EVE Information Portal

Why? The term free to play doesn't refer to anything other than "you don't have to pay anything before you start playing". It doesn't mean "the entire game is free have fun".

Team Fortress 2 is free to play and they have content that is only accessible trough paying for it. And many other games alongside it.

one problem i see is that the gallente alpha characters will have a slight advantage over the other 3 races when it comes to industrials.

gallente have an industrial for each type.

1. 1x for ore hold
2. 1x for pi hold
3. 2x for cargo hold
4. 1x for ammo hold


the other races do not.

will ccp introduce industrial ships to do this for each of the other 3 races to balance it out?


also will alpha accounts be able to use a noctis?

Can I suggest CCP simplifies the list of what skills are available to each race's Alpha Clone to the following catagories:

• Common (which has the majority that are shared between them all)
• Amarr
• Caldari
• Gallente
• Minmatar

That way people can compare the differences between each race easier.

I'm all for each faction receiving their own set of specialised industrial ships just as gallies have right now!

I don't mind them at all. They made a full skillpoint toons to expansive for the masses and the few that can do it would give the money to a third party/farmers if there wasn't a legit offer.

I don't think movies or music are charity projects either :)

Will Alpha accounts get to vote for the CSM?
I think they should only get to vote for an Alpha seat or seats on the CSM.
I don't want people who are not paying what I pay directing the future choices and having the ear of CCP at the table.

Will EVE tournament play now have a cruiser and below league?

Will Alphas be allowed on the test servers?

CCP has long been the undisputed champion of unintended consequences, hopefully this time they don't mess up the entire game and fail like DUST514.

Some very interesting points raised there, but permadeath sounds like fun; kinda like civilians that couldn't afford a proper clone and got a flawed, degenerating one from Quark's ;-)

I'm not defending CCP here, but I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet. As you can see this is a huge change for EVE. Most companies would've kept something like this under wraps until the last possible second because they needed to be certain the message got out the way they wanted to.

I'm not knocking the CSM but it's possible if they gave this to them months ago that it might leak out, no matter how accidentally, and that would've completely sent the forums and Reddit into the stratosphere. It would've been not only the real issue we are discussing, but also "CCP is backstabbing us! CCP never tells us anything! CCP is hiding things!" You couldn't have sorted the forest for the trees.

No, they did it this way, in all likelyhood to make sure the window of 'discovery' was short. At least the CSM found out first and probably gave them immediate feedback first. I'm also pretty sure CCP asked the CSM to get our feedback at that time.

FYI, this even made IGN major news and has been picked up by mainstream media. Anything this big is bound to be tightly controlled. A company that didn't do that is foolish.

I was right in stating that you didn't read the post ....because if you had read the thread you would have seen that I was not encouraging the idea of allowing Cyno training for Alphas but pointing out how easily it would be to abuse it.

My two cents on the new character sheet/skill window: it's uncomfortable having to tilt my head to the left every time just to read what each category icon is labeled like it is now in the WIP. Instead you might consider adapting to a pattern more towards this crude paint shop job I hammered out. It's easier to read and thus access and overall feels more natural and true to the rest of the UI.
To avoid that blank space you could either have the skill categories take a pattern that best adapts to the size of the designated area in the skill window or set some hard cap numbers on the displayed rows + columns and add a scroll bar like the training queue area has. The latter solution could work better for people who don't have their character sheet consume half their game window when opened too.


Onwards while I very much like the idea of offering a "truly free" EvE you, CCP, need to be aware it'll be mainly your own, currently paying customers that will find most creative ways to eXploit alpha state clones. Some few concerns and questions of mine on that matter:


I don't know what the current trial system restrictions are but some possible issues (disposable ganking fleets, Venture fleets, server load etc) can easily be avoided with the single limitation that when you log in an alpha clone you are unable to log in anything else. Basically restrict simultaneous logins strictly to omega clones and restrict alpha level clones to one per machine - not IP since I presume you could easily circumvent that with a proXy, but rather by the use some sort of hardware identification magic.
(If anyone decides to invest 1500€ into additional sets of cheap desktops/laptops just to squeeze another alpha clone in that'd be fine with me, as I imagine that'd be a pain to multiboX. )


Will that info be visible in any API check available to corp or alliance recruiters so they can get an idea of what to eXpect from an applicant?

Will alpha clones be entirely restricted to t1 modules or will they be able to use faction/deadspace/officer modules too? (Because in my opinion they shouldn't be able to use the latter groups.)
The same question applies to navy grade ships, which, since you rule out pirate hulls, should also be restricted. You need baits to get them into subscribing wherever you can.

Also what about PI - let's say the alpha clone aquires a PLEX or subs for a month, then solely trains that month into PI and sets up colonies, those would be - especially in nullsec and w-space - an everlasting ISK farm unless you've the technical option to deny access to PI administration on alpha level?

Alpha clones should not be able to:

cloak (didn't go through the skills list so maybe they already can't in the first place)

use any module or ship that is regarded meta 5+ (ammo is fine - possible bait!)

log in more than one account at any given time or combination (simultaneous logins restricted to omega only)

My biggest concern however about that DEVblog is the question about how you actually intend to entice those alphas into subscribing. EvE is a game that already requires a lot of patience, especially when it comes to skilling. Though you didn't outline how much slower an alpha clone is going to skill it'd be quite interesting to get a figure on how long it will take for one to skill to the cap (which from the skill window WIP I assume to be ~7mil SP) to properly give an opinion on this figure.
Depending on implants and mapping you currently already need to skill around or even more than 4 months, if you consider treating the alpha clone as some sort of "eXtended trial" not many people will sub if they train even slower than that. ("Why bother...?" - many people) Of course you've the option to make it crystal clear on any skill you look at as an alpha to have it say "you could be [THIS MUCH] faster if you were subscribed" but I doubt it's much of a lure for people not convinced about subscribing (or aquiring a PLEX).
Overall and especially if you do not restrict alpha clone login you will get an increased workload (even if you do restrict them to one alpha, just to a lesser degree) on both hardware and employees, all the while without outlining on how you actually want to lure them into subscription. A simple F2P addition on top of the eXisting subscribers could backfire hard I'm afraid and while I understand that you cannot share much info in that regard I would feel much better if you had things planned along to the clone state (and maybe elaborate just a little bit on that).


regards
Duke Garland