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Jester’s Trek: Micro isn’t so Micro
As I’ve said a couple of times lately, free-to-play games are not free at all. Sooner or later, the developers that build the game have to be paid. “If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer,” says the famous little graphic before adding “You’re the product being sold.” While the graphic references Facebook, it’s a truth that applies to any so-called F2P game. If you’re not paying to play real money to play EVE yourself, you are the content that CCP is selling to those of us who are.
The term micro-transaction was originally coined in the late 1990s and was intended to reference very small transactions of money, potentially as low as one penny, on-line. It wasn’t long before “one penny” became “one dollar” or “one pound” or “one euro” or the like. And for quite a while, game developers were content with small amounts of money per player as long as the volume of players was large enough. Development costs for games were cheaper then, after all. But since hitting the mainstream in 2009, micro-transactions are becoming significantly less “micro” every year.
A couple of months ago, speaking at the Free-2-Play Summit, Ngmoco’s Ben Cousins talked about what he saw as the past, present and future business models for free-to-play games. He designated them into versions: 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. In the 1.0 model, in-game transactions were limited to cosmetic items and customization. Game developers working under this model contented themselves with $5 or less per player.
Cousins defines a version 2.0 transaction as a transaction that encourages a player to reduce or eliminate game “unpleasantness.” The idea is to make parts of one’s game less enjoyable and more onerous with an eye toward deliberately giving the player incentive to avoid or remove that aspect of the game. Of course we see this all the time in ad-driven games: you can buy the ad-free version of the game and thereby avoid the “unpleasantness” of the advertising. That’s a relatively minor thing. If you and I both play Angry Birds and you own the ad-free version and I content myself with the free, ad-supported version, you and I will probably still advance at about the same rate and probably have about the same amount of fun. My gaming experience will just be slightly more annoying than yours.
What we’re seeing in a lot of games, though, is developers pushing the “unpleasantness” into the game itself. As I’ve noted recently, the independent EVE player’s ability to make ISK is being directly reduced in almost every way. Nerfs have hit sanctums and havens, drone region true sec, incursion-running, missions, the value of meta4 mods, and the ability to blitz through PvE content of all kinds, whether that’s the blocks put on the ability to blitz low-level incursion sites or Titan gun signature radius nerfs to slow down Titan ratting. I’ve heard many people in the last few months say some variant of “I’m going to have to go back to buying PLEXes” because EVE PvE is becoming so much less rewarding.
Is it much of a stretch to think that this is a deliberate strategy?
Whether or not you believe that, there’s no question that this is the tack that the gaming industry is taking. The entire concept of “grinding” PvE content is under slow and deliberate attack by game developers, including CCP, encouraging players to skip the grind by paying a few more dollars here and there to avoid unpleasantness. Under Cousins’s 2.0 model, he believes the average player’s outlay increases from $5 to $20.
Under version 3.0, unpleasantness is compounded by more positive player incentives like additional features and excitement… more or less straight-forward P2W. Under this model, Cousins believes the average player’s outlay increases from $20 to $60.
As someone sarcastically put it to me a couple of weeks ago, “Free to play doesn’t mean free to win.”
Now of course, these amounts per player are insignificant for EVE players. I myself pay subscriptions for three accounts, which means that I’m paying more than $50 per month to play EVE. But the volume of players that EVE is drawing are also correspondingly low. EVE has been stuck at the “400,000 or so” subscriber mark for quite a while. These days, CCP politely declines to state their exact number of subscribers when asked. Trion Worlds, the maker of what may be the last successful subscription MMO to be launched, RIFT, similarly declines to state their number of subscribers. It’s probably safe to say that they’re getting a similar number of subscribers, though. It’s increasingly clear that WoW’s subscriber numbers were a fluke that isn’t going to be matched any time soon. If SW:TOR couldn’t do it, nobody can.
But game development still costs money. Big money. $1 here, $1 there isn’t gonna do it any more.
It’s accepted that to produce a modern MMO requires $100 million U.S. At least double that (and possibly as much as triple) was spent on SW:TOR. But let’s stick with $100 million. A half-million subscribers paying $15 per month over the course of a year will bring in $90 million U.S. Taking into account support and marketing costs, that means that to build a successful subscription MMO, you need to hold on to those half-million subscribers for two years. Right around the start of year three, you start to make a profit. This is why CCP is so keen to get new players to that three year mark. Not only is that the point where you’re unlikely to unsub, that’s the point where they actually start making money off you.
Meanwhile six months ago, Riot Games announced that League of Legends passed 11.5 million active players. Two months ago, Wargaming.net announced that World of Tanks has 20 million registered players. Further, they state that they have what they believe is one of the highest payment ratios in the industry, “around 25 to 30 percent.” Let’s say it’s 25%. And let’s say that they’re only getting Cousins’s $20 per player. Coincidentally, that’s their $100 million U.S. right there… for a game with far less content than EVE.
And I think we all know that they’re getting $50 from most of those paying players, not $20.
The industry is also full of stories of subscription games converting to F2P to take advantage of the micro-transactions model. As Eurogamer put it…
The unavoidable statistic, however, is that games do better once they turn free-to-play. Or so we’ve been led to believe. DDO doubled its activity; LOTRO tripled its revenue; AOC doubled its revenue; a million new people played DCUO; and Champions Online helped Atari profits rise…
Even if you build a game around a subscription model, that’s no guarantee that you’ll succeed, or even launch. 38 Studios pumped at least $100 million into Copernicus and were reportedly burning an additional $4 million U.S. per month on development, with another 12 months of development needed before they could launch. That’s $100 million spent out of a $150 million budget and Copernicus will probably never see the light of day. And even if it had, the increased development cost means that it would have needed at least double EVE’s subscriber numbers or four years instead of three to recoup its costs.
Going straight to the F2P model for DUST was a risky play on CCP’s part. But trying to launch it as a subscription title would have been more risky. With the cost of game development these days, the subscription model just doesn’t work any more. Likewise, charging a fee to download the product would have limited the game’s audience. With a zero cost of admission, this puts CCP in the position of inviting millions of PSN members to try DUST for a few hours. Inviting a broad beta-test audience is equally smart: it will provide the newborn game with a massive burst of “content” when it launches: hundreds of players who will have the experience to quickly vault to the top of DUST’s brackets and provide competition, assistance, and goals for the new players at launch.
And if those new players throw CCP $20 or $50 each trying to catch up, CCP’s investment will very rapidly pay off. And that’s why Hilmar was dreamily speculating on the HARPA stage the last day of this year’s Fanfest about needing two or even three venues for Fanfest next year.
Tomorrow, I’ll wrap up this series of posts with a few random musings.
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and a good game with immense potential like fallen earth took a huge dirt nap, its a double edged sword. free to play can work if you give really good reasons to buy premium stuff.
When I read "Is it much of a stretch to think that this is a deliberate strategy?"
All I could was, Son of a bitch…
Sadly, I love the game, but considering the possible accuracy of that statement, and my diminishing in-game income, I'm left looking at other options to entertain my time.
Son of a bitch, indeed.
CCP already enables pay-to-win, by letting dollar-rich players buy GTC and sell them to botters, Im sorry to isk-rich players, and then use that isk to buy skilled toons, high end ships and so on.
Its a beautiful model – EQ2 uses the same one to sell statted raid gear, via sale of loot rights.
while this is true, player base dont like when someone point it
Pay to win? with what? buy a shit load of plexs so then get shiny ships and lose it? Even high end skill toons doesn't mean you win a fight most of all if your clueless.
^ that. Having the hull and the SP are meaningless if the guy or gal at the keyboard doesn't have a clue.
I don't think P2W is really possible in EVE.
Let's compare a real F2P, P2W game to EVE. Vindictus, a Korean designed MMO that is free to play, but in order to get the best gear you have to buy stuff from the cash shop to succeed at high end upgrading.
In EVE, you sell a couple of plexes, take your cool billion, and fit out some ships to go have fun in. If you don't have the skills to fly the ship well, or the experience to know what you're doing, you are going to lose your ship, and you wasted the RL cash you bought them with (arguably you earned some experience with your cash, but maybe not).
With the Vindictus pay to win model, and with most games, there is no risk if you fail, so you retain your purchase. You sink 20 bucks into your game, enhance your weapons and armor up, and then you can participate in the higher endgame content. Without the money it took to do that, you are stuck doing old content, or farming to buy other people's weapons that they've enhanced and then posted to sell.
Also, having played WoW in a high end raiding guild, we used to sell loot rights to people with more money than skill. We carried them through heroic level raids after they paid between 40 and 50k for a drop, until they got it, and then we cut them loose. We also charged people money for achievements, mounts, and to allow them to carry out quests within a raid. The only difference is that we didn't convert the 1.2 mil gold we made off the endeavour into RL cash, because we didn't feel like getting banned to split less then a grand between 25 people.
In my opinion P2W means that there is some gear in game that can be only purchased by money and they are better than normal stuff. For example in wot gold ammo and gold consumables
"its a double edged sword. free to play can work if you give really good reasons to buy premium stuff"
How much would you pay for a monocle?
good catch!
I for one want to burn those monocle shits… they look hideous to begin with!
And cost awful lot of money? Why?
If you don't want one, don't buy one. It's cosmetic, and some people like monocles. If the monocle gave you +20% microwarpdrive speed, THEN you'd have a reason to complain about them.
"As I’ve noted recently, the independent EVE player’s ability to make ISK is being directly reduced in almost every way."
Wrong. My Carrier still makes the same 12-16 Mil ISK every 20min it has for the last 1,5 years. What has changed is the oppertunity for Highsec players to make 20-40 Mil ISK per 20min without risk.
So i would rather say that CCP is trying to force people into 0.0 to get their ISKies. Rather then keep them in Highsec. Somethign that they have always stated was the whole idee. You startin in High then move to 0.0.
Never let reading comprehension to stand in the way of self-important comment.
Also, in your analysis you forgot to include risk (1), inflation (2),costs (3) and simple fact that not every player has a carrier in a system that is both relatively safe and free from competitors.
1) Losing fighters, that carrier and, possibly, implants will decrease your total isk/hour rate.
2) 20mil 1.5 years ago could buy you more stuff than now
3) Renter's fee, corp taxes, time spent in cloak or at pos with neutrals in local, time and isk spent on corporation's or alliance's mandated PvP, etc.
More people moving to 0.0 would mean automatic nerf to effective 0.0 profitability (see: competition) and boost to highsec isk/lp ratio (see: faction fit for pimped-out ratting ships).
I agree completly.
I never said it wouldnt be affected by market movements and or competition in space. Just that its not affected by direct CCP intervention.
And as a nothern CBear 0.0 is very fucking save. Inter will report any neutral a whole region away and having stations or a POS everywere makes you nigh uncatchable as long as your not AFK. Furthermore a normal 0.0 system (say 0.7 truesec) will be able to house 4-5 carriers ratting constantly. Even more is you do sigts together as they will simple spawn in faster succession.
Even a neut in local is no proble. CYno jam the system to prevent hotdrops and your save from anything.
0.0 is empty, and coul use a LOT more people
Which brings us to completely different question: why should only a 0.0 naptrain have reward without risk and how it fits "risk vs reward" bromide?
And note word "independent" in original quote, my first reply referred to it.
There is risk. Don't mistake a good defence with lack of risk. If the null alliance hunts down and kills all neutrals that enter their territory, then more power to them. They are mitigating the risk with intelligent play.
"And as a nothern CBear 0.0 is very fucking save."
"Even a neut in local is no proble. CYno jam the system to prevent hotdrops and your save from anything. "
and
"There is risk."
Somebody has to be wrong.
there is risk, but that is risk to lose space.
and Poetic – "They are mitigating the risk with intelligent play. " – in reality this looks like this:
intel channel – neutral in xxx system – everyone hides – indeed very intelligent play
Risk of losing space? Risk of losing ship in incursion is greater than this.
Then again, risk of losing ship in incursion is 100%, it's just "mitigating the risk with intelligent play" that lowers it to whatever level it is average now.
very fucking save is not the same as no risk. As poetic Stanziel said, smart 0.0 alliances mittigate the risk.
This by moving carebear systems as far back into space as possible, or having a solid policy of intel and defence fleets.
We rat with 5 carriers all fitted with anti ewar and capital remote reps. So as long as we forgot to mention that 40man fleet traveling 40 jumps we are save. But still a neut could slip in with covert cyno and drop a fuckton of bombers, recons and blackops on us. Thats why we always aling out. Again mittigating the risk.
Either it is "so safe that I don't have to include cost of lost ship in calculation" or "it is so unsafe that I have to include cost of lost ship and doing nothing while neuts are in system". First means reward without risk (and don't forget that highsec isn't completely safe either), second means that your estimate of isk/hour is wrong.
you dont see indy corps in highsec guarding their hulks!
Because it's useless?
cyno jams don't stop the blackops cyno
eve has had relatively low inflation rates
13% per year is low? Wow.
Which is a good theory, just wish the money in 0.0 came from players doing their shit (and alliances getting it from them) instead of passive moons. Also, that there was a wide and deep enough area of 0.0 without the pos and moon and sov crap.
I agree, moon mining should be replaced with a player active process.
Transform it into a ship that mines planets, or make a POS be attaqcked by NPC spawns that need to be killed before the mining cycle can start. Something that directly connects mining to player activatie.
Pasive income should pay the bills, not make you wealthy.
but why 0.0 ally must pay the stupid bills? they live in wild space where empires and concord dont have any power… if ccp wana remove some isks from game, they can do it very easy in other and more logic ways.
Something is needed to keep alliance size in check. So there is room for smaller alliances to populate the space in between / that is not used
sure there is.. become a renter.. grow… then stop renting when your big enough to hold your own.
No different then the Dark Ages.. King would have lords, and the lords would collect taxes from their people. These taxes would be sent to the king for "protection" and tribute. When a lord was strong enough he would proclaim he was a king and either fighting or treaty would proceed.
So really no difference, except most of 0.0 space is a bit on the cruddy side.
Just my 2 cents but what do i know, I'm just a noob.
Once an alliance stoops so low as renting they are always classed as renters.
An alliance that gets itself together and grows in lowsec or NPC nullsec is of far more value then a bunch of renting carebears
It's all in the lingo… renters pay xdeath for space, they're "renters."
xdeath pays PL for space, they're "hiring mercenaries."
The value of an alliance has to do with three things, and three things only:
1. how many guns
2. how big they are
3. how expensive they are to turn traitor
Blue status payments would be a great idea, help stop the formation of carebear nations ie. old nc, cfc.
Dude!
When did you rat in high sec? Or how high can you be to think there is a 40m ISK per ticker????
Not even in incursions, bro, not even there.
lvl4 missions will make you 5-10ISK / ticker and that with added loot and salvage.
by the way: who the fuck is still in the image that you can make 100m ISK in high sec by doing lvl4s?? I see that pop up all the time, yet I see no proof of that!
With good setup 150m/h (50m per tick if the isk would came in ticks) was easy in incursions, and I'm not even talking about maxed out setup. It was just way too much.
& fyi
ok, show me a picture of a tick that large… POST-nerf incursions I am talking about…
the highest I could get in 0.0. was by running sanctums 20m/tick
the highest I could get in low was 13-15m/tick running blockades pre-nerf
the highest I could get in high sec with running lvl4 missoins was 5-8m/tick
and I do not have values on incursions yet after the nerf
Mate….very easy to get ~30mil ticks.
Try running forlorn/forsaken hubs in a pimp mach (hint no frigs there and you get 4-5 a system).
you knock out one weekend of this and your sitting on 1bil + depending on how long you play for.
grab a friend and the rate goes up Mach+tengu = win but i digress.
You want to make isk you have to work for it one way or anthoer if the effort outwieghts the reward ppl stop doing it. right now the effort is nada the reward is OK but getting to the anoying side considering the eve "cost of living" (pvp ships going up in price blah blah).
i PVP all week and every fortnight i bear so far its ok but getting on the bad side.
You will NEVER get 50mio / tick with one ship. With 2 Deadspace fitted nightmares, max skills for em and hards you get 150-170, but 150 with one ship? Maybe a titan.
well before the nerf we could bang out an OTA in about 2:30 – 2:45, that's over 200 mil an hour.
Granted we were all flying macharaels, but once you run 5 hours worth of incursions anyone can get a mach. That's only a weekend's worth of effort.
If that is all your carrier is making then why rat in a carrier? a well fit stadard T2 maelstrom with good skills will get you 15-20 mill isk per tick. more to the 20 mill if your ratting angels. Your an idiot for the risk vs reward model. Plex prices have only fell ~5 mill or so. I would argue that the 450 – 500 mill price range is where CCP will keep manipulating the prices of plex to stay. It is a fact that people will pay that much. It is also a fact that it is more incentive for folks to buy and sell plex when 2 of them gets you close to one bill where historically 2 of them got you 1/2 bill. Its win win for them. They did not nerf incursions to reduce the price of plex they reduced the income of incursions to satisfy the outcry their CS department was reporting over the rediculous amounts of isk they made. At the end of the day even with the imbalanced isk ratios for incursions, incursions are good for the game. It brings the level of co-operative play of medium gang PVP to otherwise "solo" PVE'ers. This gives eve a more stable player base as players with community will play longer than players without.
CCP needs to learn something anyone with kids can tell them. If you give your kid a cookie every time they cry for one…. they tend to cry more.
As a disclaimer: I wasnt an incursion bear, simply due to the fact that it is still mindless clicking on red crosses. It was way more fun to grief incursions when they were more popular. The market has always yielded way more isk per hour than any form of "grind" for me to support my pew toons.
Nerf the market ~10 bill per month from a semi passive isk stream is ridiculous.
"Your an idiot"
Enough with the irony!
+1 Grammar
My eyes are fucking bleeding.
How 150m/h + LP was right in hi sec incursions?
Why titan ratting was ok? 600m/h isk printer is fucking absurd.
How was equal 0.0 anomalys everywhere right? FYI, after making sec statis to affect anomalys, CCP has buffed the income you get from them. Havens and sanctums haven't been nerfed, forlorn/forsaken hubs have just gone over them. And this new drone damage amplifier is improving a lot income from carrier anomalyrunning.
Afaik only incursion blitzing has been cut off, not missioning or complexes (atleast the ones i have been doing).
Meta4 modules are cheaper because they are drop way more than before. People get about same money from them, they just need loot and to sell more. And cheap meta4 mods are actually good thing for new player, no need to waste extra money to get about same performance that players who have skills for t2 get.
Crying from drone region security status nerf is retarded too. They were just absurd.
All your points were fixes to umbalanced or stupid gameplay.
And for what you say? CCP wants to get PLEX prices down? That will keep like 3 accounts more running with this 20m drop.
You miss the actual reason why plex prices have dropped: mineral price increase. That's what is really hurting casual players now.
If you just had left EVE away from this blog it would have been pretty okay, but now it just sounds like you sad cry about micro transactions.
"And this new drone damage amplifier is improving a lot income from carrier anomalyrunning."
Doesnt work on fighters
Please stfu if you use fighters in ratting carrier. Sentries was the right way doing it even before drone damage amplifier.
nigger please, forsaken hubs in serpentis and angel space are best done with fighters due to their better dps and the short ranges they typically engage in.
Also forsaken hubs are the best isk anyways, only ring sanctums are better but forsaken hubs contain NO scrambleing frigs whereas ring sanctums do, a prime concern when ratting in a carrier.
Now i agree that sentries are better for other types of rats and other anoms but the best isk per hour means good fighter skills.
ratting with fighter? then you doing it wrong!
"Meta4 modules are cheaper because they are drop way more than before. People get about same money from them, they just need loot and to sell more."
YTB 10mn micro warp drives as an example had in previous years been selling at 10 to 20 times more than after meta 4 drops increased. This is the case with other items as well
Please check your history.
I can't help but feel that the primary reason for a lot of MMO failures these days is that they offer the same old model thats been used since the days of EQ and DAOC. You create a character, then level that character to it's max. After that it's a matter of constant grinding for pvp/pve gear to stay relevant.
The only reason WoW is still so popular is that they managed to build a huge community right from the start, and it's the sense of community that makes people stay. Something thats very difficult to emulate these days.
CCP destroyed the smaller Incursion lo/null sec community and has more than decimated the HI SEC Incursion community that was growing pre nerf.
Same with FW, but it's now doing what it can to improve that. Same for high-sec war dec community. And it's trying to improve the null-sec experience, which basically depends on strongly knit communities working together.
CCP are heading the right direction, IMO. Of course they will make some mistakes, but an MMO with EVE's longevity has the advantage that they can come back and fix it / rebalance it, once higher priority things have been fixed.
If I pay a subscription, fuck them if they want more. If I get the feeling that I must pay more to compete, I'm dropping subscription and game.
"“I’m going to have to go back to buying PLEXes”" That bit right there made me smile. I was thinking the other night how hard it was to rise founds with out 0.0 access in 04 and found my self with ships I can afford to lose. Losing ships in a fight hurts and I had to use different professions to recoup.
For me I think EVE was getting too easy with so much isk flowing around and bots ruining the market and reducing the cost of war. I mean in some ways the change in sov and amons etc was a good thing even though it hurt some folks. Though We need to work on the tech Moons! have them all over the place not just in regions.
So if people want to buy plexs that's up to me and other I say. Though in the end I still play EVE in the old style has it's harder and more rewarding in some ways.
Does this dude not understand the plex doesn't produce isk out of thin air?
This isn't about isk faucets.
A player can get isk by selling their plex. For that player eve is pay to win, because he is paying money, to get a plex to sell, to get isk to win at eve.
Now this is all dependent on some dude buying plex who owns a tech moon and has 30 cyno alts that he doesn't want to pay IRL money for.
Pay to Win is a model that provide the paying player a distinct advantage over the non-paying players. Even to that individual player who pays RL cash for plexes and sells them back on the market, the only "advantage" they have is a temporary wallet boost. This doesn't give that player a distinct advantage over his fellow players in the least bit, because you take that isk and apply it to the same market that everyone uses.
So by that logic If I plex a Super Pilot, then plex the super I've put in as much work as someone who's farmed the ISK from scratch and spent the time training the skills up..
Whatever way you look at it PLEX is P2W
It's P2E, pay to get equal, P2W. You can sunk as much real money you want in the game but there is always players which haven't put a single coin in and has the SAME stuff than you, not worse. It would be P2W if there was "gold ammo" or "gold modules" which could be only bought with real money
MT isn't a bad thing for EvE online. But it needs to be in the 1.0 stage ONLY. So paying a few bucks here or there to get some extra colors or patterns to put on your ship would be acceptable. Paying a full 5 bucks you could add your own custom logo on the ship, or even pay that to have your own custom alliance logo, instead of the current "get lucky" that CCP picks your logo. Things like that CCP would make lots of money off of, allowing people to customize there ships color/pattern or even put on there own logo or (for free) put on there alliances logo.
FFS CCP, this gay window tree shit sucks balls… change it back.!!!
DDO doubled it's activity, lol i quit that to play eve not long after it went free to play. Basically that game was dieing and on it's last legs, no new content in over a year.
I paid for DDO for years, only to realize i was just paying to subsidize the cost of development on Lord Of the rings, LOTR got player houseing and new content, DDO got a couple low lvl dungeons, then after a year and a half of only tiny patches DDO stopped releaseing anything for a year and a half.
Then they realeased a huge expansion at the same time they went free to play, problem was that vets who continued to pay for their accounts found that the (EXTREMELY well made) grouping system was then broken due to people being able to get in groups and then find out that "oh yeah our mage didn't buy that series of quest, guess we got to wait around until we find another mage" and shit like that, doubled their numbers is like saying "your only half poor, or half pregnant"
WoTs and LoL aren't P2W. Granted in WOTs you can buy a high teir tank. however it has no advantage over other similar teir tanks except in the rate it generates in game money. So really you just generate money faster.
also gold isn't used to buy anything that makes things better in WOTs just more convenient.
as for LoL it just cuts the grind or buys skins. having riot points doesnt mean you win the game. just that you dont have to grind and you look different.
Eh, how about gold ammo and gold consumables, for example the one which gives +10% for every crew member. WoT is surely pay to win game.
except most premium players dont know how to play so their barely bought advantage is wasted on their horrible play.
what if the people who do know how to play buy those items? what then?
The gold tanks have fixed match making ( 95% of the time top of the tier in a random battle), and a much larger cash earning rate. standard tier 8's pull in 50k on a good battle, premium tier 8 tanks pull in 100k. It's not advertised, but well known.
This is stupid. They nerfed a bunch of PVE stuff because they are isk faucets. We are Eve is outproducing things at a much higher level than it can be destroyed. Simple as that.
I recently went back to EQ2 just to see how things were going in my old stomping ground and visit long lost friends. I had to PAY, to unlock gear that I had earned long before this game went pay to win. Gear that I had earned the hard way and with a lucky role etc. Items that I had spent hours camping, tracking specific npc's etc. I was totally disgusted. I cannot believe that they have destroyed that game in the way they have and I will never pay them another cent. And on the previous article about SOE purchasing eve. There are no words to describe my opinion on that if it ever happened.
OMG STFU YOU FUCKIN NULLBEARS FUCKTARDS
I will be off to planetside 2 soon…this game is beginning to suck cock.
A major aspect of making DUST F2P is that it will bring a huge number of people into the EVE Online universe and community. These are the real draws of CCP's product and they know it. More players trying it out means more promotion for their flagship product.
Not only that, but more people engaging in their virtual world means more in-game content for everybody. A richer world is more appealing.
From looking at the rumblings in many non-eve forums, it’s pretty clear that there is a good amount of FPS-gamer interest pointed at DUST and its eventual release. Dust will certainly have a good amount of initial participation. But, will it be able to hold people’s attention?
This is why I’m glad to see that CCP seems to be taking its time in developing DUST, as well as seemingly applying the lessons learned from Incarna in their FPS development process. So, if they are successful in building a player base inside dust (hopefully on mostly non-eve players) – how much of that player base will translate to Eve proper?
Furthermore, if Dust does succeed as a gateway drug to Eve Online, and pushes a large group of n00bs into New Eden space, is that something we really want? After all, these folks will bring a different type of culture with them – and it remains to be seen if New Eden is capable of integrating into its wider culture, the dustie space pilots become a FW-like subset, or capsuleers make sport of killing them.
Either way, interesting times are ahead for Eve.
very nice )
funnny.