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Team Avatar and the future of our prototype

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Lors Dornick
Kallisti Industries
#961 - 2013-05-01 06:58:57 UTC
Incarna and the release of WiS was a massive failure due to two things.

First, it was coded as a part of a generic game engine that CCP wanted to be able to use their technology to expand beyond EvE. Sadly they badly underestimated the amount of work they'd had to invest to launch another game using the same game engine.

Secondly, they launched Incarna (CQ/WiS) without any real targets for it. It was like "oh cool, we have avatars, let's do something". Except that there was no plan, no target, no idea of _why_ they added avatars except that is was cool (and needed for the generic game engine).

And for anyone wanting just "small things" added I have to say that you either aren't familiar with the current state of CQ and have no experience what so ever of coding a game using it, or you are just plain delusional.

Adding just 2-3 avatars in the same room, without them falling over, getting stuck in a corner or melting your GPU is a huge investment in dev resource, for a very marginal outcome.

No sane company would ever do that.

WiS/CQ might still have a place, and a glorious comeback.

But not until CCP can come up with a real solid reason to invest a huge amount dev resources.

There are no cheap wins to be made with WiS, and to invest the resources needed there has to be a serious payback in the form of gameplay.

CCP Greyscale: As to starbases, we agree it's pretty terrible, but we don't want to delay the entire release just for this one factor.
Teinyhr
Ourumur
#962 - 2013-05-01 07:27:49 UTC
Lors Dornick wrote:
WiS/CQ might still have a place, and a glorious comeback.

But not until CCP can come up with a real solid reason to invest a huge amount dev resources.

There are no cheap wins to be made with WiS, and to invest the resources needed there has to be a serious payback in the form of gameplay.


Did you read my post from the last page? They CAN invest in BOTH WiS and FiS, they've shown they could before, with a smaller team even. Why can't they do it now? Tell me, how is it impossible now?
Indahmawar Fazmarai
#963 - 2013-05-01 07:32:26 UTC
Lors Dornick wrote:
(...)
There are no cheap wins to be made with WiS, and to invest the resources needed there has to be a serious payback in the form of gameplay.


Agree. But disagree.

What is gameplay? What is meaningful gameplay? And who determines it?
Indahmawar Fazmarai
#964 - 2013-05-01 08:01:27 UTC
Teinyhr wrote:
Lors Dornick wrote:
WiS/CQ might still have a place, and a glorious comeback.

But not until CCP can come up with a real solid reason to invest a huge amount dev resources.

There are no cheap wins to be made with WiS, and to invest the resources needed there has to be a serious payback in the form of gameplay.


Did you read my post from the last page? They CAN invest in BOTH WiS and FiS, they've shown they could before, with a smaller team even. Why can't they do it now? Tell me, how is it impossible now?


DUST and WoD are competing with WiS. And they've won hands down. Straight

Did you see that TV commercial for DUST at Fanfest? That's how 20 million dollars look for you. You read well, 20 million dollars, it's the loan CCP took to pay for DUST 514's launch campaign, everything from Fanfest hype to TV commercials to the DUST + PS3 bundle and so and so.

20+ million dollars, accidentally, it's the (stated) development cost of Star Citizen, a whole new AAA title.

CCP had to loan that money because, obviously, they hadn't it available, and also obviously, they estimate that this kind of money will pay itself back at some point, if they do things right and succeed in the hard trick they're pulling out with EVE and DUST 514.

So it makes sense that they don't have time nor personnel nor money left for avatars in EVE.

My only little itch is... why did they decide to spend that kind of resources with DUST, and not with EVE avatar content? That makes sense, I suspect, as long as DUST could provide what EVE can't, like new paying customers.

So what was first? Stagnation, then DUST, or DUST, then stagnation?
Veronica Aurilen
Doomheim
#965 - 2013-05-01 08:02:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Veronica Aurilen
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:

..................Incarna launch was a mess. True. Not because of WiS itself, but because it was a perfect storm from three fronts - Incarna failing to deliver content, NEX store, and the infamous letter. This resulted in the "atomic bomb hit" effect you mentioned.....................................

..................They NEED to push past "spaceships and spreadsheets" image that has been attached to EVE like a fig leaf for a decade now. No amount of new spaceships or space mechanics will bring new people in, or make those who tried EVE and quit come back. Anyone who wanted to play internet spaceships is already playing internet spaceships.................. But adding a whole new dimension to the game by way of meaningful avatar gameplay will turn this game into a full-fledges sci-fi sim, and population is very likely to jump.

Now, a lot of people are REALLY against "barbies in space". And I totally get that. But how can it be a bad thing if the game suddenly attracted hundreds of thousands of new people with this "barbies in space" content? No matter who these new people are, would adding a few hundred thousand new people to the game possibly be a bad thing?

Now, you could argue that "barbies in space" may not attract anyone at all. To that I say, extremely unlikely. Why? Simple. What is the best-selling PC game of all time? WoW? Call of Duty? Nope, it's The Sims series! Between the three games, the series sold around 50 million copies. Sims 2 alone sold over 20 million copies. There IS a market for this kind of stuff.

Bottom line, I feel the last two years PROVED, beyond any reasonable doubt, that as far as "internet spaceships" go, EVE has peaked. No amount of additional internet spaceship content will make this game move forward. It will either continue to stagnate, or it'll crash and burn if sufficiently strong competition appears. ..........They need to diversify.

.......... what if Star Citizen, for example, is a hit and delivers just enough MMO-like stuff (persistent world and character), and has vastly superior physics and combat mechanics? Can you look me square in the monocle and say this will not affect EVE's population one iota? What if Elite is a similar hit? What if Blizzard's next MMO is set in a sci-fi universe.........................

See where I'm heading with this? It's good to stay in the bomb shelter and play it safe. Until the food runs out. And then you starve to death.


+10000 this pretty much sums it up.

I like flying in space and the depth of eve but to much of eve is focused on brackets and text walls. I can deal with that cause it enables the games depth which i love. BUT !!! i need more to keep me interested year after year. Incarna/WIS can be the enabler to add the visual immersion that is lacking in eve.

I see the eve trailers which show a more graphical and visual side to eve and im like why cant eve be more like that ????. Let me sit in a station bar, and watch the jita undock from a big window (with a zoomed in view so i can see the explosions), make the ships bigger so we dont just play with red and purple dots all the time), let me meet with my corpmates in a meeting room, let me play poker, let me store the heads of a selection of my pvp victims in a tank in my CQ, let me watch a television screen in bar/CQ that presents what is happening in sov space, high sec and low sec in the form of a tv news show. and ultimately give me some WIS/exploration pvp/pve combat content.

I want more visual / immersive content and less text walls !! (but NO dumbing down)

by all means continue to fix FIS (it is important) but dont think that everyone in 2011 wanted you to dump WIS. We were just mad (and rightfully so) cause u released incarna with no content, introduced the nex store and PTW on horizon and then saw the hilmar letter/internal newsletter.

Keeping the depth but adding a more visual/immersive FIS & WIS is the future of Eve. (DUST is not EVE. U need to give EVE more resources, its survival just could be at stake)

AND the future needs to start happening now!
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#966 - 2013-05-01 15:06:52 UTC
Doc Fury wrote:
Vincent Athena wrote:
CCP Unifex wrote:
I want to take it when it won’t mean removing developers and focus from flying in space.

The issue with your statement is its the same thing as saying "Never" without actually saying it. No matter how much money CCP has, spending any of it on WiS will always mean that money cannot be spent on something else.



No. What he is saying is that work on EVE/FIS should not basically stop when work on WIS starts-up again, like last time.

In other words he wants to work on WIS if/when there are enough resources for Devs to work on both projects simultaneously.

In the case there there are enough resources to work on both projects simultaneously then there are also sufficient resources to work on additional FiS projects simultaneously. Buy choosing to not do that additional FiS project and do WiS instead, you are taking resources that could be used for FiS and applying them to WiS.

I would feel much more comfortable if CCP Unifex had said "I want to develop WiS as soon as we have sufficient developers to do a good job for both WiS and FiS". But he did not say that.

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CCP Bayesian
#967 - 2013-05-02 08:31:25 UTC
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:

I didn't say it was a lie, but that it became a lie. Anyway I am intrigued as what did you learn after fanfest that lead to the abandonment of avatars. Can you expand it, please? What did you learned? Question


The first two posts in this thread talk about it. :)

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Celeste Taylor
Ruby Dynasty
#968 - 2013-05-02 10:21:09 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
The first two posts in this thread talk about it. :)


Thank you for your patience and keeping the answers coming despite Team Avatar being shelved. One thing that I appreciated over the past year is the occasional bone thrown our way, The second batch of NEX items, followed by the new skin tone options, and the ability to zoom further out in the portrait were minor additions that I appreciated, but the big addition was the resculpt for PLEX option. All of this occurred after Fanfest 2012, and I really hope we will get a few more minor additions over the next year despite Team Avatar's disbanding,

Even another batch of NEX items which can already be viewed in the market browser (which according to the dev blog didn't divert almost any resources) would be nice. Something like a couple new hairstyles, or the much desired hats (one can hope) would be awesome though I do see them taking a bit of time to develop. I understand that the WiS project is on the shelf, but hope that we will still get more of these small additions.
Flamespar
WarRavens
#969 - 2013-05-02 11:48:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Flamespar
Good thing is that once they build upon their existing small library of interior art assets (walls, furniture etc) making newer areas becomes a bit simpler.

Any word on what the 10 year vet stations will include CCP? Will they have a multi player environment?
Indahmawar Fazmarai
#970 - 2013-05-02 13:13:32 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:

I didn't say it was a lie, but that it became a lie. Anyway I am intrigued as what did you learn after fanfest that lead to the abandonment of avatars. Can you expand it, please? What did you learned? Question


The first two posts in this thread talk about it. :)


But, those posts say why you aren't working on WiS. That doesn't explains why some clothing items remain unreleased since april 2011, why the "falling through the floor" bug has returned to the CQ, why the CQ interface wasn't updated after Crucible and the new universal inventory, why there's no work being done on sleeve tattoos and racial blending, and so and so. Not WiS, just some avatar content for the CC and the CQ.

All of the above, to my ignorant eyes, look like things that could be done by little teams in little time, and would do a big deal to make WiSers feel like CCP still regards us. Sad
Rek Seven
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#971 - 2013-05-02 16:40:11 UTC
So was was nothing said at fanfest about WIS?

After the dust had settled on fanfest, if looks to me like the only thing to look forward to was a new jump animation... Straight

We haven't had an expansion now for 2 years (even though CCP claim other wise) and i for one would like to see something fun and new instead of just tweaks to existing game play.

The wishlist is pretty much complete...
BugraT WarheaD
#972 - 2013-05-02 16:46:51 UTC
Hilmar told us : "DO YOU WANT US TO OPEN THE DOOR ?"

Some of us yeld "YEEEEEEAH" some shout "NOOOOOO" ... And he finally said (after 1 long minute) : Maybe at next fanfest so ?




So maybe next year ;)
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#973 - 2013-05-02 17:05:57 UTC
The way I see it.

If you remember fanfest 2011, it was all about "DELIVER". There had been all these things in the works for years, but nothing was really "ready". But, management shouted, "SHIP IT ANYWAY!".

We got Captain's Quarters with nothing to do there. LAME! Half developed, no content. You spent how many years working on this?



THEN were those of use that were SURE CCP was lying when they said it wasn't about moving to micro-transactions. Bull! And then we get confirmation that it really WAS all about moving toward micro transactions. Anger! Not only do we not like that direction, we REALLY dislike that you LIED about it, then told us we were wrong when we said you were lying about it.



THEN CCP takes a step back and asks is dev's how long it would take to create real meaningful stuff to do beyond the door, and the answer is, we're not even really have any good ideas for what that might be? No one wants it to be just walking to a store to be able to buy from the market. Poker? Really? Turn it into a first person shooter where you go down below to trade illegal goods with shadowy people?

I think once management realized that there weren't even any great ideas for what should be beyond the door, let alone any clear timelines for when it could be delivered... and even if it could be delivered, would just remind everyone about the lies around micro-transactions and would probably cost more revenue that it delivered... well... "Deliver!" turned into "Why bother?".
Souxie Alduin
Anarchy in the Eve
#974 - 2013-05-02 18:54:14 UTC
CCP somehow managed to pull together a virtual reality dog fighting game with a small team, over a few weeks, in their spare time.

Why not go the same way with avatars? Screw the fancy CQ graphics that melt steel, use Unity and whack together some good game play, give it to us on the test server, and once you have something that's fun, give it a quick polish and put it in the game.
It doesn't have to look like CGI to be fun.
Lina Alar
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#975 - 2013-05-02 19:12:30 UTC
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:

I didn't say it was a lie, but that it became a lie. Anyway I am intrigued as what did you learn after fanfest that lead to the abandonment of avatars. Can you expand it, please? What did you learned? Question


The first two posts in this thread talk about it. :)


But, those posts say why you aren't working on WiS. That doesn't explains why some clothing items remain unreleased since april 2011, why the "falling through the floor" bug has returned to the CQ, why the CQ interface wasn't updated after Crucible and the new universal inventory, why there's no work being done on sleeve tattoos and racial blending, and so and so. Not WiS, just some avatar content for the CC and the CQ.

All of the above, to my ignorant eyes, look like things that could be done by little teams in little time, and would do a big deal to make WiSers feel like CCP still regards us. Sad

I have to say I've also been disappointed to see the racial blending get shelved. Also Slay... Where did that go? That looked awesome.

Can we at least get an Eve Off-line console in our CQ? That was a lot of fun to play at Fanfest.

An explanation of Eve socialization: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTbgvYPVdXE

Lick with your main™
PinkKnife
The Cuddlefish
Ethereal Dawn
#976 - 2013-05-02 22:39:48 UTC  |  Edited by: PinkKnife
Lina Alar wrote:
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Indahmawar Fazmarai wrote:

I didn't say it was a lie, but that it became a lie. Anyway I am intrigued as what did you learn after fanfest that lead to the abandonment of avatars. Can you expand it, please? What did you learned? Question


The first two posts in this thread talk about it. :)


But, those posts say why you aren't working on WiS. That doesn't explains why some clothing items remain unreleased since april 2011, why the "falling through the floor" bug has returned to the CQ, why the CQ interface wasn't updated after Crucible and the new universal inventory, why there's no work being done on sleeve tattoos and racial blending, and so and so. Not WiS, just some avatar content for the CC and the CQ.

All of the above, to my ignorant eyes, look like things that could be done by little teams in little time, and would do a big deal to make WiSers feel like CCP still regards us. Sad

I have to say I've also been disappointed to see the racial blending get shelved. Also Slay... Where did that go? That looked awesome.

Can we at least get an Eve Off-line console in our CQ? That was a lot of fun to play at Fanfest.


Or the sleeve tattoos that were shown at least years fanfest, said to be something like 95% done. Yet..nothing.

CCP did you ever think that one reason people dislike WIS is because there's no content, because you think no one likes WIS, which is because there's no content, which is why..You see where I'm going with this?

As others have said, if you can make EVR with a small team, why cant you just ship out the remaining incarna stuff, and then get to work on something new. ANYTHING, at this point, just to expand on it..you know, like an expansion. Rather than just shipping out balance changes that really don't require new code to do, but are just stat changes.

I think it is a bit laughable that people tell the WIS crowd to stop demanding things, when that is exactly what the FIS crowd did. They whined and bitched and made it 100% FIS, now wanting a blend of the two is apparently bitching and unrealistic. Whatever.

EVE is reaching a point where they're close to exhausting the growth they can get via EVE as is. You can see this in why Dust was made, to make a new market for them, which also bridges in some potential growth for EVE. You won't see a huge growth in members until they implement something that moves it away from spreadsheets in space. For as in depth as FIS is, the universe is pretty boring. You're either in combat, or in industry to do combat. There is no depth to the experience that is not in a ship.

I fail to see how a new scanner UI or radial menu improves EVE, or the EVE experience over expanding on the CQ or Incarna gameplay as a whole. Sure its nice, but it doesn't give me a reason to log in.
Souxie Alduin
Anarchy in the Eve
#977 - 2013-05-02 23:30:40 UTC
One more thing: An Oculus Rift first person boardroom, so we can sit around the table face-to face and plot and scheme, and throw in upper-body and arm tracking via kinect.
Athena Maldoran
Doomheim
#978 - 2013-05-02 23:57:29 UTC
what they are doing to internett space travel is f****** awsome, and they should not waver from that. But as any true si fi fan, i really want stuff to happen inside the stations and hubs etc. Even if its nothing more than a meeting place between capsuleers and dust mercenaries, we want it. We need a place to interact on a superhuman lvl, even if its just avatars walking and holding hands. CCP, could one person, working 1 year, deliver this to us?
Flamespar
WarRavens
#979 - 2013-05-03 03:35:05 UTC
The way I see it, CCP has two main directions it could go first in regards to Avatar gameplay.

1) Social areas. Think interiors of POS's. These may be simpler for CCP to implement. And really ties into the whole idea of 'giving players a home in space'.
2) Exploration of derelicts. Which sounds more complex to implement and sounds very exciting.

CCP really needs to pick one and implement it to the point where the feature feels complete (not necessarily finished, but at a point where they don't have to come back to it for a while).
Reiisha
#980 - 2013-05-03 04:43:32 UTC
J3ssica Alba wrote:
CCP RedDawn wrote:
Hello again,

I want to say a couple of more things to get us on the same level:

Regarding the extra clothing items that have not been released, there are indeed a large amount of new clothing assets that just require publishing.
Team Avatar got some of these out to you already but due to almost 100% of our focus being on prototyping we never got round to releasing them all. We were also waiting on a pricing structure being given to us.
However, in saying that I know for a fact that there is talk internally regarding these items going on, so the when/where/how's are unknown to me specifically but I'm pretty sure you will see these items sometime in the future.



So to please us "Barbie lovers" can these finally be published? Like throw us a bone and we'll be quiet for a few months :P (The quote from CCP Reddawn is from over a year ago)


Just quoting this again so it won't be lost. :P

If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all...