Leaked internal memos, lack of meaningful communication with its playerbase, rumours of a buyout by a company proven to destroy every intellectual property they touch, a possibly fake financial report showing the company will be closing its doors in October if it can’t raise another $8 million to qualify for a larger loan … if it’s true that any publicity is good publicity, CCP is the most successful gaming company in the world right now. Everywhere you turn: their official forums, player blogs, gaming sites; everyone is talking about CCP.

So I won’t be.

Incarna 1.01

The first followup to the Incarna expansion deploys today. You can read the patch notes HERE. (I normally don’t post patch notes links as if you play EVE Online you probably already know how to find patch notes). As you can see, nothing stellar, and that’s ok.

I’ve spent some time recently extracting the models from ingame for use in my 3D renders. Some have been pretty straightforward: chairs, couches, tables, the various pieces that go in the room. The room itself: walls, floors, ceilings, have been problematic for me thus far. If anyone is handy with Triexporter and wants to give ol Roc some assistance, I’d be happy for it. Seriously, I’m asking.

Anyway, I did come up with a new Incarna image, as you can see below. The high rez version can be downloaded HERE.

As I was working on this image, thinking of the various pieces I wanted to include to personalize it just for me, it reminded me of my time in SWG. Silly as it sounds, one of the systems they did so well was vanity. I owned mansions, fully decked out with the most rare and collectible items in the galaxy. They were all badges of accomplishment as there were no MT in that game. Even my larger ships (that allowed players to walk onboard), were fully decorated. Many a party were thrown just for me to show off to my online friends all the wonderfully exotic things I had collected over time. It really gave a personalized touch to the game, making it feel like I had a more individual story to tell.

Up until Incarna, that has been something sorely lacking within the sandbox of EVE Online. Yes, we all have our own unique histories, and many of us have fleshed out our individual tales through our blogs. Ingame, however, everything is uniform, and I’m ok with that. For now.

So what would I like to see available to personalize Captain’s Quarters?

• customized room: different configuration options, bigger spaces via microtransaction
•  trophy case options to display my medals: floor mounted, wall mounted
• trade goods, all of them: holoreels, khumaaks, cans of roe, frozen food, planetary vehicles for my hangar space, neophite mineral sample, pax amarria (know thy enemy), protein delicacies, Quafe, spiced wine, spirits, synthetic coffee (for guests as I don’t touch the stuff), tobacco
• political paraphernalia: politician vouchers, pamphlets
• nexus chips
• insignias
• criminal dog tags
• narcotics
• criminal evidence
• essentially anything that exists in the market that will fit in my room

What else would I like to see that doesn’t exist?

• better tattoo selection via microtransaction
• reasonably priced clothing options
• mini games
• magazines
• animated exotic dancers (pole included)
• animated slaver hound pets
• programmable androids
• jukebox with custom playlists
• throw rugs
• wall paintings
• controllable lighting and lamps
• couch, chair and table options
• a cold room to hang corpses in
• different bed sizes, and the ability to lay down in them
• custom emotes via microtransaction
• a bar
• sound speakers
• desktop picture frames
• ashtray
• cigars

The list goes on and on.

This is what I thought Incarna would be. This is what I hope Incarna will still be. The initial NEX pricing has put me off of clothing purchases honestly. Any of the items in the list above, or of a similar vein, would be more than welcome in my vision of Incarna. A variety of small, reasonably priced microtransactional items that are based on volume, not price point. I guarantee you that if all of these items were already there, I would’ve bought them all, and spent far more than on a single monocle, which has no appeal to me personally (Seriously, Roc with a monocle?).

I think that in the coming months CCP should really think about this strategy. They would definitely sell more items, and therefore make more profit. And if and when Incarna finally expands to social areas, think of how awesome it will be to have fellow pilots over just to show off your stuff.

Hmmm, guess I talked about it after all.