I completely understand limiting Alphas to only have access to certain skills. We’ll never fly the big ORE ships or any of the monster ships. That’s fine. Even the tease that I can now learn skills for an ice laser but I can’t equip it to a ship because I’m not allowed to have that kind of ship. A massive tease, but that’s fine. But this 5 million cap on skill points REALLY upsets me. You want to put a cap on skills then open them all up. If I have to pay day by day for a skill injector then why can’t we have access to everything? Omegas can buy their play time because they have big enough ships to earn enough ISK. It would be the same for Alphas. Nothing has ever made me want to quit playing this game before, but this 5 mill max skill points might just do it. I think you’re going to lose players.
The cap is 20 mil. It’s just that you only get to train the first 5 mil for free.
I suggested to CCP that they change the names of things to Alpha, Beta, Omega.
Alpha = virgin Alpha, just created character, never went Omega.
Beta = currently not subscribed, but was Omega at some point in the past.
Omega = currently subscribed.
With this naming system, it’s easier to explain that the change to 20 million skillpoints is more aimed for Betas, Veterans who are not currently subscribed, to try to get them back in the game and addicted again.
CCP doesn’t want to give Alphas free access to more than 5 million skill points. There’s no actual change to their intentions for Alphas. You get 5 million skillpoints and then you have to pay to progress past that.
CCP did, however, realize that a veteran who’s trained T2 ships and full weapon skills, won’t really be attracted to only having 5 million points and being unable to fly any of his ships. So they raised the cap to 20 million points, so that these veterans can at least fly some of their ships and maybe give the game a try again.
And once they’re addicted again, MAKE THEM PAY to unlock what they had before. The “make them pay” part was always there and will always be there.
ESPECIALLY since the game allows you to unlock Omega by just grinding in-game for ISK and buying PLEX with it. So you’re “playing for free” with no limitations, just a huge grind that makes “play” more like a full time job.
I consider subscription a fee for using the servers and a contribute to the great work in networking all stars in a real pattern. I’ve played some free games, and learned to appreciate good work, even when I have to pay. Example: Facebook is for free, there you don’t have such a great sky and many ads including data mining in your online social intercourse. In EvE as an Alpha you are in small T1 ships and thus nice prey for Omegas who are even more happy to pay when they get some new targets.
But good news: Everyone can become Omega!
TLDR: We never play for free, paying is just the most honest way.
There always was a 5M SP cap. The new expansion doesn’t change that, just means that if you do acquire more skills than that by skill injectors or going omega for a time, you can still use them.
It is better in every way than the first version of the alpha system. I get that someone would find an alpha clone too limited to be long-term fun, but I don’t see why the recent expansion makes things worse. If you liked the alpha clone before, you should not like it less now.
You too can buy your progress though ISK you earn with the alpha injectors which only alpha clones can use. That isn’t just an Omega thing. You won’t progress as fast as a subscriber, but you can keep earning SP up to the new 20M ISK cap.
As an Alpha you need to pay to train skills beyond the initial 5 million SP but you do not need to pay to use them. Once trained, they are yours to use without a monthly subscription fee.
You can pay with ISK - the 50,000 SP alpha injector costs 20 PLEX which is roughly 70 million ISK. You can train all 20 million SP without spending a penny of real world money - but it will take a while. If you want instant gratification you need to pay.
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