The issue is not that. In fact, they’ve sold ships in starter packs over a decade ago.
The issue is that they’re trying to monetize very low-end, new player starter content that is outgrown very quickly. It’s just obnoxious. And it’s also a slippery slope to much worse microtransactions later on.
Getting those basic ships is nothing new, you get a whole bunch of them from the career tutorials: quite a few frigates, a hauler and even a destroyer.
I’ve not heard anyone whine about how bad that is, spawning those in out of nothing and “evading the player economy”.
I agree that I do not like this direction of microtransactions for fitted ships.
I’m paying money to play a game about spaceships. I don’t want to pay money to play a game about paying money for spaceships.
Those are rewards for essentially doing missions in game, reward for play. These fitted frigates are reward for pay, and that kind transaction, I fear, might grow into more transactions of a similar sort, crossing that line @Gerard_Amatin, just a point of concern - that is all.
When they start selling packs with fitted capitals, you still won’t say they crossed line? Because assets can’t win EVE?
CCP said they will never sell SP. We get SP packs. People started rioting so CCP said that “packs” are only for newbs so it’s ok because “retention” bulshit. Few months or years later we get same packs of SP for vets. People don’t care by now, just buy it.
For how many year new accounts get ability to buy destroyer pack? For how many months GM’s give out fitted frigates to new characters? tomorrow they gonna give out barges because “expert systems”? Then what, BS? Capitals?
I’m really sick how blind and dumb players are. It’s not PA, CCP for years is slowly trickling microtransactions and ruining player driven economy. Slowly enough that most player base don’t care when new nails are hammered into coffin. Line was crossed day when skill extractors where introduced
But that’s just a moving goalpost of reasons.
“they are spawned from nothing”
“other ships also get spawned from nothing from the career missions”
“but they have fitted modules”
“you also get modules from the career mission, spawned from nothing”
Etc etc etc, it shows that the reasons people mention simply don’t hold up because that is already in the game and no one whines about it. Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the slippery slope fear but lets be honest here: looking at what options EVE already allows for with plex, skill injectors and whatnot that ship sailed a long time ago and everyone happily makes use of it.
I feel that the crux of why people whine about this so much is that it doesn’t do or help them personally because for once something that is meant to help new players can’t be gamed or abused by older players and/or their new alts. BECAUSE it’s money only and not for plex, BECAUSE they are temporary skills and don’t actually boost your skills permanently. It doesn’t help them so they don’t like it, if it would have helped them far less people would cry about it I’m sure. That and there’s as lot of people who seem to be unhappy in life so they feel the need to vent it on some game forum, or they don’t even play the game any more but they just can’t stop spreading their misery.
As a newish player (several months in) I can tell you that being able to sample things that are far beyond what a starting alpha character can do, either because it’s omega locked and/or just takes too long to train for, will help with new player retention. I’d be happy to pay a peanuts amount to try out certain things just to see if I’d enjoy or or if I’m wasting my time on some game and community that seems very uninviting.
I feel like your argument is a general one based off of what you personally experience and very little if any of what I had said. My issue is not the spawning of assets but in the manner which they are distributed. “Reward for pay vs. Reward for play”, remember?
Everything else is you ranting about nothing relevent to my point, so I will not comment.
They are mission reward. There is fixed amount of career agents you can ever run per character. There is slight difference between limited reward for your work than items magically appear by using dev tools.
Yawn… Broken record. People complain, so I will complain on people that complain.
There’s 12 sets. You can end up with 12 destroyers, 12 haulers and like 40-50 frigates and a whole lot of modules, all spawned from nothing. This whole “it’s evading the player economy” is silliness, that’s been around for ages.
The whole “moving goalposts of reasons” just keeps on trucking, now that you’re called out on the spawning thing it’s suddenly not about spawning any more but that you have to pay for it. Why does it matter to you if someone else chooses, or not, to pay for some temporary abilities that might help them get into the game?
I’ll tell you why, because this whole thing is about actual new players, it’s not about you and you can’t game it so you hate it. Call it “broken record” all you want, if it would personally benefit you you’d gobble it up so fast it’s not even funny.
Also you’re still a dead and deleted character, a no one. There’s no proof you even still play this game.
I suggest we stop writing this guy, he makes too many assumptions and wild accusations, there is no thoughtful discussion to be had.
You need to finish missions. For a start. So not “from nothing”. Considering that there literally shitt load of items that drop only from PvE and other activities. Without being produced by players I’m suprised that you focused on career agents that are simply PvE drop.
Because you are stepping into minefield called p2w. “New player” is no excuse for microtransactions.
Proofs and real arguments. Your “feel” is no argument. You have no real counterarguments (since discussion about ES), so call everyone who don’t agree with you, bitter vet that is salty because he can’t get isk from this. And personal attack on top of that. Quite good proof that you lack of arguments and knowledge to make any reasonable arguments.
@Vintus_Turgalium Right. This is last one from me o7
How is paying threefiddy for some temporary basic Heron skills p2w, but being able to buy plex to then buy a zillion injectors for ACTUAL skills not p2w?
There’s no difference other than the fact that you can’t pay for these packs with plex and that injectors are FAR more intrusive and permanently affecting the game world?
I’ve only recently stepped back into the game in the last 10 days, having been away for over 2 years. Being bombarded with BUY THIS and BUY THAT is a little jarring. Those microtransactions are not going to impact my play, but it leaves me wondering where the focus on actual content has gone.
I don’t like expert systems, because they allow instant access to features, previously required training and time, which is unfair for older players. But… this discussion is beating the dead horse, because skill injectors is the real p2w mechanic, existed long before the experience packs.
I think that CCP will not get a lot of money out of this, because the problem with player retention is not about instant access to skills/ships, but rather general UI complexity, lack of interesting storyline, problems with social interaction and lack of goals.
People play computer games because they want to do something fun, something unique, interesting, relaxing / exciting and what they got instead - BUY our super pack of skills for Veldspar mining! What? Not interested? - ok, buy our 2nd pack, which will allow you to explore (what?) something somewhere (until you are bored to death).
New players frequently ask what to do, they’ll give you money if they’ll be interested in this game. They need goals, not a toothpick for 5.99$.
Ding ding ding, this person gets it.
Very true, still at the same time going “here’s some cool stuff for you to play with for a week” will entice at least a portion of those new players. It’s not a solution and I wish they first worked on the actual issue but from a business pov this is low hanging fruit that gives extra income, so it’s bound to happen.
This comes back to the NPE as a whole being poor, very much agreed.
The thing is, EVE is not the type of game to provide you with goals. It provides you tools and you can create your own goals. EVE could perhaps guide new players to set goals, but if people are guoded from goal to goal in the NPE, they get a very wrong expectation of the gameplay this game offers.
Yeah, but they already give those ships out for free. It’s like ‘selling’ newbies a Venture. They give them out in the tutorials. So you’re literally complaining about CCP ‘selling’ something they’re already giving out for free. That’s… just not a sale. That’s ‘yeah, do this, and we’ll give out another one for free’.
And, has been pointed out, they’ve been selling ships in the starter packs for a long, long time. Frigates just aren’t worth giving a damn about.
Right now the focus on actual content has included ‘let’s rip all the minerals out of everywhere and then put back less of them. We can totally ignore the way people become more risk-averse and scream ‘scarcity causes conflict’ when of course, universal scarcity does nothing of the sort’.
Also, they redesigned the news website so it’s more annoying and less useful. That’s ‘content’, right? 
Yes, I noticed the realignment of ores. I dabble in a little of everything - but it is apparent that the SPs invested in reprocessing of ores now completely relegated lowsec are probably wasted (unless I want to create potential content by flying my Orca/Skiff fleet out there). Also, my big WTF moment came when in Domain, I put Jita 4-4 as a waypoint. That was an unexpected surprise, but I digress…
Until I get my bearings, I have no real idea what would be a worthwhile suggestion for the betterment of EVE. The milking video above was pretty good, though.
You’re kind of a fool, Arrendis. Your argument is that they do not sell ships directly, and when that was proven false you then resort to arguing that it doesn’t matter because they are beginner ships and one can receive them for free.
Receiving ships for playing the game by completing tutorial missions is quite different than buying a pack which outright contains fully fitted ships - which is not a grievious concern in and of itself but moreso what that could lead to. My concern is what this might make of the future. What door does this open towards further monetization in the game and what impact might that have?
What concerns me is not this alone, but the lack of any meaningful content or progress on the game mechanics. You know, the ones that stand out as being fundamentally quite broken in places?
Sure, make your money CCP, but accompany it with meaningful progress that evolves the fundamentals of how we play this game.
Everything on offer at the moment is like some kind of temporary, artificial rubbish that does absolutely nothing to address the reasons why players walk away from EVE. It’s deeply unsatisfactory.
I mean you could go on and on, and for those of us in various sectors of the game there will be a lot more that causes us hardship that doesn’t fall under these headers, but there are tons of things that are ignored while we get these shitty, pointless skins for ships we rarely zoom in on, or pointless temporary skill boosts.
Where are the new ways to play the game? Where is the universe expansion, the new ways to engage capsuleers, or the improvements to old ways? Where is the sense of ambition?
I can promise you this, games die when you insult your playerbase by dialing down their expectations to the point where there is no excitement. Right now, I couldn’t tell you a single thing to be excited about from CCP. If anything I sit in dread expecting to be told about some ridiculous short term initiative that does nothing whatsoever to make the game any better in the long run.