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EVE Online: Ghost Training Interview
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood recently caught up with EVE Online Senior Producer Torfi Frans to talk about the recent announcement that CCP would be removing Ghost Training from their game and some of the controversey that surrounded the announcement.
A lot of news has come out of CCP over the last little while. Not only did the company’s CEO come out and let fans know that while the Icelandic economy might be faltering CCP is still going strong, but the studio also announced the launch of a new major content update called Quantum Rise for EVE Online, a staged delivery update that will see the additions of the certification systems, the new Orca class capital ship and more.
While these announcements are all interesting and exciting in their own rights, the focal story for CCP’s EVE online over the last week has been the company’s decision to remove the Ghost Training feature from the game.
;)
Read the Ghost Training Interview.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
i for one am gald they took it out you should get something for nothing.
Well if I read the article correctly, they even state that they had this mentioned and stated as a feature in various documentation. So in my opinion if they take it out NOW after roughly 4 or 5 years of development, sort of comes across as "screwing" those who bought into that feature and utilized it. Also being it took them this long to realize it was a "bug" sort of also screams greed despite their best efforts in saying otherwise.
I agree that you shouldn't get something for nothing, but I also believe that when you offer something up as a feature and you take it away, you reap what you sow. You may only have 10,000 players doing that, but thats $150,000 a month no longer in your pocket, no longer feeding your developers and investors.
Assuming all of those pissed cancel.
Well if you must lose 4% of your playerbase, it might as well be the 4% that was inactive most of the time anyway!
If those 10,000 players had actually represented $150,000 a month in revenue, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
The problem with that Clat is that 10% won't resub, then POSSIBLY on top of that you have people wont resub because their long skills have stopped, people will cancel alts because they cannot affort multiple accounts and people who are just overall pissed due to the way the situation was handled. I agree it is their game and they can do what they want, they are in it for the money. But to outright change your story multiple times was poor form. I have only played the game for over a year and signed up for the Power of Two last month with hopes of cultivating a miner/manufacturing alt to go with my mission runner. What I will do now if I continure playing is just train him the 6 months and transfer him overto my main. So although all these "hard core" players are saying get out we don't need you, what happens if that 10% turns into 25-30% or even 50% paying subs. There will be no game for them to act like they are the elite playerbase because develoment/maintance money will dwindle.
I was one of the people that used ghost training now and again. It was cool because when I got bored of the game, I could quit knowing that my character is still progressing. The point is, the thing that made me come back, was that I knew I had to start up my sub before the skill stopped training. I'd find myself resubbing and still not playing the game. It was this feature that made me come back. Anyway, I've not subbed back to the game because I found myself just subbing to change my skill, for about 7 months. My 2 rl friends were doing exactly the same, but they're still resubbing to ghost train.
Making sure you had a skill training was addictive. This move will help my mates stop doing this as well.
Anyway, It's not just the same 10000 people that do it like me. Lots of people do it for other reasons. People starting second accounts, training for capitals etc. The skills are like a month long. Your alts pretty much useless until you fly a capital. I can see their point of view, but they're idiots for not nipping it in the bud earlier and not have it touted as a feature. Like 5 years ago.
It's my opinion that the subs will slowdown a bit until walking stations expansion. The new expansions is pretty shit. Nothing there that makes me want to come back.
I think this was pretty poorly handled by CCP, however while I do see the point I believe that they'll end up losing more than they gain. I'd suspect that most of the accounts being ghost trained are 'alt' accounts rather than primary accounts - there is no point ghost training with your primary account since you then can't actually play the game, while ghost training an alt account means you can play with your main while you ghost train your alt until it does what you want it to do.
Out of this, I think there will more more alt accounts permanently expired than will become full active (ie. user paying for every month)
Also, aside from Capital skills, most skills will only be around 30 days of training, so it's not like you can leave an account for 6 months and get 6 months worth of training on it.
What bothers me is the lack of explaination as to how this will actually be implemented. If I have a character training a 30 days skill, then after 20 days my account expires (I forgot to buy a time code) for a couple of days, then when I finally get a time code and log in again, will my 20 days of training be lost, or saved? Will my skill still be training in the time between me applying the time code to my account and when I actually log back in to the game?
Bad implementation of this 'fix' could end up causing even more problems.
Another thing to add is the timing. People are a bit sensitive to money issues with the global economy nosediving. Most people can afford the sub, but it's more a case of, "WTF? My mortgage, fuel and food bills are going up and your shifting the goal posts so you can get MORE money? Feck you, you're not getting mine. /cancel". That's something they can control whereas the rest outgoings they can't. That's probably not what most people are saying, but the point is I think people are less tolerant to this kind of behaviour, whether they were right or wrong to do it, in this economic climate.
I can see the removal of ghost training as nothing as moronic and short sighted marketing behavior.
I can not remember any player ever complaining about be "out-advantaged" be this bug/feature. Sure some are agreeing with CCP's reasoning now, but as I see it the only advantage was over CCP's billing system and nothing else.
So if it is all about money it really bothers me why somebody would think that this change would put more in the coffers and not less. Unless you believe in an infinite amount of potential customers it should be obvious that your best customer is your old customer. Ghost training was providing a great incentive for players to return to the game after having had a break due to burnout/boredom. Now CCP has to instead to launch more 14 free days return offers to pull people back, but I just do not see that as a strong incentive as ghost training was. Of course they can also launch more marketing campaigns to pull in more people, but those cost money and as I said previously pulling in old customers are much easier than acquiring new ones for a game like EVE.
Also, people who where ghost training purposely would still have to resubscribe the account at some point or the ghost training would have been pointless. That would still provide some income. What Torfi seems not to realize (or purposely neglecting) is that for many players there will simply be little point to run a secondary account at all without ghost training. Not out of spite, but because it is the most economic sensible thing to do.
As such, I simply do not see at all how CCP and the playerbase is going to gain from this in the long run. Contrary, I see it as a short sighted move and destroying of a feature that showed that CCP was not money greedy bastards like the rest of them. Next time CCP claims to be "at level" with their player base you know they are talking out of their rear.
I don't understand the motivation behind what you are saying, and others aswell, that you will do.
At first you are subscribing to two accounts, the power of two is just that. It is two accounts for the price of one but payed 6 months in advance, compared to paying one monthly. With this change you will move your character to the first account because you won't pay for two accounts.
I don't get it. You was going with the power of two deal that get you two characters availble for training constantly. And with this change that would not affect you really, you are making it into a problem.
Why is that?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Btw, before I start writing some much longer comments in this thread,
Keep in mind that after over half a decade the game takes up a total of about 3 gigs on your hard drive, and the last ‘expansion’ Empyrean Age, was a 39mb patch. You read that correctly, 39mb. Not 390mb, not 3.9G, I wrote, and you read, 39mb.
This so called ‘expansion’ they’re talking about to divert your attention isn’t what anyone else in any other mmo would call an ‘expansion.’
Orphes,
First off Power of Two is not two accounts for the price of one. I am paying my $15 a month for my main account and took up to offer for a second account. For that account I pay an additional roughly $10 a month, it is not a second free account I pay a seperate amount of money for another character. I generally subscribe to 2 games at a time so Eve gave me the chance to keep a constant playing character and could take a break with one account to try new MMO if I chose to and not feel like I lost out on any training. I totally understand that is is CCPs perogative to do what they want with their game. But I banked on being able to train that second account while I tried out another MMO for a month and eventually came back. Now when I come back that character is exaclty where he was when I unsubscribed so in essence the reason I bought that second account is gone. Now before you people start ranting I know, I know ,you aren't paying you should not be advancing. Well when I paid that $71 for the Power of Two this was a game mechanic not a so called bug.that I planned on utilizing I am not calling CCP dishonest, liars, cheats ,thieves, I am simply saying this could have come to light before the Power of Two offer not one week after. If you do not think that is pure coincidence then I do not know what to tell you. Maybe I am a conspiracy theorist. And before anyone questions my financial status, of which I do not think anyone should be doing, I do very well and the two subscriptions are in no way a strain on me, I just chose to limit myself to that.
damage control.....spin it spin it.
bug , feature, outside group, not our fault, oops.
whatever - ppl wouldnt take advantage of it if the system wasn't inheritantly flawed.
They need to reduce the number of people playing. They are spending millions on new servers and trying to get it to work without lag, and they can't. So, more expenses and less profit.
Can't have large fleet battles., can't fix Jita, lot of the mission hubs lag out every time more people show up, nodes crashing.
No matter what they like to claim they can't get the game to work anywhere near what they or the customers would consider good. Too many people end up in the same areas make the game lag or crash nodes.
The game itself is huge, but the players don't spread out all over, they congregate in small areas, again, Jita,mission hubs,fleet battles. So the huge game area does not help much.
They can continue to spend more and more on servers and such, or reduce the amount of players to a level that they can handle.
They know very well this will cost them accounts, and they do not care:P They have pushed the game further than the tech can handle.
This will reduce the number of long time player's,the ones with many alt accounts. And also the ones with the high skills that can fly the big cap ships. There will be lot's of character transfer's and consolidating, which is what i think they are aiming at.
This is of course what i think is the aim:)
1. Reduce the number of long term (high skilled)players
2. Reduce the number of alt accounts
3. Reduce the continued expense of server updates
4. Reduce the amount of long term players paying with in-game isk
I'd see these reasons as unlikely
1. Why do that? If they are all paying, then that is good. why would they want to get rid of paying customers?
2. Again, each alt account is paying account. This would only reduce their income, so why would they be trying to reduce the number of alt accounts?
3. That expense isn't going to go away. Besides, the only significant problems with the servers are the ability to handle the load in Jita and a few other high population systems. They already have new hardware and software in place to help deal with these problems, so the expense has already been incurred.
4. It doesn't matter whether a play is funding their game with isk or a credit card, the end result is the same - if you use isk to buy a GTC, someone else must have paid CCP for the GTC.
Obviously they are wanting to get rid of the 'free loaders' that are taking advantage of ghost training (even though, as I previously posted, I think this will not end up making them more money), however aside from what they would deam an unfair advantage of gaining SP while the account is not active there is not negative effect on anything else.
Specifically, although the CCP blog in the subject mentioned server load, an inactive account has absolutelty no load on the server whether a skill is training or not. The database holds a record of which skill you are training and when you started it, then nothing at all will happen to it until the user logs in and the game client notifies the server that the skill has finished training, at which point the server updates the skill record in the database. It's actually more load on the server for them to enforce this change than it is to leave it alone.
I am quiting EvE over this.
Why? B/c I dont soly play EvE, I dont have the time to play it hardcore anymore and I have started to juggle my 3 accounts for the game, I also play WAR and DDO, so I cant have FIVE ACTIVE accounts for MMOs, So I juggle them. EvE "ghost training" made it posible for me to play for a month or so on one account skill train and play another and swap MMOs every other Month and keep on going full stride with my characters.
So this is a huge blow to me, and I have decided EvE "just is not worth it" anymore. So, all of my EvE accounts are going inactive. Ive decided to pick up FFXI into my rotation of MMOs instead, and just play X3: TC when I feel the need for some space action.
~HappyGaming
PS: I hate you CCP.
All other expansions had roughly the same size. Revelations was 40, trinity for classic only 60..
Compared to that, the 47 you have to download for Midas for a patch tq classic -> sisi classic is, well, pretty average.
Could it be that your argument fails on many levels?
p.s. evepremiumpatch64451-66185_test.exe is 160+
People like myself were not getting something for nothing. We PAID for that FEATURE for the last 5 years. Go re-read what CCP said. This was a FEATURE and we PAID for. Yes, I have grown very accustomed to getting what I have PAID for. Now that I will not get what I paid (or pay for) I will NOT resub my alt accounts.
It does not matter how CCP puts a spin on this. It WAS a feature, and they removed it. They will loose more customers then they can imagine in the end because I guarantee you if you read the quarterly reports on Eve's numbers reported by their own in game economist, you will see that the number of people that do this is closer to 30%-%40 range. This will hurt them BAD and they totally screwed this up.
People like myself were not getting something for nothing. We PAID for that FEATURE for the last 5 years. Go re-read what CCP said. This was a FEATURE and we PAID for. Yes, I have grown very accustomed to getting what I have PAID for. Now that I will not get what I paid (or pay for) I will NOT resub my alt accounts.
It does not matter how CCP puts a spin on this. It WAS a feature, and they removed it. They will loose more customers then they can imagine in the end because I guarantee you if you read the quarterly reports on Eve's numbers reported by their own in game economist, you will see that the number of people that do this is closer to 30%-%40 range. This will hurt them BAD and they totally screwed this up.
Yeah Im not sure where they got 4% at for this spin but its a lot more than that, and A LOT more people are not subbing up their alts or quitting all together.
That 4% as I have already stated is closer to 30%-40% range. If you look at the numbers that CCP has already provided in the past, they have told us the aprox numbers of alt accounts. That being said, this will hurt them in the end AND IT SHOULD. By their own admission, and to what I have been saying here on MMORPG and MANY other places about this, it was a FEATURE. A FEATURE that we were paying for, one that they were very proud of in the past and one that set them apart from other games.
Now that the economy has turned to crap around the world, they take it away from us. It does not matter how you try to spin it, or for whatever reason you would want to be loyal to CCP for taking away something that we are paing for. The game as a whole is smaller now and the value we were getting from it has been reduced. As I said before, they are going to loose several accounts from me.
Torfi from the www.mmorpg.com interview:
“I truly hope that people still realize that we’re just gamers like them, trying to make a game and making a living off of it. It was not out of pure money, greed or lust that we did this. It was a balancing act and a fairness act toward us as a company moreso than the gamers, but I honestly can’t think of any other company that allows you to skill up your character when you’re not even paying for it.”
Amazing that he’d give an interview like this.
Regardless of how he feels, given how much CCP offended some players, the smart move would have been just to stay quiet about it rather than throw more oil on the flames. If you don’t know how much some players have been offended, find the 49 page thread on page 2 of the Eve forum Information Portal, and then obviously read the 159 page threadnaught on the front page of the Eve forums Information Portal.
49 page original master thread.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=896003
159 page new master thread that broke 150 in a week.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=896318&page=159
Look at what he’s saying in the paragraph I quoted. He’s saying it wasn’t a money decision, BUT YES, it was a money decision. That’s what he said.
Some bonehead jerks at CCP thought that players were somehow getting away with something ‘free’ and that players should pay more.
Some of this is recap but,
[Edit: Correction by removing a paragraph while I look something up.]
The real issue is the following, and I can’t emphasize this enough or repeat it enough,
Fact: Most players in most mmos have multiple characters to enjoy different aspects of the game. Using multiple characters on ONE subscribed account is standard in the mmo industry.
Fact: Eve, unlike any other mmo, has a large population of players who subscribe to more than one account. Some use ghost training on the second, third, forth account to mitigate the outrageous cost this entails.
Why multiple accounts? In other games, one subscribed account is enough. You pay 15 dollars, and you can make whatever characters you like, and enjoy whatever aspects of the game you like.
Not true in Eve. In Eve, it takes so so so so long to train characters, years to reach any kind of plateau in personal advancement in skills, that a character has to be constantly training, and since only ONE character per Eve account can be skill training at one time, if you want the same flexibility and exploration that is standard in other games, the Eve player has to subscribe to multiple accounts.
Fact: Players in other mmos very rarely ever subscribe to more than one account, it’s just not necessary to enjoy everything the game has to offer. It’s big news when, in any other mmo, you see someone controlling more than one account at a time. In Eve more than one account is normal, usual, nothing special.
Fact: Players in Eve, ON AVERAGE, given that so many people subscribe to more than one account, and given that so many players pay for game time with GTCs which amount to 17.50/month, pay MORE for their gaming experience than players in other mmos. This is true with or without ghost training. Eliminating ghost training just tips the scale even farther in this direction.
There is no getting around those facts.
Also EXTREMELY interesting about the ghost training fiasco is that neither CCP nor the players are pointing out that players get ‘free’ expansions. I mean if I were a company man putting out free expansions, I’d certainly ask the players’ indulgence when charging them a little more in other areas. If I were a fanboy defending CCP, I’d certainly point that out. I suspect the reason this doesn’t come up is because somewhere , in the back of their minds, apparently CCP and players both understand that the ‘expansions’ aren’t what that implies in other games, not at all.
In Eve, you don’t pay for content the same way you do in other mmos. Eve only takes up 3 gigs on your hard drive after over 5 years of play. The last big expansion, Empyrean Age, only amounted to 39mbs. Yeah, that’s right, 39mb. The biggest expansion they had was the release of tech2 gear and ships, and those ships almost all had hulls which were duplicates of old tech1 hulls.
So, what do you pay for with Eve? You pay for a sandbox with spaceships.
If you really like spaceships, and you really like free-for-all pvp, then Eve is a unique game unlike most other mmo out there. That’s the only reason CCP gets away with this crap. If there was a competitor out there who could provide anything near equivalent, then CCP would have to treat its customers better.
That is the only way to explain why people put up with CCP.
CCP has less content, fewer features, less flexibility than other mmos out there, and yet people on average pay MORE for it than other mmos. That’s one reason Eve will never be a widely popular game. It will always be a niche game. Most players won’t put up with that.
Let me put it this way. The heart wants, what the heart wants. You often can’t help who you fall in love with. Same goes for gaming. Eve just makes some people happy, so they don’t really care what they pay and how CCP treats them. Still, someone who isn’t looking through the clouded eyes of the smitten, can see how flawed Eve is.
Ok, I write that to put ghost training into perspective.
Small picture. Ghost training is some ‘free’ thing, a bug, that CCP quite understandably ‘fixed’ so they could get paid for their hard work.
Big picture: CCP are a bunch of scam artists who have a great racket going. They have to work much LESS, and provide much LESS than other mmos, while charging their players MORE. Removing ghost training was just another move farther in that direction.
For the casual people browsing this, take note that CCP is Deleting, moving and locking threads made on this subject on the EvE-O forums.
Don't believe this BS-Spin.
DavidLemke
Other mmos DO let players advance while they’re not logged in and while they’re not even subscribed. It’s called rested xp.
This is not correct, most do not give actual experienmce rather they reduce the experience cost when you play the next time. For example your character cannot advance a level without being played. Additionally this exp bonus does NOT happen on suspended accounts.
DavidLemke
Fact: Most players in most mmos have multiple characters to enjoy different aspects of the game. Using multiple characters on ONE subscribed account is standard in the mmo industry.
Fact: Eve, unlike any other mmo, has a large population of players who subscribe to more than one account. Some use ghost training on the second, third, forth account to mitigate the outrageous cost this entails.
Might want to do a Fact: check. To USE more than one character live at a time you must have multiple accounts in any MMO. In fact I would dare say you do not play as much as you would have us believe becuase any hard core player I know, in fact 90% of the players I know have more than one account in EVERY MMO.
I would have bothers to quote more but the drivel continues. You do not need extended periods of time to play EVE unless you only play at power level and nothing else. Unlike the monty haul gaming style of other MMOs, EVE takes time to progress and that is part of the game, it is just that simple. If it wher easy EVE would lose a huge percentage of it's base, most of us there like the challenge, if you do not WoW is waiting.
I like the one where you say EVE players pay more than other MMO players, tell that to WoW and Everquest players when they also factor in the cost for expansions. Also correct me if I am wrong, can a WoW or Everquest player actually use in game curency to pay for the account?
CCP has less content, fewer features, less flexibility than other mmos out there, and yet people on average pay MORE for it than other mmos. That’s one reason Eve will never be a widely popular game. It will always be a niche game. Most players won’t put up with that.
This last part I had to quote becuase it is so outrageous. Eve has the largest gam,e world, is the only game with a truly advancing storyline, has more player dirven content than any other game EVER and lets a player do whatever they like in game. So much for no flexability.
=============================
I have a soap box and I am not afraid to use it.
Also take note that bitter players spin without providing any proof to back up their claims. *scnr*
I confess I never even knew about "ghost training" until this announcement. I've had two accounts for 5 years and paid every day of both of them. Silly me.
Now I'm wondering, if these supposed legions of 5-alt cheapskates cancel en masse... will I be able to get into Jita again?