It's too bad you agreed to the EULA which allows CCP to do whatever they want with in-game items, regardless of whether you used ISK or AUR.

SHUT UP I LOVE THIS GAME!

is this what CCP stands for?

I understand and support your attempts to balance items in the game.

but AUR items should not be touched!

discontinued... yes, with new versions being rebalanced, fine.

but you cant take our money and then change the properties of those bought items.

its like buying an HD tv and then the manufactures coming to your home and removing the HD.

I have not bought any new items and will not because I cant trust you wont fundamentally alter what ive bought with real money.

how do you justify doing this?

personally I have not ever bought an item you have changed except for the bp raven assault suit which was a minor change in having to skill into caldari suits to use it initially and you did that with the respec so it was not to big a deal.

what guaranty can you give us to trust you with our real money?

is this what CCP stands for?

I understand and support your attempts to balance items in the game.

but AUR items should not be touched!

discontinued... yes, with new versions being rebalanced, fine.

but you cant take our money and then change the properties of those bought items.

its like buying an HD tv and then the manufactures coming to your home and removing the HD.

I have not bought any new items and will not because I cant trust you wont fundamentally alter what ive bought with real money.

how do you justify doing this?

personally I have not ever bought an item you have changed except for the bp raven assault suit which was a minor change in having to skill into caldari suits to use it initially and you did that with the respec so it was not to big a deal.

what guaranty can you give us to trust you with our real money?

Did someone buy too many contact grenades.

Your logic on it is misguided.
Children don't visit your TV manufacturer and say. "His TV is better than mine, make it even! Or else I'm going with Toshiba!"


In a game where money is often thrown around you HAVE to keep things fair to a certain extent. Too much complaining and you lose customers, how many TV companies had this happen and had to upgrade and debug their TV? Fortunately in game items are cheap so you can KEEP buying them or going for a different AUR based weapon, good luck with a TV.

Not sure how you can pass judgement on this when you haven't used it... AUR weapons are cheap, really cheap in price, you can go along with FOTM with AUR and never have to face a nerfed character.

It's not your money anymore. You paid them money so they would give you Aurum. The Aurum isn't even yours. Your account isn't even owned by you. It's their game, they can do whatever they want. Deal with it.

It's your money, you choose to give it to them, so stop complaining.

I did some thinking about this.
If the money you spend on equipment in this game is subject to random changes, its like playing poker.

In poker, you can make all the best decisions, and still lose because of the randomness of the cards themselves. Someone can pull an ace on the river and you can lose it all. The mistake isn't your fault, its just part of the game. You bought a Scout suit, or a Flaylock with AURUM and it was changed away from what you originally bought. Everything you buy with AURUM (or ISK) is subject to random change and chance of being altered or lost forever in battle(such as a bad luck Ambush spawn)

So, is CCP orchestrating a game where gambling takes place?
Because in the United States, that's illegal...


...think about it folks

Crowd Control Productions

Also may I welcome you to read other MMO's EULAs and TOS and see how similar they are?




Also, this is flawed, as it stands right now you cannot with any currency buy the absolute best gear available, they're drops from EOM only.

Also the cards in your hands are spades, valued over their counterparts because they're spades. So while your spade straight will bead the heart straights that still doesn't beat the royal flush.

I don't understand why so many of you are ok with them changing properties of items bought with actual money without some compensation.

cant we agree as the consumers theres a better way? discontinuing the item, aur reimbursement or some other method?

the EULA is not diplomatic immunity to make bad business decisions or poor customer relations, we can all be treated fairly while CCP still makes necessary changes. is this such a stupid idea to you?

@Seymor

Please excuse a few of the trolls you may see here. As for the others, some of them missed the point. I get your point and all, but you are also the one that missed the point as did everyone else on the reason why AURUM items get changed every so often.

The most important (practically the most critical) point of these changes is that CCP originally promised since Fanfest 2013 and E3 2012-2013 is that Dust 514 will never have Pay-to-Win items.

Pay-to-Win, as defined by industry standards, is an unfair advantage one player gains over a another via the purchase of an in-game item with actual cash while the in-game item in question has no free equivalent to match it. This practically means that if the item can't be accessed with anything other than cash and it gives you an unfair advantage, then it's pay-to-win.

CCP wanted to introduce a microtransaction-based system that allows players to "side-grade" rather than "upgrade" with cash (such as the Raven Suits that you mentioned) or allow players early access to an item that is one tier away from being trained to without introducing any pay-to-win scenario. Pay-to-win carries a very bad stigma throughout the gaming industry and it's something CCP is trying to avoid. After all, CCP did promise to everyone around the world that there will be NO pay-to-win in this game.

I'm not sure if you were around or not, the entire forum was abuzz with thread after thread of people complaining that AURUM items like certain grenades, maybe a submachine gun like the 'Toxin' and some of the suits from the early days of Dust incidentally had a pay-to-win potential and almost all of us demanded them to be fixed so that any pay-to-win scenario can be eliminated.

If you saw one of the AUR items changed recently, it's because CCP saw that there was a pay-to-win potential with the item and it needed to be corrected. More than likely some other player saw the problem and has already reported it to CCP demanding a change.

Now comes the real question.

Why avoid the pay-to-win scenario with microtransactions?

It's because pay-to-win carries with it a very nasty stigma that many companies try to avoid. An increasingly large number of players are starting to become repulsed by pay-to-win and therefore are having a higher tendency of walking out on a game that has this stigma and therefore is becomes bad business for the game. Surprisingly World of Tanks and World of Warplanes is doing just fine despite the obvious pay-to-win that it has, but it seems the developers had intended for pay-to-win to occur.

Overall, the changes you are witnessing are the result of a pay-to-win potential that was discovered that needed to be correct in order for CCP to keep its promise of "no pay-to-win" in Dust.

Now, if the change is cosmetic such a paint job, then maybe I support your position. But if your complaint is about changes in stats, then you missed the point. I hope I cleared things up for you here.

I think what people fail to realize is that these are digital goods and are treated differently than physical goods.

See, with physical, you own it. It's yours. Do with it whatever you want to do. I can go out and buy a music CD and it's mine to do with as I choose. I can make it into a coaster, I can listen to the music on there, I can upload it onto a website for others to download (legality questionable), but the point is that I own the physical good in my home, and it's mine.

With digital goods, they're not yours. The good is still owned by the company, and it's at their discretion what they will do with it. If you buy the same album off of iTunes, you don't own it. You follow the rules of iTunes to use it. If they decide to change the album art, you have no say in the matter, because when you bought it, you agreed that it wasn't yours, but that you simply bought a license to access this service and accept any changes that might come with it.

You buy Aurum items. They're not yours. I challenge you to find any EULA for any F2P game (or any game with a digital item shop, for that matter) that states that items purchased with cash are yours and not owned by the company, hosted on the server, and provided via license.

It may not seem fair, but you agreed to follow these terms. If you don't like it, the EULA provides you an out. I won't link or quote it, since it seems there are many that could stand to read it in its entirety.

just because they can do it, doesn't mean they should.... how many albums would you buy on iTunes if 2 months later they removed 1/2 the songs?

sure they could do this, but if they want your long term business they wont.

if the consumer stands up and says "this is where I draw the line" the company will listen if they want to remain in business... thats the power of the consumer... exercise that power or be walked all over.

Of course it doesn't mean they should, and most companies try to avoid it as much as possible for the reasons you listed. It doesn't mean that it's not necessary on some occasions though, such as a song on the album not belonging there or licensing issues, or more related to this topic, data showing that the contact grenades as they were was causing an atmosphere not enjoyable to the rest of the player base.

so then why not compensate the consumer in the name of good business relations?

You can be compensated. Read the EULA.

You can be compensated. Read the EULA.

EULA be damned!...if they change something we spent money for we should not have to jump through hoops... they should be proactive...period... sorry if I sound irate, but I think hiding behind the EULA is cowardice, and I think a consumer defending a company over there own money is foolish...

Stomp all you want. It won't change anything. The entire gaming industry has been doing this for a very long time and it's all perfectly legal.

Im not stomping, and I resent the notion.... change comes from standing up and saying "no more!"

people throughout history have changed common practices by saying something, and doing something about it...it use to be legal to beat your wife, or own slaves, or do cocain!... it isn't anymore because people said "no more!" and I don't know if your in the loop, but there are huge legal battles going on now about consumer rights with digital products... do you want your rights? or are you ok with being a chump to big business?

People thought Bill Gates and Steve Jobs helped improve the computer and music industry as a whole. They did. But now we see them as our enemy (their companies at least). Microsoft dominates two thirds of the PC market and are working with Apple to curb stomp any competitor from undermining their bottom line by being patent trolls. The road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

Closed beta merc pack..... once bitten a leopard can't change it's stripes because it's twice as shy

and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

leopards have spots.....

the point is when you buy something the deal is done... you cant have people pay real money for something and then arbitrarily make something else... couldn't they have achieved the same goal by simply discontinuing items? wouldn't that be more honest?

I always thought that the name was Cat's Control People and that cat merc is actually the CEO and is subtly trolling us and the community devs.

So you're saying that you'd rather they eliminate the item entirely and give you a refund?

So you're saying that you'd rather they eliminate the item entirely and give you a refund?

That is exactly what they should do.

Delete the item, refund the aurum, and introduce a new rebalanced item.

I love it too... when you love something you are honest with it

is this what CCP stands for?

I understand and support your attempts to balance items in the game.

but AUR items should not be touched!

discontinued... yes, with new versions being rebalanced, fine.

but you cant take our money and then change the properties of those bought items.

its like buying an HD tv and then the manufactures coming to your home and removing the HD.

I have not bought any new items and will not because I cant trust you wont fundamentally alter what ive bought with real money.

how do you justify doing this?

personally I have not ever bought an item you have changed except for the bp raven assault suit which was a minor change in having to skill into caldari suits to use it initially and you did that with the respec so it was not to big a deal.

what guaranty can you give us to trust you with our real money?

Edit: look at all the idiots who replied without understanding what they read... they think I bought this stuff... I didn't... I just think its bad for business and has stopped me from spending money on the game...lol

Whining for the sake of whining?

CCP has an EULA in place which does state that they have the discretionary right to change ANY items in the game, and the game and everything in it belongs to CCP.

If you pay, you're paying to have access to such items.

You may claim CCP is hiding behind the EULA, but agreeing to the EULA means you agree with their terms and conditions.

Is this bad customer relations? Well, looking at the abusive language and behaviorr of people on this forum, I would say CCP are doing a pretty decent job so far. Most other gaming companies or forums would be banning people left and right for their behaviour here. In fact, if you were abusive to staff of most places IRL, you could very easily be banned from using their services or products (i.e. in a more "we don't want your money" kind of thing).

tl;dr, you agreed to the terms of the EULA and have to live with it. If you don't want to, then don't agree with the terms.

I did agree to the terms. I was lucky not to buy an item that was changed much... I wont be buying anything now, nor will many others unless they show us we can trust them...tell me, if they erased your char, all your hard work,all the items you bought, would you still play?

if you bought an item today, and they erased it tomorrow, would you buy anything else?

sure they can do these things, and they would get a bad rep and lose business...I feel what they have done, though not as extreme falls under this kind of practice.

you should get on their payroll since defending them is worth more to you than being treated fairly... at least then you wouldn't be a chump.

You can easily tell when a player has run out of things to say that make sense. First and most common response, throw out an insult.

EDIT: Second, start using strawmen arguments.

not an insult... by chump I mean letting a company take advantage of you.

Yep, point proven.

prove your point by adding something viable and thoughtful to the conversation...

let me be clear. I love this game and its community im also an eve player and enjoy that game.
I think what CCP is trying to do is ground breaking and they have my full support. that doesn't mean I will defend them blindly
I have defended them many times in threads, im not a dooms day sayer and I have the patience to stick with them through this rough patch.

but, what they did here is WRONG regardless of its legality.
its bad business its dishonest and CCP is better than this imho.
they should fix their mistake and compensate people who are supporting their endeavor not jip them...
anyone who cant see this and flings the EULA around like some get out of jail free card is a chump...
they are letting a company take advantage of them and then acting like one of their public relations people instead of letting them speak for themselves... its for you, the chumps, as well as the more objective people I am trying to fight for here.
what extremes would CCP have to go to before you would stop throwing yourself under the bus for them? lets draw the line here, because, mark my words, if we let them get away with this, the next time they will try to get away with more....

As an EVE player, do you ask for respecs when they rebalance stuff around?

You pay for game time. Say you train Capital ships 5 or something long like that which takes a month or more. CCP nerfs capital ships. You paid 15 bucks for a month's subscription.

Do you ask for 15 bucks refund?

EDIT: Just so I know where you're coming from.

in eve when CCP did the ship skill change we had like a year to adapt to it before they implemented it. they are always tweaking ships and when they do complaints abound for a bit but in the end everyone gets used to it and moves on. sp in eve is all passive so while I train I can still mine, explore, mission, pvp and I get my 15$ worth.... but if I bought a plex and then the next day they only made it worth 10 days of game time instead of 30 then yes I would be irate....

is this what CCP stands for?

I understand and support your attempts to balance items in the game.

but AUR items should not be touched!

discontinued... yes, with new versions being rebalanced, fine.

but you cant take our money and then change the properties of those bought items.

its like buying an HD tv and then the manufactures coming to your home and removing the HD.

I have not bought any new items and will not because I cant trust you wont fundamentally alter what ive bought with real money.

how do you justify doing this?

personally I have not ever bought an item you have changed except for the bp raven assault suit which was a minor change in having to skill into caldari suits to use it initially and you did that with the respec so it was not to big a deal.

what guaranty can you give us to trust you with our real money?

Edit: look at all the idiots who replied without understanding what they read... they think I bought this stuff... I didn't... I just think its bad for business and has stopped me from spending money on the game...lol