And how you will keep you "selective" players happy ? You need fresh players and a big player base to keep them happy.
look at what is happening to MAG ... they tried to be "selective" and is proven to be a fail marketing strategy.

Games like LOTRO where forced by the regular player base to change to F2P, because the Fanboys where getting bore with empty servers, and playing with the same people all the time.

I haven't played MAG and thus have no idea what exactly happened to it. Reading around these forums though it seems to me that a patch of some sorts pissed people off which is indicative of them trying to switch the target group and this attempt firing back horribly as expected.

As i said "perfect match" players are happy because the game is already in a general state that appeals to them. Once aquired, all you have to do is not abandon your core game design concept to keep them. Getting players to try a very specific game is the hard part but once they're here you have a good chance on keeping them.

I suspect that just as many players would leave if respecs where added as without them. The difference is that the one group would've otherwise stayed for years and the other is mainly waiting for the next game or console release either way.
Games like LOTRO (read: almost all MMOs of the last 6 years) where cookiecutter copies of the EQ/WOW concept, often of considerably worse quality. They tried to attract a very washy market segment that is highly oversaturated without bringing anything worthwhile or unique with them. What forced all those games down the F2P road was the almost complete lack of a unique identity (besides the occasional movie license, wohoo) so they have to attract new players constantly to compensate for the bleed.

LOTRO going f2p was the "many players" approach. I expect dust to follow the "loyal players" approach if you will.

Yes.

[snip against pyramid quoting]

You do understand that the end result of what you're talking about is handful of players pouring thousands of dollars a month into Dust, right? The likelihood of a demographic that is going to be willing to do that is slim to none.

Eve Online has some 500K Subscribers. CCP gathers more money from subscriptions fees then they do from the small percentage of players who pour thousands into the game.

Look at the choices CCP made with Dust. They went FPS, arguably the most popular gaming genre. They choose console, a larger, more accessable gaming platform than PC, and one with less of a history of players spending thousands on a single title. They did it as an F2P, a more widely accepted model over subscription. You really think those choices point to CCP's ultimate intention being a targeted, playerbase who is willing to spend thousands a month on Dust?

Only Star Wars have been available to be selective with a player base.. E.G "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "Battlefront" ...i'm sorry but i don't think EvE is anywhere near that magnitude and scope.

Why did you constantly put more skill levels into an item you hate using?
Then why are you hanging out with a corp that doesn't appreciate what you bring to the table?
Then why are you wasting your energy asking for a respec instead of asking for balance to include missing items?

Not sure what you're trying to say here

- Star Wars: proximately 93,000,000 worldwide fans.

- EvE: 500,000 subscribers.

And yet SWTOR had to go fp2 hybrid to avoid a complete fiscal failure. You need to try hard not to dominate any market you engage with what is essentially the greatest franchise to have ever existed. The current 2m subs* are not particularly exiting in general, even less so with 'star wars' in the name.

2m accounts, created since going f2p.

Right... so that prove my point..? If something as big as Star Wars have problems being selective... what makes you think that EvE is going to be fine ?

Right... so that prove my point..? If something as big as Star Wars have problems being selective... what makes you think that EvE is going to be fine ?

Right... so that prove my point..? If something as big as Star Wars have problems being selective... what makes you think that EvE is going to be fine ?

A handful of players (in relative terms) that pays more on average for longer periods of time, yes.

Probably. That's how p2p games used to work at least.
Judging by the things they done in the game - long TTK, RPG elemts, no custom servers, no spectator, no respecs etc. p.p and my general experience with them as a developer i'm inclined to say yes. Dust tries to target a specific subset of console FPS players with game design choices that no other game in this huge market has dared to make so far.

And just to for clarity. The goal is to get a larger relative part of the playerbase to spend than in other games, not the same small percentage to spend more. I'm not talking about literally ten people paying half their salary for AUR tanks.

I'm sure you understand that all of the present cash items become less attractive to purchase the longer a merc plays Dust. Even boosters lose appeal once a player has filled out their roles and that of their alts. This why Dust needs to cast a wider net for new players, they don't have the back of subscription fees that Eve does.

Yes. That's why i'm puzzled that there's not even any sign of vanity items or customization within the game.

And efforts to increase the playerbase are fine and important. I just think that certain actions might, in the long run, do more harm than good by washing out the games identity and thus USP.

I've questioned a lack of those items as well. Best I can think of is for lore reasons they don't want players running around in hot pink tanks for example. Character and home customizations are normally stables of F2P games, so it seems odd they are absent in Dust.

lly I don't quite understand why Dust didn't go either all 3rd person, or a swappable view as found in Bethesda titles to allow players to see their clones even in the field of battle and milk the customizations angle. Removable helmets and character face customization would have created further opportunity for cash items.

True. That could be alleviated by simply giving limited option for color combinations. Even tiered offerings are possible.

Tier one: A wide variety of flat colors for a very minor AUR cost.
Tier two: Colors with a selection of overlay patterns.
Tier three: Coloring of individual segments (excluding class displaying areas)
Tier four: All of the above applicable to all corp members for the largest cost.

The last tier could possibly allow for full rgb color palettes that are pre approved by devs (to filter out wierd combinations and as a service to avoid mimicing). The demand will naturally be comparatively low and, based on the AUR cost, could still be worth the effort.
The problem with 3rd person is always the ability of "peeking" around corners with the camera. I think this alone could be a no-go in a game that tries to appeal to competitive players.

Edit: fixed fail quoting

I'm not so sure the demand would be low for RPG'ers. From that point of view immersion is based on being able to govern over as many aspects of the character as possible. The more players can mold a character the more likely they are to form a greater attactment to that character as well.

Gears of War does well competitively even being 3rd person. Players can also look through walls and other objects in Dust by terrian glitching in certain areas.

Honestly the way CCP is going with Dust and how much things are being nerfed so hard......making some people completely worthless (IE current heavies or commando suits).

Basically with the FPS genre and what CCP has been doing with all their changes.......it would probably be best if CCP just scheduled a monthly respec option. First week of every month you have the option to respec you char.....at the cost of 2% of your total SP.......this is automatically deducted from your SP total.

This would force there to be a "cost" for the respec while still allowing people to respec and change things that they find done work for them (or gets completely changed by CCP).

In the end I really dont care but offering respecs would increase the length of time that people are willing to play this game if they can try out multiple things and find the play style they prefer.

You play a properly balanced, fair and fun class. Liking the class, you dump all 15 mill SP to your name into the class. Suddenly, new build/patch comes around and your class is nerfed without your consent and you now suck at the game. You spawn in your proto suit or your vehical and you are killed over and over, loosing all your ISK. You are told you can not play PC because the one class you are good at, sucks. Nobody wants you in any serious endeavor in dust because your class is nerfed to the point of uselessness. Like current shield tanks, dropships, lazers, plasma cannons and soon to be armor tanks when they fix the bug that is causing them to be balanced. You no longer want to play dust, as the class you played is ruined and so is your ability to enjoy playing dust, because the developers ruined the class you speced into. CCP later anounes that they will not be fixing your class for many months and they ask you to accept their most sincere apologies, despite changing the class that you speced into many months beforehand. Should you get a respec? This happened to the classes mentioned previously and will happen again when the fix the armor tanks

I think those of you who mention quitting, should stop making threats and just quit. Eve grew at a very slow pace, even though millions have tried and quit. but CCP kept it going, and now there is nothing to compare to the magnitude of what heppens in Eve. in fact, they just made BBC news today.

I know plenty of people who like this "adapt or die" about Dust, how you will not get a respec, to think ahead before you invest SP on whether you are investing it on yourself, or investing it into you K/D ratio...

they have a small team, they aren't a giant corporation. they dont need a huge amount of players to pay to keep operating... BF does, COD does, Halo does, but not Dust... there is like 10% of the team that those companies have working on dust...

you can keep telling yourself that they will not make enough to keep dust going but they will...

you can keep saying that all the players will leave, but they wont. there will always be the ones who are curious to see where it goes, and there will always be the ones who know where its going...

This is not a just a mindless FPS. this is a thinking man's game, and it will remain that way.

its not my fault if you didnt think ahead and chose the "best" weapon or suit at the time. you didnt think ahead to the consequences of using that too your advantage.... shoulda invest SP into yourself and not your K/D

There is no 'think before you spend your SP'... its 'try your best to predict the future before you spend your SP'.