Aden Clark
EC-1
0
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Posted - 2015.02.13 15:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
My biggest concern, and the only one I see not being addressed, is how to handle the conversion of existing SKINs.
It should not be complicated at all.
Any existing BPCs grant the ability to apply that SKIN to a ship, functioning how its being said the SKINs licences will function. Any ships already with a SKIN already applied are currently just ships utilizing what will eventually be those licences.
BPCs simply being unapplied SKINs should convert to unapplied SKINs licences. Ships already painted with a SKIN BPC should convert to an unapplied SKINs licence, and a actual ship being the hull that the painted ship was.
These should all be converted to unapplied licences to be fair, as currently painted ships can be traded, as unapplied licences will be. Players should not be punished by suddenly being bound to an item that they could have previously traded simply because the system that governed it changed. Fair impact on players already involved in a system is something CCP seems to take pride in trying to uphold through every change that has this level of impact on a system.
CCP should also take this chance(and I believe I saw it mentioned but I just want to mention again) to clean up a lot of these Faction ship variants that only exist to offer a different paint scheme, and only exist this way because this is just what they chose to do predating the current SKINs BPCs. For example Faction scanning frigates, or the Faction Catalysts, any ships that have identical stats to their base hull counterparts, but are still a different ship just to maintain a paint scheme.
Also I am not a fan at all of these proposed 'limited time' SKINs. I cannot really think of anything else in game that can be purchased through RMT or ISK that once purchased only lasts for X time and then becomes invalid other than for example PLEX, which has a much different impact on gameplay. The only argument I have seen against this from the Dev posts is to not deflate the dropped pirate themed SKINs on the market. If they are afraid of this happening they can simply decrease the drop rate or drop locations of these items to achieve the supply/demand balance they want.
These concerns, for me come from having a decent amount of these various ships existing in various states(Faction, some are BPC form, some are painted ships) and having these SKINs and ships preserved fairly, as well as wanting to invest in more rare and thus expensive SKINs currently available in game(think Rattlesnake Victory Edition and the like).
Other than these concerns I am actually looking forward to this new SKINs system. It will motivate and allow me to fly ships sporting these paint schemes without fear of losing them, moving them from a collector item locked in a container to something I can actually use. Hopefully this will also lead to a lot less physical ships needing to exist to fly them. Which means having to produce a lot less ships just to have them exist, and the hassle that comes with that when it comes to relocating a collection of any large size.
Hopefully CCPs vision lines up with my expectations, and I can both now use painted ships, and clean up a lot of the mess I have from all of these different systems for paint schemes existing at once. |