Purists like to argue that anything other than grind is somehow unfair, unbalanced, and allows advantage that would not otherwise exist. Hmm. Let’s look at those claims…
Consider Jack and Joe…who both started Eve on the same day. Jack mines for 10 hours a day. Joe mines for 5 hours a day. That’s the most either can manage. Straight away, from day 1, Jack has an advantage. He has more grind time, and is bringing in twice as much ISK as Joe. He can pay for skills books quicker, and he’ll have enough ISK for a shiny Paladin in half the time Joe takes.
Isn’t that already an ‘unfair advantage’ ?
Let’s say that Joe decides to buy PLEX and convert to ISK, in such a manner that half his income is from mining grind and half is from bought PLEX. He now has the exact same income as Jack. Surely all is now fair.
‘But he’s not doing the grind’…I hear some say. No, but then why do people notice inequality in money but not notice inequality in time ?
If someone does no mining or grind at all and brings in the same amount of ISK as Jack and Joe solely from bought PLEX…is that ‘unfair’ ? No. It is purely a swap of money for time.
So…at what stage along the way does any of this become the dreaded ‘pay to win’ ? I’ve seen some claim that it is a point where one can buy something with cash that one cannot gain via grind. Such examples are few and far between…yet I consistently see people speak as though any bringing of cash into Eve is ‘pay to win’.
You can’t buy game experience, which matters much more in EvE than other games. There is no “golden ammo” (yet), and all ship classes are balanced according to a “rock-paper-scissor scheme”. These are the core arguments.
This is like beating a dead horse imo. At first there was extreme scepticism toward “pay to win”, but developers have managed to struck a fine balance across genres and what not. Some have struck better balance than others tho.
How much experience do you need to click the key your FC tells you to click? Or target the same asteroids you’ve been targeting for the last five years? Or blow up the same ships in the same missions that you’ve already blown up a thousand times before?
You people need to get over the fantasy that EVE requires actual thought or skill to play.
If i may add, EVE online is more pay to win after the Alpha/Omega concept was introduced. And out of most popular games if you were to do a tierlist, EVE online would probably be near the top because of this Alpha/Omega concept. Thats all. Wait just one more thing. The concept was introduced in 2016 and online players on the server has been in a steady decline since. I wonder if CCP will wake up to this fact and put in a serious effort to figure out why. But maybe theyve already had a quick meeting and agreed the decline is because the game is old, and that players are unsophisticated and not interested in EVE onlines very sophisitacted game (Its not that sophisticated, maybe in 2003 it was, but there are much more sophisticated games out there today that are also more popular). But the truth is that CCP is just not delivering quality content. I dont think they will ever admit that and hold anyone accountable. They just take the money and the players for granted. Its a shame really. But this is why we have capitalism. So that careless and incompetent ppl go out of business and better ones take their place. Am i right?
No you aren’t. The OP was carefully worded. If you didn’t grasp that…that’s another matter. The whole purpose is to get people to say what P2W actually is…or isn’t. Because the definition seems to vary according to who is arguing or what point is being argued.
I’ve seen this upside down reasoning before. Eve is not a free game with a ‘pay to win’ add-on. It is a subscription game with a rightly limited free trial add-on.
Oh come off it. That same 99% know full well that 99% of the time ‘free to play’ means you are getting a trial version, no different to the way ‘free to watch’ ( but give the provider your credit card details ) means a trial period. There is no free lunch. Even on basic Youtube you ‘pay’ by being made to watch endless adverts.
Only last night I watched the first 2 episodes of some series for ‘free’…and then on episode 3 comes the paywall.
So if EVE Online Alpha/Omega concept is just a trial version why do they market it as free to play and not a trial version?
Cant start a healthy relationship with customer when you promise FREE TO PLAY and then within 30 seconds of playing the game, the player realizes it actually costs $10-20 per month to play most of the game.
Just be honest. Stop calling it free to play and stop treating players like they are stupid?
Because you can START playing it for free. As I did myself, before moving to Omega after a week or so. See, there’s no need for any complex semantic paradoxes.
You are just playing very silly semantics. You can ‘play’ Eve as an Alpha, so the advert is totally accurate. The very first thing any Alpha sees is a screen pointing out Omega. My Alpha accounts are reminded of it every day. Anyone who does not notice this probably is stupid.
If im playing silly semantics then CCP is. They are the ones calling it free to play and then when criticized they are like its just a trial are you stupid?
