The Day Eve Online Died

[Monk]

Lately? Oh no, i've not played EVE for years now. But its a unique experience to be sure, I don't think i've ever seen anything else like it. Certainly not on the scale that Eve accomplishes.

People are leaving the game in thousands, canceling their subs. Unlike WoW, where you got +10 million players, EVE Online with its probable audience of maybe 150.000 players (possibly even less, since a great deal of players in EVE are running multiple accounts) feels when thousands and thousands of active players leave the game.

In truth, a lot of those subs will likely be returning players in two or three months. I know its a bit cheap to arm-chair speculate like this, but I've played MMOs for the last 7 years. Been on the ground floor of tons of closed betas, it's taught me that these types of games change radically from those that you bought on release, even more so after so long on the market. I don't agree with what CCP is doing, but in my experience "rage quits" (for lack of a better term) hardly ever stick for the average MMO player. I don't doubt there will be many people who take their money elsewhere, but for just as many others, the uniqueness of Eve will just be too much to let go, and they'll go back for better or worse.

[econ21]

". At around $40 for a basic shirt, $25 for boots, and $70 or more for the fabled monocle, items in the Noble Exchange were priced higher than their-real life counterparts."

I have not played EVE but that line caught my eye. It does sound crass, especially for a company dealing with a particularly savy player base.

That the online store will not be restricted to cosmetic items is less of a surprise. I used to play Lord of the Rings Online and the same thing was said then: now, there are expensive stat boosts you can buy and some game functions require cash payments per use (e.g. saving relics when deconstructing items). At the moment, I am rather indifferent, as at least the store cross subsidises my access to the game without subscription. However, it is genuine indifference: I can't find the enthusiasm to log on, still less buy anything from the store.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

For me, EVE is more of an institution than a game one can play. I tried it for a few months with a friend in college, but it was like work. However, I always enjoyed reading about EVE shenanigans - at least when they were provided by players. This is quite unfortunate.

/still sore about not getting to play DUST

[Voigtkampf]

What most of people are now actually raging about is the well founded conviction that EVE will soon start offering game-breaking items from the shop for real cash, as it became apparent from the leaked document... They fear that there will be "gold ammo" to buy from the store, super ships and all that jazz.

I think the community rage has accumulated to the point where an outburst was inevitable. However, the "ragers" are a bit duplicitous, to say the least. I hope I can make this simple, EVE has some breaking concepts as far as the game and combination of real cash and virtual currency goes.

EVE's currency is ISK. It is illegal to buy ISK (even though many players do that). However, there is a simple workaround for that; game time cards or the so-called PLEX.

PLEX were game time cards that would extend your gaming time for a month or three months (not sure if the three month cards still exist, haven't checked in a while, there were some changes there). Basically, you buy PLEX for real cash, and you have an ingame item you can give to any player who can activate it and extend his gaming account for that period. Being a virtual item, PLEX can be traded for ISK. I just checked the official forums, it seems there are only 60 days PLEX in offer now ( http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard...annelID=544711 ) that go for around 700-750m ISK.

So, basically, you could have used real money for years now, buy PLEX and convert it to virtual money legally, which means you could obtain any item ingame you wanted even if you just started playing the game. You can also buy characters in a perfectly legal fashion this way. People have been doing it for years, don't recall anyone staging protests about that...

Also, it must be pointed out that one can very well earn ISK and buy all those vanity items with virtual money (ISK can be converted to PLEX and that can be converted to Aurum, the new shop currency) and that are those, after all, only vanity items one can chose not to buy.