CZ Minutes: Show me some Super Kerr-Induced Nanocoating, baby
NidenShareTweetIn the most recent o7 show CCP Foxfour and CCP Cognac showcased progressions to the ship skinning program. This project was deliberately started in small scale with just a few skins during 2014 in order to test the waters of player response, but has since expanded and will continue to do so. It was now announced that the ship skinning process would be fundamentally changed so that you no longer have to build ships with the skin, but can rather simply apply the skin to an existing ship. It is however unknown (perhaps even undecided) at this point whether the skins will be exclusive to the NEX Store.How much do you actually care about skinning and personalising your ship? Are you dreaming about pink Machariels or think eyecandy is a waste of time? Do you think there is support amongst players to continue expanding the ship skinning program and what value, if any, does it hold for the EVE experience?Apoth: I didn’t really care until i FCed some of the skinned dreadnaughts. They look sexy as fuck. I’m all for the ship skins as long as it’s a sidenote rather than a main feature, so we can still have CCP’s main focus on developing gameplay mechanics.
Bagehi: I like the ship skins. There, I said it. I have several skinned ships. I replaced T2 capital rigs on my dread so that I could skin it. Did I want to do that? Hell no. I sat there and agonized about the 400m that I was about to throw out for only cosmetic reasons, on top of what I had already paid for the skin. In the end, I did it anyway. After that rude reminder that you have to repackage the ship so you can skin it, I probably would have been significantly less likely to buy the skin for one of the more expensive ships, like a dread, again. That was a month ago.
Now CCP has come up with a new method for applying skins. The o7 show explained that you could simply apply the skin if you owned it. Excellent. I’m going to probably go crazy with skins now. However, there are two downsides to this approach.
First: there is no loss. My wife and I have just begun repainting our house from the boring “here’s your new house” off-white-everywhere-ness to colors which are more pleasing to us. Same thinking as the skins in-game. It is nice to be able to personalize things you own. However, it brings up a difference. Sunk cost. I honestly hope that CCP has an ISK sink for changing the paint job of your ship. Nothing extravagant. Just enough where there is some modicum of increased cost and thus risk associated with flying that flashy ship compared to the standard issue.
Second: where are all the ships I care about? There’s tons of tech 1 frigates and cruisers. Some battleships and battlecruisers that I’ve occasionally used to use in PVE when I get bored. None of which are ships I care to personalize, because I have no real connection to them. None of them are “that ship that survived in low structure with all the mods almost completely over-heated.” None of them are “the ship that has survived months of combat with a couple hundred kills painted on the hull.” None of them are “the ship that barely escaped from that gate camp.” None of them are “that ship that just barely got the point on the hauler which was carrying a small fortune in its cargo bay.” In short, there are no ship skins available for ships with memories attached to them which would motivate me to customize them. There’s a lot of good looking ships, but none of them are ships I fly.
I think skins are a great idea and will continue to buy them. I like the new method for applying skins, but hope CCP will cause a loss to cost something more than a normal ship. I think the ship skins are beautiful, but just wish there were skins for ships I regularly fly.
Mark726: I gotta be the lore dude here (because of course I have to be). It, to an extent at least, increases immersion because we all know that pilots in the future wouldn’t stick to the standard color schemes, though I’m not sure exactly how prevalent bright pinks spaceships would be in real life. It’s probably not something I’ll take advantage of very often, but I’m happy to see it available. What limits CCP puts on it will be interesting, but if it leads to corp/alliance logos, I’m all in favor.
Niden: In a way, ship skinning breaks one of the ten commandments of EVE Online: “Thou shalt not get overly attached to thine ship, for it will die in a fire”. But I can’t help it. Like Bagehi, there are some ships I just love and I want to pimp them out. For the same reasons I said “oh yes!” out loud when CCP mentioned on one of the o7 shows that they were considering showing wear and tear on ships that had seen a lot of action. I have a few Dramiels in my hangar that hold a very special place in my heart and have seen me through some of the most exciting times I’ve had in EVE. Sometimes I just look at them and it brings back memories.
I think skinning allows for individuality in a game where people are sometimes paired down into simple statistics. It is a way to express yourself while also colouring the world around you and making it more alive and dynamic. It’s coloured feathers, sure, but I want them. I’m also a complete sucker for pretty things and eye candy, always have been. But that is part and parcel of my creativity, imagination and need to express myself, qualities which bring me great personal joy.
In other words, you can bet your ass I’ll be skinning ships. Sadly, I don’t think a skin for my beloved Dramiels is coming any time soon.
Xander: In Eve, in a very real way, you are the ship. I mean, by this point we are all done with that Walking in Stations nonsense – your avatar is your ship. I’d much rather spend time dressing up my ship that dressing up my character in-game. I think anything that allows some customisation can only be a good thing.
And we need corp / alliance logos on ships like yesterday. Cannot wait for that to be implemented.
Oh Takashawa: I’m with Bagehi – there needs to be some form of heightened loss associated with this, otherwise it’s pure cosmetic microtransactions that bring a benefit at no cost. Benefits are supposed to have costs in EVE, and while this setup will have up-front costs, there’s no long-term cost associated with continuing to use the skin ad infinitum
Dunk Dinkle: Ship personalization is great. Xander is right, in Eve, the ship is your avatar and people want their avatar to look interesting. People want different kinds of skins, neat designs like camo, corp and alliance logos, or even role icons. This will be hugely popular.
Bagehi and Taka are right that there should be a cost to ship loss of a skin. Maybe a charge item that enables the SKIN system to be turned on. Maybe even increasing level of required charge item with ship size. Some method that losing a SKINed ship has a little more cost than losing the ‘vanilla’ version.
Tags: cz minutes, SKIN
12 year EVE veteran, Snuffed Out scumbag, writer, graphic artist, producer, Editor-in-Chief of Crossing Zebras and the second most influential player in EVE, according to EVE Onion.
Niden
Mark726: I gotta be the lore dude here (because of course I have to be). It, to an extent at least, increases immersion because we all know that pilots in the future wouldn’t stick to the standard color schemes, though I’m not sure exactly how prevalent bright pinks spaceships would be in real life. It’s probably not something I’ll take advantage of very often, but I’m happy to see it available. What limits CCP puts on it will be interesting, but if it leads to corp/alliance logos, I’m all in favor.
Niden: In a way, ship skinning breaks one of the ten commandments of EVE Online: “Thou shalt not get overly attached to thine ship, for it will die in a fire”. But I can’t help it. Like Bagehi, there are some ships I just love and I want to pimp them out. For the same reasons I said “oh yes!” out loud when CCP mentioned on one of the o7 shows that they were considering showing wear and tear on ships that had seen a lot of action. I have a few Dramiels in my hangar that hold a very special place in my heart and have seen me through some of the most exciting times I’ve had in EVE. Sometimes I just look at them and it brings back memories.
I think skinning allows for individuality in a game where people are sometimes paired down into simple statistics. It is a way to express yourself while also colouring the world around you and making it more alive and dynamic. It’s coloured feathers, sure, but I want them. I’m also a complete sucker for pretty things and eye candy, always have been. But that is part and parcel of my creativity, imagination and need to express myself, qualities which bring me great personal joy.
In other words, you can bet your ass I’ll be skinning ships. Sadly, I don’t think a skin for my beloved Dramiels is coming any time soon.
Xander: In Eve, in a very real way, you are the ship. I mean, by this point we are all done with that Walking in Stations nonsense – your avatar is your ship. I’d much rather spend time dressing up my ship that dressing up my character in-game. I think anything that allows some customisation can only be a good thing.
And we need corp / alliance logos on ships like yesterday. Cannot wait for that to be implemented.
Oh Takashawa: I’m with Bagehi – there needs to be some form of heightened loss associated with this, otherwise it’s pure cosmetic microtransactions that bring a benefit at no cost. Benefits are supposed to have costs in EVE, and while this setup will have up-front costs, there’s no long-term cost associated with continuing to use the skin ad infinitum
Dunk Dinkle: Ship personalization is great. Xander is right, in Eve, the ship is your avatar and people want their avatar to look interesting. People want different kinds of skins, neat designs like camo, corp and alliance logos, or even role icons. This will be hugely popular.
Bagehi and Taka are right that there should be a cost to ship loss of a skin. Maybe a charge item that enables the SKIN system to be turned on. Maybe even increasing level of required charge item with ship size. Some method that losing a SKINed ship has a little more cost than losing the ‘vanilla’ version.
Niden
