Hi here,
This is just to share my frustration when realizing the pay-to-win scheme is outperforming the payers.
Being against the concept, I have decided to give-up.
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What?
What pay to win scheme?
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Is this one another Alt/troll, Ramona?
Anyway, here’s my chance:
Can I have your stuff ?
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Probably.
Even if not, this is the high quality of feedback we are expected to tolerate without reaction by some people.
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You have no idea how hard I’m cracking up right now!
Win what? It’s open-world!
Did you get ganked?
He lost a Venture and Thorax in lowsec last year and nothing else ever since. 
How bizarre. Maybe he’s depressed.
Okay, I am so against P2W mechanics that I include a no P2W thingy in every post I make, and have even made a video about it.
Needless to say, I haven’t exactly been a fan of CCP’s recent monetization efforts. However, that does not mean that Eve is P2W. You see, P2W isn’t a dichotomy, but a spectrum. Yes, at the ends of the spectrum, you can find games that either require spending real world money in order to be competitive, or games that give you absolutely no advantage for spending real world money. However, most games fall somewhere in-between. In fact, I firmly assert that Eve is still very much a skill based game. This, combined with the full loot death mechanic, ensures that those that try to microtransaction their way to success are met with failure and frustration. Indeed, you can find threads with people complaining about that.
But if Eve isn’t P2W, that begs the question -why do you think it is? Well, we have a few options.
- You’re a P2W purist who is vehemently opposed to even the slightest wiff of a P2W mechanic.
- You’ve been listening to idiot bitter vets who have been filling your head with non-sense and poisoning your morale.
- You don’t know enough about the game, and are making incorrect assumptions.
- You do know enough about the game, but are blinded by motivated reasoning. Indeed, many gamers will blame anything and everything before they accept any responsibility for their own failures. They will blame their enemies, their allies, the devs, mechanics/balance, botters -you name it. Doesn’t really matter as long as they can shift the blame away from themselves.
I won’t presume to tell you which category you fall into, but I do know this much. Eve isn’t P2W… well, not yet, at any rate.
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Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. I can please have your stuff?
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Hey! I was here first!
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Yeah, OP, I’m also fed up with players in Kikimora owning every event combat site in high sec. Understandable rant.
The gibberish you posted there doesnt change the fact that paying customers are at least 5% faster than non paying customers.
If you dont know much about pvp i can tell you that speed is the most important factor in any engagement, speed means control, if you dont have control then your opponent can just leave when ever he pleases. If you still dont understand what that means then go find a succubus in low sec and try to solo it.
The only situation where skill points become irrelevant in eve is blob warfare.
Priceless!
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You can either pay for advantages that help you win or you can’t.
That is indeed a dichotomy.
However in eve your not paying ccp for that advantage but rather other players. You quite literally buy or sell time. Weather it is paying for someone’s subscription or selling them the time it takes to train a skill.
Well except for the fact that they added alpha. After that it is quite literally a pay to win by just about any definition.
Likewise a game being skill based has no bearing on it being pay to win. If party A is of equal skill to party B and A is able to buy the needed advantage to win. That is still paying to win.
The problem is people are so against the term pay to win that rather than accepting something they like is pay to win. And that they are okay with this type of pay to win, they bend over backwards trying to change what pay to win is until their game no longer fits their new definition.
To whom it may concern.
Hi there. Let me explain how it works. Alpha players, who are the ones that play a demo version of EvE “for free”, can only train certain skills up to a certain level. Omega players, who are subbed via real money or plex, can train anything up to max level. If that involves e.g., a level for speed on AB/MWD then you are right, the omegas are faster than the alpha (demo) players. EvE has from day 1 been a subscription based game, also known as a pay-to-play game.
Does that address your concerns ?
Now, either be an EvE player and pay for the game, as EvE players have done for 18 years, or be happy to be able to play a demo version for free for many months. No, this is not a free to play game. It is a paying game, it always was, and I sincerely hope it always will be. Go out, fly like you’re not paying for it and enjoy a free ride.
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I agree with you, without alpha in the equation eve is hardly p2w, but here we are.
They could have done it differently, and they still can, by properly rebalancing skill pay walls and requirements but they are too busy selling skins at the moment.
Well, you do have a point where this alpha + omega status difference is confusing to many new visitors who are used to different levels of p2w games. And the eye catching web pages for EvE do all caption “play free now” or some such. But we all know there is no such thing as free candy - someone will pay for it sooner or later. But alpha, with its limits on skills, is definitely a demo. Should it be made clearer to newcomers ? Yep, I think so. But as training skills happens in real time, the subscription will most likely stay the backbone. The alternative, for more casual visitors, via plex, is already possible but comes at a higher price. But even then, once the payment stops, the skills are blocked again, etc etc. Personally I think the subscription approach to the customer is the most honest one.
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First, of all, a free trial account having limitations hardly constitutes pay to win.
Second, you can go omega without spending a dime. Which means that paying players have no advantage that you cannot achieve through normal game play.
Third, youtubers and streamers, such as Suitonia of Eve is Easy fame, have made videos of them going out and getting solo kills of omega only ships with self-funded alpha accounts. This goes to show that player skill is indeed more important than omega status, SP, and ship cost. Don’t get me wrong, those sorts of things provide advantages. However, the fact remains that player skill is still the single biggest factor in determining outcomes.
Fourth, I assert that these points support my assertion that P2W is indeed a spectrum, and not a dichotomy. In fact, I’m not sure how any can claim equivalency between a game that requires you to spend money in order to be competitive, and game in which you can buy advantages, but player skill is still the single biggest factor in determining outcomes.
In fact, lets just have a poll.
Is there a meaningful distinction between: (1) a game that offers items/advantages that are only available by paying real world money and (2) a game in which items/advantages are obtainable through both, paying money and through normal gameplay?
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
- I don’t know
0 voters
Is there a meaningful distinction between: (1) a game that requires spending money in order to be competitive and (2) a game in which there is no meaningful competitive advantage provided through microtransactions.
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
- I don’t know
0 voters
And, I’m sure you’re going to argue that the money players spend on Eve offers them an advantage of non-paying players. I assure you that it does not. In fact, I’ll even argue that the real winners are not the players spending lot’s of money, but guys who aren’t.
First, Eve is a skill based game with a full loot death mechanic, which means the guys who try to microtransaction their way to victory just end up enriching their enemies.
Second, purchasing plex allows players like me to train and maintain numerous characters on numerous accounts, all without spending a dime. In fact, a lot of players, myself included, have more accounts and characters than they would have if their only option was to pay real world money. Let me put it this way, I have used somewhere in the neighborhood of 75k plex (that is not a typo) this year paying for accounts and MCT slots, and I didn’t spend one real world dime on any of that plex. I don’t know how much it would have cost me in real money, but I promise you that there is no way I could justify spending that much money on one game. Hell, I don’t spend anywhere near that on all my entertainment for the year (i.e. games, going to the movies, netflix, etcetera).
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It was a paid game until 2016 and clearly that business model didn’t work - otherwise CCP would never have launched Alpha Status and would have stayed with the paid subscription model.
Why did CCP move away from this model?
Everyone knows the answer.
They didn’t move away from the model, not in 2016 and not later. They added a very generous demo version via the alpha state and renamed the subscription model as omega. The proof ? You can’t play the complete game if you don’t pay for omega status i.e., subscribed for game time!
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