I don’t even think it’s the affordability aspect - it’s more a question of what you’re getting for entertainment from that $15-$20. Players will happily pay $15-$20 if they’re having fun. When players gripe about the cost - I think it’s more from the “what kind of entertainment am I getting for my buck” kind of thing.
So the question is: Are we having fun?
The answer for most probably is - not really. At least not $15-$20 worth. Maybe $5-$10 worth… Hence the repeated calls for a cheaper subscription.
Let me pose a question: What do people think about the idea of unlocking certain ships and skills to V for Alphas - but only to a certain point? And if so, what would be that point? Frigates, destroyers, cruisers? Would it be T1, Faction and T2?
What do you mean, only to a certain point? V is as high as a skill goes. They can already fly faction battleships, for Christ’s sake. They have more than enough of the game available to them as it is…
To me Alpha is fine apart from perhaps one thing: being able to fly Pirate faction ships because those tend to be on par with T2, power wise. I feel that this is just too much because very often they are the best ship option for whatever they want to do and that just shouldn’t be available to alphas.
Certain pirate faction ships should be nerfed anyway but that’s a different subject.
Cheaper play isn’t the answer. Your question of “Are we having fun?” is more to the point. But the real question is, “what do the whales have to drive them to continue to pay large for EVE?”.
Because game funding isn’t about getting a whole bunch of new guys to pay $9.99 per month. It’s about keeping the guys who pay $250 per month, and adding more of those. That’s the reason the entire industry shifted towards F2P, and why most game design efforts focus on ‘the end game’ rather than more stuff for newbies.
Yes, everyone needs more ‘fun’. But what really drives players to play longer and pay more is to set themselves a goal they want to achieve, and decide they’re going to play (and pay) long enough to reach it. And if they can get there faster by throwing more money at it, so much the better.
People may dislike that and call it P2W, but it’s what pays the bills at gamedev HQ.
So limited to T1 hulls only? No Faction, Pirate, T2, T3, etc? Should this be capped at cruisers? (no battlecruisers or battleships) In a perfect world, probably. But I suspect the cost of said ships provides an incentive to PLEX ($) for them.
If all you could fly around in are (less expensive) T1 hulls - it’s probably a revenue hit.
Faction is fine I feel, they’re good but not silly OP. If a ship (line) is pretty much “the best” for certain play styles it shouldn’t be available to alphas.
Alpha accounts are limited because they are free. You get what you pay for. The only area in which Alphas are extremely limited is mining/production. And that’s for a good reason. If they had access to mining barges, PI, invention, or research, then everyone and their dog would have 1.000 Alpha accounts. And thanks to the ability to make unlimited free Alpha accounts, combined with a VPN, there’s absolutely nothing CCP could do about it. This is also why they removed the ability of Alphas to turn off their safety in high sec. Because of players multiboxing fleets of ganking toons using disposable free Alpha accounts…
What does everyone think about the “parking lot” aspect for Alphas? ie: Being able to safely logoff a ship as an Omega, let your account lapse and have it lurk in the netherworld as an Alpha until whenever.
Or for that matter, being able to safely log off as an Alpha period?
I know there’s also some structure evacuation shenanigans as well.
Being able to afford £12.50 a month ( on the 3 month subscription ) for a computer game is ‘elite’ ? I got more pocket money than that as a kid 60 years ago.
That’s not really what happened as they would be found out pretty easily, given that they tend to be reported every time they gank someone. What DID happen is that people made ganking alt accounts to use with friends or corpies.
Yeah, no. There’s a reason red safety got nixed and it had nothing to do with players “teaming up” with their friends. Maybe in a few exceptions - but what @QuakeGod alluded to is more accurate.
This is an MMO. Teaming up with your friends is what you are supposed to do. So no, that’s not why it was removed. It was removed because of players who were using virtual machines and VPN to multibox fleets of gank alts…
I think that could be exploited in a different way, as a safe trip back to Empire space, used for shipping cargo and whatnot. Though not necessarily too different from using jump freighters and whatnot but still an infinite distance safe method though limited by time. The shorter the duration the more convenient it is for such purposes.
