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What if CCP had pooled all their resources for developing Eve?
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Spenser for Hire
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#61 - 2013-07-07 14:43:19 UTC
I can't imagine that what I was saying was that difficult.

<"Crowd-funding, Kickstarters, of which "Star Citizen" is the preeminent example, are changing the way that gamers view games and game development. If what "Star Citizen" has been tellng us is true about game development, then what CCP has been doing for 10+ years isn't game development.">

How's that hard to understand???

Don't ask me to post with my main! You post with your main first!
Max Godsnottlingson
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#62 - 2013-07-07 15:04:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Max Godsnottlingson
Chamile Eonic wrote:


I assume the point he was making was that all the man hours put into dust/dust integration, could have added some pretty exciting stuff to EVE. Many of the features they have talked about but not done because lack of time could be in the game by now.

HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM.

The code is in terrible condition. CCP have admitted this on many occasions. Much of the code is 5-10 years old and not documented properly. There have been so many hacks used to make features work over the years that its now one massive tangle.

This means even making small changes requires a massive amount of effort and takes a LONG time. Its not that CCPm don't work hard its that its impossible to know how long or if something is even possible with the code until they try.

Thats why you hear 75% of the ideas they have and announce at Fanfest etc. never happen. They are good ideas and should be possible in a decent amount of time. But once they start work they find out its waaaaayyy harder as one thing breaks another, so they give up.

We end up as outsiders seeing very very little actually come off the production line. there are however thousands of man hours of wasted cancelled projects along the way.

How to fix you ask? Same way the sorted the Crime watch. Take one area and give it a total rewrite. Its a big upfront investment, but from then on changes to that area are much easier. Why isn't that happening? They don't have the resources to pump out content for us every 6 months AND do the backend work in a timely manner.

Thats why I am sad that they spend so much money on Dust/WoD/Incarna/ and now eveVR (at least its looking like that little project is going to get money thrown at it). If all that money had been spent on getting the code in order, then adding modular POSs wouldn't be a nightmare.

think about it, when was the last complicated feature added to EVE? I mean something along the lines of Wormholes? They can't do much fundamental to the game so they focus on Balance and updating the graphics.



Now if the OP had put this argument up in the first place I might well have been much more supportive of the cause, because you argue several good points.

Yes, I still believe that CCP need to diversify and have more than one product. But I also concede several point that you highlighted in your reply.

Eve is an old game now, even I, who knows next to squat about coding, can see that it has probably turned into a Frankenprogram, a miss mash of code that doesn't fit together properly.

What CCP need to do is focus on just one new project at a time. Personally I would have gone for WoD rather than DUST, but only because I would see that as a potentially bigger earner. Then keep the resources needed to improve Eve.
Furnace Freighter
Bamboo Forest
#63 - 2013-07-07 15:57:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Furnace Freighter
To all those people comparing wow to Eve: you forget that WoW infact was, at least in the opinion of a lot of players, the best game in it's early times, vanilla and TBC. It was much bigger than EVE even then, but it was still somewhat of a "niche" game, and it wasn't exactly newb friendly, because it lacked 90 percent of the easy features it has today. And people still played it, and enjoyed, because it actually took skill and time to even run a simple instance. Today, even a 3 year old kid can reach max level and clear instances with the best gear blabla. And if you haven't noticed, WoW has had a steady decline of players over the last years. Eve on the other hand, after more than 10 years, still has a growing player base, however small the growth may be.

Reading through all these comments you would get the impression that eve is a horrible game with 10 year old faulty code that sucks horribly and nobody should play it, and yet the same people posting these comments are still playing. Now I'm not exactly defending anyone because there really are some bad things in this game that should be fixed, but then again, any mmo you play will suffer from the same issues.

By making this game "noob friendly" or whatever would probably aid the game in the short term, but in the long term it could be expected that the game suffers the same fate of wow. Even tho these 2 games can't even be compared, because it's like comparing counter strike to starcraft.

You should also be aware before proposing your brilliant business ideas to CCP, that they most certainly have a team of financial analysts who made future assessments about the game and the potential changes, and how would they impact the future state of the game and the company ( financial-wise ofc ). Because you know, companies actually research and analyze these kinds of things, because they're probably not going like: "hey guys, you know what? Let's make a totally new fps game which will suck and divert our resources from eve so we lose money, just because we feel like it?"

Fact is, this stuff is much more complex than some random dude posting on what the company should do to "make thing better", and though sometimes it may seem to us like it's sucky or whatever, it's probably something that was planned and analyzed long ago by people more apt in game development companies than random forum experts.
Tiber Ibis
The Paratwa Ka
#64 - 2013-07-07 16:44:01 UTC
Furnace Freighter wrote:
To all those people comparing wow to Eve: you forget that WoW infact was, at least in the opinion of a lot of players, the best game in it's early times, vanilla and TBC. It was much bigger than EVE even then, but it was still somewhat of a "niche" game, and it wasn't exactly newb friendly, because it lacked 90 percent of the easy features it has today. And people still played it, and enjoyed, because it actually took skill and time to even run a simple instance. Today, even a 3 year old kid can reach max level and clear instances with the best gear blabla. And if you haven't noticed, WoW has had a steady decline of players over the last years. Eve on the other hand, after more than 10 years, still has a growing player base, however small the growth may be.

This is very true. I remember when wow was first released. Loading up the game for the first time it had an impressive sense of depth and polish compared to other MMORPG's of the day. The starting areas took a few days to grind through as opposed to being able to skip half and complete the other in under an hour as you can currently. When you arrived at a new destination you felt like some great explorer traversing and discovering unfounded new lands. This is what WOW has lost by catering too much for the casual, and also the reason why it is decline.

MMORPGs were not popular or mainstream at the time WOW was released, and so WOW was really entering a niche market from the beginning. I was part of the old MMORPG crowd who grew up with UO and Everquest, and so have seen clearly the rise and fall of WOW.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#65 - 2013-07-07 17:03:27 UTC
Samroski wrote:
With all the money and time spent on useless (imho) stuff like Dust and WoD, I cannot help but think what eve would be like now had CCP concentrated on Eve alone.


In his classic project management text, "The Mythical Man Month," Fred Brooks shares with us his experiences of companies trying that exact path of action. The outcome is usually that the project stumbles, people get lost, the product suffers, and the managers are left wondering what the heck just happened.

Why does this happen? Usually because as you get more people involved in a complex project, you spend more and more time communicating between team members and less time focussing on what needs to be done. Then you throw in the training required to get up to speed, the churn associated with any group of employees, and you end up with chaos and mayhem.

Rest assured there are more developers working on EVE now than back in 2009.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Spenser for Hire
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#66 - 2013-07-07 20:44:23 UTC
seems the thread has deteriorated into WOW nostalgia. Again.
Here's a novel idea, how about, Looking forward? Shocked

Don't ask me to post with my main! You post with your main first!
Samroski
Middle-Earth
#67 - 2013-07-08 10:22:44 UTC
As the OP, who's just returned from a weekend break, I present a (subjective) thread summary:

The vast majority of opinion in this thread has suggested that Eve is a niche game and CCP needs to diversify to ensure survival. There have been a couple of contrasting opinions:

Tiber Ibis wrote:
First rule of any business is specialise to succeed. Generalisation has been the path to failure for countless business's.

Furnace Freighter has also warned against dumbing down the game too much to appeal to casual players.

iirc according to the population ecology model applied to companies, niche products do well in stable, predictable environments, whereas companies with a wider niche do well in turbulent, unpredictable environments.

Spenser for Hire suggested that Eve is no longer a niche game, referring to Star Citizen. Having followed the development of Star Citizen, I have to agree that I am amazed at the potential features, and crestfallen at how Eve may be left behind. Time will tell. Callyuk also implies that if Eve is niche, then it needs to be damn good at it, as have others.

Chamile Eonic has possibly identified one of the main reasons why changes are difficult in Eve: The code is in terrible condition, and the majority of change initiatives end up being binned.

Another strange comment:
Ramona McCandless wrote:
The one thing I have learned from working in retail and customer service is customers are the worst thing about business and have no idea what they are talking about

Possibly a more pragmatic approach was suggested by Ace Uoweme, "Adapting devs along with adapting players = a better game for all."

And what may happen if resources are pooled towards the development of Eve?

Karak Terrel wrote:
Happend once, was called Apocrypha, the best expansion ever.

I'd like to end with this comment which possibly echoes the concerns of many:
Spenser for Hire wrote:
IF Hilmar's vision was to make EVE Online the quintessential sci-fi experience, when "Star Citizen" is released we'll all be asking the same questions as the OP: Where did all the money go???

Any colour you like.
Maldiro Selkurk
Radiation Sickness
#68 - 2013-07-08 10:31:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Maldiro Selkurk
Tiber Ibis wrote:

This is general discussion, if you were offended and think I made an offensive personal attack then you won't last long here. :)


Calling me small minded is in fact an insult and your attempt to now retroactively retract it, just doesn't work. Also, adding in yet another insult by saying i wont last long here pretty much seals the deal that insults are something you just cannot seem to stop doing. As to my ability to 'make it here' I can assure you I can handle you with ease, I proved that with my first post and intend to do it again here.
Tiber Ibis wrote:



As for business, how exactly should you measure success? This is the small minded bit I was talking about. Should success be based upon number of subs as you indicate here? No, what good is masses of subs if you only make $0.01 from each sub.



Wow, makes 14.99 US per subscription in the United States and although it might cost less in some other countries I can assure you that they don't make just $0.01 dollars per sub anywhere on earth.

Tiber Ibis wrote:


So subs does not matter. Is profit a good measure of success? Well that all depends on the business vision, and I get the impression Himlar hasn't gone into this purely with the motivation of profit. So again, profit is not a good measure of success in this case. So how about we look at Himlar vision for eve, to become the largest sci fi simulation in existant, and I would say he is doing a pretty good job...


No, actually Himlar is doing a wretched job, unless his dream game was a space based MMO, with a seriously outdated UI and a multitude of broken core game mechanics, in which case he hit it squarely on the head.

Himlar doesn't get it and It is abundantly clear you don't either, you cannot maintain a modern MMO without a serious amount of money and that money has to come from casuals because there are never enough hardcore players of a game to support it, that is why this game is so broken, it has catered to its niche market for too long and now cannot afford even basic maintenance of its core structure.

Tiber Ibis wrote:

.....and [EVE] is still growing.


Are you seriously mental or something, you are actually going to bring up this issue, WOW won the sub war over EVE within months of WOW being launched and even if by some miracle EVE exists for 30 years at its current growth rate it will only have about 1.5 million subs at the end of year 30, or approximately the same amount WOW had when it was just two years old.
Tiber Ibis wrote:


The difference is you and Blizzard place emphasise purely on subs and profit, Blizzard has courted the cash cow which is casual gamers too much and as a result the game is in decline. And by the way, this assumtion has nothing to do with statisitcs, although Im sure statisitcs would back this up also, but it has to do with what most people regard as common sense. :)


Do the world a favor and never mention the word statistics again, you cannot even spell the word properly let alone actually use the mathematics. I already explained how a one point correlation is pointless for drawing conclusions if you know anything at all about statistics, so instead of repeating it all here, I'll just have you go back and read my previous post again and again, until it becomes brutally clear just how badly I smashed you with statistics the first time around.

Tiber Ibis it has become abundantly clear that you will never understand the level of argumentation I am capable of producing so, while you may choose to post again concerning our discourse I will not be bothering to waste any more of my time trying to get simple logic to sink into your thick skull.


***I will note here again for anyone that might be joining this exchange in the middle, Tiber Ibis insulted me in her first post and as I stated there and I do so again here, if someone comes after me with insults I will always defend myself in kind, for I will not allow myself to be used as a punching bag.

Yawn,  I'm right as usual. The predictability kinda gets boring really.
Ace Uoweme
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#69 - 2013-07-08 11:23:04 UTC
Chamile Eonic wrote:
HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM.

The code is in terrible condition. CCP have admitted this on many occasions. Much of the code is 5-10 years old and not documented properly. There have been so many hacks used to make features work over the years that its now one massive tangle.

This means even making small changes requires a massive amount of effort and takes a LONG time. Its not that CCPm don't work hard its that its impossible to know how long or if something is even possible with the code until they try.


This is what they call milking the product.

They can't update as much as folks want (the engine is too old), so what exists is what you got.

Same thing with EQII and WoW.

These are 2004 games that exceeded their lifespan.

So folks have some choices to make, either take what's given or look for greener pastures.

They can update the graphics and add a few features as required. But things DUST has or will have? Nope. Not worth the time and effort to put all of it in old tech. Blizzard does as they have a MMO 2.0 in the wings that will keep up. DUST is CCP's offering that isn't MMO 2.0 but it's more than what EvE can offer.

Like I said the F2P model is used on dying products. When PLEX was released that's when EvE was on the decline, multiboxing picked up, and new players dwindled. Publishers don't start going after the gold sellers until it hurts their bottomline. Like Blizzard going after Glider, because keeping players in the game is their bread and butter ($120 per toon they expect out of players leveling them, thus why WoW has 50 alts...see, they don't need other pay schemes, there's money just leveling more toons?). This is more or less what CCP doing now with -- after 10 years -- allowing players to finally level more than 1 player per account and paying for it. Blizzard doesn't charge a fee for leveling 9 other toons on a server, the get their return by how long you stay in the game to play. Just like CCP has the scheme of extending training for decades (and if necessary split training even more, like what happened with battlecruisers recently).

The casino owner changes the rules to benefit them, counting on addictions to keep on milking.

_"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." _ ~George Orwell
Johan Toralen
IIIJIIIITIIII
#70 - 2013-07-08 13:16:45 UTC
Chamile Eonic wrote:


HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM.

The code is in terrible condition. CCP have admitted this on many occasions. Much of the code is 5-10 years old and not documented properly. There have been so many hacks used to make features work over the years that its now one massive tangle.

This means even making small changes requires a massive amount of effort and takes a LONG time. Its not that CCPm don't work hard its that its impossible to know how long or if something is even possible with the code until they try.

Thats why you hear 75% of the ideas they have and announce at Fanfest etc. never happen. They are good ideas and should be possible in a decent amount of time. But once they start work they find out its waaaaayyy harder as one thing breaks another, so they give up.


Not buying into the old code argument. Certainly it creates _some_ problems but much what Eve plaques is simply bad game design. You really think the old code is what holds CCP back to come up with something better for mining, FW plexing or the new exploration for example?
Rico Minali
Sons Of 0din
Commonwealth Vanguard
#71 - 2013-07-08 14:57:34 UTC
Samroski wrote:
With all the money and time spent on useless (imho) stuff like Dust and WoD, I cannot help but think what eve would be like now had CCP concentrated on Eve alone.

1. One million subscribers
2. WiS et al.
3. Mining that doesn't bore you to death
4....


Edit: Thread summary, page 4



Do CCP tell you how to go about your career? (assuming you do work of course.)

Trust me, I almost know what I'm doing.
Samroski
Middle-Earth
#72 - 2013-07-08 15:18:12 UTC
Rico Minali wrote:
Samroski wrote:
With all the money and time spent on useless (imho) stuff like Dust and WoD, I cannot help but think what eve would be like now had CCP concentrated on Eve alone.

1. One million subscribers
2. WiS et al.
3. Mining that doesn't bore you to death
4....


Edit: Thread summary, page 4



Do CCP tell you how to go about your career? (assuming you do work of course.)

CCP are not my clients.

In my career, I seek feedback, and pay attention to the needs and wishes of my clients.

Any colour you like.
Rico Minali
Sons Of 0din
Commonwealth Vanguard
#73 - 2013-07-08 15:25:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Rico Minali
Samroski wrote:
Rico Minali wrote:
Samroski wrote:
With all the money and time spent on useless (imho) stuff like Dust and WoD, I cannot help but think what eve would be like now had CCP concentrated on Eve alone.

1. One million subscribers
2. WiS et al.
3. Mining that doesn't bore you to death
4....


Edit: Thread summary, page 4



Do CCP tell you how to go about your career? (assuming you do work of course.)

CCP are not my clients.

In my career, I seek feedback, and pay attention to the needs and wishes of my clients.


First and most obviously, you arnt a 'client' of CCP either, merely a customer who has agreed to purchase a product from them on the basis of what you saw that product to be and agreed to pay the price laid out for it.

Secondly, and this is about business - Do you seek feedback from one section of your business or from all the different sections? Because it sounds like you want CCP to listen to Eve players at the expense of people who want WoD or who play Dust. Personally I only play Eve so obviously I would love to see massive amounts of improvements, however there are obviously plenty of people who want these other things too.

At the moment I think it is time for CCP to actually add more real expansions again, improvements are great and the game has benefited massively from a time of concentration on fixing and improving stuff. Surely that can continue as well as get some real new content and expansion.

Trust me, I almost know what I'm doing.
Chamile Eonic
The Church of MDAMC
#74 - 2013-07-08 17:07:08 UTC
Spenser for Hire wrote:
seems the thread has deteriorated into WOW nostalgia. Again.
Here's a novel idea, how about, Looking forward? Shocked


We are, in a way.

The problem is that I don't think anyone is really expecting anything 'new' or really exciting from CCP.

Slightly improving the ship skins, rebalancing ships, the odd new model, refining existing mechanics is really good and does make the game better. I just find it hard to get excited about them. I want them but i'm not going to have sleepless nights waiting for the new industrials to be released.

On the other hand does anyone think that if CCP tried to release a big new mechanic that it would end up being something to get excited about? Incarna was a bust, PI missed the mark totally. Incursions were supposed to be the start of something big but never wnt anywhere. Wormholes were the last big thing and they were an accident. Before anyone bites my head off Wormholes were an accident as CCP never planned for people to live in them. Emergent gameplay turned something that would be pretty crappy into something cool.

So.... with small iterations all that can really be expected in the next expansion and without a great desire to see another pretty crappy 'new' feature. We turn back to the days when MMOs were new and exciting, and dream of the days when we got excited about things.
Chamile Eonic
The Church of MDAMC
#75 - 2013-07-08 17:11:53 UTC
Johan Toralen wrote:
Chamile Eonic wrote:


HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM.

The code is in terrible condition. CCP have admitted this on many occasions. Much of the code is 5-10 years old and not documented properly. There have been so many hacks used to make features work over the years that its now one massive tangle.

This means even making small changes requires a massive amount of effort and takes a LONG time. Its not that CCPm don't work hard its that its impossible to know how long or if something is even possible with the code until they try.

Thats why you hear 75% of the ideas they have and announce at Fanfest etc. never happen. They are good ideas and should be possible in a decent amount of time. But once they start work they find out its waaaaayyy harder as one thing breaks another, so they give up.


Not buying into the old code argument. Certainly it creates _some_ problems but much what Eve plaques is simply bad game design. You really think the old code is what holds CCP back to come up with something better for mining, FW plexing or the new exploration for example?


All I know is what CCP have said about the code. The POS code for example is in such a state that even making minor changes is a huge effort. Tying to make major changes is pretty much impossible without a top to bottom rewrite. the problem is they don't have the devs available to do that. they have to pump all spare resources into Dust to give it a fighting chance.
Warcalibre
NovaTech Holdings
#76 - 2013-07-08 18:59:25 UTC
Let me rephrase OP this way: if CCP hadn't developed DUST they wouldn't have hired CCP [REDACTED] or CCP Frank.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#77 - 2013-07-14 13:32:17 UTC
Ace Uoweme wrote:
Inokuma Yawara wrote:
Tiber Ibis wrote:
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
The decline is commonly known as jumping the shark. That is a product / IP / brand has REALLY told all it could tell and now is completely exhaust and ready to become a memory.

Jumping the shark has no relevance to MMORPG's, it isn't even a business term. Wow could have survived and maintained its massive user base, but it failed to innovate and develop the content users wanted whilst at the same time creaming off the profits. When things started to go wrong they had no direction and are now trying everything they can to get every last remaining cent out of everyone....


And THAT is the very description of what Jumping the Shark means.


But then again folks been saying WoW died years ago, even at it's height. Roll

It's why when talking about WoW dying, the only way it is considered "jumping the shark", is when the subscriptions are but 1 million left worldwide.


You keep associating "jumping the shark" to "tanking" or "dying". It's not necessarily correlated. Something may jump the shark and still stay pretty popular for years, other stuff may tank / die without ever having jumped the shark first.

It's two concepts, don't make confusion.

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