EVE General Discussion

I couldn't agree with you more Jade, at least in overall sentiment.

I'm sure there should be much debate about the merit of game modifiers from clothing when you consider the lore and everything, but it seems to me like you are not as sure about the legitimacy of clothing-as-modifiers anyway, which I think is the right position to have since there is the much larger issue of NEX-EVE integration that needs to be examined.

You must have studied some Psychology or are just naturally good at working things, because when I read your comparison of the Easy path versus the Right path I couldn't stop myself from agreeing firmly! It's a major issue in gaming and MMOs in particular now I think, where we know enough to be able to take advantage of human behavior to manipulate it. Some examples:

- A transitional currency causes people to spend more money. This is why Xbox live has points instead of raw currency values, and why EVE has Aurum and why any kind of online or alternative game currency has a special in-game value divorced from real currency. It's easier to spend '1000 points' than $5 dollars because they're just points, not dollars. There are numerous Psych studies backing up this example and it's statistically proven. Plus you always have a few left-over points so you need to top up...

- Low-Mid-High price-point items encourages people to buy. So we do it, because want them to buy.

This is manipulation no matter how you swing it, just like Advertisements being designed to sneak through our mental defences to get the 'message' through. Things like Aurum and the NEX store are *designed* to get us to buy, not to give us a better game or to increase in-game options or anything that we want.

We have the knowledge of manipulation without the wisdom to use it, and that gets us things like the NEX store. Just because CCP *can* make a store that people will pay real money for and line their pockets doesn't mean they should, just like how advertisements can cheapen any other experience. After all, people who go to a movie theatre for $10 don't mind sitting through a few ads but when you go to an opera or a play and pay a premium for seats you expect a little class. If the actors got out on stage in little popcorn and hotdog suits and tried to sell you on cheap lobby food you'd be a little pissed wouldn't you?

EVE is the opera to the MMO's movie theatres. Now they put a concession stand in the opera lobby and we're upset because damnit if we wanted a cheap experience we'd go to the movies.

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Scrapping the NEX would be a monumental decision. There are plenty of (business) people who would go pale at the idea, seeing the NEX as development time and money, a revenue generator and so on. The idea of scrapping or transforming it to them would probably be ludicrous. However the amount of goodwill, respect and reconciliation a NEX-overhaul would have on the EVE community (and the MMO community at large) would be shocking, big news and praiseworthy.

It would once again unify the EVE world, settle the conflict between people who like the NEX and who don't like the NEX store since most people who like the NEX just like the idea of dressing their avatars and probably wouldn't miss the paying-real-money part of it.

As you said in your original post Jade, buying a PLEX from CCP and selling it again gets you ISK and that could get you avatar clothing under your proposed change... and how exactly is that different from the current situation except that it would remove this anger-inducing NEX store? From CCP's perspective they won't be making any more or less money from NEX sales (since they'd just be making the same number of plex sales...) but people would stop hating them, so it's hard to argue in favour of it.

Anyway, my thoughts on the subject. Oh and, Jade Constantine for CSM 2012 for serious.

I am perfectly supportive of the notion that all in game items should be player produced and destroyable.

In regard to clothing providing bonus I guess it could work if they are chosen carefully. Of course a pair of pants that enhances your precision when shooting with rail guns might be a bit odd and potentially a "must have" for all rail gun users, but how about the Ishukone shirt providing an increase in standing with that particular corp? I can see some good potential here.

Yep, the points raised by many in this thread are valid - since we're naked in the capsule makes no sense for the clothing to have combat bonus - but there are many social / lp / in station/industrial and research bonus that could be applied within the setting.

they probably did something silly like let the "designers" get royalties from ingame items sold so they probably cannot turn it back into isk only

but i agree refund all plex turned into AUR and delete the nex store it's terrible and the clothes look silly

what ever happened to that promise that the old eve looking stuff "head dresses" etc would come back.. i miss my massive shirt collar

Fantastic post Jade, pretty much sums up my current feelings towards the NEX. The kind of implementation you are talking about is exactly the kind of incarna i thought CCP were going to introduce, and it really is the only kind i am interested in.

Pretty much the only thing that is going to keep my 10 accounts alive come pay-time in january is the restoration of the integrity of the sandbox. The NEX, in it's current form, is a knife straight to the heart of what eve is all about.

For years i wanted my dress-up with barbie, but NOT at the expense of the sandbox.

I still find it difficult to contemplate that my (former) beloved CCP, who could NO wrong, would introduce items that would appear out of thin air, be completely indestructable and cost a disgusting amount of money.

Despite recent improvements and changes that may/may not be coming, i still feel there has not been enough of an "awakening" from CCP. For me, if they truely meant what they said that they have listened to us, then that cash shop would already be gone. The fact that it is not, suggests the changes they are making are not going to be anywhere as dramatic as people are hoping they are going to be.

In it's current form, that cash shop is a cancer, a cancer that is eating away at the heart of our beloved eve.

If it has any effect at all, clothing should only affect stats when you are wearing it, in other words when you are out of your pod, in a station. No FiS advantages from fancy boots. Not for pod pilots.

An appropriate outfit might give you a slight advantage when dealing with station personnel such as agents, construction facilities, research facilities, refineries, or market brokers. "Appropriate" not "nice". A fancy business suit will impress your broker, but not the guys at the scrap metal refinery. Likewise the staff on an Amarr station won't be impressed by the latest shameless Gallente fashions, and the Caldari station staff won't be impressed by anything that is more decorative than functional. A canny pilot would have a dozen outfits to wear in different situations, while a scruffy merc might have just one and expect people to deal with it. And of course there will be the crowd that doesn't want to decant at all, and simply conducts their business from the pod.

Like CCP would do more work and make less money.

Some "industry experts" told them all about how much money they could make, they start drooling and they will never drop it.

Jade you have some nice ideas about how to make clothing and ship skins more fun and how to improve the Noble Exchange.

I'll preface my reply by saying that I really don't like what CCP has done with CQ. I turned CQ off after the first few minutes of checking it out. CQ just doesn't do anything for me. If I could arm my avatar with a 9mm plasma rife and run around a space station ganking red avatars and popping their implants, then I would like it. This is not CCP's plan for CQ nor is it their vision for Dust which will be planetary FPSing not space station fighting.

Can CCP improve their Barbie content in EVE by adding +attributes to clothing and allowing players to manufacture and sell such clothing directly for isk? Maybe, but I don't think I would be that excited about loading up CQ to change my avatar's wardrobe for different activities. e.g. I just can't see myself getting too excited by the idea of putting on my Amarr wizard robe outfit to do some mission vs Sansha with a boni to EM or whatever....

I am a bit more interested in your idea for ship skins, but mostly for corp and alliance customization rather than for adding another layer of stat adjustments. I just know I would get a giggle from looking at the new Goon or PL ship liveries etc.

In away, you have highlighted the main problem of the concept of micro transactions within the world of EVE. EVE is a sandbox game where most of the fun comes from players using the tools that CCP give us in order to make our own content. In your idea clothing would fit well within this model because it's crafted and marketed by players and not bought from a micro transaction shop QED.

I think difference between PLEX and NEX maybe something to do with CCP trying to control the laundering of BOT isk in the game. With Nex you are forced to transact with CCP for your purchases in a very controlled and audited way.

With the isk/PLEX market there are so many ways that the movement of isk for items can get lost in space. E.G. "oh how lucky I am I just found a Nxy floating in a blue pos that i got the PW for, oh how lucky I got my alt to steal it, now i can sell it and move the billions of isk I just got all around space. Some of that isk might go to pay sov bills, some to buy new characters, some for new ships but wherever that isk goes it seems CCP is not very good at tracking this kind of thing. I might be wrong and there might be other reasons for usnig a Nex store as well as having a plex market. I'm just not sure what they are.

OP,

I agree with you mostly, but giving stats to clothes could backfire simply because of the current game mechanics. Switching clothes is really annoying and painful procedure. I would not want to end up switching outfit when I change ships or start trading instead of manufacturing.

Other than that... nice post - good ideas.