Jita Park Speakers Corner

I hope you guys already understand this but I'll point it out just in case.

There's a big difference between winning an Ishukone Scorpion in a PvP Fanfest tournament and being selected by a dev to be handed one based on a covert and seemingly arbitrary process.

CCP seems to think that it's OK to give away very valuable things if those things only reprocess for one tritanium. It's not, because the items' ISK value is not determined by their mineral cost, ISK represents ingame advantage, and they are tradable on the market.

then again. i remember arguing against the suggestion that the items i got in the collector's edition were pay-to-win, when they are also sellable. perhaps i think differently there because the items are worth significantly less, the distribution is far greater and is not secret


Suggestion: Such 'thanks' items given out by CCP to community figures are blueprints, and the BPO and the item created are not exchangable between accounts. Because the battleship blueprint (for example) has a material cost (the cost of an ishukone scorp would be a normal scorp), it is not unfair to use it in battle, and because they're not tradeable, it's not the significant ISK advantage the Scorpions given to SOMER (and others, according to CCP) represent. If the blueprint is a BPO, these ships needn't even be hangar queens, and the recipients can fly around in them without fear of losing them, which I think would be great. Obviously such items would have the same stats as the regular ones.

CCP could create and give out as many 'thanks' items as they wish without any hassle. It's a little anti-EVE to have untradable items, but I feel it's more anti-EVE to give away items that have a great ISK value. The other problem is that if they're not tradable, a character undocking one would be giving away their identity, if it was secret. I think this is absolutely fine, it is the choice of the player to just have their ship in the hangar to look at (as with all current such ships tbh) or to undock. Perhaps untradable items should also not show up on API.


Oh. The prize items given to SOMER to put in a lottery should never happen again, though, unless the lottery is free and available to all without signing up to a website as suggested by CSM. Such a promotion would still raise awareness of SOMER which I have no problem with. But would not be handing them hundreds of billions of ISK from lottery entries.

Yeah pretty much.

The ISK value of the award to Somer is pretty much irrelevant. Somer have so much ISK that the ISK factor is meaningless to them - not to mention that the rarity value (and let's remember that rarity is all the trade value they have) of these ships just took a nosedive because they're now much less rare. And they're going to get even less rare in future as CCP hand more of them out to other deserving individuals. Comparing this to the T20 incident is just dumb and wrong.

The original plan of giving Somer Guardian Vexors and Gold Magnates was a horrible idea that cannibalised EVE's history for a short term PR event. Giving ships that have been specifically purposed as a community award as a community award to an organisation that has supported the community is pretty straightforward. The timing was bad and the transparency was very poor indeed, but as such this is pretty straightforward.

Who said anything about charity?

From another thread



For the first point, ISK is ISK, even if SOMER had a lot already, since the value of ISK must be measured against how much other players have. If more scorps are being given out, there's lots of ISK being redistributed to a lot of people. However, your second argument would relieve that concern. If you say the price will be at an acceptable level, I'll trust your judgement

Does CCP have certain numbers in mind when it comes to number of giveaways or a target price for the scorps, even if you won't say the numbers? It'd be best if CCP was open about where and what numbers of scorps are given away and if CCP released their guidelines on what kinds of groups/players will get them

Ah, I didn't reply to the gametime bit. I don't think a straight-up worth-realbuxx gametime gift would be a bad thing but that's just going to be a difference in opinion, I guess. Ripard mentioned in the comments of his blog he has a total of two free accounts from CCP at the moment. One for CSM, one for a popular blog. Prominent figures in the community and content creators are pretty much partners of CCP in making EVE the game it is, and as gametime isn't an ingame advantage, and also since we want to keep such people around, I think that makes gametime the best gift.

I'd even be fine with CCP giving prominent FCs or coalition leaders gametime, except I know EVE players would game the system so it's not practical vOv

e: that last one before this was, like, a totally non-angry post, like the opposite even

Wow.

CSM failing at the one task that really matters, and the whole reason it exists in the first place.

I wonder if we'd have the same debate if instead of Ishukone Scorpions CCP would have handed out a "Honorary Certificate" item to reward community sites/persons.

When you see a beer company plastering their banners over a concert series, do you think that beer company really just cares that much about the community? I doubt it. I doubt it very much. And I doubt even more that when a corporation sponsors a charity walk, you say "hey, I support that charity walk, I should pay the corporation that sponsors it instead of them for being such good guys."

You and the other CSM are saying "well Somer pays something to X, and we like X, so let's pay Somer." That is obviously stupid. If CCP wants to support X, pay X directly.

Do you have a financial or personal interest in Somer Blink? Have they or anyone associated given you anything? You and the other CSM are making so little sense on why they deserve free things that there is no other reasonable explanation. You in particular have made a lot of good posts in the past, and I can't believe you would be so dumb as to believe a highly profitable gambling venture deserves free things because they advertise.

The post I quoted seems under the impression that Somer sponsors people and events out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than as a marketing campaign.