hrm...
I used to think this very thing, and I loved EvE for it. Even if I drifted back and forth with subs, I always bragged about EvE-Online with my friends and it's death penalty. I loved that when you made a choice, you were stuck with it for good or bad. I loved training skills for equipment and efficiencies. If I decided to change tracks halfway in, well, then I just lost those skill points until I found a new need for them at some point. Earning skills, weaponry, ships, etc., was a sense of pride for me because I earned it. When I lost that equipment whether in PVE or PVP, it was an emotional loss because of the time spent earning it. I couldn't just run back to my body as a ghost and reclaim it all with just a repair penalty.

That feeling has begun to die for me. A month or so back I spent money on PLEX and bought a few skill injectors. I was excited by the idea of finally capping one of my drone skills instead of waiting the remaining month or so. After it was done, I looked over my training history and had a strange sensation. I felt like a who-oar.

All sense of earned pride and bragging rights for this or that suddenly vanished in the realization that nothing meant anything from that point forward. Drop some cash and here's a billion ISK. Not from a grind. Not from a calculated market long run. And not from a string of lucky encounters. Drop some more cash and you can instantly boost skill points. Meh. It was all just a single click away and it fulfilled nothing for me like losing my old Domi did years ago.

I suppose consequences are still very much a part of whatever EvE has become.

sigh.

@Rattati - Will we be getting any BPO's from Dust in Nova? I really want my C3P0 Logi (Shaman) back

The problem with EvE is that it is slowly being turned into just another game that you can pay to get whatever you want. There's no requirement anymore to go through the whole skill training thing that made the experience of training worthwhile. This is one of the things that so many of the long liners are complaining about - they trained for years and years to get where they are and now suddenly, people can just buy the skills they need for ISK, which itself is easy enough to get from selling PLEXes. PLEXing used to be a very maligned practice. Now it's practically the primary way to do anything fast in the game, and since for most people they just want things fast, the logic follows that PLEXing is becoming a primary source of in game money.

No wonder the long liners complain so vehemently.

We need Quafe

To draw a line, I do not believe it's P2W. For me at least, that's not the issue. As you said: without the skill and knowledge gained from experience in playing the game, those skipping in line will be destroyed.

That right there is at the heart of my point. I've gained experience through the grind, or "leveling" as you put it. That experience carries with it a sense of pride and history. EvE has history. It's persistent. That spirit has always been what attracted me. The permanence of skill histories is (was?) a small reflection of that persistent universe---my own small reflection as a spec in that great universe.

Training skills does not prevent me from enjoying the game. It just opens doors to new or more efficient ways of enjoyment; however, the knowledge comes through the wait. The wait also creates anticipation. When it's over, it's a genuine sense of accomplishment that will stay with me throughout my EvE game---and all the in-game experience that has accumulated as a result. Not anymore.

That is why EvE no longer has the attraction for me that it once did. It's not up to you to argue that my principles are wrong. It's absolutely irrelevant that you don't understand. If you enjoy things as they are, then by all means enjoy it. I am not going to rock the boat. I'll just eventually stop playing if other elements of the game can't pick up the slack for me.

I'm pretty sure I've drifted far off topic. Sorry OP!

BPO was awesome!!! I want my suits back

I like when someone is defending 'this game is not p2w game', there is so much spirit in it.

So, you saying that if someone is able to buy 50-75kk SP character, or one with all SP and then train on it for 6-8 months without worrying that he gone run out of ISK(ever) is somehow at worst position, then someone that was training his character from being and many times struggled to get ISK for basic fittings?

Let's be honest. You do not know about peoples that were successful with they $ investment in to the game if they did not fail at some point, and became "a lawyer dumped $3300 dollars on PLEX and only got a humiliating lossmail" kind of story. There is a saying which has a lot of truth I think "the rich people do not like the company", meaning that if someone is successful at what he is doing, he will not betray tactics of it, or talk about it openly, otherwise he will have competition.

Side story: Once my old corporation meet some oligarch from Moscow in one of Esoteria systems; he was renting it from C0ven. The thing is that one guy being able to renting entire system just for himself was already impressive. So what he was doing with it was even more impressive, unimaginably impressive - the guy was producing titans - he had something like 5 of them at the stock. He was managing entire corporation of alts by himself, to fly titans, to do research, component production, everything except mining. But he gave this job to some Romanian locals that were even delivering them to him(nice guys). Once asked why is he doing all of it, I think he responded that he likes the game, and building titans is cool, or some sort of this.
The moral of this one is that guy living at the corner of galaxy, a life we all know from producing frigs at early stages of our days in Eve, but doing stuff that everyone wish to do at they end-game had some pleasant time playing Eve. Did he spend some $ on his dream, yes he did, so can we say that at some point he pay to win Eve?

Speaking to loadouts and pride in ownership, acquiring and learning skills needed to use specific equipment give a sense of investment on property. It reinforces our notions of ownership and primes us to feel a need to protect our property (protecting our equipment through survival). That has always been another attraction of mine with EvE---the risk of loss through a severe death penalty. In the case of DUST, that was a great sense of immersion too; though it did have flaws IMHO.

BPOs (as used in DUST) directly contradicted that notion of investment and risk. What risk is there with an infinite stock of equipment? I am not going to derail with an argument of balance or other subtleties involved as to why this was a benefit to some or not; I'm just speaking on a philosophical view of an element that countered what, in my view, is, in part the spirit of EvE and what was potentially the spirit of DUST.

Bleh. On my phone and it's too early for this! I'll come back to finish my thoughts on skill progression.

Mornin =/

To be able to use BPOs like in EVE, players would have to get a hold of materials to craft their gear off of the BPOs not to mention a way of creating the gear once you get the materials (BPO + material + production cost = produced gear). This would likely add a whole other complexity to development of the game. I'd be for it but I doubt CCP would. That said, I think Project Nova would likely be best without BPOs (at least in the short term to enable time to get them to work right). The shortcutted BPOs as provided with DUST did kind of kill the point of the game.

Agree 100% w/ the last sentence.

I cannot tell you how many hours I spent "playing" DUST w/ 1NC0R and my previous corp just shooting the **** in my ****** MQ (griping about how uncomfortable the bed and couch looked, mostly), making autistic jokes, and laughing at all the poor bastards who got scamming in trade channels. Hours upon hours.

Socialization. New Eden is the most social world in gaming.

Soraya Xel made a good point on the Biomass podcast.

Part of what makes EVE epic is that although everyone starts as a forgettable speck, it is possible to became famous, or infamous, and incredibly powerful. The movers and the shakers in EVE are better known than the NPC characters of EVE Lore. You can build organizations or effect events that effect large percentages of the game's population, weather it be building a powerful Corp/Alliance, developing a player run financial institution and/or scam, or organizing an event with hundreds of participants that everyone is talking about.

Building your reputation can be part of the game, and it very much ties into both how Epic the game feels and the persistence of New Eden.

DUST had this too, to a more limited extent. I know I got to experience squadding with people who got all excited to be playing with "Fox Gaden". I managed to make myself relatively famous without even having to be good. I mean, I was good at what I was famous for, but I was a terrible shot.