Out of Pod Experience

cant say Im impressed by the star games ship models. Look pretty childish. The game may be awesome too early to tell. but in terms of visual appeal its already lost me a bit there.

I thought the guy who was making Infinity switched to work on Star Citizen

You could not be more wrong.
Keith Newton and Flavien are still working on it. The actual site for infinity just got hacked so they're working on moving everything to a new website currently.

In other current news they are looking to have a kickstarter in the next few months for I:B or Infinity: Battlescape. It's going to be a scaled down version of Infinity to garner initial sales for i-novae. As of now it's supposed to be a "semi-persistent open arena shooter" It will include an entire solar system and include multiple planets and of course their seamless transition. Once they get sales and money for Infinity then they will move to make the full Infinity MMO.

I'm a hardcore infinity fan I've been watching it longer than I've played Eve and I can wait as long as I need to in order to play it. The reason I didn't give a dime to SC is because It's not a sandbox(in my view) because of the instances and the world simply isn't large enough. It isn't eve scale enough for me. Infinity is. Anyways that's just my 2 cents. Since their site is down currently if anyone has any questions about Infinity I would be happy to answer them

If anyone else interested in paying attention to current Infinity events you can always watch Keith Newtons Twitter. They just released a shiny new video of a ship showing off their lighting.

Soup

CCP is working on big releases. How am I so sure of this? Simple: They're quietly at work mucking out and rewriting the foundations of the game. No software developer will do this until they have to. It's delicate, thankless, invisible to the customer at first, and it can take a tremendous amount of time. The team working on this have to distract other teams across the entire game from their work to resolve dependencies on the old code, and re-engineer bits that won't work with the new design. If they're doing this, it's because they know that the current foundations of the game make it costly, or even impossible, to do what they want to do. So they're replacing it under the game, while the game runs. This is incredibly demanding work, and again, it's invisible to the customer. They can put in slave hours, wrack their brains for months, pull off the best design and write the cleanest code of their careers, launch their proud new baby, and have their efforts rewarded by... the players cussing them out for another minor expansion, for missing features, bugs, etc.

This is why CCP Seagull gave a blue-sky presentation at FanFest: to remind the players that CCP still has the same huge, crazy dream for their universe. It's not going to be obvious until they have a foundation that they feel confident building upon, but it's definitely there. It's a candle to light the way through what will probably be another relatively "minor" expansion or two, in terms of new content.

By the time Star Citizen comes out, they should have the foundation they need to start expanding EVE again, and they may have an expansion or two that takes advantage of that foundation as well.

If you think it's frustrating as a player to have the game stagnate, imagine being one of the designers coming up with all this cool stuff, only to have the developers come back and tell you that they can't make it work because of the POS code, or some other undead horror lurking in the basement.

We won't really know if SC will have the firepower to put a dent in EVE until SC is released. If the SC devs have been doing their homework on what makes EVE so great (as well as listening to the detractors who don't have the time or patience to properly invest in the EVE experience) then we'll probably see a falloff of EVE newbies as they flock to easier, more streamlined space sim gameplay. One thing we can be certain of is that the hardcore EVE devotees, both casual and lifers, will stay loyal to New Eden.

Filed under Wait And See Dept.

Subscription losses due to Star Citizen are inevitable - temporary if that game will suck or permanent if SC will be good.

CCP already started "passive" preparations for possible crisis and F2P transition:

1) after Monoclegeddon they did not re-hire people to stockpile money despite amount of subscriptions already restored to pre-monoclegeddon level;

2) they hired Sean Decker who said "I see world as microtransaction" in interview few months ago.

For me personally (casual player) if Star Citizen will have avatars and avatar interactions + travel system without PvP arenas (a.k.a. "gates" and camps) I'll switch to it. Because right now there is only single activity in EVE which fulfill my casual interests - incursions. Everything else is either too slow (boring) or too complicated and I want new gameplay which CCP is unable to deliver for years (AI which eat drones in missions was the only "feature" which changed my game during last couple years).

Tl;DR I want new gameplay, I'll switch, permanently if SC won't suck and EVE won't have WiS expansion.

If it's more fun and deserving of the limited time I have to play games then I'll make the switch. Ofcourse it would have to be fun enough to justify leaving behind the investment I have in EVE but that will only go so far. The simple fact that it has an almost realistic physics engine makes it look alot more fun and engaging from the outset, how the rest of the game handles will be the decider but it doesn't look promising for EVE.

Well, this is not about EVE dieing. Maybe it won't die in any sensible period of time. But it's suffering from a severe "not going anywhere" syndrome since Incarna, and things that don't go somewhere end up nowhere.

If CCP gets it right with WoD, at a point WoD will be a better business than EVE can never become. Bigger niche, way better coding, less straining server requirements, and, did I said?, a WAY bigger niche. So either CCP crashes completely, or WoD flops, or EVE is gonna become second in the pecking order at some point.

One of the messages I gathered about Fanfest 2013, was that most if not all of the "future is exciting" stuff about EVE was not related to the actual game.

Let me list some of it:

- 10 year special edition
- EVE Comic books
- EVE books
- EVE on mobile
- EVE TV miniseries (?)
- EVE sculpture in Reykjavik (??)


EVE gameplay? Zill. EVE features? None. EVE future? "More space" (we love you, CCP Seagull, but are we sure that the reason why hisec is more populated than ever it's because of a lack of empty room?)

In this context, as EVE keeps being more of the same, and provided how EVE is a "second best" to everyone who enjoyed the golden years of space sims, SC is appealing to a naturally bigger niche than EVE, and EVE is powerlessly handing some of its niche to SC if SC as much as doesn't flops.

Just by not getting it wrong, SC will enjoy a larger niche than EVE. And if it does it right, it's gonna be the new big fish of space gaming.

I might be mistaken, but there isn't even a video of the gameplay of the game, just trailers and models. I am not saying that game is going to fail, but we really still didn't see anything. And remember what makes EVE the game it is and that we love, is not the graphics or the in game physics or mechanics, it is the community, the atmosphere this game inspires, the sandbox aspect (which is really difficult to achieve), and the depth and width of conflict in EVE. It is what EVE is about, and not EVE itself that makes it such a great game (I hope that made sense). These things cannot be achieved by a better engine or better graphics. What we have in EVE is unique, and really to say that you are going to have something like it based on buzz words and trailers (not even that good if you ask me) is hogwash at best.

Red flags from SC: (this doesn't mean it is destined for failure, but as points to say that it has high probability of doing so)

1- No backing from a major publisher.

2- Free to play, how is it going to make money, if it's not pay to win? Cosmetic items don't cut it enough.

3- Entitlement from the start, "capital ships that are integral" that are forever insured. Don't give me that **** about how you can lose your cargo.

4- Caters to everyone, how is that even possible for any game?? In EVE I read and heard quotes from developers that if the game is too harsh for you, then you should leave. They don't hold your hand and theme park it for you.

5- No actual gameplay yet???

6- Very general formula and say what this game would do, but not how to actually do it. I can say I will create the best game in the world but that is very much easier said than done.

7- We are going to create mods where players can create ships. Don't get me wrong taking ideas and suggestions from players is great, and CCP does that, but to actually make in game changes based directly on player input is just bad game design. If amateur people can do it better than you, then why should I invest in your ****** game.

I could list more things, but frankly the post got a little long, so this will have to suffice.

Just a final note, in EVE I have yet to meet a player that is less than 18 years old. It says a lot when you can create a game that is only attractive to grown ups. Don't get me wrong EVE still has many things that needs fixing, but credit is given where credit is due, CCP thank you for EVE. And for all the SC fanboys that are paying thousands of dollars for pixels in a pixel world that doesn't even exist yet, don't count your cookies before you even started preparing the dough, and yea stupid is as stupid does (don't want to be mean, but sometimes honesty is needed).

Most people would try almost anything if given a chance.

The problem is the dinosaurs who refuse to adapt to a changing environment. They prefer those comfort zone above all else, and try to force everyone to play their way...in a sandbox game, even.