Skill training of lapsed accounts stopping 8/15

[bhodi]

A long overdue and much needed change will be put in place with the Wednesday, 15 October 2008 patch. Ghost Training, the continuous skill gain on accounts in an inactive or expired state - will no longer function after Wednesday, 15 October 2008. This practice upsets the balance of the game, and capsuleers who actively put their time and energy into working on their characters will no longer be unfairly affected by those few who have not.

Whine here.

I honestly think this is the beginning of the end. No one will have incentive to re-up, and fewer people will be willing to do the capital ship grind, leaving those who are already there with quite an advantage.

I see this as a pretty blatant money grab but it's going to backfire bigtime. You're going to see a planetside-like slide in subs.

[Thrawn]

I was suprised it was ever even allowed in the first place when I first found out you can have in-active accounts training.

But I agree 100% that the main effect of this will be no incentive for people who have quit or taken breaks to ever come back.

[Moosehands]

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

I just lapsed for Adv Spaceship Command V last Thursday.  Damn, this may well be the parting moment for EVE and I.  I was basically playing station simulator for the past 3 months and decided to lapse my way into capital ships to see if it would rekindle my interest.

[Slayerik]

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

I just lapsed for Adv Spaceship Command V last Thursday.  Damn, this may well be the parting moment for EVE and I.  I was basically playing station simulator for the past 3 months and decided to lapse my way into capital ships to see if it would rekindle my interest.

I can always use a Cap pilot ;)

On the bright side, I imagine GTC costs will now plummet! Or will they rise? My initial thoughts were less people will bother buying them if they cant re-up for a bit, then let carrier 5 finish out on their guy.

[Amarr HM]

They should really put the skill queue in and also the removal of 30D GTCs mixed with this doesn't bode well.

[Thrawn]

Wish I had a bunch of liquid isk, probably going to be a ton of alt accounts being sold soon and for pretty cheap.

[Endie]

This is a very dumb move.

[IainC]

Yeah, of all the fixable problems with the skill and experience system, allowing lapsed accounts to finish training one skill really shouldn't be at the top of anyones 'to  nerf' list.

Is it really such a big problem? I know you can start Cruiser V in the trial window which means that you could potentially get about 40 days of zero cost training time. Beyond that though if people are training the really long skills (cap ships) then they'll already have sunk the thick end of a years worth of subs into the game. Giving them a month or so of training - during which they can't be earning money or having fun ingame - seems to be a very minor concession.

[schild]

In other news, this guy was last seen at CCP:

[Teleku]

Hahaha, Jesus Christ.  I was JUST about to post a thread saying I was going to start BS V and cancel the subscription for a month.  My god do I have a black cloud following me around.

But hey, I guess instead of starting another thread, I'll post it here:

Is there any big differences between the capital ships?  Like, Dreadnaughts, Carriers, etc?  I was going to go ahead and just do Caldari BS V, but I can't really find any info on the big differences between the dreadnoughts and other capital ships.

The only other thing that I think concerns this is marauders and stealth battleships.  I don't know about the stealth BS's, but Marauders are pretty much only for PvE, and Golem's seem to be the best at that, so that's a point in Caldari favor.

Not that I'm sure I'll ever bother with cap ships, but before I take the long plunge, figured I should put some thought into it.

[Nerf]

The lapsed account training is the only reason I've come back to EVE 3 or 4 times, I know that every time I quit I'll come back that much better and it gets me excited about playing again.

I still say that they need to add in use-training bonuses as well.  Don't punish the people who don't have time to play, but reward those who do.

[Slayerik]

Hahaha, Jesus Christ.  I was JUST about to post a thread saying I was going to start BS V and cancel the subscription for a month.  My god do I have a black cloud following me around.

But hey, I guess instead of starting another thread, I'll post it here:

Is there any big differences between the capital ships?  Like, Dreadnaughts, Carriers, etc?  I was going to go ahead and just do Caldari BS V, but I can't really find any info on the big differences between the dreadnoughts and other capital ships.

The only other thing that I think concerns this is marauders and stealth battleships.  I don't know about the stealth BS's, but Marauders are pretty much only for PvE, and Golem's seem to be the best at that, so that's a point in Caldari favor.

Not that I'm sure I'll ever bother with cap ships, but before I take the long plunge, figured I should put some thought into it.

The big difference is the same as with all the ships, Caldari Shield tank and use missiles.

[Teleku]

But does that translate into any noticeable difference in effectiveness for dreadnaughts?  As far as I know, Dreds just sit around and blast stations, or each other.  So I would assume using missiles vs. Guns really wouldn't make a difference in these situations, but don't know.  Also, don't motherships/carriers use fighters as their main weapons?  Any differences between the 4 sides there?

In short though, I guess I'm asking, is there any particular cap ship that is desired over others by alliances, or are they all pretty much the same and nobody gives a crap?

[Kitsune]

The threads on caps that I've seen over on EvE's forums tend to suggest that Amarr capitals are the best.  I imagine that depends heavily on just how one's skills relate to the requirements of Amarran hulls and weapons, though.  If all of your skills are for Caldari hulls and missiles, it's probably not worth your time to go back to square one and learn Amarr piloting and energy weapons.

[Nevermore]

Especially now that you have to keep your account active the entire time! 

Brilliant move, CCP!

[Jayce]

This is a mighty boneheaded move.  Wrath coming out soon, fleet fights turning into an unpredictable joke (where they were previously just slow and a joke) and this excellent idea is making my motivation to keep logging in sort of ebb away.

[Slayerik]

But does that translate into any noticeable difference in effectiveness for dreadnaughts?  As far as I know, Dreds just sit around and blast stations, or each other.  So I would assume using missiles vs. Guns really wouldn't make a difference in these situations, but don't know.  Also, don't motherships/carriers use fighters as their main weapons?  Any differences between the 4 sides there?

In short though, I guess I'm asking, is there any particular cap ship that is desired over others by alliances, or are they all pretty much the same and nobody gives a crap?

The Phoenix, Caldari Dread, uses Citadel Torps. I'm not especially experienced with cap shit but I'm pretty sure you can choose your damage type, making it a sexy POS popper.

[Thrawn]

Wish I had a bunch of liquid isk, probably going to be a ton of alt accounts being sold soon and for pretty cheap.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=896065  Would of jumped on that if I had the isk for sure.

[Amarr HM]

Amarr cap ships especially Dreads are favoured for POS shoots cause they don't use ammo among other things. The Minmatar capitals are well known to be the worst the Nidhoggur is mostly used an expensive repairer as it get's a nice bonus.

[ajax34i]

I think the price of GTC's is going to go up, short term at least:  everyone who wants to keep training BS 5 or whatever will have to rush and buy a GTC by Wednesday (or re-activate their account with a CC - that works too).  Then, after that, it depends on which players they lose.

I think they're going to lose a large percentage of their empire PVE carebears.  They tend to get bored fast.  Unfortunately, they're the ones who are more likely to spend RL cash to acquire ISK; the 0.0 player has access to lots of ISK and is likely to want to play the game "for free".  So, more demand for GTC's from 0.0 people, and less supply because the empire dweller is leaving the game for good => higher GTC prices.

[bhodi]

RE: the phoenix versus other dreads - Basically, you have the same issue with other missiles only magnified.

The only thing you can hit with citadel torps and do full damage is the tower itself, other capital ships, and cynojammers. Large guns take a decent amount of damage, medium guns take very little damage, smalls take almost nothing.

Plus, there's travel time. It's loooooong. Sometimes minutes, which means sometimes the primary is dead before your torps hit it.

The advantage is you can carry a shit ton of ammo, more than any other dread (except the rev), and you aren't reliant on cap. Also, the training time is a bit less, as citadel torps are easy to train into compared with extra large types of other ammo.


In any case, you're looking at 4-5 months of dedicated training time to get in a dread, and I really don't think people are willing to make that jump anymore without letting your character go inactive for the mutliple month long trains. I know that I'm not.

[bhodi]

[Reg]

If GTC prices go up significantly over this it's going to stop people from playing - especially if they're running multiple accounts.  I think CCP may come to regret this decision.

[tazelbain]

Their plan to deal with their server problems: more money from less players.

[Thrawn]

Worst idea ever.  I would rather WATCH my skills train then go back to WoW.

[Amarr HM]

I see this as a good way of reducing server wide lag nice job CCP.

[Miasma]

As a side question what is CCP's rationale for not letting people queue up training?

[bhodi]

My first quote is all of the information that they gave the players. And that it's being implemented in 2 days.

[Endie]

RE: the phoenix versus other dreads - Basically, you have the same issue with other missiles only magnified.

The only thing you can hit with citadel torps and do full damage is the tower itself, other capital ships, and cynojammers.

This is not true: you can also one-shot machariels that move inside shields and sit their with their MWDs running.  

Two-characters-in-phoenixes-by-Christmas-and-one-by-February crew checkin' in.  Each trained without lapsing for more than a few days.

[FatuousTwat]

RAGE.

[Amarr HM]

and capsuleers who actively put their time and energy into working on their characters will no longer be unfairly affected by those few who have not.

This is a massive lie it only takes two minutes to log on and train a skill that's why we enjoy the game it uses semi passive training. Are they trying to lead us to believe that there has been a huge uproar about this from a certain sector of the player base?

[Amarr HM]

Just read this announcement a little more transparent but still doesn't make it right ;)

why ghost training was disabled
reported by CCP t0rfifrans | 2008.10.13 23:17:25 | NEW | Comments

As many of you know by now, on Wednesday, Oct 15th, CCP will put out a server update disabling "ghost training". Ghost Training was an unintended feature where unpaid accounts of EVE Online were able to continue training skills. While this allowed players to run multiple characters on a shoestring budget, in all effect, this was a bug.

It should be noted that we're not changing offline skill training for active subscribers in any way. This change only affects those who do not have an active subscription.

Does that mean that CCP is a greedy money chewing monster that just loves nerfing things? Of course not. We're a company like everyone else, we make a game, that we happen to love making and for most of us is the passion of our lives. But it's also a company. We make a product, sell it, get salaries and then continue maintaining the product and making it better.

Now I'm not saying that if me personally would be at the other end of this Dev Blog I wouldn't be annoyed by CCP's actions. We are gamers. We game the system. We figure out how to maximize our returns. There's no surprise that people have done this for the simple fact that it wasn't banned per se and also for the fact that it was possible. But recently we have seen a surge in this behavior in a way that we were essentially supporting and maintaining a large number of customers that weren't paying us regular subscriptions. That's not fair towards CCP as a service provider and it's not fair towards other players that pay a subscription but don't make use of this bug.

Now a single customer that doesn't log into the servers may not weigh heavily on our database infrastructure, just as a single snowflake isn't that heavy, hardly a measurable quantity. But it's hard not to notice an avalanche if it hits you. And that's what was starting to happen in our database.

We can look at this from a variety of angles, but it all comes down to:

   1. There was a way to progress a character in EVE without an active subscription
   2. CCP noticed a surge in the trend and decided to fix the leak
   3. Players now have to pay a subscription for characters to have them progress

We truly hope that the community will understand our actions and continue to enjoy playing EVE as much as we enjoy making it.

Torfi Frans Olafsson

Senior Producer of EVE Online

[Thrawn]

Ghost Training was an unintended feature where unpaid accounts of EVE Online were able to continue training skills. While this allowed players to run multiple characters on a shoestring budget, in all effect, this was a bug.

Cute.

Skills continue training even if you are logged off or if your account is inactive (in the second scenario you can't change skill training, though).

Right off of http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g615.asp

[Llyse]

I've never trained a long term skill lapsed and even I hate this. 

This gives 0 incentive to all my friends who have left. 

If they're really worried about people leeching they should cap the amount of skill points gained i.e. say 2 weeks/1 month whatever.

it will still benefit people but depending on the additional ghost training time it can't be abused as much.

[Kitsune]

So, thanks to their genious plan, all of the people who paid for one month and skill trained while not paying for another month will instead unsub and not pay for any months.  Oh boy, there's no way this can fail!