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Why do you asking? We all know that socratic method is very powerful tool for argueing but please use it properly.

True.

I can say that this change will be good for me(as a noob). Price is unknown varible but we could guess. I don't really bother about vets because they have experience, isks and SP. They should work out. Vets could not only use unwanted skills again but sell them.

What you suggest is fair enough, but people can already transfer sp between players in the bazar, why that is not against the "subscription financial model" but transferring sp between characters is? I mean the characters don't have the subs, the players do. So you basically want to create two methods instead of one, and leave the trade of SP which is already happening alone in all its out of game, can only do it if you go to the forums, clumsy third method? Three mechanics instead of one, one of which is out of game? Doesn't seem very rational?

I can tell you that it won't help me much because I have low SP(because I'm noob) and relocating won't speed up progress at my plan. Furthermore there is a group of people who talked that consequences of skill choises won't be matter anymore if TSP will be implemented. So you get it worse with re-mapping-SP tool.

But they are disqualified. That was my point :)


Regarding API, as I said it could be done that injected SP does not calculate in total SP. Still that would cover only one of the concerns, more important ones are still there.

A character is just a container of sp, you cannot have sp on your account without it being on a character, and if you trade the character the sp goes with it. Saying its not trading sp is like saying, "no, you didn't buy honey you bought a jar,". The only other thing traded with a character is standing/sec status and trades done on that basis are niche, plus can already be bought to a great extent with isk.

Why is everything you have in game worth $12? That is like saying you paid $100 to get your car out the impound so your car is worth $100. Or you paid $100 to rent a flat so the contents of the flat are worth $100. Just because you lose access to an asset does not mean it ceases to exist, nor does it mean the asset is worth however much you paid to regain access to it. You pay $12 for access to ccps game with 1 characters training time. You can pay another $12 for another characters training time, whether you do this through dual character training or start a new account and get a second access to the game is up to you. Your in game assets (including your character) are actually "worth" however many plex you could trade them for assuming a) you want to continue playing the game and would otherwise have paid in cash, b) somebody is willing to buy plex to trade for your assets and c) CCP allows the plex trade to occur. If any of these three things are not true your in game assets are worth nothing. Whether you sub or not, have dual char training active or use TSP make no difference to this whatsoever. Somebody using a TSP can add to the value of their assets with rl money, but so can anybody cashing plex.

So you can already sub as many accounts as you want, earning as much sp as you want. The more accounts you pay for the more SP CCP rewards you with. You are saying everyone with more than one account is P2W? Well yes, its been here since eve started. Having sp on a different account is almost always better than having more sp one 1 account thanks to the diminishing returns skill system so TSP with yet more diminishing returns are total small fry compared to this "P2W" which already exists.

The guy spending his rl money to pay for multiple accounts is gaining far more than somebody using the same money for TSPs, at a far smaller cost.

However since SP is not lost with access to the game, indeed is never lost, it is direct pay to win even with 1 char on 1 account. People who have paid more have a greater advantage. Thankfully eves skill system works against this, but it still an issue. Whoever has paid the sub the longest will have the pay to win advantage in some area of the game. Thankfully eve is varied enough that it rarely matters, but you are kidding yourself if you think its not there.

People crying because that guy might get 50k more sp than them with his rl cash are conveniently forgettingthat they themselves already have millions of sp more than some guy starting tomorrow because of their own rl cash. Total hypocrisy.

Doddy your concept of subs equaling skill points and everything you say would be correct if CCP allowed you to sell your character anywhere for real life currency - but they don't.

Your subs only equal time, How much time you can invest in actually playing in those 30 days is irrelevant. You don't own anything in the game from the name through skill points to the titan you maybe flying.

Think of it like going on vacation, car hire / lodge in aspen. You hire the car (Subs) going to take you 3 days to drive there (the ship you want to fly / your goal) You arrive and its holiday time ( the reward / your now flying it).

At the end of it you don't own the car or the lodge you used, you have the memory's of it ( Time ) but nothing else.

It's exactly the same for the bazaar, all you have to sell is your time investment, CCP own everything your just being allowed to move their property from A to B at a set price (Plex) and being compensated for your time investment with Isk.

This is why the selling of skill points goes against what CCP stated :

"The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time. "

CCP Hellmar
2011-10-05

Until now every single thing in game is about time invested, This corrupts the whole philosophy of that principle.

There are so many ways you could improve the game to make it new player friendly without dumbing it down.

Have a good character creation, with templates 5 to 7 mill sp on first slot of account. Have a good investment of core skills in it to.
Remove attribs, have it so whatever skill you train has 3000 sp / per hr - removes the confusion to new players, no need for optimized training over months at a time.

Neural implants - for boosting skillpoint per hour BPC for aurum character created

Neural harmonizer token - beta gives 8% to 10% / advanced 12% to 15% of total skillpoints. e.g. 50m character on an advanced token would able to re-assign 6 to 7.5 mill skillpoints - BPC for aurum character created - XX time delay on next use

Have the same AI for burner missions tweeked so that starter characters can engage in proper PVP type lessons and get burned with freebie ships/fits so they understand what it really is going to be like.

Remove co-dependencies on ships and weapons types with the age of the game now if someone wants to be a battleship or even something like an oracle pilot - why the need for small / medium / large same with frigate/destroyer/cruiser/ battle cruiser - Restrictions still need applying on jumping from sub capital - capital class ships though.

The whole game doesn't have to be destroyed to still be innovative and engaging.

This exploration is really great stuff.

I think it took too long and the can exploded.

Please please delete this Dev blog asap and all your ideas with it.

If you are ever going to implement that crap I am going to put my 265mil SP char directly into BIOMASS!!

So sad that EvE is constantly drifting into the wrong direction....

Probably CCP is planning to shift from an access monetization model to an activity monetization model.

When players do more things ingame than they log in, either you improve how many players log in or you monetize what they do.

And frankly, CCP's chances to improve subscriptions are scarce. They don't have any plans to call in new players with some groundbreaking feature that could enable them to start from zero and in equal terms to the veteran players. Even the new content will be added to the end of endgame content, requiring alliances/structures/nullsec/ PvP and what the hell to as much as consider moving into that new space, whatever it is. Also, EVE has been cutting through the same niche for 12 years.

And all in all since CCP failed so horribly to understand that the average subscriber used to be a highsec PvEr, and those players are just leaving the game, CCP as a company don't have many options.

They rely on access monetization, but they're running out of customers willing to access the game for a fee.

They also have added customization monetization, but that is related to how many people play the game. Less players mean less need to one-time sales of cosmetic items.

So what's left to sell and monetize?

Ingame activity. The things you do, which are effectively locked behind a time-controled skillpoint barrier. You need to pay access for T game time in order to have the skills to fly that ship or use that module.

But what if you can just buy those skills? Not from a void, but from the existing 12 years long pool, to protect the skillpoint market, at least initially.

Then, what CCP does is to charge you for what you do. Activity monetization.

And once they're charging players for something they do (fly a ship for money rather than time), sky is the limit. They can charge players for absolutely anything locked behind the skillpoint barrier.

For an instance, CCP a may charge them for any skillpoints, and give them skillpoints for free if they pay a subscription ("Premium" skillpoints).

Thus there is no need to charge them for access. That, of course, calls in every player interested in EVE but not interested in paying months of subscription to "fly the cool stuff".

Skillpoints still would be a barrier. And players still could grind their way to lift it for time (grind ISK, buy skillpoints).

To us the old farts, it is very simple.

Either we stick with EVE F2P or give up all we did for those subscriptions and the effort behind them. The money we paid to CCP? Thanks for it. Now we can sell the SP to lift the ISK access barrier, if that bothers us much.

CCP is a company. They've painted themselves in a corner and the only way out is a "freemium" model with skillpoints being the bonus for subscription and the barrier to limit what a player can achieve by paying.

Then numbers will rise up, old players will get lots of PvP targets and customization monetization also increases when whales (there's always whales in F2P) feel they need to fly every ship and SKIN it in every possible way. That's in the thousands of dollars even with the current stock of the NES.


So now that CCP is moving in that direction, what are you going to do when EVE goes Free to Play, for the future well of CCP?


I... I think I will keep playing the game. Having lots of people around could prove interesting. Yes, some will be the usual freetoplayaidscancerkids. But some will stick longer and love this old wh0re for what she is, no matter how you pay her services.

(But oh I will feel SO stupid about all those thousands of euros in subscriptions...)