Jaguars would be for a beginner completely useles for quite a long time anyway. And if you are an Alpha and not Minmatar…are rifters pretty useless too. It would be good to state in that ad that there are usefull frigates in there. That would be smart. And the bad wording about slotnumbers has to vanish.
Not long ago i made a thread if players that currently like eve, play eve and such would start again.
Honestly, THAT advert, getting greeted with login boosters and dailies (yay)…
God, what is wrong with ccp.
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wait a minute, it it LITERALLY 2x slots on the hull? I thought it was just metaphor, more slots than rookie ship.
Most people are off the mark.
You shouldn’t be angry about the wording, you should be angry about the reason why they word it that way. Demanding they change the wording doesn’t help with anything, when the issue is what made them write this in the first place!
wow, politicians really messed people up. ccp is turning the game into a dumpster for stupids, you have it in front of your eyes and instead of being outraged about the actual meaning of this, there’s… well… nothing, actually.
ten years ago the game’s population would have errupted, because they saw through this ■■■■ and how it treats people like idiots. you guys are, in comparison, insulting to this game.
Get it: it’s a free2play game, and the casual, the instinct driven and the gratification seeking consumers are the new benchmark. You, who apparently aren’t like them and still playing, you aren’t. That train has passed and words are fooling you.
the whole game changed towards them over the years and you swallowed it, eating their constant marketting speak. the rest actually left long ago, because carebears supported the ■■■■ CCP was implementing.
And what do carebears and the f2p crowd have in common: they ruin great games!
there is no helping for you guys, i guess. in before some parrot unloading his drivel in here.
it’s not a metaphor! calling it that obfuscates what it really is!
it’s to make people who aren’t that smart, who get triggered by MOREMOREMORE, to pay CCP money! it’s a trick and “lesser minded” fall for it! they’re everywhere already and CCP keeps marketting towards them.
it’s amazing how people still believe this game is targetting and catering to smarter people. lol
good morning, and have a nice day, everyone. 
This is an animation made back in April 2006 about an unsuccessful, but yet disturbingly hilarious, attempt to defeat the dragon Onyxia from World of Warcraft.
I didn’t understand anything about that video…
Except that:
- this game isn’t really free to play, it’s more an unlimited trial
- there is nothing in the game that really caters to the kind of customer you describe
- and because of that, they are not a relevant player group, because they simply don’t last long enough in the game.
Nevertheless, the game looks more and more like it is targeted at exactly that kind of people.
And yes, many people left. Some came back, some don’t. However, The playerbase is more or less the same as it has been for years. There simply is no big influx of new players with a vastly different mindset. They don’t last in the game. What you do have, is a large amount of veterans who are just not as passionate as they were years ago. Maybe because they grow a lot older in average and have other important stuff to do besides Eve or just because they got tired of raging every time CCP fucks something up (probably every four to five weeks).
This is not therapy and neither a court. Reasons are not my primary concern, actions are. Rectify those first, then we can start talking about intentions and the right measures.
“Dots” are damage-over-time spells. DKP’s are equivalent to LP’s, but assigned by the FC at the end of the op.
The audio track shows an FC that micro-manages the group too much, and then completely flips out, screaming swearwords at the top of his lungs when they make a tiny mistake and try to “talk back” to him to explain it. It’s like taking a group of Alphas to try to kill a carrier, and then going full rage when they don’t succeed flawlessly.
The scenario happened in World of Warcraft, but has since become a meme for bad FC’ing and bad leadership in general.
[quote=“CowQueen_MMXII, post:47, topic:11717, full:true”]Except that:
- this game isn’t really free to play, it’s more an unlimited trial[/quote]
I think that’s something written mostly by bittervets and/or people who can’t bring themselves to admit they’re playing a F2P game.
if you call what an alpha can do “play”, maybe. but unless you enjoy t1 fitted cruisers very much, its as free as the double isk in jita.
yay, i can sum up a whole day’s time of posting in a single one.
Here goes!
It’s free to play. Whatever anyone make ups about it not being free to play doesn’t matter, because i can download the client, register an account and play for free. Forever.
Practise > Theory. Reality > Buzzwords and marketese.
The fact that i have to upgrade to unlock higher levels (to use WoW-speak) does not change that it’s free to play! Me not being locked out of most content doesn’t mean it’s not free to play. It is.
Everything else is just CCP and the parrotting players misleading everyone to conclusions which don’t actually matter when you look at the actual options provided:
i can download the client, register an account and play for free. Forever. That’s the very first thing that matters to those who want to play for free!
And you know that crowd, right? You remember the past, how other games developed and what it brings. WoW, as one example that’s still alive, is an exception and even WoW is bleeding, as far as i know.
CCP deliberately made the game significantly easier to cope with. They are protecting new players, who grow up protected from a significant part of the experie ces people grew up with for over a decade. They are being protected from their oen mistakes and harshly punished if they try anyway. (See also: suspect state and or GCC)
It doesn’t teach them anything, though. It shields them from the fact that they can and will ■■■■-up easily, in certain ways, and thus shields them from the idea that they need to imrpove. That’s the actual point: Making them happy, without feeling too inadequate to play the game. It’s necessary, so there can be targetted marketting selling them advantages for perceived inadequacies they can buy theirselves around of. (More slots, more damage, yaddayadda.)
What caters to these people is certain content and fleets! They explore, mine, run missions, play arcade shooting by joining pings, or RvB! This targets instant gratification, easy farming and crafters! Without needing to pay anything!
Nevertheless, the game looks more and more like it is targeted at exactly that kind of people.
It already does! For years! The reason, why you just don’t see it, is likely because you lack the necessary distance from the system you reside in, which is the game itself!
I can only explain it like this:
The phenomenon is universally observable, and i don’t know what the common term is. You can observe it in the social world as well, for example marriage counseling. Couples, or people with long-time-isues in general, need an outsider, because they’re soo deep stuck in their mess, that they lost all perspective about the whole thing.
Lost in details. Or: Not seeing the wood, because of all the trees.
This phenomenon drives whole civilizations forward, because there’s people who step outside the box, think about what’s inside the box, and how it works and then attempt to modify something inside the box, or attempt to add to the box itself.
CCP’s marketting does what it does; what every marketting team does. it sells you something and promises you that it’s worth it. CCP constantly tricks people with words and reasons, but never really talks about the long term consequences of what they do. Unless, of course, it’s good for marketting.
For the same reasons all members of CCP sound roughly the same in videos. They learn how to speak in front of the audience. They’re not Steve Jobs et al, of course, but you get the point. i hope.
The protecrion button is a prime example of how they sold you this significant change by only talking about what it does, or is supposed to be doing, on the surface. Protection, UI, retention rate. Perfect consumers and fanboys parrotting CCP’s words, without having an opinion of their own, help spreading the message.
The game got significantly “more accessible”, “easier”, or “simplified” or in other words “dumbed down” for the very target audience we speak of. Certain people left, other people accepted (with dislike) and others defend it. if there is no public outcry, CCP can go on. if there is, they go on anyway but pretend to listen. Sometimes they even ignore the rage until people start uneubbing because of it.
That’s politics and business, and CCP covers both.
And yes, many people left. Some came back, some don’t. However, The playerbase is more or less the same as it has been for years. There simply is no big influx of new players with a vastly different mindset.
No, this is not correct. You look at big chunks of new players, ignoring the constant, relevant influx over time, which sums up to a very big lump.
it wouldn’t be so bad, but nowadays people “grow up” as protectedsuspect state additionally nerfed new player’s curiosity with punishment (for them) equal to being CONCORDed. No undocking, otherwise you constantly get killed.
There also have been big chuncks of people joining and not all of them left again. There are constantly more people joining and they “grow up” in a significantly different environment compared to even five years ago.
There’s way more protection and hand holding. way more free stuff to make them happy right ag the beginning. a nullsec open to new playera promising a fun game of farming, crafting, arcade and relative high safety. highsec as uberprotecting environment where you will suffer severe punishment for things perfectly normal for over a decade!
Something that was easily accessible, exciting and simple for over a decade, has become something blocked by two psychological deterrents, and even if the new player goes through these, his punishment is suspect state: 15min of being forced to not play, otherwise he will get killed constantly!
But the parrots, who have no understanding of any of this, just keep on parrotting and spreading their delusions about how a safer game brings in new players, while all evidence points at the contrary! and they constantly move the goalposts, because all their nonsense never actually worked out as expected!
Please believe me: it is much, much worse than you think! And it’s amazing for me to be able to watch this box devolve slowly into so ething that will either crash and burn, or transcend i to something completely different. There’s still the promised new space coming and the game hasn’t fully transitioned into it’s new form yet.
Disclaimer: i have a life 
, but i lack a different hobby that’s equally demanding and interesting like watching this game - and it’s people - evolve. I don’t like playing games, rarely watch movies and don’t watch TV at all. Complex systems like EVE are far more fun, and actually real!, than all this fake and boring stuff out there.
Thus i’m passionate. Quite a bit. 
Have a nice day; I’ve got a schedule to keep. Sorry for mistakes, typing on mobile.
Cat Tax
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of the above post.
It’s the same thing I kept telling everyone for the past few years. Just with less insults.
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Reminds me of the ads I used to see for Star Trek Online telling me I would get a “free torpedo launcher!” if I signed up now. Every ship in that game comes with a torpedo launcher…
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If that is true then “golden ammo” is here.
“Gold Ammo” is ammo that you can only get by paying real money for it.
There’s nothing here you can’t get with ISK. (sure, the PLEX someone needs to pay for, at some point. But it’s on the market)
Sure, for 4,99 I’ll get a Rifter with 8H, 6M, 6L. Right? I paid for a certain advantage over other players with my RL cash. Now it’s not about experience, SPs etc. it’s all about my money and how much I’m willing to spend. The very core of the game = “all rules are the same for everybody” changed. Back in 2013 when I was starting, such thing would cause riots, now nobody even matter or care.
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hmm im not sure if thats how it really works i think thats just the wording
ive never heard of a rifter with that kind of slot layout
Me too, but I won’t pay 5 bucks to find out.
From the viewpoint of an Omega account, an Alpha is severely limited in a way that doesn’t allow normal gameplay. In many regards it has less options than the old trial accounts. The only thing it definitely has more of is time.
With this argument, the shareware games from the nineties or each demo version of a game ever cerated would be “free to play”, simply because you have access to a part oft the game for free. A movie trailer doesn’t make a free movie and a cheese sample in the supermarket doesn’t make that cheese “free to eat”.
To consider a game “free to play” a considerable part of its content has to be accessible. I don’t really see that happening in Eve, you have access to a very limited number of ships (slightly over 20 of 260+, ~90 if you create one alpha of each faction) and modules and to a fraction of the existing skills (5m SP out of ~380m). And while this is theoretically not very limiting in what ativities you could take part in, it is in reality.
CCP may have removed some cumbersome game mechanics und added a little comfort here and there, but significantly easier? Just no, didn’t happen. Every artificial barrier dropping means that there is initially a bigger choice of actions, increasing the felt complexity for newer players.
The parts where the game actually have gotten easier, are rather limited.
I am sitting and participating in the German Help channel for years and at least for this part of the community I have quite a good impression about how many new players are actually coming in. The numbers are depressingly low. Most new characters are alts of some kind (returning players, people to scared to ask for help with their main, troll alts, people so dramatically bored or frustrated they just pretend to be new to get some sense of achievement in their lives…).
I clicked through maybe hundred employment histories yesterday (yes, this is not statistically relevant) from people in the German and English Help Channels and the average character age was easily over three years (and again: yes, I know, character age doesn’t necessarily mean much).
Another good indicator for player influx is the player count in those channels - in the weeks after the battle of B-R5 they have been almost three times as high as they peak now and still almost twice as high as when Alphas were introduced. And while I don’t really know how fast numbers went down again after those two incidents, I am pretty sure it was much faster the second time.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any official numbers regarding player retention, average account or character age or anything similar to clear this up.
Suspect doesn’t necessarily limit you from doing things, just other people are allowed to attack you freely. Criminal status does what you say, resulting in desctruction of any ship you enter high sec space with.
The fact that you can’t concordoken yourself anymore (unless you are really, really stupid) doesn’t make the game much safer. I agree with the rest of your statement, though. For some reason player count was highest when high sec was a much more dangerous place and ganking was more common and much easier (of course, this may all be conincidental).
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uh, no. you get 2 rifters. (for minmatar)
Which have more slots than corvettes.
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