Sure they are. Omega Subs + some PLEX whales are financing the whole EVE show. If they wouldn’t pay for the service any more, CCP would shut down the servers, else the go bankrupt over the bills. So yes, free Alpha Players are enjoying the content that others make possible with their real life cash. They have absolutely nothing to demand and should be thankful all day long that they have free access to an otherwise paid subscription service.
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Actually, I like the idea of halving the DPS/EHP for alpha players - in addition to current ship restrictions.
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You don’t deserve to post here either, yet here we are
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It’s worth pointing out that many of those with Omega also have Alpha accounts. It is simply not in CCPs financial interests to let Omegas multibox along with Alphas, or to give Alphas more stuff, as that disincentivizes people from purchasing more Omegas. And it is the Omegas that ultimately pay to keep the server running.
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You and Vuhdo have greatly misunderstood the point of Alpha clones and even “free to play”. Game publishers make their money from a limited number of players who are comfortable paying for the game. Some of those players pay a little (dolphins), some pay a lot (whales). Whales pay the majority of the costs for everyone else, not just ‘free’ players.
However, both dolphins and whales want to see a certain amount of activity in their game. They want to see people online, in chat, out in space. They want to see buyers and sellers in their markets. They want to see posts about the game on social media sites.
When games start to run low on “paying member” activity, that’s when they open the doors to free-to-play, or free-to-try. Those free players are the “minnows” that keep the dolphins and whales happy, active and paying. The free players are actually supporting the overall monetization of the game. They’re “additional content” for the paying customers.
If they weren’t, basically the whole market wouldn’t have shifted to that model.
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and a whale is at 100% an omega because he want everything he can get ! so its still be correct that omega´s pay for all the alphas xD
and they dont pay for omegas because omegas pay for itself ! yes some player pay way more then others but still eve was there before all the whales could be pay as much as they could ! and now CCP has only another income with all the whales …
eve´s free to play is because you cant see in 7 or 14 days how eve can be ! thats why eve extend the trial s as a new “free to play” state ! and they arent free to play because they are heavy restrictet in their actions and choice of ship they can use ! free to play would mean he can play for free the whole content ! but this is not the case … he need to pay if he want to play like an omega !
the alpha state only exist to feed the newbros into the payment because they see what they could do with an omega account !
no its not additional content for paying customers ! its restrictet content for non paying customers !
the same with skilltime … omega dont have twice the training speed ! alpha has half the training speed !
but its both the same ? yes it is but omega is the standart and you need to make your comparements to the standart !
they only call it as “double the training speed” because its called better for all the newbros ! so its just advertising !
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I don’t doubt that, but you are mixing up things here. Alphas surely add some value to the game, else CCP wouldn’t have made the decision to create the Alpha account status. But Omegas are the ones keeping the machine running, be them whales or just casual players in masses. Without Omegas, all this EVE Universe would simply end. Alphas do add something, yes, but they simply can’t exist without Omegas. But Omegas can exist without Alphas, have done so successfully for almost two decades.
But EVE would still run without Alphas. A bit less profitable, yes. With a bit less content, yes. But overall, it would still run, the Alphas are just a profit optimization, not a nessessity. If you give them basically the same access than Omegas have, the Omegas simply wouldn’t pay any more. Why would they? If I had access to all ships, all skills and no SP cap, hell I would cancel all my subs for sure. And most others too and then simply ignore PI (which is annoying as hell anyway).
bumped this thread into Player Features & Ideas - EVE Online Forums
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Let me translate this :
I was bored one day and just clicked on the EvE launcher, a game I hadn’t played for a time and stopped paying for. Of course I was stuck on alpha status, and compared to what I could do as a paying customer, alpha is just a grand old demo. I’m not sure I want to come back. I’m certainly not paying now, because I don’t know if I want to come back. Wouldn’t it be great if I didn’t have to pay and commit to coming back? Hmm, maybe a forum post to stir ■■■■ up a bit. Maybe I can come back and not pay. Ever. Wouldn’t that be great ?
So, with those changes you propose, when and why would you decide to start paying ? Asking for a friend.
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As others have been saying, Alpha is an unlimited trial account (or a way to remain engaged in a limited way if you are no longer omega). I think the current SP cap is fine, since you can still inject 10k daily SP for free each day by doing your air career challenges, plus you can farm alpha injectors if you wish.
Faction battleships and faction modules are actually amazingly well suited for alpha accounts, so that actually gives quite a bit of potential power/gameplay to someone who doesn’t play omega.
I think capitals should definitely remain omega, as well as many of the advanced ship categories. (alphas probably shouldn’t have marauders or interdictors, tbh) However, since a game trial is meant to give you a “taste” of the game, perhaps a few more “tastes” of different gameplay elements would be a good idea. I mean small things, like removing mining drone operation requirement from civilian mining drones (similarly to civilian hobgoblins & light drone operation), giving access to cloaking skill capped at level 1 (prototype only), access to PI but with none of the PI skills (1 planet cap, super low command center specs, and proabably make it so that alpha planetary commodities can’t be traded or ejected, and are 100% destroyed on ship destruction if you’re alpha, to prevent mass alpha account farming single PI planets and trading all of it), level 1 cap ice mining skill & the ability to fit an ice miner on a venture, but with a penalty to cycle time on ventures for ice mining to make it super slow, access to medium micro jump drives only, and other such small additions.
I don’t think these small gameplay features would be enough to change the balance of power between alpha and omega or affect the economy, but it would certainly give alpha players a little bit more to try out in order to persuade them to give omega a try.
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This is too radical a change for Alpha benefits, although Alpha benefits should expand over time to match the game’s expansion. Let’s just say you could quantify the access of an Alpha account when it first was introduced as unlimited by stating they have 25% of the game, while an Omega has 100% of the game (You can’t actually do this, but it is hypothetical). As the game expands, let’s say Alpha remains static. So they don’t get 25% anymore. As time goes on they get 23%, 21%, 18%, etc., of the original Alpha experience. When Alpha access remains static, Alpha is less appealing than what it used to be. I don’t agree with the radical changes of the OP, but Alpha does need to keep pace with their “share” of the overall game.
Example: Over say 10 years CCP shouldn’t tack on 20 million points worth of skills and still restrict Alpha at 5 million skill queue and 21.5 million skill cap. This queue and cap should be slowly expanded in proportion to the game’s Omega skill expansion.
Alpha should not remain static, degrade over time and be less appealing to today’s player. Alpha should expand in a proportional, gradual, and balanced way over time.
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The price will drop when governments around the world stop running their printing presses. Good luck and don’t hold your breath on that one.
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Unless you can show how the company can survive giving you the game for free? Ain’t happening. A lot of the restrictions are there to convince you to once again become an omega account (aka a subscriber) and if the restrictions were removed I doubt that many players would send CCP money ‘just because’/
The retired math teacher that I am refuses to get into is omega 2x alpha or alpha is 0.5 x omega. Both are true, depending upon your perspective.
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as much as i like the idea, even if there was a system for skill point retention for every year paid, this would ultimately lower the barrier of long term players paying for their account, as much as it would be a great feature for us and a kindness from CCP it would ultimately be bad for business, even though we as players feel there’s more wiggle room, considering the cost of servers, hardware, staff, all the other business expenses involved with EVE Online, I doubt they will be able to, i have often suggested an alpha plus where you can pay to retain additional skills however this basically works out to be expert systems, however searching for them on the market they seem to be non existent.
maybe i’m just looking in the wrong place.
for what its worth assuming i’m looking in the wrong place, I think expert systems would have more value to them if they lasted 30 days, making the ISK sink worth it
When one hears that, hold on to your butt, cause you’re going to get it. Not once in human history has anything good come from anyone uttering that phrase.
Why you got to role player every where? Calm down role player.
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You can’t stop me.
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No, you are free to engage Eve Online however you want to. But why don’t you get your soldiers out of those Alpha Class Destroyers and get them into Alpha Class Navy Destroyers? Do I need to explain the reasoning to you Aiko?
If I was the Ganker King Monster of New Eden, I would definitely put my soldiers into Navy Class Destroyers.
Why?
You are a carebear, so of course you would use carebear ships, and you would lose them all, whereas I am the Heroin of Highsec.
Instead of lifting alpha clone restricitons how about a tau clone for half the price of omega
pi restriction
capital ships restricted
t3/t2 ships restricted
market trading restriction
contract restriction
daily activities and reward restriction
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