The large community of EVE online finally has a more destructive way to deal with their commercial differences.
For the moment, the Beta shows two kind of currency, the ISKs and the AURs, and there is a massive difference. The ISKs are rewards you get after each battle depending to your talents on the battlefield when the AURs are money you have to buy with your own bank account. The Beta is here to try things out and allow the developers to tweak, and hopefully they will. It is so far very hard to compete without spending money on a regular basis. Not a huge amount, but if you want to create yourself a steady place in the 1000 players leader board, it will surely add up. It is obvious that there is for the moment a major difference between the players that will spend money and those who won’t. Starting the game I decided to not spend a dime as I am very much against that kind of in-game market, but unfortunately for my moral standards, I ended up really enjoying the game and I spent a little more than $10 in a couple of days. It’s only $10, but picture yourself spending that every week end for 6 months. The difference to my armors, weapons and general statistics were drastic and my character learning curve grew exponentially. Thanks to a couple of 50% EXP booster, only available in AURs money. A shame? Yes to my opinion, the pay-to-win system does spoil the game a little, so good in so many ways otherwise. I can only hope the final version will have a better balance between the two currencies. After all it is a free-to-play game, and I don’t mind giving some money to the developers. I am actually more than happy to, but it should not be a constant requirement to enjoy the game.
My conclusion is fairly simple. The Beta is a great laugh and I personally can’t stay away from it. The game is not yet finished and the possibilities are already extremely large. A few tweaks are necessary to get closer to perfection, but CCP are working hard on it and I have no doubt that DUST 514 will be a great success.
Score: 8 / 10
