Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Lets get one thing out of the way - gameplay is nice and all, but I am in eve for the storytelling, worldbuilding and immersion. I like to win, but since I have attained only 22M SP since 2006 it stands to reason to conclude I am not here to conquer the known universe.

I have a great objection to eve and that's universe design. Eve is by far the most ambitious, immersive and beautiful space game in existence, but competition is hot on its heels. Eve needs to significantly increase appeal, and I am not talking appeal with its already completely addicted fan base. People who are in eve will by and large keep in eve or regularly return to eve - and most will be dishing out money to grow the already lopsided (say - absurd) skill demographics.

To increase interest in more players by far the only easy strategy is to start a design initiative to significantly increase detail and immersiveness of space. Yes, I understand that to regulars most couldn't care less, and those people were probably born with a spreadsheet up their ass and consequently I don't give a damn about 'those people's' interests in the game. But if CCP actually wants to grow (and not wither on the vine a couple of years down the road, as new games emerge, a far better space experience is necessary. I believe it is extremely important to start doing so right now.

Take for instance this rather small bit of software.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/celestia/

It's been around for ages. There are others, such as Universe Simulator, and they look a lot better than eve, period. They look like space ought to look, and not some hollywood-level superficial CGI cardboard mockup for people to play tag in. The typical solar system is a far more rich and diverse environment than eve online. There are far more enticing, beautiful backdrops, as well as spots where players would be able to interact meaningfully with the real estate.

1. I call on CCP to radically improve the level (or even the pretense of) science. No, ice worlds do not orbit in the second spot in a solar system and no, barren worlds do not orbit in the respective ninth spot. This is pathetic. The current level of design is plain pathetic. Hire a specialist (or better - crowd source system design to volunteers), let them "enrich" systems, come up with better planet graphics, at least somewhat more realistic orbital dynamics. Maybe a few twin star systems wouldn't hurt for crying out loud.

2. Add some real estate ok? O Neil habitats for starters. Solar farms with vast industrial complexes. I mean, I love Citadels, but they come a dime a dozen only a few months after introduction, and even though they look good, they are about as realistic as Flash Gordon about now. Make these structures a little more diverse.

3. In the real universe solar systems have things like culture. There's people living there. So why, the hell do I get only a 2 paragraph, two tab description of a planet on which I can literally see continent spanning cities?? I mean, what the ****, why not write a short 2 page description of the uniqueness of such a planet. Even better, shoehorn a wiki in to the client, with approved descriptions of the science , history and ethnographic backgrounds of star systems. Add at least a dozen orbital structures for the typical planet.

4 - there is now what, 13 years of player history to quote. In the past star systems and regions were added. Yet I see nothing, or very little, of this expansion. Why? Why no cultural reference of "the colonization of this or that planet", or the "fallout of a huge battle that happened in 2011 at precisely that spot"? Take for instance Jakku, in 'the force awakens". Holy **** there was a battle there. From orbit the planet looks positively scarred. Yet in eve CCP treats its own player base almost with palpable embarrassment. If a battle happened, why not create a permanent wreck belt on that very spot, that lasts for the entirety of the game's future? If a Citadel explodes that was in orbit about a temperate planet, why do I not see mention of such a titanic event in the planet's history? If a Citadel blows up and a hundred million people die or are scattered across the universe, why do I not see ragtag refugee caravans looking in raw desperation to find a new home? No, I am still transporting a dozen space hookers with my Iteron. Come on, seriously, at least try.

In all the above, serendipity is the goal. Just do it. If you create an orbital structure on a high lagrange orbit of a densely populated planet it doesn't immediately have to have a purpose - but you can count on it that design wise, it will be used in some productive game mechanic before long. It's like - if you build it, it will eventually generate meaningful purpose.

I characterize CCP as cravenly cautious in this regard. CCP only introduces content that has immediate implications for the existing game and shyes away from experimentation, creativity, art, content. I predict again (as I already have in 2009) that this will bite CCP in the ass hard, as the game will eventually be unable to overcome its own ponderous, gargantuan inertia and be able to compete with a game that has a late starter advantage. Remember, it only takes a few months of players deciding to not subscribe (because they are doing something else) and CCP is bankrupt.

So my insistence is clear - enrich the universe. Build it, plant that garden, grow that universe and beautiful things will happen.

Anyways, I will do my best to affect this side of the game, and if you agree with me, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

https://daugardraaken.wordpress.com/

I have little care for these.Very few people do. But i can tell you 4 already happens.

There are wrecks from player battles out there. The first titan kill, the br5b battle, the jita monument etc etc but thats not going to happen for every fight or wrecks would eventually litter the whole place.

10 planets a system, about 5-6000 systems. So lets say 50,000 planets.
That listing of the old elite planets is only 1,500 planets. They would need to generate about 25 times that number of entries. Or if you wanted a paragraph (lets say a paragraph is 300 words), they would have to write 15,000,000 words of descriptions.

Granted. Granted twice. But still, I see new space games emerge out there that offer all of the above, at a fraction of the cost and do it better than CCP.



https://software.grok.lsu.edu/article.aspx?articleid=11519

Celestia runs on win 98. And still, when I look to RT and they have an item on space stuff they use Celestia graphics.



That's a horrific statement. In the real world computer hardware is advancing exponentially. Franchises started in the 1960s and 70s. have ballooned from mediocre TV series and movies to franchises that encapsulate billions of euro, yearly. And people out there just think small small small. There's a great example for lack of vision like this - Xerox was once an industry leader but they became irrelevant precisely because of lack of vision, defensive corporate management and inability or cowardice to dare to renew.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/08/01/the-lesson-that-market-leaders-are-failing-to-learn-from-xerox-parc/#40c3a2784dad

Yes, WOD and Ambulation and all that cost CCP money. So what they curled up in their shell like turtles now? If that is what you are describing, that would be a monumental waste. Success in corporations is not about making profit - it is about expansion, growth, exponentials.

I can easily see how ten, 15 years from now the eve online franchise encompass ten, hundred times the subscriber base and offer a substantially bigger, broader, richer experience. But not if the people doing stay conceptually stuck on some barren island of the mind.

I do not play EvE for the pretty graphics and I know I am not alone so I do not care what you and the rest of the "immersion" crowd think. What I want is a game that works well, plays well and has a reasonable balance to all things. IF and given CCP's history (T3D we are looking at you) that is a really big IF they get things to a reasonable balance state and tidy up a few nagging game play and UI issues that would be the time to take on a project like this.

For comparison, war and peace is a mere 587,000 words, and the five song of ice and fire books comes to 1,842,762. An average novel comes in at a mere 90,000.

How much dev time are you thinking should be spent on reading, editing and ensuring consistency on enough fanfiction to fill 167 novels?

But planets that have cities could have some fluff text. They are not as numerous as the whole gathering. And you can see that descriptions were made using the low effort technique, also very memory friendly.

I have no doubt the community could produce ten times this amount of fanfiction if asked, but I would not want to subject anyone to actually reading it.

That isn't necessarily true, but more importantly CCP must be careful who's toes they step on. If they start changing planetary climates, then we'll have PI specialists getting hurt over it.

But if you want the science:
Ice is a form of rock. It has a melting point like any other rock. Stars vary greatly in luminosity. Some stars are very tiny and dim, and can have a solid ice planet much closer than 1 AU. Likewise, barren planets can be very cold. There is no need for them to be hot and blue-skied like the deserts on Earth. Some accretion belts had very little water, and produced mostly rocky planets even in cold regions, while they can still have an ice world that entered after they formed. Other systems may have plenty of water but could gain a rocky planet after they formed.