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EVE Evolved: The EVE Online that could be
Each of us has a different idea of the perfect game, whether it's an existing game with a few tweaks or something completely new. Game designers work tirelessly to make their own vision of the perfect game a reality, but there's no telling what players will think of a feature until it's finished. In the process of transforming a feature from a gleam in the game designer's eye to a finished product, something is unfortunately often lost in translation. Limitations in the technology being used or the manpower available can render the ideal implementation infeasible. As players, we don't really see that full development process. That doesn't stop us from painting our perfect vision of an upcoming or potential feature and how awesome it could be. In the coming years, the EVE Online developers will be going through the process of making some of their most incredible visions a reality. Ideas like walking in stations and integrating the upcoming MMOFPS Dust 514 with EVE's planetary interaction feature will be put through a potentially brutal development process. We can only hope that as little as possible of those visions we've heard from EVE's developers gets lost in translation. In this speculative opinion piece, I look at a few areas in which EVE is sure to be expanded in the coming years and discuss what I'd consider to be the ideal way they could be implemented or handled.
Badge purchases now refundable for two hours
A previously unannounced relatively un-promoted feature is apparently going live in patch 3.1 today: buyback for "alternate currency" items. "Alternate currency" means any currency except gold - Emblems of Heroism, Arena Points, etc. According to Vaneras, when the patch goes live, you'll have two hours after buying an item with an alternate currency to sell it back and get a refund. I've never accidentally bought something with badges, but I know people who have, and it sucks; this is a nice fix. A few caveats: Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs) are non-refundable. Items that grant achievements are non-refundable. Augments will not be returned - if you buy an item, enchant it, and then sell it back for badges, you don't get your enchant mats back. This only works one step back: If you buy a tier token for emblems, then exchange that tier token for a tier piece, you can trade the tier piece back for the token if you want. You can not, however, trade that token back for emblems after doing that. Even with these limitations, it's still good protection against accidental purchases. Thanks, Blizz!
EoHs (not) exchangeable for EoVs at 10:1 on the PTR
Update: This post is incorrect. Sorry about that. As mentioned in the comments, the actual change is one EoV for one EoH, which makes a lot more sense. In the latest PTR build, updated tonight, the Emblem of Valor quartermaster will sell you Emblems of Valor (the 25-man raid, ilvl 213 emblems) for the price of ten Emblems of Heroism (10-man/ilvl 200). This is something we talked about way back last summer, when they introduced the idea of having multiple levels of badges; this way, 10-man raiders can eventually get the 25-man gear, it just takes a very long time. One EoV can not be traded back for ten EoHs, by the way. I do think that exchange rate might be a bit high. The cheapest items (rings and cloaks) cost 25 EoVs, which would be 250 EoHs if you paid for it entirely that way. That's (just under) 16 weeks of full Naxxramas clears. If you've been clearing Naxxramas for 16 weeks, you're probably pretty bored of it and ready to move on to Ulduar (which will hopefully be released by then), at which point any EoH-EoV trade-up is meaningless, because you're not getting EoHs anymore.
