Tell ur team that the vast majority of us DO want BPOs to be sellable once the p2p market is implemented, because we bought multiple merc packs & wanted to sell our extras eventually.
& thx for Dev clarification speedily.

Well, even at that time this was called speculation and as every speculation it can go sideways sometimes ;) (IMNSHO the whole BPO price change was a disaster and shouldn't have happened in the first place)

The F2p kids will be screaming once changes to FW with a zero ISK payout and the LP boosters hit the market.You will now have to buy LP boosters AND SP boosters.

BPOs were not broken..

Removing them will have fallout, with vets demanding cash refunds.

It's pretty obvious that CCP needs to have some serious and transparent dialogues with the community and the CPM about the future of BPOs, and fast. This is a legal issue that involves contract disputes and real money. It's solution is not going to be as simple as saying, "HTFU, scrubs."

It is a good start to let us know that they are not currently going to remove the items that they have already sold to us. That cannot be the last word on this, though. We agreed to pay them money for a certain product that they advertised. To take our money, and then change the product after the fact and replace it with something that we didn't agree to buy is unethical and generally considered a breach of contract. People can say that the EULA covers their hind parts, and all I can say in response is that a class action lawsuit would definitely find out if that is true or not.

If they need to change how BPOs work, fine. If they want to change how they work without offering refunds so that I can decide if I actually want to buy this new product, that is not fine. I'm sure that their legal team is sitting them down and telling them about things like consumer protection laws, just as I am also sure that the longer they leave players in the dark about this, the longer they go without selling any more packs.

The reason why BPOs aren't working as intended is they are having a large negative impact on the ingame economy. For teh economy to function properly, items need to be consumed in battle. With BPOs, no items are consumed, which breaks this fundamental requirement.

As far as trading of BPOs, that's not decided yet. I will be taking your feedback though. We'll let you know when we come to a decision.

I will be in my unbiased mood and help host another public vote just like the one I hosted earlier about the weekly SP cap from long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

How this will work is that I will post two replies down below. Each reply is basically one of two votes to cast. You can cast your vote by simply clicking on the "Like" button located on the top-right corner of each of the two replies. I will host this Public Vote for as long as it takes for CCP to notice.

The point of this vote is to get CCP's attention on the issue on whether or not our BPO that are in our hangars (which thankfully we get to keep) get character locked or stay opened for secondary market trading. This is also to help CCP better decide which direction to go for in such a short notice if there is no time to discuss it with the CPM first. It will be most appreciated if the members of the CPM post here for support.

To CCP:

You could offer a reasonable sum of AUR or ISK through a "buyback" effort.
Mercs will readily part with the BPOs they don't use, so you'll have fewer BPOs in circulation.

If they offered a RESPEC system that was given with AUR and an optional buy back of AUR BPOs after the secondary market opened I think it would solve the ISK sink dilemma as well as any AUR devaluation you fear.

Solves two birds win one stone. Then they could actually fix the in game reward system to incentivize fierce competitive matches and EVERYBODY would be happy.

This is what gets me.

CCP:
"SPEND MONEY GUYS!! YOU CAN HAVE A *WHATEVER* BPO! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? USE IT FOREVER AND IT NEVER RUNS OUT!"

Players:
"Ok, cool... I don't know how much ISK I really save not buying MLT or STD quality items, but that sounds ok.

****Later****

CCP:
"BPOs are negative since items need to be consumed for the player economy to work... they have to go. We may have to do something about the ones you already have."

Player:
"That's not what you said when you asked for $50, $100, or $150 for items that do just that..."

Agreed. They should honor the agreement. However, I bet they would try and bump up the Adv. and proto gear stats to discourage BPO's even more, which isn't right either. Let it alone CCP! Pull the BPO's fine, but leave it alone.

This isn't a bad thing. See, this creates a market because now the only BPO's will come from users. So make it so only AUR can be charged for a BPO. That means the buyer will have to buy an AUR pack to purchase the item from the seller, who will in turn use that AUR to buy something for his character. That seems like a nice little niche in the marketplace.

If that's not the route to take, then fine. Allow trade ins for other items. At least for the ones who bought multiple packs, so they can get something back and keep one BPO for themselves.

The armory should definitely allow BPO swapping between members. It's our BPO's, we paid you, and the BPO's are our property to do with as we wish. Simple enough.

Any timeline on when the Veteran and Elite Packs will lose their BPOs?
Will we receive ample warning as with the Market BPOs?

If you do that we would have to pay a monthly fee for dust, else Dust will not make any money at all, this game is using the F2P model, you cannot buy virtual currency item with in game resources.

Non-vehicle BPOs are terrible investments. Any amount of ISK in the tens of millions payed for a BPO will never be paid back by said BPO. If CCP is so worried about collectors paying ludicrous prices for BPOs and allowing the sellers to essentially trade real money for BPOs for ISK, place a cap on the price.

At the end of the day, someone can just convert money into aurum and then aurum items into ISK if they are that desperate. With $100 you can get 225,000 AUR and buy 4500-5000 proto AUR guns. These can sell for 100k each due to the lower skill requirements. There you go, half a billion ISK. That's 5 million ISK a dollar.

If it affects industry, make the BPOs cost resources every fitting, with the only benefit being the nice skin. Just because you have a blueprint doesn't mean you magically don't need materials to make the item. It's not like I can zap cake into existence without flour just because I'm holding a recipe.

Math. If you pay just 10 million ISK (EVE Collector's Edition codes go for 50 million ISK PER BPO after division, so I'm being generous) for a standard weapon BPO and the weapon usually costs 1k, you need to die 10,000 times in that suit to make up the cost. Yes, ten THOUSAND times.

If you're a good player, you are LESS likely to make money off a BPO, since you die less. If you don't die, your equipment costs are irrelevant. I die 4-5 times an Ambush in standard gear. That's 5k ISK an Ambush I'd be saving per weapon/module BPO, per match. If I paid 50 million for a BPO and a match takes 5 minutes, I'd make up the cost of the BPO after 830 hours of Ambush in that suit. Add in waiting times and squading up and you're at least at 1000 hours. This is being generous.

You can make a profit in the early tens of millions of ISK, but many items will be priced way above that due to collectors and human stupidity. However, I agree that the players should be free to control pricing. It's just that capped BPOs > no BPOs.

If BPO's is what i think it is (Blue prints ?) then i can see why ccp would have a problem with this being sold player to player it would ruin there money chances cause in a year or so many people would have these infinate items and not need to buy **** ingame or out of game with real money like a noob which is what ccp is banking on from most of you.

Math. If you pay just 10 million ISK (EVE Collector's Edition codes go for 50 million ISK PER BPO after division, so I'm being generous) for a standard weapon BPO and the weapon usually costs 1k, you need to die 10,000 times in that suit to make up the cost. Yes, ten THOUSAND times.

I knew you would not understand this when I wrote this, because no one understands how investments work.

I thought you did not understand when you said you could pay off the BPO in 71 Ambushes because this is fundamentally a flawed view of investments. You don't make a profit off something as soon as you've paid for it. You make a profit off of something once its paid for ITSELF, either through actual profit or mitigating losses. I'm sorry if you already understood this.

Will starter fits be removed?
Introduce scout packs with AUR and boosters and expendable scout items.

If we're able to sell look me up, I have 8 scouts, 8 toxins, 3 cars, 2 assault suits an rifles

If BPOs are so bad and game breaking, why are they still being sold in the Veteran and Elite packs?

If not they still need to be given Aur or Isk amount for Value so we can sell them back to the market for Aur or Isk. (We bought these items with real money we need to be reimbursed some how.)

If BPOs are currently not functioning as intended, what is the intended function of BPOs.

I also saw a post in which a CCP representative stated they were considering not allowing the trade/sale of BPOs on the player controlled market.

Not allowing the trade of BPOs is a very bad Idea.

There should never be Items purchased by some, but not available to all. This rallies against the Free to Play model. It sends a very bad message to new players, and disproportionately rewards veteran players with the unrestricted ability to earn ISK which they mostly do not need anyway.

Most veteran players are in PC, where they make millions of ISK per match. Those corporations which own districts also make millions perhaps billions of ISK by the sale of clones. Then they are able to turn around and play Pub matches using full BPO fittings and risk absolutely no loss.

The players that could benefit the most from BPOs - the new players - will then only further fatten the wallets of the veteran players, while at the same time depleting their own because they would always be forced to risk something to play.

In a game where risk vs reward is supposed to be the driving factor, not allowing the trade of BPOs after removing the ability to otherwise obtain them completely destroys this philosophy.

If there is to be a vote (like before with the skill tree), it HAS to be an ingame vote, NOT a forum vote! Having a poll that only a small percentage of the playerbase will be involved in is counter-intuitive.

The BPOs offer the only inherent incentive not to proto-stomp every single game, because you can definitely earn a profit while running adv-pro suits and mods all the time

Warpoints based on suit disparity means that you get the current +50 when you are fighting a suit of the same tier as yours. If you kill a suit one tier higher, you get +15 warpoints per tier in addition to the +50, so a militia suit killing a proto would get + 95 warpoints*. If you kill a suit a tier lower, you get -15 warpoints per tier, so a proto suit killing a militia suit would get 5 warpoints**.

I feel that this would contribute greatly to balancing public matches while still rewarding both old and new players. I do not recommend this for faction warfare or planetary conquest.


*[+50 base +15 standard +15 adv +15 proto = +95 warpoints]
**[+50 base +(-15)ADV +(-15)Standard +(-15)militia = +5 warpoints
EDIT: All numbers are placeholders, see following discussion for more balanced numbers (I personally feel that 7.5 points is fairly balanced)

When we have full control of the economy, I have every intention of using my 3 Eve industrialist accounts to drive up those proto suit prices, while fully sponsoring my corp with free proto-gear.