EVE General Discussion

When someone told me about this game originally, I told them it didn't sound like my thing because I had only really played games with Avatars. I didn't fancy just being a floating ship in space. He told me they were going to introduce Avatar content and showed me the videos from back in 2007. At which point I thought perhaps I'd give it a go. Four years of unbroken sub later I still want it.

Don't get my wrong, I love Eve. If I didn't I wouldn't have played this long. I am not traditionally a patient person. I am not saying I have spend four years hating a game because I am waiting for Avatar content. But I can empathise with people who wont play because of how dis-attached they would feel from their characters.

Later in the game people get attached to their characters, because they have a history behind them. Friends, enemies, memorable experiences. But a new player doesn't have that attachment, which is where more Avatar content would really be amazing. I know this is a little off subject, but it would be nice if when you create a character you select a "mannerisms" type for them, which would subtly change the way they stood, walked, held a gun. Change their inactive animations etc. It would get rid of the stupid emotes and give a greater richness to gatherings of players.

Anyway. I'm ranting now, so I'll stop.

I more or less hate emotes. When i think of avatars in a game, my crazest dreams imply not being able to dictate all their actions but them being independent to a point. Your avatar would do his stuff for his AI reasons, always according to the game lore, and you would only have a limited control on the general direction of their virtual life. You would be more of a Jiminy Cricket than an almighty god telling your avatar to "now do the gangnam style" in the middle of a funeral.

Emotes and "barbie lovers" are of those straw man lies that become real after repeating them 1,000 times. I was not thinking of emotes not even when i stated that I would like to dance with another avatar (those were the times...).

there's another type of avatar dancing in a mmo not /dance?
or you mean those arcade style dance games, hit arrows as they fall like tetris?

I was thinking about synchronized combos i.e. both players pressing the right keys with the right timing so the server renders the appropiate combined animation. Provided that all dance standards are already codified, the limit would be animations and key combinations to trigger them, and the whole synchronization thing.

Graphically, Star Citizen it's going to roll over EVE like a bus.

Huh... not, would not be like that. The player would like "pilot" the avatar over the forces of simulated psychology and socialization, or like a strategist over the tactical avatar behavior.

At the foundations of the system, the avatars would be able to pick wether they liked or don't to engage with another avatar (I already devised a mechanic for that, but it would require extensive fine tuning and software writing skills I lack... i am thinker, not a doer) and the avatar would react accordingly: so maybe the player needs his avatar to be friends with X but the avatar avoids interacting X offline and the online interactions always end bad, so the player beats it and finds a way to pursue his goal without X. Conversely, maybe the avatar sistematically suffers penalties for interacting with Z, and no amout of effort can keep him permanenlty away from Z because he likes engaging Z.

The like/don't like checks would be a black box both to the avatar and the player (that's one of the reasons why it would require extensive testing and tuning to simulate reality appropiatedly) and so decissions would be made upon what the interaction looked like... let's say you log in and find out your avatar met with K on his own and they had a blast. Is K useful to your plans? Should you command your avatar to engage K under your control and learn more of the potential behind that acquitance...?

As you may understand, what i am thinking is something really new, unlike anyhing seen before, and so i am struggling to convey the concept in a foreign language. I apologyze if my words are confusing...

The next level would be "what to accomplish with avatars", as they could be used by the player to trigger events that affected other players. The details still are a bit fuzzy as i stopped working on the concept once i understood that WiS is gone, but maybe the player could trigger the spawn of certain NPCs (or despawn them) in order to gain advantages for him or harm the enemy, or pursue whatever goal.

The key point would be that avatars would be lively, socially interacting, in an universe were what people does to people (be those people players or NPC) drived the drama in par with what ships did to ships. In my crazest dreams, a caress could wipe out a whole fleet.

But that won't happen in EVE. Such big exciting universe, an it's being wasted with some silly shooting at red crosses.

Their loss completely.

Surprise! The other players are playing while you are not logged in, too.

Don't use it, then. Won't be talking about "natural" stuff in the land of self-spawning minerals.

The avatar wouldn't play instead of the player. It would just spawn/despawn resources for avatar gameplay.