Sorry for reviving an old thread, but was just browsing through the forums, after spending hours sweating, bored and out of PED for a while, and stumbled across this.
I'd have to say that some of the things in here I've found interesting, and the "free" thing is what first attracted me to this game (due to limited income).
I would like to put my 2 cents in about the last post in here though.
Hi,
IMHO they shouldn't introduce more free activities. But they should get the ones that exist done correctly!
There should be a certain value in sweat.
There should be a certain value in dung.
There should be a certain value in fruits.
There should be a certain value in stones.
Having most of these "free activities" close to useless due to lacking demand of the product just sux. And it's not just about "free money for the nOObs", it's about having something to do when the last deposit vanished too quickly, or to have a possibility to gather needed resources for yourself, in case you'd be low on PED's that you'd prefer to burn in other stuff.
At first these existing "free activities" should be revived. A few BP's of useful stuff making use of said resources would be enough.
Lately, there have been an introduction of a couple new forms for using sweat... if anything, it's driven the prices DOWN. Why? More people now sweating because they don't want to pay for sweat, and selling the extra they get for under-cutting prices just to get rid of it. When I used to be able to spend 8 hours sweating, and getting about 15-20PED from it, now it's more like 3 DAYS sweating for about 10 PED. I've been trying to find something else I can do free to be able to make a couple PED here and there so I can see about actually growing the character without needing to pay a few Thousand $ just to get skills/gear to the point that I can do something effectively in game.
As for Dung/Fruits/Stones..... I don't think, no, wait, I KNOW I have not seen a single one in game, other than the stones you Mine Up with Bombs (which is NOT Free). If I knew of where to find them, I'd actually consider wandering around looking for them for hours for a couple PED, just so I could stop staring at Allo/Esto Backsides for that time.
I'm not asking for hand-outs from people; I'm not a beggar. I will work for what I get. I recently got stuck at an outpost and had to call the Knights for help.... After I tried to get myself out of there for over 2 hours. I offered to cover the Oil cost plus a little bit (since I still had some on me from mining earlier this week), but the, Knight refused it and said he was glad to help and loved to fly his VTOL around, so to keep it.
What I want is for there to be more that I can do in game than to stand around staring at things, sweating in a circle for hours, making MAYBE .5-1 PED/hr. Even if it is the current, most effective way to make PED for free, I'd STILL rather have something else to do to make a PED here and there.
I think most work these days should go into "how to make this game a better place for beginners".
We're bleeding dry. Ways more then more friggin carts, stupid grinding missions, another fast regenerating huge-HP mob, ways more then anything else we need fresh blood. New players, and a lot of them. Now!
Any effort for this game is obsolete, as long as this more and more reduces to a playground for a few profiting Ubers, and a small bunch of paying, gambling addicted middle class morons.
Have fun!
The last part of your message, I completely agree with.
This game is being bled dry, I think. I occasionally have seen more new people over the time I've been here. I'd lvoe to see this game grow. Even with the drawbacks I've found, in needing to invest both a couple grand $ and a couple years time in order to be at a competitive level, I enjoy it. It's Fun. But it's also starting to wear on me, in that there is nothing to do unless I've got more $$$ than I know what to do with, or can put up with staring at Mob-butt for days at a time, in order to be able to do something else for an hour or two.
It needs more Hooks for a new player, or an effective way for a new player to be able to sustain themselves for under $100+/mo spending several hours each day online.
The Market is horrible for a new player, in that anything they find, they're not going to be able to mark-up and effectively sell for a proffit because;
1.) Everyone who might want the 'noob' form/armor/equipment they found, already has it so it's effectively TT-Trash, which means an overall loss.
2.) The goods they wan to sell, the market has already been flooded with so they're going to be selling, effectively at a loss, because of either the time it will take them to find a buyer (IF they can even get to TP to shout out their wares), or the .5 PED minimum cost of the AH (which, unless they're depositing, they can't afford) for putting something on there, which they'd have to factor into the price they're charging for it, in order to make any PED. Which, again means the thing will probably just get TT'd, ending in a Loss again for the player in total PED.
Both of these things typically mean that they're more likely to just Quit than actually try to get anywhere in the game, because who wants to pay $10-20/mo, for a total game time of about MAYBE 10-15/hrs a month, unless they get lucky? That's what the current model is looking like for EU, on Planet Calypso. Get pople in, get them to deposit the initial $10-20 they can from their card, have them blow through it, see how boring it is and will be for the first year or more unless they want to pay, and then quit.
It's a great way for a business to make small money in the short term, but in the long term, the business will reach a break point, and end with more people quitting than continuing to put money in, due to a shrinking base of players. Most people will not continue playing unless they're progressing at a reasonable rate for what they're putting in. Eventually, it will be a group of Ubers (both crafters & hunters) that are making money, no new players putting money in, and the game will shut down because the business is no longer making a proffit. What needs to happen is for the game to cater more to the new players in giving them things to do in the down times between when they put money in, or make it more sustainable for the same money put in to last longer by changing the base economy -- but that is player based to a degree so the company can not change that it would need to be people willing to take less of a proffit for the same work. Since I don't think anyone is willing to effectively take a self-pay-cut to sustain a game for a longer period of time, it means that EU needs a more sustainble Low-end, and increase in player-recruitment & fixing current bugs to replace the things they've removed, than to add in more high-end content like space & the other High-Cost activities.
as this is something that annoys so many people...
but that was as a future thing
