EVE General Discussion

Luckily, I am not one of those people, whom we all meet, that expects everyone to agree with them or thinks that you are somehow less for not. Hopefully, I am allowed the same courtesy. I have been thinking over a few of the posts written here.

There is no need to add more group dynamics to exploration in sector space when by nature of the job those that want group exploration will graduate to worm hole space where it is a requirement for the exploitation of resources. This new twitch mechanic threatens to KILL a classic profession from science fiction story telling that happens to be intrinsic to the play value of many EVE subscribers: The lone explorer. This should not be allowed to happen. The catch and grab mechanic is messy and leave those explorers feeling like they are always missing out on the honest rewards of their work while enforcing a needless limitation to group we violate every where else in play.

The only real way to involve more people in more jobs in EVE is to directly kill multi-boxing itself rather than attempting to eliminate the jobs it is often used for as you hurt and dissuade too many other players and their fun too. Since it is doubtful they can afford to do that directly it is something to be accepted. Attempting to design around it with twitch fails as boxer and other tools can be easily modified to deal with it. I’ll admit that I am a fan of the idea of one character and account per player IP and permadeath possibilities but I doubt anyone else could handle it.

Allowing the introduction of a twitch play mechanic such as catch and grab vanishing loot into a simulation is a counterproductive change in design philosophy that if accepted by the general player base opens the door to the introduction of yet more twitch game play killing the internal consistency of established mechanical design from years past progressively over time. It’s a tendency we call feature creep. Silliness such as exploding asteroids with catchable bits may actually not be out of the realm of possibility in years to come as unreasonable as it sounds now if this is quietly accepted.

Twitch play by its nature does not mean less boring and more fun over time. It doesn’t even imply more accessible to most players as EVE has never (and will never) be appreciable to those grounded in the “Nintendo” school of play philosophy. After dealing with catch and grab for the hundredth time the newness will wear off and that you will miss the old crack a can and run mode of play for sheer expediency. If you think the current method dull or bland that’s fine but changes for changes sake to something not game appropriate never pan out well. Instead of pandering to the twitch generation why not simply hold true to simulation design and create a mechanic vested in decision making?

Scanning and probing have been described as a mini-game that plays out like a logical extension of piloting your ship inside the simulation (it feels REAL) so that most people don’t notice the fact. These exploration site changes play out as a cobbled in twitch mechanic that runs contrary to established play methodology so strongly that it sticks out like a bruised thumb. They have no place in EVE.

I mean like I can do it with my friends instead of solo now... Since you know you will need more people to catch the loot it will make it fun! and just think of the small gang pvp fights we will get over the sites... say each gang has like 3-4 people, will make fighting over low/null sites more fun!

What part of opportunity cost do these people not understand? If you're waiting for your corp mate 12 jumps out to fly to you, you're both losing money because of wasted time.

I love reading people talk about "opportunity costs" as related to making isk WHILE SITTING ON THEIR ARSE PLAYING A COMPUTER GAME!!!

Forgive me if this is harsh, but how is it people have enough save to use a computer, and not enough to cinsdier the idea that a relic or data site might have more than one thing to hack? If two "cans"(or whatever we end up calling them) are close enough, might not the exporation team hack more than 1 can at a time, giving both players something to do?