Sorry did I read between the lines and take theses quotes from Hellmar's blog correctly?

"Unless the MMO business changes radically, our virtual goods strategy for EVE Online will remain limited in scope and focus on vanity items"

"Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it. From a strategic perspective, we had to take these first steps because monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past"

I take from these that right now you wont, but in the future you might do 'pay to win'

And I'm meant to be grateful and applaud

Sorry did I read between the lines and take theses quotes from Hellmar's blog correctly?

"Unless the MMO business changes radically, our virtual goods strategy for EVE Online will remain limited in scope and focus on vanity items"

"Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it. From a strategic perspective, we had to take these first steps because monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past"

I take from these that right now you wont, but in the future you might do 'pay to win'

And I'm meant to be grateful and applaud

If the MMO market went completely away from subscriptions and went to item malls only, then CCP would be idiotic to not follow suit. The MMO market has not done this yet, so CCP is staying the course. Why is this an issue with so many people?

Or they just remove PLEX from the game. Then everyone, not just the new players, will have to pay to play. I can just imagine the crying then.

Or they just remove PLEX from the game. Then everyone, not just the new players, will have to pay to play. I can just imagine the crying then.

If the MMO market went completely away from subscriptions and went to item malls only, then CCP would be idiotic to not follow suit. The MMO market has not done this yet, so CCP is staying the course. Why is this an issue with so many people?

Removing subscription from the game would mean that they have to make a metric **** ton of money from microtransactions. The only way other games have done this is by doing pay to win.

Wll if they are losing money then what would the alternative be? Close up shop? Maybe charge a subscription for these forums? I'm sure many would pay

Increase subscription, stop developing stupid games on the funds eve bring in and should be spent on the further development of their flagship game maybe?

And you know for certain that EVE subscriptions are being used to fund WoD, not investors? And you really think it is fair to dictate that an MMO company not use it's revenue to develope new games? Better cancel Guild Wars 2, Star Wars TOR, Diablo 3, EQ Next, etc etc etc.

Removing subscription from the game would mean that they have to make a metric **** ton of money from microtransactions. The only way other games have done this is by doing pay to win.

What Hellmar is saying is that if the industry mostly goes that way (which it is) ccp will also do this. Which is what all the forum hurf durf and protests were about.

Of course company's invest revenue into side projects. But when more revenue is invested in these side projects then the main product there is something wrong, and the main product often pays the price.

For example which do you think Sony music spends most money on the new Beyonce album or Daddy Yankee album?

Of course company's invest revenue into side projects. But when more revenue is invested in these side projects then the main product there is something wrong, and the main product often pays the price.

For example which do you think Sony music spends most money on the new Beyonce album or Daddy Yankee album?

These forums are bad enough as it is.

Stop making **** up. Someone might actually take you seriously.

Mr Epeen

Apparently the only acceptable statements from CEO's are concrete promises that can never be violated under any circumstances.

And why not? It's completely reasonable to expect all corporations to be able to predict the future, tell you exactly what will work and what won't, promise their customers a blanket course of action irregardless of changing external factors, and than deliver their products on time, in exactly the form customers demand, at their price point, and still beat their competition.

How dare you admit the possibility of changing your plans, Hellmar, how dare you. :-P

Well if they are losing money then what would the alternative be? Close up shop? Maybe charge a subscription for these forums? I'm sure many would pay

Sorry did I read between the lines and take theses quotes from Hellmar's blog correctly?

"Unless the MMO business changes radically, our virtual goods strategy for EVE Online will remain limited in scope and focus on vanity items"

"Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it. From a strategic perspective, we had to take these first steps because monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past"

I take from these that right now you wont, but in the future you might do 'pay to win'

And I'm meant to be grateful and applaud

3) EVE will never be "pay to win" so long as the industry considers "pay to win" to be a poor business decision (which it is).

Look at it like this... If CCP ever decides to go P2W, EVE probably won't be recognizable as it is today. And it DEFINITELY won't after.

This is called selective copy pasting and creating rumours out of thin air :)

It would be nice to be able to play without paying CCP. They could get money from other sources.

im completely forgot that turbine has starting offering lvl capped characters in thier ingame cash store and that you can buy the best gear possible with rl cash.

oh thats right, they dont offer either of those. and yet their revenue from lotro has increased by something like 400% since the introduction of a cash store. f2p and cash stores do NOT mean pay 2 win, turbine has proven you can make a shitload of money from selling virtual clothes that have a different colour pattern, so long as the prices are reasonable. and yes they offer some convienence items like travel skills but nothing that gives anyone an advantage over someone who invests time in actually playing.

ccp should take some notes from turbine, they could learn a lot about how to run the nex store

I read the same lines and my immediate reaction was much the same as the OP. In one line he says we have no plans for anything but vanity items unless the industry undergoes drastic changes. However unquoted here was the scary part where he says the industry is changing from subscription based games. So in one place you give us what will cause you to change what is the current plan and then say later on that those conditions are close to being met???

Funny thing is I can no longer find the original of this document. I am still looking for it and when I do I will edit it and add the quote.

Found it and please read all of this I bolded the parts that make me concerned.
"
We also didnGÇÖt do enough to assure you that this wasnGÇÖt the beginning of a GÇ£pay to winGÇ¥ scenario in EVE. Let me be blunt: Unless the MMO business changes radically, our virtual goods strategy for EVE Online will remain limited in scope and focus on vanity items, or as we said after the CSM visit this summer: The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time.

Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it. From a strategic perspective, we had to take these first steps because monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past. The culture of online gaming is changing, just as the notion of digital ownership did with music. If we donGÇÖt evolve our technology, our game design and our revenue model, then we risk obsolescence, and we just canGÇÖt allow that to happen to EVE or to our community."

If we donGÇÖt evolve our technology, our game design and our revenue model, then we risk obsolescence, and we just canGÇÖt allow that to happen to EVE or to our community.

Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it.

So paying $70 for a monocle, or for any of the other overpriced Nex items makes my play experience better how exactly? Paying ridiculous prices for digital items is a game feature now?

Apparently the only acceptable statements from CEO's are concrete promises that can never be violated under any circumstances.

And why not? It's completely reasonable to expect all corporations to be able to predict the future, tell you exactly what will work and what won't, promise their customers a blanket course of action irregardless of changing external factors, and than deliver their products on time, in exactly the form customers demand, at their price point, and still beat their competition.

How dare you admit the possibility of changing your plans, Hellmar, how dare you. :-P

My point is that Incarna as a concept, if executed properly does actually have a lot of potential, even if the target of that potential is not the current player base.

Bread and Circuses the new old PR, seems to work.

Now we dare not criticise CCP or we will be called unpatriotic.

It worked for the Herman G+¦ering and it is working on the forums tool

uh basically if it becomes impossible to support the game via subscriptions they will go pay to win, just like LOTRO and all the other MMO's that started to fail, then they went pay 2 win

Guess you missed the post a few steps above you or you are just ignoring that post and want to continue speaking out of ignorance.
LOTRO is not Pay 2 win, their shop offer no items that give you any advantage over other people. Most of their items except for some store exclusive mounts and outfits can be purchased in the game using in-game money or crafted. The shop is pretty much there just for convience, for the players that can't be arsed to craft or simply forgot to stack up on health potions or power potions.
And CCP were go F2P then looking at Turbine and how they did it would be a good choice as their model is considered to be the best free to play model around just because it offers no advantages at all.

also, lotro never started to fail, on my server there had been a steady increase of players since the game launched in 2007 and many other servers reported the same thing. it went f2p because it worked so well with ddo (which was actually failing) that as a bussiness turbine couldnt ignore the idea of using the same model with lotro, which is more of a hybrid model than a purely f2p model

Guess you missed the post a few steps above you or you are just ignoring that post and want to continue speaking out of ignorance.
LOTRO is not Pay 2 win, their shop offer no items that give you any advantage over other people. Most of their items except for some store exclusive mounts and outfits can be purchased in the game using in-game money or crafted. The shop is pretty much there just for convience, for the players that can't be arsed to craft or simply forgot to stack up on health potions or power potions.
And CCP were go F2P then looking at Turbine and how they did it would be a good choice as their model is considered to be the best free to play model around just because it offers no advantages at all.

Sorry did I read between the lines and take theses quotes from Hellmar's blog correctly?

"Unless the MMO business changes radically, our virtual goods strategy for EVE Online will remain limited in scope and focus on vanity items"

"Though the introduction was clearly flawed, our plans for virtual goods are intended to make your playing experience better, not to disrupt it. From a strategic perspective, we had to take these first steps because monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past"

I take from these that right now you wont, but in the future you might do 'pay to win'

And I'm meant to be grateful and applaud

This is called selective copy pasting and creating rumours out of thin air :)

Which is basically what all the idiots on these forums, hell the entire internet, do all the time. Ignore them and move on.

Incarna is actually considered a prototype, the rendering engine that will ship with the MMO will be much more advanced.

As for buying ships in Eve Online with real-life money, how do you think I got my ships ? By grinding my butt off ? Hell no, I bought a few plex using real money, sold it at the market and used that money to buy my ships and fittings(which is how I got my outfits as well, I didn't use any Aurum for that). As long as it's a pre-existing ship then CCP can put them on the shop as much as they want as long as they are obtainable for the market as well using ISK. They can put reskins of a existing ship exclusivly on the cash shop for all I care as such a move would not bring any advantages to anyone.

Or they just remove PLEX from the game. Then everyone, not just the new players, will have to pay to play. I can just imagine the crying then.

There's nothing problematic or sneaky about what Hilmar said, it's just a statement of fact.

They have no plans for X now and for the foreseeable future.

Their plans may change in the future - they have to have that flexibility to survive.

If you think being able to buy any in-game item from the cash shop would not give anyone an advantage, you might want to learn how the EVE market works, and how hard it already is for miners to make isk... you are presenting people with a way to buy minerals, without having to mine, kill anything, or anything else. In EVE, because of our player driven economy, anything that bring any new items into the game has to be very carefully monitored. Right now the only way to get an item without minerals being SOMEWHERE in the history of it is the LP store, which has very high non-isk costs to purchase from.

Understand the systems you want so desperately yo alter before you try to have them altered.

There's nothing problematic or sneaky about what Hilmar said, it's just a statement of fact.

They have no plans for X now and for the foreseeable future.

Their plans may change in the future - they have to have that flexibility to survive.

Maybe so but that's not the topic now is it ?
The topic is pay 2 win and what you just posted has nothing to do with that.

If the MMO market went completely away from subscriptions and went to item malls only, then CCP would be idiotic to not follow suit. The MMO market has not done this yet, so CCP is staying the course. Why is this an issue with so many people?

Umm, thats exactly what it has to do with. If you can buy anything off the NEX that exists in game, you can refine it into free minerals... Thats pretty win for anyone who wants to build supercaps, and in order for it to sell any at all anyway, it will be cheaper than buying the mins with plex isk.

P2W would destroy the economy of EVE.

I'm not even going to address the fact that every eve player who enjoys pvp would end up quiting over it

Should i remind you of a year back statement that they have no plans for MT shop? Year passed, take a look at NeX.
Similar? No.
Same.

don't be a little child. RL is happens. RL is changing some time. People need to adapt. And no one can say for sure what will be years after.

If this is too difficult to you try to imagine that you will be in Eve, do the same stuff you are doing now, be in the same corp with the same people around 1-2 years after today? Can you say for sure it will be? Nope? Then why blame others for adapt?

don't be a little child. RL is happens. RL is changing some time. People need to adapt. And no one can say for sure what will be years after.

If this is too difficult to you try to imagine that you will be in Eve, do the same stuff you are doing now, be in the same corp with the same people around 1-2 years after today? Can you say for sure it will be? Nope? Then why blame others for adapt?

Go FREE to play already...

Flush out the wussies and replace them with other wussies.

Disagree on that. I would not play free2play game since its obvious pay2win game.
Subscription based is good. Without shops inside.

If EVE finally goes pay2win, I'd advise just quitting this idiotic genre already. CCP's been amazing at holding out on the F2P/Cash Shop pressure for so long, and implementing it as halfheartedly as they did. I don't hold any illusion that their sub-based system can last forever though. I think that's why they always give themselves an "out" in these statements, just in case clauses for when the MMO market goes entirely to the bottom.

The players keep enabling F2P with their shortsightedness and addiction. "Must keep playing ****** game! It'll get better if I just buy these cash potions!" You think that won't happen to EVE? One of the big features they talked about for station establishments was the potential to deal BOOSTERS. I'd imagine many of these could be sold for real money, and be better than the drugs in the game now.

Let's try and hold CCP to their promises. If they go pay2win, quit and mean it. If they improve the game, stay and maybe even buy some of their stupid monocles out of solidarity. Yes in my mind these are mutually exclusive outcomes.

That's not what that says at all. It simply says the company needs to strategically adapt a business model to the cultural and economical changes relating to the MMO industry. Key to this: introducing a micro-transaction model that has low impact but can be adapted in the future to replace a subscription based model if it was ever necessary.

Eve is already PAY to WIN.

I can PAY for a CHARACTER to WIN
I can PAY for PLEX to WIN


Eve already has a shop inside (NEX)


You are a bit late with your tears, a couple of YEARS late.

There are a few caveats to your conclusion. And I know, Milla, you're just trolling.

But, the caveats are, game altering items are available to anyone whether they use a CC or isk to purchase them. Character sales are a good thing for the game no matter who can or is willing to afford them. And still, anyone can purchase a character.

The current structure of MT in Eve, NeX excluded, is that these transactions are an amalgamation of the purchaser (player), CCP and the seller (player). The benefits purchased by the purchaser are also transmuted to CCP and the seller. Overall, it's beneficial to the game as a whole as much as MT can be beneficial to any game. Rather than a purely parasitic system of transactions whereby only the purchaser and CCP benefit, the third party benefits as well. If we have to have MT, and I don't think we're going to rid ourselves of it, this is probably the most balanced MT system out there. Lets hope that CCP continues it in this manner where MT is inclusive and beneficial to the entire playerbase rather than a parasitic system with rich people clubbing baby seals for sport.

PLEX IS game altering
Character farming and selling IS game altering

Remaps are NOT game altering
Fitting storage slots are NOT game altering

You don't mind the first two, yet you cry foul on the second two.

The mind boggles.

Apparently the only acceptable statements from CEO's are concrete promises that can never be violated under any circumstances.

And why not? It's completely reasonable to expect all corporations to be able to predict the future, tell you exactly what will work and what won't, promise their customers a blanket course of action irregardless of changing external factors, and than deliver their products on time, in exactly the form customers demand, at their price point, and still beat their competition.

How dare you admit the possibility of changing your plans, Hellmar, how dare you. :-P

As long as that kind of MT involves players on both sides of sale and acquisition without game mechanics changes to make players buy more stuff it might be acceptable.
PLEX is acceptable while i suspect CCP did game mechanics changes to try to make people buy more PLEXes. Just notice how your game-play changes once you start buying them. "Events" start to happen way more frequently. And please, don't try these "no experience" bluff. It's laughable and lousy excuse.

Bingo.

What I take from it is Hillmar saying "if it one day comes to a choice of keeping CCP and EVE alive by changing how we make money, or withering on the vine and letting it all die, we'll do what we have to to survive".

This thread is an example of how unreasonable and unrealistic customers (who are to narrow minded to understand anything other their their own point of view) can be, and why it's usually a good idea for companies to not pay much attention to them.

Bingo.


What I take from it is Hillmar saying "if it one day comes to a choice of keeping CCP and EVE alive by changing how we make money, or withering on the vine and letting it all die, we'll do what we have to to survive".

This thread is an example of how unreasonable and unrealistic customers (who are to narrow minded to understand anything other their their own point of view) can be, and why it's usually a good idea for companies to not pay much attention to them.

This thread discusses two separate issues. One, whether the CEO of CCP should say "will never happen" (which he shouldnt), but more importantly, Two: wheter a Free2play / MT model is the futrure of MMOs.

The last discussion is a worthy one, as there seems to be a perception within CCP that "The MMO industry is moving towards free2play / MT business models". I belive that opinion to be premature at best, and probably widely off the mark.

This thread discusses two separate issues. One, whether the CEO of CCP should say "will never happen" (which he shouldnt), but more importantly, Two: wheter a Free2play / MT model is the futrure of MMOs.

The last discussion is a worthy one, as there seems to be a perception within CCP that "The MMO industry is moving towards free2play / MT business models". I belive that opinion to be premature at best, and probably widely off the mark.

With regard to the bolded part: The problem is that CCP says "We have no plans to..." and players hear "CCP will never..."

I haven't seen any prevarication in any of the announcements in this or other similar threads. I've seen (many times) players inferring what they want to hear from CCP statements.

KB

monthly subscriptions are increasingly becoming a thing of the past

How about this for selective copy pasting creating rumours out of thin air?



www.wodnews.net/Home/tabid/41/ctl/ArticleView/mid/401/articleId/69/New-WoD-MMO-info-from-The-Grand-Masquerade.aspx




This quote ranks up there next to Bill Gates admitting that Vaccines and health care are used to reduce population :) Yes I can link that video with HIS words at the TED presentation. Actually, here it is :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEkPcoth8E

NCSoft has no problems with pay per expansion (they are not frequent and actually HAVE REAL STORY CONTENT) and pay for vanity/convience packs.

In fact they could even fund future Guild Wars and other titles.

I don't hear NCSoft complaining. I don't hear their customers complaining.

They also have no subscription.

Well, given your line of argument, you-¦re saying that the op is talking bull$%/, because the latter quote you-¦re using as comparisation is equally a bull/&(( rumor.

Both are true quotes :)

Both from the horses mouth itself.

Well given that there exist no technology on earth that can make a person sterile with a vaccination you are proven wrong.

Both are true quotes :)

Both from the horses mouth itself.

O RLY :) Guess they can't kill you either or make you autistic :)

Actually listen to what he says, he is very clear..

I did listen :)

Even look at the formula, and what he says, first thing he discusses is getting those values to ZERO. Then he discusses how using improved vaccines , health care and family health will REDUCE that value perhaps 10 .. 13% then it will rise up perhaps 1.x%

Much like Miilla, I take full advantage of letting others pay for my game time.

I also take full advantage of the fact that I can buy and sell characters.

But do I think either are right?

Absolutely not!

In a nutshell, I think characters should be bound to the acct that created them, plexes should be removed and GTCs should be only used for game time extensions and untradable.

Selling GTCs is, IMO, the largest source of RMT in the game and character sales are P2W.

Mr Epeen

To me its quite clear that Hilmar is trying to make amends and find a way to get back into the good graces of the community, while simultanously reckognizing that as a manager of a business he can't simply close his eyes to what is taking place on the market.

Fundementally however this MT movement is less the future of the market and more the result of repeated failures in understanding how the MMO market actually works by developers.

Lets start at the begining. World of Warcraft was and is a fluke... say it with me people. Every MMO developer since the success of Blizzards WOW has been trying to capture that same wide audiance, as a result the games have been dumbed down and often simply trying to re-create that formula. What developers have failed to realize is that this market doesn't actually exist. World of Warcraft is what is often refered to as an "oddity in the market", something that happens for which there is no formula, no marketing strategy or answer to. It just happened and its success can only be attributed to a trend that took flight.

The next game on that chopping block is Star Wars Old Republic. Like many MMO's before it they spent unheard of amounts of money in an effort to create a game for "the massess" with some false sense of security that this market actually exists. It doesn't, the people who play World of Warcraft will not quit WOW to start playing this game. The result is that SWOTR will end up initially drawing fair numbers as a novalty, than slowly declining and eventually landing where Hilmar see's the future of MMO's going, the MT market. That however is not the future, but rather the place MMO's go to survive an otherwise certain death. It is not a victory to have your game free to play with an MT store, it is how we identify a failure. Yes financially these games that fail to bring in subscriptions recover thanks to a smaller audiance who likes the game and is willing to shell out the extra cash to play it, but this market is not the one they are after. Hence while surviving in this economy through MT after a failed attempt at being a subscription is hailed a victory and somehow attributed to being a future, it remains nothing more than the only option for a game developers game when they fail to meet their economic targets.

Saying MT is the future of MMO's is a traggic and very misguided notion. If your game is forced to be a MT game because you failed to successfully manage it as a subscription game, you have not succeeded, you have failed.

Its true that some games start out as MT games and they are very successful, but they are successful because they set that as a target, its a game designed for that audiance and its mechanics are built on MT as a foundation. There are a few exceptions but exceptions like Dungeons and Dragons Online are exceptions because even if they where not designed to be MT games intentionally they inadvertanly function well on that system. Its a coincidental design that worked.

Eve does not work with MT for one key reason that will never change. Its audiance doesn't like them. When CCP added the MT market they effectively added a feature to the game that Eve players see as insulting, its a feature for an entirely different market that does not exist within Eve. At this point however Eve players are indifferent because the MT market is meaningless, it doesn't affect anything. If the MT market ever does actually offer "pay to win items", the Eve community response will be definitively hostile. Think about it. The mere mention, that sometime, it might be possible that maybe they might add some gold ammo like items (even if it was just a rumor) all hell broke loose. What happens if they actually pull the trigger on it?

MT in Eve is a door that is forever closed. Openning it would be the equivilant of putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger, I hope Hilmar and CCP's investors are smart enough to realize that. If the game fails as a subscription based game, it has failed. There is no "alternative methods" on which this game can succeed.

I wasnt aware the industry in fact thought that for all the FTP or going FTP games that I know that have XP boosters and in game affecting items that have done better after they put that in than they did before (DDO for example)

Or they just remove PLEX from the game. Then everyone, not just the new players, will have to pay to play. I can just imagine the crying then.

It would have been better if this had come from CCP Hellmar.

Post with your main


Slade

This is my main :) ... Aren't i good looking!

O RLY :) Guess they can't kill you either or make you autistic :)

MT as someone said here is first sign of failure and F2P is admittance of a failure. Attempts to implement MT in subscription based game only make it fail faster.