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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Why is there no first-person or cockpit view?

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Windorian
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#21 - 2012-09-23 23:34:43 UTC
Non story reasons for no cockpit view:

Firstly, your ship is huge. In relation to your surroundings though, you are miniscule. A cockpit view would only allow you to see maybe 1/10% a percent of what's out there.

There's way too much going on to even care what you see out a cockpit view. When you have hundereds of ships flying around you, orbital structures, celestial bodies, and everything else, what do you think you are going to be able to see AND comprehend through a cockpit view?

The key thing though (somewhat story) is that, YOUR SHIP HAS NO COCKPIT. It was closed down and sealed when your pod gantry was installed. Think of yourself as piloting from the cargo bay, because the bridge is turned off. The 3rd person view is provided by a camera drone which orbits your ship.

You said you looked forward to flying around and seeing the great vistas of EVE, why don't you? I enjoy great sites every day in EVE, from the actual EVE gate remnants, to the broken outposts of the various factions/pirates, there's a TON to see, dont be discouraged because you can't see both the inside of your ship, and the outside of the universe, at the same time.

Trying to see the world through a cockpit in EVE would be like telling someone you wanted them to go out to the deepest part of the ocean, surrounded by 1000 other ships, 500 islands, and a plethora of underwater vistas, then telling them they can only view it by looking through a drinking straw.
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#22 - 2012-09-24 00:06:03 UTC
Non-story reasons:

  • There would be very little to see. The distances at which things happen are huge, and most other ships would just be dots on your screen unless you're actively smashing into them.
  • Since Eve does not function on a WASD system (or live manual controls of any kind), but rather on a point-and-order method that requires knowing exactly which direction you want to go in, or where the target is relative to you, you would be drastically reducing your control capabilities.
  • What direction your ship is pointing has little to no influence on actual gameplay.
  • For some ships it's hard enough to discern which way they're supposed to be pointing, with no mention of where one could even cram a "cockpit".
  • The "cockpit" concept makes progressively less sense as ships grow in size, with the biggest being the size of Manhattan.
  • Vertigo sucks.

Accidentally The Whole Frigate - For-newbies blog (currently on pause)
Omega Sunset
Black.Omega
#23 - 2012-09-24 00:51:37 UTC
Wat? Flip to fwd-to-back view, engage zoom and pan the camera 180 degrees around, = FPV. Issue solved. You're welcome.

—Ω—
Zanzbar
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#24 - 2012-09-24 03:40:05 UTC
Another thing not mentioned here.

Eve is not a game where you can decide to go explore in first person now and then turn on pvp mode and 3rd person when you want to enjoy combat. Eve is a true sandbox game where there is no hard system in place to stop people from shooting you when and where they want, only the promise of death shorty after they engage without cause when the npc concord fleets descend on them seconds later.

This combined with the vast amount of info there is to display and the 1hz server refresh mentioned earlier make a first person veiw useless to most and not worth the developer time to code for the very few that would make use of it.
Keith Gavner
Nomura Industries
#25 - 2012-09-24 04:37:02 UTC
You seem a little stubborn so I'll get into details.

The first thing is that eve is not a game where you fly around in a shiny ship. It's a universe filled with paranoid socially inapt psychopath and all of them are here to get you.

In the same time, CCP is just as perverted as his players and thus doesn't want you to just use your skills to avoid engagements and bad people. All you can do to survive is click on the interface menu and hope it's enough. Most of the time, it won't be.

Welcome to eve
Tao Dolcino
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#26 - 2012-09-24 05:29:32 UTC
Non-story reasons :

EVE is not the game you were imagining. It's not Xwing and you don't need a joystick neither.
The devs won't be changing the game just for you. And even if they were, it would take a few years and they would lose their player base.
From there you have two solutions : you give EVE a fair try for what it is really, or you go play something else. And as there is a trial account, you have lost absolutely nothing.
Vilnius Zar
SDC Multi Ten
#27 - 2012-09-24 08:00:42 UTC
OP was hoping for a different game style thus he doesn't like it, anything beyond that is fairly useless. He sticks to his ideas (which he's entitled to) and we&EVE itself stick to our point of view.

End of story, move along and stop wasting time :)
Matt Grav
Wrath of the Pea
#28 - 2012-09-24 09:13:03 UTC
I believe that traditionally the controls needed for a first person view require a greater interaction with the server. More data must be exchanged with the server and the server needs to do more processing per connected player.
Eve was first designed around the needs of playing via a dial up connection and with the aim of having 100's to 1000's of players on each physical server node.

The point & click controls and 3rd person view aided in this design.

Even today most FPS games limit the number of players per server to 64 due to server load issues.

The way that Eve was designed means that combat is based on 360 degrees, not just on the small view in front of your ship. If the designers did give you the option to have a cockpit view because of the actual gameplay mechanics where range is so important you'd probably spent most of your time just looking at empty space with all of the action going on to the sides or behind you.

In short the game design and gameplay mechanics just don't support a cockpit view. The closest you can get is zooming the camera in on your ship and positioning it just above and behind.
dholl trip
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#29 - 2012-09-24 10:14:53 UTC
Great reply, Matt Grav...that pretty much technically explains it. And good feedback from most of the other replies too.

My musing has been answered. We can still continue the thread to perhaps discuss the future feasibility of allowing a first-person view, but otherwise I think we've covered all bases the topic has to offer.
Kitty Bear
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#30 - 2012-09-24 10:27:59 UTC
1st person view is only really useful on in a wasd/joystick controlled combat flight simulator game.
Eve is not a combat flight sim.
Eve is not x-btf, x2, x3
Eve is not elite v3.0
These are your non-story based reasons.

There is no cockpit view, because there is no cockpit. Just a whole bunch of cables hooked upto an eggshaped 1 person capsule.
You can however simulate a Cockpit view.
Open your display settings and configure them to only show GREEN, you can now see the goo in your pod.
DeBingJos
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#31 - 2012-09-24 10:39:49 UTC
Kitty Bear wrote:

Eve is not elite v3.0


WHAT?!

Yes it is!

Ungi maðurinn þekkir reglurnar, en gamli maðurinn þekkir undantekningarnar. The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Omega Sunset
Black.Omega
#32 - 2012-09-24 10:47:34 UTC
dholl trip wrote:
discuss the future feasibility of allowing a first-person view
What's to discuss? Like I said, it's already there. You just flip the cam around in zoom, thus you have a first-person view/nose cam that also magnifies gates at long range for bubbles. I've been using it for years. Cam right in-front of the ship pointing forward, right? Or are you looking for an arm holding a sword and shield? heh

—Ω—
Pak Narhoo
Splinter Foundation
#33 - 2012-09-24 10:59:17 UTC
Not going into the first person view vs third person view, that's been covered.

One of the things new players are often told is to forget any other game/mmo they have played before and leave any expectations they have based upon previous games behind. EVE is a niche game, it's unlike anything you've played before. No pause button, no saves you can go back to and if you get shot down you lose your stuff. Things that may have taken you months to put together are gone or picked up by the people who shot you. There's no magical respawning of your stuff.

Talking about the OP's 'desire' for occasional one on ones, sorry those are fairly rare.

EVE is eat or get eaten.
You come with 1 ship, I bring 3.
You bring 3 ships I bring 12.
Tough battles can be epic in scale, here's one PVE battle for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEpo4vRGOTc&list=PLBC70E09D59499069&index=6&feature=plpp_video
Just skip to the 2 minutes mark. :)

Eve also is:
- spreadsheets online
- scammers & backstabbers online
- my day is good if I ruined yours online
- this isn't easy online

but also:
- friends online
- lots of fun online
- we band together online

OP you sound like a romantic dreamer. P Even if you'd had a 2d view I doubt that EVE would be something for you, still you have 2 weeks why not sit it out, it's free and maybe you find a reason to enjoy part of it after all.

But wherever you go, fly save.
o/
Inxentas Ultramar
Ultramar Independent Contracting
#34 - 2012-09-24 11:24:16 UTC
OP, if you turn on the Advanced Camera Controls there should be a new option in your context menu when you right-click a target: "set as interest". This will keep the camera pointed at a specific target. If you play with your camera drone when your target is "set as interest", you can get pretty stunning visuals (of your ship orbiting the enemy, for example).
Hina Yamamoto
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#35 - 2012-09-24 11:58:53 UTC
Sometimes I wish to be able to see the bridge of the ship, too. I hope it will be real someday after they've finished Walking in Stations.

And because some people still think that there is no bridge and no crew:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines
Keno Skir
#36 - 2012-09-24 12:03:54 UTC
dholl trip wrote:
Have you never played flight games before? The best ones are generally first-person view, or at least give you that option (see also driving games).


Yeah actually everything from Longbow thru to all the Falcon series, LO:MAC, EECH and EEAH. All of these flight sims correctly feature a cockpit view.

EvE does not, because it would be useless.

If there was a cockpit view you wouldnt know where anything was unless it was right in front of you. Also the developers would have to individually render a 3d cockpit view for over 200 different spacecraft instead of working on something that actually has a point and is wanted by more than just a few players.

For extra reading see the whole walking in stations thing. In a perfect world it would be nice, but really its just not worth development time at this stage.

Also, if you will keep rattling on about imersiveness then you really should take storyline replies into account. Half the imersiveness of most games is in fact the storyline elements in conjunction with mechanical elements and how they fit together. For most people having a cockpit view in a ship with no cockpit would REDUCE imersiveness.

Black Lanterns Blog <- Read my ramblings -.-

250,000 Bonus SP when you start an Alpha Clone HERE <---
Oraac Ensor
#37 - 2012-09-24 13:01:47 UTC
Hina Yamamoto wrote:
And because some people still think that there is no bridge and no crew:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines

There's no mention of a bridge in that article and, as far as I can see, nobody in this thread has said there's no crew.

OP seems to be the sort who would walk onto a hockey pitch and demand to know why he can't use a baseball bat.
ISD Athechu
ISD STAR
ISD Alliance
#38 - 2012-09-24 13:16:44 UTC
Cleaned up some posts that weren't on topic.

Enjoy.

Also if you want a feature to be added or looked at and discussed please take it to the Features & Ideas section.

ISD Athechu

STAR Executive

EVE New Citizens Q&A Resources

Helping Players Since 2011
dholl trip
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#39 - 2012-09-24 13:20:26 UTC
ISD Athechu wrote:
Cleaned up some posts that weren't on topic.


I don't remember any off-topic posts. And the ones about "there's the door" and ones going on about the story still remain.



ISD Athechu wrote:

Also if you want a feature to be added or looked at and discussed please take it to the Features & Ideas section.


Can trial members now post elsewhere?
Tialano Utrigas
Running with Dogs
Out of the Blue.
#40 - 2012-09-24 13:59:12 UTC
I can understand the desire of the OP so shooting him down, so to speak, seems a bit harsh.

The reasoning behind non-storyline arguments i.e. no bridge etc is utterly rubbish. If you can link into to camera drones around your ship theres no reason you can't link to a heads up display which can pan around from within your ship.

That said I fully appreciate the server requirements would be completely un workable in its current state.

For those that say you will lose the immersion?

Picture FPV being allowed on frigate class vessles (or fighters...thinking outside the box), then imagine the full scale of immersion you would get while pointing and orbiting a capital ship (which would look HUGE in FPV) with your tackle squad, while your fleet is bombarding it from afar.

For me, its not a bad concept...its just a new one.