Hi there everyone,
I imagine this kind of thing has been suggested before, but there's nothing wrong with a little reinforcement of an idea
The release yesterday of the ship kits got me to thinking about where this might be going, or could go in the future, both for players and for FD in terms of generating revenue. In addition to Elite: Dangerous, & recently again The Witcher 3, I play a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The way that Bioware & EA have implemented the vanity & cosmetic items in that game is something that could perhaps be looked at, & a few ideas borrowed from for E: D, as it makes them quite a lot of money to support the game, and also provides quite a lot of content for the players, game-play wise.
Currently we have a situation where all cosmetic items are a cash purchase via the store, which is not problematic at all. The items are mostly out of my reach cost wise, & I can't buy nearly as many as I'd like, but that's because of a truly dire exchange rate here in South Africa (R22/£[woah]), not because FD have priced them excessively. In SWTOR you can buy cosmetic items on the cash store, either by buying specific cosmetic item packs (either clothing or stronghold decorations), or by getting a number of different personal and decoration cosmetic items in the more general item packs, which also give you weapon shells, crafting materials & so on. You can also buy these packs using game in-currency via the auction house, purchasing them from other players who have bought them with cash, & then put them up for sale. Another way of obtaining certain specific cosmetic items is through gameplay, where they are awarded for certain achievements - killing a boss in a flashpoint, achieving certain milestones such as reaching max level with the different character classes, and the like. This last one is quite an important one, as it incentivises players to do different things in the game, and gives them something extra to work towards, that's quite a bit of fun.
The introduction of ship kits, and the existing paint-jobs already allow for vanity / cosmetic customisation of your ship, purchased exclusively through the cash-store. We'll be getting the player avatar creator later in this year / season, and it sounds like next year / season we'll get the ability to get up & wander around our ships, and then later in stations. There has also been an indication that at some point we'll get small scale player-owned structures, something along the lines of a small asteroid base, or hangar in a station I believe was mentioned.
To again use SWTOR as an example, you can purchase player-owned strongholds on a number of different planets, and decorate them with the cosmetic items I described above, and you can then either invite your friends to have a look, or even open them up to the public to wander into to see how you've jazzed the place up. And some players have created some very special looking places that look amazing. These strongholds are purely cosmetic, have essentially zero impact on gameplay other than the role-playing possibilities they provide for, and are I believe primarily designed as a "credit-sink" to manage inflation in the game economy - it costs millions of credits to buy, expand on, and then decorate these strongholds.
But they again give players something fun to do in the game, and are themselves a source of gameplay. It's surprisingly fun to, in effect, play "The Sims" inside SWTOR, & I've spent many an hour both obtaining decorations through in game activities, and yet more hours decorating my stronghold on Tatooine. And you can own up to four strongholds, for which you need to obtain yet more cosmetic items, either through cash purchases or by playing the game, if you want to decorate them
These upcoming additions to E: D mentioned above give scope for a great deal of cosmetic & vanity customisation, of both player avatars, and their "hangar" (in whatever form it takes). When avatars are introduced I imagine we'll be able to chose a flight suit from among a number of different options, and that'll be it for the most part. But consider when we get the option to wander around in stations - wouldn't it be nice if there were a number of different vendors on the commercial level of the station, where you could purchase new flight suits, ranging from the low end, strictly utilitarian makes, all the way up to bespoke "tailors", who custom make you a suit for silly amounts of (in-game or cash shop) money? And next door to the suit vendor, there's a regular clothing shop, where you can buy a nice set of casual wear to hang out in the dingy spacer bar next to the landing bay. Or a suit shop across the promenade for the times you want to dress up all fancy like to take that pretty young Type 9 navigator you met on a date to the more upper class cocktail lounge in another part of the station. And across the way there are shops where you can buy cosmetic items both for your ship (fuzzy dice, pinups, and the like) and your hanger (furniture, wall hangings, paintings, & so on). How much more alive will a station feel, to have NPCs and players, dressed in a wide variety of different clothing, wandering around the public areas of the station, doing various things? And as much as there are many who play this game as a solitary experience, generally speaking the "older" crowd I gather, and myself included for the most part, there are also those who enjoy the role-playing experience, and who would enjoy being able to invite their in-game friends back to their player owned structure, which they've spent time & effort on decorating.
There's a huge amount of scope with customisation, in terms of taking what has been a rather aesthetically sterile game thus far, and bringing it to life, and in how it can provide purpose and gameplay to being able to wander around on stations in future. It can give players a sense of presence and ownership, and be used to drive gameplay activities - I imagine I'll feel rather chuffed whenever I open the door to my hangar, and see that fancy plaque from the Pilots Federation congratulating me on reaching Elite, and the various certificates for participating in Community Goals, next to the trophy cabinet with all my awards from winning CQC tournaments and so on.
All of what I've described above is a huge amount of work, I can imagine, and at least some of the player-base will hate it, and want no part of it, but conversely at least some of the player-base will love it, and spend huge amounts of time & money (in-game or cash) on this aspect of the game. The online culture has changed dramatically over the last few years, and the social aspects of gaming are becoming increasingly more important. Players want to personalise their avatar, be it a ship or the pilot, make it their own, and they also want to share that with others, and see what other players have done. It might well be an idea for Frontier to look into the options of how customisation and more social elements can be introduced into the game, in a way which provides for meaningful gameplay, that gives players something to do with the billions of credits they're amassing, and also allows for revenue to be generated via the cash shop.
Comments, critique, and suggestions are welcome
I imagine this kind of thing has been suggested before, but there's nothing wrong with a little reinforcement of an idea
The release yesterday of the ship kits got me to thinking about where this might be going, or could go in the future, both for players and for FD in terms of generating revenue. In addition to Elite: Dangerous, & recently again The Witcher 3, I play a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The way that Bioware & EA have implemented the vanity & cosmetic items in that game is something that could perhaps be looked at, & a few ideas borrowed from for E: D, as it makes them quite a lot of money to support the game, and also provides quite a lot of content for the players, game-play wise.
Currently we have a situation where all cosmetic items are a cash purchase via the store, which is not problematic at all. The items are mostly out of my reach cost wise, & I can't buy nearly as many as I'd like, but that's because of a truly dire exchange rate here in South Africa (R22/£[woah]), not because FD have priced them excessively. In SWTOR you can buy cosmetic items on the cash store, either by buying specific cosmetic item packs (either clothing or stronghold decorations), or by getting a number of different personal and decoration cosmetic items in the more general item packs, which also give you weapon shells, crafting materials & so on. You can also buy these packs using game in-currency via the auction house, purchasing them from other players who have bought them with cash, & then put them up for sale. Another way of obtaining certain specific cosmetic items is through gameplay, where they are awarded for certain achievements - killing a boss in a flashpoint, achieving certain milestones such as reaching max level with the different character classes, and the like. This last one is quite an important one, as it incentivises players to do different things in the game, and gives them something extra to work towards, that's quite a bit of fun.
The introduction of ship kits, and the existing paint-jobs already allow for vanity / cosmetic customisation of your ship, purchased exclusively through the cash-store. We'll be getting the player avatar creator later in this year / season, and it sounds like next year / season we'll get the ability to get up & wander around our ships, and then later in stations. There has also been an indication that at some point we'll get small scale player-owned structures, something along the lines of a small asteroid base, or hangar in a station I believe was mentioned.
To again use SWTOR as an example, you can purchase player-owned strongholds on a number of different planets, and decorate them with the cosmetic items I described above, and you can then either invite your friends to have a look, or even open them up to the public to wander into to see how you've jazzed the place up. And some players have created some very special looking places that look amazing. These strongholds are purely cosmetic, have essentially zero impact on gameplay other than the role-playing possibilities they provide for, and are I believe primarily designed as a "credit-sink" to manage inflation in the game economy - it costs millions of credits to buy, expand on, and then decorate these strongholds.
But they again give players something fun to do in the game, and are themselves a source of gameplay. It's surprisingly fun to, in effect, play "The Sims" inside SWTOR, & I've spent many an hour both obtaining decorations through in game activities, and yet more hours decorating my stronghold on Tatooine. And you can own up to four strongholds, for which you need to obtain yet more cosmetic items, either through cash purchases or by playing the game, if you want to decorate them
These upcoming additions to E: D mentioned above give scope for a great deal of cosmetic & vanity customisation, of both player avatars, and their "hangar" (in whatever form it takes). When avatars are introduced I imagine we'll be able to chose a flight suit from among a number of different options, and that'll be it for the most part. But consider when we get the option to wander around in stations - wouldn't it be nice if there were a number of different vendors on the commercial level of the station, where you could purchase new flight suits, ranging from the low end, strictly utilitarian makes, all the way up to bespoke "tailors", who custom make you a suit for silly amounts of (in-game or cash shop) money? And next door to the suit vendor, there's a regular clothing shop, where you can buy a nice set of casual wear to hang out in the dingy spacer bar next to the landing bay. Or a suit shop across the promenade for the times you want to dress up all fancy like to take that pretty young Type 9 navigator you met on a date to the more upper class cocktail lounge in another part of the station. And across the way there are shops where you can buy cosmetic items both for your ship (fuzzy dice, pinups, and the like) and your hanger (furniture, wall hangings, paintings, & so on). How much more alive will a station feel, to have NPCs and players, dressed in a wide variety of different clothing, wandering around the public areas of the station, doing various things? And as much as there are many who play this game as a solitary experience, generally speaking the "older" crowd I gather, and myself included for the most part, there are also those who enjoy the role-playing experience, and who would enjoy being able to invite their in-game friends back to their player owned structure, which they've spent time & effort on decorating.
There's a huge amount of scope with customisation, in terms of taking what has been a rather aesthetically sterile game thus far, and bringing it to life, and in how it can provide purpose and gameplay to being able to wander around on stations in future. It can give players a sense of presence and ownership, and be used to drive gameplay activities - I imagine I'll feel rather chuffed whenever I open the door to my hangar, and see that fancy plaque from the Pilots Federation congratulating me on reaching Elite, and the various certificates for participating in Community Goals, next to the trophy cabinet with all my awards from winning CQC tournaments and so on.
All of what I've described above is a huge amount of work, I can imagine, and at least some of the player-base will hate it, and want no part of it, but conversely at least some of the player-base will love it, and spend huge amounts of time & money (in-game or cash) on this aspect of the game. The online culture has changed dramatically over the last few years, and the social aspects of gaming are becoming increasingly more important. Players want to personalise their avatar, be it a ship or the pilot, make it their own, and they also want to share that with others, and see what other players have done. It might well be an idea for Frontier to look into the options of how customisation and more social elements can be introduced into the game, in a way which provides for meaningful gameplay, that gives players something to do with the billions of credits they're amassing, and also allows for revenue to be generated via the cash shop.
Comments, critique, and suggestions are welcome
