Do paint jobs and ship kits make sense when there is no 3rd person view?

Gunnet

G
They make me happy even if I don't spend all that much time looking at them. I still know they're there. And they do make for more interesting screenshots.

I suspect that this is another one of those topics in which your opinion is heavily influenced by how much you buy into immersion.
 
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Terry Bruge-Hiplo

Terry Bruge-Hiplo
Heavenly-Hammer said:
fighters!
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This. :D and with later content, we'll probably be seeing it if we can walk around the station too.

WeirdWizard said:
Frontier Elite 2 had external vanity cameras back in 1993 nearly 10 years before the first mobile phone camera. But you know, it's cool to blame the current generation for everything right.
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Well you could still fully control your ship so they weren't really vanity cameras, but point still taken...
 
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Sterling MH

Banned
S
Alec Turner said:
It's actually a very VERY good point. I've bought loads of paintjobs and ship kits now and yes, they do make for great screenshots ..
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The short of it is it's your money.

If the opportunity to spend it elsewhere is less than the enjoyment of seeing it painted or remodeled in the outfitters, and you think FD deserve the cash, they do so.

But if you don't think it worth it, or FD have no need of the extra cash (2+M sales), or you just get no grin from a cosmetic that changes nothing, especially on Solo (and going Open is agreeing to be someone's plaything if you cross paths), then no, they're not worth it.

If you're asking if it's worth it, the answer is most likely "No.".
 

PyrateLV

P
Dimensions said:
I've been tempted to buy paint jobs and ship kits, but then think what is the point of buying something that only other people can see. The only time you get to see it is in the hanger, the external camera view or parked on a planet. All three of those I don't spend much time on. I guess you could say the same about clothes to a certain extent, but you're probably not going to go out naked, so you might as well look good too.
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I play Solo so I cant see the point of Exterior customization without a 3rd person view. My super secret camera doesnt work (up/down, left/right only. No turn or forward/back) so I cant take a screenshot.
 

Loskene

L
Since we're having another moan about the jankyness of the external cam I might as well just copypaste my old post explaining how it came to be as such to begin with.

Loskene said:
Here's the deal with the third person cam.

Originally we were never meant to have any form of third person view, by design. Maintaining continuity of the first person experience or whatever.
Anyway, people obviously didn't like that because they wanted to look at their ships, and frontier eventually decided to capitulate when they realised it would boost paintjob sales and provide a lot more free publicity from screenshots and videos. Funny how profit will light a fire under one's creative integrity huh.
Well, people still want their immersion and for things to make sense in-universe, so many suggestions were thrown about for how to reconcile the two ideals.

Frontier hummed and hawed a bit but eventually we all kind of agreed on some sort of follow-me camera drone that you could launch and have track your ship for those cool exterior shots. The concept sounded pretty sweet, being able to control it directly or give it preset commands for those star trek flyby shots or what have you.

Now something like that takes a while to implement, you need art assets made, code needs to be written, QA passes, feedback stages and all that usual malarkey.
Frontier didn't know when that would be able to happen though, given that this was still early after launch and a lot of work was being done for the season 1 patches and horizons ticking away in the background taking up all of their time and effort.

But one thing they already had lying around was the debug cam, which was a very basic system that functioned off the ship's existing control settings and simply moved the "head" camera we normally see through from inside the cockpit. This only existed so the devs could make those cinematic trailers, but in order to tide us over while we waited for the real external camera system to be developed, they added some range limits to the debug cam and gave us access to it.

You can probably guess where the problem is arising now.
2 years later and the proper camera system hasn't been so much as mentioned ever since, and as far as most of today's playerbase is concerned, they're either too new to know about this or it just fell down the memory hole.

So if you want them to cut the cord, just remind them of what they originally promised, and refresh everyone else's memory of the same.
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To be honest I'm surprised they haven't put any work into it since, given how much FD love getting their players to do their work for them, and a better camera would both boost paintjob sales and provide a vast increase in the free PR generated by screenshots and cinematic videos.
As for the main topic of the thread, I actually do take note of what other players' ships look like, and like to watch them come and go in busy starports. It's a shame there are no basic paint colours available for free or with in-game credits, it would make the view more interesting from time to time. Definitely the bad side of moneygrubbing to charge money for all the flat paint schemes in the store instead of just the more complex artistic ones.
 

Kaybe

Kaybe
I buy skins for myself and to take screenshots with the debug camera.

Plus the default paint jobs on most ships is ugly as sin.
 

VR Nupol

VR Nupol
Lucian Arkright said:
The traditional complaint about adding 3rd person (made in Mech Warrior Online a few years back too) is the risk of "wall peeking", or gaining further situational awareness then you would from 1st person mode.

Funnily enough, the main reason it was asked for in MW:OF was to see paint jobs too!
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And tracking an enemy in a fight using a VR headset gives you no further situational awareness? Add a ship with a wide cockpit and you can very well predict the actions of another commander. BTW there are no walls in space ;).
 
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Lianachan

Lianachan
I'm pretty sure they'd sell more paint jobs if we had a proper external camera. As it stands, plenty people seem to like them. For me, though, they'd be a waste of money. In fact, it's pretty offensive (and appallingly MMORPG) that they're even offered for sale.
 

Lucius-Darcia

Lucius-Darcia
Alec Turner said:
It's actually a very VERY good point. I've bought loads of paintjobs and ship kits now and yes, they do make for great screenshots ..

http://i.imgur.com/o03Ehmy.png

http://i.imgur.com/iSB7V5I.png
.. but, did I really buy them for that? (it would be like buying nice cloths specifically for selfies). And how many other players actually see (or notice) them? I'm forever flying in and out of Jameson Memorial, and there's always a few other players there, but they're inevitably inside the station (outfitting) or reading the mission board or somesuch. Certainly not gazing upwards in the hope of seeing my glorious ship go cruising past.

But then I think about cloths. How much time do I spend looking at my own cloths (there's certainly no 3rd person view in real life). Sure, other people see me all the time - but how may of them actually notice anything and how would I know if they did?

I think the purpose of these vanity items (like in real life) is simply to know that we're wearing them. It makes us feel good about ourselves. I'm not sure if it actually matters whether anyone is actually looking.

:cool:
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OH MY GOD!!!!
This Pheonix paintjob is AWESOME!! It's one thing to miss paintjobs and never will have them. It's a complete different thing to know about it.....[cry]
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Lucius-Darcia said:
OH MY GOD!!!!
This Pheonix paintjob is AWESOME!! It's one thing to miss paintjobs and never will have them. It's a complete different thing to know about it.....[cry]
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Got to admit, it is one of my favourites. It's the Lavecon skin (so only available to attendees of the Lavecon event) coupled with the Fuel Rats decal.

lLbwDJY.png
 
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lemny

lemny
I buy paint jobs, bubble heads and other stuff mainly to support FD for their incredible work and because they made my childhood dream came to life.
And this stuff is actually fun too... I like the small Coriolis wire frame model wobbeling around in my cockpit. :D
 

AgamemnonWhen

AgamemnonWhen
I, too, play Solo mode and I have purchased several paint kits for ED.

I'm not entirely sure why, but it does feel like a bit of an extravagance. I don't even really take many 'selfies' of my ship either.

Maybe it's partly some sort of vanity, or maybe it makes me feel a bit better because I'm supporting the future of the game by throwing money at Frontier. Or, maybe, it's worth it for that odd occasion when I do post a screenshot to my FB account...

Whatever the reason, FD's marketing team are clearly doing something right, making me spend real-world money on something hardly anyone will ever see.

Maybe one day we'll be able to see each other's skins... that might - just might - tempt me into Open/Private.
 

lemny

lemny
AgamemnonWhen said:
Whatever the reason, FD's marketing team are clearly doing something right, making me spend real-world money on something hardly anyone will ever see.
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FD ist doing many things right and one major point is, they are only selling cosmetic items... no pay to win content.

I bought the lifetime season pass because I have so much faith in this game.
Surely they did a few thing wrong in the past, but they listen. The removal of commodities from the blueprints f.e. made engineers fun again and now I can also life with rolling the dice for upgrades.
 
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