I’m playing as an alpha myself at the moment while I train this accounts two alts alpha skills & I think the new alpha clones are great.
But perhaps a little too great?
As aside from PI I don’t feel any real need to upgrade to Omega sooner than intended.
I’m a little concerned by this because I like to think of eve as a persistent world that will always be there for me to return to if I have to leave it for real life for a time.
So I was just wondering if the new Alpha Clones are working financially for CCP.
Perhaps someone has some information on that they’d be kind enough to share?
The limitations are a lot more apparent the moment you step out of high security space and realize just how many options you lack with Alpha characters.
You have some mileage with small gang content as an Alpha, but wander into any major null conflicts and you will realize you are incredibly limited. Due to how skills work as multiplicative multipliers for your stats you are far more limited than you may first assume.
Because of the way EVE skills and modules interact, with bonuses being multiplicative, there is a significant increase in the effectiveness of ships once you train up the skills and unlock T2 defenses and T2 weapons, overheating, boosters, fleet bonuses, etc. A lot of that stuff is not really necessary, or visible, in high-sec, especially not for the PVE content / missions that people typically do there.
But PVE isn’t the heart of the game, PVP is, and other than a few “starter” roles (scouting, tackling), Alphas don’t really measure up to Omegas. 60-80 million skillpoints, in combat skills, that’s a character, that’s about the equivalent of a max level character (ready for PVE raids or ranked PVP) in other MMO’s. Takes Omega about 3 years to accumulate that, without injectors.
EDIT: IMO Alpha is equivalent to about level 30 in WoW / SWTOR. You get to see a few zones past the newbie zone, even get your first mount/ship, but you’re still pretty far from the end-game stuff.
Well, ccp might just see alphas as a marketing instrument and this is just fine. Eventually they will upgrade and the money starts flowing. If not, what did they lose?
I really had a lot of fun as an alpha joining a small to mid scale lowsec alliance, so as long as you can live with being weaker than others, it’s perfect to learn the game. BTW, big thanks to our logistics for saving my ass multiple times even as an alpha
Alphas get more people in space which is good for the game and they give people a chance to experience the game without hitting a paywall - also good for the game. The learning cliff in Eve is legendary - it can take a while to figure out if it’s the right game for you.
I think CCP found a good balance between giving new players enough to experience the game while making it difficult for experienced players to exploit the free accounts.
Alphas don’t actually cost a lot and quite a few end up subscribing - especially those who find a good corporation and become part of the community.
As a free and unlimited trial Alpha state is very generous. Getting into the high SP stuff starts to turn Eve into a hobby, a very economical hobby if you only have one or two subs.
See, and here I’m thinking that Alphas are still slightly too limited in that they can’t train cross faction. Which is an integral part in being competitive. I would simply put locks on certain ship hulls/modules just like we had with trial accounts previously. Primarily the faction frigates/cruisers that cross faction training would unlock as a side effect of granting them cross faction training.
Aside from that, I’m actually happy with how they are right now when used by legitimate Alpha players.
What I am not at all okay with is the use of several alpha accounts being used as farms/eyes by Omega players simultaneously or otherwise. But that’s me being bitter at what I consider to be abuse of the system.
I think people calling alpha’s ‘limited’ to any degree are looking at things the wrong way.
It’s not about what you’re not getting, it’s about what you ARE getting without having to pay a cent, which is a whole helluva lot of gaming content on demand. I was out a few days ago and my local shopping centre still has an arcade. It’s very popular, too. Anyway, on their window was a sign: “$15 for 2 hours of unlimited gaming!”
Now compare that to the $15 you pay for a whole month, and the nothing you pay for as long as you like.
That arcade has facility rent, a power bill, per machine upkeep costs, staffing, and limited competition and floor space so they can bring the rates higher because of scarcity.
For EvE you are using your own machine, your own ISP connection, and have a far larger multitude of products to choose from at any given moment.
Yes CCP do have overhead, but with the number of clients they can simultaneously handle the number required to be profitable can support a great many more than that because of how computers work. Your average arcade machine maybe has two to four people it can simultaneously handle. A single server in the stack can handle hundreds of EvE players at once. And because it doesn’t have to power a big flashy screen it even has a lower power footprint than the arcade machine.
Then you have to remember the old adage of people take far better care of what they own than what they simply have access too. Ask any educational system about hardware turnover for peripherals alone and it gets nuts. EvE’s servers are locked up and you basically remotely access them through the provided client. So hardware turnover is more from wear and tear than abuse.
So really the Arcade example of yours isn’t a great one simply because the cost of doing business is different. Its an apples and oranges comparison. I could just as easily bring up old games I still have the physical media for and on occasion like to return to playing. Past a point and we start talking pennies per hour for the entertainment I’ve gotten out of some of them over the years.
You think CCP don’t have families to feed? Offices and servers to pay rent, internet, and electricity for?
The arcade ‘example’ I provided was for perspective. The level of entitlement that goes into “there’s not enough stuff I don’t have to pay for!” is just disgusting, and it’s why I’m against the concept of anything ever being free at all. People need to learn they aren’t entitled to anything they haven’t paid for. And at the end of the day, EVE IS CHEAP. It’s literally only 50c a day, and if you’re struggling for 50c a day, then you have bigger problems than the cost of EVE.
If it’s just that you don’t want to pay 50c a day and expect free access, that’s just entitlement speaking. The fact you GET free access to this game at all, that’s entirely at CCP’s generosity, expense, and discretion.
And I’m saying that while upfront costs are higher, the maintenance costs are helluva lot lower and unlike the Arcade setup just by logging in you are also serving as content for the other players because of how this game functions.
And what are Alphas being provided access to? A lot of very old well worn content that only requires minimal upkeep, so they can get a taste test and serve as easy-serve content for the veteran players. And if you think the free access is actually free… Time is money. You serving as content for vet players to easily paw over is a benefit to them. You using your own hardware isn’t exactly free.
So no, its not like its really free for anyone mate.
The ability to log in at all is already more than they are paying for. That they can undock in a decent selection of ships with a decent range of fitting options is again a whole lot more than they’re paying for. The ability to chat on the forums is more than they’re paying for. The bottom line of it is, if they’re getting ANYTHING from this game without paying, they are getting free stuff, and pretending they’re not is disingenuous at best and intentionally dishonest at worst.
I have no doubt about this, and I’m not saying that alphas are a bad thing by the way, I’m just reminding a select minority of players that they are not entitled to anything for free, and the fact CCP gives away a good portion of the game without charging is definitely generous, even if it is by proxy of improving business.
