EVE General Discussion

In EVE most exchanges, fights etc. are handled through automatic means. For example, skills govern trade. You learn the skill, have it train up, automatically, and it gives you 5% more money per level in agent missions, reduces capacitor needs by 5% and so on. This is convenient, but in simplifying everything, it takes away players' chance to do. I'd like to be able to haggle for the price with NPC somehow. Another example is combat, where it's not possible to target ship parts - fire at the engines, weaponry etc., which would be an equivalent of special moves, head-chopping etc., for some years now the standard in action games and many RPGs. In combat here you basically put your "goods" - aquired skill benefits, equipment on board, whether first or second-rate, resistances and the few tactics available - up against the enemy's total of the same. It's strength versus strength, and unless one of the parties does something stupid or gets caught in an unfavorable position (the ability to avoid those is part of the "sum" and mostly prefigured), mathematics will declare the victor.

Now this is not all that much fun, my ideal of that being martial arts, where it's all interaction, body part for body part. Here we have no bodies, the ships don't feel like them. Imagine that you were born a wooden catapult, with the square frame and little wheels, and that you could only roll yourself a short distance and lob stones at other catapults like you, that show in range. EVE's war or peace feel much the same. Here, too, are very few chances for "hands-on" interactions, in part because, until recently, characters literally had no hands. They do now, but what to do with them? We are caged in the Captain's Quarters for a reason. I suspect the designers are as yet not sure what to put in the rest of the station and if it's worth the bother. Where could I go that my character's performance I, the player, and not some numbers would decide? And if the numbers will decide, why go, and if they won't, well! There goes the capitalism. Imagine that there are some SIM-like elements, inviting that we spend game time furnishing the cabin and make love, not ISK. Who will then go on incursions or anticipate Tier 17?

Put in the shortest way I can, the dilemma is this: either the interactive, human element will add some unique functionality or remain the second, decorative interface no one needs. I think the first is more likely, almost inevitable. Now that we have bodies and can put on them pretty clothes, there's no quencing the desire for more of something they could do. The mirror is too good, and only people, not ships, like to turn before it. So, just like we have offline when ourselves growing up, here we've gone into mirror stage. Ignore it if you like, there is no backing out. I'm sure almost anyone who has put any effort into character creation, as opposed to using the divine Randomize All, would be interested in taking it further, can already see himself or herself - be a girl! be anyone! this is Internet! - sipping those cocktails in a space lounge, running in an Angels base or, I don't know, kneeling before the Amarr Empess in an actual 3-D hall. After all, that's what all other games have, why not this one? The ship's metal hulk was never, to tell the truth, very snug to animate, but now the genie is out of the bottle. We've been given these wonderful soft appendages, and suddenly there is a lot more color to the world.

But EVE's situation from the beginning was different than other games, which usually grow concentric circles of features, the more the merrier. CCP was Prussian in its "less is more". It kept adding features, of course, but in a sort of line, and made money on what in truth was and is a very limited range of activities, binding players to them by the laws of nature - of the engine, that is. Protesting that you were a ship and had no real involvment in the monotony of skill training, that there was everywhere very little of you was pointless. Quitting, as I did three years ago, was the only option out.

These laws have changed, and the more they change, the greater will be EVE's sharp players push into that new territory. The community is used to snapping up everything they are given, to chewing and mulling it over, on the grounds that that the designers know, or should know, what they are doing, that the game must have regular updates for the money, that it's high time for some anatomy (though I don't know whose idea Incarna originally was). EVE players are astute, they are used to demanding, arguing, participating, getting. The ISK chase taught them all that. Now these cowboys and cowgirls are provoked to begin to want something totally different from ISK and the chase. Of course, I doubt that PVP pirates, like the fellow who recently blew up my ship for no reason and no cargo, will trip over themselves in rushing to those cocktail lounges, role-playing or exploring what peace might offer. Most are too dumb. But they will want incarnated violence, kicks and guns. You can be sure of hearing their powerful voice, if CCP continues with the body works and the "hands-on" interactions that hands reach out for. I'm all for change in that direction, or this subscription again won't last. At any rate, watching EVE's course over this year will really be SCOPE-worthy.

You just gave me an example of one, with that lovely abbreviation I've never seen before. Nothing to do with ISK or conquest, right? All it took was to have a conversation, and voila, something new appears. Same way for EVE: you put people in bodies, you open the floodgates.

what you describe is another game, not eve

its akin to buying a 57 chevy and then complaining to Chevrolet that it doesn't have modern emissions controls or that its not a Porsche


"hi, this game is neat, but its not really what I want, I demand you make it into a game I like"

is sort of what it sounds like

for the record, you can haggle prices on the market. Use Buy/Sell orders instead of blindly selling to or buying from the first person you see.

Your new at this game and it shows. This isn't the same old formula even though most people play the game like it is



They're working on it.

btw, what is your native language?

Are you trolling or serious? (Serious question)

Five paragraphs, the first of which has 13 rambling sentences and 18 commas. If your post has gone past 10 sentences you may want to rethink posting.

I skimmed the post. I think they're complaining that pure numbers determine the outcomes of fights and that Eve should instead be fun and have gameplay. I agree, but it's a horrible rambling sperg post that I'm not going to read in full so there could be some stuff in there that I don't agree with.