I agree. In part, I’m trolling wad, because he wasn’t arguing in good faith. But, it’s also to show the other side of the beta argument.
There are optimal levels for these things to be priced at, and it takes research to find them.
Argument ? You mean this “debate” on an idea ? The comparison of arguments with counter-arguments ? Well, you are the least positioned to judge on that, but others will, and they will come to a conclusion, whether you like it or not. While your preoccupation may be to “win an argument”, the judgement will be to people preoccupied with preserving their game - players and ccp alike.
Which is telling, but hardly needed pointing out to most people who stumble into this swamp. Nor any of the usual tactics you tried to deploy to "win an argument viz. debate.
No faith in your idea, that is true enough, lol.
Telling kids that setting the house on fire will have consequences is usually the better part of an ideas thread, no matter how fascinated they are about matches.
Perhaps in another forum, with a different audience, your idea would be hailed. Here however, it will be exposed for what it is.
The only way this idea works is if you retain your existing Omega membership and convert Alphas to Betas. If you end up with Omegas downgrading to Betas the whole concept is moot…
No, you got thrashed, utterly demolished. The fact that you didn’t bother engaging in any of the points that were brought up in the discussion and just posted a few paragraphs whining about the length of the previous post and expanding inequality was proof enough. You’re almost as bad at debate as Aiko; it’s a performance rating equivalent to losing an Avatar to a fleet of corvettes.
Yes, that is the general principal.
Only in your mind, lol, which is also where the merit of your idea resides.
Points ?! You mean these 5 ?! As a motivation to have beta subs and introduce inequality ?! Those “points” have been rebuked countless times in the past 4 years.
There really is no need to for me, or anyone else, to repeat what has already been said in countless threads. But perhaps you like merry-go-rounds and would love another spin. Just fyi and understanding, “Uprising” was not a monetization experiment, but a good game design that attracted people back. I know, I know, you claim those were alphas and maybe even that the subscription number dropped during the same time. Forgive me, but my bs sensor needs maintenance now.
Which is a bit weak as an ad hominem, don’t you think, lol ? I happen to think that @Aiko_Danuja has presence in the game, and adds spice to it, and has a fully functional bs detector for the forums, not unlike mine even. And for that she has my respect 
There we go, you’re starting to see the light. And both you and anyone else knows that it’s wishful thinking that alphas would convert to betas and be happy with the hard cap on their abilities vs omegas - just like “some” alphas are with omegas right now.
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Citation needed.
Nice, the weak “it’s already been said before” defense. I’m sure that went over well in your university classes, assuming you actually attended.
Not really, it’s a rather true observation.
Alphas already buy skill injectors for isk and plex. Tossing 250plex at a beta sub would be a similar concept.
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Your arguments are getting personal Wadlest, try to focus more on logic
yeah, was thinking of bringing up this point too, 250 plex for a beta sub, it would be easier for an alpha player to grind to this goal. Also one of my main objectives in suggesting the beta tier is to remove a constant source of skill points in the market. There is an ever-increasing glut of skillpoints in the market. The price of skillpoints is calculated from the difference beteern the price of a skill extractor and a skill injector, which is about 400m. this difference is slowly decreasing with respect to the price of plex. (full disclaimer: I sometimes skillpoint farm so obviously I want this to be more).
Having an intermediate tier would encourage people to use this and stop harvesting skillpoints for extra money.
Whether or not this actually translates to more profit no one can know for sure now, but in the long term, giving your customers affordable options encourages them to come back for more😉
That proved wasted effort. And for your own defense, just say you couldn’t stand reading all these posts to find out who went wrong where and to what degree, and therefore didn’t get the flow of the exchange. No one would blame you for that, lol. And no, I did not call him a simple mind, lol.
But since you yourself opted to make a new thread about an idea you already pitched in the older thread Alpha restrictions. It's time to let go, CCP - #70 by Ermon_Kaiser you’ll have to take ownership, not sides. It’s never easy to see an idea get under fire, but that’s the consequence of throwing it out in the open.
The option to grind for plex has existed as long as plex existed. The goal for ccp is to create revenue from sales, direct and deferred (PLEX comes under “deferred”). All plex comes from cash originally. From my understanding, PLEX only enters the books as income when the PLEX is spent in the game, not while it’s in someone’s plex vault. That as an aside.
Here’s a bit of a reality check on PLEX (credits to the excellent adam4eve.eu website !) showing ingame PLEX price evolution over the last 6 years, with a ISK price increase of over 100% in that period :
Less dramatic is the evolution of supply and demand in the in game economy for plex. However, the supply is usually lower than the demand, and supply becomes the major driver for the ISK value of plex.
If you make PLEX more attractive e.g., for reasons of a new type of “beta sub”, and therefore increase the demand for PLEX, there will be a straightforward evolution of the ISK value of plex - and the law of supply and demand predicts that the price will grow. So your argument of “easier to grind for 250 plex” is likely to never be fulfilled.
What used to cost around 250 to 300M in 2011 (to plex an account) now comes at 2.5B. Not bad for a single product, a ten fold increase in value… (and of course less net result per hour of grinding for the newer players for the same plex into omega requirement).
and thus increase the price of skill injectors because that is good for your trade ? Nice little personal business proposition. There are better ways of removing the “constant source of skill points”, ones that would not benefit certain players who directly interfere with the level of grinding for plex and isk and profit from it.
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It is very unlikely that the new price of 250 plex will be the same as the old peice of 500 plex as people are not going to pay the same amount for a beta subscription. More likely, the price will increase a bit, then reach an equilibrium, so that Omega now costs more than it was, but Beta will still be way cheaper.
What are the ways? Please elaborate
The rest of what you said just shows that you are resistant to changes to the status quo so I am not going to comment
The price per plex will increase, and that is a good thing for in game plex traders and investors for sure. Not for the in game consumer of plex who deals with the inflation.
As another aside, I have never seen plex reach an equilibrium in pricing. Have you ?
It would have to be cheaper to have some attraction. The question remains if it would be beneficial or detrimental for the game as a whole - and that is the core of the discussion. I say it would be detrimental on multiple levels - hence oppose the change - and that it would not even address the complaint from certain alpha players that alpha is too limited (even though it’s totally for free btw) but push them into a new level of dissatisfaction by creating a second tier player base.
and you expect omega players to welcome that ?
Since it’s CCP who enabled extraction (and sells extractors for revenue) the answer lies with them. Unfortunately for them, any change they would have to implement to reduce the amount of tradeable skill points would also have an effect on revenue. But one fairly gentle way of culling it would be to reduce the number of times and the amount extracted per year per account. I know, it’s not going to happen, but that’s at least one possibility.
Correct. I am becoming even more resistant to the creation of a second tier subscriber, with effects on the entire game, including its economy after reading the last couple of posts.
Nice charts, and a good post from you, fantastic.
It’s true that increased demand will put upward pressure on plex pricing, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Increased pricing encourages people to sell more as a reaction to the new market price.
If you take a look at your graphs in the last year and a quarter, the pricing seems to have stabilized around the 5 mil mark. The dip in price is a reaction to a large sell off when the price went over 5mil.
Also, the new equilibrium seems to be a result of the may 2022 price hike announcement as it was in the 2.2 - 2.7 range before for about a year and a half.
So yes, while there would be upward pressure due to the new sub tier, it shouldn’t be as bad as you fear due to the 4.5 - 5mil soft cap the market seems to be enforcing right now, especially since the beta sub concept isn’t just a plex purchase, but also a $10 subscription option.
Those numbers are not entirely useful for the point you’re attempting to make if you don’t consider why the new price exists. It’s not just a simple supply and demand argument. That is certainly part of the argument, but doesn’t paint the full picture.
Consider what happened in 2017 with the plex split, prices rose from 2.5 to 3.2 then fell back down to 2.7 as the market absorbed the the increased demand from plex microtransactions, before it again spiked due to increased demand for buying plex, and then settled back into sub 3mil levels due to scarcity and CCP kicking in the teeth of bot farms.
All this is to say, What I’d expect to happen is you’d get a bit of a bump in PLEX pricing after the beta sub is introduced, and then it would likely stabilize back to previous levels as the market adjusts the the changes.
The increased demand for PLEX for the beta sub should be offset by cash subbed beta players buying plex to sell it on the market for isk in order to pay for their pvp habits, as well as the downward pressure the 5mil+ price point seems to have in the market currently.
Also, these points assume Omega players are not transitioning to Beta subs. If that were to happen, the PLEX market would crash until the oversaturated market readjusted. While I’m sure some people would love that, it’s not what we’d hope to achieve by this addition.
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well, I noticed some people on the forums just hate giving any concessions to alpha players. so seeing you bring up that point may have made you sound like you were supporting alpha players’ right to ask for more? maybe.
Alphas are fine - they just need to have less.
Sorry for the novel, but I would like to clarify my position since you brought it up.
Quite possibly. It’s one of the reasons I called him emotional. His responses to those arguments were based on how he felt, and how he felt I felt, not about the actual facts of the matter.
My support for the adjustments for alphas (mentioned in both this thread and the other thread -specifically about alpha players) is entirely based on what I believe would be healthy for the game. (Measures to reduce the number of p2w accusations and allow alphas to feel good about the time they spend in game, while still allowing Omega to look attractive.)
I define “healthy” in terms of net income, that’s subscriber numbers (both plexed accounts and direct subs) + micro transactions, as well as overall server player numbers, both pcu and monthly. The higher those numbers, the better.
As near as I can tell, there are two main theories about p2w.
The more restrictive, which I disagree with, is any out of game influence that can be leveraged for in game benefit. This definition means any in game markets will inherently foster p2w as even without a PLEX style economy, players can buy and sell gold through RMT black market sites. As I find free markets a fundamental part of an enjoyable MMO experience, I entirely reject this philosophy.
Also, I don’t really have too much against selling xp or resource boosters, especially in long running games or if the level limit isn’t a huge grind and the resource boost isn’t abusive. I’m probably a bit more liberal on this front than many others that would have issues with these items in mmos.
The other primary definition for p2w, which I do subscribe to, is any benefit that can only be purchased with real world money but not earned through in game activity. Gold ammo fits into this category.
Strictly speaking, because PLEX can be bought on the market, and then used to PLEX an account to Omega status, EVE doesn’t exactly fill this definition. The problem comes from the amount of grind required to earn the sub. So while not technically p2w, it will feel like that to the average Alpha player (that has any interest in interacting with other players) that has Omega out of reach.
Players coming to EVE after seeing the marketing around it, or from watching gameplay on various forms of social media, will likely come in as Alphas, as that’s what they’re pushed toward. So what are they greeted with?
Unless they specifically desire the double training speed, the early experience of Omega isn’t much different from Alpha, so they’ll likely stay as Alpha until there’s a reason to change. But after a bit of play, the players will start to notice certain things are locked away, and start to feel bad about their position.
This will either encourage them to upgrade to Omega, or be disillusioned about playing the game at all. The latter seems to have happened in this case.
What happened? The person in question voiced a concern (legitimate or not) on the forum, and the first response that came back was to call the player a freeloader. This is not an isolated instance.
Fast forward several months, and the player seems to have deleted the character, potentially never setting foot back into New Eden again. Not only does this deprive EVE with an extra notch on the pcu counter, it’s also lost potential sales from PLEX micro transactions, even if the player never upgraded to Omega.
Furthermore, what is this player likely to tell friends about the game? Pay to win. Unfriendly community. And their impressions of the game itself will likely be impacted as well: bad points will be remembered more clearly, and good points will be suppressed in the player’s mind.
So, how would my adjustments have influenced this situation?
The objective is to make the player feel good about investing time into his or her account, so even if the state of the clone doesn’t get upgraded to Omega, there’s more time for potential PLEX transactions to take place.
As such, every skill trained should be a stepping stone toward the end goal of making the role they play more effective. And If they can be as effective as possible in the roles they play, as limited in number as they are, less focus will be on the lack of roles.
There will no doubt be complaints, but a response like, “you can be as effective in the roles you have access to as an Omega can, but if you would like to have access to more roles, you’ll have to upgrade to Omega,” is more likely to keep them around than unhelpfully referring to the player as a “freeloader.”
The reason why I chose t1 frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, is because both Homefronts (pve) and fw complexes (pvp) have gated content for those ships where they can’t be impacted by someone with a better ship. It’s also why I have no qualms about removing pirate ships, because those ships are not allowed in that content.
While this is an extremely limited set of roles, it’s enough to allow the Alpha player a taste of the game without feeling like their equipment is gimped. This helps to remove negative feelings toward their time in game, while also making sure not to overshadow Omega for the primary reasons people are willing to pay for the sub.
And also, since I really enjoy Faction Warfare, it might encourage a lot more people to participate. I’d love it if instead of a thousand concurrent users in empire fw, if we’d have 10k instead.
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I read your lengthy post on alphas, and why it would be nice to make them feel good. On the one hand it’s a bit off topic, since the subject is a new class of subscription, but on the other hand it’s a subtopic that merits some reflection.
On Alphas and microtransactions
A large portion of your reasoning is that the longer an alpha stays the higher the chances are that the alpha will engage in microtransactions. That is possible, but is equally true for anyone regardless of clone status. Both groups, alphas and omegas, also have populations that do not engage in microtransactions at all. With omegas that is not an issue, since they pay for sub’ing in one way or another, even if they buy their plex with isk from other players who paid cash.
With those alphas not engaging in microtransactions however it literally means zero revenue for ccp. So it is in ccp’s interest to keep that group as small as possible, while encouraging all alphas to go omega. That is how they designed it in what I called in one of the first posts a very generous way. That ccp is increasingly engaging in more microtransaction offers could be an indication that the non-paying group is fairly large, maybe even too large. It may also mean that the alpha to omega conversion rate is too low, hence that attempt at recuperating. Very speculative but a distinct possibility nonetheless.
It’s my impression that the bulk of the microtransactions (bar some of the cosmetics and the large plex deals) is geared towards alphas. And for good financial reason as outlined below. Add to that that only very few people spend limitlessly on a pastime activity. It follows then that if more alphas become subscribers, part of the microtransaction income will be lost. People will usually balance their budgets and keep tabs on their spending. That is how I see the choice that ccp made in 2016, a system that keeps itself in check and connects income sources: draw more people via the “free” marketing slogan, offer enough attractive small deals, but still make it perfectly clear that alpha is only free exploration of the game.
I am well aware that we do not have access to financial data that would support or refute your silent claim that alpha microtransactions on average (per account) equal income from a subscription. We also do not have any indicators on alpha to omega conversion. The only thing we could deduce from the changes that were made to alpha status since 2016 is that alphas are financially attractive enough for ccp as they are right now, without risk of losing omegas because of an overly generous alphas status.
On alpha ‘inclusion’
Another large part of your post deals with making alphas feel good. And this is also the main point of contention for whoever engages on eve related forums, and what you prefer to call the “emotional” aspect.
CCP’s implicit goal is to convert alphas into omegas.
They don’t hide that fact, but one does have to flip a few webpages past the “play free” slogans to see it. They do not put it on the first thing about EvE one gets to see:
from https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/clone-states
(“baseline provision”, “limited set of available skills and pilotable ships”, “slower skill training speed” - yes, here it’s termed slower for once)
and from https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/213020969-Alpha-and-Omega-Clone
Alpha is limited, Omega is Unlimited. Alpha is completely free with a possibility of revenue (see first part), Omega is subscription based with a certainty of revenue ( cash, directly or indirectly via plex bought for cash by someone).
While alphas are of course very welcome to use the offer for a free-of-charge experience in a unique game, the reality of the business side is that alphas are still “only” potential spenders, while omegas are guaranteed spenders. In other words, the longer you keep alphas “happy” and “satisfied” in that clone state the longer you are out of guaranteed revenue via subs. In that sense it is not in ccp’s interest to keep them in alpha clone state for as long as possible. Alpha is the teaser, and clearly not the product.
That the difference between alpha and omega states leads to threads like these is no surprise. One side is not happy for not getting access to more ( for some odd reason no longer acknowledging that they in fact don’t pay to play), the other side is not happy to see anyone potentially being given more than a sample without paying. Increasing that tension by adding more “roles” for alphas, potentially making them equals in any game activity, is not the right thing to do. Thankfully it has not been done.
Undeniably, the community itself is as much a product of CCP as the game is. In fact, by some magical act CCP managed to deliver a game that became self supportive through its community for the long term. No one knows how that was achieved, yet there it is. And that is the one thing no one should ever tamper with. Equality between players, or the perception of equality (similar result for similar investment) is a binding and stabilizing component.
The difference between alphas and omegas itself precludes real inclusion, and introduces a visible inequality in the long term, reason why I was never on board with it. The only way to remedy that is by removing it, not by adding to it. As that, too, is not in ccp’s financial interest it’s more than likely best to keep the status quo. They worked themselves into a slight headache, just like with skill extractors/injectors, and they can’t put the milk back into the cow.
From someone with some experience in large fleet fights, nah, you really do not want the tidi and server vanishing acts, lol.
Now if we introduce a new level of subscriptions, these betas with their own set of new restrictions and possibilities, in the light of everything mentioned previously, can you imagine what kind of an impossible high wire act that would be ?
It was a response to Ermon’s post. So while I do agree it was off topic for the thread, it was still necessary to clarify a misconception.
Yes, I said there are potential lost sales from players leaving.
Irrelevant for the post you’re commenting on. The post was about keeping players in the game long enough so they’d become paying players, whether or not that includes the sub.
This is not how free 2 play models work. And don’t tell me they’re not engaging in it, because they obviously are. Both the fact that they market the game as f2p and the plethora of micro transactions in game point to this fact.
The strategy for the f2p model is to cast your net as wide as possible, so you can get a few people (whales) to toss money at the game. Granted, because the game also has a sub, these people will also be subbing to the game, but the strategy remains the same.
But it’s not just that, skin sales are also a huge driver of income. I forget if I mentioned this point in this thread, or if it was just in the recent alpha specific thread, but a $15 wow skin for a mount made more money than the entirety of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.
Players who might not be willing to toss $20 a month at a game may instead be willing to drop $100 over the course of a couple years for cosmetics.
This isn’t exactly true. The specific players you’re referencing may not be directly giving money to CCP, however, they are engaging in the market, buying from players that do give money to CCP, and just their presence in the sandbox in general is healthy for the game. (They bring the pcu numbers up, which CCP uses for advertising and they exist in space as a content driver, which gives other players something to shoot. )
In other words, non-paying alphas add to the game world, by making those who do pay, have a better playing experience. This in turn encourages those players to continue spending money, or even spend more. (In some cases, even gifting PLEX assets to non-paying Alphas.)
Would it be better, if all these players were subbed Omega? Yes, but that’s not realistic. The game is better off with more players, even if the surplus is not directly contributing to revenue, than a smaller player base where everyone gives CCP money. CCP realizes this, and it’s another reason why Alpha clones continue to exist.
This is all a rather basic implementation of modern game theory.
Or… it could mean they make a lot of money off of microtransactions. (See link above about WOW mount skin.) We don’t know what the actual reason actually is, so being dogmatic about it is unfounded.
(Not that you are being dogmatic, I’m just urging caution.)
Most of this income should be from alpha injectors and from PLEXing alpha accounts.
CCP doesn’t do that. I get that that is your concept of Alpha, but CCP doesn’t even hint at that being the case. Maybe if CCP did, complaints about p2w would also decrease, but I dare say the number of people trying the game in the first place would also drop, which is likely why CCP doesn’t do that.
I never even hinted at that, let alone silently claimed it. Microtransactions In EVE aren’t about equaling subscribers in terms of income, it’s about getting as much money from the player base as possible.
So even if 80 or 90% of revenue comes from subscribers, there’s still more money to be made by including microtransactions, and it’s a never ending chase. That 10 or 20% has the potential to become 30 and 40%.
It’s a delicate balance to provide content people wish to spend money on, while keeping the state of the game healthy. Pay to win (gold ammo) items cause player numbers to crash, and thus is bad for the long term viability of the game. Likewise, the game not earning enough money is also bad for the long term viability of the game (for obvious reasons.) And while revenue is objective, the impression of p2w is largely subjective, so it’s much harder to counter.
In my opinion, every game should have cosmetic micro transactions. Some people don’t care about them, and will gladly forego the general human need to personalize their character, but others will gladly spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars on cosmetic additions to their character.
Agreed, the direct evidence does seem to support that. However, from that point, we can also make educated guesses: such as a beta sub also being financially viable. Would it be viable with the op’s suggestion? I don’t know, which is why I repeatedly suggested that CCP should do several rounds of data collection on the matter.
One of the potential pitfalls, as you mentioned previously, is the “introduction of inequality” between payment tiers. While I do sympathize with this thought process, as I mentioned previously, CCP already has precedent in relation to Alphas.
As shown above, in both your previous post and this response (as well as many previous posts,) Alphas are contributing financially to CCP’s coffers; enough to keep them around. This means Alpha is, in effect, already a payment tier.
As such, adding an in between payment tier should not overly impact player perception of inequality, especially since the proposal doesn’t gimp the effectiveness of the ships the beta clone would have access to.
This isn’t entirely true. It’s a bit convoluted, but the plex market in conjunction with the pcu numbers gives some hint at what might be happening.
So what are we seeing here? Speculators initially building up the plex market only to have it come crashing back down after the demand wasn’t as high as forecasted. However, after that initial bit of market manipulation, we do see an increased spike of demand with the expansion, and then a larger building demand as those accounts matured.
Also consider that much of this was before the PLEX split, so all of those sales were for turning Alpha clones into Omega status. It can be reasonably assumed, much of the increase in sales volume compared to volume prior to the expansion can be attributed to Alpha to Omega conversation. Based on the graph, it looks like an increase of roughly one third to a quarter of the total are alpha conversions.
The purpose of which is to keep them in the game long term. This not only increases the pcu (which CCP uses for marketing,) but it also gives them time to toss money at the development team. Does that money come anywhere close to the amount ccp makes from subscriptions? I personally doubt it (or ccp would just get rid of the subscription altogether,) but that is an irrelevant concern.
As mentioned previously in this post, microtransactions in EVE are used to gather as much money from the community as possible, above and beyond what CCP earns from subscribers.
CCP’s implicit goal is to make money. There are many ways to do that. Some players will never pay a subscription, but they will spend money on micro transactions. It is in CCP’s interest to cater to these players, as long as the effort to do so is less than the amount they earn from said micro transactions.
The reality is that this is a large numbers game. Alphas as a group do spend money on the game. And it’s not possible to get the alphas that spend money on the game without the alphas that don’t.
Incorrect. This is not a zero sum game. The only place where this is true, is in those cases where alphas would have transitioned to Omegas, but there many instances where this will never happen. Those same players may however still give CCP money for cosmetics or other micro transactions. That will not happen, if they are not playing the game because they don’t enjoy the experience.
I’m going to reiterate this, because you seemed to have missed the point of the post you’re responding to. The goal on CCP’s end, is to make sure Alphas do not overshadow Omega, so there’s a reason to upgrade, yet also make the Alpha experience enjoyable enough to keep playing. This will keep them in game long enough to contribute, either by the way of upgrading (eventually) to Omega, or through micro transactions, or even by engaging in the sandbox so it makes the paying player’s experience more enjoyable.
The positive experience will also aid in marketing the game, because people enjoying a product will tell other people, and that will in tern bring more people to the game, and a percentage of those people will give CCP money.
This is an emotional response, not a logical one.
My suggestion removed roles.
Why? Would you rather have someone to shoot? Or be superior at everything and not have anyone to shoot? One of the main complaints I hear from people engaging in pvp is people always run from them.
No doubt people will always run, but the suggestion in question aims to mitigate these occurrences.
And what is the problem if you don’t even participate in the activities where those players are equal? T2 and t3 ships are superior to the particular ships I suggested a buff for, so in any head to head engagement the omega will come out on top in terms of pure numbers if they’re flying the better ships in those engagements.
I’m not saying Alphas should be equal in all roles, or even in a quarter of the roles, but giving them a place in the game where they are potentially equal so they can experience the game the way it’s meant to be played, goes a long way for the positive interactions I previously mentioned.
That’s not actually true. Battleships and Battlecruisers were not initially given to Alphas. CCP gave those ships to Alphas in Lifeblood, the expansion after Alphas were introduced.
Based on the increase in player numbers, and the fact CCP hasn’t removed them, I suppose the change was a positive one in terms of the overall health of the game, but I personally believe a better choice would have been the suggestion I made.
That is one solution yes, but as the following is also true…
There are ways to mitigate the issue. We don’t solve problems by just ignoring them.
It shouldn’t be too big of an issue. 10k in empire fw, means 2500 pcu per faction. So you’re probably looking at 2-3k fleet fights at most. That’s still well below null block peak numbers so the server should handle it fine. More than likely, due to the way fw is structured, you’d be looking at fleet fights in the 200-500 range more commonly, and the server can handle that without tidi at all.
The bigger issue would just be to make sure fw could handle the influx of numbers. CCP would probably need to develop a dynamic seeding system to make sure there’s enough content for the number of players involved. This is something that should be done regardless of the Alpha question, as some iteration of the fw system is slated to be pushed out to null for a replacement to sov mechanics.
It should be fine as long as long as the roles they’re given aren’t gimped and the amount of money required for the sub is balanced properly for what it is given.
The larger issue, in my mind, is what I was trolling you with.
If betas were given everything except for capitals, it would put pressure on the development team from the company’s board of directors to increase sub costs for omega. Thus, anyone with a capital, would be unhappy with the change, for personal reasons.
It could also be used as a way to curb the number of capitals in operation, if CCP considers it to be a problem, but that’s likely not the way the player base would want CCP to handle the problem.
Furthermore, a beta clone would open the door to more pricing models, eventually seeing various parts of the game segmented off with pricing options. Is that a problem? Not necessarily, players would be able to pay for what they use, the bigger issue in my mind, is how it would be easy for CCP to use that payment structure to inflate prices over a period of time (especially if there are plenty of sale options that would further act to obscure what a “reasonable” price would be in the minds of the customer base.)
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Precisely. This seems to be the case over and over again on the forums. It’s a bad attitude that will discourage players from using the forums, or even playing EVE Online
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Thanks so much for taking the effort to bring up good points. However, I am not sure I fully understand what you wrote here. Why would there be pressure to increase omega sub costs if betas are given everything except capitals?
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The answer to that is complicated, and goes deep into human psychology, but the short answer goes something like:
As it is now, there’s only one payment tier CCP has direct control over, so moving the handles on it is a bit clumsy. However, the more payment tiers CCP has, the more direct control they have over pricing, and the easier it is to fiddle around with those controls. The easier price points are to manipulate, the more likely it is to happen.
(It’s a similar argument to having a hammer and looking for a nail to smash that people use as an argument against the military industrial complex / having a standing army.)