If you are reading this blog then you are probably aware of all the rage and terror that has struck EVE’s community over the past few days, regarding micro-transactions that came with Incarna, but the point that troubles most EVE players is whether CCP will enable us to buy items that will affect the game through Aurum.

To all CSM members going over to Iceland next week, as well to any angry vet that thinks their game is at stake, I suggest you spend some time to watch this presentation, from a GM of a gaming company that was faced with the same question CCP is faced today. “Should we enable game-changing items in our game via MT?”. After watching this video, all the doubts in my mind about what the future holds for EVE were gone.

In my humble opinion, being working for a multinational money-driven corporation in real life for many years, I always believed that, although CCP does pretend to listen to their customers, at the end of the day, as a company that values their P&L, would have no option but to enable EVE players to buy game-changing items through their NEX store.

CCP’s published devblogs, the leaked Fearless magazine and Hilmar’s leaked email all lead to the same conclusion. The emergency summon of the CSM next weekend is just a PR stunt to either throw dust in our eyes or to come out clean and present us with their vision of adding game-affecting items through the NEX store.

So, for me it’s clear. Sooner or later, CCP will add game-affecting items through their NEX store. Bitch as much as you want about it. They will do it sooner or later.

What sort of items would they be adding? That I don’t know. Here are my guesses:

- Customization Items, that don’t affect gameplay but are used primarily within station environments

• Clothes, Monocles and other stuff that will satisfy the “peacock” player amongst us (what true pirate wouldn’t want to have a parrot on their shoulder?”
• Racing stripes on ships, custom paint jobs
• Dancing poles and other stuff that you can put up in your CQ’s

- Game Booster Items, that will help a player “catchup” or grow faster than others

• Skill Points booster – buying this would double the SP/hour you’d be training for a period of time, say 24hrs or a full week
• ISK booster – buying this would double the ISK you make from bounties, killing rats etc for a period of time
• Skill Point reset – buy this and you can re-allocate all your skill points the way you like.

- Premium items, that will give you a competitive edge against other players

• T3 items that have better fitting and add more damage, optimal range or are for some reason better than anything in the game today
• T3 ships or T2,5 ships that give better bonuses or are somehow better than what we have today
• T3 implants and boosters that give you better bonuses etc..

Feel free to add to the comments below your ideas as well!

Now, if CCP does it well, this is going to be fun for all.

If they add Customization items, they need to ensure it doesn’t break the immersion element of New Eden. If they enable custom paintjobs they need to ensure that we won’t see pink hello kitty ships or Thoraxes that do look like giant cocks (that won’t be difficult to pull off).

If they add Game booster items, they need to price them correctly and give a nice variety that will help newer players boost their training plans, but also allow veterans to re-map their skills or offer some other form of “booster” for vets.

If they add Premium items, they need to make sure that these items are dropped and that are being produced by in-game materials. New weapons systems? yeah! New ships? hell yeah! New ammo? sure!

My only worry is the implementation and integration with the already existing in-game-market of EVE. Note to CCP: Please don’t make a secondary Aurum-driven market for those items. What you have already is magnificent, don’t make a secondary market that you’ll need to have Aurum to pay for any of the above items.

I already hate the idea that I have to convert ISK to Aurum for the existing (poor choice) of items available to NEX store. Why not just use my ISK? Why do I have to get plex first and then convert it to Aurum? That is complicated without need – well we are talking about CCP here so… anyways…

At least for non-clothes and stuff, give players the BPCs for any in-game items, not the finished goods, and finaly allow us to see pod-killmails with the implants your clones carry. This way, every bitter vet that is now against this idea will have the chance to high-sec gank your T3-fitted hulk in highsec, pod your expensive +10 learning pod and loot your expensive T3 gun or Golden ammo.

EVE is a game of more than just SPs and ISK – adding Golden Ammo is something good for the game in the long term.

At the end of the day, EVE is a game where how good your ship is, or how many SPs you have play a secondary role. I still recall my loss of my T2 interceptor against a rifter pilot that knew what he was doing. I am still losing T2 Recon Cruisers when I make the wrong calls, and we still win with our BC gang against Faction-fitted nano Vagas and Dramiels and Cynabals.

Do it right CCP and we’ll love you about it. Do it wrong and you’ll get a lot of people sad. Given your history, you will probably launch it half-baked, full of bugs and won’t ever bother to fix it. This is a dangerous path, failing to do this right will probably have quite a negative impact on your P&L for next year…

my 2 thoughts,

qp