I'd have overlooked this thread if you suggested a discount for the first few months, or given a like... but free to play...?

you must be new here.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen to the community.... so many ways it could go. Would be cool to see a ton of people in space though.

> right now

EVE has been in this "odd place" since it was in beta, as far as I know. this statement you made is obviously false and is invalid.



did you just seriously compare EVE to League of Legends and then contradict yourself?!
if you know that EVE is not like LOL, then why did you even think about comparing the two??

also, LOL.



and those things are related because...?



and whether or not they choose to spend the money and subscribe is entirely their choice and you don't get to make that decision for them.

I would kindly ask that this thread be locked for being obsolete.

I think you should encourage them to log in, form a fleet and go do a different career path as a fleet each time.

For example:

Mining Ops - Everyone searches nearby Asteroid Belts and Ore Anomalies in system to bookmark and mine a specific Ore such as Golden Omber, then do Fleet Mining with Hauling back to station until Ore is depleted, then Reprocess the Ore and stockpile the Minerals.

Mission Ops - Everyone picks a different Corp in same system, pulls one mission offer from an Agent which the fleet completes, loots, salvages and stockpiles everything in station with the Minerals.

Exploration Ops - Fleet runs a few different types of sites, such as Hacking, Combat, DED, etc. Gathers up all loot and salvage at each site to add with stockpile in station.

Market Ops - Research various Regional Markets to find highest Quick Sell ISK value for the Ore, Mineral, Loot and Salvage stockpiled in station, transport items to those areas, sell and divide ISK between Fleet members.

PvP Ops - Fleet up with cheap combat fits and go do a low sec roam, jump on first player ship encountered. Continue until Fleet get's a kill.

Just a few ideas, all of which can be done with brand new characters. The Mining, Mission, Exploration and Market Ops will help fund the PvP Ops, plus it gives you a quick tour of just a few of the different paths available in this game. The main thing is to log in and do stuff together.

Good luck and above all else, have fun.


DMC

If you want Eve free to play for new players then you need to offer an alternative source of revenue for CCP. For the development teams - this is their job. They expect to get paid.

For experienced players, you can already use in game currency to pay your subscription. I don't bother - the cost per day for my subscriptions is less then a cup of coffee.

If Eve is the right game for you, I don't think the price will be a deterrent. If it isn't - free won't help.

There have been a few topics lately about what it's like to be a new player, so I made a trial account recently and messed around on it for the free month. I ended up making about 3bil ISK over the course of the month, killing a few people, stealing some stuff from others in hisec and going suspect, and generally having a fun time and exploring some lower level content I hadn't really done before, in addition to checking out the opportunities system. By the end of the month I was in a Gila with ok skills, and had enough liquid ISK to PLEX my account for 2 months.

It would probably take about 2 months to become well skilled at a cruiser. And cruisers are the best class of ship in the game IMHO. Or a lot of fun could be had as a newb by training into an Astero real quick and preying on other data/relic runners in low/null/wh. Certainly no reason to afk in station, training for the first month. Dunno why your friends thought they should do that. Or why you didn't set them straight.

I don't. I want CCP to have a quality product that attracts players that want a quality game to stick around with for a good long while. A game that keeps CCP employees employed for many years to come. F2P's just produce garbage that players hop from one game to another due to the poor quality of them all. F2P games are all made for the few fat whales that spend tens of thousands of dollars each, not for the general player-base.
So, the game just isn't for everyone, and CCP recognizes that.

Funnily enough, CCP makes more money off the people who play Gǣfor freeGǥ than from those that subscribeGǪ

GǪand yet they've made more money off of you than if you had.

No, just ignorant of how the system works.

Through your reliance on the most expensive method, by far, to maintain your subscription.

Your friends don't sound particularly sophisticated, even if they are "great gamers". I'd suggest getting new ones.

If someone has a problem with sub games then that pretty much means that IF the game would be f2p they'd have a problem with paying for anything, meaning they'd be freeloaders. Explain to us why CCP should change the game and us, the current players accept these changes, so that some freeloaders can play our game?

Sounds like they need to get over themselves. Most of what you listed means jack and **** as it relates to EvE. This isn't Star Trek and Star Wars. EvE is a long time investment. They need to get over their instant gratification bullshit. They also seem to have no idea about the game. Perhaps you aren't teaching them correctly. They can jump right in day one.

It's all about attitude. I bet most of us have limited time, but you don't see us throwing a tantrum.

Also. They don't want to pay, they don't need to play.

Why are you not simply be a good friend and give them the answers to their questions? You should have enough input now to do so, right?

From what I'm reading it seems you want Eve to be free to play so your friends who play CoD and LoL can play with you without crying because the trailers have more action then they'll see for a while in the game.

Yet here you are, still ignorant of how Eve and the Plex works, after all those years.

OP you're ignoring the most important fact about EVE. It's not a casual game, it's a hobby. It's a hobby for adults who like risk and reward, and also internet spaceships. It's sort of the last great MMO, not yet turned into a theme park.

The thing with free to play games is you get in, get your quick fix and get out. Kinda like sex without foreplay. Great to satisfy your itch, but some crave more. And the answer is EVE.

Furthermore, EVE isn't a game focused on gameplay as much as social interaction. You value the people you meet more than the amount of SP in your head. I would have equally as fun in a Rifter as I would in a Naglfar if I was flying with the right group of people.

So if they're not interested in joining a group and forming new friendships and they just care about their rank and K/D ratio then EVE isn't for them.

A few microtransaction ideas to help the OP's suggestion along:

• hats
• the obligatory gold Raven
• entosis links run on Aurum
• Concord protection goes to the highest bidder
• rename yourself or others with PLEX
• hats

This would conflict with what EVE is all about though. Remember the butterfly effect trailer? Everyone helps shape the history and events of New Eden, sometimes unknowingly. The decisions you make in EVE will ripple one way or another. And that's one of the reasons we all love EVE so much. Actions have consequences. No "contained" gameplay or safe areas, be who you want to be, be it a lone wolf, a pirate, a great leader etc.. People will (hopefully) remember your name for good or bad.

If you're desperate and have really ruined your name and corp history you can always start fresh and create a new account. Then pray no one recognizes your voice on comms etc.

What kind of elite, top 5 percentile gamer forgets where F1 is on their keyboard? I guess standards are much lower in other games.

I'm going to play demons avocado here and I'm not saying I think eve should be free to play or that a agree with that concept but....

Some of the most successful of games out now are f2p and NOT p2w and i bet they make way more bank than CCP.
Non-p2w micro transactions are def the way to go but ATM CCP are terrible at them so that wouldn't work for eve.

$68.6m revenue; $11m pre-tax profit for 2014.

Yeah, the blue Stratios looks cool. Other than that, meh.

Gallente with it's retro shapes could do with some custom skins with shark mouth and lady luck decals. Piratey types would probably dig that. Maybe an olive drab + aluminum skin to further mimic old bombers for ships like the Algos. Put a shark mouth up near the front. And a sexy lady in place of the Gallente logo. Also, I'm sure more police variants would sell well. And maybe a two tone skin mimicking 30s-40s hotrods ... burgundy top and grey bottom with chrome trim for the Domi or something.

Or some more colorful homeworld-ish skins for Minmatar like so. Or some skins for Ishukone ships like the Eagle that replace the horrible Ishukone fade with gold feather-like decals like the ones seen on this skin. Though something like that should have been the stock Ishukone skin IMHO. Full-body fades are just ugly. So is camouflage. Angels ships would look cool reverted back to their solid dark color, but with bold graphic angular stripes applied with white paint in a messy fashion, that somewhat mimic the faction's logo.

For goodness sakes why don't you just go play, or freaking create yourself, this different, perfect game rather than try to change this one.

Seriously, wtf?

No really, why the hell are you even still playing as this game is so far from the game you wish it to be?

Well I hope you have someone else in charge of the economics because your wild expectations of revenue generated by MMO games will leave you sorely disappointed when reality sets in.

Yet CCP are still in business, and they appear to be relatively happy with the money that they make.
CCP are well aware of this, I believe the general consensus amongst CCP staff is that they're not willing to "sell out" and change the nature of Eve in order to compete in the more mainstream market.

Niche products, they're a thing.

And they should be, they are making a good living. Why risk that on some get-rich-quick fad? Iceland want's long-term jobs, specialized jobs that don't come easy for a small country. CCP is basically an indie game company, no big investors or corporate publishing office telling them what to do and how to please those investors with quick money before a shutdown and move to some other job... which could mean ex-employees leaving Iceland to do so. They seem to like what they do just for the sake of doing it, sets them apart from most game companies of today.

No they do not - that equates to 4.5 billion USD and 11.6 billion USD annually. Not even close. You overstated these amounts by about 1,800%.

But don't take my word for it:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-20-league-of-legends-2013-revenue-topped-USD600m-report

Highest revenue game was just shy of 1 billion USD annually.

Edit: additional data - worldwide MMO market for 2014 only 8 billion USD (every MMO). LoL did move to top but still just under 1 billion USD.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/23/league-of-legends-tops-mmo-revenue-list-hearthstone-no-10/

Yeah, the question shouldn't be whether it would be possible, but whether it would be desirable or successful.

your f2p idea is just sh!t, its what happens to failed mmo's, your logic is flawed "your friends have money to spend but dont want to spend on a subscription" everything you have described is a pretty clear and perfect example of a game thats not right for your friends, you just refuse to accept it

Wait, no they shouldn't and no you don't.

Is that s subtle dig at CCP?

Also to answer your questions, yes it is possible. The better question is if it's a good idea (No).

If you worked for me and prioritized using as close to 100% of the hardware capabilities over making something that the niche customerbase wants in a final product, I would fire you.

The product tailored to your customer comes first, not maxing hardware just for the sake of it.

You do realize CCP has two offices in the US, one in China, one in Iceland, and one in the UK, right?

Not everyone works at a company's corporate headquarters

You completely missed my point. Players liked the POS fuel change, so who cares what impact it has on the servers? Again, you think about the benefit to the customer before you think about raw overhead of physical resources.

You can't make business decisions by thinking like an engineer/programmer (like you are).



The typical EVE player is the kind of person who would spend hours building model trains in their basement. They see EVE more as a hobby than a video game. They want a form of entertainment where they can work for something of their own choosing. They dislike instant gratification. They dislike someone being able to feel like they are unique and special simply because they finished a pre-set game mechanic. They want you to have to actually work for what you get.

You want to play for free? Great! Prove you can earn enough ISK to buy a PLEX every month. You can't prove you can earn that much in game? You don't deserve to play for free.

We see EVE as a truly unique game within the MMO universe and don't want it to turn into an easymode themepark spaceship game. I personally pay for three accounts every month. I want to see EVE keep going and not turn into WoW in space (as it would if the barrier to entry was easier/cheaper/etc). I'm happy contributing my $36/mo to CCP to help keep EVE up.

For the most part, yes. They have missed the mark with a few changes, but have done a great job.

EVE isn't a small game though. They have to be able to handle a massive battle including 7000 people in the same system of the course of 20 hours. If 200 people decide to jump bridge five systems away, the server cluster needs to be able to handle it on the fly.

My issue with what you said (as an ex-programmer now in finance) is that you started with "this is what they are doing wrong". You didn't start by trying to understand what the EVE player base wants.

Start with the goal. You started this thread by saying CCP should do something because other MMOs do it. You didn't start by trying to get what the typical EVE players want.

You seem to have a very hybrid rare interpretation of facts.

Have you played for ten years or been on an extended break?

You couch yourself as a gaming insider but seem to understand only the engineering side of game design forgetting market analysis and/or customer service. You certainly have no concept of the size of the marketplace as you think LoL generates 11.6 billion USD revenue per year.

Your little thought experiment may interest you as a theory; but, again, I implore you to move on and begin creating this magnificent MMO of your dreams - just leave EVE the hell alone.

Yeah, what's a few billion? Also, you are throwing all the MOBA's in with the classic MMORPG.

So you want to make EVE into a MOBA? Change the core game that one can spend months and years building something or gaining territory or whatever - hello sandbox - into a series of half-hour, guided capture the flag, encounters?

Why?

I try to understand people and their motivations (I get paid to do it everyday), but I honestly don't know what to make of your ramblings.

Oh and this little nugget from the end of the article certainly means CCP should jump all over this opportunity. <---- FYI - sarcasm.

"While gamers are spending a ton on the top MOBAs, itGÇÖs unlikely that the market can support five or six games beyond the top-tier earners."

Can we now agree that this is not what will improve EVE?

Wut? I gotta say here it's not me lacking in reading and listening to decide for myself, your posts just show a horrible knowledge about CCP and this game. You should apply your suggestion to yourself, and maybe one day come to a rational understanding on the topic of EVE & CCP in general, at least basic stuff.

Iceland, China, North America, and I think two in the UK. And they don't do all the work from their HQ. They have talent around the world.

You are not going to attract any new players to the game that's 12 years old and where access to piloting ships is time locked.

Why invest time skilling up to fly a Golem and other blingy top of the line or even the meta stuff, if the game might die any moment. Sure, we know it won't die spontaneously, but the newbro has no guarantee of that.

There is little trust that can be given to EVE.

There is little reason to start playing EvE now, outside of feeding your own curiosity. I've been here for almost 600days and I still can't fly T3Cs, only just trained up HAC and LOGI IV. Sure I could have gotten them sooner if I focused the training. But it's like "have sov or have fun". You either have fun exploring the innards of this game OR you chase everyone else, being part of a race you will never win.

You can't argue that "being PvP capable in a week old rifter" is an incentive to stay. It's merely an incentive to try out the game. With the span of 1 week how many newbros will find themselves in a situation where they are tackling something a rifter...? And apart from that, what else do they get to do apart from missions.

There is also the decade old argument about "instant gratification" or some BS, which seems as a biased concern coming solely from people who are worried that the time they invested will suddenly be largely devalued if other newer people didn't have to go through the same ****** "waiting game" ritual.

The only way of doing that is to not run missions since they have nothing to do with the story GÇö they're just a way to regulate how fast currency is injected into the in-game market. EVE is not a game about consuming a narrative; it's about creating one. Missions GÇö indeed anything involving NPCs GÇö are in every way utterly and completely irrelevant to this end.

The whole idea of F2P GÇö you know, the topic of the thread GÇö would, as would many of the ideas you've suggested, in particular everything you label as GÇ£clean slateGÇ¥. The rest simply don't have anything to do with the topic you've now swung towards since they don't address any kind of new-player concern.

It's about the same as it has always been, except that new players have far more information and guidance GÇö in and out of game GÇö than ever before.

By reading up on the game for, oh, 5 minutes before starting to play. It's fairly obvious by how player activity is given all the focus every time the game is mentioned, especially in the huge splashy stories that make an international media impact.

If these are the kinds of harmful ideas you come up with, and which you have taught them to come up with, they should probably ask for their money back. You keep throwing out all these ideas without any consideration of whether or not they work for the purpose ofGǪ well, anything, really, but definitely for the purpose of making EVE a better game.

The fundamental issue you seem to have missed is that EVE is a niche game. You also seem to have missed the fact that this isn't a bad thing.

Maybe you missed the answer: my play time does not affect how poorly thought out and out of place your ideas are.

You'd think that for how long that link has been Tippia's sig, CCP would of banned him if it actually was a keylogger...

This thread has now become one about Tippia's ego.

Please get back on topic.

Kind of hoping ISD just closes this thread.

OP is obviously one of these "legend in his own mind" types who thinks he's a genius but of course has never actually put his own chips down and bet on it.

F2P is a terrible idea, vast majority of the EVE community appears to agree, go find another dead horse to whip on.

yeah that sounds great lets just all recycle characters to make isk and whatever else we need free alts to do topkek

So there's this principle in EvE called Malcanis' Law...

Why? Is quantity better than quality?

At it's peak PCU has EvE ever been seen as a truly large game by most standards?

Malcanis's Law is based on observable human nature within the Eve universe, it applies especially to the Eve universe given the freedom of choice and action present within it that would get you permabanned elsewhere.

If it makes life easier for newbies then it makes life even easier for experienced players using new characters due to their pre-existing knowledge.

You're correct that some people actually try to help others, for many reasons, some do it for advantage, some do it to share their knowledge etc.

Out of interest I'd love to see which groups you consider as putting a lot of time and effort into helping new players.

Your list is more complete than I thought it would be, you included some that many leave out due to personal bias.

So you're telling me I could start 20 FTP alts, post them on all WHs nearby and have mindlessly easy intel and warpins?

I could start 20 FTP alts, train them into a prototype cloak and AFK camp the systems of anyone I don't like?

I could start 100 FTP PI alts and just rake in ISK?

No, that wouldn't be abused at all.

Problem i see here.....EvE is not an FPS, so your ideas are half ass backwards.

just 1 more comment here....if EvE became FtP, especially in the sense your making about new characters without thinking of the abuse that would occur....i think i also would leave the game, and take all my cousins and immediate family that play this game with me....and believe me together we might be considered a drop in the bucket, but our accounts tallied together and the yearly subs we do pay is a substantial amount in revenue that would be missed if I was not the only one that suddenly dropped and went some where else.

As one person said already...if your a troll, quit already you won....
If you honestly believe what your saying....well I think you need to quit EvE itself before you do any harm to it.

Influence map archive such as this. Who would leave out EVE Uni? unless they are not on some influence map.

Once again, when asked a direct question you pivot to another matter altogether.

There are multiple resources available to new players of which they can choose to avail themselves. A simple internet search leads to a plethora of options.

EVE was not designed to be a simple tower defense game. It is a game which requires thought, choices, strategy and a bit of learning. This games offers so many varied paths that it is unreasonable to expect to master them all in thirty to sixty days. To a certain type of gamer this is appealing because there is always more to learn and try. That is the gamer for which and by which EvE was created. Yes, EvE takes a modicum of effort to learn initially, but offers great rewards through the varied gameplay available long term.

I can personally run several trial accounts at the same time if I wanted to. I don't because I'm pretty sure CCP doesn't like that.


Having said that if you put such a restriction in the game to go free to play I would quit immediately and the other holdout boxers who managed to survive the repeater ban would quit too. Along with a lot of other people who only have two accounts.


This character has been dedicated to assisting newbros.

OK, lets do this then...and i would show how a 100 man multibox fleet could quickly wreck new players in a single day...becasue those characters would be considered new players....and before you mention IP bans and what all...i have literally 78 places to go for different IP's all within 3 hrs of me....not too mention public places. 1 day, and i would not be the only doing it in ibis, velator, reapers or what not to prove a point before walking out the door.....this is the chaos you are proposing...a week of that plus the occasional FOM or FOW group continuing to do it and EvE wold die really quickly.....that is what your are proposing....because that is the nature of EvE players.

Your idea of FtP would almost have to allow that kind of freedom, an with it wold come a flood of abuse.
I am not the one wanting exploits or whatever....but you are trying to create such an exploit.

I love my sandbox game, and think your idea is garbage...EvE is unique and it is definitely NOT for everyone.

And yeah the other questions your dodging i would love to see you try and answer them.
Right now your credibility is 0, and your understanding of EvE is 0.

But .... but .... but he is a super awesome "Programmer - Artist - Designer - Producer" that has trained other game designers for 15+ years. He told us multiple times how mutch experiance he has and how awesome he is. LISTEN TO HIM! Just look at how skillfull he dodged the questions that poke holes in his ideas and how awesome he mutes people that use solid arguments, causality and logic to deconstruct his visions that will save us all.



Dont bother asking concrete questions. He will ether mute you or come up with a other spontanious and totaly awesome idea that will save EvE once and for all ... by killing it.

This thead should be locked. OP constantly changes topic, randomly mutes people that "do not see the light" and uses this thread to profile himself as the goodfather of game designing. Since im probably getting muted, im out. bb

if eve went f2p i would quit, so would my alts which pay subscriptions and i also buy plex for real money. so what is more important, players who stay in the game long term or people like your friends who will play for a few months and move onto some other flavour of the month f2p mmo?

you seem to have a very limited understanding of EVE and what has happened in the last few years.
this is a worry to hear you are helping new people and perhaps this is one of the reasons new bros are not sticking.
i know if i was new and i happened to be lucky enough to get help from someone like you who has this attitude that you have the answers to everything and refuse point blank to answer simple questions about statements you've made claiming all sorts of nonsense. i'm sure it wouldn't be long before i'd be thinking people in this game are full of shite.
rookie help channel should be moderated in some way. perhaps CCP should vet the vets that want to help and give them a different colour name in the channel letting rookies know this guy has been approved to help me.
you wanted constructive feed back. there ya go

from what i've seen here so far, you should not be helping anyone. you could do with some help yourself.

I play eve because i like the fact it roots out the stereotypical players who play free to play games, the people who dont want to pay for a game so they dont take it seriously, if it went f2p it would attract the type of people i do not like in the gaming world. subscription model games are for serious gamers, f2p are fisher-price gamers.

Are you doing the same with every other response you're getting?

so far i'm seeing a huge NO (for very good reason) to your question.

free to play = NO!

take it on the chin and move along.

Wow. 26 years and your still more naive than I was on my first day.

Have I help new players into this game? Well I intruduced firends to EvE. And contrary to your game designer friends, they are still playing and paying to this day.

Your topic is a question. The question has bin answered multiple times. The answer was NO. So unless you ask a question and ignore all answers that are not the answer you wanted to hear, this thread can be closed now.

new players? do i really care if the game is getting enough new players, no i dont because i leave my work at 5pm where i have worked for 8 hours to get my company new customers so id rather drop rattlesnakes on some poor cruiser fleet than worry if ccp marketing department are doing their job properly.

so as long as i have daily targets to shoot at i couldnt really care because i pay a subscription to have fun not run a 2nd job for free

Few years ago, I would dismiss OP's ideas as silly and for reasons already described in this thread. But today I see ever-increasing PLEX prices and numbers of active players steadily falling (I am also rather convinced that the number of subscribed accounts hasn't been so low ever since I started playing in 2011, but CCP is no longer willing to give us that information, and after they fired their Ph.D. economist we know less about their business results than ever) and it makes me wary about the future of the game. While I'm still hoping that EVE won't die, some changes are necessary (and I don't mean things that Fozzie is usually responsible for, since most new players don't care about sov or rebalancing changes).

Hopefully most people here will agree with me on these two points:
1) EVE needs new players desperately or it will face a slow death.
2) Subscription-model MMORPGs are outdated and won't attract new audiences.

Therefore it seems necessary for CCP to change subscription model. Turning EVE into a F2P may have its disadvantages, but most of them should have a way to remedy them. Allowing only one F2P account per player, changing trial accounts so their subscription never runs out or giving some limits to F2P accounts (for example, capping their SP/hour to 1800 or less) are some of the ways that could be worth considering.
But I would be satisfied if CCP would just lower subscription and PLEX prices (which is unlikely since with rising PLEX prices, more people are likely to use their credit card to pay their sub instead of their hard-earned ISK). However, if nothing of the above happens, I give EVE maybe 3 more years before CCP decides to shut down TQ for good.

Don't worry, CCP already said some years back that it wouldn't be possible for EVE. It's not technically possible and would have had to be done pre-launch by design. I completely agree with them, it's not possible by the design architecture of EVE, and there is no magic wand to do such a thing w/o destroying the game as it is; what makes EVE, EVE.

EVE is much less complex now than it was 5 or more years ago. So how about you explain this chart to us "clueless" people:

http://i.imgur.com/BiQnoVp.png