Originally by: Akita T

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You can't blame CCP for wanting to make more money than they do now.
You can only MAYBE blame them for doing it in a way that feels "wrong" to you.
So you guys hate the idea of "pay to win", or in other words, any items that could potentially give an advantage.
Even if it's NOT a big deal as long as handled carefully.
Fine. Be that way. Why not. It's afterall what we were used to from the start of this game.
If somehow miraculously, the playerbase would have spoken and CCP listened carefully...
NOW WHAT ?
CCP still needs to make those PLEX vanish, and if they also get some extra cash along the way, hooray them.

Let's say that CCP ends up "agreeing" with you that advantage-granting items and services should never be released.
So, no "+5% stats" items, no AUR cerebral boosters, no AUR for remaps, no AUR for SP reallocation, no AUR for standings corrections, and so on and so forth a big no to a lot of items or services.
In other words, none of the stuff quite a few people would be itching to buy - but would hate it if their opponents would do the same - would ever be for sale for AUR.

That leaves us with a problem. Low sales.

As a couple of people over in MD point out (Linkage1, Linkage2), at least at this point in time the NEX offers are mainly targeted at the ISK-rich people (who are supposed to want to buy PLEX and smash them into AUR - which would take at least partial care of CCP's "excess PLEX stockpiles" problem), but the real problem is, there's not much in there that an ISK-rich person would WANT to bother to get... not in any significant amounts anyway.
Yes, RL-cash-rich people will also buy stuff from the NEX, but it doesn't help CCP's target of reducing existing PLEX counts.

Sure, you can always introduce a wide variety of cheap-ass clothing and other character customization options (they're going to be doing that anyway), you could introduce different-textured vanity ships (they are supposed to redo all textures anyway, so adding a bit of variation won't be that much extra work compared to what they'll do anyway) even if I personally would much rather see "paint" items inserted in ship "paint" slots (with even the possibility of players designing their own mix-and-mach combos eventually), but there's only so much of this kind of stuff people will tolerate buying before going "eh, to hell with it".

SO WE NEED IDEAS FOR COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF ITEMS OR SERVICES TO BE SOLD FOR AUR.
NOT JUST VANITY STUFF (clothes, paintjobs), BUT STUFF THAT IS USEFUL // FUN // DESIRABLE.
YET IT CAN'T GIVE YOU A DIRECT GAMEPLAY ADVANTAGE BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL RAGE ABOUT IT.

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I have come up with just two different sets of rough ideas, but I am curious if you guys can come up with even more than this.

I will go into more detail in the following post, explaining each is as much detail as possible, but for now, the uber-short descriptions:
* holo battle recorder
* Incarna digital EVE CCG.

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MEANWHILE, FEEL FREE TO POST OTHER IDEAS.
No matter how outlandish.
As long as they are something you'd like to get but does NOT give you an ingame advantage and is not already on CCP's plan for the future.
Obviously.

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