I suppose the nay-sayers would remark ‘Not if they end up in Delve, multi-boxing Rorquals for a living’.
But I’m not one of those. I’m one of those who realises that the EVE player of yesteryear is a player who, for purely business reasons, can safely be ‘let go’, once the new crop of gamers approaching their late-20s to early-30s, and for whom the current business model is par for the course, is safely in residence.
Others have remarked the incremental changes now favoured by the company. Revolution is a dangerous thing, with unpredictable consequences. Evolution is, apparently, fairly easily sucked-up and swallowed. All the protests in the world will not change this outcome.
Bridging the gap? Hardly. If anything it’s a repeat of the first Alpha update. We can fly up to cruisers. But can’t use T2 weapons? LOL? Troll, much? Same thing again. Battleships. But no T2 weapons? Hilarious.
If i had to summarize it i would say F2P is finally OPENING UP. I can actually play the game now. Instead of scratching my head thinking what the hell they were doing actually taking this seriously.
If they truly want to split the players into Alpha and Omega and never consider actual F2P. It’s quite simple. Every skill needs to be trainable to 5 that Alphas are given. And everything that has to do with true self-sufficiency (Nullsec) is locked away for Omega. I’m talking Dreads, Carriers, all cap ships. Stealth Bombers. They make these decisions with some hilarious pretext that “it will affect the game” like a lot of the players who say the same BS. It won’t affect anything… Other than people actually continuing to play EVE. There already are two groups of players. And if they are to group these two players into some type of category or nomenclature, then i suppose Alpha and Omega is the solution. The purist fanboys who have all the time in the world to experience the definitive “sandbox” (self-sufficiency) or the players like me who look at the game from a very creative perspective, have an actual standard for gaming and realize there isn’t much on offer and run HiSec anomalies and such 1-2 times per week because…
Errr… loi. Not quite. More like, CCP have finally done something reasonable and realize that the game doesn’t have a prayer to even compete with the rising competition and competitors in the genre. And the very real fact that this is quite possibly the most underdeveloped game in existence and that it exudes extreme amounts of F2P quality everywhere you look.
I played a mobile game called War Robots. It’s a fun game. You can do pretty well without spending a cent. However it is purely a PvP game. This made me wonder, especially after I was richly rewarded during an event, how the company viewed me as a customer. Here they were, rewarding me with a top of the line mech for not spending a cent.
Then it occurred to me, the developers need people like me. We may not play but you can’t have constant 6 vs 6 battles without people like me. We are a big part of the content of the game.
This is no different for EVE. It is a PvP game. Yes you can play solo and never interact, but that is a minority. And even then, the people you are selling loot to are other players.
The alpha changes bring people to the game. Tjsy help populate the universe. They bring more targets. Yes you could play as am alpha and never spend a cent yet your presence provides content.
So these changes, they are good. It makes our world more crowded, which means more targets and content. So I am all for it.
And yet I’ll still stay subbed too… Why… Because my bombers and dictors are needed and enjoyed.
The rest of your post was fine, Lady Ayeipsia. I extracted this part because, in my travels through Highsec, my impression is that the region is home to many people who fit this description exactly, and may not constitute a minority.
Being a member of a player-corp seems to be - for at least some of them - a convenience. Tax breaks and ore buy-back programs, in the main, rather than social interaction. A huge proportion I see on my travels are members of NPC corps. Perhaps they use the default Corp-Chat feature…
I daresay things are different elsewhere in New Eden.
Then you may wish to make an alpha alt and spend some time in the NPC corp channels. I cannot vouch for all, but some are very active and even include FCs who attempt to do roams with the NPC corp members. Many have people who are extremely helpful and have a nice sense of community. Yes they are not perfect, but there is a sense of the social aspect being available.
Additionally, being in a corp of one or one and a few alts does not 100% mean a person is soloing. The entire time I was in Red Federation, my Indy alt was in a solo corp (with one holding alt when needed). Yet I was actively social and even used that alt for some events (both in and out of Red Fed). If you looked at the alt, you would think there is an anti-social Indy/miner and yet behind the character was someone heavily involved in his community.
Even out of Red Fed I had a few community chat channels where friends from old corps still gathered and talked even when worlds apart. And that is not something you can see from any show info panel on a character or corp. Nor am I alone in this regard, yet I was in solo corps.
So, from my experience, just because it looks like that miner or mission runner is solo, they have friends and are being social.
Yes, my impression (I did emphasise that) cannot be taken as gospel. NPC corp chat where I am, in Genesis I think, is silent as the grave. There are pockets of people, it’s true. I infiltrated a mining concern. O dear. It was well organised, but interaction consisted almost entirely of people x-ing up for boosts (although some of them did write ‘please’).
It’s all down to our experiences, isn’t it. Funny, that. I hunt look for solo players, and find them without difficulty. You see socials everywhere.
One always finds what one expects to find, if the mind is closed.
I see solo players socializing with ease when it comes to group play and I see there are people in fleets that are clearly antisocial but they are tolerated because fleet must be stronk and big.
As an alpha pilot by choice myself (been omega around 8months) I also thought that this is way too good.
But being locked on single race was very stupid and it only encouraged us/me to make more alts and more accounts and just use contracts/corp office to move stuff between them, caldari for ratting (because I prefer missiles, otherwise gallente is better), minmatar for pvp, gallente for hauling, annoying as hell. So giving us option to learn and fly all races is very welcomed.
Battlecruisers are probably also not that wrong decision, I think it won’t cause any balance issue.
t2 small/medium weapons also agree, there was no possibility to have a solo fight as alpha and have any chance of winning because of the skill/fit difference. Only blobs or suicide ganks. Adding more skills and t2 weapons might help, frigate/cruisers might be now possibly almost on par with omegas and that is good thing.
What is probably overkill are faction ships like astero/stratios/vigilant/gila and battleships. Astero/stratios are probably not that great without cloak, ok, but rattlesnake and machariel ? that is too much and we didn’t need it. But CCP said that they are not 100% sure about bs and will monitor situation - that probably means they might remove access to the bs’es if it goes of the hand.
Either way this isn’t completely free. And if your only concern is money for CCP you don’t need to worry, this all is aimed to make profit from us and I think it is gonna work. I am certainly going to sub again if only for month or two just to be able to skill over 5mil SP and get what I want. Then I stop being omega, but if they didn’t do this I wouldn’t subscribe at all. I suppose there will be more players like me. I just didn’t like monthly payments for game, at first I thought I won’t need to I will grind my way to plex, but that was even more frustrating, play to be able to play. As a first game I played with monthly subscription I just found out I hate this, when they gave us alpha clone I stayed on alpha and found the way how to have a fun on alpha without worrying about plex. But I have no problem to pay 3 months if I know I won’t need to pay every other month to be able to use what my character learned in these 3 months. So I will happily give CCP my money again. But only once.
I don’t know… I think the BS option is… Interesting. Many say it’s over powered, but the difference between flying a mission with a level 3 Raven using crap launchers and Meta mods and a level 5 with all T2 is pretty big. I think this may draw people in to play if they do want more incoming isk.
Another aspect… Large fleet fights. Yes, a BS gives you a good taste of nul. But if you get hooked and want more, especially a more active role than an F1 DPS line member, you almost have to go omega.
I’m honestly thinking the BS idea is actually a good trick.
Well I have two toons and I’m planning on one being a bit of high sec explorer / site runner. Though I’d like to see how much of my stratios fit I can still fly and my other I’m sticking in FW now you can compete better with t2 guns etc. We’ll see how it pans out!
For me being in serious corps etc when you struggle to play a lot is hard work really, always feel like your letting people down or when you do play you’re out of loop. And then playing more solo with a sub just feels a waste of money.
I feel this change will let older players like me stay in game without those commitments and just have a few hours here and there. I’m sure I might sub again in the future or buy a skin or two etc. It feels a good move to me. But what do I know?!
OFC you can, but you can only still fly the “lower tier” ships in the smallest end of the scale. That was my point, theres plenty of reasons to go omega.
I still don’t see it crashing, the cash shop is dependant on plex, may lower some but if you still want to train more characters and such you need plex.
You dont see it crashing when the majority of the PLEX demand is for subbing accounts and multible char training?
Imagine if thats free, thats what i was refering to, as an answer to the OP.
So if Eve went full F2P, PLEX would almost only be used to buy skins, and the PLEX market would crash complete, beacuse the demand would drop rapidly, while the supply is almost never ending.
Theres millions of PLEX in Eve and most of it is used to sub accounts.
As an old player with close to 70mil SP and now in Alpha clone I’d say the changes have piqued my interest for the game. But I can’t really justify the sub cost as I’m mostly a lone wolf PVE’ing in highsec. Eve doesn’t offer 2x AAA title content at full price that a full year sub would cost. Content wise EVE is pretty much has still the same content for me as it was in 2011 when I let the sub run out. I had been waiting for ambulation but we all know what happened to that…
I like to spec out missioning ships and optimize (feeling the powah) but with Alpha clone I’m still quite severely restricted and the only choice is to sub. Even if I can continue with my playstyle there is little character progression available since I’ve maxed out the “free” 20mil SP. This means I can’t train even the skills that a new under 5mil toon can. There’s the daily injectors yes, there’s also the 1mil unused SP from nulling the learning skills so I can apply new skill levels somewhat. Only that still really the only option is to Omega sub as much of the content that I had access is locked. I like the MMO aspect of having a player driven economy but I’m just not that competitive that I need or even want the PVP (battle) aspect and as such the sub pricing is not very tempting.
Supposedly Alphas can use faction BBs, but what about faction large guns? I don’t know anyone that uses faction guns because of price and for some reason not being able to use T2 ammo, but missioning in a faction BB with faction guns and T2/faction mods, you could demolish L4s if you’re willing to risk flying with that much bling, and probably get in incursion fleets if you wanted to.
and my other I’m sticking in FW now you can compete better with t2 guns etc. We’ll see how it pans out!
