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EVE Online: IS A FREE GAME!
godpuppet
Member Posts: 1,416
in EVE Online
I want to bring a perhaps not widely known issue to everyones attention. EVE Online can be played without paying a $, and im not just talking about a trial, im talking for years. You can subscribe through legal means and never have to cough up your Credit Card!
How you ask?
CCP condone the sale of Game Time Cards for ingame isk. You can purchase a 50 day game time card for as much as 200million isk. On a level 3 agent, in a drake, I can make up to 50m a day on +3 implants, loot, salvage and rare items. I have 2 accounts which I havent payed a penny since I bought my 2 month.
Now I will say this, getting to the point where you can afford a drake and have enough standing to do level 3's can take over a month, you may have to pay for 30 days, but once you've reached that point, you never have to pay a penny again!
Questions?
"How do I know the person Im buying my Game Time Card isnt going to steal my isk from me?"
Well there is a simple list of instructions given by CCP as to how to enact an engagement. IF you have followed the instructions and the person you have traded with has stolen your isk, you can report them and they will be banned! Edit: You will also be reimbursed!
"Isnt this damaging the economy?"
No! If you think about it, its helping the economy by providing an alternative means to acquiring isk OTHER then buying from chinese farmers on ebay. CCP are the ones making the $$$ here as the GTC seller is buying the card then exchanging it for isk.
So what are you all waiting for? Free top class MMO! Get playing!
How you ask?
CCP condone the sale of Game Time Cards for ingame isk. You can purchase a 50 day game time card for as much as 200million isk. On a level 3 agent, in a drake, I can make up to 50m a day on +3 implants, loot, salvage and rare items. I have 2 accounts which I havent payed a penny since I bought my 2 month.
Now I will say this, getting to the point where you can afford a drake and have enough standing to do level 3's can take over a month, you may have to pay for 30 days, but once you've reached that point, you never have to pay a penny again!
Questions?
"How do I know the person Im buying my Game Time Card isnt going to steal my isk from me?"
Well there is a simple list of instructions given by CCP as to how to enact an engagement. IF you have followed the instructions and the person you have traded with has stolen your isk, you can report them and they will be banned! Edit: You will also be reimbursed!
"Isnt this damaging the economy?"
No! If you think about it, its helping the economy by providing an alternative means to acquiring isk OTHER then buying from chinese farmers on ebay. CCP are the ones making the $$$ here as the GTC seller is buying the card then exchanging it for isk.
So what are you all waiting for? Free top class MMO! Get playing!
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Comments
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"alternative means to acquiring isk "
One caveat: It takes some folks more than 1 month to get to Level 3 agents because they don't understand/know how to advance agent levels most efficiently. Would be cool if some of the more dedicated mission runners posted a guide on how to do it as quickly as possible.
Because, god knows, Level 1 and Level 2 agent missions are about as much fun as watching paint peel.
Alternative: If you are a miner or a 0.0 belt ratter you can make the same kind of income as he's talking about. It'll take about 2-3 months for you to reach it, however, as you need a BS or BC with good fitting skills to take on the types of spawns you'll be facing to get that kind of income (Tripple 1.2 mil+ Bounty Battleship Spawns aren't anything to sneeze at, difficulty wise.)
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
Apply lemon juice and candle flame here to reveal secret message.
"Isnt this damaging the economy?"
No! If you think about it, its helping the economy by providing an alternative means to acquiring isk OTHER then buying from chinese farmers on ebay. CCP are the ones making the $$$ here as the GTC seller is buying the card then exchanging it for isk.
Neither the above statement nor I said anything about buying ISK to then buy a game card to sell for ISK, but instead buying a Game Card to sell for ISK. Your "madness-tinged mind" came up with that.
There are players in game who augment their ISK income for whatever reason by buying GTC's and selling them to players for ISK. While SIMILAR in practice to just going to Ebay and buying $15 worth of ISK it is better because of 2 things:
1) The money doesn't go to some 3rd party company it goes to the game developer and directly benefits the game
2) The money is used to provide another player with a valuable in game feature: Game time.
3) The ISK goes to a player, who will use it to buy things in game rather than selling it on E-Bay.
Added benefit: The fact that there is a legal means which is supported by CCP means that ISK sellers have little luck, thus there aren't many of them out there. Thus reducing the number of macro-mining fleets in the game so players (especially newbies) have more resources they can mine. Overall net win-win. CCP keeps the money made from ISK sales "in house". Players get free gametime from buying the codes.
Can it be abused? Sure... there are actually some alliances who gather money from their members to broker GTC's and then use the income in ISK from the GTC's to buy things that their alliance otherwise couldn't afford. But... that said... those alliances are paper-tigers. The first REAL threat that comes their way will overwhelm them. Especially now that the POS bugs are gone for the most part which means they are spending REAL money to buy POS's which those of us who didn't can blow up. so their losses are losses of real money which means their members get pissed and leave the alliance faster which means they're easier, in the end, to defeat.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
What's to stop an interested player from making multiple accounts, and sending the isk farmed on each one repeatedly, and then keeping their final character?
In other words, why not use the trial for 13 days, save all the money, register a secondary account for a trial, receive all the money from the first one, etc etc...?
It just seems like it would lead to trial abuse in my opinion.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
limited in the transfer of ISK (sending directly ISK isnt possible).
Buying and transfering ISK over that isnt an idea also as CCP monitors larger ISKs flows, i think especially on Trial accounts,
which leads to the ban of both, your main and your Trial Account.
Though bulding up a new char every 14 days is Pain, cause you need to skill again and cant reach better level agents or equipment to defeat higher NPCs.
Theoretically its possible, but it would take more then a couple of months, a dozen email addresses and at the end you could still recieve a ban for Trial Account Abuse (They were abused for mining, though the limitations).
That's fine and dandy, but the point he was trying to make was that CCP is, effectively, ENCOURAGING people to buy ISK with real money. This "tiny little detail" that everyone seems to overlook is a huge slap in the face for every REAL MMO that is trying to stop this sort of behavior.
Most companies ban farmers who sell gold for real cash. Selling the players the gold yourself instead to get extra money to "supplement the game" is the lazy way out.
That's fine and dandy, but the point he was trying to make was that CCP is, effectively, ENCOURAGING people to buy ISK with real money. This "tiny little detail" that everyone seems to overlook is a huge slap in the face for every REAL MMO that is trying to stop this sort of behavior.
Most companies ban farmers who sell gold for real cash. Selling the players the gold yourself instead to get extra money to "supplement the game" is the lazy way out.
You call it lazy? Well, let's see, other companies (the ones that AREN'T lazy) spend many thousands of dollars to try to stop gold farmers and are only partially successful, at best!
OTOH, CCP (the lazy company) has invented a system that virtually kills the EBAY gold market and MAKES MONEY for CCP.
What you call lazy, I call pragmatic at the very least, and brilliant at best.
Also for this to work you need a level 3 kill agent which will take more than 14 days of hard work to get.
Here is a better way of doing it tho. Get yourself a level 4 courier agent and then you get to do most of your missions in a shuttle in safe space for big rewards and at most you will need a badger . With storyline awards of level 4 implants. Earn 100 mill a day then. for a few hours work.
CCP still discourage this, but now they have a tool to control it partily as they can observe where those GTC
sold went to and they can intervene at critical points, beside getting still their cash and drying regular Gold/ISK Farmer.
There are still some Macros around, but there arent as much as half a year ago, where literally in every belt where Mining Barges
which stripped all ore around there.
(You feel them missing, prieces on low Mins have increased a lot since.)
That's fine and dandy, but the point he was trying to make was that CCP is, effectively, ENCOURAGING people to buy ISK with real money. This "tiny little detail" that everyone seems to overlook is a huge slap in the face for every REAL MMO that is trying to stop this sort of behavior.
Most companies ban farmers who sell gold for real cash. Selling the players the gold yourself instead to get extra money to "supplement the game" is the lazy way out.
How does it 'supplement the game"?
The people buying the GTC's with ISK would need GTC's either way. CCP would get the money EITHER WAY just directly from the player rather than through the GTC for ISK seller. All the GTC sale does is allow the player who is more frugal a way to obtain it without spending his money. The "rich guy" is basically subsidizing the "poor guy who plays alot".
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. If the GTC sales weren't there they'd buy the ISK on Ebay or wherever. I think it's a simple, elegant, solution to the problem. You can't STOP gold sellers unless you dry up their market. Period. No game company will ever succeed. CCP, on the other hand, killed them with 'kindness'. They tried the 'ban every tom dick and harry who they can' approach and found it just as useless as every other game has. They, on the other hand, came up with a simple solution:
Give the rich players a way to get in game money legitimately while HELPING the 'poor' players afford the game more easily. As I said, it's a win-win.
You call it lazy. I call it pragmatic and elegant.
Gold sellers, while there are still a few now and then, are largely gone from EVE since CCP came up with GTC for ISK sales. You say other games are working very hard to eliminate them. I'd say EVE succeeded where they failed. It's not like the ISK from PLAYERS is being mis-used. Other PLAYERS sell the GTC, not some 3rd party corporation. Because nobody in their right mind buys ISK online. And those who do wind up regretting it. Every now and then a thread pops up about some poor slob who bought ISK online and got burned. Very few pople (if any) still do it now. As I said, the ISK farmers are still out there. But they are MUCH fewer and further between. Because there's a LEGAL method, which is affordable, to get ISK if you really want to.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
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-iCeh
Yeah, they are in a way supporting ISK buying. Only it doesn't involve third party companies who drive economies into the ground. And other players benefit from Players buying and selling timecodes.
So it's not nearly as selfish as clicking buy on some third party website. In fact, it's not selfish at all since all you are really doing is paying someones account for a month in exchange for a bit of their elbow grease.
It's mutually beneficial, and extra money made, if any at all, goes to CCP to improve the game and not some sweatshop company in China.
Frankly, I have never heard anyone speak so much as a single bad word about this system in game. Everyone seems to be happy and the economy is for the most part stable and reasonable (exclude some Tech2 items, monopoly is an entirely different problem). So if your only complaint is based on 'principle', open your eyes. Principles don't mean shit, it's results that matter.