[Jester's Trek] Ugly ducklings
Ugly ducklings
Just a quickie, but it made me laugh and then got me thinking.
Kirith Kodachi wrote a blog post today in which he blames CSM7 for something that they had little or nothing to do with: the new Stabber model that was shown off in the recent cruiser re-balance dev-blog. As far as I'm concerned any credit or blame for this has to go to Rixx Javix who led a blogging crusade against the recent re-skinning of the Stabber model that -- as a side effect -- resulted in the "frill" of solar panels being removed from the neck of the Vagabond. I said as much a week or so ago and said that I was pleased with the redesign.
Why does Kirith want to assign blame? It isn't because he dislikes the new Stabber model -- he likes it. That's the problem. As far as he's concerned, it's his old enemy the Moa model that should have been updated instead. Rixx teasingly asked him in comments if he should start a crusade against that next. After all, Rixx got one of the art team to respond to his crusade directly. I teased Rixx myself saying "He nearly single-handedly motivated the art team to fix a ship model and of all the ship models in the game, he chose the Stabber model?!? I mean, c'mon, how thick can you get?"
It's a funny exchange but it did get me thinking. There are certainly a lot of ugly ships in EVE and the ships based on the Moa model certainly qualify. But in terms of ships that actually get flown my own opinion is that the Moa has much bigger problems than how ugly it is. People wouldn't fly it if it were pretty because the ship itself is bad, though hopefully that will be getting fixed this year. That set me wondering, of the ships people actually fly, which are the ones most in need of face lifts?
It's an interesting question, I think. Here's my list:
- Osprey model. For my money, this is the ugliest ship in the game, and it's commonly flown as the Basilisk.
- Blackbird model. Falcons are based on this and with Blackbirds are among the most commonly-flown ships in small-gang PvP.
- Aeon model. Far and away both the ugliest capital ship in the game and the ugliest Amarr ship... and yet is probably the most common super-carrier.
- Imicus model. The basis of the Gallente Helios Covert Ops ship is, for my money, the ugliest frigate in the game. What is with that kick-stand?
- Megathron model. It isn't too bad, but it deserves the same kind of low-level tweaking that the Raven model got last year.
- Rupture model. The ugliest Minmatar ship is simultaneously the best and one of the most common T1 cruisers in the game.
- Reaper. Yeah, I know it just got an update. But the thing looks like it was made out of clay, not scrap metal. In my opinion, it should be rebuilt to look like something between a Slasher and a Rifter.
What about you, Dear Readers? What commonly-used ship would you start an art crusade against?
Source: Ugly ducklings