Game isn't actually free

Communications Center General Discussion
41

Do you seriously think that a 6 month old player with a 15 year old OMEGA account will always be able to beat a 15 year old player with a 6 month old ALPHA account?

Do you think that this would be comparable to a situation like in Diablo Immortal? If the game stayed the same for 2 years, where a player who has been playing since Beta testing, with a 5 month old account that he spent ZERO dollars on, will be able to beat a new player who has only been playing casually for a month, being given an account where someone has spent THOUSANDS, TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars on? Do you seriously think that the Veteran in Diablo Immortal with a 1 month old ZERO MONEY SPENT account will be able to win against the 1 month old player? Ever?

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42

Depends on the player. EVE is full of examples of young players in bought chars loosing their battleship to somebody like me in a frigate.

Normally you just get accused of hacking… because apparently that is the only way for small ship to beat a battleship. Alpha pilot is more than capable of spoiling an Omega day.

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43

I get beaten by noobs all the time.

Well, if a noob is anyone younger than 10 years.

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44

Again apples to oranges you are missing the point completely, and no the more experienced human being will win most of the time, like me with my 6 month old char will beat you and your 15 year old char.

The point I am making is not who will beat who but that being omega is only the start of a journey you are missing the point completely and arguing a very obvious point that no one brought up.

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45

The game is literally free to play.

You can log in as an alpha and do whatever. If you get two billion points, you can even upgrade to a higher tier character.

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46

:partying_face:

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47

It used to be a subscription based game, in that everyone had to pay for access and was therefor on a leveled playing field. This is no longer the case.

That was back when people still cared, they are all long gone by now.

Fact is, EVE is a very different game from what it used to be. It is now advertised as free2play with an optional subscription that however gives you insane game relevant advantages. They also added a cash shop with cosmetics and game relevant items and services including straight up skill points and ships.

It just looks to me like you convinced yourself that freeloaders want the whole game for free and that automatically gets rid of all pay2win accusations. Unfortunately that is not how this works. EVE is pay2win because of changes CCP made to the monetization and not because of what some players demand.

Obviously there is a spectrum of insanity when it comes to game monetization. EVE is far from a Diablo Immortal, but I bet Hilmar is creaming his pants when he looks at the money Activision makes.

And the more we validate them by pretending that splitting players into payers and cattle and adding SP, ships and other game relevant items to the cash shop is ok, and the more people make excuses that this isn’t pay2win, although by every metric available this is exactly what everyone would identify as pay2win, the more they will march towards making EVE like Diablo Immortal, piece by piece.

A.k.a. pay2win.

You people who defend this monetizations and continue to pretend that this is all fine and doesn’t hurt the game, you are part of the problem. You and people like you defend this since they started and they continue to add layer up on layer of monetization, because you validate them, because one positive or defending voice is a hundred times stronger when they read the feedback with their confirmation bias.

It’s just sad to see that it took them only a couple years to turn a great game they built for over a decade into something that resembles more of a store front than a game.

I don’t think they will ever turn this around, it’s probably too late.

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48

In my mind subscription was meant to stop them from monetizing the game.
Monetization is for free to play models so that the devs that make those free games can earn money from it, but eve is doing both the sub and monetization.

If I where to choose I would say keep the sub and chuck all the rest of the junk.

A lot of people want the free to play + the junk which would make the game worse in my opinion.

I have played a lot of free to play games and over the years they have become super annoying especially the ones with the add’s I do not want Eve to become like that.

Some make it so that keeping your items are a nightmare unless you buy extra bag’s. Imagine CCP limiting hangers then selling hanger space bundleS? lol that is what will happen if they drop the sub.

The sub is supposed to protect us vs this crap but its not :confused: .

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49

I agree, they should have never changed it

In my eyes it has already become that. The only reason I’m still on the forums is because somewhere deep down I hope they will one day fix the game I once loved so much and get rid of that junk.

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50

I guess we are looking at what CCP are saying in different ways. A quote from their landing page eveonline.com…

“EVE Online is a community-driven spaceship MMORPG where players can play free, choosing their own path from countless options.”

Can Play Free… which is true, you can play without spending money. You can even go Omega by earning Plex in game and not spend any real money…

|n my mind, it does not state is that the enitre game is FTP.

EDIT: looking around the website, it does use the word Free rather a lot, without really explaining that you get just a limited segment of the game for free. Kinda slightly devious advertising tactics i guess to get people logged in.

Totally agree with you here, they should never have started Alpha, or limited it to something like 2 months of trial (with all the current restrictions) and a move to Omega or Wipe the Char account at the end of the timer. This would have been way enough time for people to trial the game.

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51

No, its not apples to oranges.

If I have an ALPHA account that can beat your OMEGA account, then Eve is not pay to compete.

I have beat you without paying.

I am at a level playing field of 100K players without paying.

Therefore EVE is not pay to compete.

And free players are not the cattle of paying players, because I just beat a paying player with my free account.

Therefore you are wrong.

If you are admitting that alpha can beat an omega, then Omega is no longer the start of a journey. You could become a veteran using an alpha account, being only on an alpha account, and beat an omega with an alpha account.

And then, you can become omega without spending a single penny.

No money involved.

Therefore EVE is not pay to compete, and Omega is not the starting point.

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52

You seem to think situational PvP combat is the one and only thing to win at. Situational because your argument depends on the Alpha being a better player than the Omega. Guess we ignore the Omega pilot who is just as skilled as the Alpha pilot while also having the advantage of flying better ships with better weapons, right?

Also, try winning at industry on an Alpha account. Or trading. Or PvE.

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53

Lol now we have come round full circle

EvE is Free to Win

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54

That is the case since EVE exists, even back when it was subscription only (and two week trial):

55

No one said we should ignore it. But it sure as hell defeats the argument that Omega is necessarily pay to win, or that you need to be omega in order to compete with other players, or that this is even comparable to diablo immortal. Eve is a more complicated game than that.

You can gather a bunch of alpha players and defeat an omega player with strength in numbers.
You can spend ZERO money on the game and still buy in-game plex and become omega.

This stupid notion of “If youre not omega you cant compete”. “If youre not omega, you cant win”. “If youre not omega, youre just feed for all the other omega players”. “you need to pay real life money to get anywhere in this game”. All of these arent true.

You can ninja-mine in wormholes and make a ton of money. Dont have to be Omega.

You can buy really cheap things and set up buy orders on multiple characters on the outskirts, haul them, and sell them. Dont have to be Omega.

There are plenty of ships that Omegas use that are usable by alphas which are really good mission running ships. I still have, and use, my rattlesnake, which can be used by alphas.

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56

Why take one step forward when you could instead take 5 for the same distance?

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57

@Chell_Lennelluc I am surprised that you are surprised. However, I agree they should probably advertise it as “free trial”.

58

How do you want to beat omega with alpha? If both players have same skills then sure you can and if the one with omega doesn’t know how to PvP at all, you will likely beat him as well although it is not guaranteed, but if this isn’t case it is pretty much impossible.

I gave up on duels completely, the difference in skills makes unsurpassable difference. You would need some serious bling and implants to even tank 5 light maxed drones in drone boat chewing you from omega player with maxed drone skills in frigate/destroyer. I haven’t found a fit for these which would be even able to withstand just drone dps. Or just look into the 1v1 destroyer meta this proving grounds. There is 0 chance to compete with omegas who are flying this 3k+ speed 80km shooting talwar. You can’t outrun them with alpha and you cannot target that long at all either. For alpha these events are utterly pointless.

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59

The game is free when you follow the path of the Bootlegger.

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60

What? No it isnt.

If Im in a Kitey Ship, and you are in a brawler, and we have similar, or even the same skill both in terms of EVE knowledge and character skillpoints, and youre omega and im alpha, i would still win over you the majority of the time.

If im in a frigate and youre in a battleship, and we have similar, or even the same skill both in terms of eve knowledge and character skillpoints, and youre omega and im alpha, I would still win over you the majority of the time.

Duels, where? Outside the station out of Jita 4-4?

Takwars are getting killed all the time by non-talwar ships in abyssal PVP. Kiting is powerful if youre not prepared or dont know how to counter it, but for those who do, can easily compete.

And im not talking about modules. Countering Kiters takes actual player skill.