I have to admit to some concerns around high sec, hopefully will get sorted by the devs. But for the most part for first thoughts about this change is..

NOM NOM

Think of all the noobs to either have fun with in supportive (eve uni etc) ways or to just kick to death....should make most of us happy.

Certainly logging into a server pop of +100k would be interesting.

Certainly some people quit over the subscription price and make that known in the why are you quitting questionnaire, but how many quit and leave no reason at all, how many of the those who don't comment quit because they don't like the idea of having to create their own content or can't deal with the basic premise of not being safe anywhere?

How many people unsub intending to win Eve temporarily and never come back at all? Lowering the barrier for them to log in could be very good.

Really? How do you accomplish this magic?

8,760 hours in a year (non-leap year).
8,760/12 = 730 hours for your "average" month.

To get 4 extractors you will have to skill at about 2,740 SP/hour.

Implants? Well, the theoretical max there is 2,700/hour.

You are just short of covering your average monthly sub costs for the second month.

Further, your argument is basically a market timing argument. You'll be able to tell when selling skill injectors is going to be profitable 30 or so days in advance.

In the end, all you'll end up doing is covering your sub costs more or less once you incur that initial $1,495 cost (possibly $2,990) to start the subs.

Edit: And I don't recall the requirements for attribute enhancing implants, can those be trained on an Alpha account? If not, then you'll definitely spend nearly $3,000 on this scheme.

But once you dock you can never undock.

Greetings capsuleers!

Today, we are happy to announce a new change thatGÇÖs coming to EVE Online in November that will fundamentally change New Eden, and how our pilots access it via the EVE client.

In short, cloning scientists in New Eden have developed a new method of cloning that revolves around two new clone states, Alpha and Omega. Omega clones will be familiar to all our current players, and will operate just like a subscribed character does today. Alpha clones will be accessible for free, without subscription, and will be capable of training an assigned set of skills themed to a characterGÇÖs race.

A Dev Blog has been published by Team Size Matters today with more details on this feature, and a questions and answers section where we look to clear up some initial concerns and questions regarding this change.

You can't fly the freighter once that happens.

Or maybe you should start calling people dumb *****.

Griffin are hard to multibox without automation. TRISTANS (and other drone ships, hell, any ship that can assign drones) are not.

I agree, multiple log ins across clone state must be prohibited. nothing wrong with multi boxing, but if we can multibox with alphas I WILL be putting a whole bunch of new drone ships in null sec anoms. My Inflationary pressure will blot out the Sun over CCP Quant's office window.

How many people unsub intending to win Eve temporarily and never come back at all? Lowering the barrier for them to log in could be very good.

You missed the point I was making, there are many things that deter people from Eve, the sub model is only one of them, and probably the least of them given the brutal nature of the game.

1) Keebler Wizard: Nah maybe you should learn to read. Gnosis is above cruiser first off.
2) Lady Ayeipsia: Gnosis is a Battle cruiser. The Dev blog said Alpha clones are limited to Cruiser down. There is no issue here.
3) Gogela: but it would be game breaking if Alpha accounts could fly them. Gnosis are Jove-related ships, and absolutely classified as faction. They are too versatile and powerful for free accounts, though. Ultimately I think it comes down to common sense. CCP said no faction ships. Is the Genosis a faction ship? Do YOU really think they will let Alphas fly the Genosis?
4) Kenrailae: Gnosis and Yacht's have never been tied from, nor excluded from any race. They're that grey area where 'yeah I'm a faction ship.... that can be flown by literally every character in the game, and have nothing really that special about me, without the skills to back it up.' Which they can't train. I don't see a problem with it, if a trial account can log in and get in the thing, why shouldn't a free account?

My fear is that existing (paying) players will abuse this system by making a large number of free alts. Every fight will involve 20+ meta fitted Logi. In highsec one can expect suicide ganks happening a lot more. In low/null i expect to see 50man free2play caracal fleets being piloted by 1 person.

Introduce permadeath. Podded Alphas are permanently gone.
Remove the tech II ship and module restrictions. Up the skill cap.
Experience New Eden as a human among immortals. One play for a quarter.
Let's make EvE darker.

Don't allow the Alpha clones into 0.0 and wormholes. Nullsec already has it's fair share of scrub alts parked around the map. Let them inhabit FW and lowsec if they want to pewpew.

Instead of recurring make it automatic, for example:
For each account that hasn't logged for 1 month or more, offer free Omega clone for say 2 days. Up to 7 days maxium.
Or anything similar along those lines, with whatever granularity deemed sensible.

Looks like its time for Doc to follow Tippia and Mr. Garibaldi beyond the Rim. 2016 has been a helluva year for losing people, making bad decisions, and unintended consequences. The EA rot has become terminal.

Especially comical are the following:



Doc's personal favorite:

CCP, you can barely provide acceptable levels of customer support now. The kinds of players you are trying to attract won't put up with what you consider adequate, and they won't accept your usual platitudes.

Just curious - the punishment for botting is banning - but now its free to make accounts - so ccp would have to ban the ip. But I think (I may be wrong) that you can manipulate your ip address if you want. So CCP just effectively threw in the towel on botting - a botter gets banned - he just keeps making new accounts - since there is no cost or punishment to him there is no disincentive to botting.

There is other ways of "fingerprinting" a particular physical machine.

They are thinking that they are out of ideas. They tried attracting casuals by making eve a more friendly place and that didnt work. They tried dumbing down the game and that didnt work. They forgot what made eve good in the first place, abandoning their base in favor of chasing after wow players. Nothing has worked. They are at the end of the rope. So like all mmo dev's who are out of ideas they throw in the towel and go ftp. Ofc this wont work. FTP attracts casuals - but eve is built around hardcore players - the casuals will spike eve's player count in the short term - but it wont last. It never does. The casuals being casuals they will fade away. A year from now eve will be in a worse place then it is today.

Free to play is the death knell for games. What I dont understand is why they feel they will be different then every other mmo that went ftp as a last desperate move before going belly up? This model doesnt even make sense - ftp is built around whales - this model ignores whales and micro transactions and instead its built around making the gaming experience inconvenient for its alphas e.g. they cant do this and they cant do that without purchasing a full account. But how are they going to convince casuals that what they are missing out on is so much better then what they are getting for free that it is worth spending 15$ a month for? Casuals already could try out the game on a trial account - if that trial account wasnt enough to convince a causal to subscribe how is giving them a permanent trial account for ever going to change that? CCP continues to burn its bridges to its core players. When this doesnt work will there be any going back?

Well it was a good run.

New Skill window - bad, vertical labels are BAD. Big empty spaces, rigid formatting, too big and not scalable as it seems, queue completely non visible.

Leave skill window as it is now.

I suspect many holes will be in this design. Many throwaway alts for ganking will be trained simultanously no matter the design. Many multiboxers. No one of them being afraid of CCP retribution upon them. People playing to grief, and not afraid about them being banned for anything.
I will wait and see how these old and new players with alpha accounts will contribute to general EVE experience.

No matter how you will call it, its free to play. The emperor has no clothes.
They will play for free. Then they will complain about this ftp model being too restrictive and they will want everything for free on daily basis.