Why do people keep insisting that because you can’t be caught, or it’s very hard to be caught, that something is “legal”?
You are correct that running multiple machines is nearly impossible to catch (because of cyber-cafes, Dorm rooms, LAN parties, and siblings), but that doesn’t make it within the terms of the EULA.
The EULA doesn’t limit computers (the launcher does this technically) it limits that one person can only use one account at a time, unless they subscribe every account they are using.
You may establish more than one Account for each copy of the Software licensed. You are however not allowed to play EVE by using more than one Account at the same time, unless you pay a subscription fee for each of the Accounts you intend to use for that purpose.
The EULA is a legal restriction, not a technical one. Sure, there is a philosophical argument that could be made if one should have unenforceable laws, but that doesn’t change the fact that the EULA clearly states that one person can only play one account at a time, regardless of number of computers, unless they subscribe all of them.
EULAs aren’t law so aren’t “legal” restrictions, that being said, it never mentions any limitation on the number of physical machines you own, because its impossible to enforce, CCP already knows this, its why multiple alphas in VM’s work, they can only check for another instance of EVE on the same machine and act accordingly, they are fully aware of how people will avoid the limitation but they are also painfully aware of how impossible it is to enforce, they leave the clause there so that they can ban players who think its smart to run 60 alphas from the same IP etc
As much as I hate the fact, EULAs are legally enforceable contracts in most jurisdictions. So, although ELUAs are not “laws” they do fall in the realm of “legal”. (Things handled by lawyers.) But if we call it “legal” or not is not the point.
You said, regarding Alphas:
Having multiple machines active isn’t against the EULA at all, the limitation is per instance of a PC
This is 100% not true, it is completely against the EULA as the EULA clearly says:
You are however not allowed to play EVE by using more than one Account at the same time, unless you pay a subscription fee for each of the Accounts you intend to use for that purpose.
You said regarding the EULA:
the limitation is per instance of a PC
This is also not true. The EULA limits accounts/person not instances/PC.
The launcher, not the EULA, does enforce a restriction of instances/PC. But, that doesn’t change what is in the EULA or what is or isn’t against the EULA.
By saying that it isn’t against the EULA or suggesting people do it because they can’t get caught is a violation of the ToS:
29: You will not encourage others to break these rules or any rules set forth in relation to EVE Online’s game service or web site.
We both agree that the rule is not really enforceable, but that doesn’t change it being a rule. And encouraging others to break a rule, is an offense you can be banned for. So, even if they can’t figure out that you are multi-boxing Alpha accounts and ban you for that, they can ban you for telling people to do it on the forums they own and control.
Point out a line that specifically states you cannot use more than 1 machine, because it doesn’t state it anywhere, you can read the lines you quoted how you want but its all in relation to a single machine, the limitations on running alpha accounts is enforced by the client and is only able to check the scope of the environment its run in, now you can claim what you like but as i’ve stated its impossible to enforce 1 alpha account per person, literally impossible, they can enforce 1 alpha per environment, which they do but outside of that scope they have no way of actually knowing its you controlling multiple machines or not, hence why the EULA doesn’t mention it, EULA’s also are not legally enforced, show me an actual legal case where a judge ruled in favour of an EULA, all the agreement does is allow CCP to terminate your account if they see fit, there is actually a clause that states they can do it for any reason they like, outside of hacking/disrupting the server there really isn’t any legal action they can take but those have actual laws behind them unlike the EULA which while a binding agreement, isn’t a legal agreement, namely because nobody under 18 can even sign a legal contract in the first place, but anyway, you do what you want to do, i’ll do what i want to do
lots of talk lol , you all forgeting Alphas are restricted to level of skills trained , so whatever ship / equip they can use itll never be as good as fully trained skilled Omega.
I cannot point out one line in the EULA where it says anything about one machine, because it’s not there. Which is my point! You are saying the limitation applies to what is on 1 environment, so my question to you is what line of the EULA says that?
The EULA says that “you” (a single person) can only use a single account at a time, unless you sub all the accounts. It makes no mention at all if this is on 1 machine, more than one machine, or a slew of VMs. You are the one adding to the meaning of the EULA, not me, by saying it’s limited to 1 machine, the EULA doesn’t make that limitation.
literally impossible
We agree, but that doesn’t change what is in the EULA.
There are technical limitations imposed in the loader, which hacking around is a detectable violation of the EULA, but the EULA imposes “legal” (for lack of a better word) non-technical rules that are expected to be followed regardless as to if they are enforceable.
“against the EULA” isn’t a question of “enforceable” it’s only a question of what the rules say. If it is enforceable or not has nothing to do with what is written. I don’t know how many times I can agree with you that it is not enforceable, and then your argument is “it’s not enforceable”. Stop saying that, it isn’t adding anything to the discussion. The question is what is written in the EULA. And no where does the EULA mention the machine. Because it isn’t an ECLA (End-Computer License Agreement). It is a User agreement, it doesn’t limit a computer, it limits a user.
BTW: The EULA also says you can’t let your brother play your account, which is also impossible for them to know unless you tell them.
@Emma_DiTron
I feel like explaining the definition of what a short-term gain is would be wasted on you. When those players have their 20m sp what is left? If everything you do in game revolved around cruisers and frigates, why bother? Vet or new player, it doesn’t matter if the way you play eve doesn’t demand a wider range of ships from you.
You say they’ll stay active to sell off skillpoints to remain active which literally has nothing to do with them having anything to gain out of staying active other than the 2-400m a month they might make depending on cost of injectors/plex/extractors. Not everyone knows of this or even considers this an option, and if everyone did turn to this we’d have a recurrence of a few months ago when it was suddenly not profitable for a short time. Then what?
The point is once those 20m sp in alpha skills are obtains there are going to be many people left with no reason to give CCP a dime. At which point they need to look into other ways of extracting money, which is why I pointed at one of their many options. This is not the direction any vet eve players wants to see this game go, and I’d have to imagine the majority of Dev’s as well considering in the past they were so adamant about never doing such a thing to this game. Both parties agreeing there were lines not to be crossed. So while adapt or die is very much the truth, once that line is crossed you may find the game killing itself by trying to adapt. Just look at the exodus caused by jump fatigue, needed, but it damn near killed us. Then compounded by the aegis sov changes, and these were mechanic changes! Not changes that directly effected how or how much money CCP got for playing.
You can play it off with an attempt to turn it into a joke, but you’re the joke here not being able to see how this can and likely will negatively impact the game we all play and supposedly love.
omega still has better skills
in my case i would be more likely to keep my main for pvp and train an alpha alt for pve
that way my main can live in lowsec not caring about sec status and standings
and my alt can just run the boring missions if i ever feel like doing them
it wouldnt make me unsub but it might encourage me to roll and alt
for which i would have to spend money to get it to the sp level i need
say it with me folks, “Criminals will obey the laws”.
seriously though at one point back in jan after alphas were released a CCP dev and mentioned that there was a plan being talking about even limiting omegas much like alphas because of “balance”, a few months later ive been unable to find that devblog so I assume someone figured out they were shooting themselves in the foot and deleted it.
the launcher doesn’t even keep you from having multiple accounts going if you do it right,
Likely because the game is not ready for single player-account right now. If they were to push something like that in it wouldn’t be tinfoil to say the game would be dead in a matter of weeks.
Some players who haven’t ventured out of their safe space may be able to have their fun with a single account so to them it sounds great, but to many this would spell the end. Players would sooner quit than have to adapt to only having 1 account over their “main,” trade alts, [super] cap pilots, cyno alts, indy, etc. As funny as it would be to see us going from ~30k active to a few hundred, there’s a reason they will likely never go through with this. There’s simply too much that would have to be changed to allow for it.
Players that come back to EVE but don’t pay for it will have more active skillpoints than new paying players in their first year of EVE. Seems to be a bit unbalanced to me.
I don’t see difference between old omega with 20 mil sp than non omega with 20 mil sp they are still more stronger that today alpha or new chars. Its normal that old players are stronger. This won’t affect this anyway. They just don’t need to pay.
Yes, it is normal that older players are stronger than newer players. But it is not normal that a returning player that does not pay a sub is still stronger than a “new” player paying a sub and almost A YEAR into the game. At least I can think of no other game, can you? Granted that EVEs passive skilling works a bit different than other games but still, that seems unbalanced to me.
Hey, thanks for playing EVE online and spending more than on a triple-A-game on your first six month while training the most basic skills needed for this game. Now you have the core skills and small/medium weapons up to a point to fly a (battle)cruiser without embarrassing yourself. But sorry, that freeloader over there played EVE a few years ago and will jump right into a battleship to show you how it is done. You lost your ship and have to grind for a new one? Well Mr. Returning Vet just extracted some skills he doesn’t need anyway and sold them for a few billions to stay afloat. But don’t worry; you will catch up soon like in six more months. Skill-wise at least, better buy some PLEX to catch up with the ISK. No? Not? Screw this? OK, we didn’t need paying newbies that much anyway…
If you don’t remember eve accounts won’t disappear like in most games. This stay same as i beginning of EVE. Older char has more SP and just need to pay to play. Now he just play and don’t pay.
This change totally nothing.
And remember one thing: You are paying for ability to play game in it’s full potential. Not for SP or the advantage over others. Time in game determine how good you are and even when that 20 mil old char will come back he sill had to spend (and pay) all that training time in game same as one year old one to get at his level.
If the returning old player has more SP than a one year old newbie, it can only be because the returning player, back when he was active, paid for more than one year. Most likely, the returning player paid for 100% of his training time, as opposed to the new player getting his first 5M SP for free and then subbing for the rest.
Chances are, the returning player has more than 20M SP and some of it is locked away. Thus, in term of “active SP per invested money”, the new player (20M active total, 5M for free, paid for 15M) is winning versus the returning player (20M active, paid for >20M) . True, the returning player is not paying anything right now, but he is also not gaining SP either since he is already capped, whereas the one year old subbed character is pulling ahead, or the new player can decide that he is happy with his 20M SP and stop paying as well, at which point he will have exactly the same power as the returning one, and pay nothing just like him.
As for the isk difference, a returning player built assets back when he was playing. A new player is starting from scratch. I’m not sure how that’s unfair. Surely we don’t want a “starter package” to help newbies be on the same footing as returning vets.
I somewhat agree with you both technically but players will judge that issue quite subjective. And EVE already has a reputation for being not worth starting because it is impossible to catch up without paying extra money. I don’t say this is particular true but even rumors shouldn’t be encouraged carelessly . And this isn’t only a nasty and recurring one but also pure marketing poison from my point of few.
Envy is a thing and paying for less than someone else has for free (no matter where that came from originally) fuels it. I don`t even think it is a problem that returning players have more skill points without paying than a newish player. I think the one year to catch up is a bit too much nowadays. MMOs have changed. When people stick to a game for a whole year and pay for it they want to feeling they achieved something. And that feeling will be much weaker when other get the same or even more just for showing up again. I will stick to EVE and I don’t care to much but that does not mean this wasn’t a valid point to think about. I am fine with increased skillpoints for returning alphas but I think the progression of omegas in their first year should be balanced against this change.
You can make ~2500 SP/Hr, which amounts to 60k SP per day, ~22M SP in a year. So that’s already more than an alpha will get. Plus, you’re not restricted as to where you are putting that SP, it can be in T2 ships, getting up to capitals (or somewhere on the way there), whatever you want.
An alpha at 20M will have the same spread out set of skills as every other alpha. One that is nowhere near as potent as an omega who focused on doing one, or a few, thing(s) well will have. So yes, after a year of omega time, you can feel like you have accomplished something. If you have set out to accomplish something and stuck to it, you will be better at it than all the free players regardless of how long they played the game.
Does it take a while as an omega to beat the best alpha possible, yes. But at the same time, 20M SP alphas will most likely not be the norm. Most free players are new ones which an omega will quickly pull ahead of (if only by virtue of training faster, but also probably by specializing better if they want to.) Especially for industry/mining, it is VERY fast to pull ahead of every alpha in the game.
Assets wise, that’s just life. Players who have played longer have more. If it were any other way, there would be little progression to the game.
