What happened to Eve Online Free to Play?

[b00]

I was in the mood for some space game and wanted to try Eve Online, remembering that it went F2P some time ago, but I can't find it. Did they pull it out?

[Reksel]

EvE Online never went F2P. EvE Online is practically one of the only MMOs that is very successful with monthly payment.

You can get PLEX and exchange it for a month of game time by means of ingame currency. However, not a newbe can achieve such isk within a month. Most likely within 3 months.

[b00]

oh I guess I was mistaken then

[Rodso]

i wish it did go f2p or even ifthey made the trail unlimited

[Circadian_Seeker]

Even low sp characters are a considerable asset in this game. Making it F2P will allow every player to make an unlimited number of alts, and destabilize a number of game mechanics, like the market, logistics, mining, and, believe it or not, pvp (everyone would just zerg the other guy with lowbe chars).

[K9Boss]

dgiakoum původně napsal:

Even low sp characters are a considerable asset in this game. Making it F2P will allow every player to make an unlimited number of alts, and destabilize a number of game mechanics, like the market, logistics, mining, and, believe it or not, pvp (everyone would just zerg the other guy with lowbe chars).

Game mechanics are bound to change wither if it's a new update or if the game is going free to play, the fact that EVE does not punish players enough for death is the reason that players with small ships can go "Zerg" on big ships. at least that's how I understood this. If the developers would move their asses and change the mechanic it would eliminate the problem.

[Circadian_Seeker]

No matter what penalty you have on dying, if you have an unlimited number of accounts (as it happens on a free-to-play) you don't care what the penalty is, you can just make a new char. Besides, the implications in the other areas are way more desruptive than those in pvp.

[K9Boss]

dgiakoum původně napsal:

No matter what penalty you have on dying, if you have an unlimited number of accounts (as it happens on a free-to-play) you don't care what the penalty is, you can just make a new char. Besides, the implications in the other areas are way more desruptive than those in pvp.

You can tie the account to the IP adress, like when you are banned from the game for example you can't just make a new account. Actually if you would allow everyone to create only one account I don't see how how going f2p would damage the game.
I mean the world economy does not collapse everyday even though thousands or more people are born.
IMO the developers are just scared to go f2p. everyone likes to play it safe, they don't know if they would be making the same amount or more money with micro transactions, although with so many free games to play that support micro transactions, people will just look past EVE and go play something else and even if they don't pay for anything in that game, they will boost the popularity of the game which will attract even more players. I guess that they developers are also scared that alot of the veterans will quit because of the changes they will apply to make the game adaptable for f2p, or because of the stream of new players joining the game. But it's usually more people that join than leave in these types of situations.

[Circadian_Seeker]

Limiting persons rather than accounts has been an excersise in futility for many games in the past. IP adresses are dynamic, and can change or be faked, unique ids on the machine are also easy to alter.
That said, while I doubt its feasability technically, your idea is good. Lack of new players is considered a problem by many eve players, and CCP has shown it's not afraid of innovative models (the game already is kind of f2p but that option is targetet towards veterans rather than new players). The main problem I think is that something like that is sure to unbalance the game, and the emergant nature of eve makes predicting what will happen and combating it very difficult if not impossible.

[K9Boss]

To be honest I don't really understand why EVE has such a mechanic where "Level 1" players if given a big enough quantity could bring down a very high level player. In standard MMOS it doesn't matter how many newbies you have, you're just not able to kill a very high level player, because of various factors that I'm sure you're familiar with. I mean I just don't see and pro's to this mechanic and I odn't see why it should be there in the first place.

[Circadian_Seeker]

Well if that were true you'd effectively exclude younger players from pvping at all since the "cap" on combat skills is practically nonexistant (while in a more traditional MMO you just have to reach level cap to try and kill someone on equal footing). There's not really a mechanic in place, but a lack of one, like enforcing miss rates based on skill point difference. It's actually a very newbe-friendly system: even the newest character is an asset in pvp and not a liability for filling a slot suboptimally.

But what is really scary about newbe characters isn't really using them in combat, but in logistics, scouting and cynos. Having a newbe char in every system means you are very hard to ambush when travelling, and having them equipped with cynos means you can act as a destination for a combat fleet.

[K9Boss]

Yeah, I guess it makes sense. I played the trial and in general although the learning curve was rather steep (Very very very very steep) and some skills made no sense, the game was fun. The problem I have, and I guess alot of other people is paying for the game without end month after month...

[rswfire]

This conversation is ridiculous. You apparently don't know anything about EvE. It is not a F2P game, has never been, should never be...and offering "unlimited limited accounts" would be one of the worst, most manipulated features that could ever be introduced upon it.

As for the OP, you're probably thinking of "Star Trek Online" which *is* F2P.

[b00]

rswfire původně napsal:

This conversation is ridiculous. You apparently don't know anything about EvE. It is not a F2P game, has never been, should never be...and offering "unlimited limited accounts" would be one of the worst, most manipulated features that could ever be introduced upon it.

As for the OP, you're probably thinking of "Star Trek Online" which *is* F2P.

I'm NOT thinking of Star Trek, I know the difference, thanks for being ignorant. If the conversation is too ridiculous, go back to play Star Trek Wars Eve, because apparently, I DON"T KNOW WHAT I"M THINKING

[Circadian_Seeker]

rswfire původně napsal:

This conversation is ridiculous. You apparently don't know anything about EvE. It is not a F2P game, has never been, should never be...and offering "unlimited limited accounts" would be one of the worst, most manipulated features that could ever be introduced upon it.

As for the OP, you're probably thinking of "Star Trek Online" which *is* F2P.

Well, technically its business model has a free to play component since it allows you to effectively stop paying the monthly subscription. If someone sponsored me with ingame money to help start me up I could theoretically start a new char and never pay anything. So strictly speaking the game does have a free to play option (while continiuing to provide a predictable income based on subscriptions for the company: give whoever thought of this model a medal). Yes I know that someone somewhare payed for me when I buy a plex, but I don't, and that can be called free to play since it can be done with ingame mechanics.

[Icicle]

With enough dedication you can be free to play after those 21 trial days. (buying PLEX via ingame money and using them to extend your account)

Experienced players could do it with not that much effort even, if they knew what they were doing.

A truly new player, who lacks the actual experience, won't, thought (unless he grinds for a lot of hours each day). Could do it fairly quickly though, after 2 or 3 months time. Depends on what they like to do for money-making in game.