Am I the only one who finds it ironic when entrenched, wealthy players claim that metagaming and scamming are legitimate gameplay but P2W isn’t? The fact that most of them don’t pay a dime of actual money for their subs because of CCP’s insane IGC model just makes it more absurd. CCP has no real loyalty to anything but money - their just really bad at figuring out how to acquire it. As much as they’d like for EVE to keep being the Linux of MMOs the real world isn’t giving them a choice. Their desire to maximize profits and placate the old-timers by making P2W expensive means that only the PLEX miners can afford it…the trial players just LOL and go back to whatever they were playing before. You can only bleed cash for so long and I believe the Pearl Abyss lifeline is their last hope to keep from having to make real changes. Personally I don’t think it will work and a year from now we’re going to be hearing a lot of rumblings that will make Monocle-gate seem like an April Fool’s gag. CCP has painted themselves into a corner here and they’ll either have to level EVE’s playing field, start a consensual PVP server or create a new game.
Will people who bought it before it was improved get upgraded? if not will they make it available to buy again for the injustice that has happened to the guys who bought this package early ?
Je souhaite répondre à Hoto Shinken, tout comme à Hawke Arnerette qui s’exprime un peu plus haut…
Il semble évident que devant la nécessité pour CCP de fidéliser les joueurs de EvE Online, il faut aussi impérativement savoir respecter les lois d’ores et déjà connues de l’ensemble des personnages-joueurs de New Eden ! Comment ?
SIMPLE ! Et il aurait d’ailleurs fallu faire cela depuis hier, c’est à dire dès la création des PLEX… … … …
1 - Maintenir sur Tranquility tous les personnages-joueurs qui, dès le lancement de EvE Online (c’est à dire dès 2003 pour certains), demeurent toujours attachés à l’esprit des jeux de rôle (CEO, combattant, chercheur, producteur, explorateur, mineur, pirate, voleur, etc…) et de la stratégie ; interdire sur Tranquility tout comportement de type “pay to win” et supprimer définitivement de ce serveur tout usage de PLEX, de DLC, etc… ; contrôler tout virement en ISK entre joueurs qui serait réalisé sans la moindre contrepartie (ne soyons pas naïf au regard du SCAM omniprésent sur le chat de Jita, certains joueurs n’ont vraisemblablement pas besoin des PLEX pour permettre à leur personnage fétiche de faire la super culbute !
2 - Créer un second serveur dédié au “pay to win” (une petit suggestion de nom possible pour ce serveur : Lust), où tout personnage-tricheur pourra y être transféré automatiquement, y évoluer librement comme il l’entend, y dépenser à sa guise son argent IRL en PLEX, en DLC, ou que sais-je encore, sans jamais pouvoir revenir perturber l’univers de New Eden bâti quant à lui sur près de deux décennies…
Voilà…
Est-ce absurde ? Non ! Absolument pas ! J’attire d’ailleurs l’attention de CCP sur le fait que dès sa sortie (tout juste un an après EvE Online), WoW proposait déjà à ses joueurs des serveurs dédiés au jeu de rôle et à la stratégie !
Comme quoi…
Comme je l’ai déjà écrit un peu plus haut (Devblog: Skillpoints, Cash & New Players – An Update), arrive un moment où il faut savoir reconnaître ses propres erreurs afin de pouvoir changer de cap au bon moment… Espérons que CCP fera beaucoup mieux que l’ultralibéralisme et ses conséquences IRL à la fois climatiques, économiques et politiques, et qu’elle saura quant à elle, sauver l’univers et l’esprit de New Eden !
CCP a été capable de créer ce jeu ô ! combien magnifique dès 2003 ? Ok ! Alors elle est tout à fait capable de le sauver en 2019 ! Deux serveurs distincts, et hop, le problème sera très vite résolu…
Fly Safe,
Ully Loom
Well, for the price of $5 I can have those million sp I missed out on during the anniversary celebration.
Not much love in this thread. Seems like proof people dont like change.
Personally I dont see how it hurts anything. Regardless of what CCP has said in the past, if they ever did specifically say they would never sell SP. Times have change. The game needs to evolve to a point, along with the gaming world.
Being upset about this evolution is the equivalent of a man still being upset with equality for woman. Grow up old timers!
#Sagis Baramis I too am much like you, or should I say feel a lot as you do. However I understand some of the things CCP is doing and it truly makes sense if you think about it. Do I agree with everything they do, NO! But what they are doing hasn’t completely driven me from the game just yet. Although I do play much less than I have in the past and it saddens me that I’ve invested soooo much time and money in it. Only to consider leaving it!
HS is a joke! So boring with little to no reward for the risk, your time and LOSSES. LS is that unfair fight that you wanna be apart of ONLY if your on the winning side. NS is a BLUE DONUT with heavy rewards vs little to no risk (cloak up or cyno in). Unless you don’t fuel your citadel 
The best way I can currently describe EVE is: The days of the egg are back! Eve is a egg. Unbalanced, Fragile and Full of life (it may even CRACK soon)
BUT I STILL LUV THE GAME & CONCEPT
you mean like eve uni?
No, HS is not a joke !
Certainement pas en de pareilles situations… Le High Sec devrait être au contraire une bonne base de réflexion et de travail pour CCP, surtout s’ils souhaitent réellement fidéliser les nouveaux joueurs au regard de ce qu’est devenu le Null Sec grâce à l’argent facile (le “pay to win”), à savoir du grand n’importe quoi… S’il y a bien une farce dans ce jeu, eh ! bien elle se situe là bas désormais…
Et pour répondre à Quor Dresden : EvE Online n’est ni Clash Royale, ni War Heroes, deux beaux exemples de “pay to win” poussés à l’extrême ! EvE Online ? C’est avant tout l’univers de New Eden né dès 2003… Et jusqu’à la preuve du contraire, dans New Eden, l’égalité homme-femme est d’ores et déjà indiscutable, tout comme le respect obligatoire à l’égard de chaque individu et de ses opinions ! Ce qui d’ailleurs, n’interdit en aucun cas de pouvoir y jouer le rôle de son choix (CEO, combattant, chercheur, producteur, explorateur, mineur, pirate, voleur, etc…) ; réel vs. virtuel…
De la part d’un old timer avisé : le “pay to win” n’est en rien une évolution… C’est au contraire un très mauvais signal qui est adressé à toute la communauté, voire un signe patent de décadence…
Mais je comprends que CCP cherche à fidéliser les joueurs… Ok ! Mais lesquels ? Car si se connecter à EvE Online ne signifie plus de pouvoir s’extraire du monde réel et venir prendre part au plus majestueux des spaces opéras jamais développé, alors autant en rester là en effet…
Aussi, quelle solution proposer face à ce constat nourrissant fort justement le débat en cours (je connais personnellement des joueurs qui n’en pensent pas moins mais qui ne s’exprimeront pas ici) ? La question était posée par Hawke Arnerette. La réponse à cette question tombe sous le sens. Elle est très SIMPLE à comprendre à vrai dire !
CCP doit sérieusement envisager la création de deux serveurs distincts :
1 - Tranquility d’une part, pour le jeu de rôle et la stratégie dans le respect des lois originelles de New Eden, et
2 - Lust pour les personnages-tricheurs adeptes du “pay to win”…
Et le problème sera très vite résolu… Dans le cas contraire, les défections se poursuivront, ce que certains commentaires lus plus haut laissent hélas ! d’ores et déjà présager…
Tous les détails de la proposition sont précisés dans mon second commentaire situé plus haut… (Devblog: Skillpoints, Cash & New Players – An Update).
Allez CCP ! On y croit ! Alors on arrête de tergiverser pour rien devant les faits, et on y va ! So Go ! ;o)
Bonne chance !
Fly Safe,
Ully Loom, un old timer !
So basically this was just another in a long line of “gifts for gankers”, to enable them to recycle their ganking alts and have new alts trained back up within minutes.
Player retention ? Seriously ? I’ve been playing since '09 and rarely have you ever had more than 25k online at a time.
Every single time I look at the numbers, you have between 18-22k online at a time and it’s been like that for years, regardless of promotions and changes to make things easier for new players.
Your new player experience sucks donkey balls for starters. I ran a couple alts through it for giggles and I have to say - if I didn’t already know how to play EVE I would have never complete the first task in the NPE as there is absolutely NO instruction on what to do or how to do it. They don’t even tell you how to look at your ship or move it.
Then little n00bie finally figures it out, runs out to try and mine some ore and BAM ! Gets ganked by a bot blob (apparently bots are A-OK so long as they are used for ganking).
OK, EVE is dangerous. Get a new ship and try again. Maybe he actually plays for a couple days without getting blob-stomped - then gets ganked again.
N00b says “screw this” and goes back to WOW.
Saw a guy the other day bragging about a kill he just made. He’d popped a one month old toon that was flying a frakken battle cruiser (all T1 fit of course).
I was thinking, HTF is a 1 month old toon flying a BC ? He should still be in a frigate, maybe a dessie, but no - he’s in a BC and thinking he can go toe to toe with anyone.
And when he gets pawned ? He gets PO’d because he spent all that money to get those SPs so he could get into that awesome ship - that he didn’t have a clue how to fit or fly.
What are the chances you (CCP) are going to retain that player ? Somewhere between 0 and “not a chance”.
You will never be able to set it up so that new players can compete on an even field with older players. NEVER. It simply doesn’t work. Every attempt you make simply dumbs down the game and makes things easier for the “vets” (i.e. to recycle their ganking alts) and does nothing to increase the player base.
I’ve been playing online games since the late 80s/early 90s, back in the days when you dialed into Bulletin Boards and played games like Barren Realms Elite (aka BRE).
Many of those games fell into disfavour for the same reasons. Older players would gang up and slaughter new players within minutes of them joining to prevent them from ever being able to challenge the older players. Eventually people just stopped playing.
Eve is trending that way and has been for years, ever since they gave in to the gankers and got rid of the learning skills (which made training new ganking alts more costly and time consuming).
What really happened is that people suddenly didn’t have to invest as much effort into character development. It started to become “too easy” and people didn’t develop the appreciation for the game that used to come with having to put some effort into it.
We used to say that every time an EVE player left to play WOW, Warcraft’s collective IQ jumped up a notch, but when a WOW player came to EVE, EVE’s collective IQ dropped.
It took effort to train a toon and people put a lot of time into making sure they knew what they were doing. (Remember the era of the 24 hour skill queue ?)
Nowadays ? Start a toon, buy some skill point injectors, inject a bunch of skill books, undock in a battlecruiser. What used to take weeks (or months) is done in minutes with next to no effort or appreciation for the toon or the game.
And it has NOT helped with increasing the number of players at all. Right now there are barely 17.000 online. Pretty much the same as there were 10 years ago.
And probably most of those 17k are older players who’ve been around for years.
If you want new players to stick around, you need to get them emotionally invested in the game. You need to get them to put some effort into the game so that they can see the rewards of their efforts (and the current NPE is not going to do that at all).
Also, they need a bit more guidance so they understand the dangers (i.e. of being ganked - or scammed) so that when it does happen they won’t just throw their hands in the air and then click on “uninstall program” before moving on to something else.
Continuously making life easier for gankers is not going to help with player retention. Just as it hasn’t in any other multi-player game.
EVE was always about balance in the past. No race and no “profession” was OP. PvE, PvP, Mining, Industry, Marketing, Manufacturing, FW. There was literally something for everyone.
These days however it seems that the trend is to try and push everything into PvP and that is a mistake. The diversity of things to do, the wide array of ships, the lure of more dangerous places (like low/null/WH space) to gain more riches or “content” are all things that attract people to the game.
Making it all about “gang-blobbing” smaller groups of players isn’t going to attract a lot of new players, or retain many of them.
Think about it. A lot of the older players in the game are ones who did put some time and effort into developing their toon(s) and became “invested” in the game as a result of seeing the rewards that time and effort gave them.
Had they just been given a toon that was already skilled up and ready to fly, they wouldn’t have that same “investment” and wouldn’t care anywhere near as much about the toon or the game as they didn’t have to put any effort into it. If it got popped - who cares ? Meh, boring, let’s move on to something else.
But when you’ve devoted the time and effort into getting your toon to the same level, you are more likely to care if you get popped. You’re invested in the toon and the game and less likely to just say “meh, boring, moving to something else”.
One thing this game really needs is another “galaxy”. One that would take a lot of time and effort for people to get to. A virgin galaxy with no stations, jump gates, Concord or “local”. A place that would take weeks to get to with a pimped out speed machine and too far to be connected to with jump gates (or cynos).
You know, the kind of place that would take time, and effort, to get to. Instead of just being handed on a platter to a certain segment of the playerbase.
Something that would resemble actual deep space and uncharted solar systems.
Get back to what made this game great ever since it began and stop catering to one small segment of the playerbase.
And get someone who actually has a clue to fix the NPE. Someone smart enough to know that new players aren’t going to “instinctively” know how to fly and control a ship seconds after being dropped into the training area. Someone who can actually think like a new player that has never played a game like this before.
You know, instead of a programmer that knows the game inside and out and somehow expects new players to already know how to do everything and can’t be bothered with explaining anything to them.
Oh wow, just over 18,000 online now. Be still my beating heart. Nowhere close to the numbers you should have though.
Oh hell yes! That would be amazing, and would definitely attract more people! The idea of starting (somewhat) on equal footing. Even though I have played for years and invested thousands of hours into EVE Online, I would JUMP for this if it ever got realized!
C’est bien ce que je dis, et il faut surtout deux serveurs distincts séparant une bonne fois pour toutes personnages-joueurs et personnages tricheurs ! 
C’est justement ça le plus gros problème de l’ultralibéralisme IRL, les 99% ne pouvant plus rivaliser avec les 1%… On appelle cela en français : la porte ouverte aux inégalités !
Eh ! bien avec les mécanismes de EvE Online constamment chahutés, les noobies de New Eden ne peuvent plus rivaliser avec les personnages-tricheurs (via “pay to win”) et les 1% virtuels !
Les Loom ont looté hier en Null Sec, un item unique d’EvE Online d’une valeur de 5.000.000.000.000,00 ISK ; vous lisez bien ! 5 Trilliards d’ISK !
Mais le pire, c’est que pour pouvoir s’en servir, il nous faudrait pouvoir investir l’équivalent de 95.000.000.000.000,00 ISK ! Ou 95 Trilliards ! Non mais très sérieusement CCP ? LoL ! 
Je joue personnellement depuis 2003, et je n’ai pas cette somme en porte feuille, tout juste 14 Milliards d’ISK ce qui est loin d’être suffisant ! Cela en ferait des PLEX (je vous laisse le soin de faire le calcul)…
Alors moi je dis en riant : VIVE L’ULTRALIBERALISME VIRTUEL A LA SAUCE CCP !!! LoL !!! Mort de rire !!! 
Et vous savez déjà où va nous conduire l’ultralibéralisme IRL ? Crise systémique globale, à la fois climatique, économique et politique… Eh ! bien transposez tout ça, et vous saurez en fin de compte où va nous conduire cet ultralibéralisme VIRTUEL si rien ne change d’ici là !
Fly Safe,
Ully Loom
ps : j’espère que des chercheurs IRL lisent ce blog, car nous avons là un remarquable cas d’école issu de la simulation !
Then you were not paying attention when the numbers were over 50k.
50.000 joueurs simultanés, voire plus chaque jour, ça c’était la belle époque et l’âge d’or d’EvE Online qui étaient situés entre 2003 et 2008… Il y a hélas ! bien longtemps que ce n’est plus le cas !
Et c’est d’ailleurs toujours ce qui arrive quand on crée bêtement de toute pièce une bulle financière (PLEX, DLC, etc.) au mépris des équilibres propres à tout écosystème… Il y a hélas ! tout aussi longtemps que New Eden n’est plus l’écosystème qu’il était !
Vous voulez une preuve des effets pervers de la bulle financière toujours en cours ? Observez ceci et demandez-vous plutôt s’il s’agit là d’une situation normal ?!
… à méditer, surtout si l’on veut vraiment sauver ce MMGO au profit de l’ensemble de la communauté !
Fly Safe,
Ully Loom, un old timer !
For the betterment of all would take a lot of work. I don’t know if they can pull that off. CCP these days gives me the impression that their just going to work/doing their job. They don’t seem to have that “passion” for the game anymore.
Plex had to come into the game. But I always thought skill injectors were a bad idea. There was plenty to do for a new pilot back then and there’s still plenty to do while you skill up for a month or 2. And you become a better pilot for it! Friends/corp mates seem to be the best retainment tool. But then, apx 15 of us from another game joined at the same time so I guess I was lucky on that one.
Since the sp was meant to address new player retention this point is relevant. Here are some ideas:
New player connections to others:
A buddy system to help new players and give rewards to both players. A rookie helper system exists now but it is closed. Have your rookie do X. Griefing here would be against the rules like in starter system for both players. Make participants agree to terms when enlisting/requesting. Phase it out after a while for old rookies or have a completion path. “Unlike most of Eve, Griefing/scamming/trolling/ganking using the rookie system is against the rules and can result in a ban. Do you accept to be a <rookie/helper>?” “I agree not to…” “no”
What to do next problem solving:
A looking for fleet system that is public and in agency. (basically a lfg tool) Kitchen sink roams all the time could be a thing? Maybe you can specify logi/dps counts too for different reasons.
Provides a lot of activities without a hasty commitment to a corp, yet also provides recruitment opportunity.
Have the progress in the activity graph be more meaningful (LP/ISK/SP/skins maybe even a choice or combination between them). This tool is really cool but it is bewildering why no rewards are in place yet…
Grouping takes too long if you are far:
Allow small ships to group/jump to fleet once per day, mass/tier based, dissallow through null/low, and give some jump limitation so it’s not too absurd for moving bling. Newbs shouldn’t notice the limitations ever. Could cost resources and show on map. Need to prevent market/courier abuse here. Cargohold must be empty? Worth less than 1 mill jita buy? All ships get small ammo bay?
Who to trust (works w/fleet tool):
A new rating “reputation” instead of security status that lingers for a set time - a week? More for ship/pod kill? Possible considerations: awox to fleet members, theft, suicide gank, bumper (unusually high number of effective bumps to multiple ships that get ganked soon after). Maybe being around people with bad rep can flag you as well, but not directly give you bad rep. Negative rep should be obvious in local chat for new players that bad guys are around. (Experienced players use the current standing system for this, but it is manual.) Fleet commanders could see the applicant rep/flag history or filter/have requirements based on it.
Maybe you can go to certain centers to “download” reputation and get fresh data, otherwise new data doesn’t show. Flying to a nearby criminal records database could be part of the new player experience to teach about ganking etc…but it’s over complicating it. “Some people bribe their way back after doing heinous crimes, like suiciding their ships in secure space to get kills, but reputation lasts. After updating your database check out your chat window for the - symbol on criminal names. Keep dscan ready [v key] if you think they’re around.”
What’s the point of pvp as a new player? IE pvp “fairness”:
Match up players with similar sp to fight each other. Abyssal shards that can only be activated with players less than 1mill 2mill… etc to 5 mill sp. Then >5mill. Or Shards could be based on ship value. Complicated way: strip out non combat sp in calculation or only include the sp used in the ship and modules of the active ship and set appropriate level shards.
Don’t be f2p scum:
DON’T offer a month of eve for 50% off in the first couple of hours, time limited to 2 days. I tried out a new account for $1.25 (recent steam sale) and squeeze happened. Is that really enough time to decide if they want it? High pressure tactics via time limitation comes across as very mobile-esq and if they decide they might want it after the 2 days then they could feel ripped off and skip. It’s not really much money, but the way you get it matters.
Anyway to directly address the sp for sale:
Leave it for everyone and close any janky loopholes with char transfer. Making it go away soon just brings back that free to play time pressure feel but for older players.
People already talked about ““Magic 14” at level IV.” and I agree. It’s better than selling sp, but doesn’t make money I guess. I think a lot of those skills are included now though.
That new/fresh area would be neat too, but obviously a ton of work. It made me think of almost a diablo style seasons type approach, but is kinda anti eve in spirit. I would definitely come check out eve for season resets in that area though…
I paid the subscription in November 2018 and CCP:
- NERF RORQUAL
- NERF HEL
- NERF CHAT LOCAL
You can’t change the rules of the game while I play
Please keep the rage in the rage threads. I do.
Connecting players seems the best way to me. It helped when I joined. But the potential for abuse seems high with no easy way to screen older players.
Newbies start with most of the Magic 14 at L3 or L4 now, with some at L1 or L2 depending on armor vs. shield tank being default for their faction. I get where you’re coming from, but I feel like if all of those core skills were at level 4, a lot of newbies would never learn the value of them, as they never would have felt what it was like to fly corvettes, frigates, destroyers from the tutorial and career agent missions without the skills trained up. Easy to take things for granted if you never experience life without something.
If the newbie was fortunate enough to place themselves in the Gallente newbie corp Center for Advanced Studies, they’d have found just such a NPC corp that’s run like a “real” corp, with PVE and PVP events and fleets and comms.
I dunno, NPE seems a bit more polished these days than it was back in 2013. I went through the aura tutorial and then the career agent missions back then and made it okay. Hardest thing to get used to was scanning and hacking/looting (the loot spray mechanic from Odyssey had just been put in).
I mean, what you’ve described mostly just sounds like wormhole space before people moved in, but… maybe so. A lot of people sure complain about how stretches of lowsec and nullsec are just vast wastelands of emptiness, though. More systems = fewer and fewer people even more and more spread out than they were in the high pop years of 2012-13-14.
Welcome to how I felt when CCP mercilessly nerfed Ishtars and sentry drones repeatedly less than half a year after I trained into HACs as a still fairly newbie. ;_;
And so the nerfbat turns.