Alts and the sandbox narrative.
The greatest innovation of CCP game design wise was the creation of a sandbox narrative but also the different application of the individual unit (the player) and its role within the sandbox. Where am I getting with this? I ll demonstrate.
EvE doesn’t have many meanings. Its what it is as a game and ultimately it is(or was depending how you look at it) about groups colliding with one another directly or indirectly over a multiple of ‘incentives and interests’ that the developer provides through game play mechanisms. However, what and how you make of your time within EvE is what you shape the sandbox to be. This is something that most people forget about and think that EvE is what we make of it when everything we do within EvE shape each other’s experience. This posed a significant problem for CCP since they didn’t want to have a game that is affected from a player base that would be giving up on EvE very shortly and either not coming back altogether or coming back on selective intervals.
Thus, they created the SkillPoint system based not on leveling/grinding but on real time. This innovative design, despite its many problems that poses from a game development standpoint, offers for the setting of a continuous sandbox experience, a solution that made EvE the most unique MMO that was out there for many years. Why? Because SPs in real time training offered a natural curve that had to be completed and thus made people specialize.
Specialization in EvE online meant that people were forced to group up. And the more the challenge of the task in hand the more the grouping or commitment(quality) of the group would have to be. Simple example, if i don’t have an alt/account and I do mission running in a remote location, I am forced to give meaning to a hauler to bring me the stuff I need(since its harder to train for both things and hell I might not want to do it) . If I dont have an alt/account and I am lacking a logistic support pilot, I am forced to group. Let me also remind you that the HS tradehubs came to be because of the change of the travel system but also because they were L4 staging areas.
With the proliferation of alts, came enabling of smaller and niche groups and destroyed specialization and thus multiple playstyles that the sandbox could sustain but doesn’t. Whale players who suddenly had an edge. The above examples are one of the many where alts make the player base to be alienated but you must not forget that the changes in the PLEX system and the edge current alting mechanics grant, backfired on CCP as well. Right now there are whale players who are integral part of their alliances be it in PvE, resource harvesting or even PvP and go around enlarging their ISK wealth while paying their subs only via ISK because the proliferation is so big that we have SP farms and such.
The game didn’t become easier or safer(up for a debate but different post) the game just enabled smaller groups and individuals that were never destroyed by PvPers. Why? For two reasons. 1) Because there isn’t competition in EvE as there has never been enough growth of the game in terms of new members. 2) Its harder to destroy/win a group that has whales as suddenly you must recognize that the destruction you must place on them should be at least the potential of their SP farm.
CCP_Falcon:
The benefit for younger players playing catch up mainly, and the ability for friends to share skill points with their wingmen who join the game.
One of our biggest barriers for entry is “I can’t catch up with the people who’ve been skill training for a decade.”
This statement is one of the most interesting things I have come across in my EvE career. The fact that CCP at some point thought that the current iteration of SP injectors/alts would solve that problem is giving me great alarm. First of all I dont believe it. Second of all even if we are to believe that they thought that would solve the problem then game development wise it was probably the biggest blunder by CCP that makes me question the CEO. I ll explain why and I know written expression may look like it but I am not flaming right now, I am trying to be constructive.
If a pay to win mechanic such as the one we have now is easily available across new players then how come they didn’t know that it would be redundant since veterans could just do the same? Cause they did. And not only they did but also it led to newer players with the blunt introduction of an already challenging game to be unfair behind a paywall that at best would make it a level playing field in terms of game-play accessibility. And since the game is a PvP at macro-scale(no matter what you think about it) , veterans enjoy something that ISK/real money can’t buy outright, which is network.
And bringing these pieces together we have the ultimate reason of why alts are an outright pay to win system that destroys the sandbox experience. From the moment new players enter a proliferated game where veterans can grow stronger through their network(big alliances and such) utilizing the edge that real money gives them and perpetually running in ISK, any new player that might want to even progress would have to fight for access or join them. And because CCP has not done a macro PvP update in ages(or meaningful way) it is natural for new people to join the herd and protect their RL investment into the game by joining these big already alliances. And since whale players concentrate, this proliferation, as any economic system, leads to so called ‘concentration of power/wealth’ or in a refined word: inequality. This pay to win mechanic is so abundantly clear that you have top alliances raising even the bar of what people they will accept. A prime example is how many more players easily can afford Titans and the loss of them.
To give you an analogy CCP is the Ivy League universities and it just gave its top of the line career advancing degrees for a hefty price. Guess who is gonna benefit? The small emerging middle class and definitely the old money. And the old money will recruit those coming second and the rest will have an even greater gap to compete with.
Now going away from the real life implications I am going to bring it back to EvE online and tell you that this game is about a design-fair sandbox experience. Or it should be, since me and a whaler’s euro/dollar/whatever value is the same for CCP for a month both time wise of what we receive but for what we pay. And if you can’t understand why people leave when they realize it isn’t so(due to the network and ingame political edge the old players receive). Then its no wonder why this game is losing traction.
The solution is simple and it stems from two applications that I can think of.
The first is for CCP to enlarge the in game item count SIGNIFICANTLY. No just having triglavian ships added wont cut it. Because ships are balance depending and situational in the current EvE meta. Unless they change PvP in a macro scale/design altogether. I am talking of adding more tiers in technology, more ammo types/products, more necessary resources needed for manufacturing and so on. Also it would be appreciative to enlarge the SP count as well.
The second is as discussed here by CCP Falcon as well
CCP_Falcon:
If it was down to me, I’d prevent the ability to inject any capital/supercapital skills — caps and supers have always been an “endgame” or “veteran” goal in my eyes, and if you want to fly them you should have to commit the time to actually train into them.
And where capital/supers I would add late game economy structures, PI and so on as well.
