EVE Online devs address the potential for ganking and abuse under its F2P model

    
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Earlier this week, CCP announced a hybrid free-to-play business model revamp for EVE Online that has capsuleers across the galaxy buzzing. The system hinges on what the studio calls “clone states”; the gist of it is that subbers can keep on subbing and get exactly what they have now, while would-be players can skip the sub and still play, only with significant skill limitations.

Today, the studio has issued a new dev blog addressing some of the concerns existing and future players have raised. For starters, EVE players and observers alike have pointed out that the lack of limitation on simultaneous logins for freebie accounts will lead to abuse, to say nothing of the convincing argument that freebie accounts will lead to a rise in suicide ganking. CCP says it is “exploring options to address” simultaneous logins and points to a self-declared ganker’s opinion on why alphas will make bad gankers, though that doesn’t mean people won’t do it anyway, and it doesn’t address other forms of harassment other games and platforms that enable throwaway accounts have encountered.

“We want to emphasize that a lot of the impact from Clone States will be impossible to predict,” writes CCP. “We’ve seen questions like ‘what will happen to the market when returning players suddenly reclaim enormous amounts of assets’. Well, we don’t know exactly! For now, we want to work towards a position where we can comfortably react to emerging needs after launch.”

The new business model is planned for November’s “full-blown expansion” alongside enhancements to the new player experience. Stay tuned for MOP’s Brendan Drain’s analysis in this weekend’s EVE Evolved!

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