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[Verone]

The good lady Steel can't post here... so I come as le messenger... Please read and comment 

This is an official request for feedback regarding the contents of the NeX store (not the prices; please do not raise that issue).

It's recognised that what is in the store isn't necessarily what people would want to see their characters wearing. The RP community has perhaps the biggest stake in Incarna's interactive platform, and it's important to us that we provide the opportunity for you to round out your ingame experience.

I would like to ask you to consider the items in the Noble Exchange as it is now.

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?

- What do you not like, and why?

- What would you like to see there?

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

Please keep responses constructive and on-topic; if a discussion thread is created, please have a moderator link it to this post so I can follow along.

--
Fly reckless!
 

CCP Maiden Steel

[Louella Dougans]

is this on a blog ?

[Katrina Oniseki]

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?
Not much, unfortunately. The male clothing looks nice though. Nice boots. The coats are gorgeous, and the military shirts fit well.

- What do you not like, and why?
Female clothing.

I'll start with the greaves boots. The only knee-highs you have, and the heel is centered on the arch of the foot. What? Would you walk around in those? You think high heels are bad now, try walking on the arch of your foot.

The military blouses have two problems with them, as far as I am concerned. the waist cincher is a little too high, showing off the belly, which requires a matching color shirt below to make the shirt look right with a set of pants. The white breast pocket lining is a bit too gaudy as well, and doesn't seem very flattering. The black and white are the only colors that I feel look alright with that, and only partially so.

The coats for females are completely lacking in sleeves. This wouldn't be so bad if the 3d model didn't look like it was just missing the sleeves altogether. It looks like the torso mesh was designed to use sleeves, but they were removed at the last minute because somebody thought it would look sexier. It doesn't. The shoulder to arm cutoff needs to be reworked.

- What would you like to see there?

I would like to see racial or bloodline themed clothing. Clothing that reflects faction loyalties. Ceremonial Sani Sabik robes, traditional Deteis business suits for men and women, the famously translucent Gallente outfits. There needs to be more racial flavor in the NeX store. Some racial variation on whatever theme you're going with might fit in well. Since you're on the military theme now... show us what a Federation Navy officer would wear? What would an Imperial Navy officer wear? They should have distinct flavors.

SHIP SKINS. For ALL ships, especially Tech 3.

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

Money. To be completely honest, your pricing structure is horrendous. I realize what you're trying to accomplish, but by doing so, you severely limit how much the average player can buy. We end up shopping by a budget, and that is no fun. We end up having to budget for either ships or clothing, and that makes no sense to me. Even your lower tier items are still far too expensive for clothing.

Let me put it to you this way: If I could buy two or three FULL OUTFITS (head to toe) for a single PLEX, I'd be buying many PLEX and clearing out your NeX store. But when I have to sacrifice half a PLEX for a shirt, it makes me not want to bother at all. Completing an outfit becomes too expensive to bother.

-----

TL;DR

The lack of lore-flavored options, high prices, and poor (and bland) sense of feminine fashion is a major setback for the NeX right now. There are very very few items worth their price for sale at the moment. Either give some really stunning full outfits like this and this or lower the prices to reflect the fairly mundane styles you have now.

* Yes I realize that art designer is no longer with CCP. that doesn't mean you cannot follow in the spirit of what they were doing. Those outfits had flavor and a distinct style. The current ones do not.

[Ghost Hunter]

Like: Formal, high-class, 'I look like a business executive/army general' clothing. Examples: Field Marshal jacket, women's 'Structure' outfits.
It fits the motif with CCP's selling point of Capsuleers being the epitome of the social classes, as well as the firmly established power Capsuleers wield. In general, if I'm buying clothing at the prices the NEX store demands, I want to look like a professional / bad ass.

Dislike: 'Street' and 'at home' wear. Examples: the upcoming NEX store items for the Men/women's digital/pink camo shirts.
I'm paying rates that could outfit several fully equipped battleships, things that can destroy/glass a city from orbit. Why the hell would I buy clothes that don't represent that feeling of ridiculous awesome? In general, if 'at home' wear has to exist, I would prefer it to be free or otherwise non-competitive with 'elite' looks.

What I'd like to see: Global clothing, cybernetic/robotic themed clothing choices.
In general, at the prices we're paying for NEX items currently, duplicate amounts in different stations is simply absurd. While it may encourage players to 'take their clothing with them', as is it only inhibits / penalizes players who cannot. For instance, when I fully immerse in the outlaw life style, I have no hope of visiting high sec establishments with my elite clothing. Conversely, players have no hope of visiting my null sec establishments with their clothing. Thus, I would like global clothing.

As a Sansha, I greatly adore the idea of cybernetic / robotic aspects of my characters. Until Incarna, actually, I had thoroughly established as part of my characters' designs a series of irregular 5in/6in spikes down their spines. Simple, but effective. I imagine these devices will play hell on your artists and designers, but more of them - at affordable rates - would be amazing. It greatly plays into the augmented nature of Capsuleers.

Also, free generic unisex jackets. The big one seems to be the Minmatar belt buckles and leather jacket, which is really not cutting it for a lot of characters.

Edit; Also, practical women's clothing. Jesus christ, those high heels. I'm a huge fan of women having ground touching 'stomper' boots like men, and I'm utterly tired of all the high heels fiction games make mandatory. Some of the existing default boots are pretty good for this, and I use them on all my female characters.

CQ Dress up priorities: I like to make my characters' uniform in design - when they have a theme, there's enough parts to fit into the theme to make it look 'complete'. My main character Ghost is generally running black/gray/green colors and is using the male Caldari line up to have a uniform look. My alts have a frankenstein design going on, fusing several different sets together to achieve a different uniform look. In general, pre-established uniform sets are fun and sometimes useful, but I also enjoy patchworking together different ones for an entirely new uniform appearance.

[Verone]

is this on a blog ?

Nope 

[Lyn Farel]

Why should I pay for more content ? Because its cosmetic ?

Ok, ok, on a more serious note then, even if i will never condone such a thing like the Nex :

Like : Almost nothing, except maybe the business suits. As for boots and stuff like that, they are irrelevant to me, you barely see them anyway.

Dislike : Almost everything, which makes me paradoxaly happy because I am not tempted to buy. But seriously, the designs are horrendous, especially these "military" uniforms like the sterling thing. Eek. And I am not even talking of the purely ridiculous stuff like googles and monocles.

What I'd like to see : Definitly not ship customization options in the Nex Store. I would just have to kill myself. On another note, I would like to see laboratory blouses and jackets. The badass kind, mind you, not just a RL copy, we are capsuleers in a Sci Fi setting after all. And make them look actually good, for once. What is most amusing is to see that the good looking stuff is the generic stuff available to everyone.

Oh, and allow to unlock every clothes / portrait options for every bloodline. What is that nonsense that someone of x origin can not dress as he/she wants to ?

[Nakal Ashera]

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?

Most of the implant items are pretty cool (even the monocle) and I like military uniforms. Just because they're a lot more unique then the rest of the range.

- What do you not like, and why?

Female everything. Let's start with the obvious: High heels. I mean this in the best possible way, but who on earth had the stupid idea to make female characters feet fixed in a position where they could only wear heels? It's just plain weird. What's more, it's alienating to anyone who's ever worn them in reality. They're terrible.

Next, why does everything cling? And have a low neckline? And no sleeves? I understand that the majority of the Eve playerbase is male and accept that a lot of the clothes are going to be sexualized, but at present, there is literally barely a couple of items that aren't designed to be "Sexy" in the character creator and zero for the NeX. Hell, the one pair of pants sticks to the skin in a bizzare way, and there's not a single pair of sensible shoes. It's absolutely dumb.

The other big point to me is the design. Frankly, nothing for sale is very exciting. It's all really basic stuff. It doesn't sell me as something worth millions upon millions of ISK. I want the stuff I'm buying to look like it was masterminded by a proper fashion designer and then lovingly handcrafted, not just... A plain black skirt. Some of the stuff in the Eve Concept art, or even for the old NPC designs, was really unique and interesting, and I kinda feel that's been lost.

Oh, and like everyone says, the prices are crazy.

- What would you like to see there?

Androgynous female clothing. Long sleeved shirts, flat shoes, baggy pants or shorts. Hell, even throw in some boyish stuff. Guys get to wear a longcoat, why shouldn't I?  I shouldn't have to miss out on the chance to dress like a 90's era depiction of badassness just because I'm a chick. I hate to admit it, but if you gave me the option to make my character dress more sensibly for a little money, I would totally go for it.

Also, more abstract, daring high fashion of multiple styles. It works for the default clothing to be close to what you'd see in reality, but the NeX stuff should be all "Woah, we're in the future!" Anything from crazy flamboyant dresses to hyper minimalist stuff. Body mods. Period clothing. Stuff that makes you look almost inhuman, like you're totally disconnected from the norms of society. Pod pilots are nuts - they should have the option to dress like it.

And generally, just make everything look expensive. Put some intesting designs and asymmetry into even the basic stuff to seperate it from things you could pick up at Wal-mart. That's a big problem I see in the upcoming (visable in the market) range.

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

I try and go for a look that describes my character. Like, for Nakal, I'd like to go for something simplistic and non-sexual, but sort of quietly implying wealth. A good future for Incarna would let me be able to take a look at what a persons wearing, and think to myself "Oh, they're that sorta person" just like in real life.

[Matariki Rain]

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

If we're talking wider Incarnation, establishing character and communicating information about social context, personal history, personality, and sometimes state of mind. To do that, having options so I can pick a wardrobe that's right for that character without it being identical to the wardrobe of another character (unless they're intentionally wearing a shared uniform).

Mata's clothing used to show her affiliation with, and obedience to, her clan. Over time it's changed, mostly to sleek, no-nonsense gear that's stretchy enough for movement, or to power-dressing as armour against the prying eyes of outsiders who don't partake in the tradition of displaying one's marks. She'll still dress up for a date (Matari trad, Matari modern, Gallente chic or Gallente formal; depending on the occasion and context). For rituals she'll show her marks and might not wear a lot else: a marked Matari is always well-dressed within the tribal context. For feasts she might display the wealth and craftworks of her people: again, she's moved from wearing the red and gold of her clan to the black, silver and flame of her corp, but if she's wearing a sash it'll be from her clan's weaving workshop. When she's been in mourning but unable to go home she's tended to revert to conservative clan clothing.

For Mata, and thus for me playing her, movement matters. She's originally a dancer and I play that sitting or kneeling on the floor are more normal to her than sitting on chairs. Those things affect how she perceives and moves in space, and what clothes are going to "work" for her.

I'm not sure if it's of any interest or use to the designers, but there have at various times been VR channels where part of the fun is having improbable costumes or avatars coded up.

(Mata also happens to have a replica set of Jamyl Sarum's portrait robes. Just saying.)

I note that I have an ambivalent response to the options available to me to shape and clothe my characters. I've enjoyed some aspects, including chargen and dress-ups on SiSi before release, but I'm pretty constantly reminded that I'm not in CCP's core demographic. It feels like the role of female avatars in EVE is largely to be eye-candy for male players: they can't even stand like normal people. This is one of the reasons I know the look of my hangar-bay door so well.

[Victoria Stecker]

what I said the first time in a knee jerk reaction to the topic, not really what was being asked for:

[spoiler]- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?
Not much. Some of the stuff that’s on sisi but not on tq yet looks neat, but overall it’s got a real case of meh going on.

- What do you not like, and why?
The way clothing of any kind makes female characters’ chests even bigger.  A woman that looks decent without any clothes on looks horrid once she’s dressed up. Wtf?
Going off on a tangent here, in the context I think you’re asking what items we don’t like. But here’s my real beef with NeX: The decision to tie Aurum to Plex, combined with the stated desire not to blow Plex prices through the roof. This was where you screwed up, from an economic standpoint.
If you had put stuff in NeX that was both attractive and affordable, the demand would have blown plex prices through the roof. As a result, the stuff in Nex falls into two broad categories that you backed yourself into:

Affordable but so ugly that no one will touch it; and

Attractive but so expensive I could faction pimp a battleship instead.

I could have told you that the Nex was going to flop when you first announced that you were going to tie it to Plex and then try not to spike the price of plex.

If you want to fix Nex, break those two up. Let people simply purchase Aurum for cash and then resell the stuff on the market. Put the MICRO back in micro-transactions. There are actually a couple of items in Nex that I think might be neat to get, but there’s no way I’m spending the kind of money you’re asking for. Also, you’ll look less like greedy little jerks charging 3600 Aur when there’s only 3500 in a plex.[/spoiler]

What's actually being asked for:

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?

At this point? Not much. Certainly nothing that's affordable.

- What do you not like, and why?

Most of it is pretty horrid. Women's clothing takes a reasonably sized chest and turns it into safety hazard. Whoever put the bit white-lined breast pockets on the jackets needs to be slapped. Shoe selection is terrible.

- What would you like to see there?

Some of the stuff availble on sisi but not on tq looks neat. wtf is the point in not releasing it all yet if it's already designed and in the game? IE stuff you can view in the market but can't buy in NeX yet, what's the point?

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

Give an impression of who and what the character is so that I can start building someone's impression of the character as soon as they look at him/her/it. Currently there isn't enough variety to do that except with a very broad brush. This links back to my general beef with the new Carbon characters where variety has been sacrificed in favor of realism.

[Jade Constantine]

Best response I can make to this is a repost of my eve general discussion post on the subject:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=20208&find=unread

I would appreciate it if CCP Maiden Steel would come and give her thoughts on my thread there also.

TLDR

The Problem with Incarna content is NeX
Remove in-game items from NeX
Make Nex out of game items only
Make Incarna content (clothes and accessories etc) part of the game with production and stats to enable in game industry and enhance custom options.
Profit!

The Detail

The summer 2011 “expansion” for Eve Online named “Incarna” will likely go down in history as the game’s least successful, most unpopular and generally disliked addition since the game went live in 2003. The reasons for this are now generally known: confused development goals, lack of actual gameplay via walking in stations, single Captain’s Quarter, poor technology optimisation and the removal of existing functionality unwisely intended to push the Incarna hanger style to the foreground. This content-barren joke of an expansion after 18 months of drought in core game development, content iteration, or shiny things for us to do led to the perfect storm of protest and dropping subscriptions crisis that led us to where we are now.

We know all this, CCP know all this, and now we’ve hopefully begun to move past it to a brighter tomorrow of eve-focused development and renewal of proper expansion development in the future. More Apocrypha and Exodus scale expansions – less Tyranis and Incursion thrift store offerings.

But I want to make a serious pitch now for why CCP should take an additional step and significantly redesign/ditch the NeX store to completely avoid in-game items and focus it instead on out of game fan-friendly stuff.

From the outset this summer NeX was a disaster for CCP and Eve Online. It launched with a weak selection of overpriced and poorly-designed drab unimaginative clothing with a monocle that made Eve Online the proud recipients of this season’s horse armour award for gaming industry ridicule.

“What? You play the game where they charge you 72 dollars for a virtual monocle ... lol!”

The stuff was too expensive, it wasn’t very exciting, it looked (to be honest) just like the terrible Minmatar Captain’s quarter – grey, olive, brown, depressing and completely lacking in the verve and creativity of the original character generator costumes which owed more the Fifth Element



crossed with David Lynch's Dune



Rather than today’s depression-era warehouse stuff.



But the disaster goes deeper.

The argument about whether CCP would go further than vanity-only Microtransactions let them know that the player-base would not stand for overt pay-to-win in Eve (and that PLEX was just far enough on that score). That meant the perception we were somehow happy with “vanity” stuff being fodder for the NeX store going forwards and opened the can of worms for all future bits and pieces: corp logos on ships? (vanity!) paintjobs (vanity!) coloured engine trails (vanity!) new cyno effects (vanity!) – If CCP could draw a line between game-affecting and non-game affecting content and charge Aurum for one and deliver as traditional content for the other – that really did beckon the cheapening of future Eve where all kinds of content would be processed through the NeX store rather than properly integrated into the Eve sandbox through industry/exploration/agents etc. Second-rate content-lite for "vanity" and no game impact that nonetheless ate up the time and focus of artists!

Why would they EVER produce clothing bpcs and lp offers to award actual gameplay when they could simply use the crass mechanism of the NeX store to foist this stuff on the credulous?

And worse yet: in order to keep this divide sacrosanct it meant the “vanity” stuff could NEVER have in-game impact (and thus protect CCP from the pay-to-win allegation) which had the side-effect of marginalizing all this kind of content in the future. Clothing could never have skill modifiers and game effects, ship schemes and camo could never even slightly change the stats, no benefits from any furniture or room fittings you bought for aurum etc. Basically the NeX connection made all this new graphics content sterile from birth, representing nothing more than detritus that fills up the database but doesn’t enhance our gameplay!

Now, when I play other games (tm) I like to collect armour sets, spacesuits, hats, goggles etc that look cool AND have the right stats. In fallout 3 I loved the recon combat armour because it looked cool and didn’t mess up my stealth. In mass effect I’d often choose my suits and weapons on aesthetics, hell in dragon age I generally refused to wear the powerful archmage robes regardless of their stats because they just looked silly. But point is – they had an impact on the game because of looks AND stats.

And if the price of making these things available through the NeX store in Eve is no in-game effects then for me the whole experiment is a double-fail because I hate microtransactions in a subscription game as much as I hate stupid hats and clothing that do nothing at all.

Gaming is about playing around with modifiers and stats and equipment and tweaking your fit. Eve Online grabbed me like a coke addiction the first time I saw it because of the fitting screen and customization of ships. I want to min-max, I want to juggle stats, I want to chase that ideal fit and play around with weird and wonderful modifiers. Eve was just like Magic the Gathering deck-building but with ships in a lovely multiplayer Elite style universe – how can that fail?

So when the realization of Incarna hit with drab clothing that does nothing but bypass the eve player economy I just came to believe that the whole NeX concept is evil and needs to be thrown down a flight of stairs and shot three times in the head at the bottom, because it represents nothing so much as cheapening the dream and vision of Eve Online the player-driven economic and combat sandbox.

So here’s my pitch:

1. Change the NeX store so it sells only out of game items. These to include EON subs, tee-shirts that can be autoprinted with your avatar face, corp or alliance logo, coffee mugs, mouse mats, whatever really. Make it a resource to allow players to buy out of game stuff that will help market Eve in the real world. Have the prices variable on price-indices for PLEX demand to ensure profitability for CCP by all means. Just keep it completely away from the in-game feature set of Eve online.

2. Commit to delivering all existing and future clothing and accessories for Avatars, ship skins, ship logos etc via traditional Eve sandbox tools. Have blueprints for manufacturing these things, have them come from exploration, lp, pirate drops, have them part of invention, have them require special PI production chains, have players find, research and market these things and put them on the market for players to buy.

3. Give clothing, accessories, skins and such ... stats. Make it a part of the game. Make me want to buy a set of Stalker Combat Goggles because they give +3% tracking for small frigate guns. Make me want the advanced model because they come with some UI tweaks that suit frigate combat. Make people go find and manufacture the parts for ludicrously rare bloodsilk Sani Sabik ceremonial robes because they come with bonus LP rewards and access to the inner sanctums of cultist burial tombs (which at some bright point in the future maybe you’ll be able to undock your avatar into.) Make beautiful black dresses and silken kimonos that give bonuses to fast talk and social etc. Basically – once this stuff is in the player-manufactured domain it’s okay to give it game effects.

4. Ship skins and visual customization – these can also have effects if the “kits” whatever they are called, are also produced by players for players. Deep black “stealth skins” reducing signature a bit, camo and faction navy skins to increase LP rewards fractionally, pirate skins change performance in small ways. Just have everything tweak the stats a little and allow players to customize their looks and stats. Hell, you could have the ability to add those little searchlights and beams to ships to give them a bonus to hacking or salvage or whatnot. It seems petty perhaps, but the search for the perfect ship in Eve is one of the drivers that keeps us all playing.

Some obvious questions and answers:

1. Hey Jade obviously CCP needed more money that’s why they launched NeX now you want to take it from them?

A. Eve already has Microtransactions – they are called PLEX. CCP consulted with and received the go-ahead on this from the CSM and the PLEX experiment has been successfully integrated with the game world and economy. Not everyone likes it, but most players accept it. PLEX lets RL rich players spend RL money to get more ISK to spend on stuff. The key to CCP increasing revenues in PLEX is to sell more PLEX. They sell more PLEX by making the game interesting and having things for people to aspire to that cost more ISK than they can easily spend with normal gameplay. People spend RL cash to buy PLEX to sell so they can afford Faction Implant sets. They will do the same for rare faction clothing and combat goggles that look cool and give them combat benefits. I don’t believe Eve needs a second stream of microtransaction based around the NeX store for in-game items vanity-only or not.

2. All that stuff you said sounds great but haven’t CCP just committed to FIS-only focus and now you want them designing clothes and frilly knickers again?

A. When the clothing has an in-game (and often in-space) effects then it is part of the core Eve experience. I personally love customization, I love new modules, new technology, drugs and boosters, I adore rigs and implants and all that stuff. Make clothing and accessories another kind of customization and its part of the FiS experience. You know how seasoned small unit pvp’ers take a long look at enemy ships to see the kind of turrets and shielding effects displayed to judge their attack strategy. I want to be looking at a particular avatar to check out the kind of combat goggles he might have to give me a hint on his methods and specialisation. It’s the kind of thing you don’t have to do – but if you do can give you the edge. This kind of complexity is what makes Eve great.

3. But surely giving all the clothing and accessories and ship skins and whatnot stats is a HUGE job and we’ve just seen CCP is incapable of delivering more than 1 racial CQ in 5 years for release. How can you possibly expect them to manage all that stuff?

A. I’m giving Hilmar the benefit of doubt and taking him at his word. If this is a true reallocation of all teams towards core Eve content then they will have plenty of development effort at their hands in the coming year. And if they are going to now take advice on their production methods and project management we might well see a radically-improved scale of delivery from the company. I honestly believe they have been underperforming for years now due to poor internal structures and frankly confused management. We’ve seen what they used to be able to do with Exodus and Apocrypha which were giant expansions with tonnes of content and interest and those are the kind of expansions the game now needs to keep it fresh. The changes I’m suggesting in this thread would be a bullet point or two in the Exodus feature list. I have to believe that CCP could recapture the ability to produce on that scale again.

4. But Jade why do you hate NeX so much, can’t we just keep the NeX store for truly prestigious rare $-only showoff items and have other things produced by bpos and lp?

A. No, no, a thousand times no. The problem with NeX is human nature. If you have an easy and a hard way to do things you end up taking the easy way. Its easier for CCP to deliver their new clothing and accessory content without stats via NeX and just walk away. Its the easiest quickest, dirtiest option. But it isn’t the right option. As long as NeX exists for in-game items it means that there cannot be stats and game-effects for clothing and accessories AND there will always be competition between the cheap and dirty delivery method and the proper Eve sandbox delivery method. When crunch time comes tell me which option will mostly win? I want ALL Eve content properly integrated with the economic sandbox and evolving one-world paradigm of New Eden and frankly so should you.

Truly prestigious Eve Online content needs to come from playing the game. If you want to show off then flaunt a tournament victory cruiser in PVP, fly a Titan, build an outpost. By all means lets encourage CCP to give us bigger top range content to flash about (and work as an ISK sink at the same time) but lets kill off this corrosive concept of rl $ for special players nonsense. Eve is great because its different from WoW, not because its happy playing second fiddle in space.

So to summarise:

I would like all in-game items removed from the NeX store and the NeX store itself retasked for the sale of out of game items for direct sale to players. (If this is not feasible then just remove the NeX store entirely).

I would like all items of upgrade clothing/accessories/skins etc in the game to have in-game effects and be entirely player manufactured from sources discovered and utilized in-game.

I would like future iterations of Incarna to be a showcase for things that we as players find and build and buy (from the player market) and use in-game.

In this way I believe that Incarna can be saved and made into a full and healthy feature of Eve Online rather than being a red-headed stepchild of MT-greed and castrated pay-to-win folly.

And core Eve gameplay will be rewarded with another level of customization that means all of us can do a bit more juggling of stats and asthetics in our search for our virtual space identities in New Eden.

Thanks for reading!

[Syylara/Yaansu]

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?

I can't say there's much there that tugs at me, especially for the commitment in time and energy (or RL cash) that is involved.  The skirts are a start, however, for ideas I'll expand on below, but that's probably about all.

- What do you not like, and why?

The lack of variety.  There's some "military" stuff that strikes me as more "cadet-ish" than anything. There's some generic garb and a few miscellaneous items.  You should have held off initial roll-out until a more robust selection was available.  I know to some degree you'd prefer the art budget be self-sustaining from store sales, but it is a big chicken-and-egg.  People won't buy unless you give them something desirable and you can't design enough stuff to hit a wide swathe of people's "do want" buttons if there's no money to pay a decent staff of artists.

- What would you like to see there?

Business style "power" suits for traders looking the part, lab coats for research-y types, "statesman/woman", high fashion, etc.  These are premium-priced goods for an unfathomably powerful class of people.  That said, not everything has to be opulent, I'm also a fan of "understated" looks.

A whole range of cybernetic mods.  Wrist comms, forearm interface panels, headsets (bio-integrated or not), targeting reticules (similar to the old Achura hair options), take it and run with it.

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

In MMOs, perhaps more than even in the real world, we rely on visual aesthetic cues for expression or recognition.  I like when my appearance can be used to express certain attributes, qualities, or affiliations of my character.  I'll give some examples from what I've done with characters with just the CC.

Syyl and Yaan are matched, stomper boots, black cargo vest over tank...they are part of an investigative unit of Mordu's so I wanted slightly merc-ish professionals.  However, I've also envisioned them as Caldari-ish law enforcers (when in "investigator" mode) or lawyers (when giving testimony to State panels, committees, etc).  Being Intaki and Achura, another issue for me is that while I can appreciate maybe a few limited race/bloodline exclusives, I'd prefer as much freedom as practicality allows.

Saul Ambrye - Simple robe-y shirt, looks like a "refined, educated" elder statesman.

Kerri Knight - Originally had the loose white with gold patterns across the shoulders/neck, changed to the two-tone black form fitting one as it has at least the vague silhouette of a nicely tailored blazer.  Was very much going for a C.J. Cregg look as she's the PR face of the company (I think I managed to get a decent resemblance on the last pass, too :9).

Danaw SSar - This is the one right now that I just went "meh" on eventually.  Wanted the studious researcher, just ended up with another statesman.

Beyond that, despite the request to skirt the topic, pricing.  Most of these are industry alts and I couldn't imagine trying to put 5 outfits together at current prices.  However, in that supply/demand sort of way, if the price is low enough, then people may very well dress even their sock-puppet IGS alts up :9.

[Louella Dougans]

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?
I like the idea of the dress thing. Instead of being seperate tops & bottoms, the one-piece dress is neat.

- What do you not like, and why?
the shape of the heeled shoes. the peculiar ways that the breasts are modelled on several clothes, e.g. the quafe t-shirt, appears to be sprayed on, such that you can clearly see the shape of both breasts, rather than it being stretched between the two.

- What would you like to see there?
Hats. Handbags. other accessories. Lingerie, lots thereof. The original char creator when it appeared on test server, you could choose between 3 or 4 colours for underwear, but that vanished. I would like to see variety in that sort of thing again. Because that's important. Even though the game would force you to wear clothes, what you are wearing underneath is YOUR choice, and only YOU would know, and that's important and stuff.
also stockings and gloves and other such things.

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?
things that match style wise. I like there to be a variety of item shapes. I prefer variety of shape to variety of colour, because the shapes give more freedom of expression, because certain colours simply do not go together.

[Arkady Sadik]

With the caveat that I haven't been looking at the NeX store much as I can't play sensibly with the 3D environment loaded, so my opinions are a bit limited, but I did look at it a bit:

- What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?
- What do you not like, and why?
- What would you like to see there?
- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?

Currently, my priority for CQ dress-up is make my character portrait look good. I'll answer this under the assumption that it's for actual 3D interaction.

What I want is to establish/underline my character's personality and background through clothing. This means strict, no-frills, down-to-earth looks.

I would love to have a casual outfit, a military service outfit, and a dress uniform for special occasions.

Casual outfit works right now, though not in the NeX store. The default options are ok-ish. Not ideal, but doable.

Military service outfit is very bad right now. The military lines in the NeX store look like what you'd get if you run into the next army store and buy out the vanity section, not like something an actual military would put their members in. They need to be a lot more functional. I'd also love some sensible working uniforms with utility belts and bags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_of_the_United_States_Navy has a nice overview.

Some of the NeX store tries to create some dress uniform style clothing. I could do with that, but I feel they do not really catch the Minmatar style - the military jackets do not look "functional" enough (as functional as dress uniforms can look like).

Something I'd really like would be medals and similar. A way of porting the in-game medals to Incarna would be *sweet*.

Oh, and more tattoo options - both more obvious ones and more subtle ones. Maybe even animated ones, as some tattoos show only in certain emotional states. But please not for AUR. Minmatar are oppressed enough as is! <.<


All in all, if I may be frank, I think the clothing looks way too much like sci fi fan fiction clothing and rather uncomfortable as opposed to something I'd expect capsuleers to actually wear. For example, the male jackets are way too big and put more focus on enhancing "broad shoulder muscle looks" than actually being nice to wear. Females in EVE seem to only want to wear clothing that is a size or two too small so their curves stand out, which makes it rather annoying to create actually believable female avatars. I had more hope here when I saw that early versions of CQ actually allow something else than boob monsters to be created, but with the current clothing, even the smallest breasts look like they are held up by a wonderbra and some padding.

I would love if Incarna creates an environment of believable, realistic characters. The current selection is not completely out of line yet, but it's at the border. Please try to fill the area towards "normal" and not go too much towards "puberty dreams".

[Desiderya]

What items do you like in the NeX store, and why?
Although I haven't bought it personally, I like the combat goggles for the gadgeteer-factor.
The Uniforms are also pretty neat.

- What do you not like, and why?
Personally I don't like the eye implants since they look far too clunky.
Also I don't like the uniformity of the uniforms. Sounds strange, I know, but I would've prefered a basic style - asking for entirely different ones might be too much too ask - that's different in detail for the various empire factions.

- What would you like to see there?
More gadgets and different uniform styles. As a general rule of thumb I'd prefer to see more variety in general. When we'll see business clothing, for example, it would be disappointing to have one style for each gender that only varies in color.
In general, racial variations for every 'theme' as well as a broader selection of casual wear.

- What are your priorities when you're playing CQ dress-up?
That it fits to the character and to the situation - the last circumstance will become more vital when we can actually see each others avatars. Also wouldn't like to "wear what everyone else is wearing.", even more so when I invest ISK/Aurum into it. The current selection of standard and NeX clothing is really pretty and offers a lot of variety over the various combinations, but it still feels a bit more limited than it should be.

[Arkady Sadik]

In general, racial variations for every 'theme'

This, actually, and for all races. Being able to wear "the Caldari look" as a Minmatar for example is quite a statement (or even "the Amarr look"), and can serve as an RP hook.

More clothing that can serve as RP hooks without being "what everyone wants" would be nice. Racial clothing styles, specific scars, markings of some kind, military unit badges, etc.