so unlimited trial isnt a reward
theyre getting the same product
I canât agree itâs the same product any more than I would agree a brand new car is the same product as a used car. Yes, they are both cars, but they arenât the same.
The Alpha update directly affects three groups of players (current Omegas are affected unless they un-sub, at which point they are past-Omegas). Letâs look at those three groups and what the Alpha skill update is doing for or changing for each of them:
past-Omegas:
âWelcome back, you have more of the skills you previously freely choose to play with, without paying for (in money or ISK) things that have real-world cash values (sub, PLEX, or injectors)â
new-Alphas:
âWelcome to the game, you can choose 5mil SP from 20mil to play whatever way you want, without paying for (in money or ISK) things that have real-world cash values (sub, PLEX, or injectors)â
old-Alphas:
âThanks for playing for up to a year with us already, you can now choose a half mil SP from a new set of 15.5mil SP if you already trained the 4,5 that we previously told you was the only option. If you want to choose anymore than the half million, you have to pay (in money or ISK) for things that have real-world cash values (sub, PLEX, or injectors)â
Of course any player of the game can choose to become a new-Alpha regardless of any existing accounts, but the existing character could have bought applied SKINs which canât transfer, and should have in-game faction standing that has been grinded for, and should have some sort of in-game player reputation (which according to CCP is one of the most important things and why you canât rename a toon).
Over the past year, Alphas have been able to train the toon they want from the limited set of Alpha skills, but this is about what they did after they had trained everything they wanted. The choice they had was sub, PLEX, train nothing, or train the skills you didnât really want. Without going Omega, the other two choices were a no-brainer given the fixed nature of Alpha skills. The only option was to train the unneeded skills, because there is no downside to it, and if you ever go Omega they could be extracted and applied to other things.
This update changes this, there is now a downside to training the skills you didnât want, it locks into the 5mil cap. Any Alphas who trained everything, because there was no downside, are now severely gimped without going for real-world cash value items or starting all over from nothing.
I know this wouldnât happen for business reasons, but hypothetically, if an update made existing Omegas unplayable, but they could still roll a new toon and resub, I donât think anyone would say âwell everyone has the same product since everyone can start over the same, itâs no big deal, you old players need to stop whinning.â
I know thatâs a silly example, but itâs a far one because itâs comparing existing Omegas before the update, with Omegas after the update. Which has been the whole point of this, itâs not comparing Alphas and Omegas, but existing Alphas before the update, and Alphas after the update.
The above example was intentionally extreme and not an actual suggestion involving changing Omega.
(This is the internet, so I felt I needed to more clearly say that, less someone took it serious and started ranting about it. 
)
well its the same product thats a fact
they did pay
but it will take you 6 months to train the skills
hm i see your point now
the best and fairest solution in this case then would be to remove the sp which will put them on an equal footing with new alphas
this way they can train from scratch without losing their skins
Lets try this differently to make the pointâŚ
I bought a car that had a CD player. The following year they had a Blue-tooth media player. Am I to think I should go back to the factory and expect a Blue-tooth?
Same analogy can be made for many other products and services that improve from year to year. It is just the nature of progress in consumerism and we bought knowing full well what we were getting when we purchased.
You have a right to make your case but I just donât see it.
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its not about getting more, ccp chose to give alphas more but over the year alpha pilots have maxed their skills in training a lot of useless skills because there was nothing else to keep training and now with the change, someone that could go get in a battlecruiser/battleship has to omega just to get it or biomass restart.
on the flipside has anyone worked out how high you can get if you spec in 1 race? is it possible to go up to bs 1 and large guns with appropriate tank? my gallente alpha im toying with now is at 2.8m
no because thatâs 2 completely different models, they arenât making a new model of clone they are expanding so your parable is completely pointless.
or buy injectors with isk
why is that such a problem
Iâm glad we are reaching understanding. 
I would be okay with just a skill removal option, but I think some percentage of lost SP would be better than losing it all. (And of course any loss should be optional.)
That is a potential analogy, but on the other hand many stores if you buy something and then it goes on sale, you can go back and get a partial refund to the new sale price. Your analogy holds better in the time frame, this one holds better in the lack of a physical product.
The fact remains that, if there is no re-skill, this will be the first time in the history of Eve where training a skill comes with a negative drawback (other than the time to train it).
Imagine that the game mechanics were changed so being âpureâ affected your performance. Something like the greater percentage of your skills that are required for the current task (flying a certain hull, manufacturing, etc.) the better you could do it. Then having 100mil SP would suck, because you would be bad at almost everything, because you would have extra SP in skills not related to the task at hand.
This example is basically what has happened. If this happened to Omegas, no one would say âyou have extractors, just deal with itâ everyone would be up in arms that things had changed too much from what was first promised.
The update will introduce choice to Alphas (choice is a really good thing), but those choices will come with trade-offs. There have not previously been any trade-offs regarding skill training (for Alphas or Omegas, of course it takes time to train SP, but given enough time anyone can train everything for their clone state). This update changes that, Alphas cannot, as Alphas, train all of the skills offered to them, this is a total first in the history of Eve.
I think the requirement to make choices is great! I love the fact that you have to give up something to be good at something else. None of that is the problem, the only problem is that the choice has been given to new Alphas and taken from old Alphas. Itâs a bit of a kick in the teeth to the players who have been around (and might even be paying customers, since Omega isnât the only way to be one), because it isnât just giving more to the new player, but itâs gimping the old player.
This is almost about ready to become a P F&I thread, as our discussion may have gotten us close enough to an actual suggestion. Here is what Iâm thinking:
An Alpha skill extractor
- 100% NON-tradeable
- 1 per character that trained as an Alpha before the update
- can only extract Alpha skills (if CCP tracks such things, can only extract skills trained while an Alpha)
- does not ever convert to an injector!
- if it âgives backâ SP (to be discussed) they go into unallocated SP
- while extracting SP it destroys/loses XX% of SP extracted
Things to still discuss:
- general idea, good or bad
- should it be only Alpha/skills trained as an Alpha, or for everyone (either way, it would only affect Alpha skills)
- what should XX be? I think 20-50% loss would be âfairâ, some might think 100% loss is right (itâs better than being stuck with the skills)
Try that logic with Adobe 
and that is with âpaidâ purchasesâŚ
CCP is a for profit corporation. It is not a charity giving things out for free. So this idea that some players pay money and so they are more real than those who donât is really a lot of pretentious â â â â â â â â . Both clone states and all players are here to contribute to CCPâs bottom line.
Also it is a false idea to claim that Alphas have not âpaidâ. It is true that they do not pay a monthly subscription fee, neither do PLEXed Omegas, but CCP has introduced many different ways to pay for different things, upgrading to Omega is only one of them. Any Alpha could have paid (maybe even more than a new sub) for things not Omega related, like PLEX to sell for ISK, Aur (now PLEX) to spend in the NES, SKINS, etc.
So please either get off your high horse about Alphas didnât pay for anything or get off my thread. (Unless of course you could logically prove your position that no Alpha has ever âpaidâ.) Alpha hate is not welcome here.
You miss the point, I am referring to a company that markets a product that goes through periodic improvements and upgrades and how they relate to their customers. âBuyingâ into a product (adopting that product or service) doesnât necessarily entitle you to free upgrades when the product improves. Some companies support free updates, some donât. Some for only a period of time. Depends on their business model I suppose.
You have done well to keep on point in your thread. I just donât agree with the premise.
Iâm outâŚ
I just wonder how the change will be done when the race lock will be dropped.
Will the other race frig dessy and cruiser skills will be trained like the race lock skills or will you have to inject the points to access those skills because that would put them over the 5 mill mark?
Maybe must have the option of erase levels of some skills if you want to. and dont count disabeled skills in the 5million limit.
Could we just get a âbrokenâ skill extractor that does not creates anything, only removes your skill points and doesnât have the 5,5 mil SP limit?
One could buy it from NPCs, 1 isk, and can not be reprocessed.
That way nobody get any advantage, but old alpha players can learn new skills.
By using the current skill extractor mechanic saves a lot of programmer time too.
Thanks for the necro-bump.
Yes, I would consider that fair. In-fact I think the ability to destroy SP would be fair to allow anyone, not just Alphas. The only concern would be âhackedâ accounts having their SP destroyed just for kicks, but this already exists just with more cost and profit.
you used to be able to destroy sp but i guess ccp removed it because certain nughty people abused it
Yes, but I do think it would be a good solution to the current âscrewing of old Alphas relative to new Alphas.â And as I said before it could be limited only to Alpha accounts created between the Clone States release and the Alpha expansion and be non-transferable, so as to limit abuse.
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