As much as I love the idea of players naming new officer gear, this event is poorly done.

My initial problems with the event is that:
1) Only proto weapon kills are eligible, meaning only those with money to run proto for 3 days can possibly win. It will also make the protostomping problem much worse than it has to be.
2) Kills with eligible weapons of the same category are not counted together. This means if you use a Duvolle AR, and then use a Federation Duvolle AR, they get counted separately, so only the one you got the most kills with matters; this is stupid because both weapons are essentially the exact same thing. There is no reason for this rule, its not like CCP can't do addition.

I realized now that it is fundamentally worse than these 2 problems. It is a bad idea to have an event where only a small handful of super-rich super-hardcore people can possibly benefit while everyone else is effectively wasting their time.

CCP could have added other smaller rewards like "for very kill you get with X weapon, you will be rewarded 2 X weapon of the same tier" or something else, but they did not. There is no incentive for anyone else to participate except for the super-rich super-hardcore tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of the community.

Seriously, how did they think its ok to have an event where 99.99% of the community will gain NOTHING? there should have been smaller rewards for the majority.

Seriously, what the hell kind of community event benefits only a tiny fraction of the community?

Sure, has some cons to it, but I'm just looking forward to the impact it has on those very same ISK fiends who've been hording hundreds of millions/billions ISK If you ask me, I think it's a great idea to put a ***** (wow really? This is censored?) in the massive ISK savings people have.

As much as I do LOVE the idea of this event, It does have major issues.

The first thing that my corp mates said after hearing about this is - "Well there goes what ever small amount of new players ~WERE~ going to come to the game for the next 4 weeks".

I too feel the event is disappointing as there is no real benefit for the vast majority of us. Not only that, it obviously favours those who can afford proto for the next 4 weekends. Its ok saying go to faction warfare - that's 4 weekends of most of the players enjoyable game time basically written off.

I mean, personally I am going to try it and accept it for what it is.

I do feel though that everyone should be able to gain extra isk per kill or sp per kill or something. Otherwise this is just a test server data gathering operation. You should at least reward the players for that otherwise I do see game play numbers dropping for a few weekends because this will force some people out of the game.

I would have preferred an event where you provide ideas for new weapons to CCP. You could create concept art and describe the weapon's usage and stats. It's obvious though that community inspired weapons will never happen in Dust.

On the flip side, there are several events where the rewards are something the "super rich" don't care at all about. I use quotations because I am going to be able to easily fund a full prototype weekend and I don't consider myself super rich, plus I don't participate in PC and spend a lot of my time in FW that doesn't even pay ISK. So I don't really think the barrier to entry on this event is all that high, but back to my point: There are lots of events that do nothing for these "super rich" players, so why can't you throw them a bone and let them have an event designed for them? What's so wrong with that? Also these "super rich" players tend to be the people who have supported Dust through thick and thin and they are the ones most deserving to name a weapon.

Wtf? I didn't know about #2

I was stockpiling federation cannons to save ISK

LP versions still count, but not Federation AND regular together.

I love the idea behind this event, but there are many holes.

It would have been better had it been a milita weapon naming event. That is just my opinion.

It would have been better had it been a milita weapon naming event. That is just my opinion.

I know they still count, but I can't exactly stockpile enough to last me the entire event.
I was thinking about starting with federation before jumping to ISK when I run out

I would have preferred an event where you provide ideas for new weapons to CCP. You could create concept art and describe the weapon's usage and stats. It's obvious though that community inspired weapons will never happen in Dust.

I have 50 million isk
at the end of this event I'll probably still have 50 million isk

It only limits the players that:
-Aren't skilled into the weapon
-Aren't willing to risk proto gear for OFFICER WEAPONS
-Are so bad at this game that they LOSE MONEY running proto.

Seriously, if you lose isk running proto you're doing it wrong...and no, you don't need billions of isk to do it either. I guess it makes it a bit easier for certain players (as they don't have to worry about isk as much and can be more careless with their proto suits), but heck I could run this event with 10 million isk if I wanted to.

Besides, would it really make sense for someone to get to name an Officer weapon if they won using a weapon that they don't even have the skills to use said Officer weapon?

And it's slightly lore based. We're testing "prototype" weapons to develop new ones.

What are you running? What rifle?

These events serve to test game balance, Nothing more. The illusion of fun is a front. The description for the data mining event pretty much came right out and stated it.

I have 50 million isk
at the end of this event I'll probably still have 50 million isk

It only limits the players that:
-Aren't skilled into the weapon
-Aren't willing to risk proto gear for OFFICER WEAPONS
-Are so bad at this game that they LOSE MONEY running proto.

Seriously, if you lose isk running proto you're doing it wrong...and no, you don't need billions of isk to do it either. I guess it makes it a bit easier for certain players (as they don't have to worry about isk as much and can be more careless with their proto suits), but heck I could run this event with 10 million isk if I wanted to.

Besides, would it really make sense for someone to get to name an Officer weapon if they won using a weapon that they don't even have the skills to use said Officer weapon?

And it's slightly lore based. We're testing "prototype" weapons to develop new ones.

Not sure if trolling

You realize there will be only 12 winners right? even less if a person wins for multiple weapons. I don't find proto worth risking with that low a chance. Furthermore, you will only win 30 of the officer gear if you happen to win by some miracle; not much of a prize in my opinion.

As for your silly "only scruby noobs don't make profits while running proto for 3 days straight" BS, that argument would have a better chance of being accepted if the proto user is fighting against players with lower tier gear, meaning the proto player would be hard to kill compared to others, but if ALMOST EVERYONE else is running proto (as they will in this event) then that proto advantage is countered by everyone else's proto, and you will suffer a as many deaths as you normally would. In a battle against other proto users, you are likely to die more than twice, and thus not make a profit.

Actually when I run my 200k Commando fit I make profit. It was a very strange realization, as I was just returning to Dust after a month of absence after the Legion announcement and I wanted to burn through my ISK as fast as possible so I could convince myself to quit. But nope! I'd generally die anywhere from 0 to 3 times. When I died once I'd either break even or get a little profit, and when I'd die 2 or 3 times it would be negated by the equal amount of times I'd have a flawless match. Now to be fair, this is only when playing Public Ambush matches. If I bring my proto fits to a Skirmish or Dom I'd definitely be losing money as the there would be matches where the other team clearly has us pinned down but I'd still throw suits at the problem.