I am glad to finally see eve adopting a Free 2 play model considering 14 days was never enough to explore the game while converting PLEX as a new currency. But I see a lot of flaws and issues in the way CCP has gone about these 2 new models. For starters, instead of limiting alphas to Skill point limitations, why not adopt a system in the following:
Limitations:
skill training lockouts after 10,000,000 SP, but take advantage of skill injectors, allowing new players to buy skill injectors the the eden store as they have the funds to continue training to adding new SP and level gains from skill injectors
Cannot Trade with other players
cannnot recieve or transfer isk to other players
cannot exceed the isk amount earned past 150,000,000 isk total per account
only 1 character slot per account
Can’t fly any T2 Ship, exhumers, mining barges, pirate faction ships, alpha should be limited to only fly T1 ships only
now as for PLEX, I really love the idea of PLEX being a currency system, however, this was a really missed opportunity and a bad idea of being able to just buy plex to get fast 2bil isk, not only does this discourage players to work for what you eat, but it in the long run will start discourage players from building anything. In the end what will eventually happen is that in 0.0 the winner of a null sec war will be determined whoever has the deepest pockets in the real world. On top of that, i think plex should really just be something you see in your wallet, and not on the market to buy or resell. PLEX needs to be placed back in the hands of CCP where CCP can regain control of the eve market prices by making PLEX a more personal commodity you use for adding gametime or to be used as to buy items you can only get from the new eden store. Then, have the store items untradeable in the eve market in order to drive multi transaction sales, so here is the new system i would adopt:
PLEX goes back to being redeemable to your account and transferable to a character training, giving 2 options at the character select screen to either redeem for gametime or to add to account bound wallet that can be accessed from any made character
All New Eden Store Items is removed from being tradable in the eve market, and only accessible through the new eden store and is added to the game’s interface
PLEX will remain obtainable to buy with isk and redeemable
CCP will set the PLEX prices based on the fluctuations of the eve market as needed
Because the point of Alphas is to allow someone to try out the game and get their feet wet, not to make it super easy for old players to create abusable, disposable, alt accounts for free which is basically what this would allow.
Also restricting trading, ISK transfers, and ISK earned are all silly and borderline impossible to enforce. Unless you’re going to flatly block Alphas from looting from cans or wrecks the only thing you’ve done there is prevent legitimate players from moving goods between accounts. For example an older player wanting to gift a random new-bro enough PLEX to sub his account or even just a better ship.
The old player looking to setup an alt will just drop a can full of Skill Injectors and whatever else the alt needs and let him “steal” it.
This is hilariously off base.
For a start we’ve been able to buy PLEX IRL and sell it in-game since like 2006 and it hasn’t caused any problems. You can’t just buy your way to victory in Null because no matter how much ISK you have someone still needs to build the Capital Fleet you want to purchase before you can buy it. Unless Goons have had a fire sale on Dreads, Titans, and Supers that I’ve missed then you still can’t buy Null victory with a fat IRL wallet.
All PLEX on the market is purchased by players. None of it is seeded by CCP. CCP have never controlled the prices, they just try to influence things indirectly through sales and specials.
The things you are asking for are not cross compatible.
Please please please ask questions and learn how the game works before posting ideas for how to improve it. This whole post is based on a game that does not exist because the things you seem to have assumed or been told are just flat wrong.
“For a start we’ve been able to buy PLEX IRL and sell it in-game since like 2006” uh no you haven’t, that feature only just started soon after AUR currency was introduced in 2012, hate to break it to you, trust me, i’m a 2009 toon, i know, we’ve been able to buy redeemable plex in-game, but being able to buy PLEX, put it in your cargo, then resell it was something they introduced in 2012 during incursions
That’s incorrect. I was off as well but PLEX was introduced LONG before Aurum in 2012. It dates to the middle of 2008 and was around when you say you started the game.
The ability to buy, sell, and re-sell PLEX is as old as the system itself (aka 2008-ish) and again, long predates the Incursion expansion.
Yes, you also sorta missed the point with Alpha Clones and your suggestions for them are self-contradictory and abusable.
If you go back and read through all the run up to the release of Alphas you’ll find that CCP had some pretty good reasons for restricting them in the ways they did, including limiting them to specific skills rather than a hard SP limit.
Alphas aren’t supposed to have a big impact on the game or be getting the full Eve experience. If they want that then they’re supposed to sub into the game.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Alpha’s make the game completely F2P… simply because you can continue to earn isk after your subscription lapses in order to buy plex.
You can use plex to become Omega and get full access to the game. You can earn plex as an alpha. Thus eve is completely free to play… the entire experience.
If you’re too lazy to grind isk to plex… than pay a sub. That’s what I do. But you don’t have to. You can absolutely play as an omega for free.
Confirming this and that CCP does not seed PLEX in the game outside of extremely rare exceptions.
I am a 2009 player myself (I came in just after the Apocrypha expansion) and I was one of those buying PLEX from CCP to sell in-game (because I wanted a decent starting wallet for PvP).
Also… if I recall correctly, PLEX was originally introduced to combat Real Money Trading. So its price was never capped and pretty much subject to the whims of the market (anyone remember when 30 days of gametime was 250 million ISK? ).
Cade is largely correct. Back in the day it was Game Time Codes that were bought and sold. I used them in 2008 to get a decent amount of seed money early on so I could use that ISK to get even more.
And the notion of price controls is just totally daft. Why would you do that?
Firstly 150m limit to accounts wouldn’t allow you to buy skill extractors currently smalls are being sold for 159m lowest
Secondly Plex prices are 100% player driven like 90% of the economy
Third how would ccp set Plex prices based on the market if Plex and Plex items becomes untradable? Based on what trit prices. Are you dumb?
Lastly you honestly sound like a 6month old player who doesn’t want to farm for Plex or pay for an account. I bet you cant stand that other players can omega on top of afford ships because you just want everything handed to you.
Gtc or game time codes have been around since before I started playing in 2008 they where 30$ for 1 and got you 2bill on average. the game hasn’t been broken yet why would Plex break it.
I also want to say that I’m not trying to be mean. I hope you enjoy the game and keep playing. But really look into things before you rage post. The current alpha system alows you to fly the vexor navy issue which is one of the best ratting ships currently sub capital. With one you can make 20m a tic or about 60-80m an hour. Save up and buy Plex get better skills and push for more cash per hour you’ll never have to pay for the game.
alphas not allowed to use heavy drones.
you CANT make 20m ticks with alphas. Unless you extremely lucky and every time you finish anomaly there is a faction spawn.
Are you the guy who did 250mil ticks in his super carrier running 10 supers at once Quant was talking about?
About the idea:
it’s terrible.
it would be cool to have more ships for alphas though(battle cruisers/pirate faction frigates maybe).
Maybe allow them to “swap” to different faction? Maybe some kind of certificate that can be bought with ISK from factions that will allow players to train and fly other faction ships and pirate faction up to frigates or smth.
An alpha just needs to earn enough isk to become an omega… then they can buy plex and use whatever ships they want.
There are several ways an alpha can do this. They are often time consuming and annoying… but if you don’t want that grind then pay some real money to CCP and you don’t have to. But it’s far from impossible. I have a side alpha account I use for station trading. I seeded it with a billion isk in April… but you can easily imagine an alpha spending a month or two running exploration sites to get the same initial stake. I log in less than once a week to adjust orders… it’s a very passive account… and it’s over 4 billion in “liquidation value” at the moment (if I cancelled orders and sold inventory to existing buy orders). So… 4.5 months or so for 3b in profit with little actual effort. And I’m lazy about it and not particularly skilled with the market.
You can make isk to plex. Plexing gives you everything the game has to offer. I don’t see a problem with leaving that as it is. If you don’t want to pay… then grind.
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