EVE General Discussion

Remembering to load your cargo is technically using your brain... as much as digging a ditch requires you to use your brain. It is a functional step...but it can hardly be called mentally challenging.

Courier missions are already a painful (as in, painfully boring) thing to run. Cutting down on the times you go 5 jumps only to realize you forgot your cargo is just a way to make it less painful.


Now, if you were running a security mission and you got the message: "I see you are about to undock for a mission against the Blood Raiders... but your ammo is geared to dealing Kinetic damage and your tank for resisting explosive. It is recommended you load EM or Thermal weapons and resists when fighting these pirates. With your skills, I'd recommend XYZ ammo and ZYX tanking modules for this mission.

Then yes, that would be dumbing it down.

Have you been stalking my main?

I also have a bad habit of leaving drones all over eve when I warp off. I have been accused of being the a cause of the rogue drone problem.

I just hit a new low. Read 3 pages of courier missions as if it mattered. Courier missions. Really a new low.

By definition, making something simpler is making it easier.

When I see a post like this my first reaction is that the poster is a complete ******. However, I usually try to dismiss that initial reaction in favor of what could be more likely reasons, such as furious typing in an attempt to get off a quick troll post, or maybe a less-than-stellar command of the English language, or it could simply be a result of the poster's schooling (United States South, maybe?)

People, think before you post, for the love of all that is holy.

Also, I agree that the pop-up is making EVE easier. I know I've left **** in the station and have had to go back for it on multiple occasions. It's one of the few "dangers" inherent in mission-running.

If I was paid a nominal amount of isk for every time I flew to a mission site without having first accepted the mission, I could afford not to run missions at all.

Eve needs a pop-up mission reminder for folk like me.

o.k. then let's add these popups too.

"you're about to undock but you have no ammo in your cargo bay"

"you're about to target a ship, but you have no ammo in your guns"

"you're about log off, but you have no skills in training queue"

"you're about to leave your corporation, but your friends will miss you."

"you're about to enter another mining cycle, but you won't have enough room in your cargo bay for the next round of ore"

"you're about to warp but you don't have enough capacitor to reach your destination"

"you're about to undock in a mining barge, but you have no tank fitted"

"you're about to make player to player trade, but the person you're trading with is not in your buddy list"

"you're about to join a corporation, but they have a very high turnover"

"you're about buy a cruiser, and while you have the cruiser skill trained, you're other skills related to this ship suck"

"you're about to sell a ship, but you have no other ships in your hanger bay"

"you're about to lock this hunk of veldspar, but there's a scordite asteroid nearby"

"you're about to lock a ship, but it is out of range of you're weaponry.

"you're about to activate ECM on this ship, but it has multiple ECCM fitted"

"you're about to use fire EM missiles, but your target has a 85% EM resist"

Where does it stop? Why is it necessary?

Is it dumbing down? matter of opinion. My opinion is that it caters to laziness. But it's a slippery slope, because while making tedious things easier to complete sounds like a good idea... different people have different ideas of what tedium is. Every time you remove something that is tedious to 1 person, you remove something that is important to another. Simplilfy to many things, and you actually lose more than you gain.

This one thing in and of itself is not intrinsically bad in and of itself. The direction that it hints of could be.

Blizzard seemed to think that there were so many people complaining about how long it took to level their dozen alts to start raiding (level requirements, gear checks, etc) that they sped up the levelling process and weakened the “gear checks”. So yes, they made it easier. As a result of being so quick to level, it became boring. Halfway through an old chain of quests that would be challenging for a level 10 character, the character would hit level 15 and the previously challenging fights were against grey mobs: i.e. no challenge at all. So boring in fact that WoW started bleeding subscribers.

In Ultima Online, the developers heard so many cries from PvP-averse players about how hard it was to collect resources without being killed, they added the world of Trammel where world PvP was turned off. The result was rampant inflation and the near death of PvP. The PvE folks didn't mind: they were brainlessly gathering materials without any risk. The industrial folks hated it: no longer was there any feeling of achievment in coming back to town alive with a load of materials. The Ultima Online servers are still running, but for many people the game is dead.

In Star Wars Galaxies, the new owners (Sony Online Entertainment) decided that this player-run economy thing was too complicated. So they introduced the New Player Experience. It was supposed to make the game so much easier and more enjoyable. But it turns out that a great many players who weren't in SOE's ear 24x7 actually enjoyed the player driven economy. I have friends who played SWG and specialised in making high grade health packs which required visiting certain planets during certain seasons (i.e.: there were real world time constraints on resource availability) to get the appropriate parts. That was their game: they took pride in their craft. The NPE destroyed the player driven economy. I'm told the SWG servers were shut down last year, but the game was dead long before that.

It turns out that a lot of people want virtual worlds where virtual success means something. What's the point of parading around Ironforge in your Ultimate Raid Armour of Doom when everyone has Ultimate Raid Armour of Doom? People were so desperate to gain status through equipment that they'd pay other people thousands of dollars to play their accounts through Arena seasons to gain the rewards that are only available to characters high up on the Arena ladders (no, I'm serious, one of my workmates was making $US2000/month playing World of Warcraft).

So on one hand, making things easier removes the challenge of getting things right: and believe me although courier missions are boring, boring, boring, there is still some satisfaction in being able to mentally tick off the checklists for "Flying the correct ship? Check! Cargo in hold? Check! Waypoints set? Check! Undock and activate autopilot! Check check!"

There is no point in PvP at which a player will be prompted to put ammo in their cargo hold (and preferably, ammo suitable to the weapons they're using and targets they're shooting). Some FCs might distribute checklists (everyone bring enough Liquid Oxygen to refuel the jump bridge), but there's always someone who forgets. For some players, the sense of satisfaction from coming home after a long roam where everyone was organised and had the right ship, weapons, ammo and fuel is enough to compensate to some degree for the total lack of goodfites.

Some lessons need to be learned the hard way. While I appreciate the effort the devs have put into the UI, I feel that reminding people to put mission cargo in their hold is counter productive hand-holding. It's teaching people bad habits: yes, pilot, in this cold harsh universe where making mistakes can get you killed, don't worry because Aura has your back. Except when your mistake could actually get you killed.

On the one hand, warning missioners that they're leaving station without the appropriate cargo is useful: courier missions are dull and boring as it is, never mind the frustration of getting to the destination eight jumps away without the cargo. On the other hand, this kind of hand-holding will teach new players bad habits. They will get into PvP and undock with no ammo, because they've come to rely on the warning about undocking without the important stuff.

It might be the case that I am reaching for something to complain about. It might be the case that most people will appreciate the message, then turn it off after a while because it annoys them, and no harm done. It might be the case that I'm arguing an extreme case of “slippery slope”, and that I should just calm down and enjoy the game. But I can't help worrying that there are little changes the devs can make to EVE Online that we won't complain about at first, only to look back in a few years time and realise, "Yeah, the mission cargo warning was where the devs started EVE Online's 'Trammelling' disaster."

My sincere respect goes to the developers involved in this: the warning is a very thoughtful inclusion and I don't mean to diminish the effort you spent on testing and tweaking this feature. I do worry that this feature is indicative of a poor design decision process that might lead to more hand-holding and protecting new players from themselves. That is to say, this simple dialog box is a symptom of a grater malaise (to abuse the cliché, it's “the tip of the iceberg”), of CCP starting to “helicopter parent” the new players. Perhaps CCP believe the intent of the feature is to care for and nurture new players?

The road to Hell, as the saying goes, is paved with good intentions.

I'm pretty sure this warning has been there for years. Why are you mentioning it now?

I guess the irony here is the noobs aren't the only ones who need to use their brain then.