I’ve recently heard about upcoming changes to Alpha Clones coming this December 2017. It seems to me that the changes are geared towards pew pew in the wake of tomorrow’s October 24th release changes to moon mining. With the need for more miners it seems likely that an Alpha player will notice a lack of progression in ships when considering mining as an income source and will also notice the obvious restrictions.
Does it really seam fair to let an Alpha Clone progress to a battleship yet can only mine with a frigate?
If you can contribute to a fight with a battleship you should be able to contribute to a mining op with a mining barge.
Seems fair to me.
I would suggest that the first tier of mining barges (Procurer, Covettor, & Retriever) be accessible to Alpha Clones and leave the more expensive barges for omega clones. At least that way there would be a sense of progression and room to grow after switching to omega.
I was thinking more about inclusion of the Alpha player to the social setting of a corporation/alliance. Keeping in mind the upcoming major changes to how these corporation/alliances will want to utilize alpha players.
When an alpha player joins a corp they want to have a purpose in that corp but at the same time as the player becomes more skilled an alpha player will want to try out new things… with every corp/alliance out there trying to figure out the new economy for tomorrows patch there will be a refreshed need for miners. I anticipate many corps/alliances will encourage Alphas to mine. The experience of contribution will seem offset when compared to their progressive ability to show up to a fight with a pirate faction ship but can only bring a venture to a moon mining op, in lets say the safety of some null sec alliance/coalition like The Imperium, for example. In the heart of their territory there won’t be a need to fight so your experience is then limited to your ability to contribute as a miner. This may not be the best example but scenarios like this will occur and exist.
When the player feels like they can no longer contribute on a significant level they begin to lose purpose, at this point the only thing keeping them in the game will be the social experience or the other aspects of the game they are allowed to try as an alpha.
Long story short, if fights are all is being offered on the table I think your limiting the experience of the player severely and selling EVE short of it’s diverse complexity and true beauty.
Maybe the solution is a new class of mining vessel to fill the need for significant contribution and sense of progression while at the same time leaving mining barges for the omegas.
So no, this is not about entitlement, it’s about inclusion, purpose, and exposing the Alpha player to other aspects of the game in a significant way that allows the player to experience a balanced taste of each facet of the game while also seeing the value of upgrading to omega status.
I wasn’t aware real corps actually accepted alpha players. I know ours doesn’t. We expect our players to have some skin in the game. We expect them to be useful.
Post-patch, they will be useful, so we might consider accepting them.
A player who wants to mine on an alpha account must accept that for $free.99 they will not be able to contribute much. If they want to contribute more, they need to be an omega.
If they enjoy mining, then they’ll see the benefits of subscribing to contribute more and mine more effectively, if that is the goal they seek.
Otherwise, they can fly a PVP ship and contribute in a more direct way.
Alphas can still contribute using a venture. Considering they cost nothing to run, get as many as you can together. Consider taking them ninja mining in low/null/wh’s (especially with the coming moon mining changes).
The problem with alphas using barges is that people would do what i do; hHave them semi/afk mining on a laptop or two. Barges scale too well with no effort/interaction.
no you can multi box alphas… either by literally using multiple boxes or simply tricking eve into thinking you are. its been done even b4 alphas when trials had the same limitation
Sorry but having huge mining fleets all paying $0 towards the upkeep of the game does not make financial sense for CCP. Also kind of unfair for Joe Omega if fleets of FTP miners are snarfing up all the roids.
I think giving Alphas Battleships is a little too far anyway… but whatever.
I am a computer hoarder, Never get rid of old ones when I upgrade. With a cheap KVM I could easily field 4 or 5 computers (some people could do more I am sure). Tank the graphic settings to minimum and instant mining fleet.
EDIT:
I am not exactly sure of the ELUA with regard to this, but if fielding multiple Alphas on multiple computers is a violation, then I encourage people NOT to do it. I am just pointing out that it would not be difficult (if you happen to have some spare computers around)
Well “instant” is an oversimplification. The amount of preamble required to get a fleet of mining vessels up and running is high.
Of course the output of such an endeavor is also very high.
All I’m saying is that for it to be “instant” or “easy” would require a eula violation with input broadcasting. Many people still do it in spite of the heavy administrative overhead, but it is still a pretty significant amount of preamble.
It DOES violate the EULA, Paragraph 2 restricts a person from using two or more accounts unless you “pay a subscription fee for each of the Accounts”. But yes, it would technically be an easy rule to break.
First, I am very pro-Alpha, I think it is a great addition to the game. But, mining barges I can’t support. Inflation has been a problem, the best way to fix that is to burn ISK. Increased Alpha pew pew with BS will be an ISK sink. Mining barges to Alphas will be an ISK faucet. I know by ship size these ships seem about the same, but “size doesn’t matter”, in the view of the economy BS to barges is apples to oranges, and as history tells us “it’s the economy, stupid”.
