I don’t get the whole point of the 30% tax. If there was a 30% tax on the eve market with no option to contract or directly trade minerals and something I think eve would be dead.
Lower taxes encourage trading and they also encourage mining or in this case the creation of SKINs.
I think CCP is shooting themselfes in the foot kinda, they will sell more PLEX by lowering/removing the market tax and additionally create more fun, because people now create, sell and buy SKINs.
There is no “tax dodging” if there were no taxes in the first place. This is not the real world. The market tax is just a number set by CCP to make it impossible to trade skins for some reason. Traders can not buy skins and sell them higher, that’s impossible!
It also makes it very unpractical to give your friends a SKIN which is odd, because I thought eve is a social game
I love people that have kids drawings on their refrigerator, those wholesome people should get all the slots they want
The Tax needs to go period, ive heard plenty complain about how expensive it is already and the Tax makes the system a cash grab by CCP.
In fact the whole implementation of this thing is a cash grab.
1.) Have to purchase with PLEX or gobs of ISK components just to be able to design something to see if you even F’ing Like it or not.
2.) Have to make an expensive skin already more expensive to break even if you want to sell it(the tax has to go!!).
3.) Corp/Alliance Skins if 1 person designs them, are unable to give skins out or sell them only to Corp/Alliance members.
These are issues that need to be fixed.
EvE community should just not use this SKINR thing until CCP pulls its head out of its afocal point of contact.
If anything, PLEX shall only be paid for the creation of a Skin, not for sharing it by selling a copy or giving it out to alts or corp/alliance members. Any more than this is pure, destructive greed.
Perhaps if you have the creativity of a baked bean. How are you supposed to create entire collections if you can only save ten designs… Count how many ships there are and then times that by ten, that’s how many slots it ought to be possible to have. Hell, skill wall them, whatever, but ten is life support for a coma patient if that’s your idea of creativity.
The design aesthetic of the skins that can be produced through use of the SKINR tool is not competitive with CCP’s in-house designs.
CCP can add elements that significantly enhance the aesthetic of their skins.
In fact the more I browse the Paragon market the more I realise just how generic the SKINR generated output is. It gets worse, the more unimaginative designs that you peruse the less fantastic the actual decent output appears. It’s like a trip into the uncanny valley, you finally stumble across a design that’s half decent but it’s diminished in its value by how mediocre and uninspired everything around it is. The awfulness of everything else ruins the prestige, the mystique, of the better designs because you can so clearly deduce exactly what’s behind the curtain.
This may change over time, however that’s unlikely and as it currently stands, when you add the cost of materials, to the cost of printing to the cost of listing… I mean seriously, where’s the upshot for the creator? I’ve been robbed three times before I even see the possibility of a profit and by the same organisation. It’s not like I’m paying three seperate entities for their services, I’m paying the same idiots I just payed to advance the same service. It’s like as if the railways added three gates in a row and you had to tap your rail card through each of them before you could board the train… (Just triple the price at the first gate already).
The offer CCP are making with their version of a storefront, and their version of a design tool, and their version of a search engine compared to the price they are charging for materials, plus the cost of production, plus the cost of sales… They’re wanting to sell us a Toyota Prius for the price of a Ferrari so as not to threaten their Lamborghini market.
CCP are offering a less than amateur service for a premium price and it stinks. They need to do better.
Long story short, the SKINR concept is amazing. The presentations leading up to it focusing on building an identity in the community were inspired. The execution of whatever this ‘THING’ they have produced is is god-damned awful. It in no way resembles the VISION that they announced and promoted, this VISION of building bonds within the community through strengthening individual and group identity through creative expression.
Instead some group of misinformed misanthropes and half-wits have developed a trash recycling centre with an arts and crafts detention bay and priced it as though it is an auction for Cézanne greatest works.
None of the features or functionality that gave value to it at its initial conception has been thought about or included. In fact it appears as if it has been deliberately left off and that any attempt to develop it will be obfuscated.
It’s like as if we’re in a completely different time line, is this the Upside Down? Did eve Fanfest happen or was that my imagination.
If the idea is to produce a circus CCP then go ‘all-in’ don’t half-ass it, acquire Elephants and Lions, and Tigers and Monkeys, wear clown costumes, make sure to get plenty of those flowers that squirt water, honking horns, giant shoes and a single tiny car within which to transport the entire development staff.
Hmm, I think maybe you’re missing the point of “I like what the limitation does to promote limited editions and scarcity in the market…”
I’d argue a few things. One, these kinds of limits actually require more skill and creativity on the part of legitimate designers to work around the save cap off-client. Two, they allow unique designs that hit the market to have way more of a competitive position from the start.
For example, imagine a situation where we all have 100+ save slots (or 1000+ I guess, if we’re using your suggestion of all ships x 10) – in this situation, literally anyone using the SKINr system, regardless of skill, can totter lazily through Reddit or wherever snatching up all of the formulated, pre-baked design details (eg slider/nano/pattern info) they want, save them, and have them ready on-demand without much of a thought about how they were designed in the first place. They don’t really need people to design for them, because they have all of the designs they could possibly want or afford over time already saved. Any pretense of “creativity” is gone, replaced by the simple question of, “Do I want someone else to sequence this for me?” Super lame.
Compare that to a situation where we all only have ten (or fifteen, or twenty…) save slots. Suddenly, that same person can only save a few of what they like, meaning a designer’s ability to capture something they might want goes up substantially because they have a much larger stable of ideas to work with. And that stable, presumably held in a spreadsheet or god-knows-where else, has outpaced what the customer has in their own stable of “ideas”, so opportunity goes up. Potential customers can hold on to a few things they like, but they need to actually shop the storefront to discover new ideas outside of that.
Anyway, ultimately, these limits don’t actually preclude the possibility of creativity in the way you’re suggesting. I’ve been selling a wide swath of designs beyond the save cap since SKINr launched. The only thing that the limits really stem is the opportunity to bank designs without really thinking about how they’re made. If folks are mad about that much, I get it; it would certainly make things easier.
Design studios take hundreds of photos, hours of footage, present a multitude of ideas, they do not limit themselves during the creation process. They limit themselves by setting rules about the final output. There’s a difference. As it stands the tool is designed for Sunday afternoon hobbyists.
Limiting my ability to save designs, does not stop someone else’s ability to peruse the market and attempt to replicate a listing.
I’m sorry, you seem like a good person and I really enjoyed reading almost all of the rest of your points, but this is false reasoning.
Photos or it didn’t happen.
Siding with your captors is a well established phenomena labelled the Stockholm Effect. Your reasoning that setting a limit on the amount of creativity that is produced vs setting limits (or rules) about how you approach creativity or the aesthetic conditions related to the final product, is false. It’s fine if you want to produce a series of works and limit yourself to just five slots but to expect every other artist to conform to that condition every time that they approach the creative process. I’m not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse at this point, and it really doesn’t matter, nor does it matter that it might have worked in your favour X+1 number of times, it’s still a false rational.
I’m exteremely familiar with commercial art practice, thanks, but how does the design studio analogy apply? You’re talking about iteration and asset development in a production environment – what does that have to do with the save cap, exactly? I guess our disagreement here makes sense if you’re using the save slots to sketch a variety of ideas and are mad that you don’t have enough pages to scribble. I don’t really need them for that, personally.
I get that you’re miffed about implementation and that emotions like that tend to lead to pointmaking that’s spiky and patronizing (Stockholm Syndrome? Pffff), but my points about limits and the way they affect the consumer base are valid. The limits promote friction within the marketplace, and those that can outmaneuver said limits are able to profit off that friction. Does the save cap completely block anyone from replicating what they see? Obviously not. But it does force an inconvenient choice for potential customers if that person sooner needs to delete the convenience of a saved design to scrape a new one.
Now, if your problem is with the friction itself, fine, that’s its own thing, and I get it, but I’m having a hard time taking the argument “save allotment = creativity” seriously. If anything, your point is merely about convenience, no?
Also, I’m down to share pics of what I’ve made so far. I’m even happy to share information about what’s selling best of what I’ve created. I think there’s actually a thread to that effect somewhere, so maybe I’ll pop over there a little later.
Ummm yes, (apart from the part about being mad) and good for you that you’re not. I’m not mad about it, I just think that it’s stupid, unimaginative, and entirely unnecessary. You’ve decided to never use your green crayon, ok, good call, I mean, more power to you, whatever, but why should the rest of us be burdened by a limit that you -in a very real sense- have arbitrarily decided to enjoy. I mean they could have made it 11 and you could have decided to smear your computer screen with peanut butter and you’d be fine with that.
Without knowing what exactly it is that you do, let’s run a thought experiment, say that you work in a creative field and your primary device for operating is a PC, it’s 2024, they want premium stock footage and you’re being asked to process and store your work on an original iMac circa 2005ish.
Or perhaps you’re curating an art Gallery, let us run a similar analogy, you’ve got bundles of say 50 canvases being delivered to you from across the country at a time, Those rolls need to be framed stored and hung, while past collection need to be stored as well until sold or delivered to buyers. Now your gallery space happens to be a 7M x 20M box with a 3M x 3M storage room…
You might ask what do the above examples have to do with creativity? Nothing. Ok so then what do they have to do with the possibility of creative industry? Everything.
If I can’t edit more than two photos because my computer isn’t powerful enough that limits my ability to be industrious.
If I can’t process pieces through the gallery, receive, pack, store, reframe, show, sell, and distribute, them that limits my ability to be industrious.
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Miffed is not an emotion. What is patronising and the reason that I have reflected your arguments in a patronising manner, is that you’ve gone ahead and assumed that an arbitrary and unnecessary limit is going to constitute a useful implementation of ‘friction’ and then made the further assessment that that now called ‘friction’ -that you’ve decided to enjoy- is an understandable and effective device FOR EVERYBODY.
You have no idea why they set the limit at 5. Unless they’ve personally explained it you otherwise you are just guessing and making assumptions and then deciding that those guesses and assumptions make sense and are good and are good for everyone, case closed. Now the problem isn’t, Did CCP make sensical and effective design choices or not? Instead it’s "Why can’t everybody except me work in challenging design environments and prosper as I have?
See how it’s your position that is patronising and how my dialogue simply reflects that patronising and ARBITRARY set of assumptions. They will remain arbitrary until they are CLEARLY explained by CCP, which they have not been.
Okay, your response here makes me think that you’re not really understanding the point that I’m making with how the limitation might actually help competition for folks that are willing to organize their efforts outside of the game client, and it seems like pushing the issue is just making you more antagonistic, so I’ll table it. Others can read what I wrote here and either agree or disagree with the merits. All good.
I think I do understand your point, though (and, truly, correct me if I’m wrong), that you want more save slots to save partially completed designs, such that you can iterate them further in the future without needing to build them again from the ground up. You don’t want to use spreadsheets, file management, or third-party tools. You want the creativity and iteration in-game and within the confines of the Paragon Hub. And that’s real. I get it. If you don’t really care about having a complete designer’s advantage ahead of clients, that’s definitely valid.
As for the other stuff – the hazy analogies about storage, the breathless rant in the last few paragraphs, the weird strawman of painting my preferences as a guesses about CCP’s intentions (I don’t care what they intend…?), the suggestion that ‘friction’ isn’t actual market parlance (?) – uhhh, I’ll just go ahead and let you have this one. You win!
Yes. I published about this very phenomena several years ago.
When I log into the game I want to stay in the game.
This understanding is correct, thank you.
The fact that you have to leave the game in order to effectively play the game - You just did a better job of proving how ineffective the tool is than I could have ever done.
If you’re using outside programs to gain an advantage over other players… that’s cheating. I’m not blaming you for doing it. I’m blaming CCP for dropping the ball and then tripping over the ball they dropped and then standing back up and kicking it into their own goal by mistake.
I didn’t say that friction isn’t market parlance, I said that you have defined this lack of functionality as friction. You’ve done that. That’s you. That was your decision. Nobody else has said that. CCP hasn’t said that their design choice was intended to generate creativity through setting limitations. I guarantee you this though, they’ll happily jump on that band wagon if they think it will give them a free pass to do nothing about it. CCP looks at notes ahh yes… ahem, friction, YES (more confidently) that’s what we intended.
You’ve said that it’s friction. And then you’ve built your argument upon that assumption. That’s patronising, because, without addressing that assumption every counter argument is forced to agree with your characterisation or else first challenge your characterisation, which is what I have done. It’s not friction. You made that part up.
CCP promoted this feature at Fanfest as means to encourage the creative development of individual and group identity. The tool that they have delivered does not do that. Instead what it does is try to funnel as much PLEX down their sink as possible - it’s not even trying to be a tool that encourages the expression of group identity, not even a little bit. And it is SO BLATANTLY OBVIOUSLY promoting itself as a tool to unburden players of their PLEX. The only effort that they have MAYBE gone to, to possibly disguise this agenda, is the flimsy notion that if they don’t make this process costly then it may impact on their in-house skin design sales. With respect to this SKINR an aberration.
Look I agree with the majority of what you said, not that that matters. I just can’t let this issue slide by like it doesn’t matter and isn’t that big of a deal. The design features are a consequence of the design philosophy. We were sold the idea that the SKINR tool would be a creative way for us to express individual and group identity, the friendship machine, buckets, spades, boots and all that jazz. Instead they’ve launched this ‘THING’ that makes every attempt it can to limit your ability to explore and share and create and then taxes you and taxes you and taxes you and tries to justify it all by screaming ‘Bloody Mary’ our in-house skin sales might be threatened. Where’s the data?
I keep overlooking your point here so I will address it now;
How does limiting your design save slots to 5 = promotion of limited editions and scarcity on the market? Those elements are not causally related.
If anything, limiting your ability to explore more than five ideas restricts your creative output and muzzles your incentive to take risks and develop truly great works.
Which of my five saves should I sacrifice in my vain hope that whatever I develop next will be better, and how will I know that’s it’s better having deleted my point(s) of comparison…
But as you’ve said, you don’t rely solely on the use of the in-game tool.
So really your argument is;
“I like what the limitation does to prevent users without outside-game tools from being creatively competitive and thus wise limiting the market to people with privileged means.”
So the design tool is classist? Excellent.
I think that the user base has clearly worked this nonsense out and as such the uproar… … …
And we believe this will create opportunities to further develop and express group identity… it kind of has , don’t you think, players are united against the nonsense - (not a direct quote).
So, I normally try to avoid excerpting people into oblivion in a conversation because I personally find it grating, but there’s a lot here, and I want to be clear about the merits in your post that I definitely agree with while acknowledging the things I think are absolutely stretchy takes.
I don’t care if you blame me for anything or not, so don’t feel like you have to sweat that at all – but we’re definitely going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
The debate of whether or not third-party anything (eg. Google Sheets) in the context MMO’s constitutes cheating is old and tired. You think I’m a cheater that only enables devs to be lazier and lazier with their implementation because I’m using tools to make up for perceived shortcomings in their design. I think you’re a purist/ableist that, in pursuit of a gaming ideal that is rarely ever realized, willfully ignores the different ways in which people like or need to approach complex systems and pushes that as orthodoxy on others.
That said, I do admit that there are some situations where third-party apps constitute cheating (eg. auto-aimers, auto-solvers, etc.), but I won’t budge in this situation because we’re essentially talking about, uh, taking notes. The choice to use Google Sheets to help with designing or not is not a matter of prerogative or necessity or access; it’s a matter of preference and organization technique using open software that’s accessible to basically everyone. Arguing against that would be nearly as absurd as arguing that googling information about the game is also cheating. Who cares?
^ This is true, actually. You didn’t explicitly say that friction isn’t market parlance, but, you were throwing air quotes around enough to make me think that you didn’t actually understand it as legitimate vocabulary.
^ But you did say this!
^ And I have done that, yeah…
^ It is!
^ It was!
…and it still is.
No matter how many times you performatively recycle your point, the save cap in place has objectively created a point of friction that is relevant to the marketplace, regardless of how you feel about it. And despite you trying to force some kind of connective tissue between the ideas, my observation of the current situation is not meant to be direct commentary or a guess about what I think CCP is up to. However, even if it were, I wouldn’t need to know their intentions to be “allowed” to take a guess, like you’ve suggested a few times. I’m applying a known definition of something. Get real.
“You said a thing, and that’s unfair because we all have to agree with the pretense of what you’re saying.”
You don’t have to agree with me, but you can definitely be incorrect in disagreeing with me, haha. Not being able to save more than five designs IS friction in the marketplace. And I’ll add this: you may not have explicitly said earlier that friction isn’t market parlance, but, based on how much you’re resisting my point about it, I’m not convinced you actually know what it means in the first place and are making your lack of knowledge my burden of proof.
Okay, just to be clear, and to hopefully alleviate some tension in this back and forth, I do agree with you here. It never feels good to expect one thing from devs and to receive something wholly different and arguably player-negative. It seems like they were promising plenty more access to these tools and the ability to apply skins at low- or no-cost. I’ll even do you one better; what they’ve implemented is essentially an MLM-adjacent system through which they get creative services and extra plex by way of willing participants for free. No one asked for this necessarily, some are willing to take part in it despite the caveats, but it’s probably not the most community-positive thing in the world.
You actually sort of approach an answer to your initial question about limited editions here (I won’t touch on the question about scarcity; we’ve touched on that enough via friction, etc.) with some of what you ask here in the second paragraph…
Keep in mind that my personal process is using the few save slots that we have available for simple designs that both sequence and sell quickly, just a quick heads-up of designs that I’ll probably call on often with tweaks here or there.
By choice, I’m also stashing more complex design ideas in a spreadsheet populated with screenshots taken from the design studio once I’ve landed on something I like (and that I don’t intend to save in a save slot), design notes, slider information, etc. Pulling from that spreadsheet means that I’m planning to sequence something a little more involved, maybe a little more costly, and it takes work to rebuild it in-game anyway, so I’m less inclined to do that on a regular basis, and I might be benefited if I just sequence a limited batch of those to have on hand branded as such – “XYZ Limited Edition”. The design is definitely going to be used less regularly, so it’s fine having it in a spreadsheet to the side, as opposed to being an active save.
Meanwhile, to your question, I’m not actually forcing myself to sacrifice any of my consistent sellers, and, as I’ve touched on before, most potential customers are still just as limited by the save cap, so maybe this “XYZ Limited Edition” is exactly what they haven’t had room to copy and stash in a library of hundreds, with the added flavor that it’s a one-time run.
–
Lastly…
You’re almost there with it, but I might reword that to read,…
“I like what the limitation does to prevent userspotential customers and maybe competing designers in the spacewithout outside-game toolseither unwilling or unsure about how to use publicly accessible software to help their in-game organization and ideation from being creatively competitiveable to design, scrape, and/or store any design they could possibly want, thereby ultimately reducing their client need to the simple question, "Should I get someone else to sequence this for me or not?’ or their designer need to simply ask, “Should I just scrape and store the designs of other designers whenever I encounter them?”and thus wise limiting the market to people with privileged means.”
Classist? This is probably where I stop considering this a serious conversation, haha
OH, also, I had a thought while writing up my reply above, but it didn’t quite fit in any of my rebuttals.
I think it’s important to articulate what we both mean when we talk about “creativity”, because I think that’s also getting a little confused. I think you’re talking about creativity in the context of artmaking and expression, and I’m doing that as well, but I’m also talking about creativity in the context of problem solving, so maybe some of the dissonance here is caused by my point about save caps creating opportunity for people to be more “creative”.
I mean to imply both the expressive/artmaking and the problem solving aspects of the word. It seems like you’re focused exclusively on the former and thinking I’m focusing on that as well. I mean both, leaning toward problem solving.
Before they do that, they need to figure out how to make more people buy PLEX for cash so that the ingame supply is stronger and prices go down a bit. Ever-increasing utility for PLEX with unchanging or dwindling supply is not sustainable or enjoyable.
