that Eve has turned their backs on all the faithful veteran players and he will back down and leave Eve forever since he knows now that there will be no reason to ever come back.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#2905 - 2015-10-18 08:15:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
Dave Stark wrote:
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
I've always said I'd drop my account if anything that smacked of PLEX for SP came to be


how much game time did you pay for in advance if your account is still active after the introduction of the characer bazaar?
Character bazaar was already a thing when I started, had been for over a year.


so, buying and selling SP has never bothered you and you're just blowing hot air?
It's a polarising topic which leads to extremes of opinion, but it's unlike you to be this rabid and obtuse Dave.

I started playing Eve and it was a fact of life, it was something I had no say in. I do have a say in the discussion about the changes that are being proposed; I will participate in that discussion and I reserve the right to change my opinion as more becomes known.

I've posted my initial reaction, not a carefully considered opinion; my opinion is open to revision as time goes by. I want to see more detail and how this plays out instead of making an uniformed choice to stop playing a game I've enjoyed for a long time.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack

Daniela Doran
Doomheim
#2906 - 2015-10-18 08:19:35 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Tiberius Heth wrote:
Jeremiah Saken wrote:
Daniela Doran wrote:
So has this already been decided? Or is it still being debated?

If players are postive to the change, and it seems they are, it will be introduced. I don't think it will be large change for new players. Someone must be really interested to the game to spend large chunk of money to "catch up with vets". If for example, Dave Stark want to get rid off his mining V it won't affect my gameplay at all. CCP found new way to earn money. We see EvE as game, they as job. Skill trading will destroy avatar based training system? So what? Nothing is set in stone. People are willing to pay for the service so CCP open this gate for them. Will it change the game significantly? I don't think so. Will it change the way I perceive CCP and the game? Definitely. I won't be as much attached to it. This is first step to destroy fundaments of the game.

Ps. D3 is good, it's getting better with every patch.


Dave has expressed a personal monetary interest in these changes so it's probably not surprising that he doesn't... "understand" the issues because he doesn't WANT to. Instead he's trying to spin it using all kinds of bogus logic, reasoning and derailing into semantics.

He's not the only one doing this, Marsha Mallow for instance also stated to have a personal interest but at least they were open about it I guess. Still, per Malcanis' bio: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his ISK/hr depends upon his not understanding it!" applies and their posts should be seen as such.

He's not interested in actually discussing it, he's interested in trying to beat people into submission through spam posting and bogus logic.


i could make isk the exact same way even if this idea doesn't happen.

instead of selling SP directly, i'll just sell one of the characters from my PI account once i've appropriately trained it.

i understand the issues precisely, and they already exist.
if "that already exists" is bogus logic, i honestly don't know what to say to you.

people who have a personal interest in this are already benefiting from buying/selling SP since we can already do it.

my isk/hour will be unchanged whether we get this change or not - pretending i'm posting because i'm somehow trying to protect an income stream is hilariously incorrect.


Yea I know cause I think you're a Dev alt trying to protect your RL income.

There's definitely a motive somewhere.
Dave Stark
#2907 - 2015-10-18 08:22:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
I've always said I'd drop my account if anything that smacked of PLEX for SP came to be


how much game time did you pay for in advance if your account is still active after the introduction of the characer bazaar?
Character bazaar was already a thing when I started, had been for over a year.


so, buying and selling SP has never bothered you and you're just blowing hot air?
It's a polarising topic which leads to extremes of opinion, but it's unlike you to be this rabid and obtuse Dave.

I started playing Eve and it was a fact of life, it was something I had no say in. I do have a say in the discussion about the changes that are being proposed; I will participate in that discussion and I reserve the right to change my opinion as more becomes known.

I've posted my initial reaction, not a carefully considered opinion; my opinion is open to revision as time goes by. I want to see more detail and how this plays out before I make an uniformed choice and stop playing a game I've enjoyed for a long time.



you did have a say in it - if the idea of purchasing SP abhorred you that much your say would have been to never have given CCP any of your money or time to begin with.

I just find people claiming "i'm quitting because you can buy SP" to be hypocrites - which wind me up immensely. they have always been able to buy and sell SP, and they're still here. so claiming they will quit because of it is entirely disingenuous or hypocritical.

i mean i get it - people might not like the idea. that's totally fine. however pretending because it's "because you can buy and sell SP and it's gonna kill eve"? pull the other one.
Dave Stark
#2908 - 2015-10-18 08:26:25 UTC
Daniela Doran wrote:
Yea I know cause I think you're a Dev alt trying to protect your RL income.

There's definitely a motive somewhere.


considering i'm not even defending the idea.

i'm just not crying that the sky is falling. if i want to buy and sell SP i can do it without this idea, and i could probably turn a profit from it if i bothered.
Indahmawar Fazmarai
#2909 - 2015-10-18 08:28:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Indahmawar Fazmarai
Well, apparently this pay-to-win idea is becoming a turd that's gonna be shoved down our throat we want it or don't. So let's negotiate how large, soft and smelly should be the turd.

I *see* how helping new players to buy themselves into higher SP early in the game could be good for the players, theoretically, even for those who don't belong to an alliance which can fund them for free.

What I don't see is any need that certain players backed up by large RL pockets or large ingame alliances can "pay to win" indefinitely over players who go the "slow way" and merely pay their monthly sub.

So here's the thing: to hell with diminishing returns and put a hard cap by age on the use of skill packages. Say, 10 million SP, roughly the first 6 months of skilling, so players who just pay a subscription to CCP never are left behind by more than 6 months compared to those who paid to win.


And yet I think that it's utterly stupid to tell your subscribers that their money is not good enough and they should be paying you more to not be left behind...
Daniela Doran
Doomheim
#2910 - 2015-10-18 08:33:10 UTC
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
While I'm against the proposal as it currently stands, there's not enough information available yet for me to utterly condemn it.

I think that CCP deliberately posted a vague summary of something they knew would be controversial in order to gain as much feedback as possible, both extreme arguments for and against and otherwise. The proposal will change, it will be tweaked and it will be republished. Alternatively they could don their $70 monocles and $1000 pants, ignore all feedback, then release something hideously out of whack that produces SP out of thin air (this doesn't appear to be the case) just to spite us.

If it's aimed at retaining newer players I think that the dev time would be better spent further revising the NPE which is biased towards pushing new players towards stagnant "levelling up their Raven" style content", which they know is poor for retention; rather than the more dynamic player driven stuff which keeps them here. It doesn't do enough to encourage newbies to seek out other players, instead it leads them into a solo playstyle without explaining A: the nature of the game and B: giving them an idea of the number of options that are available to them.

Until more detail emerges I'm still going with my initial stance of hell no. I've always said I'd drop my account if anything that smacked of PLEX for SP came to be and in its current state the proposal does somewhat smack of it. My initial thoughts were to do exactly that, but after reading the arguments for and against, listening to the discussion on various twitch broadcasts etc, and some consideration, I've delayed that decision to see how this plays out.

TL;DR If they're going ahead with this then CCP needs to get this right, it's a risky move given past events like the misbegotten abortion of an idea that became Incarna.



A very insightful post that's got me thinking. Question is, how long do we have to wait until CCP gives a verdict on this decision? My accounts are still active for another 84 days with no plans of renewal atm. Hopefully what you said is true and CCP decides to abort this atrocious idea in a respectful time frame. But like you, all the players can do now is wait and see how it all pans out. If a Dev shows up asking for an alternative, I'll be glad to propose one for them that won't destroy the game's core.
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2911 - 2015-10-18 08:33:27 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Astroyka wrote:
General Lootit wrote:

Mike, what personal reasone you have to dislike this idea? How it will affects you personally?


I really hope Mike is not speaking too much from personal opinion, he's a CSM and should be speaking from a wider viewpoint, which I believe he is.

I believe opinions of players represented by themselves in this thread more than enough. I asked this question because if someone have no personal reason hence he hide it to be less vulnerable to arguments and to be able speaking about more abstact things which makes illusion that he giving relevant arguments.
Dave Stark
#2912 - 2015-10-18 08:35:59 UTC
Daniela Doran wrote:
I'll be glad to propose one for them that won't destroy the game's core.


like This?
Daniela Doran
Doomheim
#2913 - 2015-10-18 08:36:50 UTC
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:
Well, apparently this pay-to-win idea is becoming a turd that's gonna be shoved down our throat we want it or don't. So let's negotiate how large, soft and smelly should be the turd.

I *see* how helping new players to buy themselves into higher SP early in the game could be good for the players, theoretically, even for those who don't belong to an alliance which can fund them for free.

What I don't see is any need that certain players backed up by large RL pockets or large ingame alliances can "pay to win" indefinitely over players who go the "slow way" and merely pay their monthly sub.

So here's the thing: to hell with diminishing returns and put a hard cap on the use of skill packages. Say, 10 million SP, roughly the first 6 months of skilling, so players who just pay a subscription to CCP never are left behind by more than 6 months compared to those who paid to win.


And yet I think that it's utterly stupid to tell your subscribers that their money is not good enough and they should be paying you more to not be left behind...


I don't eat turd, I flush it down the toilet.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#2914 - 2015-10-18 08:41:36 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
you did have a say in it - if the idea of purchasing SP abhorred you that much your say would have been to never have given CCP any of your money or time to begin with.
Yeah, but no. As a new player I had absolutely no idea what the character bazaar entailed, by the time I did know Eve had already grabbed me by the short and curlies and I accept it as a necessary evil in order to curb a black market.

Quote:
I just find people claiming "i'm quitting because you can buy SP" to be hypocrites - which wind me up immensely. they have always been able to buy and sell SP, and they're still here. so claiming they will quit is entirely disingenuous or hypocritical.
Depends on how you view the character bazaar, some see it as purchasing time rather than SP. It's a fine distinction, but it does exist.

Quote:
i mean i get it - people might not like the idea. that's totally fine. however pretending because it's "because you can buy and sell SP and it's gonna kill eve"? pull the other one.
I think the lack of detail has something to do with that, I've already revised my opinion somewhat after looking into it further and listening to what others have to say. Like I said I want to see how this plays out, I'm don't like the idea and think that the dev time would be better spent elsewhere; but I know that it's open to revision and see both the potential upsides and downsides.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack

Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2915 - 2015-10-18 08:42:55 UTC
Daniela Doran wrote:
They are gonna lose more in the long run. There are still plenty of veteran players who's unsubbed atm waiting to get back into Eve when the time's right. What do you think they'll do when they discover what's become of their Eve. Just how do you think they're gonna react when they come to realize that their 100+ SP char that took them 4-5 years to create no longer possess any distinction from the rest of the "Specialized SP bought Chars" that can fly and do exactly what he can do that was created in only half a year? It will be clear sign to them that Eve has turned their backs on all the faithful veteran players and he will back down and leave Eve forever since he knows now that there will be no reason to ever come back.
Can't give you an answer on this, that train of thought is alien to me.

When I fly, I don't ever think about how much SP or ISK my opponents have ot how they've acquired it. How they've acquired it is particularly meaningless to me.

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!

Dave Stark
#2916 - 2015-10-18 08:44:19 UTC
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
Depends on how you view the character bazaar, some see it as purchasing time rather than SP. It's a fine distinction, but it does exist.


that's still the case here. an SP packet still represents at least 7.7 days of some one else's time. it's not like this SP is coming out of thin air, it's coming out of some one's head.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#2917 - 2015-10-18 08:45:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
Daniela Doran wrote:
Hopefully what you said is true and CCP decides to abort this atrocious idea in a respectful time frame.
No, no, no, no.. no. You misunderstand me, I said that CCP need to get it right.

Thank you for the compliment despite the misunderstanding.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack

Jared Khanar
#2918 - 2015-10-18 08:45:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Jared Khanar
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:
Well, apparently this pay-to-win idea is becoming a turd that's gonna be shoved down our throat we want it or don't. So let's negotiate how large, soft and smelly should be the turd.


Well, thats a nice thinking :) Really , I like it.

If you see the waiter peeing in your beer it´s absolutly ok to tell him "please do this an hour bevore you serve it, so the pee gets cold - cause warm pee warms also up my beer and that doesn´t taste well...". You can also decide that pee is not bad, because it doesn´t kill you, so don´t panic if the waiter pees also in your milk and cocktails. That´s ok, because you are already drinking said liquid in other forms. And if he does, you should also accept the rise in payments your waiter charges. He is clearly rising the value of your drinks, providing additional service, so charging not only their related prices is naturally and good. And how happy we are to notice that our waiter can only pee that much. Everyone of us can now sell their pee, because theres clearly a demand for this ... No one with a brain could refuse, it !? Better discuss the way he shakes of. Because if it´s to the right, thats absolutly shocking and not acceptable. How dumb he could be to do this!? But if he shakes right - it´s absolutly ok. Noone could doubt this. It´s the only way this should be done...

But some people don´t like drinking pee, even if its mixed with spices and honey. They simply choose to leave...

Economic Services

trading spacepixels

Norn Thilnir
Naragnir
#2919 - 2015-10-18 08:48:03 UTC
As someone who has started a new main character (slowly crawling towards 5M SP), all I can say is that introducing SP for isk breaks an interesting part of the game for me. It may sound silly, but making intelligent skill training choices without the possibility of a skill remap is fun. Other games I enjoyed in the past were equally ruthless with regards to character choices.

I feel SP for isk is simply an easy way out of the broken new player experience. A lot could be done to make low SP gameplay more balanced. Some good steps towards this have been taken already (requiring lvl 3/4 instead of lvl 5 to 'progress'), but the job is not done. By wisely specializing new players should be able to become competitive much faster. "Theorycrafting" a new character progression can be a lot of fun.

"Kil2" was bought because of the desire to fly battleships. Well, what if new players could fly reasonably fitted battleships in a reasonable amount of time by making intelligent choices? Sure, they'd be lacking the last 15% in dps and tank, but so what?

The main problem with progression for new characters is that the races do not allow proper specialization. Take the breacher, bellicose, cyclone lineup for instance. Training up drone skills has a far bigger impact on your DPS than improving all those missile skills. In fact, adding drone control units to the bellicose adds about the same dps as adding BCUs. Does that sound balanced? While older characters may look at drone SP and notice how "few" SP they require, those initial couple millions you need to invest really hold back low SP characters for no decent reason.

Some other ways in which to help new characters out without selling SP for isk:

- module rebalancing in terms of stats (e.g. make faction guns reasonably affordable, so new players can be competitive without t2) => this is still "pay to win", but in a much more interesting manner)
- module/ship rebalancing in terms of requirements (e.g. require lvl 3/4 skills mostly instead of lvl 5, e.g. t2 large AC currently require motion prediction lvl 5, why?)
- make t1 ships more competitive with t1 fits (a positive example of this are the minmatar destroyers: the t1 fits are not that much worse than the t2 fits)
- ...

There is so much that could be done, but all of it requires devs with the time and patience to carefully tweak all those stats. It may not be "flashy", but it could turn EVE into a whole new game with far more interesting choices to make.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#2920 - 2015-10-18 08:48:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
Dave Stark wrote:
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:
Depends on how you view the character bazaar, some see it as purchasing time rather than SP. It's a fine distinction, but it does exist.


that's still the case here. an SP packet still represents at least 7.7 days of some one else's time. it's not like this SP is coming out of thin air, it's coming out of some one's head.
Yeah I realise that, which is why I'm content to let this play out and wait for more detail, if I still feel that it's PLEX for SP when it becomes live then I will make an informed decision instead of an uninformed one of whether or not to stop playing a game I've put several thousand hours into over the last 6 and a bit years.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack