Semi-finalists announced in EVE Online's starship design contest

Last month, EVE Online developers CCP Games teamed up with the folks at deviantART to run an exciting competition. Artists from across the globe were given the opportunity to design their very own starship. For artists, the opportunity to show off their skills to a professional game development studio proved to be a strong motivator. To sweeten the deal, a prize fund worth several thousand dollars was included for the winning entrants. Yesterday, the deviantART team picked 15 semi-finalists from an uncountable number of submitted entries. Congratulations go out to the semi-finalists, who each take home a $50 iTunes gift card.

While the contest has produced some incredible artwork, it seems that not everyone is happy with how the 15 semi-finalists were selected. Some players have complained that the deviantART team removed some excellent entries from the running in favour of submissions that don't really fit with EVE's art style. The 15 winning entries will now be passed on to CCP's very own art department, where deliberations will take place to select the best three entries. The second and third place winners will receive $750 and $500 respectively, while the first place winner walks away with $900. Perhaps more importantly, the first place entry will be transformed into an actual ship in EVE Online, allowing the winner to make a permanant mark on the game.

Reader Comments (27)

All awful except for the Tornado.

And the Tornado was only added after the outcry on EVE-O.

Really? You think they're *all* awful? Sheesh.

"Whiners gonna whine..."

To be honest, the only one I didn't like was the BES. If I had to pick a favourite, though, it would probably be the Okhos - because it reminds me so much of the Anatoray Battleships from Last Exile - or the Ascendacy.

Looked at them all. While all of them were cool, A few really stuck with me.

Favorite: Naru-Kami - It's so huge. Very creative over all. The type of spaceship design I would use in any sci fi project of mine.

Other notable mentions are BES, Cyruk-Velam, and the Minmatar Advertising Transport.

BES is so... Odd. It's very interesting to me. Cyruk-Velam has a lot of minor details, and the Minmatar Advertising Transport is just an entirely different idea that I sort of fell in love with.

Look at the advertising transport and the ship in the pic for the article, do you notice a resemblance?

I'm guessing 10 of those artists had never even heard of EVE until this contest was posted; and I bet 2 of them have actually played EVE.

I want all of them to be in the game. I think those that are complaining aren't quite getting the idea of the contest. The reason for the contest is to broaden Eve's look, to include some ships that aren't only from the very iconic looks of each race, but rather new directions.

Think if Mass Effect were melted with Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Epic.

Really interesting. I like how some of the designs propose new "classes" of ships. If I had to choose a top 3, they would be:

-- Arq Racing Yacht -- simple but elegant design.
-- Tornado -- classic Minmatar, love the vertical form.
-- Yuh-Type Advertising Cargo Ship -- this is a great idea, actually. Player-made ads? Could be a great addition to the game.

Meh, how often do you read the news screens at gates? Never? Me neither.

Sure, as it stands, it's not well-implemented. But by linking certain ads to the in-game browser, you could definitely expand the role of player-generated ads in game.

Think outside -- err, inside? depending on where the ad is? -- the box, dude.

I completely agree. The ads at the stargates don't mean anything because they are all for Quafe. If they were dynamically and player-generated, like the ads in E-ON, and you can interact with them and open them in the IGB. That would be sweet.

I hope that Massively will cover the unfolding of this in more depth. The entire post-announcement ordeal has been rather tumultuous. There is more to all this than "some people are unhappy with the chosen semi-finalists"

All well done, very well done. Though many of those do not fit the EVE universe as others have pointed out.

Is it me or do some of these ships resemble movie/game ships? The BES looking like an ORI Warship with the mumps as an example.

A few of them are a little too "anime-spaceship" for my liking to be honest...

Massively doing indepth articles? Like testing Blink Lottery by doing just one bet with 12 of 16 chances.

In writing that article, I actually did 33 bets, with most at 1/8 chance and two or three at 1/16. My public profile can be seen here: http://somer.idiofx.com/blink/?act=profile&id=870162765

I believe most of the "designers" in the contest failed to do the very basic, that is understand the world they are designing for, true EVE needs some new breath, but it must fit.

I am not sure if the chosen entries were the best, most do not really fit in EVEs universe, or are copies of existing designs.

As it is, most of those that entered should not put their entry in their portfolio as a designer because they failed to grasp what they should have designed, don't get me wrong some entries were good in other situation, just not what they should be.

most of them _look_ quite good and fit the eve universe. also most of them are badly designed and not original in any way. why make a contest, if you pick ships your own artists would have come up with eventually? i think this might be besides the point of "thinking outside the (eve sand)box".

Downvote me all you want, the community really doesn't like the designs.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=752166
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=3519
http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?t=36758&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Look at those glowing reviews.

I would say that the tornado is horrible though, why, because it is one of the same, this contest at its best would provide a fresh design that would fit in EVEs universe, unfortunately it so far fails to do so.

Designs are either alien to EVE or too similar to existing ship designs.

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Semi-finalists announced in EVE Online's starship design contest

Reader Comments (27)

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 9:47PM DrewIW said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 12:04AM ScottishViking said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 2:44AM Wensbane said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 9:48PM ultimateq said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 2:39AM GaaaaaH said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 9:58PM Joshua Przygocki said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 11:10PM Mode7James said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 12:07AM ScottishViking said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 1:18AM SgtBaker said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 1:20AM ScottishViking said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 1:54AM Mode7James said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 1:47AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 2:24AM Graill440 said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 11:02AM ScottishViking said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 2:34AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 2:46AM Brendan Drain said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 3:54AM Psychotic Storm said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 4:47AM eNTi said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 6:02AM DrewIW said

Posted: Oct 22nd 2010 6:11AM Psychotic Storm said

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