On one hand, I dont see how its any harder to “catch up” than it ever was before. These days its easier even without buying injectors or SP packs.
On the other, I dont understand the point in paying for something you can eventually get without paying.
These EVE-dead zombies ( that’s what I’ve decided to call members who don’t play the game ) don’t so much care about how EVE plays rather than how EVE is different from most other games. They couldn’t care less about logic of skills or resource availability, or new players or anything. All that matters to them, in a game they don’t actually play, is how different it is from other games.
I assume you are better at taking photos? 
I hope. 
Until you could extract, it was.
You’re going to tell me the only thing that differenciated EVE from other games was the Skill System? If that’s so it wasn’t very unique to begin with.
Nope, Im going to tell you that the only thing that made EvE’s skills different from other RPG games is the fact you can rearrange your skills at a whim (and a payment). That and paying to be able to accrue SP without playing.
Its probably important to remember that the reason that both WoW and EvE had/have a thing referred to as a Character Sheet is the connections to old style RPGs, again it would be very rare to switch skills around. I think Cyberpunk and Shadowrun do it, thats about it and they do it with Skill Chips (like learning Kung Fu in the Matrix). Thing is, skill chipping was never better than actually learning the skill.
Eh Im off on a tangerine dream.
Long and short is: its not been anything but abstract for some time.
You can reassign skills in many other games. EVE isn’t unique in that way. It might have been once but is no longer the case.
I’ve never played WoW so I couldn’t say, but again: switching skills around isn’t a novelty anymore, lots of games do that now.
They’re not the only two other games that do it but only examples I have are offline games so not sure if they’re valid in this discussion. Anyway, skill swapping isn’t proper to EVE only.
Thats exactly what I said.
Yes Im talking about TTRPGs.
And I said you can rearrange skills in other RPGs as well, EVE is no longer unique in that sense.
Yes, and if you look closely you’ll see my statement is in the past tense. Meaning it was but is not now.
I think we agree on that.
Sorry, got one-track-mind for sec.
NP, all cool
As others said. P2W by definition is paying to get advantage over other players. Any advantage no matter how big. And it doesn’t matter if you can get this advantage normally in game by playing and effort or not.
It doesn’t matter that you cannot use this advantage to your benefit because you suck or because you choose wrong “area of specialization” to put this advantage into.
You are buying advantage. There is no difference between item (aka ship) and levelboost (aka skillpoints). In both cases you are getting advantage over other players because this is multiplayer game and the competition isn’t limited to PvP. One can compete in PvE content as well.
You might not see it right now because the game is running for 20 years and players have established characters and most of us have characters capable of doing everything so we don’t even need to buy any of this. But imagine that there would be server wipe and all players started clean. Would you see selling SP in same way? That 1milion SP you get is essentially a difference between whether you can do level 3 missions at day 1 or not. It allows player to instantly jump into content that others will have to skill for weeks to be able to do (solo at least).
I wonder, by your arguments. What wouldn’t be P2W in your eyes? Your arguments apply to pretty much everything that CCP can sell to player. CCP selling Molok? No problem, ship itself doesn’t make you “win” you still need SP, player skill and support from other players to use it right? Officier modules? Same. Still not going to let you win 
.
Can’t you really see it?
That’s the thing that gets me. On the one hand they’re mad at CCP for selling SP and ships but on the other hand they say it wouldn’t make a difference because it’s in-game experience that counts more than SP. So, what are they mad about? That CCP makes a little money?
I guess they’re jealous that new players don’t have to grind for SP like they had to.
Your entitled to an opinion of course, but it would be better if you could back it up with reasoning.
If selling SP is P2W, then MCT is P2W, alt accounts are P2W, and Character Bazaar is P2W. And of course, you’re also implying that anyone who buys a few million SP can suddenly kick your ass, because he just paid to win.
It certainly could be, although as someone points out to you a couple posts later, you’re basically just trading one of EVE’s unique points for “the exact same thing everyone else does”.
You’re also by default allowing that botting, AFKing, and people with nothing to do but grind all day every day will now have the SP advantage. Rather than people who fund the game.
Of course, CCP has already started down this road with the AIR Careers program. It’s possible for EVE to keep the “train over time” aspect and still add “achievement” based SP awards.
No, that’s what a lot of people have distorted “P2W” to mean. P2W originally meant being able to pay cash for things that gave a decided advantage, that were not available to anyone who didn’t pay cash. Yes, ‘gold’ ammo is an example if it’s only available for RL cash.
As soon as you start selling gold ammo for in-game currency (as World of Tanks did), it stops becoming P2W. But the “anti-P2W” people in World of Tanks still call premium ammo P2W anyway.
By your definition, Omega is P2W, Plex is P2W, multi accounts and MCT are P2W. So then EVE is P2W and always has been. In which case selling SP is no different.
If something’s available in-game to any player for in-game currency, it’s silly to start calling it P2W because you can think of a theoretical situation where one specific player might have some small advantage over another specific player because of it.
Sorry, I missed the memo.
“knock on”… interesting, if cryptic, answer. Doesn’t answer my question but Maxine did it already.
The quality of the game is fine to me. In my view it’s more issues of content accessibility than esthetics or mechanics, even though a lot of mechanics prevent access to other parts of the game reserved to long-time players.
That’s why I’m not against CCP selling SP or ships in bundles. And aslo, because they’re a business.
Then clearly, selling Plex which you can trade for ISK, or MCT, or alt accounts etc. is P2W. Paying cash for ISK is a pretty solid advantage. Those are all sold advantages. That’s the point.
Either EVE is pretty much wall-to-wall P2W and always has been, or things like SP sales aren’t fundamentally different than things we’ve accepted for decades now.
Yes, that’s why it’s better to have sold SP now. Because EVE is declining, possibly severely, and it really can’t afford to wait around for the tiny niche of people who are willing to work past all the obstructions and unfairness and delays in order to reach some SP goal 2 years down the road.
Certainly it’s possible to construct an argument where you can say “if the game was reset today would you…”. But the game isn’t being reset today. It’s a game that’s been solid P2W from the start, it’s almost 20 years old, and it’s declining into irrelevance.
At this point in the game, selling SP may be in some abstract purist fashion “P2W”. That’s basically the wrong argument to chase, since EVE has been P2W from the start.
What I’m saying is that selling SP is a useful and practical adaptation to the state of EVE as it is, to the modern gaming market, and to CCP’s business needs. It provides useful benefits to new players and old that are inline with things EVE has always done.
Direct SP sales bypass plex that people usually buy and sell on the market for isk to buy injectors, this reduces the plex supply increasing plex price and is a negitive factor if you plex with isk as you have to pay the higher plex prices.
This also reduces the demand on injector’s which increases their price so both injector and plex prices rise which means that the sp that is offered online gets more appealing compared to injectors and becomes a cascading effect to the point where online sp deals will become a lot more cost effective than injectors over time, which leads to ever inflating plex price.
PLEX:
Injector:
The cost in isk to plex your account over the last 7 years was about 1.5b per month.
Current cost: 4.7m x 500 = 2.347b That is a 56% price increase this year alone.
