I dissent. If the players had been listened to, the NEx store would be riddle with a hundred items already existing as market tabs, and with prices low enough so a set of top tier costed less than a PLEX and no top tier item was more expensive than a T1 battleship. And in a next incarnation, NEx would eventually get middle tier and high tier that actually were better than low tier.

You know, if players were (HAD BEEN!) listened to, the post-Crucible NEx would already have a meaningful set of items worth collecting, and a pricing structure set to match the industry standard for microtransactions.

Instead, we got 120 developers fired whereas CCP Zinfandel was not even scolded, nor has apologyzed, nor has fixed his personal botch (as far as we can tell), despite Zinfandel's botch was the largest individual contribution to the perfect shitstorm of last june.

And all we need to check is the NEx store and that cyan 5,500 Aur figure many fo us still have there as a sign of how much we feel like spending a bloody PLEX to get a single bloody skirt.

Firstly thank you for your post here CCP Manifest. Its good to read your extended view of events in addition to the Edge article but I do have some questions about your quote on Microtransactions;



You state there is "interest" in the player base for microtransactions (virtual goods sales) but would like to know where you have taken this statement from. The largest scale direct poll on the issue (CSM crowdsourcing http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1395464) showed that 79% of respondants were against ANY form of microtransactions whatsover. 10% were in favour of the so-called "vanity only" microtransactions and only 5% were for actual convenience game-effecting microtransactions.

So in the strictest sense of the word sure - there is "interest" but its not majority interest and it by no means respresents the likely expressed opinon of the player base.

And bare in mind this crowdsourcing survey came way before NeXCarna and the summer of rage protests where the implications of where you were going on Microtransactions became clearer.

What I'd like to ask you directly CCP Manifest is do you fully understand (and agree or disagree) with the position many take, that since we are already paying a premium rate subscription to play Eve online, it is unreasonable to spend our subscription money on "optional" MT-delivered content (the hybrid model) - and in doing so increase anger and resentment in the player base.

CCP already has the PLEX system to raise extra income from players who want the "convenience" of instant ISK to give them advantage in game and this doesn't damage the integrity of the sandbox by injecting non player manufactured items.

CCP already has "monetized" the eve universe by introducing content and systems that many find advantageous to access via multiple accounts. Everything from cyno to market alts, gang leadership bonus givers, salvage, ganking, mining whatever - all these things can be done with multiple accounts and each accout is in essence a conventience "microtransaction" that gives ccp more money.

So my point is I don't believe CCP has either the need (or should consider) introducing additional microtransactions based on in-game content behind microtransaction paywalls beyond the basic subscription and it frankly angers me a lot to see CCP talking about these things as if they were somehow "for the good of the game."

I don't believe in the notion of "vanity items" in a game where so much content is vanity. All the graphic content you delivered with Crucible was "vanity" - its not needed to play the game but it sure looks nice. It makes Eve more immersive, more involving, more satisfying to play inside.

Tell me how you can talk about ship skins and alliance logos on ships in a different way? Because I tell you now I've waited to paint my ships and put alliance logos on for the best part of eight years (since we could do it in homeworld to be honest) my alliance t2 producers have wanted to brand their stuff with logos for just as long. This stuff is core Eve gameplay to increase immersion in the setting. Making it a "vanity" microtransaction and claiming it was an "optional customization" (that you didn't need to buy) is no less jarring than charging people 2500 aurum to see the new nebulas would have been.

In conclusion though. I honestly believe your virtual goods team should go back to working on genuine content for the Eve subscriber. Remove the NeX store from the game. Divide the current NeX content between the default character designer and faction loyal point stores and turn the Aurum into Snowballs that we get to fire at each other on December the 25th.

I confidently predict by doing this you will make more money from the subscriptions you will regain from lapsed angry players than you will from dribbling NeX income over the next 12 months.

Sometimes the truly "fearless" thing to do is to shoot the bad idea in the face with a large calibre pistol.

And if your credit card got billed every time you jumped into M-O, that would be a valid counter-argument.

I agree with you here, it sounds like "we were planning to be awesome, but you fuckin didn't get it"