Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I was ready to just quit and throw it all away. The game was growing stale and my time became too limited to try and force myself to enjoy it. I wanted to just take a break for a few years and see where the game ended up, but here i am, subbed again so soon, simply because Crucible somehow started to pay attention to those nagging details that were "wrong" since release.

Still, CCP has a long way to go before it can claim to have regained it's former focus and passion. It feels like it's coming back, but not just yet and it can regress rather easily if the ambition just isn't there.

CCP, i like you guys but you suck at putting your foot down and making proper long term decisions in a reasonable amount of time. Why that is i don't know but it shows in almost every feature you introduced - Taking a long time to decide on what it has to be and then just forgetting about it.


So, that brings me to the challenge. I don't know what CCP has planned exactly. I don't know whether they've even planned anything at all and are trying to just wing it. I do know that there's things the community wants to see done, or at least iterated upon, and other things that CCP themselves at one point decided to do and just forgot about. I'd want to bring all of these forth again, but rather than "urge" CCP to get it done, also name a date to when it has to be done.

Normally this wouldn't make much sense, but there is a date in the forseeable future that CCP can't really ignore or wave off. It's the 10th anniversary of the game, 6th of May 2013. Somehow it would make sense if the company regained it's zest and passion for the game now so it can arrive at that date and say "This is our gift to the community and ourselves for sticking with this internet spaceship game for 10 years".


The challenge:

By the date of May 6th 2013, these features have to be feature complete, vastly iterated on or at least in heavy Sisi testing:

• - The New Mining: A revamp of mining in general, including roids, ice and moons. Things like system-wide belts and comets. Making the entire system just as interesting as PvP or the industry that's base on it, possibly making even pvp's rethink their usual stance on "i never mine".
• - Sovereignty: Make the system less grindy. Make moving large fleets over vast distances mean something rather than making it possible to gank the other side of the universe. Make system ownership more than just an increased ISK flow. Give players the chance to rename systems if they lived in them and owned them for long enough (under supervision of course). This is, i admit a very difficult one to pull off, but with the help of a little crowdsourcing it should be possible. There's a lot of people who will have good ideas about this so don't be afraid to ask :)
• - Incarna: Walking in stations, hubs, social gatherings, an internal economy (surgeons, clothiers, smugglers etc). Put your foot down and choose a design. Let people enjoy the new avatars together, which includes being able to invite people to your captain's quarters - Which should be customizable like the establishments and storefronts. This is probably the most controversial one, but may 2013 will mark the start of the 8th (!) year of development of this feature. No excuse! People will also resist putting resources in this one but - As any feature, it should be completed at some point, especially because it is one that can serve as a gate to the spaceship shooting part for people who'd otherwise never consider the game. This is a value that the feature has and needs to be recognized.
• - Factional warfare: Iterate on it. Remove the LP/ISK incentive but introduce more personal reasons to fight. Enable alliances to choose factions. Give more unique rewards through merit rather than grind - For example, this is a chance to possibly reintroduce ships like the Impoc, State Raven etc - Rewarded by the dev team to the people who really deserve it, giving FW a much more personal touch. Make system ownership move a little further by switching it on a weekly or monthly basis depending on performance outside of usual FW systems, designating a range of border systems which can be fought over. I admit i don't know much about this, but it's something that needs some love if the "conflict" in the background needs to be taken seriously.
• - Mystery: Don't be afraid to throw more bones at the community about the EVE universe as a whole. The "North Star" incident from a few years back could have been a wonderful opportunity for introducing an element to the game everyone could agree to disagree about, a sense of mystery to a game where everyone knows even the most intricate details to everything. It gives newer players a chance to join in on the fun which is not limited to pvp fleets et al and doesn't need to have any tangible rewards whatsoever aside from the discussion itself. A planet that suddenly dissappears. A star that suddenly implodes into a black hole. Sleeper installations phasing into existence in high-sec systems. A time echo coming from the EVE gate revealing some tidbits of potentially world-shattering information. For that matter, the EVE gate itself! There have to be remnants of it? Using W-space as a way to introduce Jove NPC space - Making it a link to the Jove systems, provided players can find the right ones and survive the trip!

These are just the ones i can think of off-head that strike me as rather important to get done. They're all major features (except the last one i admit) which really need to be fixed and iterated on.


--continued below--

Thanks for the effort, needs some reads.

Refer to my sig for amazing changes that will affect everyone in one way or another bringing a great extra dynamic to the game.

Check them out at:

Universal PvP System Mode: ..default.aspx?g=posts&t=38634
In Game Laws, Fines and Taxes: ..default.aspx?g=posts&t=36124
Stations and NPC Services Costs: ..default.aspx?g=posts&t=39038

Differently from your suggestions, mines are specific and actually easily pictured.

I would think and suggest something more concrete other than "you must change this and that, to something which I dont know" like you did ;)

You missed one, have CCP bring back the WiS art direction from 2008.

Can't believe the 10-year anniversary is so close and yet the game is still so 'beta.'

I've got a simpler challenge, CCP, since for you this challenge would be unattainable.

Publish a devblog pledging a renewed commitment to the sandbox concept, acknowledging your rampant repeated unethical behavior, and announcing the removal of MT other than PLEX-for-gametime from EVE, forever.

If you put a deadline on them, they will **** it up just to meet the deadline.
Good things happen when they happen. Look at what we got with Incarna, and all because of deadline.

100% there was a deadline that's why we got CQ, pushed out because someone said, "you need to get this up by xx date now, it's been too long".

"if you kiss the frog's back she may turn into a princess"

"If you kiss CCP's shiny ass, well, you'd just be kissing that... anyway."

Don't set stupid tasks, or you'll end up stupid. Who said that they can in fact solve the problems you mentioned?

This is... an interesting challenge. Let's see what we can do about it.

Moved from "EVE General Discussion", though.

At least someone at CCP read this ^^

Now lets see whether they're willing to take it on!


Oh, and new tagline for next fanfest: Deliver!