That’s the problem. This community has already rejected the kind of monetization asian style games like BDO are based around. It simply won’t work for EVE. EVE was on the cutting edge of this stuff, as it usually is, and the players rejected it.
The model that exists now works. There is no reason for PA or anybody to introduce radical change that could cause more damage than good.
It’s simple really, lvl 4’s are not exactly challenging in the bigger scheme of things but with access to battleships, lvl 3s are simply not going to cut if for alphas.
As much as I consider myself an experienced alpha, it’s a matter of logic really:
So yes, this IS a big letdown for alpha players
Do you actually have any idea why this model works, and how much literal abuse lies behind it? The F2P model works, because it’s backed by hard science targetting people with low thresholds. People with simpler minds.
Decades of time and hundreds of billions have been shoved into researching how the conscious mind can be circumvented to make someone want to spend money on something. Literally hundreds of billions, simply because it’s worth it. This isn’t just about virtual goods, but consumers in general. The advertising market is completely bonkers!
No, you being part of the target audience does not mean you actually understand how this works.
Whistling in the dark.
EVE never tried a full F2P monetization model. It has been years behind the industry in cash shop and F2P design. It has been in a cycle of downsizing, layoffs and cancelled projects for years now. It’s investors bailed and sold out to someone who knows how to make actual money on games because the outlook was not good.
The model that exists now apparently ‘works’ so well that CCP changes it every six months or so, and still can’t address massive core issues with the game (such as actual botting abuse).
If you are going to claim different, please lay out some facts, figures and dates - don’t just spout the party line because it’s what you want to believe.
My own opinion is that the L4 changes, like the ‘skills on demand’ changes, are far more likely to have been put in place to appease certain factions within the game, rather than address the actual issues they are ‘supposed’ to be for. Factions often represented heavily on the CSM, for instance.
I agree. EVE sits on a cusp because it is such a niche game. The formula that may have made other mmo’s wildly popular and profitable worked only because they operate on a different psychology. It’s the P2W formula that allows players to compensate for their progress in a game by directly paying for premium services and improve their character, game avatar or what have you. EVE has managed to steer away from that model, but it’s predicament (mostly self inflicted) is that it continues to be a niche game.
So what now. There you said …
… and now it’s a matter of logic, not actually personal experience.
Do you not see how that does not work together? Worse, no where in that point-list …
… does your personal experience play any part in your “argument”.
Can you please stop trying so hard that you’re failing even harder?
I’ve asked people about this thread.
No one I’ve found thinks that you’re actually really caring about new players. Everything points at you guys just being selfish Alphas who want to keep running your lvl4s for free.
See, the thing is, reasonable people behave reasonably. A reasonable person wouldn’t behave like you do, because what you’re doing is unreasonable simply because you - as reasonable person - should be well aware that CCP is going to go through with this.
It is simply extremely unlikely that you care more about new players than about yourself. The arguments are loose, at best, too. The last thing someone should do is sending new players to missions, because “levelling up to a raven” is a thing CCP is aware about and doesn’t actually like, because those people quit once they get bored with the missions.
You really have nothing. All you’re doing is continuously making it clear that you’re really only caring about yourselves and that “think of the children” is, just like so often, just a smokescreen.
This is hilarious! We could go on forever! Just like the afk-cloaking thread, or all these ganking threads in the past, or the bumping threads now. Fascinating!
Anyway … as you will not change anything about this, and as CCP is definitely not caring about what you’re having to say, I will opt out and wish you a happy day anyway.
Oh, by the way, subscribing with real money is really cheap. Costs 15 bucks for a month. That’s THIRTY DAYS! Grinding for ISK wastes FAAAR more time than simply doing one or two hours of actual, real life work! You should try that instead! You know… a job! You could have subbed an account with the time wasted on the forums, if you just had a job you could do to earn money for omega! 
Have a nice day anyway. 
It’s 1am here … so “good night” from me.
It’s not about personal entitlement, but I do believe that alphas will genuinely feel screwed over by this. I also believe this limitation doesn’t help the health of this game in general and does nothing to stop botters, more likely the opposite.
CCP actually cares a lot about players’ ideas and the discussions and arguments that come with them , even form non-constructive commenters like you.
That made my day. 
Keep telling yourself that you matter!
Good Luck™ and Good Night. 
The “C” is for Care! In fact CCP is for Care Care Players
Except that subscription models simply don’t cut it anymore as a gaming business model. There’s a reason CCP introduced alpha accounts and all kinds of paid pilot services. Sticking to subscriptions only would be the fastest way to turn this game into a hardcore-only graveyard.
Let me give you a personal story to illustrate this. I’ve been following this game since it came out in 2003, but I never went beyond playing 2-week trials for two reasons:
Only when alpha was launched I actually started playing this game and you can be sure there are more players like me.
I can tell you from personal experience that being used to playing lvl 4 missions isn’t going to make you an Omega when they take that away from you. If anything, it will only annoy you and give you fewer reasons to support this game.
Except this will do the exact opposite against botters. They will only deploy more bots to make up for their loss. In the end, it does nothing more than screwing over legit alphas…
PvE is a small part of everything EVE has to offer and missioning is a small part of the PvE in EVE. And an even smaller part of those missions is a specific tier of level 4 or 5 missions.
And I see absolutely no reason that new players need access to the specific level 4 missions to be able to figure out if they like the game. Denying lvl 4 missions might annoy the Alphas that want to earn a lot of ISK for free, but perhaps it’s time to become Omega in that case?
This change will help against bots. If you think botters can just spin up twice as many bots at the same time to make up for the ISK lost by this change, why didn’t those botters spin up that amount of bots to begin with? I’d say that profitability correlates positively with amount of bots: more rewards means more bots doing that thing.
Now that mission running becomes less profitable, wouldn’t the logical reaction of bots be to figure out something more profitable to do with their amount of bots? Instead of suddenly running twice the amount of bots to make up for the lost ISK, an amount of bots that they couldn’t run earlier due to some reason you haven’t provided?
I haven’t looked much into it, but I can only assume a computer can only run a limited amount of bots at the same time. This means if mission running bots suddenly give less ISK/h after a change like this, I’m pretty sure the botters start looking for other activities. Buying extra computers to create more bots for less ISK/h seems like a bad idea to me.
Thus, I would be really surprised if this change increases the amount of mission running bots, like you claim.
You might want to cool it on the only couple hours of work line. Not everyone is in a high wage, high standard of living situation. Lots of situations to make a subscription draw on the wallet a non-starter proposition. And in some cases the “Just move then!” comment is in itself a catch-22. So get off your high horse because there are people from all different walks of life in different countries playing this game partly because it can run off potato PCs to a degree.
You basically come off as a “know-it-all” jerk of an American who literally cannot understand a point of view different than their own.
And again, this method of “dealing” with botting is a laughable travesty because it does absolutely nothing to bots dealing in the market, exploration, COSMOS sites, and anomalies. To name only a few of the problem sources they have coming at them from all angles.
There’s lots of bots and it would be good if CCP addressed them all, including the lvl 4 and 5 missioning bots. Just because they haven’t solved the entire problem doesn’t mean they shouldn’t solve the botting problem bit by bit.
I know from personal experience that getting f2p players into a subscription simply doesn’t work that way.
Also, you’ve got to keep in mind that the idea behind alpha accounts has way more to it than just being trials.
That’s a very dangerous claim to hold up. What we do know is that Eve going f2p gave an instant boost to CCP’s revenue, nothing about the lasting effects though. We also know that a subscription model has been in decline in gaming for years, also affecting CCP because that’s why they introduced f2p and all kinds of pilot services and cosmetics.
Whether the current model will be sustainable for this game though remains to be seen.
That’s true. Alpha accounts aren’t just a trial, alpha accounts also make it really easy for players who have taken a break to come back to the game, check out the new changes, log in and fly around a bit, meet old friends and get hooked on the game again. But I’m pretty sure you don’t need to be able to run specifically level 4 and 5 missions to do that…
EVE tried implementing the standard monetization model, and the players rejected it. You’ve been around long enough to remember the Summer of Rage. EVE lead the way in terms of MMOs when it came to early monetization and was one of the very few games that allowed players to earn subscriptions through in-game play, which has since become common in a number of other MMOs.
CCP has gone through the same ups and downs of every other game company, trying to come up with additional IPs and projects, some failing and some being successful. Every company cycles through hires and layoffs, and they’re currently in a hiring phase.
The outlook is exactly why PA bought them. CCP isn’t a failing company. Their revenue and player levels have been steady for a couple of years now, even if they aren’t as robust as they were five or six years ago. All of the investors made money on CCP, frankly, I’m happy to have another game company owning them rather than a bunch of venture capitalists.
The current monetization scheme, focused on plex, skins and skill extractors is working. There is no reason to change that up or otherwise alter it until it becomes a problem. It’s not right now.
