EVE General Discussion

Good thing nobody ever said that.

Character Sculpting and Customization are a normal part of gameplay.

Re-sculpting your already finished character is not.

Ok, I'm going to have to ask to get that Quafe back if you keep doing that…

Nope. Never happened.

And yes, I replaced "everyday life" with "gameplay", because she then goes on to talk about other gameplay aspects.

This is really the point where I realize, once again, how utterly pointless it was to engage in this endeavour in the first place.

It's not a service.

Stop saying it's a service.

It's an extra charge for having the convenience of re-sculpting your character.

If you stop defining things incorrectly then you will stop having this inane discussion.

Indeed it didn't, because you understand full well that the topic at hand — and what s/he was referring to — is resculpting, which most definitely is not a part of everyday life in EVE.

Why should we, when that's what it has been all along and when all that has changed in that time is some back-end improvements that don't matter as far as it being a service is concerned?

How much effort do you think went into Incarna in the first place? If you recall there was that whole riots & shooting statues thing going on because people were so pissed off that so much effort went into space barbies instead of flying in space, and the result of all that effort was so underwhelming.

So no, there was no considerable cost from CCP's end, unless you count losing 10% of subscriptions, laying off 20% of staff and having enough of a shock delivered to the system that the CEO wrote a personal apology to the community, as considerable cost. Just because the final product can render a character portrait in less than a minute doesn't mean it's cost-free. There is the cost of development, the cost of maintenance, and then the incremental cost of providing the service.

Now you should apologise to the people who lost their jobs for saying that Incarna had no cost.



The argument isn't about whether it's worth that much money, it's about whether it's worth money separately to the subscription for the game. After you agree that the service of re-rendering the character actually does have some cost to it, what remains is just haggling price.



Character sculpting is as much a part of EVE Online gameplay as picking a token is part of Monopoly. Whether you use mother's broken thimbles or gold plated miniatures that cost $5000 each doesn't impact the game itself. We could all be wandering around with faceless clones (or characters with helmets on) and the gameplay of EVE Online would not be significantly impacted. Certainly, to some people there is a special moment where they contemplate how picking a particular token might reflect their playstyle or the strategy they wish to pursue in this game of Monopoly, but the token doesn't impact the game: the choice of token is a pre-game activity, it is a purely cosmetic activity, and other than representing the player in the game, the token has no other value to gameplay.

So contrary to what Tippia and PIpa are saying, I am claiming that character sculpting is not part of gameplay. We get a free sculpting as part of the character creation process. From time to time, CCP will offer more free sculpting opportunities. For some people the process of sculpting their character is a form of entertainment in itself (c.f: internal dialogue about whether I will pick the dog or the top hat for this game: which better represents the strategy that I am going to apply? which makes me feel braver about taking risks?). None of this requires that sculpting be considered part of EVE Online gameplay.

The process of selecting your token for Monopoly is not at all related to actually playing Monopoly. It is only essential that you have a token to play with.

Here are other things which are part of a game but do not form part of gameplay, in exactly the same way that character generation is an activity of its own but not part of EVE Online gameplay:

• Picking the token to use in a game of Monopoly
• Choosing colours for a sport team
• Choosing a Scrabble set
• PIcking the decoration on the back of a set of playing cards

Once we can meet other characters in the virtual flesh, and changing a character's physical appearance is done routinely for the purpose of deception, I'll change my opinion. Until then, you have a lot work ahead of you to convince me that sculpting and resculpting is any more a part of gameplay than choosing the car or the top hat is part of the gameplay of Monopoly.

Well I'll be…

What I'm saying is that sculpting is part of the gameplay. Resculpting is not, and the distinction between the two is rather important since you are paying extra for the latter. In game terms, the first sculpt is the part of gameplay listed under the heading of “setup” in the manual: who picks first? What cards are in play, and how are they shuffled? How many tokens of what colour does each player get and where does he place his meeple? Beer or whine? It's a very brief and limited part (unless you're playing, say, all-expansion Arkham Horror or Twilight Imperium), but it's part of playing the game none the less.

…in EVE, it's also an utterly irrelevant part of the gameplay until we get WIS, but even so it's a part of the game you play at the very beginning. The whole resculpting thing that you have to pay extra for, on the other hand, isn't part of the package because the game simply doesn't let you do it.

Right, I've really been enjoying this thread, it has made for an interesting read so far and I wanted to post in here properly myself. To that end I had a chat with CCP Gargant regarding the definition of what is and is not a service, and how that relates to this subject. Mostly to satisfy my own curiosity, but also because I thought you all might appreciate some clarification.

As it stands the re-sculpting that is now available is considered an additional service. The definition of which is as follows;

Additional Service.

Definition.

Services rendered in excess of those required or designated in a contract.


The re-sculpt service, and the portrait swap that was offered before the CARBON update, is considered an additional service as it is not covered in the EULA or the Terms of Service contract that exists between CCP and its customers. As it is not considered a part of normal gameplay it cleanly and clearly falls under the aforementioned heading of "additional service" and thus is charged for in exactly the same way as character trading.



tl;dr Re-sculpting is classed by CCP as an additional service and not a feature of normal gameplay and thus incurs an extra charge.

CCP- Any thought to allowing the PLEX Resculpting to affect bloodline as well? Not necessarily bloodline per se, but the ability to choose a different character model based on the bloodline? Each of the "bloodlines" have different character models, but it'd be nice to be able to pick a character model independent of bloodline.

For example, Gallente have Intaki, Gallente and Jin Mei. It'd be nice if when someone paid for a PLEX rescuplting, he or she would have the chance to pick one of the race's character models. So, I could be Gallente Intaki, but use the Gallente Gallente character model or Jin Mei character model but retain (obviously) Gallente and Intaki. (I mean, intermarriages happen, right?)

Plus, expanding the options when doing a resculpt would make it a more attractive service, which means more people doing it and more PLEX, and that means more money for you or less isk in the market. And who doesn't love more money and a better economy???