EVE General Discussion

It's great to see everyone debating how these sites would fit into EVE. I'd like to take a moment to reiterate that our focus was on the minute-by-minute gameplay rather than looking at the idea holistically. We wanted to make sure there was some fun gameplay to come out of the concept before we started deep diving in how it might be integrated into EVE proper, which is a question worthy of serious consideration.

Lots of people are off making assumptions about how the gameplay would fit into EVE as if it were decided and implementation was already in progress! We've definitely talked about this subject within Team Avatar and with others in the company in much the same fashion you guys are here but there is nothing set in stone. There are a lot of ways this could work that complement what exists already.

The dev blog is about the prototyping so there isn't really any discussion of social spaces in it at all. As far as I'm concerned they are a no brainer for inclusion, particularly as the tools and technology that would be developed to create gameplay get you 90% of the way towards creating a social space. As with the more active gameplay this is stuff we should be getting into the hands of the players early when we actually get greenlit.

Thanks, I'm actively adding these and other threads to our internal wiki.

I think you guys underestimate that how important the social spaces are for a lot of players.

Meet someone's 3D avatar in a 3D environment is much more personal and social than browsing profile pictures and employment histories.

For me it's more interesting to go to a system and station where usually 5-10 people around, and meet / chat them WiS-mode (what I don't do when I just see a Local-channel and portraits) than going to an exploration site or something.

I don't think that we do underestimate that. I'm just saying that it hasn't been the focus of prototyping to date and that should we be greenlit and start working on them we should involve the community in evaluating them as early as possible. Surely that's a good thing?

Shooting Greedo and then fleeing to your Milenium Falcon getting the hell out of the system, sounds like a part of a space ship game to me?

On a serious note.

I think there are some options WIS can bring that could improve the space ship game.

WIS would open the way for an active station comander, something I miss in the current game play. now 0.0 stations are open or closed, neutral transport cooperations would become a real option if you could get a temp docking license, by contacting the station. and give the station comander an option to give that licence on a visial confermation and a cargo scan, which will offer new gameplay.

Ofcourse it could be done with a panel though a Bridge with a window and a Screen showing the pilot that wants to dock, makes it way nicer and atractive as well as a good place for coordinating fleet actions.

And it would give an option to other micro manegment options for Stations and Structures.

A lot of the ideas work was completed as well as a nice implementation of Slay but a lot of the technology is still in a really early stages. You can get multiple people into an environment and walk around together but there is a relatively large gap between that and something that would be usable.



None beyond general optimisations to the graphics engine, Trinity, we're a small team and don't have the expertise to do that well or quickly.

I do remember a CCP saying during a fanfest that their goal is to make EVE not just about spaceships, but an entire Sci-Fi Space Sim. they even showcased the insides of a Gallente station during... was it FF'09 or '08
players, however, seem to disagree and demand that EVE will be about spaceships, and spaceships alone.
so yeah, a chain of events led to much rage, but that still does not mean that WiS is bad and should be canceled. the only bad thing about it is the way that the CCPs implemented it: too little, too late.
IMO balancing spaceships is high on the priority list - but WiS and even FiS should be the next things on the list.

Remember the Door!

Oh, I did, and it was just the normal doom-and-gloom crap we see every time a new features comes around that introduces more competition into EVE.


When I'm not being a jackass with my buds or getting blown up by people I really shouldn't be tangling with, I'm doing low-sec exploration or ratting of some sort. Who are you, some sort of carebear prince?


We haven't even really seen the feature or how it will interact with FIS, it's still being prototyped.

At some point someone will figure out how to effectively solo the content and there will be numerous guides written on how to avoid X bad guy and how to solve X puzzle to remove all sense of challenge. Who knows, maybe docking one of these features will protect your ship for a limited time, and a gang stopping by to blow up the station might introduce a timer much like sov warfare (although not nearly as tedious!) so that you have a chance to get away.

Besides, if it's that dangerous to dock up your ship in order to run one of these sites, people will start doing exploration in Arbitrators and Vexors. Point being, though, the sites will get run, and probably by small gangs interested in making a big score.

Perhaps, but they were really vocal and stirred up a lot of people. In return we did get a tremendous amount of improvements to FIS, which has been great. I distinctly remember CCP asking if we wanted incremental roll out of WIS and I whole heatedly said yes so that we could help influence the direction as it evolved. We got that with the CQ but the reaction was so violently bad that it stalled out there.

Maybe the less formal prototyping work done using Unity is a better way. If the web player version could be posted as an early alpha test we could provide feedback before the hard work of integrating with the real client. I've never seen a company work with and listen to its players this much especially this early in the process. Team Avatar, I look forward to seeing what more you have for us. Your hard work is much appreciated.

The team wholeheartedly agree with the cheaper pricing structure.