EVE General Discussion

Not if ship painting costs a substantial amount of isk or aur

I really want to see a proper painting tool for spaceships in this game and I'm talking about a spectrum not just a bunch of crappy colours no one wants, on top of that we should be able to select a bunch of different camo patterns and decide where the corporate/alliance logo should go too.

Oh and if you put this on the Nex store for £50 and you can only access the interface once for that much ( I know the asshats at CCP are going to be thinking about this ) I will not unsubscribe, I will find a way to systematically grief and gank every single player off the server until there is only me left.

:)

But seriously, I'd be very grateful if you didn't put this on the nex store, you guys will earn way more money over the long term just by adding free content like you should be doing for the amount of money you already charge.

its a big issue for CCP this one. There is a high danger if they tried to introduce Ship skins through the NeX store then a lot of the bad feelings and player rage from last summer will come back because it does represent the creeping contamination of overt paywall microtransactions Eve online. It also makes people question the value of their subscriptions which though remaining constant are no longer covering all the content. (Think of it in terms of subscription to a tv sports channel where you expect all the matches in a particular league to come with your subs - then the cable company decides that some of the matches are "special" (vanity only) and you only get them if you pay extra). That can't do other than make you question the value for money of your subscription.

Its the hidden flaw of the "hybrid model (subs+microtransactions) really because there is a cost associated with going down the microtransaction route in making subscriptions less attractive as a baseline. For example if you had 200,000 subs ongoing and you considered that making ship skins for $ would bring in an additional say $100,000 you might think - "excellent! get me the new car showroom on the phone!" But the problem is that hiving off some content to MT makes the subscription look less attractive and you might end up losing 5000-10000 subs plus a lot of good will. That means your $100,000 profit from MT suddenly turns into +/- $25,000 combined with player discontent that knocks on to negative word of mouth commentary in the pretty interconnected universe of pc gaming.

Compare with simply releasing ship skins in the client and attainable by traditional gameplay methods. Lets say they put ship skins in the faction loyalty point stores:

1. It makes sense from a game lore perspective. Have Caldari custom skins through their loyalty point stores, Blood raider skins through theirs, Sansha skins through theirs, hell, have some lovely softy SOE skins for hospital ships and mercy barges from their stuff. This shows attention to detail - the right organizations in game will be selling the stuff.

2. Having skins through loyalty point store means all players with the standings can access the content and another secondary market is created for people to mission to sell skin paint jobs to those without the loyalty points (or inclination to mission).

3. Since its a purely ingame activity there will be absolutely no inclination to make these things permanent (as is the case with the NeX store clothing abortions once applied to an avatar..

4. Most importantly - the perceived value of the subscription will have been enhanced. Eve players will feel their subscription $ is hard at work making their game options better and their ships more attractive and will tell their friends that CCP as a developer are delivering a fair product that doesn't disembowel its own Prime Fiction and game universe credibility in the search of every additional cent of disposable income in its player's pockets.

(On that last point lets remember we are supposed to believe that NobleAppliances/NeX (an Amarrian company where the Amarrian government is the majority shareholder) has been granted a full monopoly to sell capsuleer clothing from every space station in known space including thousands of stations that the Amarrian state is actually AT WAR WITH. And that every capsuleer in Eve including Minmatar Faction Warfare pilots (who are fighting the amarrian state) must buy their clothing from the enemy. ) Thats stretching credibility beyond breaking point. I can't imagine the Trilby hats would have got a monopoly to sell their fine products in Berlin 1941 can you?

Now sure, call it roleplay fluff and say "who cares really." But CCP used to be a company that DID CARE about these details or why bother creating the lovely detailed background in the first place.

So I say by even considering putting factional colour schemes in the NeX store they'd be hugely compounding the appalling misjudgements of last year (which we hope have now been well and truly buried with Zulu passing the torch and CCP monocle nowhere to be seen).

NeX store needs to go.

Ship skins through Loyalty point stores appropriate to the faction worked for.

Corp logos should be something default in the game not a paid extra.

The reality is that the strong player groups encouraged by Corp and Alliance identity do more to maintain healthy subscription income for Eve than almost any other facet of the game. CCP need to be rewarding corporations for keeping players playing - not trying to shake them down for extra MT fees for things that should come as default to the eve gameworld.

Yep thats great too. Completely agree.

Adding Aurum tokens to the LP stores and complex and officer loot tables might be a nice way to wiggle out of the MT fiasco without having to officially abandon the NeX.





The fact that this has not happened yet is almost as big of a disappointment to me as not being able to leave the CQ.

The solution would be to offer lesser quality for free but sell specialty items via Nex. For instance CCP should updated basic wardrobes inside the char creation tools, but should also offer higher quality or more desired vanity items via the Nex store. The base outfits leave a lot to be desired for some races, so they need to work on offering more free stuff in that regard.

Something like this I personally wouldn't have an issue with. My personal gripe behind the Nex store is I felt it would cause CCP to focus more on that kind of stuff, trying to milk money out of the game vs adding regular content to the game it's self. As long as they made a balance between the two it's fine IMO..

Ship skins would be cool IMO, I'd love to create my own, but I can understand why having a option like that wouldn't be good for the game. We would end up with Hello Kitty Drakes, Ferrari Dramiels.. or space penis Thoraxs. However if they used some sort of base template that all you could do is change the base colors it might be interesting.

Double check your sources and materials because your interpintation is very wrong.

We need really RARE paint-skin drops as well. :)

The crux is: who defines the worth of NeX items? CCP says my heels are worth almost 20 $US (3000 AUR). I said : They are worth about 60 mil ISK. As long as CCP reserves the right to overrule me/"the market", we all lose.

If there has to be a NeX and if we have to use AUR, then everything related to it has to be governed by gameplay. Else, the whole game is at risk of turning into nothing but a hollow MT mill.

I do not want to sound pessimistic, but I have never seen a game truly survive the addition of a cash-shop. Sure, there might be products with the same name, but the original games always died. I have also yet to see an MT product which also is a game worth of long term engagement.

You got a point.


Example: normal serpentis skins in LP stores and fairly common as drops and then sahdow serpentis skins only available as very rare drops.