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CCP: What are you going to do about the storyline?

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Wyke Mossari
Staner Industries
#101 - 2012-05-26 12:59:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Wyke Mossari
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:

So, answer to question one, from my personal knowledge and work with the EVE Content and Storyline teams: yes, we intend to continue the storyline.

World news is being published and developed. But the pace is not necessarily going to be a continuous flow and flood. I've seen many complaints in the past about 'ridiculous stories' ("why would we care about a few dozen miners trapped in an asteroid?" "why are we hearing about a food riot in which five people were killed?") that were, looking back, a direct result of having to produce a constant outpouring of material. Look more for tidal movements and peak moments. It's about what can be done and done well.


Perhaps apply SCRUM to the story line development a little often. I don't think you need lots of new material, there is lots of back stories that need an epilogue.



I dare you to go stick these in the scrum backlog :)

Quite a lot of lore has been revealed in the Books but remains OOC and not available in game, some of the key elements could be revealed in game by Investigative journalists, whistle-blowers, leaks and conspiracy theorists.

There could be missions "Silence the Whistle Blower", "Aid a defector", etc. There could be News stories from 'scandal rags'. These could easily be allegations with little hard evidence that player characters can choose to believe as true or just regard as scurrilous slurs. e.g.


  • Scope reporting "Dichard Rawkins new Holo-Doc alleging 'Jayml possesed by demons' breaks in to main stream holo charts"
  • Dragonaurs : The Terrorist that Hijacked the State.
  • The Past Presidents Club : An exposure of Presidential corruption with Roden's Serpentis connection


CCP Delegate Zero wrote:

Number two: I and colleagues am working with the EVE Content and Storyline teams on a plan to give much greater prominence and focus to the EVE story and background. This sh... stuff will happen. We will be handling this better in the future and it will make a big difference. It's a longer term plan but it will happen.


I just know this will be cool!

CCP Delegate Zero wrote:

Number three: I'm actually working, as a side project, on closing a significant hanging thread in the storyline. This is getting very close to fruition.


+++ afterwards you could look at some of the others mention above. Just because a story line is official complete don't regard it as over. A epilogue can be the prologue to a new story.

CCP Delegate Zero wrote:

Number four: I continue to care about this stuff and argue for its importance and prominence. It doesn't take that much incidentally, contrary to some mythology it's really pushing at an open door.


Please keep an regular eye on the Eve Fiction, where we regulars often raise pointed questions and potential new directions; we know Drop Bear watched them and gave occasional feed back and encouragement. However his departure leaves us without a communications channel into the lore team. Even simple requests for stick in Eve fiction go unheaded, it's easy to be disheartened.
Faulx
Brother Fox Corp
#102 - 2012-05-26 16:00:00 UTC
I originally posted this here, but i figured it was worth a repost...

I feel that Live Events should do something akin to what the chronicles did: drive forward stories about life in Eve. The chronicles typically did this with individual characters, but, with live events, CCP has the opportunity to use entire factions and, what's more, to let outcomes be decided by the player community.

The basic outline for a Live Event then should be something like this:

  • A faction declares an objective.
  • They define under what conditions the object will be considered achieved.
  • They outline the outcomes (rewards/consequences) for those who aid them (or resist them).
  • The actors for the faction take their actions (be this attacking with a fleet, building a base, stealing technology, hiding a network of probes... the key thing being that players can interact with and influence a part of the story that influences the outcome: ships, base, blueprints, probes, ect...).
  • The players "decide" (either by force of arms or by cooperative interaction) upon the outcome.
  • An outcome is realized in game that changes the landscape of things, be it political, social, or physical terrain.

The outcome could be something small like new stations, station services, or complexes being added to old systems, something more significant like a change in sovereignty that redraws the borders of empire or pirate space (not unlike faction warfare), or something the devs plan to release like new designs for space ships being "invented". In every case, it should be something everyone can see and appreciate but that no one can take singular credit for.

Most importantly, there should be more than one outcome for every event. Success, failure, or something no one even thought was possible in the beginning: the outcome of every event's should be contingent on the actions of the players involved.
Uraniae Fehrnah
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#103 - 2012-05-30 04:17:48 UTC
Jafit wrote:


CCP keeps making trailers about what people get up to in Nullsec. Dominion trailer, I was there, Butterfly Effect... For some reason they don't seem to make trailers about people playing make-believe, dressup, or writing terrible fanfics on the forum. Those who do participate in FW aren't roleplayers, they do it for fun and rewards. Mission runners fight on behalf of NPC empires, but they don't care about defeating 300 simultaneous pirate invasion fleets in Motsu, they just want isk.



To be fair that isn't entirely true. For as many ways as you can actually play EVE as a game, there are roleplayers doing those game mechanic-dictated things as part of their roleplay in some fashion. Yes you can't exactly reference the 47th identical mission you run verbatim. I assure you there are FW role players. There are Missionrunner roleplayers. There are miners, marketeers, industrialists, pirates, mercenaries, scammers, ratters, researchers, POS managers, haulers, and even cyno alt roleplayers.

Roleplayers are a minority in EVE, just like in any other game, but for every task in EVE there is someone doing it in character for their roleplay. We poke and prod about aspects of the game we think need attention, just like every other player, and the truth is all aspects of EVE need attention and that includes the storyline made by CCP and the tools available to present it, interact with it, and shape it.
Akai Kvaesir
Itsukame-Zainou Hyperspatial Inquiries Ltd.
#104 - 2012-05-30 05:23:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Akai Kvaesir
CCP just needs to hire some writers, professional fiction writers, to flesh out the lore. In terms of the small-scale story arcs, 500 words a week is absurdly easy to write and edit, and longer short stories on a monthly basis (graphic novels, anyone?) would not be a very big deal to a real writer. No offense CCP, but y'all are developers, not fiction writers; the story is cool, but you obviously have trouble finding endings for any of your story lines, much less any real definition for the overarching story-arc.

That said, I support the OP. We need more story. Hire some writers.

EDIT: Writers are cheap, in case you didn't know. We get paid by the word.

Frogblast the Vent Core! When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface.
Andreus Ixiris
Duty.
Stay Feral
#105 - 2012-05-30 05:48:29 UTC
Akai Kvaesir wrote:
EDIT: Writers are cheap, in case you didn't know. We get paid by the word.


Heck, there are at least a dozen roleplayers in the community who'd be willing to write for free.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
The Slayer
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#106 - 2012-05-30 06:04:05 UTC
Ilsenae Alexandros wrote:
MAKE CLEAR SKIES CANON


This is hilariously off topic but dear lord I would kill for a Clear Skies tempest skin. Just a normal tempest only without the top wingy bit. :D
Katrina Oniseki
Oniseki-Raata Internal Watch
Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive
#107 - 2012-05-30 06:13:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Katrina Oniseki
I support the OP.

Also, I wonder which 'hanging thread' hanging thread he meant. There's like... four major ones at least.

- Empyrean War
- Sleepers
- Incursions/Nation
- Arek Jalalabad

Plus Templar One which we haven't heard a single mention of yet, not that I particularly want to hear anything else from TonyG.

Katrina Oniseki
Ciar Meara
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#108 - 2012-05-30 06:19:12 UTC
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Busy times, so I missed this thread until now. And as it goes, I don't make decisions on this stuff even if I do get involved from time to time.

So, answer to question one, from my personal knowledge and work with the EVE Content and Storyline teams: yes, we intend to continue the storyline.

The answer to question two is more complicated (but you knew that). The when is really now and continuing. World news is being published and developed. But the pace is not necessarily going to be a continuous flow and flood. I've seen many complaints in the past about 'ridiculous stories' ("why would we care about a few dozen miners trapped in an asteroid?" "why are we hearing about a food riot in which five people were killed?") that were, looking back, a direct result of having to produce a constant outpouring of material. Look more for tidal movements and peak moments. It's about what can be done and done well.

The how is not entirely nailed down. There are traditional ways of doing it and other means that we really have to look at because they frankly let us do more with what we have in terms of resources.

I can say a couple of things about what I personally am doing and will do in terms of the storyline and related content

Number one: in my own work on web content I still have feedback on the content of eveonline.com on my personal roadmap. There are things that I do want, and intend, to address given time.

Number two: I and colleagues am working with the EVE Content and Storyline teams on a plan to give much greater prominence and focus to the EVE story and background. This sh... stuff will happen. We will be handling this better in the future and it will make a big difference. It's a longer term plan but it will happen.

Number three: I'm actually working, as a side project, on closing a significant hanging thread in the storyline. This is getting very close to fruition.

Number four: I continue to care about this stuff and argue for its importance and prominence. It doesn't take that much incidentally, contrary to some mythology it's really pushing at an open door.

These may not be the answers you were looking for but they are the answers I can give you.

Delegate Zero (AKA Abel Jarek Blink)


This is good news, I hope indeed that the storyline will continue to grow! Because it is one of the things people are invested and interested in, even if some say they aren't

- [img]http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/janus/ceosig.jpg[/img] [yellow]English only please. Zymurgist[/yellow]
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#109 - 2012-05-30 07:38:22 UTC
The mix of storyline and player activities has to be extremely careful.

Anyone recall those bombers in WH space that had some significant storyline material but got blown up for "PVP reasons"?

That is like civilization coming to and end, but someone inventing a warp drive in the end, and then the notebook gets found years later.... by some knuckle-dragger who uses it for toilet paper.


Leaving things up to players who just "want to see things go pop for the lulz" is not a good idea. To make players more interactive with the storyline, they would have to know every RPer and their intentions and have a good idea what they would do lest that one Jove ship that works that gets discovered gets used to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita.

Guess those banner ads showed up on the wrong kinds of websites too many times.

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Andreus Ixiris
Duty.
Stay Feral
#110 - 2012-05-30 08:09:24 UTC
Herzog Wolfhammer wrote:
lest that one Jove ship that works that gets discovered gets used to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita.


To be fair, I'm a hardcore roleplayer, but even I would use a Jove ship to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita if I had it.

I mean, come on dude, do you seriously expect us to believe that you wouldn't?

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Bauloe
FBN 4893
#111 - 2012-05-30 08:21:21 UTC
Would be interesting if Certain events awarded a main stay in eves history

Ie - One faction completely whypes out another faction in Factional Warfare
- a Player run event that include over 10 thousand people over a set periods of time in non PC null sec areas

If an event passes the parameters. have a player contest with guide lines on inviting people to write a chonicle draft which would have to include a certain list of elements

This would allow some players really stamp their mark in eve over a long period of time.

Just an idea. I just feel CCP needs to take a step back and skip creating content but let the players created so CCP cand guide, manage and modifies things slightly to fit in the larger picture.
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#112 - 2012-05-30 08:28:51 UTC
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
Herzog Wolfhammer wrote:
lest that one Jove ship that works that gets discovered gets used to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita.


To be fair, I'm a hardcore roleplayer, but even I would use a Jove ship to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita if I had it.

I mean, come on dude, do you seriously expect us to believe that you wouldn't?




I wouldn't. I'd sell that sucker. Cool

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Andreus Ixiris
Duty.
Stay Feral
#113 - 2012-05-30 08:55:32 UTC
Herzog Wolfhammer wrote:
I wouldn't. I'd sell that sucker. Cool


OK, that I can accept. But do you know who you'd sell it to?

Someone who'd use it to suicide gank a Hulk in Jita.

Or Entity. But Enty is Enty <3

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Jonni Favorite
Red Slice Enterprise
#114 - 2012-05-30 09:20:38 UTC
I heard a rumor, possibly on this forum, that a certain nullsec alliance is threatening to take over empire economy with some strange scheme involving war on a certain industry. But it's not officially endorsed by CCP so I guess it doesn't qualify for the strict requirements of *roleplay*. Sigh!
Safai
Yaqin
#115 - 2012-05-30 10:00:37 UTC
Jonni Favorite wrote:
I heard a rumor, possibly on this forum, that a certain nullsec alliance is threatening to take over empire economy with some strange scheme involving war on a certain industry. But it's not officially endorsed by CCP so I guess it doesn't qualify for the strict requirements of *roleplay*. Sigh!


You can roleplay that all you want and nobody here is claiming otherwise.
Onyx Nyx
The Veldspar Protectorate
#116 - 2012-05-30 10:16:40 UTC
The storyline lost its relevance when players for the first time logged onto EVE back in 2003; players are the ones that has been writing the story for the game since.

The old introduction video hinted at it whereas the new introduction flat out tells you to shape your own path: dare to be bold, pilot.

I kill kittens, and puppies and bunnies. I maim toddlers and teens and then more.

  • Richard (http://www.lfgcomic.com/)
Ilsenae Alexandros
Perkone
Caldari State
#117 - 2012-05-30 12:31:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Ilsenae Alexandros
Seismic Stan wrote:
Freebooted wrote:
Philip K. ****


This is the saddest thing in this thread.

To know the face of God is to know madness.
Seismic Stan
Freebooted Junkworks
#118 - 2012-05-30 12:43:35 UTC
Onyx Nyx wrote:
The storyline lost its relevance when players for the first time logged onto EVE back in 2003; players are the ones that has been writing the story for the game since.

The old introduction video hinted at it whereas the new introduction flat out tells you to shape your own path: dare to be bold, pilot.

The stories may be played out by the players, but who's telling them? Poorly written After Action Reports and techno-jargon drivel on EVE News 24 is hardly the pinnacle of good narration. I don't disagree that the players should be central to the story, but that doesn't mean it should be left in the hands of the sort of people who can only communicate in language that is only understood by a niche group.

Furthermore, you may have no interest in the lore, but it is a lure for many others. If EVE is only marketed at one demographic, it isn't much of a sandbox, is it?



Ilsenae Alexandros wrote:
Seismic Stan wrote:
Freebooted wrote:
Philip K. ****


This is the saddest thing in this thread.

I know, right? One of the great sci-fi authors can't even have his name mentioned on the forum of a sci-fi game. A tragic sign of the times.

EVE Online: The Text Adventure --- GameSkinny Correspondent --- Freebooted Blogger
Onyx Nyx
The Veldspar Protectorate
#119 - 2012-05-30 14:33:56 UTC
Seismic Stan wrote:
Onyx Nyx wrote:
The storyline lost its relevance when players for the first time logged onto EVE back in 2003; players are the ones that has been writing the story for the game since.

The old introduction video hinted at it whereas the new introduction flat out tells you to shape your own path: dare to be bold, pilot.


The stories may be played out by the players, but who's telling them? Poorly written After Action Reports and techno-jargon drivel on EVE News 24 is hardly the pinnacle of good narration. I don't disagree that the players should be central to the story, but that doesn't mean it should be left in the hands of the sort of people who can only communicate in language that is only understood by a niche group.

Furthermore, you may have no interest in the lore, but it is a lure for many others. If EVE is only marketed at one demographic, it isn't much of a sandbox, is it?


I am fine with having EN24, and I'd even settle with Massively or Mintchip, covering than have some british self-absorbed, self-entitled roleplayer(s) deliver us the battle report of the engagement in the system FUK-YU in the year blablabla. No offense.

I prefer to understand what the **** is going on than being put to sleep.

Oh, I do have a interest in the lore but I just don't care about it because storyline in a game like EVE is more about setting the stage than go on a merry adventure and that should be obvious to anyone.

I kill kittens, and puppies and bunnies. I maim toddlers and teens and then more.

  • Richard (http://www.lfgcomic.com/)
Rodj Blake
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#120 - 2012-05-30 14:34:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Rodj Blake
If people don't seem to get involved with the storyline, it's because there's no storyline for them to get involved with.

Non-RPers got involved with the Emperor trials back in 2003. More than that, people who normally couldn't care less about "RP fluff" cared about the identity of the next Emperor.

Non-RPers cared about collecting the remains of the dead Jovian dude as well, and they also cared about the outcome of the Federation presidential election (although that particular event was botched more than Botchy McBotcherson's Botcher of the Year contest).

Non-RPers cared about the return of Sansha Kuvakei too. Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly apparent that the people who don't care about these things are CCP.

Dolce et decorum est pro Imperium mori