EVE General Discussion

Interesting interview with Jon Lander on Eurogamer

I hope the launch of Retribution brings in new players whilst also making existing folks get more from the game.

Also, some stuff about the future of Eve:-

'Lander promised new features will be added to the game in 2013, but stopped short of revealing what they are. “Retribution is a great foundation for what I'm calling the second decade of Eve,” he said.

“We're putting a lot of planning into how we go about getting the right things to concentrate on through 2013 and beyond. But one thing is very clear: we need to make sure as well as doing these great big features we continue to look after the systems we already have. We cannot just ignore that side of things. But also we're making a real play for that simple to learn, hard to master.”

He added: “I want to try and reduce that barrier of entry to playing Eve. I don't ever want Eve to be nice and fluffy and it's a wonderful place to be. I think there's a place in the MMO world for a dark and dangerous, really good sci-fi world where you can be the goodie, the baddie, a criminal, the Good Samaritan. But it's very important we allow as many people as possible to get access to that game.

“So some of the things you'll see will be very much around accessibility for all players while keeping the depth of what the game is.

“But you're right, we will put in some really good big expansive things we've been looking at. We've done a lot of prototyping over the last year, but also we've got a backlog of things which could probably take us through another 20 years.

“There are some good things coming. We almost have too much choice, which is a great first world problem. As soon as we've prioritised what it is we want to do, we'll start communicating that out.”

Seems alright.
Move along people, nothing to get angry about!

The man was hired for his carefully chosen words.

This will be done under the tagline of "easily getting information to make hard choices". The gameplay of EVE won't be easier, but the UI will be better than a 90s cellphone.

Gosh, so many words, and literally zero substance. All it does is hinting that amazing stuff, which they haven't decided on yet, but which will be amazing, may or may not be coming in 2013. Might as well have said "Coming Soon!" and left it at that.

And PS: Until they get rid of the skill training system, so that it takes a newbie 6 months to get core skills, the game will remain inaccessible. The only thing they can do is for those 6 months give a newbie something else to do that is fun and non-ship-related, which is where WiS comes in.

Well said that man! A bad interface isn't "complexity". Obscure mechanics that serve no game purpose other than to punish you for not knowing about them aren't "complexity".

A complex game is made by having lots of systems (different things to do) that can interact with other systems on various levels (ie: though the market, through aggression, through standings or contracts or whatever). Making those interactions intuitive, smooth and reliable isn't "dumbing down" the game.

Chess is hugely more complex than checkers because it has more systems (6 different sorts of pieces [7 if you count black and white bishops seperately] with different capabilities) even though it has almost exactly the same interface.

Ah well, this is a bit of a larger discussion. I look at "good" and "bad" complexity in EVE. Things like figuring out fittings, production chains etc are "good complexity", while things like navigating the industry UI, corp interface etc are bad complexity. They're basically complex ways of displaying information which should be easily available.

Then there's mechanics too of course. Why do you need so many structures to make boosters for example? There are a lot of stuff in there that are super specific instead of filling generalist roles etc.

And do little after saying what they do say.

Well EVE is still here. We are not dead yet!
I like Mr. Lander, he does think critically before he says or does things and for that I admire him.

I would love it if you made eve more noob freiendly as long as you keep the complexity and difficulty available in the game.

I love the fact you have been reworking lower end ships like frigs and cruisers for the new guys (And us vets like it too)
As long as you balance what you do for new bros with what you are doing for us old hands then im sure we will be fine :)

Even still, the "good" side can be made better. Let's take fittings for example, and the lack of prototyping. The math and understanding required for fitting a ship is complex, various fitting skills effecting things like powergrid and CPU usage of shields, weapons, rigs etc.

Even veterans can't be expected to work them out accurately without spending most of their time in a spreadsheet. This is where third party tools such as EFT shine. They exist out of necessity but they shouldn't. They should take a basic feature and make it better.

The problem is in a lot of areas EVE lacks the basics. i.e. Can I fit this module to my ship and what difference would it make? I'd have to buy it, try and fit it, and if it didn't fit or when I undocked and activated all my modules etc it didn't do what I wanted it to, sell it again at a loss... or I could just use EFT. But EFT isn't something that's known to new players.

I want to know what my assets are worth, so I look in the inventory and notice it ignores fitted ship modules and cans, so I'm forced to go to EHQ and Prism.

EVE could be a much more accessible game if CCP covered more of the basics.