EVE General Discussion

I am not for F2P, just thinking it over.

The following is a theoretical discussion, not necessarily fully thought out or what I'd want to see EVE to be. I have been thinking on EVE's business model faced with a changing market. There has been alot of controversy over the NeX store and undoubtedly more to come. But the MMO market is changing and CCP need to safeguard EVE's financial future, they have said from the outset that the NeX store and Aurum is putting the framework in place for EVE to potentially move to in a changing market. The other day I read a short piece on the Incarna launch in UK PCG that ended with a question; if the NeX store is successful might EVE become an F2P game a year or so from now?

The problem: The subscription payment model for MMO's is becoming increasingly under threat from 'free to play' MMO's funded by micro transactions. As a consequence players are less less likely to even try a subscription MMO because they have an increasingly wide range of other options that don't demand monthly payments. Even the 'market leading' WoW is now F2P up to level 20. Other games that started as subscription only now have F2P models (D&D online, Fallen Earth will be soon etc). So, what to do?

Current situation: EVE can be played for 'free' through PLEX bought in exchange for ISK. But this is not realistically accessible to new players. In order to fund a monthly PLEX habit you need to be able to pull in hundreds of millions in ISK reliably in addition to having ISK to play with. It is a high barrier to entry for new players who might not have even decided if they like EVE enough to put in that sort of commitment.

The Nex store gives CCP a new revenue stream. What that revenue is for will depend on your personal opinion and isn't the point of this discussion. Ultimately CCP see it as an alternative funding scheme to subscriptions, or simply a means for Incarna content to pay for itself (as they have said, the more people buy the more they'll commit resources to making as its worth is quantified). Let us simply agree that stocking the NeX store with purely cosmetic items does not disrupt EVE's existing core game mechanics.

My theory: As I said earlier, MMO giant WoW is now F2P up until level 20. That is a good way of bringing in new players as by then they are either hooked or left already. Regardless, it boosts active player numbers and that is a good thing. But EVE has no leveling system so this model can't be applied, surely?

I was thinking about how you could apply an equivalent system to EVE. Letting people play for free is great for the game, but a terrible business model. CCP needs revenue or they go broke and EVE vanishes. So, you need to let people play for free as much as possible, but still give an incentive to pay up at some point. In WoW you hit level 20 and keep playing, but your character ceases to progress until you get a sub.

In EVE we have skill points instead of leveling, so what is the alternative? A ceiling on total SP? Requiring Aurum to change training speeds or something equally hideous? Then I thought about clones. Specifically, clone grades. What if we had unlimited time free accounts but required an active subscription in order to upgrade your clone beyond a certain grade?

So, I start my EVE career with a new free account. I keep on playing until one day my character needs to upgrade his clone to pass say the 10mill SP mark (arbitrary number). At that point I can fly a few different things and I've probably been playing a few months. I now have a choice. I can subscribe (or buy PLEX) to go pr0 and unlock further progression as a paying customer. Or, I can continue to play for free but can't upgrade my clone. I either stop training that character or carry on knowing that if/when I get podded then I will lose SP. Essentially, I've hit a level cap.

With a system like that I could train up to fly something that is useful to use in PVP (dictors certainly, maybe one or two T2 cruiser roles) but I can't train to fly a wide range of roles or races. The more broadly I train, the less effective my character will be at anything. I can also train alts for other things, but can't train any one character to do a huge amount.

Now, lets say I hit the clone grade cap and decide to train on beyond it. I could buy a plex, upgrade my clone and then let the sub expire, yes? I've still got the upgraded clone! True, but as soon as I'm podded I'll have to re-sub in order to renew my medical clone, otherwise I'll lose SP next time I'm podded. There we have an incentive for buying game time, if not continually then at least occasionally depending on how often you get podded. I think it would make sense for CCP to prevent players from buying clone grades beyond their current needs, but that needs more thought to balance maybe.

A more complex system would involve restrictions on what skills can be trained on free accounts. Kind of like trial accounts currently, but taken further perhaps even preventing players from continuing to train restricted skills even if they already have them at lvl 1 on a free account.

I'm not sure that it would be a good thing to give everyone the ability to train endless numbers of cyno alts on unlimited numbers of accounts. Capital ships require two characters to move for a reason; to encourage player interaction. If people want to pay subs to have their personal cyno alt army then that's one thing, but for everyone to do it because its now free does not sound like good game design to me.

In summary; I realise that EVE is facing increasing competition from F2P games and must adapt or die. I think that the community should be considering how EVE can compete in future without resorting to the dreaded 'gold ammo' scenarios where core game play features become monetised.

Ugleb.

tl;dr


Wait a minute...he's saying something sma---

Never mind, wishful thinking. Same crap as everyone else.

tldr

no F2P. **** F2P. F2P games are ass.

(1) SP loss on getting podded without sufficient clone is much less harsh today than it used to be.
You lose at most one skill level in your highest rank skill.

(2) free carebear alts - I like it! (don't think I ever got podded in high-sec outside of a war-dec and even then it's rare and usually due to lag or pilot error)

WoW and most other MMOs are at their heart co-operative games with some PvP tacked on.

Eve is a competitive game with PvP at its core. And PvP isn't just pew-pew, it's everywhere.

That's why being able to pay for something that gives you an advantage is a bad idea in Eve.

That would give a big boost to high sec huggers like me. After all, you can train all you want without ever updating your clone, and if you get podded all you lose one level of your most costly skill. In almost 4 years I have been podded a grand total of 2 times, and one of those was because I was being really stupid. I may well be willing to take that chance to save the microtransaction cost.

Seen another way: its a nerf to those who PvP alot. The game does not need that.

Another way to do it:

There is the idea of selling skill points. They would go into a skill point pool from which your character draws points as they train. Training would go at the same speed and with the same rules as right now with one change: Allow training on multiple characters all at the same time.

That way if you run out of money or isk you can still play. And if you have alot of isk, or willing to spend alot of RM you could train up all three of your pilots at once.

There still may need to be some sort of cover charge, or people will create thousands of accounts full of non-training pilots for trading, cyno, or ganking purposes.

Earn ISK, + buy Plex. = F2P. What I have done for years.

Does not help newbies as they can't earn the ISK fast enough. They don't have the means or knowledge so face paying for game time to start with.

This is not a system that would work for EVE. In hisec it is incredibly rare to get podded, I can see people subbing and then upgrading their clone to the highest level, letting their sub lapse, then flying around for free for years with no worries. If they do happen to get podded, they just resub and up their clone. Without a dramatic increase in the frequency that hisec residents get podded this will dramatically reduce revenue for CCP.

Secondly, I currently plex two accounts a month, providing CCP with the equivalent or $30 a month. If this where to happen, I'd be more than happy to let my second account lapse and just have him capped at 10m SP. That's enough to do many things well enough. Which would in turn result in people making tons of specialized alts for certain things. I want a cloaky stealth bomber character? Free alt. I want a hauler character? Free alt. Right now you have to either take time off your main's training to train another character or subscribe another account for this to work.

I like the amount of thought that you put into the idea, but all in all it would definitely result in a dramatic decrease in revenue for CCP, which completely negates the F2P purpose.

Eve is about learning. And investing time into you character. To get to a position where you can afford that first BS or plex. If you take that away then you break even more of the game.

F2P will never work. Their will be thousands of 'new player' aka Alts of mains. using those chars as disposable. Their are rules against deleting chars to avoid low sec rating for ganking people. If you give people the 'free time' to skill up as many people as they want what's to stop them having 20 Free skilled up chars at their disposal. Fun times for high sec gankers.