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How does one test the attractiveness of MT based skins on the test server? I can see testing them mechanically, but then there's not much to test there since the current iteration does nothing that manufacturing doesn't already do.

This^

If you go and get yourself a Golden Pod, you will always have one, regardless of how many times you die.

If you stick in one of those god awful monocles, or get one of the sexy new tattoos, you will keep it forever.

Every other NEX product has been persistent, but now you're making disposable ship skins?

I get it though. I've known since the beginning, that our "characters" are just an excuse for having ship skills trained. And everything in the NEX has been accessories for our drivers license photo.

As far as the selection, I'm siding with the folks that this should be a Rig type slot, rather than a new ship.

For one thing, if they get mass produced, then your market is gonna look ugly as hell. Dropdowns within dropdowns, since you'd burrow down to Rifter, and then have to select what color you want. Or you'd search Contracts for a Rifter, and again have to pick the color first.

On the other hand, I know if you stick a turret or launcher onto a gold ship, it takes on gold highlights. If you stick that same weapon onto a red ship, it gets red highlights. So clearly CCP knows how to make dymanic color schemes.

Just mark bits of the skins. This bit is base color. This part is a little darker. This part is a little lighter. Then when someone applies "red" it spreads accordingly. A little darker here, a little lighter there.

As far as server overhead, it shouldn't be any worse than it is now. When 2 ships meet in space, the server says "Hey you, you see a Drake in space". All it would have to do is say "Hey you, you see a purple Drake in space". And your game client would go "Oh, ok... lemme dig up the Drake model I was going after to begin with, but I'll render it purple this time." There's no extra stress on the servers, just a little extra work for your GPU.

All this whining "Oh we can't do that, it'll slow down the servers" is a bunch of BS. And all the "time and effort" their wasting in trying to make new models of different varieties, is equally unimpressive.

Hmpf

Well I dont think they should implement it as a skin but more in the lines of logos and paint jobs. You can have bpo/bpcs that create the paint (dyes in other games) using trade goods or planetary interaction items that are never used (non fuel block pi) You can still have micro transactions for custom paints and logos for players to purchase. You would not need an additional fitting slot for the dyes or logos. Just have an easy paint shop like you have for the re-customization of the characters. You could use similar coding just change it for ships instead of the character. That way players do not have to worry about repackaging ships or losing rigs.
There are a ton of other games that do this and still make money off of micro-transactions. From a programming and developer side it would be easier to do this and would be much faster to develop than the proposed custom skins. You dont need a deve sitting there 24/7 making skins. Players will always want different skins and to have the ability to make their own skins instead of being stuck with generic skins made by devs. Just look at Planetside 2 as an example they have a player development area where players make logos and items to add to the game store. You can have sections of the ships paintable (hull, weapon racks, and even different sections of the hull)

I would support this idea but not the way you are planning to implement it. To me you are handing the players a block of poop and expecting a huge turn out to fund future development. Implement it correctly and a way that is easier to expand upon and you will get a huge response. Players are interested and have been interested in this since the start of EVE online so using that as an excuse infuriates me.
Again if you put a prototype/pilot out there for players to test do it right and make it in the eyes of your clients not the eyes of the potential $ signs. This has a huge potential don't screw it up..............


Jack

Please note that this current pilot project is just a test and an experiment to see if there is enough demand to justify further development.

IF there is enough demand, then there will be further dev time spent on the mechanics how to get ship paints. If there is enough demand, then the current version will be much improved.

If there is no demand, then it would be quite difficult to justify dev time spent on such a project though. This is one of the reasons why we have this pilot project in place.

I get the idea of trial and feedback; that's what the test server is for.

The problem I see with the comparison to Incarna is that for Incarna, they rolled out a tiny portion of what the expansion could have been, and people were loudly upset. The anger was largely over the lack of content and the small scale of what had been hyped as a major expansion. Unfortunately, CCP misinterpreted the outrage to mean that "the players don't like WIS, so we won't develop it any further."

I fear that the same misrepresentation of data may take place with this little experiment. If players don't like the way this limited system is represented, whether because of the use of the NEX store, the mechanics of applying the skin change, the small selection of ships/skins, or the cost, how will CCP know the difference? Given their track record, they are just as likely to ignore the feedback and come to the conclusion that because their pilot program was unsuccessful, that people don't want customizeable ship skins.



I really don't care what currency I'm using; whether it's ISK, Aurum, or PLEX. As I've said before, paying more for a paint job than the cost of the completely fitted ship is patently ridiculous. I've given suggestions for ways that they could still make this microtransaction based with options for steady revenue while justifying the cost, and if they were to adapt a model similar to that, I'd consider using it. But the costs presented in this pilot program are way over the top, and I'd rather CCP not get the idea taht we don't want these customizations just because their prices are too high.

Distract them ? the whole corp logo creation overhaul and ship logo / painting feature is something everyone has craved for many a year and is something they should be concentrating on! rather than nerfs and pointless little things. This is real content addition to the game.

Overhaul the corp logo creator, add more stuff to it so we can more unique corp logo's. and add place holders or w/e to all players ships so corp's logos can be displayed. If all ships can have caldari logo's etc on them I don't see why they cant overlay corp logos.

As others have said, from here we could have a new slot added to ships in which we fit a paint canister type model. Look how battlestar galactica added paint jobs! which were premium yes but the model was permanent. If a cheap ass game like that can implement a decent system, I can't see why CCP devs cannot with eve.


Never the less, it's a trial so we'll have to see how it rolls before making concrete judgments I guess.

Question: Does this have to be a repackaged hull? If so, it completely defeats the purpose of painting existing ships...

Anyone who knew ahead of time just made out like bandits.

And I just love how me playing the game just got more expensive in order to pay for someone else's vanity.
By the time this program hits full gear we will be seeing 750M plexes, bare mininum.

When was the last time you got your car painted for free?