Originally posted by NightCloak

What you are failing to understand is that CCP wants to control the RMT and make money from it. They dont want to let people handle it on thier own or let a 3rd party company profit from it.

Which sounds completely logical to me, it is a breach of integrity if you allow bots and hackers to do their stuff. Why would they allow others making money of their game anyway?

Lastly, I am 100% sure, that if there were only a small amount of botters and hackers in EVE ( it has gotten better tho with plexes and the unholy rage ), then CCP would have never introduced plexes in the first place.

Originally posted by xeno2k1

Originally posted by TheHatter

Save your money.

The processor is crap, the ram is slow, the video card is outdated.

 

If you go for a low budget system, get an ATI card.

 

the processor is not crap i have the same cpu with a ati  4850 and i get 40-60 fps in dal at peak times with shawdows etc turned on high

I agree, the Processor is not crap, and combined with an ATI Radeon 4850 it will work fine. Also the DDR2 ram is probably not slow, as I bet it will have tight timings like 4-4-4-12, something you can not get with DDR3 ( in return DDR3 runs at higher clocks ). Finally you dont have to go ATI for a low budget card, the 9600GT is best price in it's category, but the 4850 is a faster card for a bit more money.

It has all the parts to run WoW ok, except for the graphics card.

It is a crappy graphics card, if you look here :

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-graphics-card,review-31723-8.html

You can see that the graphics card is waaay down there at the bottom it is similar in performance to a 6600GT, used to be a top card, a few years ago ( 2004 I believe ).The 1GB video ram on the card is a total waste, 256MB on that card would be more logical.

The graphics card is a serious bottleneck in that system.

You should at least aim for a GeForce 9600 GT or a Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with 512MB.

Then the Raidmax PSU, well it is not totally garbage, but only 1 step up from generic no name brands, I guess it should work, but I prefer something more reliable like Corsair.

The CPU is not bad, but the bottom line at my regular retailer, I suggest to go for the fastest Athlon II you can find, like the 250 @ 3Ghz, it will only be slightly more expensive.

I advice you to take a look at the newegg.ca site, and build a system there. If you want to buy from a local retailer, then you still have something to compare with.

The system you posted is a good base to start, but needs work, and I did not do the calculations, but I bet that it is too expensive as well.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

---

Originally posted by Kyleran
Trying to figure out why you think EVE isn't made to control multiple characters.  When I run missions in Empire, I routinely run 3 ships all on a single box with no problem.   When I run wormhole OPs I run two ships, one to salvage and another to do DPS, again on a single box. 
Same with PVP, while fighting Empire wardecs I'd have a neutral scout out to observe and scout enemy movements in order to more effectively prosecute the war or to just watch neighboring systems while my other characters safely ran missions next door.
I think EVE is an excellent game to run multiple accounts and don't see why you think it makes the game "ill".
Heck, I pay full sub fees for all 3, and don't use PLEX's to keep them going.   (I have other uses for my ISK)
 

---

 

If you were supposed to control more characters at the same time, you would do it withing 1 client and 1 account. Simple as that.

 

Nonsense, your logic is flawed.  That I can control multiple accounts easily from a single computer proves that the game supports it quite well.

Simple as that.

 

The game supports it well indeed, it is easier to control multiple accounts in EVE than in most other mmo's, it is just a byproduct of the combat system, the offline skill training, the time it takes to specialize and the ability to scout. However I disagree that EVE was designed this way.

CCP also promotes it, because it gives them more money, but honestly, I think very few take multi accounts because of the "Power of two" adds. Perhaps it pulls some people over the edge, but as the numbers indicate ( lets call it 20% ) we can assume that most empire pve players do not have multiple accounts. Once people realise and have a use for the benefit of multi-accounts. Also plexes allows for easier multi accounting for the established players.

Now, is it bad for the game or not? It is certainly not the ideal way, but there is little CCP can do about it even if they wanted.

The 2 main downsides I see :

- People with more RL money can have more specialized characters faster, but that impact is not that great and the same as veterans who have more  specialisations on 1 character

- It allows to scout with a cheap ship therefore reducing the risk of PvP and the element of surprise in EVE, however this gets negated fast when playing with more people.

The most important thing to me is that you are not required to have multiple accounts to be able to compete, unlike lets say in DAoC ( when I still played at least ), and since there is no way to stop multiple accounts in any mmo that I know off, again CCP looked at it pragmatically and makes regular deals to get cheaper alt accounts.

At least this is a better discussion to have than the wild claims with no ground the OP made, but perhaps he made it indeed so obvious so we ( the "EVE fanbois" ) would be able to easily defend EVE :)
 

Originally posted by Kemahudson

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Kemahudson

After coming upon this thread while searching google, I decided to register here and add another tid bit of info.

About a year and a half to two years ago CCP had a MOTD on the login screen announcing that they had broken their concurrent login record.

It went on to say that the new record was just over 55,000 users logged in at once. In addition they did a bit of bragging in regard to how well the servers handled the load.

Of course it crashed that very same evening, but thats another story entirely. ;)

I havent seen them announce a new record since. If there was a new record in such a short period of time since, I highly doubt it would be nearly 6 times the current. By that point eve had been around for quite some time and it is widely speculated that the number of subscribers were at their peak. (This was right around the time eve started having commercials during Galactica episodes and it brought quite a few people into the game.)

 

It sounds like you are confusing concurrent users and subscriber numbers.

You are correct.

 

As insane as it sounds I actually read the thread as somebody making the outrageous claim that 300k people were logged in at once.

 

Turkey day wine had hold of me during my initial post, or I'm insane.. Or both.

 

In either sense, as to the subscriber issue. I have to admit that it seems like more than 50% of the people Ive met and talked to in game have had at least two accounts.

 

I've played a ton of MMO's and had never seen the multi account trend go as far as it does in Eve. As mentioned above, they disabled ghosting of skills. Its quite possible that since that point, the number has dropped. I can however off the top of my head name at least ten people who have 4+ accounts.

 

You know it may have quite a bit to do with the CCP sanctioned selling of game time cards as well. There are a ton of people in eve that haven't paid a dime of real money for their accounts in years.

 

You simply go onto the timecard channel and youll be assaulted with a relentless barrage of time card for isk (eve currency) offers.

 

Now CCP has taken it a step further to allow people to buy PLEX (pilots license extension) cards. Its a 30 day extension which after purchase shows up as an in game item to be traded or used on yourself.

 

They ban people for selling and buying ISK on the servers.

 

And yet its acceptable to pay real money for pilots extensions and then sell them in game for ISK. I think the going rate is 300mil ISK for a 30 day plex. This is an amount that a 0.0 dweller with multiple accounts could likely breeze through in a day.

 

Isn't that basically the _same_ thing as buying game currency with real money?

 

Anyhow, do you think this contributes to the large number of multiple account subscribers? Since there is a way to play without paying out a dime, then the multiple account option might be a bit more plausible to people than it would be in other MMO's.

If you look at it from a pure ideologic point, then yes, you are correct, buying ISK from a person behind CCP's back or thru CCP are the same.

But this was a pragmatic solution, and a good one imho. The positive things about plexes :

- It does not magically create more ISK ( like item malls would ), so it only has a minor effect on the economy.

- It allows people that don't have enough money or don't want to pay anymore, to still play if they have enough ISK.

- It is a safe way of trading, no chance to get hacked or infected by whatever.

- Together with Unholy Rage, it is part of the 2 fronted fight against hackers and botters, whom heaviliy stress the server ( as they often play 24/7 and very intensive ) or hack people's accounts and sell everything. People are able to buy/sell isk with other regular players.

- It reduces all the ISK spam bots in the game.

In a perfect world there would be no hackers or botters that sell ISK, but we don't live in a perfect world, and every other mmo out there that I know, faces the same issues, I applaud CCP to make such a balanced an inventive way to keep the game healthy.

So the rampant cheating and hacking is fixed? I may have to check it out afterall ...

It is indeed a solid PvE experience with nice exploration and well done instancing, also a nice crafting system, housing and really good graphics to top it off.

Some more sandbox elements wouldn't hurt ( but may detract from the PvE experience ), but what I really miss is meaningfull PvP, that is the reason why I am currently not subbed anymore.

I liked FE, still, seems it didn't got me hooked. Perhaps I'll try it again another time.

I guess part of the problem is that none of my RL friends play or want to play it.

Originally posted by Mcgreag

Source for the less than 20% multi account users:
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=461283&page=2#36

A bit old but I doubt the number have changed significantly.

Awesome, was looking for that :p

Originally posted by rwmiller

Originally posted by mklinic

Originally posted by SilverDropX

No MMO out there gives accurate CCU numbers.  Why would they?

I'm going to guess CCU is meant to be Concurrent Users? If so, EvE displays how many users are online at the login screen and, being one server it's really the only place you need to look. I mean sure, I guess the number could be inaccurate, but that starts to get into conspiracy theories and what not.

 

Okay, let's change the myth. This Eve is on one server thing is the real myth. Eve Online is played on one honking big cluster with lots of instanced systems that you have to move to. If anywhere near all of the players normally online (20k to 30k) tried to enter Jita I suspect that Iceland would go up in a cloud of steam from the resulting meltdown.

 

The fact that it is really just a bunch of interconnected systems normally doesn't matter until you get to a gate and are told you can transfer because there is congestion and traffic control won't let you pass. Yes in space they can't hear you scream even when in a traffic jam.

Christ, now are we getting that stuff again ...

EVE does not have instances, it has zones, the difference being that everyone can go everywhere and kill everyone!

And yes, EVE is not 1 server, it is 1 big shard, in contrast to regular mmo's ( WoW, LOTRO, EQ, ... ) that have many small shards ( which still use more than 1 server to run them, so in essence they are clusters as well ).

I hope we educated some people in the process of this thread :)

If you want to criticize EVE, use facts, like telling you don't like the slow combat, the skill training system, or the sound system for example.

Originally posted by Nasir64

Originally posted by CyberWiz

Originally posted by Nasir64

I just want to clear a few things up around here about the myth that keeps on showing up in these forums. The fact is there is no where near 300k players. These are accounts, and personally many of these accounts are owned by people who multibox. I myself have 3 accounts, my close friends that I play with all have atleast 1 extra account for either covert ops "eyes", manufacturing, or logistics. This guy alone can describe 90% of eve players, not that everyone has this many accounts but in general this is how things are around EVE. http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1215928

 

I hate to break it to these guys feeding misinformation but this is the honest to god truth. At no point in time will you ever see the players currently online break 50k. I have seen it at 51k ONE time in my 5 and a half years of playing. Hell I think out of the 100's of people I know maybe 4 have one account, and 2 of them guys closed the second account due to $$ issues.

 

Does this affect the game itself and make it less fun? Some say yes, but I don't feel it does. If I had to guess i'd say there is maybe 75k players at best. Which is still good. By no means is the game empty and in my opinion it has just the right number of players. Just thought I would clear it up. Cheers

 

You make wild claims, which are alot more invalid than the fact that EVE Online has 300k+ subscriptions ( 301826 in september 09 ) and a Peak Concurrent Users of 53850, reached in March 09 ( went down to 46880 after the Unholy Rage against bots, but is going back up again, with 50873 in september ).

The 300k+ subs excludes the +/- 40k trials, so in total they have around 340k active accounts.

Now, everyone know alot of players have multi accounts, and EVE has probably some more of them than some other MMO's, but claiming it has 75k players at best is just wild guessing and in contradiction to the official 15-20% multi account players number.

If you want to make a point, please try to stick to the facts, otherwise you will be looked at as just another troll or newb.

 

 

Please post your facts other then your ramblings. Please show me where CCP shows these numbers. And please point me to where this says individual accounts. You have to understand I am on unemployment right now due to the economy and I play from DT til 1 or 2 am EST . I know what my screen says when I log to switch alts for my cyno pilots. Lets put this in 8 hour shifts shall we.

3 x 8 hour shifts at 30k (being nice) players. that is 90k players all around. Now give or take 20k for ones offline that are used for manufacturing, that is 110k at BEST. And a good majority of them are alt accounts. Subtract the trials at say 20k to be nice. and you still have 90k subs.

 

CCP gives me their numbers directly thru mail, for my website. ( check my sig ).

But they also periodically publish their numbers if they reach a record. Here is a link :

http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3044&tid=

These are active, payed for, subscribers. Well they say subscribers, but if you want to get technical, they are subscriptions, because there are indeed many players that have multiple accounts. And CCP also promotes it with the Power of 2.

So they are not all individual players, what CCP means by subscribers are all payed for subscriptions, and I quote from the mail I got from CCP ( guess you will have to trust me on that one ) :

"I can assure you that the 300k number does not include any trial accounts. Our subscriber number only includes paying subscribers."

Your mistake is taking a wild guess of 90% multi account subscribers, thats what I wanted to point out.

I can't find the 15-20% number, so I'll ask CCP directly and get back to you on that. ( They have good ways to check this using Creditcard and IP-number info ).

Originally posted by Nikopol

Originally posted by Frostbite05

why would anyone go outta their way in an attempt to bash Eve's sub numbers? I mean seriously its really is one of the few good games on the market.

 

While I agree EVE is the best MMO out there, the original post is still pretty valid. And I somehow did not think it was bashing.

I've played EVE for several years pretty casually, and even in my practically inactive months I usually kept a second subscription up. And a really big majority of the other casual players I knew had more than one account. So I'm actually pretty surprised by the low numbers CCP seems to have reported.

I'd say it's true that EVE is a game that lends itself better to multiboxing than most MMOs. Yeah, you can have extra accounts  in WOW, but really, apart from some PVP occasions I don't see much value in that. Whereas in EVE, you can even make the two accounts useful in the high sec - just the ability to quickly mine & haul with two accounts is enough to warrant it.

On the other hand, I see no harm in people having multiple accounts whatsoever. Actually it's one of the fun parts for me - and I do agree there's no need to have 1m players in EVE. The server's pretty well-populated as it is.

 

The post would have been valid if he claimed there are many multi-account players, however it became invalid when he claimed 90% are multi account players, or that there would be only 75k indivduals in EVE Online, while CCP says they have around 15-20%, even if it is 25%, then saying it is 90% is a gross exaggeration.

Originally posted by Nasir64

Originally posted by Malcanis

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Frostbite05

why would anyone go outta their way in an attempt to bash Eve's sub numbers? I mean seriously its really is one of the few good games on the market.

 

Well, it was a bit surprising considering the OP claimed to be playing EVE and has multiple accounts, but perhaps he doesn't and just is a troll. 

Real EVE players wouldn't make an OP like this.

 

 

Nah, every few weeks on the Eve-O forums you get some gink who thinks that he's the first one to notice the fact that some people have multiple accounts. As if it matters or anyone cares.

 

And then we get some turd who thinks hes a celeb when infact you are about to lose TPAR... and you never log in anymore.

 

But back to the post at hand. The reason I felt the need to post this is because of the constant claims of this number like its a medal of honor. I like EVE and like I said ive been here for awhile. Just trying to post the correct info to anyone interested. This has nothing to do with WoW. Any misdirection is just proof in my eyes.

You tried to post correct info, but you failed.

Next time try harder.

 And yes, having 300k payed for subscriptions in a deep, rich and pretty hardcore game ( compared to other mmo's ), does deserve a medal, imho.

Originally posted by Nasir64

I just want to clear a few things up around here about the myth that keeps on showing up in these forums. The fact is there is no where near 300k players. These are accounts, and personally many of these accounts are owned by people who multibox. I myself have 3 accounts, my close friends that I play with all have atleast 1 extra account for either covert ops "eyes", manufacturing, or logistics. This guy alone can describe 90% of eve players, not that everyone has this many accounts but in general this is how things are around EVE. http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1215928

 

I hate to break it to these guys feeding misinformation but this is the honest to god truth. At no point in time will you ever see the players currently online break 50k. I have seen it at 51k ONE time in my 5 and a half years of playing. Hell I think out of the 100's of people I know maybe 4 have one account, and 2 of them guys closed the second account due to $$ issues.

 

Does this affect the game itself and make it less fun? Some say yes, but I don't feel it does. If I had to guess i'd say there is maybe 75k players at best. Which is still good. By no means is the game empty and in my opinion it has just the right number of players. Just thought I would clear it up. Cheers

You make wild claims, which are alot more invalid than the fact that EVE Online has 300k+ subscriptions ( 301826 in september 09 ) and a Peak Concurrent Users of 53850, reached in March 09 ( went down to 46880 after the Unholy Rage against bots, but is going back up again, with 50873 in september ).

The 300k+ subs excludes the +/- 40k trials, so in total they have around 340k active accounts.

Now, everyone know alot of players have multi accounts, and EVE has probably some more of them than some other MMO's, but claiming it has 75k players at best is just wild guessing and in contradiction to the official 15-20% multi account players number.

If you want to make a point, please try to stick to the facts, otherwise you will be looked at as just another troll or newb.

Originally posted by vistakah

 

Wow has no reason to be in a hurry to develop or launch a new MMO. I'm guessing 5 years just for consideration in the fact that they aren't going to inflict damage on their cash cow named WOW.

Guild Wars 2 if done right will be HUGE as long as they take the PVP on a much larger scale. I hope they go open world and no instances. Other then that their really are no major players to release in the next 2 years from all i've read.

I think Diablo III will inflict more "damage" to WoW than any MMO. Unless they come up with some smart package deals, luring ex-WoW players back and even getting new WoW players in. Hmm, can already see it, basic battle.net account ( DiabloIII, Starcraft II, ... ) @ 5€, WoW battle.net @ 15€, full battle.net ( WoW + everything else ) @ hmm 17,5€ ?

Originally posted by Devour

I've been feeling the same way about Blizzard ever since they started charging $$$ for character "recustomisation", which was horribly annoying and a bit stupid. As the OP said, the whole SWG fiasco was just incompetence on the part of SOE, equal to an incontinent dog urinating on itself.

Hmm I do have to agree, that the "recustomization" in WoW is lame, it is pretty lame in itself, even without asking money for it. I must agree, that is pretty evil.

Again, I only consider something like that evil when it is introduced after launch. People build a reputation, and live with the consequences of their mistakes, but now thats no longer true.

Originally posted by Grayseven

Originally posted by Dawnsinger

It saddens me greatly to say, but it's true. SOE are actually less evil than Activision-Blizzard, although - to be fair - that's mainly because of Bobby Kotick.

Just you wait, they may seem to be just scraping the scum off the pool of darkness, but soon enough they will emerge from it, horned and wreathed in flames of RMT shops and premium features.

( By the way, SOE weren't all THAT evil to begin with, just amazingly incompetent. )

What, pray tell, is "evil" about RMT shops or premium features?

As long as RMT premium goodies do not interfere with the basic game and only allow non-critical enhancement of a game, there isn't really a problem.

The problem would come if I had to pay for, say, Tier 10.5 gear while only getting Tier 10 gear from the hardest raids. At THAT point, the game has broken down past the point that it would remain a viable game in my eyes.

There are people out there paying real money for digital "property" all the time. The SWG digital card game is a good example, as are others like it. If the company running the game decided to call it quits, people would have nothing to show for the money they spent since the cards are nothing more than a few lines of code.

Fluff like this is good for a game. Call it a tax on the stupid. If enough people drop 10 bucks on a pet that took some artist some programmers a few days to create it give Blizzard more money to make Cataclysm better. So I get to reap the reward of a better game because Joe Everything bought himself two pets that a lot of others won't have because we'd rather put that $20 bucks in a strippers G-string one buck at a time.

RMT's could actually help out a lot of games that are struggling on the cusp. A game company can't go out and say to its player base "if we double sub prices we can start doing some really neat things that might bring the game back" but they can take a small team of people and dream up some fluff that people would pay money for to bolster revenue.

As long as it stays as decor or fluff, RMT's could actually be a boon to their games.

I consider RMT evil when it is introduced into the game after launch, when it started as a subscription based game.

The only exception I make to this, is the way EVE Online does it. That is tollerable, because CCP does not inject cash into the economy. For the people who don't know how this works : the veteran players can sell their ISK for gametime, which other players can buy. So I can buy 2 x  Plex ( ingame item that you can put on the market for isk, and which gives you 30 days playtime ) for 35€ ( damn they got expensive :p ) and then put them on the market for like 300m isk.

It is not the perfect world, but the best pragmatic solution available, because it is part of the way to combat illegal isk sellers ( who bot, hack and cheat ).

It also helps to let more people play ( people paying their subs with isk ) , rather than drive people away ( by botters, cheaters and hackers ).

Back to the evil RMT, mainly the RMT introduced after launch, when the game already ran for a good time, and suddenly the company wants more money, on top of monthly subs. RMT that injects items and money directly into the game economy and game world and where people can buy as much as they want.

I consider RMT bad overall ( except the EVE Online way ), because it is no longer about playing the game but buying stuff.

Well I guess being on steam is one of the few positive aspects of SWG now.

Originally posted by Kenaoshi

SOE broke the game in one shot so u rage quit and save money.

Blizzard slowly dumb down the game so u still spend money in hopes it one day will be in its former glory.

so yeah soe is less evil =p

Okay, that is also a way to look at it :)

Well, SOE has a proven trackrecord of evilness.

Evil or not, the way they screwed up SWG is enough reason to be really really carefull when trying out there games and investing money, time and effort into their games. Because one day you may wake up and your character is mutilated and your game is completely changed.

Blizzard, I have had no evil or bad experiences with them yet. They brought WoW, it was fun for a while, got bored and moved on. They also brought Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft. Always been a great experience for me.

But I guess that now they became so big as Activision Blizzard, that they may slowly go to the dark side ( for example these RMT pets don't look very good ).

For now, Blizzard can't really beat SOE in evilness, imho :p