EVE General Discussion

It is also the nature of successful long-term business to not bleed dollars while chasing cents.

If anything, the monocle has been successful. It was intended to be a status symbol, and it is. I'm not sure how many of them are in game, or how many of those were purchased with ISK->PLEX->AUR conversions, but they're just uncommon enough on portraits to do what they were supposed to do.

I have no problem whatsoever with a cash for pretties program, especially if the "cash" can be ISK, too. I suspect that most people won't, as long as the range of pretties goes from cheap impulse purchases to luxury items; the purchases can actually be seen in-game (e.g., on ships), and; the pretties have no effect on the mechanics of the game. That's also assuming that the rollout of new pretties happens against the backdrop of active, continuous and solicitous attention to the actual game that CCP has established since Crucible. It would be nice, and something of an additional revenue source, but it would not be a step that CCP ~must~ take to survive a grim future of F2P and microtransactions.

LP stores keep to the model of the rest of the game though - you can only buy LP items in the specific stations they are sold, so they can't be bought just anywhere. You can't get a Raven navy Issue in Stain, a Stratios in the Drone Regions, or a Machariel in Venal. If anything the LP stores reinforce the model - you want that Stratios, you either pay a massive mark-up at your local trade hub, over the odds in Jita, a touch on the expensive side from a Highsec Sisters station, or if you want it cheap, you have to go behind the lines into Pure Blind to get it. This creates opportunities for people to interdict the cheaper options, or for enterprising individuals the chance to make profits by getting the cheaper ones and flipping them at the top price to those not willing to take the risk. If you could get that Stratios for the same price in Jita as you could in X-70 in Pure Blind, a whole swath of reasons for playing parts of the game is rendered moot.

In the interest of honesty - the only thing I can see that breaks the model are promotional ships like the Gnosis, and those in giveaways like the no-idea-how-you-spell-it Thrasher that was in the pre-order for the anniversary set. But in most of these cases, they are either functionally useless (like that hacking Sansha frig or the PI hauler whose model was adopted for the Noctis), or so limited in run, that it doesn't make a significant ripple (no alliance is going to buy 100 anniversary boxes just to get a insta-deployable Thrasher fleet!)

As for needing the hull - that goes into the coding side I don't know enough about. Clearly that works as a system (since the Faction blueprints functionally do this - so buying "skin" blueprints whose only required material is the original ship hull is a possible solution), but as you say, that could make a chronic mess of the market and many other things as the number of "brands" of ship increase. Personally, I would assume it would be "easy" to give every ship a "skin" slot, however, I vaguely remember when the arguements occured over the Ishikone Watch Scorpion, it was said the reason they were intending to sell the whole ship was they couldn't do it that way, but I have no idea, and they never said, exactly what the limitation was.

Yup.


Also true, but that's an equally valid definition of success.

The thing is, the original premise of micro transactions for cosmetic items is very sound... and perfectly understandable.

Dev 1: There are a lot of people asking to be able to get specialized paint jobs on their vessels, clothing and customizations for their soon to be released Avatars, all sorts of things... however we don't have the manpower or resources to devote to these things and stay within our operational budget. We've been devoting so much time to developing the Carbon back end that core game play development is suffering as it is.

Dev 2: Well, what if we handled those sorts of cosmetic things as micro transactions. That way those items pay for themselves separately and fund their own development resources without impacting the teams working on core game play. That way the people that want these items are the only ones paying for the extra development time. If demand is high, we have plenty of cash coming in to pay 3rd parties (or extra Devs) to spend a lot of time on it, if demand is low then it only funds a limited amount of development time.

Dev 1: Well, the player base has already said they would be mostly okay with spending a bit more if the items are purely cosmetic... so that could work. It would seem to be the perfect solution. It certainly beats NOT doing it at all, or raising subscription prices across the board to fund the extra work it would entail.


However, the EVE community as a whole decided that there was a darker motivation at hand (this is EVE after all) and accused the developers of everything from planning to implement pay to win in the near future to milk the player base, to somehow extorting money from those already paying subscriptions (even though only people interesting in these cosmetic items would be forking over the money).

The crowning bit of proof provided was when the development team refused to state that under no circumstances would EVE ever go to a complete micro transaction basis. In the ever changing gaming industry no sane (and truthful) developer would ever make such an outlandish promise... but this was taken as confirmation that they were seriously considering the idea and making plans in that direction. Gotta love the often easily manipulated EVE community.

How many PLEX do I pay for a Talos and the modules needed for a gank?

That doesn't make it a currency.

…you mean like you've been doing all along?

The funny thing is that they have since stated exactly that.

PLEX is just legitimized RMT. It's legal because CCP says it's so.

Kind of like the way the only difference between a legal US dollar and a counterfeit one is that the former just happens to be printed by the government, and is therefore legal, even though neither is backed up by anything of actual value (or even physical existence).

So to recap:
Give money to an nullsec ISK grinder for ISK = RMT IZ BAD! BAN THE HERETIC!
Give money to CCP for PLEX to sell for ISK = PLEX IS GOOD! BUY MOAR PLEX!

Yes, but please point out where they say they'll never do it. Because you did state they said 'exactly that' when in fact they said no such thing. and yet I'm the one 'reading things into it'.

Bluntly, they made a lot of vague noises that they thought would sound good to the player base, but actually said very little beyond it would be difficult.

Which, based on the wild over reaction of the forums, is sort of a no brainer.

This is a very grey area, here. Technically, the only thing that says that is the EULA, which is not actually legally binding in some countries. Further, CCPs use of 'the law of Iceland shall be the governing law' gets annulled by the 'Except where such clauses are illegal' in many others.

In the US, for example, EULA's have had a mixed bag. Some courts have held them to be not legally binding, and further that the law of the US is used regardless of the law specified in the EULA, as long as one party is a US citizen and the other can be proven to 'do business' in the US.

Damn, the plebs are tracking mud across my nice new marble floor!

Please contribute something to the actual discussion when you post, beyond 'Occupy Jita!'.