Shadow of Cerberus
Public => EVE World News => Thema gestartet von: Aura am Juni 10, 2013, 01:45:09 Vormittag
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Double jeopardy
So, before I get into a list of the features in Odyssey that I like (and I assure you, it's a pretty long list), I thought I'd cover my least favorite feature. And that is dual training.
Now before you get ready to yell at me, let me assure you that I understand the reason for dual training. We all have alts that need just a few more skill points here and there and stopping the training of our mains is not anything any of us has a desire to do... for any reason, really. So yes, I understand why some players are going to be big fans of this feature. And I certainly understand what CCP gets out of the feature as well. Companies like money and every PLEX that you pump into dual training enriches CCP to the tune of about $20 U.S. whether you bought them on the market or not. Sooner or later, every PLEX can be traced back to someone putting money in CCP's pocket. And I ought to be a fan of that, too, right?
Well yeah, I am. I want CCP to be successful financially. But dual training strikes me as a feature that identifies a problem and presents just the wrong solution to that problem. And not only is this solution bad for players, it's bad for CCP.
As I've covered before, when you pay for your subscription using a PLEX, you are paying for the game using the most expensive option and choosing the option that puts the most money into CCP's pocket. When you dual train using a PLEX, you're doing the same thing only doubly so because not only are you putting the most money into CCP's pocket, you're paying full price for a character that you can't use at the same time as your main. A PLEX is just as good for keeping a second main -- whose account you CAN log into concurrently with your first main -- as it is for dual training, where you can't. As a result, by dual training you are accepting less value for your PLEX, whether you purchased that PLEX with real currency or virtual currency. So I think dual training is bad for players.
But I think it's bad for CCP, too. Dual training exists because -- let's face it -- training skills is addictive. I recently reduced my own number of mains from four to three. And that was a really hard thing to do. Training skills is addictive and it was hard to accept that that fourth main wouldn't be picking up any new skills. Once CCP has you in the habit of paying -- whether with real or virtual currency -- for "another" account, whatever "another" means for you, it's very tough to stop.
And of course, the longer you keep doing it, the more money that is in CCP's pocket.
In my opinion, there was a better solution to the same problem that would have required little to no programming on CCP's part and would have resulted in a better deal for both players and for CCP: greatly reduce or completely eliminate the cost for transferring characters between accounts. Right now, doing this costs either $20 U.S. or two PLEXes, which for the "value" you're getting is crazy expensive. But had CCP eliminated this cost instead of adding the dual training feature, it would have given players the option to freely transfer an alt to a new account and then start paying to train that character.
- That's better for players, because they can actually log into all the characters they're training at the same time if they want to. And,
- It's better for CCP because it's one fewer set of potential bugs from the dual training feature... AND it potentially sets the hook for that player to get used to training an additional character for months on end, instead of just a month or two with dual-training.
So... yeah. Not a fan of dual training. I think it will be a popular feature, but I also think it was the wrong solution to this particular problem. Just my opinion, though.
Source: Double jeopardy (http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2013/06/double-jeopardy.html)