The dev blog is in green followed by my comments in black.
This week has seen quite a controversy unfold. In almost the same instant as we deployed Incarna...
I'm pretty sure it was related to the deployment of Incarna, and not almost the same istant. "Almost the same instant" implies that people are not upset with Incarna, but last I checked on the forum people are quite livid.
...which by the way is one of our more smooth and successful expansions
Really? Is causing a 216 page, 6,472 replies complaining post as of 8:30 EST on June 24 and a riot in Jita (and reports of similar riots in other trade hubs) is a successful expansion? I mean you guys didn't delete any boot.ini files (again) so I guess it could be considered "successful" if those are the standards you want to be judged by. It's all in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah, gorgeous. Tiny single player room makes my graphic card sound like a freaken helicopter taking off. I also get the bonus feature of only running 2 gorgeous clients at a time instead of 6 functional ones... I get to actually re-log when I want to get on other accounts... It's really convenient!
an internal newsletter with rather controversial topics addressed leaked out. To further compound the confusion there was a clear and rather large gap in virtual goods pricing expectation and reality with a large segment of the community. I‘m going to address both these issues right here.
I really liked the part about selling NON-VANITY items, going completely against what you said in the past. Now industrials get to compete with CCP instead of just themselves! YAY, spawning things out of nothing! I like how it wasn't considered a big deal that you wanted to spawn the painted scorpions without consuming a regular scorpion. They stop becoming "paint jobs" when a entirely new ship is coming into existence.
Fearless
Fearless is one of our company values. It‘s also the name of an internal newsletter that has been designed and developed specifically to catalyze discussions on controversial topics. One of the biggest elephants in the room these days, not just for EVE but for the gaming industry as a whole, is virtual goods sales and microtransactions.
Therefore we dedicated an entire issue to exactly that topic. It‘s worth mentioning that the topic of the issue was "Greed is good?" as a way to ask a question that would then be debated back and forth and often exaggerated purposefully to draw contrasts and make points. The result of that is now widely available on the internet.
The opinions and views expressed in Fearless are just that; opinions and views. They are not CCP policy nor are they a reliable source of CCP views as a company. The employees who submitted articles to that newsletter did exactly what they were asked to do, write about theories and opinions from an exaggerated stand.
While it‘s perfectly fine to disagree and attack CCP over policies or actions we take, we think it‘s not cool how individuals that work here have been called out and dragged through the mud due to something they wrote in the internal company newsletter. Seriously, these people were doing their jobs and do not deserve the hate and shitstorm being pointed at them.
First of all, I agree that attacking people personally is stupid. If someone is assigned a job they should do it, even if they disagree with it.
BUT...
This is a red herring. This completely ignored any of the legitimate concerns players are having, but instead just says that were all assholes for attacking the authors. People rose legitimate concerns, but the main on is: Is the Noble Exchange going to have non-vanity items? Yes or No?
People have been shocked by the price range in the NeX store, but you should remember that we are talking about clothes. Look at the clothes you are currently wearing in real life. Do you have any specific brands? Did you choose it because it was better quality than a no-name brand? Assume for a short while that you are wearing a pair of $1,000 jeans from some exclusive Japanese boutique shop. Why would you want to wear a pair of $1,000 jeans when you can get perfectly similar jeans for under $50? What do other people think about you when they see you wearing them? For some you will look like the sad culmination of vainness while others will admire you and think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whichever it is, it is clear that by wearing clothes you are expressing yourself and that the price is one of the many dimensions that clothes possess to do that in addition to style and fit. You don't need to buy expensive clothes. In fact you don't need to buy any clothes. Whatever you choose to do reflects what you are and what you want others to think you are.
We will gradually introduce items at other price points, definitely lower and probably higher than what‘s in the store today. We hope you enjoy them and are as passionate about them as you are of the current items that are for sale.
Go ahead and charge whatever you want for designer clothes. The issue I have is that you guys are just going to STOP developing free stuff. I mean why add any more vanity items what so ever when you guys can charge 5, 10, 25, 60 dollars for a pair of virtual pants. Keep the current selection at the bare minimum and have all the cool stuff in the Noble Exchange. You only address the thing about price, but completely ignored the MAIN issues. I understand if you don't know if there will be non-vanity items in the store. I just hope you understand that I don't know if I want to keep playing a game where someone can buy things from CCP to be better then me. Other players yes, CCP no. This is purely from a Industrial point of view, the PVPers I know are more pissed then me.
