I’ve been looking at the different hulls released as rewards for the alliance tournament over the years, and I see a great potential for CCP to make very good money by allowing this ships to be sold on the Nexus store for a significant PLEX cost, based on their attributes.
The original Alliance Tournament ship rewards should be made into a ‘Capsuleer Prototype’ variant, in order to preserve their rarity, and perhaps be stronger than the Nexus store variants, to further conserve their specialty. Naturally some of the ships would have to be balanced, either with PLEX cost, or with attribute changes, to prevent them from being dominant on the battlefield. However with a significantly high cost, the ships will only be used by those with deep pockets, and can still easily be killed by a fleet that can capture and kill the ship with electronic warfare and high damage.
Either way, CCP has several hulls that are rarely used, and such assets could be put to great use in order to generate CCP additional revenue. With this revenue, they can better invest both into the company, and into the game, helping to counter the drops in subscriptions from protestors of EVE Online’s new chaos era.
Fair point, why not do it as the AT ship rewards were done, where you buy the 1 run BPC from the NES, and then you have to build it? You can even throw in new hard to find components from lowsec exploration or other areas, to both make the ships harder to have instantly, and to buff neglected areas of the game.
Well the Alliance Tournament is likely cancelled either permanently or for a good while. As mentioned in the post, the actual AT ships will be ‘capsuleer prototype’ or a differently named variation, preserving their rarity and value for the winners of past and future Tournaments. However the hulls themselves with the unique names and attributes should be made available to the public through the NES store, not only to prevent the ships from going to waste, but in order to counter the falling subscriptions from people unsubscribing or otherwise quitting the game.
You forget that the AT-reward ships are designed to be bit OP. They can do that because of the limited numbers they are given out in. If they would be sold for PLEX, they would need to be brutally beaten with the nerf-bat before being released to keep things in at least some balance.
That can be done. The ones given out should keep the stats, but the Nexus store ships can easily either be very expensive in terms of plex, or be reduced in stats somewhat to compensate for the numbers.
However they should still be very powerful, better that a pirate variant of the same hull class. Whether it is a very high plex cost, or introduction of hard to get materials to make the BPC hard to construct, it should be the end of the line class to aspire to. It however can still be killed by a good player, or fleet of players, so even if the stats remain unchanged, it will not break the balance, as the moment you begin to use it, you will start to get hunted.
No that is pay to win,ship offered in store if any should be similar in performance to what is currently in game.
Take WoW premium ships example
Tier 8 Lenin battleship 50usd store
Tier 8 Vladivostok bs 15mil in game
Both have advantages over the other none is clear winner.
That I could stand behind but just buying top of the line offering…yeah …no.
Well there has to be an incentive to buy the ship. And since the ships can be countered, it is not pay to win, not much more different then buying injectors and paying to win that way. If you want to not make it better than other ships then keep the attributes as is, and change the original AT ships to a different variant to preserve the rarity.
No it would not. As I already mentioned the ships that were won in the AT would be changed to a special variant, so the ships that were won will still remain rare and valuable. The ones sold on the nexus store will be generic AT hulls, without the unique variant.
A ship that you cannot get otherwise beyond spending money? Yes that is pay2win. (PLEX always means money has changed hands AT SOME POINT.) These ships are not meant to be mass-produced. They are special hulls with special bonuses and attributes that are insanely OP. The only way that CCP has gotten away with it, is the VERY limited supply of those ships. Would they sell? Hell yes. Would they destroy the balance? Hell yes x10000000. If you want a AT-ship either A) Next time it’s around, go do AT or B) Buy one of the hulls from the players who won them.
As a new player who wants to try flying as many different ships as I can, I…really don’t know what to think about this and can see arguments for both sides that I agree with.
On the “release them” side of the argument, I’d love to be able to try out ships like the Whiptail, Guardian-Vexor, or even the pirate corvettes (yeah, they weren’t AT rewards, but they’re still exclusive ships), and letting these ships to enter the market again would increase the chances of getting my hands on one. There are even lore justifications for ships like the Chremoas, Mimir, and Etana becoming obtainable through means other than the Alliance Tournament since they weren’t made specifically for the occasion.
On a personal note, I have this weird pet peeve about ships with unique names being exclusive and irreplaceable. I don’t mind ships like the Gold and Silver Magnate frigates or the Imperial/Federate/State/Tribal Issue battleships being irreplaceable because they’re clearly variants of already-existing ships with better or variant stats, but if it’s got a unique name and especially a unique model like the Imp and Rabisu then I just can’t stand the idea of them being an exclusive reward which can only dwindle in number.
On the “don’t release them” side of the argument, I can also understand how upsetting it would be for collectors to suddenly have their prized possessions devalued by CCP deciding to make the ships available for purchase. As I mentioned above there are also several ships like the Adrestia, Vangel, and Malice that were explicitly made just for the Alliance Tournament, and allowing players to buy them on the market would be a colossal disconnect from the game’s lore. That might not matter to a lot of players, but for a lorehound such as myself it’s a pretty big deal.
I could support this idea because it would be making the original AT ships like the Gold and Silver Magnate frigates; unique blinged-out variants of existing ships designed to be just as much of a fashion statement as they are effective in their given roles.
This is another argument in favor of not releasing these ships that I find compelling. I don’t like pay-to-win games. I don’t like them at all, and the thought of EvE becoming one twists my gut. The only way I would accept overpowered ships being sold for cash is if they were extremely expensive, like the original metal Thunderhawk Gunship model released by Games Workshop back in '97.
It cost £400, was an absolute ■■■■■ to assemble, and they may have only allowed you to buy it after signing a waiver that declared:
Spending four hundred pounds sterling on a lead gaming miniature was ridiculous.
Doing so anyway was a tacit admission that you were out of your goddamn mind.
No, I’m not making that up, I actually read that about the model in question and I’ll post it here if I can find it again.
If CCP made formerly-exclusive and overpowered ships available for ludicrous prices and required any buyers to acknowledge how ridiculous it was, then I’d have much less of a problem with it.
I disagree. Many games allow for the best gear to be obtained only through currency, and it does not destroy the game. The best of the best should always be obtainable through money and then be allowed to be resold, especially in a game where player skill most of the timer determines the winner. I could buy an alliance tournament ship from the nexus, undock, attack a fleet of t1 frigates, and get disrupted and killed because of my ignorance.
Allowing these hulls to be more plentiful would greatly increase the amount of plex that is consumed as people would want them as show off pieces, or as high end assets to help tip the tide of a conflict in the hands of a skilled pilot. It would help CCP generate the revenue needed to keep the game alive and add more content and expansions.
Ha, the second part I found hilarious and definitely CCP. Why not do this. Have the ship cost 10-25,000 plex, or around 20-60B isk or around the same price as the miniature you showed. It has the same stats as the AT ship, with the unique name and model. And each person that buys it is put on a ‘too wealthy for their own good’ list on the eve website.
Failing that, I agree with your statement that the rare and intended to be rare ships can remain rare, like the Gold Magnate etc. It would be nice to have them on sale, as a (I’m a proud whale) purchase, however the Alliance Tournament ships with the unique names can easily generate CCP many thousands or even millions in revenue from the people buying for speculation and pvp. We already have pay for advantage in the form of injectors, flying ridiculously expensive ships that you can only get from either the AT or the PLEX store is simply a continuation of this.
Most games that allow you to buy items are also
A) Designed around that
B) PAY TO WIN
And neither of those apply to Eve, so no.
CCP has also been very clear in saying that they will not make more of those ships. They are AT-rewards and OP. Adding more of them (or a variation of them) would cheapen the rewards given out and break the balance too much.
This isn’t pokemon. You don’t have to catch them all.
I counter by saying they do apply to eve. Eve has play for advantage. If you pay, you can have as much wealth as you want ingame, as much character Skillpoints as you want, and as high end gear that you want, from implants, drugs, to modules and ships.
Having entire ships be locked to only 50 hulls is a waste of developer resources, and a waste in potential revenue. Many players want the best of the best, whether it is an officer module, a titan, or something rare and valuable to show off and have. Having your own high end ship from the PLEX store that is the best of the best would mean that anyone with deep pockets will spend serious money, not just on a single ship, but likely try to collect all of them, no matter the cost both of plex or of isk if buying plex with isk.
You are correct that eve used to be a game where this did not apply, but it is slowly changing to be more like other games, due to market reality. First came the Pilot License Extension, which evolved into a currency backed money. Then came injectors, and soon new things would arrive. I feel that having Alliance Tournament ship hulls be repurposed for sale on the plex store would greatly benefit the game, especially as CCP relies more and more on microtransactions for their revenue, vs the old system of subscription which makes up less and less of the total revenue for CCP.
Yes, because Eve at it’s core is a subscription-MMO. It is not P2W though as what you want added to the game. The only reason nobody is crying foul about the AT-ships are their limited availability. Not everything needs to be about the bottom line.
No matter how much i want a Raven State Issue i disagree strongly with this idea. Not only would this utterly remove almost all value from AT Hulls but its a slap in the face to the teams who compete to EARN hulls like those, whether they choose to use them or not.
