My issue isn’t with the existence of the trinkets, but with their method of delivery. There’s no earthly reason why it must be so exasperating.
Furthermore, calling these rewards “freebies” isn’t even correct. If everyone got the same thing, then sure, why not. But the rewards are split into two tiers, with one tier (the objectively better one) being contingent upon a paid subscription. So at this point, it’s not a matter of just getting something for free, but actually being able to receive full utility from the service that players pay for. If we’re paying for these items, then we shouldn’t have to log in to confirm that we want to actually receive them. After all, the game doesn’t require us to log in every day to confirm that we want to keep training our skills, or that we want our PI colonies to keep functioning.
Being busy and not able to not log into the game in any given day to not have to go through the queues isn’t some kind of misplaced sense of entitlement; it’s a reasonable request for a quality-of-life improvement that reduces the amount of time that each player has to spend on administrative filler tasks, and increases the amount of time that each player has to actually play the game. If there’s a way for CCP to maintain favorable metrics, while at the same time making this specific aspect of the EVE experience less frustrating, there’s no logical reason to not make the appropriate changes.
@Destiny_Corrupted : I say this with no malice or ill intent. As a veteran of Eve Online, you are not part of the customer base the game is now made for. People can kick and scream, post quit threads, rant, riot in Jita, etc., but the primary focus of the game is being shifted to the Alpha Clones and the Cash Shop (The two are fundamentally bound to each other).
@Gaius_Mileghere : Yes, no-one is being forced to log in, but if they pay the monthly fee for the Omega clone, forcing them to jump through inane hoops just to log in when they want to play the game sends the very clear message that their money means absolutely squat to CCP. Add to it that the “rewards” are often absolute trash and it’s insulting. No-one likes to be treated like the company things they are a 2 year old that squeals in delight at shiny plastic trinkets, especially when you give them several months worth of chances to prove that it was just a spate of gifts that weren’t relevant to your play style.
The constant stream of drugs (which I’m positive has absolutely nothing to do with the pressure in the real world over the past decade to legalize all forms of recreational drugs) is balanced only by the stream of anemic BPC’s. For veterans of the game, only the former is of any use, and that is only if you PvP a lot. The BPC’s are garbage. Both types of daily log-in “reward” are aimed at new players. For people who have played the game for years, it’s more likely going to all be seen as an annoyance. You can’t store the drugs for any long period of time and they can’t be sold. The BPC’s are often for ships that are often over produced as it is, and while you can sell the BPC’s for an ok price via contracts, if you aren’t near a trade hub or don’t have the skills, it’s a hassle to get rid of them too.
I pay CCP to let me log in, get into a spaceship and shoot things or build things, etc., not to waste my time with Pavlovian conditioning ■■■■■■■■.
Trust me, I’ve known this for a while. Though I’m curious what their “cash shop” strategy is considering that most of their revenue still comes from the SP economy. Whether it’s direct subscription money or PLEX doesn’t seem to matter much in this regard. They’re not selling actual, usable items for cash, and I’m not sure they ever will, so I’m not sure if they can push their revenue beyond the hypothetical maximum of “every player being subscribed at all times.” And if that’s indeed the goal, then I don’t see how login numbers do them any good, when their primary metric of success should be the amount of people actually playing the game, because when people play the game, they need skill points, whether they train them themselves, or buy them from someone else.
I think something else is going on here. For all I know, it could be plain old incompetence, and cluelessness with regard to what the “kids these days” actually enjoy. I started playing this game when I was basically a toddler, so I can imagine that some of these devs are pushing 80 by now, and need oxygen tanks just to get through the workday. We can call it the “New York Times” effect.
You’d be surprised at how much wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing stuff goes on around there. I’ve…seen it.
I don’t think that’s true. All of the robber barons are dead by now. The people who built the railroads aren’t the people defrauding pension funds for hundreds of billions of dollars, and deploying tens of thousands of troops to resource-rich but integrity-poor countries in wars that the rest of the world never actually hears about.
If you want proof of this, track down a convoy for a top-ten oil executive, and compare its length and girth to that of the US presidential motorcade, and you’ll know where the real power lies.
Just don’t look at it through anything with a telephoto lens, because they have the technology to detect that now.
Are you under the impression that everyone who plays Eve Online works in service industry level or lower jobs? Or that it is impossible to understand wealth creation, investment strategies properly and yet still not be counted among the “rich investors” (who, btw, generally only have one line of thinking and strategy: ROI. They often pay other less wealthy people to do the job of studying trends, numbers, etc. instead of doing it themselves. You know, the aforementioned people who understand investment strategies, etc. but are not wealthy themselves)
No. I’m suggesting that 99% of the 1% don’t play video games. They play things with real RL rewards and consequences. Like the stock market. Or real estate. Or investing in game companies.
When the rich guys attempt to motivate their advisors based on annual performance, is it surprising that the experts choose to prioritize short-term results, rather than worrying about the long-term health of the companies (who aren’t paying them).
Not, it’s the standard now. Min/Maxing in the real world. The minimum amount of time to make the maximum amount of money, and if a company goes down in flames having to lay off all their employees, oh well.
In the end it is all about money and power. Those who have neither have little if any chance to ever attain either of them, and are destined to always be the peon in their wealth creation systems.
The only wealthy people who play video games are generally doing so to “see what the commoners do”.
