No you're right it doesn't, but the fraction of the 10,000 reported ghost training user's that will actually quit is largly insignificant for the overall population. An MMO only needs about 60-70000 subscribers to be profitable, even if ccp were to lose the full 10,000 they're still in no danger of running out of money. And honestly the game can do without the alt armies some people have. it was getting rediculous.
It's more than 10,000 by a lot as most of the people I knew had around 2 alts or more, and they needed them. If zero sec taught me anything its the necessity of an alt. Due to the level of pvping in 0.0, you need an alt if you want an income as your main always has to be on the frontlines. Now making alts much more expensive people won't use them, and so it's going to screw the game up. A lot.
Plus doesn't remove the fact that now you are literally paying for a set amount of SP's a month. May as well just have a skill store on the website.
I look at it this way. I pay for my EVE accounts. If you're unwilling to play unless you mostly don't pay for your accounts, then buhbye. If some supposed army of your friends feels the same way and also leaves, then buhbye.
As for whether CCP will lose money - that's their business. Not ours.
I look at it this way. I pay for my EVE accounts. If you're unwilling to play unless you mostly don't pay for your accounts, then buhbye. If some supposed army of your friends feels the same way and also leaves, then buhbye. As for whether CCP will lose money - that's their business. Not ours.
That completely skips over the entire issue of ghost training and the fact that Eve now has put a huge price on leveling up, at least 4x that of any other MMORPG considering the time it takes to become a 'good' player. If it isn't the customers business to know how the company he is paying for a product is doing, then whose business is it??
CCP has increased the price of Eve significantly in the last few months and on both accounts, they never once actually admitted it was a price hike. Not to mention the fact that they down right lied to their customers not once, but twice, as well as admitting a startling amount of incompetince.
You can pay for Eve if you are willing to put money into the pockets of those kind of morally lacking people as well as paying an absurd amount of money for a game that doesn't come close to being as good as it's price would suggest.
I agree with you that CCP is making it more expensive to play EVE. Tranquility cannot grow forever and they don't want shards. Raising the rates buys them some time and helps fund new tech to allow growth.
I have about 150 million SPs worth of EVE training and I've paid for all of it. Others have paid less. I don't begrudge them their savings, but I don't consider it their right either.
If everybody who can't stand this change actually leaves, all it will mean is shorter login queues on weekends.
As for the amount of time it supposedly takes to be a "good" player - that's an illusion. You will never "catch up" to an active player who joined 2 years before you. There is always someone out there who can kick your butt in this game. And it's easy to enjoy EVE from the first day of play. I recently rolled a power of two alt and it was fun! Of course now that alt is training but I run missions with it every so often just for kicks.
I agree with you that CCP is making it more expensive to play EVE. Tranquility cannot grow forever and they don't want shards. Raising the rates buys them some time and helps fund new tech to allow growth. I have about 150 million SPs worth of EVE training and I've paid for all of it. Others have paid less. I don't begrudge them their savings, but I don't consider it their right either. If everybody who can't stand this change actually leaves, all it will mean is shorter login queues on weekends. As for the amount of time it supposedly takes to be a "good" player - that's an illusion. You will never "catch up" to an active player who joined 2 years before you. There is always someone out there who can kick your butt in this game. And it's easy to enjoy EVE from the first day of play. I recently rolled a power of two alt and it was fun! Of course now that alt is training but I run missions with it every so often just for kicks.
I think it should be taken into account that Icelands economy has gone somewhat to hell, hence the price hike. However, even if the increase was to make the game better etc which I'm all for, especially after the recent software upgrades greatly reducing lag, the way CCP went about the price increase was deplorable, which is the main problem with many veteran players who don't really have an issue with the removal of GT.
Thing is, GT was origanaly a selling point of Eve, and reinforced by CCP reps and mention of it in the tutorial. To claim it was a bug was rediculous, as well as it makes the game very difficult for people with r/l commitments to play. I'm not trying to get into a 10 page argue-athon, but it was the players right to use GT as it was a feature of the game, not a bug. A fair amount of the guys I knew in Eve spent a lot of time abroad due to the military and so GT was perfect for them. Now, Eve is too akward to manage when you may not be at a pc for weeks at a time.
In terms of a good player, I mean one that is a valuable asset in PVP. Having been part of MaxDamage and knowing the ship layouts etc, it would take 2 years to aquire enough SP's to fly around 4 of the ships (including a mixture of weapons, ship class) recommended to the required fittings, as well as additional experience in pvping. Annoyingly so however, due to the price of now running alts, a lot of the older players have a great advantage that they already have good alts, whereas new players are pretty much screwed, unless money ($400+) isn't a concern.
People need to stop whining and crying about this.
Crying about not being able to train a character when not even paying for the game is pathetic. I laugh at anyone leaving for this, and wonder what game they expect to freeload off now?
EVE community along with the MMO community in general have grown into some of the biggest spoiled brat crybabies I have witnessed.
People need to stop whining and crying about this. Crying about not being able to train a character when not even paying for the game is pathetic. I laugh at anyone leaving for this, and wonder what game they expect to freeload off now? EVE community along with the MMO community in general have grown into some of the biggest spoiled brat crybabies I have witnessed. Get a grip kiddies, MMOs are just games.
Well done, I think you just proved you have not read a single reply on this post.
If a company, say BT, doubled it's price bill and claimed it was due to a fault in the system, but really it was the credit crunch, what would happen?
There would be an outcry from the customers. This is the same with EvE. Yes, MMORPG's are only games, but you are still a customer and are paying for a service. Therefore, you expect a certain quality of game in return. When either the quality goes down, or the price increases without the quality doing so, the customers/players are entitled to "whine and cry" as you put.
And the training is time related, not grind related. This means, as has been explained before, that you end up having to play for a minimum amount of time to become any good, which can then be seen as you now have to pay $400+ for two years to become any decent. That really isn't fair, and then mixed with the fact that CCP have lied about why they removed ghost training, many players are quitting due to CCP being a terrible company.
When large sums of money are involved, I'm sure anyone mature enough can see that you can't just take the attitude of "it's just a game" unless you want to be flushing cash down the toilet.
Originally posted by Clattuc Right, so in other words, CCP didn't think about all important aspects of their decision. But you did. CCP actually, like, knows how much money they make, and how many accounts they have, and stuff. But we're just a lot smarter. So, yes, it makes sense. They're greedy, but they'll lose money, because they don't pay attention to their company, unlike us.
Normally I would agree with this line of reasoning and I basically still do but it's not hard to see why CCP may have miscalculated BADLY.
I could go on atleast three different reasons how CCP probably did their math wrong but I'll only focus on one because what's the point explaining everything.
In CCPs own words almost 20% of the player base engages in 0.0 space actively.
Also in their words the average number of accounts for these players is suspected to be 3.
By removing ghost training CCP is targeting (among other various targets) people with multiple accounts by asking them to pay full time.
The only reason habitual ghost trainers could justify paying for 3 accounts which would've been $45 in any other MMO is ghost training which had the potential to reduce their savings to $30 per month (if they were lucky to have the L5 skills to ghost train)
Thanks to the removal their savings are gone and prices went up 10-50% depending on how they ghost trained. Since cost went up dramatically people will consolidate their accounts by transferring. In the best case scenario the average number of accounts will be reduced from 3 to 2 because two accounts is necessary to play the 0.0 game.
So CCP will get a consistent $30 dollars a month.
This should come across as painfully stupid because noone can perfectly ghost train to the point they paid only $30 a month with 3 accounts. They most likely paid somewhere between $30 and $45 and even a loss of that marginal value in earnings in light of the recessions the world is going through is beyond dumb.
In reality CCP accountants had to expect most players would want to keep their third accounts which is a really large leap in logic if they actually played the game.
If CCP was a publically traded company and I was an investor I would demand someone from PR or accounting to get fired over this boondoggle.
I don't know how accurate a guage this is but since Ghost Training was removed, the price of GTCs has gone up to 550 Mill ISK, implying that demand is outstripping supply.
Now why would the demand and volume for GTCs have suddenly gone up? Go figure but as people have to buy those GTCs for RM before they can sell them, I'm sure CCP aren't complaining about the revenue from extra sales.
II think CCP will lose considerable accounts with the cancellation of ghost training. Some people need time to come up with the money to renew there account. Ghost training was a way to stay competitive on a budget.
I am sure I am like a lot of people playing eve, I do not like losing a few hours to missed training, let alone a few days or even weeks or a month. In any case there is a lot less to look forward to when you are able to renew your account since game play is brightened by the advancement of your skill training.
Iceland mentally of greed and lack of financial wisdom is well documented with the collapse of there banking system and now they think they can increase there revenues with removing incentives from the game.
I played 6 accounts for over 3 years and did not rely on this feature, however I am tired of CCP nerfing things and I cancelled my accounts.
And no leech, you can not have my 50 billion isk, it will make a nice coffin layer. Besides I earned it by working for it, not stealing or begging or ganking others.
So basically that entire interview can be summed up as "We don't want people progressing without paying us".
They want more money, which is what businesses do. Question is will they lose more money from doing this than they would have lost if they left it alone? Time will tell.
Normally I would agree with this line of reasoning and I basically still do but it's not hard to see why CCP may have miscalculated BADLY. I could go on atleast three different reasons how CCP probably did their math wrong but I'll only focus on one because what's the point explaining everything. In CCPs own words almost 20% of the player base engages in 0.0 space actively. Also in their words the average number of accounts for these players is suspected to be 3. By removing ghost training CCP is targeting (among other various targets) people with multiple accounts by asking them to pay full time. The only reason habitual ghost trainers could justify paying for 3 accounts which would've been $45 in any other MMO is ghost training which had the potential to reduce their savings to $30 per month (if they were lucky to have the L5 skills to ghost train)
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
Part of me thinks they'll do a 180 and restore the feature. That way, all the people who had dread V training will have to resub to set the skill timer again.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I am very glad that CCP removed ghost training from this fine game. I have been paying every month for more than 3 years and love to play the game and pay happily for subscription every month.
If you do not want to pay for playing the game then just leave and find yourself some F2P game to play. Lastly if you decide to stop playing EVE then please send all your ISK to me and contract all your assets to me ingame
I don't know how accurate a guage this is but since Ghost Training was removed, the price of GTCs has gone up to 550 Mill ISK, implying that demand is outstripping supply.
Now why would the demand and volume for GTCs have suddenly gone up? Go figure but as people have to buy those GTCs for RM before they can sell them, I'm sure CCP aren't complaining about the revenue from extra sales.
CCP will be loosing money if GTC's isk value has increased. As players bought them to trade for isk, the higher the value, the less time codes needed, therefore less are bought. This leads to CCP making less money...
I am very glad that CCP removed ghost training from this fine game. I have been paying every month for more than 3 years and love to play the game and pay happily for subscription every month. If you do not want to pay for playing the game then just leave and find yourself some F2P game to play. Lastly if you decide to stop playing EVE then please send all your ISK to me and contract all your assets to me ingame
You cannot apply the "pay to play" idea to eve's progression system or ghost training .
You gain SP's over time, not by grinding. Therefore by removing ghost training you are now paying for skill points. Imagine if in WoW you had to pay extra to raid. Removing ghost training has effectivly done this as you have to pay more cash to reach end game content. Not to mention that you have to pay for a set amount of time (2 years roughly) to become any good in the eve universe.
And just chucking it in, me and my bro are quitting, have over 3 billion isk, not to mention crystal epsilon implants etc in storage. And they aren't going to anyone
When I subscribed, I usually subscribed for 4-6 months, then got tired of doing whatever I was doing, and GT'd a skill and took a few month break. Then, I came back, played for several more months and picked a new long train before breaking again. It seems some people have missed the point. The point is, after you get bored of whatever else you're distracted with (warhammer atm), you'd go back to eve for some fun and give the other game a break. Now there is just less of a reason to go back. Also, as an aside. The people who are attacking others and saying "stop crying" don't really sound like the eve players I know. Eve players, just like most of this thread, have always discussed things quite well in forums. So it sounds like the element of the community that I enjoyed may be dwindling a bit anyhow <shrugs>
Normally I would agree with this line of reasoning and I basically still do but it's not hard to see why CCP may have miscalculated BADLY. I could go on atleast three different reasons how CCP probably did their math wrong but I'll only focus on one because what's the point explaining everything. In CCPs own words almost 20% of the player base engages in 0.0 space actively. Also in their words the average number of accounts for these players is suspected to be 3. By removing ghost training CCP is targeting (among other various targets) people with multiple accounts by asking them to pay full time. The only reason habitual ghost trainers could justify paying for 3 accounts which would've been $45 in any other MMO is ghost training which had the potential to reduce their savings to $30 per month (if they were lucky to have the L5 skills to ghost train)
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
Well your friends are the exception rather than the rule. I don't know anyone in our alliance that actively keeps all their accounts active, while their probably are some, it is not common. Ghost training was very heavily used and we have been living in 0.0 for over two years . It is quite obvious that they are going to take a hit from this, just how much we will have to wait and see, but I certainly am not activating my 2nd account nor is my brother his 2nd and 3rd accounts, we will play with only one now.
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
I believe it, because from what I've observed from scrapheap and other forums a sizeable number of people didn't ghost train even with multiple accounts. But that only helps underscore the bad thinking on CCP.
Their accountants aren't acknowledging that those who did ghost train did so with an assessment that states 3 accounts is worth $35 not $45. Jacking up the price only targets the people who weren't all that interested in paying for their multiples on a full term basis.
CCP wasn't going to get anymore money from you. They are trying to affect the bottom line of those who tried to save money or didn't value their alts so highly. I want to see how subscription levels look from January to February.
If the growth percentage doesn't match their consistent growth pattern that's a strong indicator that ghost training removal hurt them. (though the way the economy is going and with the anticipation of two serious competitors for Eve's constituency from upcoming MMOs could undermine this point)
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
I believe it, because from what I've observed from scrapheap and other forums a sizeable number of people didn't ghost train even with multiple accounts. But that only helps underscore the bad thinking on CCP.
Their accountants aren't acknowledging that those who did ghost train did so with an assessment that states 3 accounts is worth $35 not $45. Jacking up the price only targets the people who weren't all that interested in paying for their multiples on a full term basis.
Yes but they were seeing a drastic upswing in characters that were being created and trained exclusively with ghost training, hence characters were being farmed to sell for isk, which means that the isk farmers were starting to abuse the mechanic and that's the most likely reason for them to stop it.
You've given them too much credit I think, but good point. One could say they did this to stop them, or one could say they did this to capitalize on their activities at the expense of the general player base. Either way you look at it the end result is the same, it hurts players in some form over something they've enjoyed for a really long time and appreciated as a feature to the Eve universe.
Originally posted by Minsc Yes but they were seeing a drastic upswing in characters that were being created and trained exclusively with ghost training, hence characters were being farmed to sell for isk, which means that the isk farmers were starting to abuse the mechanic and that's the most likely reason for them to stop it.
In another forum I made a similar point but someone else pointed out to me why this is wrong.
First off, isk farmers aren't ghost trainers. They need those characters to macro mine. THey'll always be active until they are banned. Besides if anything macro miners are going to use trial accounts because why pay for alts?
It is professional character sellers who would want to take advantage of ghost training (among other groups of people).
So CCP wants them to pay up and assumes since they are professionals they'll pay for they'll alts.
By removing ghost training CCP is increasing their cost of doing business. They'll push these increased costs on to the buyers. Buyers seeing character becoming more expensive, even though demand has relatively remained constant means less characters will be brought because not as many people can afford the new price hikes.
(FYI this scenario is equivalent to what Mazty was explaining in post 116 a page back. Only in that case CCP forced teh prices to go up because they made GTCs more expensive.)
As a result of less characters being brought CCP is probably losing out on the people who would've been buying those ghost accounts and using them as full tiume accounts.
CCP most likely would've been better off just letting ghost training being abused because they were already going to be sold off to people who would've turned them into full time accounts and (most importantly) they would've been sold in higher quantities than they are going to be now.
Now I say most likely. What could possibly exist that makes this scenario unlikely? That would be three factors. CCPs Ambulation project, their "Need for Speed" initiative and Quantum Rise expansion. Essentially each of these factors have to change the game in such a way that the demand for ghost trained accounts increases. Quantum Rise is most likely going to be like any other expansion and won't change demand for no more than a month. Need for Speed is a multipart strategy that is proving incredibly hard for CCP to pull off. If they can reduce lag so large battles are feasible well the pay off will be really big. AMbulation is a full blown wild card in my eyes. I have little understanding of other peoples' opinions with avatars to know if this will be a significant enough change in making Eve even more attractive.
Since they have the resources to know that the system is being abused, it also seems to me that they have the resources to pinpoint who is abusing the system most. A better change on their part if they wanted to nip account sellers would have been to target those accounts for negative action such as suspension. I would think that it wouldn't be that hard to put ghost training as a flag on the account. If they see someone abusing it exclusively, turn it off for 6 months as a penalty, then let it go back active. That would be a better solution than just pulling it from the game completely.
Ghost training used to draw me back when I quit before. Before, I'd be like I'm sick of this grind and go play FPS/Console for a bit. then some good long skill would pop and I'd return
Now I wont have that reason to return. Anyway I guess we'll see what the future holds. Havent been very happy with this game lately guess thats how it goes though.
Originally posted by jwshaw88 Since they have the resources to know that the system is being abused, it also seems to me that they have the resources to pinpoint who is abusing the system most. A better change on their part if they wanted to nip account sellers would have been to target those accounts for negative action such as suspension. I would think that it wouldn't be that hard to put ghost training as a flag on the account. If they see someone abusing it exclusively, turn it off for 6 months as a penalty, then let it go back active. That would be a better solution than just pulling it from the game completely.
CCP isn't interested in removing account sellers because they actually make money for CCP. CCP is now trying to squeeze out of them, along with some other people, more money.
Comments
It's more than 10,000 by a lot as most of the people I knew had around 2 alts or more, and they needed them. If zero sec taught me anything its the necessity of an alt. Due to the level of pvping in 0.0, you need an alt if you want an income as your main always has to be on the frontlines. Now making alts much more expensive people won't use them, and so it's going to screw the game up. A lot.
Plus doesn't remove the fact that now you are literally paying for a set amount of SP's a month. May as well just have a skill store on the website.
Mazty on PSN
I look at it this way. I pay for my EVE accounts. If you're unwilling to play unless you mostly don't pay for your accounts, then buhbye. If some supposed army of your friends feels the same way and also leaves, then buhbye.
As for whether CCP will lose money - that's their business. Not ours.
That completely skips over the entire issue of ghost training and the fact that Eve now has put a huge price on leveling up, at least 4x that of any other MMORPG considering the time it takes to become a 'good' player. If it isn't the customers business to know how the company he is paying for a product is doing, then whose business is it??
CCP has increased the price of Eve significantly in the last few months and on both accounts, they never once actually admitted it was a price hike. Not to mention the fact that they down right lied to their customers not once, but twice, as well as admitting a startling amount of incompetince.
You can pay for Eve if you are willing to put money into the pockets of those kind of morally lacking people as well as paying an absurd amount of money for a game that doesn't come close to being as good as it's price would suggest.
Mazty on PSN
I agree with you that CCP is making it more expensive to play EVE. Tranquility cannot grow forever and they don't want shards. Raising the rates buys them some time and helps fund new tech to allow growth.
I have about 150 million SPs worth of EVE training and I've paid for all of it. Others have paid less. I don't begrudge them their savings, but I don't consider it their right either.
If everybody who can't stand this change actually leaves, all it will mean is shorter login queues on weekends.
As for the amount of time it supposedly takes to be a "good" player - that's an illusion. You will never "catch up" to an active player who joined 2 years before you. There is always someone out there who can kick your butt in this game. And it's easy to enjoy EVE from the first day of play. I recently rolled a power of two alt and it was fun! Of course now that alt is training
but I run missions with it every so often just for kicks.
I think it should be taken into account that Icelands economy has gone somewhat to hell, hence the price hike. However, even if the increase was to make the game better etc which I'm all for, especially after the recent software upgrades greatly reducing lag, the way CCP went about the price increase was deplorable, which is the main problem with many veteran players who don't really have an issue with the removal of GT.
Thing is, GT was origanaly a selling point of Eve, and reinforced by CCP reps and mention of it in the tutorial. To claim it was a bug was rediculous, as well as it makes the game very difficult for people with r/l commitments to play. I'm not trying to get into a 10 page argue-athon, but it was the players right to use GT as it was a feature of the game, not a bug. A fair amount of the guys I knew in Eve spent a lot of time abroad due to the military and so GT was perfect for them. Now, Eve is too akward to manage when you may not be at a pc for weeks at a time.
In terms of a good player, I mean one that is a valuable asset in PVP. Having been part of MaxDamage and knowing the ship layouts etc, it would take 2 years to aquire enough SP's to fly around 4 of the ships (including a mixture of weapons, ship class) recommended to the required fittings, as well as additional experience in pvping. Annoyingly so however, due to the price of now running alts, a lot of the older players have a great advantage that they already have good alts, whereas new players are pretty much screwed, unless money ($400+) isn't a concern.
Mazty on PSN
People need to stop whining and crying about this.
Crying about not being able to train a character when not even paying for the game is pathetic. I laugh at anyone leaving for this, and wonder what game they expect to freeload off now?
EVE community along with the MMO community in general have grown into some of the biggest spoiled brat crybabies I have witnessed.
Get a grip kiddies, MMOs are just games.
SHOHADAKU
Well done, I think you just proved you have not read a single reply on this post.
If a company, say BT, doubled it's price bill and claimed it was due to a fault in the system, but really it was the credit crunch, what would happen?
There would be an outcry from the customers. This is the same with EvE. Yes, MMORPG's are only games, but you are still a customer and are paying for a service. Therefore, you expect a certain quality of game in return. When either the quality goes down, or the price increases without the quality doing so, the customers/players are entitled to "whine and cry" as you put.
And the training is time related, not grind related. This means, as has been explained before, that you end up having to play for a minimum amount of time to become any good, which can then be seen as you now have to pay $400+ for two years to become any decent. That really isn't fair, and then mixed with the fact that CCP have lied about why they removed ghost training, many players are quitting due to CCP being a terrible company.
When large sums of money are involved, I'm sure anyone mature enough can see that you can't just take the attitude of "it's just a game" unless you want to be flushing cash down the toilet.
Mazty on PSN
Normally I would agree with this line of reasoning and I basically still do but it's not hard to see why CCP may have miscalculated BADLY.
I could go on atleast three different reasons how CCP probably did their math wrong but I'll only focus on one because what's the point explaining everything.
In CCPs own words almost 20% of the player base engages in 0.0 space actively.
Also in their words the average number of accounts for these players is suspected to be 3.
By removing ghost training CCP is targeting (among other various targets) people with multiple accounts by asking them to pay full time.
The only reason habitual ghost trainers could justify paying for 3 accounts which would've been $45 in any other MMO is ghost training which had the potential to reduce their savings to $30 per month (if they were lucky to have the L5 skills to ghost train)
Thanks to the removal their savings are gone and prices went up 10-50% depending on how they ghost trained. Since cost went up dramatically people will consolidate their accounts by transferring. In the best case scenario the average number of accounts will be reduced from 3 to 2 because two accounts is necessary to play the 0.0 game.
So CCP will get a consistent $30 dollars a month.
This should come across as painfully stupid because noone can perfectly ghost train to the point they paid only $30 a month with 3 accounts. They most likely paid somewhere between $30 and $45 and even a loss of that marginal value in earnings in light of the recessions the world is going through is beyond dumb.
In reality CCP accountants had to expect most players would want to keep their third accounts which is a really large leap in logic if they actually played the game.
If CCP was a publically traded company and I was an investor I would demand someone from PR or accounting to get fired over this boondoggle.
I don't know how accurate a guage this is but since Ghost Training was removed, the price of GTCs has gone up to 550 Mill ISK, implying that demand is outstripping supply.
Now why would the demand and volume for GTCs have suddenly gone up? Go figure but as people have to buy those GTCs for RM before they can sell them, I'm sure CCP aren't complaining about the revenue from extra sales.
II think CCP will lose considerable accounts with the cancellation of ghost training. Some people need time to come up with the money to renew there account. Ghost training was a way to stay competitive on a budget.
I am sure I am like a lot of people playing eve, I do not like losing a few hours to missed training, let alone a few days or even weeks or a month. In any case there is a lot less to look forward to when you are able to renew your account since game play is brightened by the advancement of your skill training.
Iceland mentally of greed and lack of financial wisdom is well documented with the collapse of there banking system and now they think they can increase there revenues with removing incentives from the game.
I played 6 accounts for over 3 years and did not rely on this feature, however I am tired of CCP nerfing things and I cancelled my accounts.
And no leech, you can not have my 50 billion isk, it will make a nice coffin layer. Besides I earned it by working for it, not stealing or begging or ganking others.
So basically that entire interview can be summed up as "We don't want people progressing without paying us".
They want more money, which is what businesses do. Question is will they lose more money from doing this than they would have lost if they left it alone? Time will tell.
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
Part of me thinks they'll do a 180 and restore the feature. That way, all the people who had dread V training will have to resub to set the skill timer again.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I am very glad that CCP removed ghost training from this fine game. I have been paying every month for more than 3 years and love to play the game and pay happily for subscription every month.
If you do not want to pay for playing the game then just leave and find yourself some F2P game to play. Lastly if you decide to stop playing EVE then please send all your ISK to me and contract all your assets to me ingame
CCP will be loosing money if GTC's isk value has increased. As players bought them to trade for isk, the higher the value, the less time codes needed, therefore less are bought. This leads to CCP making less money...
Mazty on PSN
You cannot apply the "pay to play" idea to eve's progression system or ghost training .
You gain SP's over time, not by grinding. Therefore by removing ghost training you are now paying for skill points. Imagine if in WoW you had to pay extra to raid. Removing ghost training has effectivly done this as you have to pay more cash to reach end game content. Not to mention that you have to pay for a set amount of time (2 years roughly) to become any good in the eve universe.
And just chucking it in, me and my bro are quitting, have over 3 billion isk, not to mention crystal epsilon implants etc in storage. And they aren't going to anyone
Mazty on PSN
When I subscribed, I usually subscribed for 4-6 months, then got tired of doing whatever I was doing, and GT'd a skill and took a few month break. Then, I came back, played for several more months and picked a new long train before breaking again. It seems some people have missed the point. The point is, after you get bored of whatever else you're distracted with (warhammer atm), you'd go back to eve for some fun and give the other game a break. Now there is just less of a reason to go back. Also, as an aside. The people who are attacking others and saying "stop crying" don't really sound like the eve players I know. Eve players, just like most of this thread, have always discussed things quite well in forums. So it sounds like the element of the community that I enjoyed may be dwindling a bit anyhow <shrugs>
Believe it or not as one of those 0.0 players that had 3 accounts I had all 3 active all the time with the exception of when I was taking a break from the game. You don't have multiple accounts in 0.0 to ghost train you have multiple accounts in 0.0 to use them. If anything 0.0 alt accounts are more likely to be active and NOT training to keep clone costs down then to be training and not paying. All the multi-account friends I had with more then 2 accounts had all of them active all of the time.
Well your friends are the exception rather than the rule. I don't know anyone in our alliance that actively keeps all their accounts active, while their probably are some, it is not common. Ghost training was very heavily used and we have been living in 0.0 for over two years . It is quite obvious that they are going to take a hit from this, just how much we will have to wait and see, but I certainly am not activating my 2nd account nor is my brother his 2nd and 3rd accounts, we will play with only one now.
I believe it, because from what I've observed from scrapheap and other forums a sizeable number of people didn't ghost train even with multiple accounts. But that only helps underscore the bad thinking on CCP.
Their accountants aren't acknowledging that those who did ghost train did so with an assessment that states 3 accounts is worth $35 not $45. Jacking up the price only targets the people who weren't all that interested in paying for their multiples on a full term basis.
CCP wasn't going to get anymore money from you. They are trying to affect the bottom line of those who tried to save money or didn't value their alts so highly. I want to see how subscription levels look from January to February.
If the growth percentage doesn't match their consistent growth pattern that's a strong indicator that ghost training removal hurt them. (though the way the economy is going and with the anticipation of two serious competitors for Eve's constituency from upcoming MMOs could undermine this point)
I believe it, because from what I've observed from scrapheap and other forums a sizeable number of people didn't ghost train even with multiple accounts. But that only helps underscore the bad thinking on CCP.
Their accountants aren't acknowledging that those who did ghost train did so with an assessment that states 3 accounts is worth $35 not $45. Jacking up the price only targets the people who weren't all that interested in paying for their multiples on a full term basis.
Yes but they were seeing a drastic upswing in characters that were being created and trained exclusively with ghost training, hence characters were being farmed to sell for isk, which means that the isk farmers were starting to abuse the mechanic and that's the most likely reason for them to stop it.
You've given them too much credit I think, but good point. One could say they did this to stop them, or one could say they did this to capitalize on their activities at the expense of the general player base. Either way you look at it the end result is the same, it hurts players in some form over something they've enjoyed for a really long time and appreciated as a feature to the Eve universe.
In another forum I made a similar point but someone else pointed out to me why this is wrong.
First off, isk farmers aren't ghost trainers. They need those characters to macro mine. THey'll always be active until they are banned. Besides if anything macro miners are going to use trial accounts because why pay for alts?
It is professional character sellers who would want to take advantage of ghost training (among other groups of people).
So CCP wants them to pay up and assumes since they are professionals they'll pay for they'll alts.
By removing ghost training CCP is increasing their cost of doing business. They'll push these increased costs on to the buyers. Buyers seeing character becoming more expensive, even though demand has relatively remained constant means less characters will be brought because not as many people can afford the new price hikes.
(FYI this scenario is equivalent to what Mazty was explaining in post 116 a page back. Only in that case CCP forced teh prices to go up because they made GTCs more expensive.)
As a result of less characters being brought CCP is probably losing out on the people who would've been buying those ghost accounts and using them as full tiume accounts.
CCP most likely would've been better off just letting ghost training being abused because they were already going to be sold off to people who would've turned them into full time accounts and (most importantly) they would've been sold in higher quantities than they are going to be now.
Now I say most likely. What could possibly exist that makes this scenario unlikely? That would be three factors. CCPs Ambulation project, their "Need for Speed" initiative and Quantum Rise expansion. Essentially each of these factors have to change the game in such a way that the demand for ghost trained accounts increases. Quantum Rise is most likely going to be like any other expansion and won't change demand for no more than a month.
Need for Speed is a multipart strategy that is proving incredibly hard for CCP to pull off. If they can reduce lag so large battles are feasible well the pay off will be really big.
AMbulation is a full blown wild card in my eyes. I have little understanding of other peoples' opinions with avatars to know if this will be a significant enough change in making Eve even more attractive.
Since they have the resources to know that the system is being abused, it also seems to me that they have the resources to pinpoint who is abusing the system most. A better change on their part if they wanted to nip account sellers would have been to target those accounts for negative action such as suspension. I would think that it wouldn't be that hard to put ghost training as a flag on the account. If they see someone abusing it exclusively, turn it off for 6 months as a penalty, then let it go back active. That would be a better solution than just pulling it from the game completely.
Ghost training used to draw me back when I quit before. Before, I'd be like I'm sick of this grind and go play FPS/Console for a bit. then some good long skill would pop and I'd return
Now I wont have that reason to return. Anyway I guess we'll see what the future holds. Havent been very happy with this game lately guess thats how it goes though.
CCP isn't interested in removing account sellers because they actually make money for CCP. CCP is now trying to squeeze out of them, along with some other people, more money.