EVE General Discussion

Immersion, immersion, immersion, immersion.

Start by thinking about how docking and undocking would work if EVE were real. The technology, the processes, the communication, what's automated and what's not, how collisions are avoided, *everything.* Then distill that down to something that works for an online game, but keeps the soul of the "real thing." Heck, talk to the IP guys or ISD Mercury.

EVE is real. CCP's job is just giving us a window into New Eden, one sliver at a time.

Hit the button once and you dock/undock w/ the animation. If you hit it twice in a row you do a fast dock/undock.

End with the station games! Give us a 2 min docking / undocking cinematic that you cannot skip. That makes me (as a wormhole dweller) happy - you don't want to hide anymore!

I agree that we have been spoiled by instadocking/undocking.

I wouldnt mind if it took a but longer for a nice animation, would make everything feel real.


And seeing as everyone would get this animation anyway, nobody can complain that they are disadvantaged by it.

Except CCP vision for EVE is pretty primitive compared to TODAY. There should be no break in exterior visibility. The difference between wireless connection to station exterior cameras and scans (gee yeah station has system scans) and change over to ship's camera drones should be transparent. The old loss of visibility due to disconnect of hardwires and clearing atmosphere belongs to late 1960s-early 1970s space programs.

And while guns, engines and shields may not go HOT inside station - their computers and interfaces should be full up and simply locked in docked mode. If station does not trust you not to somehow override...easy solution: launch tube is also bore sight of big gauss gun (also useful for discouraging hostile boardings) where you become the bullet . lowest (normal) setting you experience mild acceleration and on high (emergency eject) your hull starts crushing and contents become jelly under 5000G's.

Cold launches of dead ships which then check if they can power up or have system failures from last module install...costly economics.

Cold launches are simply CCP serving that crowd that loves helpless targets. Squeakest wheel concept. Big petition from other side and CCP will reverse itself. Except of course whiney angry pirate types are noisier and more vocal than 10 times their weight in moderate ordinary players.

Thus EVE tends to be a game driven by extreme philosophies of what fun fair and realistic is. Note CCP prefers it that way because vocal EQUALS viral advertising. That is why CCP avoids bland surveys which reflect actual player population preferences. Long live the radicals in CSM and forums.

I actually find this to be a bit of a conundrum. The majority of players here enjoy Eve because of it's level of realism (relative to other games, with their hearthstones and death mechanics, etc.). The idea that I can dock my ship in a massive station, move my pod from one ship to another (which "magically" appears, btw), then undock the new ship and be back in space all in a matter of seconds is quite preposterous. Yet, remove the ability to do this and the Eve faithful will complain.

The only course is to make it optional then. However, dev hours would be committed to something that would, most likely, be watched once by most players and then disabled forever. Bit of a waste.

It seems to me that including an undocking animation at the launch of the game, back in 2003, would have been the only way to pull this off without upsetting players. And to me, with all the other "unrealism" going on regarding docking mechanics, a short clip of a ship floating down a hallway would be unnecessary fluff.

For those who want to see more cowbell at stations:
I think the Docking and Undocking animation should actually be lengthened (Able to turn off in Game Options, but set as Default) to include the recharging of shields and capacitor by in-station arrays WHILE you are passing through the corridors to your spot inside the station, as well as other interesting animations and sprites along the way. Maybe even have 4 tractor beams lock onto your ship from outside the station when you select to dock (when 'waiting') and pull you inside and through each corridor. Once you arrive at your spot in the station, you would then be able to modify or repair your ship like before. At this point there would be even more animations like crew floating around and so forth. When you repair or refit, the crew or bots come to your ship and let you actually see the work being done (this would be especially cool to see with Strategic Cruisers and Capital Ships. You could revamp the station Item Hangar to also include a place to see the modules you're installing be view-able within your hangar around a fast-moving rotating rack, being pulled off the rack by the bots, and placed on your ship (and vice versus). Naturally, this would increase the time it takes to do ANYTHING inside the station, but I'd imagine it would be the eye-candy that would be worth the few seconds extra it might take for many players. Let's put those modelers to work!

Although for those who really don't want to deal with docking and undocking all the time:
Perhaps add something that will allow us to accept and/or complete missions with Agents from within the same Region. Maybe even make a Social skill that would increase the range you can do this, or base it on Standing. If the mission requires an item, then the player would need to come to the Agent's station to get it or drop it off of course, and any mission reward would be left at the station for the player to go get at their convenience. This would reduce the need to actually be transitioning in and out of the station, and I would assume would also be slightly server-load friendly since you don't have players loading in and out of the stations all the time (not that I'm claiming I know anything about how the server mechanics work). It would keep players out in space longer, which would mean more opportunities for profit or loss (PVP). As much as we like our Agents, we don't need to handshake on every deal. We can just text them or something.

Picks up the Comm with the Agent:
"Hey yeah, I killed the princess like you asked. What? Yeah she's really dead. Well you didn't ask me to get her DNA before I took her out. What do you mean I have to show up at your station?! I just TOLD you the same thing I'm going to tell you when I get there. Okay fine. I'm on my way."

windows?!

CCP like to avoid windows, last time they messed with windows they deleted the boot.ini

I do.

The gate jump animation does one other thing you forget to mention:

The lack of seeing a loading bar makes it feel less like you just joined another instance and more like its one fluid world.