Player Retention - Is there any content alphas can play?

Alphas serve three purposes, with only one of them being an extended demo.

The second reason is similar, but it’s to allow people to return to EvE without a $15 investment to to check things out again. Especially since EvE doesn’t do traditional expansions.

The third reason is due to the nature of the game. PLAYERS are the content for other players - regardless of payment level. An empty EvE won’t entice anyone to join our community. Empty markets won’t buy your rocks. Empty systems have no one to explode. Empty forums don’t have discussions.

–Gadget accepts Alphas

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Let’s just do this:

Play occurs without the expectation or pursuit of a specific outcome. You are seeking an outcome, and so you are not trying to “play”. You are gaming. You are working.

Consider for a moment what you would do if EVE Online was real. Would you simply sit there with your restrictions and say "Waaaaaaa! I can’t [action affecting a specific desired outcome]'? Of course you wouldn’t do this. You would figure out how to get things done given your limited capabilities.

If you want to “play”, start doing things. Stop trying to get things done.

If you want to game or to work . . . for ISK, or hey, even skillpoints . . . I think other arrangements can probably be made.

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omg, gratz, i must be playing this game wrong :slight_smile:

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You can explore lower security level areas. You won’t get an error message trying to jump in lowsec or nullsec as an Alpha, so you still have access to this content.

It’s considered as a near endgame content (only surpassed by L5 missions), and was easily botted.

Passive ISK income, no good for people that aren’t paying big CCP.

Again, you won’t get an error message trying to jump through a wormhole. Not having access to cloaking devices sucks in wormhole, but last I checked ratting fits generally don’t have any fitted on them, so you can still bash some sleeper head.

This isn’t surprising, and good in fact. T2 production is also high end content, just encaque of the skills required to efficiently produce it. And you’d still have to gather nullsec ressources.

Alphas can both run Invasions and Abyssal Sites. It’s normal you don’t have access to the ships.

Alphas are, in my opinion, an unlimited trial period. It’s good they are limited until they support this awesome game. A well, even if you don’t play much, 15€ isn’t that much per month.

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I think they should get rid of alpha play. All this pandering to people who dont pay takes away a lot from those ones who do pay.

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I don’t think Alpha Clones should be removed but the skills and equipment currently available to them should definitely be reduced.

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High sec exploration brings a lot of loot thats priced at multiple millions. Its not only data and relic sites, but green anomalies and DED sites, also unrated sites.

Its a good ISK, but competition may be big.

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As said by many: alpha is a trial account. You can try as long as you like. Want the real thing>>pay and support this virtual world.

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Can’t fly supers or Rorquals so no NullSec :rofl:

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I am actually learning ewar frigs right now in Brave after about 3 years of mainly mining and industrial activity on my older toons (in high,low,nul and WH). I really enjoy it❤

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You’ve decided you like the game, good, but if you want to enjoy the whole game you need to pay because guess what, software engineers need to eat too and I don’t see the free Safeway or free housing.

Retaining Alphas who don’t ever plan on paying is not a goal.

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Even for Omegas a majority of PVE content is gated. The groups that ‘run them’ must allow you to participate. Incursions, Invasions, null-ratting is dependent on passing ridiculous background checks.

Players are limiting player content.

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The only difference I see between EVE and other games when it comes to that are two, and one is inherent to the sandbox:

“Content” is not instanced and so your whole fleet can be ganked in the middle. Trust is an important issue, taking anyone who applies is a good way to end up blown up and stationless.

The key based background check is a good idea but the implementation is terrible. It should be a checkbox on the corp application that the recruiting corp can make required or not. Making it a big process just makes people feel like they are having their privacy invaded. The applicant gets to choose whether to apply or not.

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Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Alpha is a taste, not meant to be a full game in and of itself. You do understand how subscription games work, right? Customer pays for the game on a monthly basis? Now complains that it isn’t all free?

Ring a bell?

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You are basically a meatshield as Alpha - you cant skill properly and do middle/endgame content. Just compare free account here vs free account in Guild Wars 2 or WoW - like earth and heaven.

The devs slept over the trend - nobody today will pay subscription fee for such lousy product - only games like WOW with great lore and decent addons are worthy monthly subs. In GW2 you have 80% of endgame content as free to play player however its only cost 25 Euros now for both addons and this game is without monthly cost.

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Couldn’t find the Merry Go Round? :rofl: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

True but there are some missing points here. Subscription games that continue to be successful are generally top of the line efforts, Final Fantasy, WoW (not top of the line for most of us here, but certainly for their customers).

Tons of content, new releases all the time, strong new player introductory experiences. What sub games that succeed don’t generally offer:

  • Lame, infrequent content expansions
  • Tons of bugs, events that nobody likes, grind for crap rewards
  • Taking more than a year to get their chat system working
  • Dull, minimal, boring, repetitive PvE
  • Few things to do outside of imbalanced, one-sided (generally) PvP
  • Tell new players “Here’s our cool skill system. In 2 years of subs you will be almost competitive in a few areas. You can of course pay us hundreds more dollars beyond your sub to speed that up.”
  • A ‘sandbox’ environment where the player is told “We put some fairly empty space out there and some ships you can buy if you grind ISK or pay us more cash beyond your sub. Now go make your own content.”

EVE hasn’t existed in a vacuum / scarcity of space games for a long time now. Probably has a lot to do with why they have been bleeding players and subs for a long time now.

Other games have gone F2P, beefed up their cash offerings, offered various other options to pay. Other games offer virtually the entire game for free and still make money. Heck, Star Trek Online removed their subscription option because it was just getting in the way of people paying them more money for other things.

Generally I pay a sub if the value of the sub, the value of the dev team, the confidence in their product is there. EVE doesn’t have that. They have a sub-standard dev and design team because they have a bunch of people hooked on subs and they know they can turn out crap and still milk those players for a paycheque.

It’s time for a wake-up call at Consistently Crappy Programming.

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I did this TWICE and it worked BOTH TIMES!

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