EVE General Discussion

CCP, while I commend you for your shelving of WiS (walking in stations) and instead of going forward with it, choosing instead to fix Eve Online and the many problems it had, I hope you haven't thrown it away completely. Eve needed your about-face and your change of focus because, let's be honest, you were heading down the wrong path at the time. Eve was falling apart and you wanted to play house in space. I commend and praise you for the swallowing of your pride and the fact that you listened to your players and got back on track. You can see the results: 500k subs. Well done.

That said, I hope you haven't completely forgotten about WiS, and I think there is still a strong need for it in the game. The WiS I'm talking about isn't the RPing, look-how-cool-my-character-looks, let's-play-a-game-of-Pazaak walking in stations, although that would definitely be a part of it (I used Pazaak just as a reference to KOTOR). I'm talking about real, functional, INTERESTING walking in stations and I think incorporating it would be a boon to the game. First, hear me out.

Of course there would be the "lobby", similar to Dust's lobby, but on a much grander scale with player-owned bars and shops, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Incorporate WiS with missions, make entire missions instanced INSIDE the stations, complete with cutscenes and choices, similar to SWTOR (only don't screw it up like they did). All those trailers you released have to be for something, not just eye candy. Mission Arcs would be a perfect way to incorporate this into the story. You land in the station, make your way through the public area with all the other players and then move into the instanced part of it where it's just you and the NPCs. You get to your objective which could be anything from smuggling to assassination to simple delivery, with different ways to go about completing the mission. There could be traps laid for you, and you have to make it out of the station alive, for example. There could be different styles of gameplay, depending on the mission. It could be real-time movement or it could be completely choice-based with cutscenes to depict the outcome. There are many, many different ways of accomplishing this feat, and it would definitely be a feat.

While I wholeheartedly believe that Eve should be about ships that go pew, I think following through with this new dimension of gameplay would create an entirely new world. Let's be honest: missions are only there for brand new players to cut their teeth on the game and make enough money to go out on their own after the first couple of months, for bored players who want to kill time, and for people who need to get their sec status and/or faction rep up. Missions are one big grind and are simply a means to an end rather than being a legitimate form of gameplay. People only mission for money so they can go on to do better things later, and there are only so many missions you can do before casting them aside after you've memorized every single thing in every single mission.

I prefer PvP to PvE, but that doesn't mean that PvE has to be dull. Incorporating a truly functional, interesting, and relevant style of gameplay such as WiS I think could really improve upon the mission model. That said, don't neglect the most important thing about Eve: pew. However, I think we're at a good, healthy point now with all the balancing and inclusion of Dust that has happened in the last year or so. The game is much better than it when you released the awful Captain's Quarters expansion. I just don't want you to think those ideas that you had for WiS were somehow bad, because if done right, they could really be an amazing part of Eve instead of just grinding missions and sites.

Yawn.

Why do people insists on constantly posting these soporific diatribes?

OP no-one gives a toss about WIS. Just accept it and move on with your life. Go for a walk, go for a drive in your car or sit on your Sibian, but please - no more

Maybe so, but I just wanted to see how the community would react to it. Obviously you're the spokesman for the entire Eve playerbase, but I'd like to put that to the test.

Had you read it, you would've seen that it was more of an idea of how to do it rather than begging for them to bring it back.

They have functionaing prototypes of playable WiS content but I don't see it being worked on for at least 3 years, at which point, people who play EVE for their sci-fi fix will move over to Star Citizen.

I care and OP has a some good ideas, he is going to get a like.

Gosh, yet another WIS thread...

Your ideas are new and original, maybe you should post them where they belong since there's already a big WIS thread in GD.

--> Features & Ideas Discussion

I would have done so but I thought General Discussion would've been sufficient in order to get all the pros and cons from the players as well.

EVE & Mass Effect



I can roll with that

Thing is, with CCP being preoccupied with DUST, they might find themselves in a bit of a bind several years from now IF/WHEN other games come along and provide not just space-based PVP but also avatars running around stations blasting away at each other.

Alot of shiny spaceships will collect alot of (ahem) dust as folks go looking for actual player combat, in another game, if that turns out to be the case.

Devil's advocate, and so forth.

Well, a point to consider is that avatar real estate is very labor intensive and just creating places to go and stuff to happen is a race no developer can win against players actually using those assets and "been there, done that". So, either the developer hands development to players (as Bethesda does with modding and their Elder Scrolls franchise), or the developer provides a series of tools that can be used in a limited environment to create endless stories (as the old SWG did, to some extentt) both for avatar and space. A same asset (say, a "research room") could be used to spawn content (just a portrait and some stats to create a NPC) and the action could either happen in space or in some public areas (promenades, public establishments, or semi-randomyzed modular CQs/hotel rooms/private appartments).

By stressing on the abbiltiy to build the story itself, CCP could replay with WiS the same smart move they did with EVE FiS: hand out tools and mechanics rather than specialyzed assets. EVE as is could work without a single 3D asset, just with spreadsheets...