EVE General Discussion

OK, played in 2012, than quit.
Saw ad about "Play for free etc".
Decided to give it a try.
Now I have only one question – why.
I see no reason for implementing such system.
Eve already had good try-before-buy system with 2 weeks of free access.
Current players are already paying so nothing changes for them. Well, maybe faster training queue, which is nice, but hardly a selling point on it's own.
New and returning players will be debunked by fact that most of the skills are locked and even if they'll buy sub for a couple of month, train skills they need to play the game and decided to switch to nosub acc, those skills will be lost(locked, but not that important, really).
So, bottom line is – Eve isn't getting new players with this scheme and it doesn't help with player retention, since switching to nosub isn't really an option.
More so, load on servers may actually increase, because of people exploiting new ftp option with mosquito fleets. Yes, launching multiple free accs simultaneously is forbidden, but come on really… Even if they won't be launched on same machine, one can rent vms for couple of cents a month nowadays!
Whole point of having ftp accounts is for those ftp accounts to generate content for those that actually pay for the game, not paying people to play your game because you're such a cool dude(which you won't be anyway, since shmacks aren't really cool)
The way I see it (and it can be used as a whole, part, with or without any form of reference and or credit):
1. Trial account. The way it was. 2 weeks of access, with full access to skills and normal training speed. No access to skill extractors and injectors.
2. If they haven't paid a subscription fee, they are switched to alpha status, with 1/10 of training speed and skill limitations. They can't use skill harvesters and skill injectors and get lowest login queue. All taxes are multiplied by 10 or even higher.
3. If person paid subscription fee at least once, than he/she/it is switched to beta status after sub is expired. They have access to whole skill line, retain all their skills, can use skill injectors, but their training speed is halved and they can't use skill extractors. Can queue skill only for 24h. Taxes, research, production queues length, etc are doubled.
4. Normal subscription. Pretty much how it was before. Normal training speed, can use extractors and injectors, skill queue length is equal to paid sub time left (aka if one has 25d of paid sub left than said one can queue skill training that starts withing next 25 days).
5. Premium subscription. Same as normal subscription, but also have things unlocked simply by paying that fee. Things such as additional training queues, doubled training speed, skill extractor stipend, bonus remaps, etc. Things that people really want.

An alpha account is simply an unlimited trial.

Does that attract new players? A little bit. People who come and try the game can see if they like it or not and take their time with it rather than having to make a decision after 2 weeks. It takes several months to train up all Alpha skills to their max.

The issue with attracting new players really isn't the alpha system... it's that the early game doesn't get you into eve very well. It's pretty much tutorial/career missions and then (if you learn about it somewhere)... the SOE story arc. After that... nothing.

I think Eve needs more story arc missions like the SOE one. A LOT more. They need to provide enough content so that alphas hang around for a few months rather than a few weeks to get more invested in the game. And they need to lead to an arc that ends up giving a reward that they can't use unless the go omega... and more arcs that require more advanced ships that they can't fly to complete... which is the incentive to sub to continue.

"An alpha account is simply an unlimited trial."
I get it, believe it or not. And that's why I'm wondering why such system was implemented in the first place.

"Does that attract new players?" As a returning player, I can tell that no, it doesn't. Not even a little bit. I simply won't pay for something that will lock my character, but will allow me to play it's severely crippled version "for free".

"I think Eve needs more story arc missions" maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. That's not the topic I started.

Well... as another returning player it did work for me.

I logged in and started playing... and I remembered how fun a game it was. But I was limited because I couldn't fly my better ships. So I resubbed.

It reminded me enough of what I liked to get me to subscribe. I lasted about a week as an alpha.

However that's not a new player. THe new player issues are different... and to be honest being gimped isn't obvious for a new player until after they've played for longer than the 2 week trial period Eve had before. The problem I see is that alphas aren't reaching the point where they are actually significantly stopped from in game activities from their alpha status. And that comes more from lack of accessible content.

Most players who are coming to Eve for the first time are used to storyline missions taking them through the game until you reach an "end game". LOTRO, SWTOR, WoW... whatever. It's the standard model. Eve doesn't have an end game... but having a bit more story/epic-arc missions which draw players into the game (preferably with voice acting like the tutorial has) would possibly help to get players to reach the point where they see that they're gimped and look at subbing.

The topic you started was about the alpha/omega system drawing new players (hopefully subscribing ones). My point was simply that new player content is what was missing to cause that to happen.

Capturing returning players is a bit different animal. As I said... it worked really well at that from my perspective as I resubbed my two accounts. But that could just be me.

Don't you worry, babe.
You mind isn't ready either. And never will be[:rofl:]

PS: This game used to have very smart audience. Things do change. Shame.

Exploration scanning. Sure, you will likely lose at least a half dozen exploration ships but you can make the required bank for a PLEX. At which point you get access to the better options and cloaks which speeds it up even further.

And frankly an Alpha account can bash through level 3 security missions practically on auto-pilot. Level 4 distribution is also *very* doable as Alpha. Level 4 security is possible but is a copper plated pain in the rear.

Then there are the DED escalations from combat anoms, those also pay out pretty well and a half decent cruiser or BC (Hello there Gnosis!) can get through them with a couple warp outs for recovery for an Alpha.

So limited, but not quite as much as you might think.

Citation needed

I've personally witnessed a few players rejoining as alphas to play and i've seen a few converts from other games, so they are gaining new players, i'll need a source for your claims against this :P

I'm sorry, but your statement was an absolute ("EVE is getting 0 new players"), and the standard way to disprove such statements is to give at least one example where it's false ("EVE got at least 1 new player"). You can post what you want, but until you provide some evidence to back your "no players" statement, your posts are pretty much going to be discounted.

You missed a point or two in this. My point with Alphas "not reaching the point" where they are stopped is the majority of alpha players are lost in game and quite before they advance far enough to hit any barriers. It isn't that they hit a barrier and quit... they quit because there's nothing feeding them into the game like they're used to.

The payment system isn't what is stopping them. The fact that they don't have an idea what to do next after the tutorial and career agent missions is stopping them. They're quitting after a few weeks... not at the point they reach a skill barrier.

Eve's early game kind of sucks. The tutorial is solid now... but that is the last voice acting you see. The career missions are super easy and have a storyline... which is good. But they don't feed you into the SOE epic arc. You have to ask to find out about that. And after the SOE... you get repetitive missions or mining.

I might agree with you if Eve's population started decreasing after 3-4 months when new alpha's started getting trained up. It happened in less than a month though. That's not the sign of hitting a barrier.

Eve's problem with getting new players isn't about it's subscription methods. It's lack of content early in the game. You're addressing the wrong problem.

On another note... the main thing that makes Eve truly Free-to-Play is the ability to use plex to get Omega status.

Effectively, you just have to grind out enough isk to get 500 plex each month. For all the limitations of alpha clones... nothing prevents you from earning the isk necessary to pay for your omega status with Plex. And if you play somewhat actively, you can probably get there before you run out of alpha skills to train.

The problem is the early game is not really something that makes people want to make that sort of effort.