Yeaaah, never disagreed with it being ‘pay to win’. I’m disagreeing with it being a simple yes no that SP give you a meaningful advantage or are automatically better.
And my view on this is up there too but you seem to also be derailing the discussion by trying to boil it down to wether the game is pay to win or not like pay to win automatically makes it bad or that the levels of pay to win in this game have meaningful impact.
I would get if you see it as a trend towards worse things on the horizon but this pedantry is pretty off topic!
One of the reasons I returned to the game was because I could actually move the skill que forward with in game activity. I find EVEs skill queue very frustrating and the addition of the skill injectors and SP packs means a lot of people subscribing that otherwise would quit, bored, waiting to be able to fly the ships their friends are using.
Yes, although to some extent I also wanted to have some discussion on what makes for good methods of monetization vs. poor ones that hurt the whole game or it’s reputation.
Good monetization revolves around things like “pay to get there a little faster” and “pay for more flexible options” and “pay to have the same things anyone else can have even if they have more time to play than you”.
Basically the SP and injector options they’ve done so far all fit these bills. I’ve also yet to see anyone come up with a solid argument on how they’re “bad for the game” overall. With respect to Lucas’s perspective that CCP is concentrating on money-making vs. improving the base game. Which may be a valid point but is actually a side-topic apart from good vs. bad money design.
“Bad” monetization stems from selling things that offer a “for cash money only” advantage. Like, if they started selling premium ammo, or special “invulnerable mode” defense consumables.
It can also be things like I mentioned before, where CCP basically sabotages or neglects entire swaths of the game in order to herd players into Nullblocs and capitals because their data-mining shows that “that’s where the big money is”. This is where Lucas’s idea of “neglecting base game design in favor of money chasing” is much less obvious but far more devastating to the health of the game.
I had also hoped to see a few more “good money” ideas. Somewhere near the top (or maybe in another thread", @Aisha_Katalen mentioned the idea of “custom colored engine exhausts/trails” or something along those lines. Which would be a fantastic avenue for CCP to start monetizing.
In the example I gave earlier in the thread, the 9 days off skills queue was to get to T2 entropic disintegrator earlier. That would have cost 900m ISK or so. But the only ‘advantage’ given is maybe to move one place or two up the fleet killmail lists for percent of damage done. Just not worth it.
And that is surely the point. I wonder just how much of SP purchase is just ego cosmetic and how much genuinely affects ‘winning’ in any true sense of the word. There is only so much you can advance beyond the current state without having genuine skills. A noob given 20m SP is just gonna have a load of losses. Yet P2W is spoken of as if noobs could just jump into Titans and rule the universe on day 1.
This is difficult. However the servers only stay on as long as they are making money out of the game and it’s not sufficient to just tick over. Shareholders expect growth.
Personally I have four accounts subscribed for the longest solid period I’ve played for after having quit eve twice before. Each time for the same reason… Bored waiting for skills to cook.
I think there are lots of cosmetics they could offer for in game purchases. Billboards that advertise alliances and corps in station instead of litering space with mobile depots. I wouldn’t want to see hello kitty thorax, but customisable chroma skins would be great. How about get your alliance logo as a decal on hulls? Lots you could do.
I think we’ve determined ( I hope it’s correct ) that Pay2Win isn’t about winning but about just having an advantage. I don’t see the wrong in having an advantage if I paid for it.
Exactly. So even the advantage isn’t guaranteed.
That’s an exaggeration usually made by bitter or jealous players. Nothing worth giving attwntion to.
A solid argument is one that uses actual reference to the game as it exists as its’ basis, and/or actual quantitative data, and/or references of material relevance to something beyond ones opinion. As opposed to endless hairsplitting over word definitions and ethical positions in an attempt to “win” an internet argument.
“SP sales are bad because it encourages CCP to focus on monetization” (as opposed to making the game better), is both purely opinion-based (you can’t demonstrate the truth of this), and is “putting the cart before the horse”, so to speak. Because CCP stopped focusing on the game and started focusing on maximum income long before SP sales and injectors came along.
I’m fine with you making that argument, and even fine with hundreds of messages back and forth between various people arguing about “P2W” definitions.
I’m just pointing out what the difference between a “solid argument” and “arguing for the sake of arguing” is.
Didn’t speak in their defence I answered a question posed about SP. That you assumed I was defending this person does explain a lot about how you responded though.
That wasn’t a feature of our discourse. Our discourse has been, seemingly, almost entirely us talking at cross purposes. I’m trying to discuss wether selling SP is bad for the game and you are obsessing over wether it’s technically pay to win and taking every argument against the selling of SP having meaningful negative impact on the game as a denial of wether it technically meets the PTW criteria.
That said if you were to make that comparison it would be relevant to the discussion at large.
I have looked at lots of games to try and did try a lot of them. It seems that selling stuff in the store is standard for most online games so I’d say that most online games are pay2win. Which isn’t really bad or a problem. If someone wants to spend money I think they should be free to do so without incurring the wrath of the purists. I mean, we are supposedly free, right?
Eve can bear some forms of pay to win in my opinion but looking at the feedback from the community and the way the game is structured around a player driven economy and market CCP would not do themselves any favours by introducing the most blatant forms of PTW.
Just look at the response to the packs that included fitted ships. If you disincentivise the use of the player market it’s possible the whole thing could start crumbling around our ears.
I think they crossed the line with a 20€ a month subscription so introducing blatant p2w at this point will not aggravate things any more than already has.
I mean, the subscription is already for people who can spend 200€ a year on a game. Might as well sell fitted ships and everything else in the store while they’re at it.
I think that CCP has enough control and levers on the game to insure that would not happen. Let’s not forget, online games aren’t like an ocean where things happen naturally. They’re more like a fishtank, the owner can manipulate anything in the tank to ensure good health of the fish.
This is a great analogy but if fish had capacity for more than rudimentary thought the owner might find their healthy fish flinging themselves out of the tank and feeding themselves to the cat to escape their stupid decisions.
That is sad but then again, maybe CCP’s plans have contingency for less players. Maybe CCP wants to change the game so drastically to the point where less players will not be a problem. I don’t know, really. I’m just a lowly Capsuleer in a huge universe.
I think not. EVE is an interesting game, unique in its kind. I think there will be more players than now in the near future. I don’t know but I have a hunch… maybe it’s hope but regardless, we will see.