Originally posted by Jhughesy

Originally posted by Wickersham

I train the skill and log off and don't log back in until my character has learned the skill.

or

I train the skill and quit the game until my character has learned the skill.

 

The first scenario is fair because they are paying for their subscription.

And I think that CCP statement is referring to people who do pay and who do play. Its unfair to them that people are gaining the same amount of skills while not playing and paying.

It isnt that hard to understand really, is it?

 

it's understandable if say.... it happened within 6 months of the game's release AND it was not advertised as a unique feature available to players for the past 5 years.

you can not take the statements about "ghost" training out of context of where it's been and EXACTLY how ccp has pimped this stated feature for half a decade.

that's where the lies and deceit come into play.

please reference all the threads on the official forum which, pre-nerfing ghost training, whined and complained about "ghost" training being unfair.

please, site all of them.  otherwise, no one thought it was a problem to the point where they posted about it... and if you've read the official forums... people gripe about inanely minute items.   so something so game unbalancing that it would require nerfing would certainly have numerous posts of emo-rage about it.

plus, they will only get the payment for a single account yearly from me now, instead of the equivalent of 3+ accounts in payments.

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 

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Originally posted by Wickersham

 

If I'm wrong, you tell me, because like I said, I'm new with this game, but from what i've seen so far it smells like BS to me.

---

 

Take an alt account, pay with gtc.

Train his skills within first paypemt period so you have bs 5, large turret 5 etc. ready. Set long training.

Renew when your alt has finished the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with large turrets at the end of the month.

Renew when your alt has finishd the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with capital ships / carrier skills at the end of the month. Repeat Process.

Come back, sell character for isk, buy a new gtc for a fraction of said isk, rinse and repeat, make isk out of it, ruining the character market and artificially inflating the gtc market.

I doubt ccp ever intended that "feature" to be used in that way..it was documented and used as a selling point by the community for the normal joe who quit the game to come back.
It was a lot more widespread with 30d gtc, now they plugged the hole.

End of story. A lot of whine for something that was rarely used by normal players.

That's a solid argument, but the character market itself and GTCs argue against CCPs initial point of getting rid of ghost training:

"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."

Does that mean that those 2 features are the next to go?

Is it too much for a company to come out and say that they feel they're losing money on something?  Why the need to suggest protecting us players from unfair treatment?  Who among us would chastise them for getting rid of ghost training on the grounds that CCP is losing money from it?

Originally posted by Wickersham

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 

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Originally posted by Wickersham

 

If I'm wrong, you tell me, because like I said, I'm new with this game, but from what i've seen so far it smells like BS to me.

---

 

Take an alt account, pay with gtc.

Train his skills within first paypemt period so you have bs 5, large turret 5 etc. ready. Set long training.

Renew when your alt has finished the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with large turrets at the end of the month.

Renew when your alt has finishd the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with capital ships / carrier skills at the end of the month. Repeat Process.

Come back, sell character for isk, buy a new gtc for a fraction of said isk, rinse and repeat, make isk out of it, ruining the character market and artificially inflating the gtc market.

I doubt ccp ever intended that "feature" to be used in that way..it was documented and used as a selling point by the community for the normal joe who quit the game to come back.
It was a lot more widespread with 30d gtc, now they plugged the hole.

End of story. A lot of whine for something that was rarely used by normal players.

That's a solid argument, but the character market itself and GTCs argue against CCPs initial point of getting rid of ghost training:

"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."

Does that mean that those 2 features are the next to go?

Is it too much for a company to come out and say that they feel they're losing money on something?  Why the need to suggest protecting us players from unfair treatment?  Who among us would chastise them for getting rid of ghost training on the grounds that CCP is losing money from it?

out of all the quoted, i'm curious about the highlighted.

how do you figure it wasn't used by the "normal players"?

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Originally posted by damian7

 
how do you figure it wasn't used by the "normal players"?
 

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Because i consider myself and my alliancemates pretty average players. Sure, morsus mihi has one of the highest capital/member numbers, but the reaction was like this:

*shrugs*

The gtc changes were a lot worse.

Originally posted by Wickersham

Does that mean that those 2 features are the next to go?

 

No, but it does mean they just got nerfed, and it was the right thing to do.

If you check, it was pretty much for the reasons CCP stated.

I would imagine, people were using GTC's, ghost training, and alts without CCP seeing any real revenue, and the people doing this were impacting normal paying customers.

There's logic and arguements being used here that I don't quite understand.  It seems that more people are getting upset about this and using less accounts so it seems that they are going to make less money.  Hence, they cant be doing this to make *more* money.  It's counter productive actions to this.

Also, how is this an unfair advantage?  It's not like only certain accounts can do it.  Everyone can do it.  Wether i choose to do it or not is my decision.  I pay for a monthly account because i want to play.  I use the time to also skill up.  How is it that someone who isn't paying is getting an advantage over me?  It doesn't add up.  My skills will finish when theirs do.  You cant say "Well, it's unfair that they didn't pay and you did" because i *chose* to pay.  They didn't get to play the game.  I did.  That's what i pay the monthly fee to do.  Not to skill train.  So to me, this decision just doesn't make sense.

Also, as a new player it kinda ticks me off because I like to take breaks from the MMO's i play and was looking forward to being able to set a skill up that would take a few weeks to finish so that I could have it ready for when I come back.  It would be an extra little bonus for coming back.  Now if I leave i know that my account will just be dormant.  Making the decision to come back a little tougher.

I'm just not seeing what the upside to doing this is.  They can't really make an arguement for it at this point as it has been in the game for years now (from what i've read) so to call it a "bug" at this point is ridiculous.  Can anyone please explain to me what exactly the real reason for this is?  It seems like it's lose/lose for them in all regards.  Removal of a popular feature, alienating loyal customers, losing alternate accounts (yes, only some times pay but sometimes is better than none), and making the decision for returning customers a tougher one all just seems like an incredibly bad business move.

*edit* It also reflects badly on players such as myself who are new to the game as I'm not being told the real reason this is being done.  I'm also afraid that this is going to hail a new wave of changes that is going to completely mess with the game that i've come to like.  A change as drastic as this is very off putting even if never even utilized by myself because it seems like there's just no sense in the change and from the outrage i've seen this was *obviously* not a highly requested player "bug" fix.  Seems they have their priorities out of order.  Reminds me of FFXI unfortunately.

Originally posted by jakin

...The only reason it's controversial is because the playerbase is used to being able to pay for a month and then set a two month skill when the pay period is almost up.

You obviously don't play Eve or, if you do, you haven't paid much attention to the various skills.  I have 32+ mil SP and in all the things I've trained there have only been about three with a step over 20 days, and still not even as much as 30 days. I was not able to coordinate any of those with unrelated time off from the game, so any benefit I ever got from the unsubbed training was more like 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 days.

So, let me see if I understand your theory... you think people set a long skill just before their paid period is up and allow their account to expire... to, um, not be able to log in and play the game?  Hey, that's a pretty bright theory!  People looking for ways to prevent themselves from playing the game.  Right.

Originally posted by Soraellion

Why would they try and cater for whiners who don't know what they're talking about?

Has nothing to do with respect, just logic. Training skills while your account is inactive just isn't logical. It's nice, and sometimes handy... but not logical.

 

Actually it is logical if you have even the shadow of a glimmer of a fragment of understanding of how training works in Eve.  Oh, I guess you don't.

Training in Eve is unrelated to game play.  It is not a process, it is a completion date.  It imposes no load whatsoever on the servers as all it is is a date/time stored in the char info.  The design was brilliant, as there is no work for the servers to do.  It's just a date/time, and can rightly be considered fully bought and paid for in advance, at the moment you click to initiate a new training step.  It's just an out of game calendar waiting period until you can use the new skill.  For training to "advance" and "complete" it isn't even necessary that the servers be running, or that they exist.  The servers could burn up in a fire, take a month to build again, be loaded from a backup, and voila!  no training will have been lost because there is no such thing as a training process and there are no training updates.

So what they have done is not to remove a free service; it is to remove a feature that had been there for five+ years and had become very much a part of the game for many, many people even though the actual benefit in most cases was very tiny.  There are not many skill steps as long as 30 or more days, and of the ones that exist, few to none are available even to players with a year or two of experience.  The reality is that someone having to leave the game for personal reasons would be lucky to find they had a skill that could continue training for a few days or a week.

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Originally posted by Suplyndmnd
Can anyone please explain to me what exactly the real reason for this is?

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Originally posted by batolemaeus

Take an alt account, pay with gtc.

Train his skills within first paypemt period so you have bs 5, large turret 5 etc. ready. Set long training.

Renew when your alt has finished the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with large turrets at the end of the month.

Renew when your alt has finishd the long skill, train smaller ones, gap with capital ships / carrier skills at the end of the month. Repeat Process.

Come back, sell character for isk, buy a new gtc for a fraction of said isk, rinse and repeat, make isk out of it, ruining the character market and artificially inflating the gtc market.

---

I'm pretty sure that this is more or less the only reason.

Originally posted by Suplyndmnd

...

Can anyone please explain to me what exactly the real reason for this is?  It seems like it's lose/lose for them in all regards.  Removal of a popular feature, alienating loyal customers, losing alternate accounts (yes, only some times pay but sometimes is better than none), and making the decision for returning customers a tougher one all just seems like an incredibly bad business move.

Since they have obviously lied in almost everything they have said to justify blocking unsubbed training, we can only guess at their real reason.  I have to think it was one of those stupid, destructive decisions made by a clueless "suit."  In a sense it's like the RIAA thinking that if some 14-yr-old has 10,000 illegitimate MP3s on his computer, they have lost 10,000 * $song-price.  It's just silly.  If the 14-yr-old had to pay for his songs he wouldnt' have 10,000 of them because he never would have had the money to buy them.  If some Eve players get some slight benefit from unsubbed training it's erroneous to think that they will now keep those accounts paid up 12 months of the year.  A loss or a revenue opportunity is only real if the purchase is probable.  If it's not probable, then the apparency of the loss or revenue opportunity is illusion.  In this case it's even worse because without unsubbed training a lot of accounts will be consolidated and closed.  And because the offended large numbers of people in the crude and deceitful way they handled it, they will lose even more accounts.

Zanpt, what about actually answering the questions of the people you quote? Your polemic writing style lets you look like just another forum troll, and i have yet to see any arguments from your side. Insults to not count as arguments by the way.

I won't rip apart your posts one by one, but you should really think about them, because for large parts they do not make a lot of sense. Especially the riaa-part was very dense..i doubt you did your position a great service there.

Originally posted by batolemaeus

Zanpt, what about actually answering the questions of the people you quote? Your polemic writing style lets you look like just another forum troll, and i have yet to see any arguments from your side. Insults to not count as arguments by the way.

I won't rip apart your posts one by one, but you should really think about them, because for large parts they do not make a lot of sense. Especially the riaa-part was very dense..i doubt you did your position a great service there.

You're quite right that the RIAA example was poor positioning.  Perhaps my expression was dense but the concept is not rocket science.  CCP may be thinking that they have a revenue opportunity in blocking unsubbed training by "forcing" those accounts to be maintained in a paid-up status all the time.  The RIAA regularly claims that downloaded songs represent lost sales.  Each could only be true if the alternative could actually happen in real life.  CCP could only realize the "lost" revenue of people doing unsubbed training if those people will now actually pay up their accounts all 12 months of the year.  The RIAA's member companies could only realize the imagined lost sales of downloaded songs if the downloaders would otherwise actuallly go out and buy the songs.  In both cases there is more wishful thinking than anything else.  But yes, I chose an awful example.

As for my style, few actual questions have been asked, and the one clear, honest question I tried to answer.  That was the one asking why CCP did this.  Almost all the other comments (not questions) criticizing those against the blocking of unsubbed training are so uninformed, meaningless and already full of prejudice that after being burned out on 4700+ posts in the Eve forum thread I am ready to scream.

I've been in software for 45 years.  I have designed software, written software, maintained software, etc.  My career has been split about 50/50 between system software and utility/application software.  I wrote the communications operating system that powered Quotron Systsems at their central site in NYC from the early 1970s through the mid 1980s.  I didn't contribute to it, I wrote and maintained it.  I've written scores of device drivers, complex utilities, device emulators, assemblers, compilers, macro expanders, preprocessors and other stuff that ran in complicated interrupt-driven asynchronous environments.  I wrote a mainframe web server for Wang Laboratories.  In the last couple of decades I've also gotten involved in writing Oracle database apps from scratch.  Along the way I discovered that I have an excellent talent for discerning the precise mechanisms of systems by observing their outward behavior.  A number of times I have analyzed malfunctions and diagnosed the exact nature of the bug and the exact functional location in the code without using a debugger and without ever having seen the souce code.

I know how the Eve training mechanism works.  I admire it because it is an elegant mechanism that requires no work of the servers while the Eve client maintains the illusion of an ongoing training process.  It is about the simplest way time-based training could have been implemented.  Starting a training step simply results in a calculation of the completion date/time and storage of that date/time in the char info record in the database.  It is a static representation of an out of game waiting period before the new skill step can be used.  CCP designed it this way in the beginning.  It has worked for five years as intended and as written.  Training, while giving the appearance in the Eve client of being a process, is not a process.  It is a static date/time, determined when the training is "started."

In keeping with CCP's implementation, training appears to continue and complete whether you are online or offline or, even, unsubscribed.  Or it did.  That's because it would have taken significant additional effort to make it work any other way.  It's a date/time.  The date/time is only pulled up and looked at when you log in, and when you open the char sheet, where an elaborate client-side illusion gives you the appearance of training as a process.  But the servers know nothing about any training process, only the calendar date/time after which you can use it.  In the servers it's just a static data item that says you will be able to use the new skill step after such-and-such date and time.

So it's completely reasonable to view the training step as fully bought and paid for when the skill book is submitted for training or the next step clicked to begin training.  After that point there is not a single thing CCP's servers do to "advance" the training.  There is no training process, just a wait until an out-of-game calendar date and time after you can use the new skill.

So there never was an issue of getting any service for free.  Now, though, there is additional code added to Eve to prevent you getting what you already bought and paid for, tying it to your account being active.  Note that any former unsubbed training gave no benefit whatsoever unless and until you reactivated the account and logged in, at which point the client and server would "discover" that the required waiting period had been satisfied, i.e. the training step had "completed."

The new code is called wherever an account is deactivated to prevent login.  The new code goes to the trouble of pulling up the char info record, clearing the current skill database ID and completion date/time, calculates the points or percentage to date, and stores it in the char's skill inventory like any other full or partial skill.  If you were to do that while online, you would think of it as "Pausing" the training.  So they went out of their way to disrupt the elegant and intentional way the training used to work, and now at account suspension they force any skill in training into a paused state.

It seems to me (and to many others who don't understand the programming) that they have indeed taken something away from us at the cost of writing new code and making their stuff more complicated.  And you don't have to be a programmer to be very annoyed at a 5+ year widely acknowledged feature suddenly being redefined as a bug and being "fixed."  It reeks.

BTW, it is mostly the non-Eve players on non-Eve boards who glibly proclaim things like, "What's the problem?  If you want to play, you have to pay."  There is some of that in the Eve forums but a whole lot more of it in other websites.  Eve training has never had anything to do with game play.  It is time-based training.  It takes calendar time without regard to what you do or don't do in the game.  Maybe that's not easy for WoW people to understand.  I don't know.

ccp is just like any other game company, in it for the money. Never think otherwise about a gaming company, they are not just for fun.

Originally posted by Zanpt

It seems to me (and to many others who don't understand the programming) that they have indeed taken something away from us at the cost of writing new code and making their stuff more complicated.  And you don't have to be a programmer to be very annoyed at a 5+ year widely acknowledged feature suddenly being redefined as a bug and being "fixed."  It reeks.

BTW, it is mostly the non-Eve players on non-Eve boards who glibly proclaim things like, "What's the problem?  If you want to play, you have to pay."  There is some of that in the Eve forums but a whole lot more of it in other websites.  Eve training has never had anything to do with game play.  It is time-based training.  It takes calendar time without regard to what you do or don't do in the game.  Maybe that's not easy for WoW people to understand.  I don't know.

WOW....Even creative, but I just don't think you see the bigger picture, and I don't think EVE is in any jeopardy of lost revenue. I don't think this has as much to do with payment as it does with control. Who controls the software and who dictates how it will be used. CCP had worked hard to produce a game with a great deal of variability, to the point that a smart, creative, and ruthless player could wreck a great deal of havoc without paying CCP on a regular monthly basis. They seem to be taking a step back from this position. A very small step at that. This will not have a major impact on EVE or it's player base.

It's the whole they weren't honest about it argument that really "reeks". It's there game, they can make any change they feel like. Things get changed all the time in every on line game. I think EVE has done a pretty good job of developing a very unique game. One that has continually changed, but stayed true to it's hardcore roots.

I agree with Bato's point of view that this is a *shrug*worthy issue. Or non-issue.

At least for me.

However, we see once again that once something is given freely for a while, suddenly changing that behaviour couses much consternation in people who enjoyed the idea of getting something for free suddenly feel they're now getting 'shafted' by someone, even if they didn't really use the feature much anyways.

It comes down, I think, to the feeling of entitlement and loss of it, and also identifying CCP as some sort of Other, the threat of 'The Man', the thing always out to hurt the little people.

On the maths side, I think CCP will lose some revenue, based on that previous calculation on account sub times and the number of upkept accounts. Since that is readily apparent, either they will recant on this issue rather quickly, or there is another reason why they did this aside from amping up their revenue stream.

CCP has stated that this change was because the GTC market and the trained alt market were experiencing mudflation-style inflation and getting way out of hand. Perhaps that is so, and we all know the price-per-day of GTCs has risen sharply lately.

It could also be the philosophical issue of trying to slow down the trained-character market so that people couldn't 'cut in line' with money anymore, as well as reducing the amount of accounts a single person has (I have 2, some have as many as 5-10) and curbing the amount of alts. If so, it is very largely a philosophical issue of EVE, and indeed does reduce their revenue stream.

However, both of these are pure conjecture that happen to fit known facts and projected outcomes. I do not have enough information that could explain CCPs sudden decision to run this change more clearly. Perhaps they will clarify their position on this later, and perhaps someone will eventually believe them, no matter what they say.

Hell, they could say they did this because they hate their playerbase and eat babies for breakfast, and people would still claim they're lying and they have ulterior motives that have something to do with BoB paying them off.

However, we see once again that once something is given freely for a while, suddenly changing that behaviour couses much consternation in people who enjoyed the idea of getting something for free suddenly feel they're now getting 'shafted' by someone, even if they didn't really use the feature much anyways.

It comes down, I think, to the feeling of entitlement and loss of it, and also identifying CCP as some sort of Other, the threat of 'The Man', the thing always out to hurt the little people.

I think a lot of the arguement and consternation stems from the fact that they've made a complicated skill system structure and the only plus to it was the ghost training.  I have seen many people who were upset saying "If you're going to do this, give us a skill queue option".  What they've achieved in doing is making a very time intensive process an expensive one too if you have an alternate account.  Granted, i've not used this feature but i had planned on it in the future.  Not often or frequently but because i take breaks from my MMO's time to time, i liked the idea that i could still advance in a small way and give me an incentive to come back. 

I am partially upset also because as a new player, I feel like now i have a harder road to travel than the ones who've used this feature to an abuse but they did it back when it was considered a "Feature" and not a "bug".  They now have a very distinct advantage in that i now, essntially have to pay more to get to their level.  Despite the fact that i was going to anyways, i do not like when a game changes one of it's main mechanics.  Regardless on if i choose to use it or not, it just seems like it stacks the cards against me.

However, like i previously stated i'd like for them to come out with the real reason.  The main reason why i am upset about this is because the reason they gave was a complete and utter lie.  Other than having the cards stacked against me, i don't like to be lied to about *why* either.  It hints at shadyness and makes me less likely to want to play.  Which it has.  I've gotten until the 4th of November to decide if i want to continue to stay or not.  We'll see what happens.

Originally posted by Suplyndmnd

 

 

 Despite the fact that i was going to anyways, i do not like when a game changes one of it's main mechanics. 

 

When they nerfed missiles, took away bookmarks, introduced T2.....These were changes to the main mechanics. What is going on now is not.

I will say this much, this does affect younger characters (those that don't have learning skills completely trained) much more that others. The longest skill I have trained is 21 days, and there aren't to many of those. For me, and for allot of players this really is a non-issue to some degree.

Originally posted by qazyman

Originally posted by Suplyndmnd

 

 

 Despite the fact that i was going to anyways, i do not like when a game changes one of it's main mechanics. 

 

 

When they nerfed missiles, took away bookmarks, introduced T2.....These were changes to the main mechanics. What is going on now is not.

I will say this much, this does affect younger characters (those that don't have learning skills completely trained) much more that others. The longest skill I have trained is 21 days, and there aren't to many of those. For me, and for allot of players this really is a non-issue to some degree.

I've not played long and i know that skills are a main mechanic to this game.  It's like, one of the major ones.  I mean, it's the one thing everyone must do is train skills.  No matter what you want to do, you have to train skills.  That makes it argueably the most important mechanic in this game and they just changed it.  You can argue if it's the most important,you can argue if the change is good or bad, but you cannot argue that it is indeed a mechanic of the game and it was, indeed, changed.

Originally posted by Wickersham

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 

Who among us would chastise them for getting rid of ghost training on the grounds that CCP is losing money from it?

I would, because it would be a false justification.  If they thought they were losing money on unsubscribed training, they must have thought that by blocking it they would force users to subscribe their 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. chars more of the time, or all of the time.  That's not going to happen except in some rare cases.  What is happening is that people are consolidating accounts or just letting secondary accounts go permanently expired.

So, if there were an actual loss I might agree, but since any loss is illusory, I don't agree.

BTW, the 4th of my nine accounts expired today.  The next one will be on Sep 29.  Then two more on Nov 5.  Then one on Nov 15.  Then the last on Nov 21.  Instead of keeping nine accounts active all the time I will cycle through them, having only a couple of them active at one time.

Originally posted by Kyleran

And if you read the follow up post (also posted in this thread) you would have seen them own up to the fact this was done primarily as a money making move to combat a recent upsurge in people who are letting their accounts go inactive while training up long train time skills.

 

From the interview I get the impression that they noticed an increase in unsubscribed training but failed to notice that the economic meltdown and more locallized problems easily account for an increase in ordinary players letting accounts lapse and trying to get a little training in while they save a few bucks.  Nothing CCP has said has indicated that they actually researched the accounts comprising the increase in unsubscribed training.  It seems they just noticed the increase and presumed it was something other than ordinary players feeling the pinch of economic problems.