I Can Haz Ghost Training?

Published on 15. Oct, 2008 ... written by Ebonezer Skrewed, Tags: Articles, Columns, Ebonezer Skrewed, Latest

by Ebonezer Skrewed … Apparently CCP has decided NO MORE and have put an end to the ‘Ghost Training’. What is ghost training you might ask? Very simple. When someone reaches the end of their account time, what they did was find the biggest (as in: Would take the longest time to train) skill, they would start it training, and then let their account run out of gaming time, letting their skill continue to train in their absence. That is Ghost Training, and apparently, it’s out!

So what are we to do now!? I hear some cry from the EVE-Online forums. Apparently, people are angry, people are upset, people are mad… because they don’t get to continue training their skills while giving CCP no money. Right. Let’s look at this from a logical point of view, one that may cause some upset. CCP is a company, correct? They work as a business to get money, just like any other company. Blizzard is a company, Games Workshop is a company. Both have released an MMO. To train skills in both – as far as I can recall – one must either constantly hit bad things or spend in-game money and constantly grind a particular ability or skill to raise the said ability. If your account runs out on either of these… What happens? Oh. Your skill stops training immediately, because you aren’t there to do anything about it.

Why should it be different for EVE-Online? I understand that it is a much different game when you try to overlay it on top of each of these MMO’s, but one must realise that CCP is a company. A company out to make money. They are not getting any money coming in if you train a skill and let it go away and raise itself while your account is deactivated. They are losing money because you haven’t bought a new time card, you haven’t given them money … yet people expect to still be able to ghost train their skills. It’s a curious way of thinking…

… One that I do not agree with. Yes, I don’t have all the money in the world to spend on things, but if I want to play EVE-Online and get stuff out of it, I have to put in the time and dedication that a game like EVE-Online requires so that I can gain the maximum benefit – while still having fun. I’ve cringed a little when I’ve seen people argue about it on the channels in game. How it isn’t fair. How CCP are robbing us. Well… They aren’t really robbing us. What they’re doing is ensuring that if you want to get things out of the game, you’re going to have to put money into the game. That pages their wages. Keeps the server running. Keeps the free additional parts to the game ‘FREE’. Yes, we know that by paying money into the game as per a subscription assists in paying for these. Yet Blizzard have released add-ons that you actually have to pay a separate CD-key for. Then you have to put the CD-Key into the game to access the additional content. Does CCP do this? No. Will they? I heavily, heavily doubt it. Yes, they charge a bit extra than other games so that they can keep it running. Yes, they give us an hours downtime each day – To which I respond to those bitching about it, I know that sometimes World of Warcraft realms can be down for an entire day, if not more – so… Really. People. Expect to pay for what you want. If you can’t pay for it, don’t play it. You do not need EVE-Online to survive.

I guess, really, that’s where my main complaint comes in. People complain about EVE-Online not having this, EVE-Online not having that. Yes, generally they’re decent complaints, yet the Dev’s have stated what they’re trying to aim for, trying to do, yet people demand it now. Which is unfair. These people have jobs to do, these jobs take time, your account payments pay for their wages, so these people that ghost train may not cost additional money, but they are not giving in money, which results in less money going into CCP, which results in maybe a job being cut. No, I am not saying this is fact. I’m just saying it can happen. Let’s not be too harsh on CCP here people. They’re just people. Trying to make a living. Funnily enough, what they do to make a living brings me a great deal of happiness, pleasure, and I have gained a few friends through doing it. Funny, that. I’d happily pay for it. In fact, I think I will go buy another 60 day time card. Later.

Ebonezer Skrewed

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8 Responses to “I Can Haz Ghost Training?”

  1. James Egan

    15. Oct, 2008

    I’m not really against this change at all, but given how prevalent ghost training is, they really should have provided a little more advanced notice. The way they went about this, stating that ghost trained skill advancement turns off … today actually … caught people by surprise. No real impact on me or my gameplay, but my .02 is they shouldn’t spring changes like this on players. Just announce it, let the forums howl and wail, and slowly players will ease into it and - hopefully - look at the situation a bit more rationally.

  2. Smak

    16. Oct, 2008

    Totally agree with you here, James! I think it was a needed change, but a lot of people were surprised about the implementation on the part of CCP.

  3. Morscerta

    16. Oct, 2008

    I can not completly agree with you. The change won’t harm me, as I do have all my accounts paid for.

    However I do object to the change as this was long sold as a feature, so it was an USP of EVE like a non-zoneable world in WoW, or flying characters in EQ. Take this out an people would get very offend, as they paid money to use this exact feature.
    And now suddenly call it a bug after you have taken somebodies money for it is not really smart.

  4. Sharpmango

    18. Oct, 2008

    Excellent article. i whole heartedly agree, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The ghost training feature was never intended as something to be intentionally used to save money, it was there for the people looking to come back to eve. it is now that ghost training has ended that the truth has come out about it, people intentionally using ghost training to acquire super-skilled players for minimal cost. This will take a long time to work out of the system, but thankfully, it will no longer continue to become a bigger and bigger aspect of playing eve.

  5. Zanpt

    21. Oct, 2008

    Ignorance abounds. Most of you posters don’t have a clue.

    The training completion date/time is bought and paid for when you click to initiate the training step. There is no ongoing training process. It is simply a date/time stored in the char info. There is no “training” process on the server. Training in Eve is zero-load for the servers. so instead of discontinuing something “for free” they have taken away something already fully paid for. The are holding training hostage when it was already something done and paid for beforehand. The date/time had to pass before you could use the skill step.

    The whole appearance of training being a process is an illusion created in the Eve client. The servers don’t know anything about it. If you think of the training completion as really being a “you can now use this skill” you might get a better grasp of it. It’s a waiting period against an out-of-game calendar date/time.

    They actually had to do extra work to take this away, since the elegant mechanism they created for training 5+ years ago couldn’t distinguish anything at all happening on the servers or with the account status. They had to write new code called by the account disablement to fetch the char information and remove the future date/time, storing the points or % to the present moment in the skill inventory. Extra programming, extra work for the servers, all completely unnecessary and based on the lie that it was a bug.

  6. vonklaude

    21. Oct, 2008

    The way Eve training works 100% of the costs are paid up-front when you put the skill on train with your active account. An end-date is calculated and stored, and that’s it. There is no free ride here.

    It can be compared to buying a tank of petrol. You put in $30. Then just because you stop a few miles down the road doesn’t mean the petrol station guy can come and siphon the unused gas out of your tank.

    CCP have at best put deceptive spin on this, and at worst presented bald-faced lies to players. As well as hiding and locking discussion threads on the subject.

    The gaming community should be taking CCP to task over this.

    -vk

  7. Ebonezer Skrewed

    21. Oct, 2008

    Actually. They went and apologised for saying it was a ‘bug’. I can forgive them for that. I, for one, have never did this ‘ghost training’. You still train skills when you are offline, when you are not there. Your account goes off, your skills stop. You stop gaining skills as they stop getting money. You want to gain those skills again, pay and you get them. Yes, they stopped it. Yes, they said it was a feature for quite a while. But now they aren’t. Now they’ve taken it away. They gave the real reasons for it instead of saying ‘It’s a bug’. The ‘It’s a bug’ thing was apologised over and corrected as best as they could. They didn’t make excuses, they stated it openly.

    Takes balls, that does.

    So, to be honest, I have no problem with it. I don’t /care/ if it doesn’t put a load on the server. Everyone is being hit by the money woes in the world today, it sucks, but CCP is a business. They’ll probably be going ‘How can we help -ourselves- here.’ Et volia. Take away ghost training. Make people pay to continue training their accounts. If you close it, then, well. You weren’t going to be paying for that training anyway, and now they’ve got a more consistent flow of funds to their accounts, which is basically what they need/care about for the most part. A business is a business, and a business needs money. They provide an entertainment service, but they need money to continue that, and to pay themselves.

    Zanpt, please don’t call people ignorant. It doesn’t make you look superior, all in all, it just makes you look snobbish/elite/plain rude. It makes people highly unlikely to want to listen to anything that you say. No, there is no load on the server, and maybe there is a tiny margin more. Now, however, when that skill is being trained, you must have the time /paid for/ in /real time/. You cannot start training a skill then leave your account to fade off. No, you must pay to continue your training. If they go further than this, and it’s ‘Pay to learn faster!’. I may get irritated, but for now? They’re just trying to ensure a more constant flow of money. It might be less than someone running 3 accounts and now streamlining down to ‘one account at a time’, but since they were letting those other accounts fade off while they trained skills anyway.. Not much of a downside.

    - ES

  8. Zergling

    22. Oct, 2008

    Pursuing two paths is impossible without two account. Playin gone and letting the other ghost was a way for me to fool myself into thinking i wasnt getting ripped off (because you can only train one skill on one alt per account at one time). So since I cant play one and train the other… ccp get nothing from me now. Account expired a day ago and there will be no more. Good job guys -2 accounts.

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