EVE General Discussion

This is something I can agree with. I do not like the introduction of SPI, especially not in the way it was done.
In my opinion, the fact that someone else is now leading the max SP group is just one of the least important implications. I would feel different if I was in your shoes of course - not sure whether I would use the same arguments you did.

IT WAS ALWAYS OPTIONAL. No wonder some people dont pay attention to it. They only see SP.

Everyone had SP like a dog had his bone.

Belief and the intangiable can have more value than raw figures. Multiple characters -> SP farms.

But, unlikely especially after all the fuss to get them removed.

I don't think for a second that CCP did'nt expect that to happen (3 day char leading the SP board).
Things like further deminishing returns or delay before further skill injection would've just moved the moment this happened (a bit) further into the future. I suspect CCP to be fully aware of that as well as of the consequences and they don't care for the impact this (and other results of the new age) may have on the game's heart and community.

Players still can follow their own path in eve, can continue to tell and write their own story. Nothing changed there. The community will most likely change, though. Some will leave the game (like I will), some will return and there'll certainly be new player as well. Just like it happened all the time since 2003.

For me, there's no back up and restore here. CCP just showed (once again) what they want.

Bullshit. Character bazaar. Thank you.

When JonnyPew extracted 100m+ SP CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar tweeted, that his mind was blown by this action
Or in other words: "We didn't see that coming!"

Can't wait for his Tweet on what this thread is about. With his mind already blown away by JonnyPew I'm afraid IronBank might have blown Hilmars balls... in one way or the other.

Short of a public flailing or self-immolation, I don't know what more I could've done to raise awareness against sp trading prior to its implementation. From the moment I heard about it, I recognized it was a game-changing paradigm shift and that the noobs in support were largely incapable of rationalizing what it would mean for vets & the game. The lack of feedback from CCP made it clear this was happening irrespective of any consequences.

I thought the best thing I could do was to make it an issue in the next CSM election. After visiting CSM watch, I posted a short, thoughtful comment on one of their interviews asking them to mention sp trading - because it was important to many players. They deleted it. I then went to our own CSM forums and realized that Xenuria is a top contender for CSM XI and (from his thread) excels apparently at having no platform outside "reform" - whatever that means (because he won't tell you.) So that's a joke. The current CSM allowed it to happen and many are running again. That's a joke. I'm so uninvested in the game atm, that if I can't find out which candidates support/endorse sp trading in EVE - I'm not even going to participate in the election.

Like many others, it makes me pretty ******* sad to see a 3-day old character make EVE history by becoming the first player with maxxed-out sp. When players wrote that sp trading would cheapen and demean the beauty of EVE - this is but one example of what we meant. SP trading is not EVE. Instant gratification is not EVE. What would be even better? If, with his trillions of isk, he did it 9 more times and became the first 10 toons to reach maxxed-out sp in EVE. Woooo!

At this stage in the game, what can one reasonably recommend to CCP RE: skill trading? Removing sp trading is out. The paradigm shift has occurred. Anyone with children will attest that the only thing worse than not giving a child the candy he's throwing a fit over is taking away that candy after you've already given it to him.

So that's out.

Would arbitrary limits or the original plan of diminishing returns have helped? Probably not. It would have cost Ironbank more to max-out but he still could have done it easily. And not allowing anyone past x sp amt to inject skills would only shift anger to a different group. The idea is fail. This is a conceptual failure that shouldn't have ever been proposed. You can't tweak it into success.

If this was a purely business decision, nothing will change unless the loss from unsubs exceeds the gains from sales. And while many vets are now realizing that something's rotten with this idea, a majority of the 65% of players <3 years old must love it. Regardless, it'll take time for those financials to materialize.

My own experience with sp trading has been full of ups & downs. I hated it. Decided to try it. Felt dirty & unsubbed. Recanted and went all in - hacking up my alts. I ended up with max gunnery skills & a bunch of ships I couldn't fly but don't feel like I earned any of it. Now I'm wishing I could un-do all the changes I made. So I'm taking a few days off to see if I can re-spark the magic.

And if not - well, I'm still unsubbed.

Don't worry Dr. Caymus - we won't forget.

YK

SP progression was (for me at least) the only reason for EVE to have a subscription fee. Coupled with the infrastructure upgrade http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tranquility-tech-3/ and the desire to increase the number of players I can only think of one thing: free to play.

You mean the place where you had to plan ahead and think about where you wanted to end up, and depending on the time required, it was a good idea to consider whether everything would have changed by the time you got there (since the product might no longer be a viable build at that point)? And where, if something had very recently changed, chances are that no-one had created the build you wanted all that time ago since they were building for a different meta. The place that just gave you a character, that you now had to plan for and organically grow in the long-term since you still couldn't just match whatever situation you found yourself in?

About as far away from optional as you could come. The reason it worked was exactly because it didn't offer any way around the time expenditure and organic growth that create the history a character, or around its existence at a specific time in the history of the game — factors that have now become completely optional.

Direct SP manipulation is, was, and always will be a vastly different beast than character trading. Equating the two is thoroughly ignorant.