lol As expected, the old fan-boi-pride-parade has arrived, yet again. It pokes my funny-bone, every time.
But yeah, its safe to say that ignoring them is ofc optional. I chose not to ignore them, because they are humans too.
So here goes:
Galaxy Pig:
Thx for showing your true colours, every day in here. Its really both bold and honest of you to do so. Had I been your communication-consultant I would tell you to stfu already lol. But luckily Im not…
Jenn aSide:
You will disagree, no matter what I say. But feel free to show the source of that claim. But even it you should be right about that, you seem to forget the most telling part: There are STILL not many new unique players joining EVE. So maybe you fail to understand the problem. So yeah, I remain confident, that if young people saw EVE unfold in all its glory, for a lesser price and without having to grind or sub monthly, it would be way easier for them to join it. Call it an investment for the future. Its about “programming” kids, to become the future EVE-alliance-leaders and community-mavericks. Not about how you feel the game should be.
Id like to add, that since its such a small group of repeat-responders, it really underlines how few unique players EVE have lol. If the forum is mostly populated by a handful of old trolls lol.
There are two distinct products we’re looking at here.
First is 1-month of game time. The price of that is 15 USD by month (less if you sub in large increments… I sub yearly at 11 USD a month). Those prices have been static for the entire 15 year life of EVE (as far as I know).
Second is 500 Plex (or 1 old plex). The price of that is 20 USD. That’s also been static for as long as plex has been around.
What you are talking about is what you can trade the PLEX for in-game… selling plex for isk. That is NOT solely a “cost to play the game” argument anymore. Plex is used to buy skill extractors. Plex is used for microtransactions. Plex is used for character transfers. Plex is used for multiple character training. And yes… it’s used for gametime as well. The cost of PLEX is not the cost to play the game… it’s the cost to do ANY of those things.
As far as funding with in-game currency… PI gets you most of the way there. Jita sell is a bit shy of 3.2m. That means it’s just shy of 1.6b to buy 500 PLEX to sub. 3 toons running 5 planets each on low-sec PI doing P0-P2 should net you at least 1.2b a month. More if you go to null or use a more time intensive setup. Yes… it takes time to set up. But once set up you’re logging in twice a week to restart extractors on each toon (total of 5 minutes of effort each time). And taking 20-30 minutes to haul the stuff off to market at most twice a month. Call it 4 hours of effort a month tops for getting you 90% of the way to your PLEX.
There are plenty of other ways too. Skill extraction essentially allows you to play for free if you aren’t worried about increasing your SP’s. Null Anomaly running in a VNI nets you about 40-60m isk an hour in bounties alone and is consistent and predictable. Buying and running DED sites can make you much more (though it’s more unpredictable). Scanning is boom or bust… but over the long haul can net you pretty good returns (even at an ALPHA skill set). Station trading is possibly the most lucrative thing you can do. I only dabble, but I turned a billion isk into 3 billion in 2 months of hands off (1 update of orders per day tops) trading in a hub without great trading skills or standing.
Heck, my corp pays me to research corp bpo’s which is pretty low effort. I make about 400m per account in profit just doing that (which tells me you could make a lot more buying, researching and selling the researched BPO’s yourself… I’m just too lazy to go through the hassle). There are lots of ways to make isk in the game (especially as an omega). Some require a grind (anomaly running or mining). Some require less time but some thought (station trading or manufacturing). Some are pretty AFK with small active time investment (researching BPO’s or PI). Some are sort of random (DED site running or Exploration).
True. But all those things you mention in-game, that supposedly are readily available, wont be used by new players, in the first couple of months.
It took me 6 months, to get PI rolling smoothly, back when PI was introduced in EVE. And the skills to do it well, takes even longer to train etc.
Skill-extraction is a one-time deal. Its to ease the return for old players. It does nothing for new players. Unless they buy skill-injectors for Plex.
I agree that the mechanics and content are there to use. But especially for new players, most of those things Arent something realistically open for them to do or exploit. This is why Im being so stubborn about it, really. Because even though youre all right, that EVE is amazing and have all the things you need to not pay RL money to play, its neither transparent, realistic or easy to do those things, the first many months of play.
This is ALSO what the young kids Ive introduced to EVE say. The prospect is simply too staggering for them to even try it long enough, so it sticks. I just finished my second Master degree describing the new generations and their personality traits. Trust me, EVE is still for the few new players. Not the many. And Ill wager the number of under 18-players are almost non-existant.
Just to make it clear though, I really know very little about economy lol. But yeah the intricacies of EVE-finances Ill leave to you geeks to solve out lol. Im just giving an analysis of how the younger generations chose their digital pasttime. And its NOT in EVE. But I sure hope it changes. Because EVE on many fronts, are years ahead of other games, in the learning department. I love that about it. Lord knows, that there are plenty of no-brain-games out there lol.
PI takes 2 months to train and set up so you’re making 1.2b a month. I know this because I did this from scratch with accounts created before PI existed and no knowledge other than what a google search found. A 3 month sub is all that’s needed to get to the point where you really don’t have to pay again if you don’t want to… as long as you’re willing to put in an hour a week worth of effort to making isk.
There are plenty of stories of alpha station traders making good isk very fast. There are videos on how it works too… like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CaZBbsNlhM
It’s not spoon-fed to players… but I’m not sure it’s supposed to. Eve is supposed to take a while to figure out… and there’s always stuff others have figured out that you haven’t yet. Finding that stuff is part of the fun.
If it were transparent and easy to get dank isk… everyone would and the price of PLEX would skyrocket even more. It takes some effort to figure it out… so it doesn’t. It currently takes months to get a single toon up to the skill cap for Alpha players… that’s plenty of time to earn the isk you need and learn the game enough to see if you want to pay to keep advancing. I still feel like we’re in a good spot with that as far as the subs work. The issue is more about having the New Player Experience teach the players about the intricacies of the game better than it currently does… not about subscription methods.
I think there’s a very small number of under 18s for a simple reason…
They aren’t ready for this game…I went through consoles and WOW and god knows how many other games before deciding that I needed something different, that’s when I found EVE.
I too have introduced players and none of them are left, they couldn’t cope because their whole mindset was still in games they could buy and complete in a weekend then go px it a week later. Some in their mid to late 20’s as well.
I think you need a certain mindset to even think about playing EVE, and those players don’t come along and stay subbed every day, and no matter how much it costs even with the ability to play for free the numbers are still dropping.
We’ve all heard the generalisations about “millennials” and that they are just self entitled and just kick and scream if they can’t get it NOW and for FREE, but what’s also mentioned is that they don’t want to put in any effort either, maybe I’m wrong there. But I still think a societal change has impacted on things that take time and effort. Including EVE.
Couple of points:
If EVE is supposed to only draw in the math-geeks, OCD-crowd and people that are good at very complex systems, it is probably fine as it is. And it should just keep doing what it does.
Its a common conception, that EVE just IS like that, and it always HAS been like that. I dont much like to paint the game with such a simple brush, though. I like progress. Especially progress that follows the culture its supposed to attract.
No doubt that EVE is better served, having a lot of complexity build into the FULL experience. But does that really have to apply for the new people? Remember, the mission as I see it, is to generate new curiosity about the game, the community and the genre (Single-shard MMOs). And I still feel thats not quite accomplished. And I think the numbers support that claim. At least pre-Lifeblood etc.
If you base the complexity on an economy, that governs everything the game does, then its a very inflexible template, afaik. Which probably is most clear in the fact, that EVE has been slowly stagnating in activity, over the last couple of years. How can a game conform to new trends, if the in-game mechanics and micro-transactions is a natural inhibitor for needed change?
THats the gist of it, really. For me, at least. But Id love to be proved wrong. Dont get me wrong.
Precisely.
And then it becomes a question of: “Do we just accept that such is EVE” or “Lets at least think about if we cant do both, through game-design etc.”.
As its probably clear by now, Im more for the latter, rather than the former.
We share a thought. Amazing! It’s not that i don’t feel sympathy for people who can’t afford Life, it’s that i don’t feel sympathy for self declared victims needing something non-essential cheaper than 50c a day.
I like how carebears make us aware of what we have in common.
Some thoughts on that: I can’t tell for the Russian players as I don’t know them good enough. But if they think a bit like my Polish friends (yes in EVE Poland can into space) they may be not very comfortable with paying for anything in advance. People of countries that went through some volatile times tend to be careful with “pay now use later” options as far as I can tell. “Use now and pay later” on the other side is very much welcome. I would stick to PLEX too if I weren’t 100% sure if my next 12 paychecks will arrive and what they will be worth at that time.
yellow parasol:
Well, I dont mind being called a carebear, sir. Just so you dont foster that particular misconception, aside from all the other delusions you foster I DO mind paying 50 cents daily, for a game that I play very little. THe amount of daily expenses in the form of microtransactions in all sorts of genres, are building up. I currently got 50 games in my STEAM LIb. Had I only havd EVE, those 50 cents wouldnt matter much. But yeah, competition in the gaming world is fierce. Youd know this, if you knew anything about games, sir. Since Im NOT paying for EVE anymore, Im therefore not a victim, either. But if it makes your personality feel perky and strong saying it, knock yourself out lol.
Galaxy Pig:
Arent “you´d” and American abbreviation? Oh, and could you please translate all that into perfect Danish dictation, so I understand it properly? As you know, Im not good at your engrish.
And finally, a new Haiku:
yellow brush labeled
pig decides our grammar
hugs will have to wait
Funcom had it better than CCP, they had halved subscription costs for AOC for east europe and russia. That was why I payed for it for a year and some.
There is big income gap between east europe and west europe. Its just too expensive to consider paying this amount of money for a game if you cant use PLEX for gametime from time to time.
With Alphas the thing doesnt changed much because alphas were just forever trial account essentially. People just dont see a viable progress with those, you had to still pay for omega to really get deep into the games multiple choices of career.
Yeah, many reasons, why this monthly subbing or perpetual condition of somehow paying to play, is being outdated these days.
The industry is going full retard on the micro-transactions. So yeah, eventually we will all just have 1 or 2 things we pay for, and the rest will be ignored. Ill bet EVE wont be one those, in the end. At least not for the many, as the title of this thread suggests.
But As you can see, the EVE-mob are still in denial lol. But it sure is entertaining to behold such a social implosion of sense and reason.
Yeah. I see what ye mean. Im from one of those “rich” countries, but I dont really like it anyways. But I work in the humanities lol. So I can emphasize. Something that many old EVEers are lacking, these days, it seems lol…
EVE was never ever for the “many” and the niche it fills was and is the secret formula of its extraordinary success.
And you keep mixing your arguments up. Your OP was about the latest inflation of PLEX and the increased time that is needed to pay by playing/grinding. That is only very loosely related to micro-transaction.
Playing for free on an alpha account does not involve any micro-transactions
Playing as an omega with a sub is the exact opposite of a micro-transaction
Buying PLEX and to use it for one or several month of playtime is no micro-transaction. It’s just another way to pay for game time. When you buy PLEX and use it for skins, apparel or maybe extractors that could be considered micro-transactions.
Grinding ISK, buying PLEX with it and using that for playtime isn’t a micro -transaction either. That PLEX is more granular now and doubles as the currency for the ingame shop may be one condition that drives the PLEX price. But I think it’s only a minor factor compared to alts that stopped training and extract SP at the end of the month.
Crypto currencies are in no way related to EVE at all. You say micro-transactions are “full retard” but the subscription model is outdated. Would you mind to tell us how CCP should sell the game then? I am curious.
I wonder what would happen if they would remove subs and tell people to buy discounted PLEX for the price of subscription. And then vary PLEX price with region your account is tied to by algorithm finding out the location origin of data. I wonder what effect it would have on the PLEX market, amount of Omega players…
We need some AI with a machine learning capabilities and a lot of data to come up with prediction probably.
Maybe its lost in translation or between our individual cultural understandings. But I havent mixed anything up, sir. I may have developed my views, during the discourse. Which is hopefully expected lol.
So yeah, I dont have the view I had in the OP, if that helps clear up the misunderstanding?
Well, Id try and give a few ideas, sure. I already did earlier, if you scroll up a little. But here they are a little simplified, for your benefit:
Make EVE into two parts: 1 main game, for all who buy it (say, like a normal priced game, around 20-30EU to get it). And one huge DLC or expansion if you will, that gives you access to LS, Null, WHs, Capital ships, POS, Citadel etc. Priced at maybe 20EU. On top of that, they could just sell vanity stuff in microtransactions, or whatever you wanna call it.
Or: Just sell the whole game for 100EU. And add some small extra purchasable things, like Skins and whatnot.
Probelm with EVE is, that it relies on luring people in, and then they get hooked. But they dont, these days, as the online-activities show. If they paid for the game, they can come back any time, and play as they like.
Another issue with the monthly cost is this; If I pay for say, November, and I on the 5th November gets Ill, then that month is lost. Ive paid for nothing. If my Alliance ingame suddenly goes on vacation, while I just subbed for 3 months, then Im stuck doing things I find boring etc. Those are just arguments. And you dont have to agree with them. BUt I assure you, that the fickle new generations care about those things. They want flexible, cheap, easy fun. And they got plenty of places to get it.
Now does EVE want some of that action, in order to secure a future for the game? Or are EVE content with what it is now? Im fairly certain they want to renew their playerbase, which is why theyre doing all these new cool things atm. And given the old populations lack of understanding and support for these things, I cant blame CCP for trying to get new blood into the game lol.
As Galaxy Pig, Jenn & yellow shows, the old blood aint much to write home about lol…unless you love to poke your funnybone lol
