Skill training of lapsed accounts stopping 8/15

[Phildo]

I do not support this.

[Nevermore]

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

First off, I don't see how a skill training while an account is inactive can 'weigh heavily on our database infrastructure'.  The data is going to passively sit there whether the skill is 'training' or not.  Secondly, make your game more fun and people wouldn't get so board they'd rather just let their subs lapse in the hope they can do something more entertaining when they resub.  Guess what, geniuses.  Now they'll just not bother to reactivate.  *queues up the Guinness guys again*

[apocrypha]

I fucking hate EVE. I've been playing it for four bloody years and the entire time it's been THIS CLOSE to being an amazing awesome game but CCP fuck the details up every single chance they get.

30% increase in GTC costs and now this = farewell EVE for me.

[Reg]

First off, I don't see how a skill training while an account is inactive can 'weigh heavily on our database infrastructure'.  The data is going to passively sit there whether the skill is 'training' or not.  Secondly, make your game more fun and people wouldn't get so board they'd rather just let their subs lapse in the hope they can do something more entertaining when they resub.  Guess what, geniuses.  Now they'll just not bother to reactivate.  *queues up the Guinness guys again*

Exactly. They don't even have to look at that data until the user actually signs on.

They mention seeing a sudden upsurge in lapsed subscription training though. Is it possible that the isk farmers discovered a profitable way to create sellable characters and that's why they're putting a stop to it?

[Jayce]

Maybe, but if so, here's an idea: solve the isk farmer problem rather than shit on the real playerbase.

So, here's another fun fact about people who train while inactive: they almost always reactivate.  Why train otherwise?

[Slayerik]

TBH, this is another way where the old guys are at an advantage. They have been doing this for 5 years now. You are just screwing over newer players and guys with multiple accounts (your bread and butter CCP).

[Jayce]

One other thing.  They characterize this as a "bug" but my information states that the Chinese server has had this feature for a long time.  This leads me to think it's not a bugfix but a configuration switch of some kind.  Plz be more disingenuous?

I'll never get why most less-professional game developers continually seem to try to locate fun things that the playerbase has found by itself, and since it doesn't conform to this week's "Vision" it gets whacked.  CF also the nano nerf.

The interesting thing to me is that I have neither done dark training nor have I skilled and monied up enough to fly nanoships, but I still think its stupid to nerf either one.

[Gets]

While I understand the nano nerf (cruisers being faster than interceptors; no effective countertactic to nanodiving) the removal of ghost training is a blow to everyone, either wallet or playing experience. As Thrawn already pointed out it has been long acknowledged and accepted by the devs, but you can count on CCP to actually take a feature and claim it to be a bug. I would have understood blaming it on the current economic situation with Iceland's banks or claiming that the whole island is on the brink of capsizing from all the internet spaceship nerds about to fly there and they need to chain themselves to Greenland. Sugarcoating it that "it's a bug and we really really didn't want to bother with it before" is no different than when they changed GTCs, blaming it on the economy (heh-heh) but later stating that was just to make it sound more rosy.

I'm sure as heck going to have to drop at least one of my characters, even though I don't want to. Just can't get myself to earn that much ISK and have time to do other things in the meantime, and GTC prices (RMT-wise) are likely to rise because of the increased need to keep accounts active at all times. Someone was already willing to buy a card for 525mil ISK in IRC today. If the prices keep soaring, it looks like it's actually more preferable to sub with good old reality money again. I enjoyed training my alts, even though I used them very little, but the higher upkeep just removes the fun and without that there's no incentive to play at all. If I had the resources right now, I'd buy a mining character for each of my accounts and make multi-boxing my new income. Alas, I'm terrible at making money in EvE and already in debt.

I recently updated by video drivers. It added a WoW Free Trial link right next to my EvE shortcut 

[ajax34i]

It gets better:  the SSL server is down for maintenance, meaning that people cannot log into their account maintenance page to re-subscribe (or to ragequit) even if they want to.

Hopefully they fix it by the time they take down the game servers for the patch, but probably not.

[Jayce]

I recently updated by video drivers. It added a WoW Free Trial link right next to my EvE shortcut 

Icecrown, Alliance.  Come carebear with me. 

[bhodi]

Icecrown, Alliance.  Come carebear with me. 

What, really? I should get my account back on icedown.

Edit: Retrieved my account.

[Jayce]

Note, I'm not quitting EVE, just "playing the field" a bit....

[bhodi]

Neither am I. I am, however going down to one account, and I MIGHT let it lapse for a month or two as I'm feeling pretty burned out right now. I had planned to go for capships but this skill training thing leaves that plan in ruins - inoue has (had) 20 days until large pulses, so I was going to fly a pulse apoc until march while bhodii cooked for a phoenix (BSV, AWUV, JDOV).

Now, I don't know what I'm going to do.

[Jayce]

Well, my wife talked me into "part time" WoW, starting from scratch on a new server, PVE so no PVP headaches, hence Icecrown.  Now, in the past she has lacked the staying power to get past, oh say level 30ish, so who knows how long it will last.  But we're still going strong moving within spitting distance of 20, so who knows.

The great thing about EVE is I'm still training for a Serious Business Megathron while all this is happening.  ETA about Christmas.

[bhodi]

Well, my wife talked me into "part time" WoW, starting from scratch on a new server, PVE so no PVP headaches, hence Icecrown.  Now, in the past she has lacked the staying power to get past, oh say level 30ish, so who knows how long it will last.  But we're still going strong moving within spitting distance of 20, so who knows.

The great thing about EVE is I'm still training for a Serious Business Megathron while all this is happening.  ETA about Christmas.

Send me a PM, I'd like to do the newbie thing too.

[kildorn]

Brilliant move, CCP!

Seriously, what the shit? If you're noticing half your playerbase reups for a month and never logs in again, maybe the issue isn't the payment model, but the incentive to Not Play.

Stress on the Database my ass. Logged in accounts fighting over shit stresses the system. A number incrementing? If that's mauling your database, I'll sell you my old desktop and it can handle all the counting for you.

[Sparky]

This, the speed nerf, the suicide ganking nerf and mostly GTC price increases has me thinking about putting my account on ice for a bit.  CCP are just making one shitty change after another recently.

[Der Helm]

Fuck you CCP. This stupid move will make me cancel my subscription. Voting with my wallet and all that.

Fuck you CCP.

[Nerf]

Speaking of the suicide gank nerf, it was my understanding that CCP is still planning on removing insurance payout for it as well.  So right after they make it damn near impossible to pull off outside of a battleship they ditch insurance, making cost per gank well over 100mil if you're soloing.

I wont cry about canceling any accounts over this, but I've only got the one right now and the longest trains I have planned in the near future are 20d or so each, so I'm just keeping it active, it's only $15/mo.

I still want to emphasize what I said before though, I've quit EVE 3 or 4 times, and every time I've come back one of the main reasons has been "hey, now I've got that awesome skill I trained to level 5 before I quit, so I'll be that much better!"

This is only going to hurt their bottom line, if they want to keep people subbed they should examine why people were letting their accounts lapse in the first place.

Edit: To all of those quitting, can I have your stuff?

[Phildo]

Helm, don't go!

[ajax34i]

CCP apologizes for calling it a bug even though it was listed as a feature in their player guide (and declare that they are still going to nerf it).

[Amarr HM]

Good of them to apologize, out of all the recent changes that have been made this one bothers me the least.

[Der Helm]

Helm, don't go!

I did not say I won't resub,  I will probably come back, but canceling my accounts is the only way to send CCP a message, so I will do just that.

[Predator Irl]

My guess is that some fucking fat-cat in a suit is looking how to pinch the pennies and couldn't give a fuck about the players. Their backtracking apology shows it was a decision made by some asshole thats looking at the books and not the game. If truth were known, the devs are probably not in favor of this either.

Either way, it wont affect me because I subbed for the year already. I figure if I'm gonna bust my balls earning money in the game, I want to spend it in the game too. Between this and the nano nerf, its going to be a lonely year in Eve space!

[ajax34i]

CCP devs don't care about the players.  They care about the game, and improve it to the point where it looks good to them, and that's it.  They never consider whether players can actually see those tiny fonts or those ugly overlays, and they don't care how frustrated we get by the zillion tiny bugs that they consider acceptable.  There's a difference between making something so it looks good (to you), and making something so it can be appreciated and praised by others.

They don't care.  So the fat-cat that you're imagining is actually one of them or all of them.  Torfifranz made the announcement...  that's T20's best buddy, isn't it?  They all want this extra money they're imagining we're stealing from them.  They're kinda like the DRM folk.

[Amarr HM]

Torfifranz made the announcement...  that's T20's best buddy, isn't it? 

Is that the Dev involved in the T20 scandal?

[ajax34i]

T20 was the (internet) name of the dev involved in the scandal.  Otherwise, I don't know who they are or what their relationships with each other are, just had the impression that CCP's "suits in charge" are actually the devs who created the game.   They don't have a publisher controlling them, whatever decisions are made are their decisions.

[Jayce]

They strike me as very lurchy in their decision making.  They decided seemingly in the space of a day to nerf the speed stuff, then backed off of it on the eve of the patch.  Now they're seemingly putting it back in without any additional design on it.

Then they give this world-shaking announcement two days before their proposed date to implement.  Lots of well-reasoned (and some not well reasoned) arguments notwithstanding.  Why post a thread if you aren't going to listen to anything anyone says in it? Just make an announcement.

It's like they wake up each day and decide what to do that afternoon.  No forethought is given from what I can tell.  I find that usually devs aren't quite as dumb as people credit them, but it's hard to see from here.

[Endie]

They strike me as very lurchy in their decision making.  They decided seemingly in the space of a day to nerf the speed stuff, then backed off of it on the eve of the patch.  Now they're seemingly putting it back in without any additional design on it.

Then they give this world-shaking announcement two days before their proposed date to implement.  Lots of well-reasoned (and some not well reasoned) arguments notwithstanding.  Why post a thread if you aren't going to listen to anything anyone says in it? Just make an announcement.

It's like they wake up each day and decide what to do that afternoon.  No forethought is given from what I can tell.  I find that usually devs aren't quite as dumb as people credit them, but it's hard to see from here.

No, the speed patch has been revised and rebalanced quite a bit, they are saying.  I think it's fair that they looked at the results on the test server, saw that vagas in partilcular had been over-nerfed on agility, and took it back to look at the numbers.  Missiles and drones are being tweaked, both directly and through looking at counters (lol defender missiles).  Obviously, the patch isn't popular, but by the time it goes in with the expansion it will have had something like six months or so of testing between the two versions.

I wonder if the reason for the short-dated announcement might be that lapsing the account is when the skills counter is now turned off, and that they wanted to make sure that those who were about to lapse didn't have the chance of deciding to set a long skill and maybe get the benefit of it.  Of course, from our position without knowledge that is a high risk.  But for them, knowing that it would be the case, it looks like people still getting freebies.  Just speculation, of course.  Maybe they honestly think this will gain them revenue, and wanted the money to start rolling in at once...

[Megrim]

While i'm not a fan of the mechanic change, i want to echo what Slay has said: this is really, really, screwing the people who aren't a part of the 'old boys club'. Don't have 5 years to train Cap Ships V? Too bad so sad, grind it out thx. Why would you want to shaft the younger players? It's not like they can grind harder to make-up the difference, the gain is at a fixed rate. The saddest part is that they can't provide a reasonable (or even believable) explanation for the change.

[Phildo]

But why reward people for not playing the game?  I still don't see the appeal in signing up for EvE, playing for a few weeks, then going inactive while a long skill trains.  I like the game, I think it's fun, and I don't want to cancel my subscription.  If I did, I probably wouldn't care if I was one skill better or not if I ever came back.

[bhodi]

But why reward people for not playing the game?  I still don't see the appeal in signing up for EvE, playing for a few weeks, then going inactive while a long skill trains.  I like the game, I think it's fun, and I don't want to cancel my subscription.  If I did, I probably wouldn't care if I was one skill better or not if I ever came back.

Because it was listed as one of the benefits to eve and very likely makes them more money in resubbed accounts? You don't get to 'reap' those benefits until you resub, and there is a hard cap on how much 'gain' you get, to the tune of whatever skill was training when your account lapsed.

I know I would care if I was one skills better or not, if that skill's a long-train gateway skill that opens up new possibilities. Like BS V, or large turret V. Capital skills. Stuff like that.

None of this is relevant, however, since it's been 5 years - why would you change it now?

Also, try and think of this differently. It's like a skill bonus if you resub. Kind of like WoW does 10 day free trials for previously subscribed members, you get 0-30 days of free skill points instead. When viewed this way, it's a retention tool, and a good one. Or was.

[Vedi]

None of this is relevant, however, since it's been 5 years - why would you change it now?

Possibly because the usage patterns changed.

It's a fair guess that this was originally a bug, turned into a feature to give people another reason to return to the game, as you say. However, nowadays many have multiple accounts, often payed for by time cards and trained for specific reasons (miner, refiner, carrier pilot, whatever). Builds are around that attempt to maximize the usage of offline training for alts. This scenario is quite different for CCP - they are actually losing money on this, and it is not an incentive in these situations to resub as that was always the plan.

If these usage scenarios have become common, I can't say I blame them for doing this.

[Phildo]

My gripe wasn't directed at people who unsubbed and decided to give the game a second chance, it was more aimed at people who were exploiting the system like Vedi mentioned in order to either create sellable characters cheaply or who just didn't enjoy the game enough to keep playing it while not learning new skills every day.

[Jayce]

But the way it's set up, no matter whether people are farming characters up or not, CCP makes money.

Several examples:

• Person quits EVE, leaves character in training.  Later comes back to shiny new skill and new appreciation of the game.  Stays longer.
• Person starts a trial 2nd account, leaves in training at end of 10 days.  Resubs with GTC.  Either the subscriber pays for the GTC, or someone else pays for it and sells it to him for ISK. Either way, CCP makes a sale.
• Person has multiple accounts.  Plays on a "main" and farms up one for cap ships.  Leaves gap in subs for dark training. Even so, everytime he wants to change a skill, he has to pay for at least 30 days worth of game time.  Ultimately, he'll sub without interruptions when the skills are all done.

Actual cost for any of the above to CCP?  One line of code to check where the character is in his skill training when the sub is reactivated (compare start_of_skill() to now()). 

Compared to the situation after this change: some of the above will continue as stated except keeping active subs.  Some - I submit: more - will just eschew the whole idea. 

For example, I was considering starting a hulk pilot to sell. Part of the plan was dark training.  Cost in ISK was about half the 2b I would get for him.  Now it's about even, so I doubt I'll do it.  Cost to CCP: 2 60 day GTCs at least, additional steady sub from the eventual buyer.  I doubt I'll even be doing a power of 2 at this point.  Cost: one more steady sub. 

Total: 2 steady subs, 2 60-day GTCs.  And that's just from one non-hardcore player.  I hope they make enough off the hardcore who are willing to keep all those subs active to compensate for it. The ceiling is now effectively higher for average joe to invest in the game.


edits: accuracy