You already did.
Alphas refuse to mine in anything that can’t be AFK’d…
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Except it’s not free income. PI is free income because it comes at no opportunity cost.
Sitting there semi afk is lower income than they could be getting by being more active and as an alpha they can’t multibox it while using another account.
So yeah. I’m still disagreeing that it’s free income.
Your own arguments are killing yourself. There is no reason why someone would not use this and send a single Miasmos to collect ore so the mining can continue faster with full free ships.
We change the game to prevent exploitation though. That’s why you cannot warp after ganking now.
Because they can’t do what you are proposing since alpha accounts are single account only.
And sure. we can build the game to not be unreasonably exploitable. But a person making considerably less isk than they could with an active method by being semi afk… and still needing to pay some attention even then… is not.something I see as an issue.
You might want to refresh your knowledge of what an alpha account limitation really is.
One person per alpha account is the guideline. Does not prevent multiple people in a single building from playing one alpha account each on different machines. Some people will actively set up Eve Potato machines which barely meet requirements and be willing to abuse more if given more to use. Drone mining makes their mining easier. I’ve already seen Jetcan Pooping FLEETS for ice mining. I don’t wish to move it into free to abuse more so the clients can pure mine while a single client defends the entire fleet.
Except those 10 or 20 people can already mine more than you propose on alpha accounts.
A battleship miner can near equal a barge even for an alpha.
So… I’m not seeing where the issue is coming from here. They can’t properly afk. the return is terrible on all the “abuses” people have listed. And it’s one miner per real player. So to get the effect you are talking about we have thousands of real players joining EVE.
This is where you’re losing the information.
Really. Then go ahead and explain how you get multiple alphas working at the same time from a single player without breaking eula.
Because as soon as we are talking cheating then Rorqual bots are a vastly greater issue. Or Vni rating bots. Etc. Yet no one is demanding all drones be removed from the game. Or rorquals.
He’s right. Not only are there a lot of folks out there with an overabundance of disposable income… Money they use to purchase cheap and basic computers that can handle running Eve at the lowest possible settings. Then they can fire up a household full of Alphas.
But there are also folks out there who just get a very high end PC, and create a household of Virtuals. A dozen pretend PCs all running inside the same piece of hardware at their desk. Each one registering as a different machine in the household (just like the guy with too much money) and indestinguishable from a family that likes to play video games together.
CCP can’t punish either arrangement without alienating the law-abiding players who just want to allow Mom, Dad, and Little Timmy to all play together.
Sure they can. They can follow the money easily. And do.
What money? We’re talking about Alphas. Nobody’s paying for anything.
If you mean the ISK, then what’s the difference between me running a botnet and paying each of my alts so they can buy ships… or Dad giving money to Mom and Timmy so they can buy ships.
- Scale.
- Where those earnings go back to.
- How regularly they all get played together.
I’m sure with a look at server logs I could find even more differences.
So sure. it’s possible to cheat. But you cheating is not a reason to deny something to others.
We should actually strip Alphas back and limit what they can operate. Nothing above cruisers and no T2, Navy or Pirate hulls (these should be exclusive to Omegas only).
This whole ratting/botting with Gilas has left a bad taste in many player’s mouths.
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You’re right. You shouldn’t balance gameplay by anticipating cheaters abusing the system.
But… that also doesn’t justify giving Alphas access to Mining Drones, or any of the other bells and whistles they come around asking for (like the other thread asking for Cloaks just so they can use the MWD trick to beat Gate Camps).
Alpha is a trial demo mode. It’s a sampler of the game. If you like what you see, then you should pay for what you like, and gain full access to the game’s amenities. You shouldn’t be asking for more and more toys while you continue to freeload on the couch.
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Time to prune the Alpha tree baby!
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CCP have specifically said alpha isnt a trial mode. its intended to be a viable way to play the game (though probably reliant on microtransactions to really make it viable to get to that 20 mil sp or at least some omega time).
Now I’ll admit I’m on the fence about if mining drones matter for alphas or not. But it deserves a good argument against rather than myths and scare arguments.
If mining drones become free for alpha clients to use then eventually even that will not be enough and we’ll need to give them access to barges because it’s not enough still. Then PI. Then Invention. Then nothing will need a subscription and nobody will be paying to keep the servers running.
If you really want that additional income ability then get off your keister and plex or subscribe.
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Alphas are long overdue to be hit with the nerf bat. We haven’t really seen any change in the active player count, so it just seems like expanding the skill point pool to 20m has resulted in fewer players upgrading to Omega. In fact, we may have lost many Omega players because you can now run the Pirate hulls necessary for L4 mission, Burner, Abyssal and null-sec ratting as an Alpha.
Not too mention the flagrant botting that’s going on in with Alpha clones/Gilas in null-sec.
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