With the introduction of alpha clones, it is finally making the jump to free-to-play.
Advertisement
While this new approach may cause some stirs among current Eve Online players, it can only be a good thing for prospective new players, allowing gamers who would otherwise have been too intimidated by the subscription model to try the game. Whether your ultimate goal is to become the leader of a huge Corporation (guild), an infamous space pirate or just a simple drifter that mines asteroids for a living, CCP Games prioritizes player freedom above all else with EVE Online, not wanting to direct you down a predetermined path.
Developer CCP Games announced today that its massively multiplayer online space game will have a free-to-play option once November’s unnamed expansion releases. In the universe’s lore, these free-to-play accounts will be known as “Alpha clones”. In the fiction of EVE every player is a clone, which explains why players can respawn after their ship is destroyed. The limits on Alpha clones prevents players from gaining access to powerful skills and ships that could unbalance the in-game harvesting of materials (aka farming). Meanwhile, the “Alpha clone state” is reserved for free-to-play accounts to create and train characters up to a certain point.
The Omega Clone State (subscriber) is obtained by augmenting basic clones using neural expanders and cerebral acceleration technology, granting unlimited skill access.
“At the same time, EVE was very much designed as a subscription game from the start”, she continued. “Part of our vision for the future of EVE has included more open access for some time, but with the interconnected nature of the game comes vulnerability”.
New “clone states” separate free and paying players. “We knew that if the floodgates were opened in the wrong way, we could see anything from server meltdowns to the collapse of the Eve economy”. The game’s sandbox gameplay will also be improved as part of this update with the addition of Industrial Arrays, “a new class of player-built structures furthering the progress of Citadel structures introduced in April”.
Advertisement
As EVE is about to enter its 14th year, this isn’t just a bid to open it up to grow player numbers.
