EVE General Discussion

A few days ago CCP set up interviews with the PC gaming only website, Rock Paper Shotgun to talk about Valkyrie, and yet strangely refused to be drawn on whether the game would even be released on PC. I guess Sony exec's read RPS.

Then yesterday, CCP Marketing for some reason decided it was a good idea to sponsor a link on Facebook, linking an article that in itself was possibly paid for on Penny Arcade. The article is an interview of Helicity Boson. In the article Helicity raises some good points about the game for new players. But they still throw in the odd heading quote from Helicity like "It gets fun after 5 years, I swear!" which while very amusing to us players (myself included), is probably not the sort of quote I'd lead with if I was trying to attract new players. And at the back of my mind is that small point of CCP once banning ole Helicity after they desired to see a member of CCP meet a fiery demise or something slower and more painful ideally. How times have changed huh?

The Facebook link, thus being outside of the normal bounds of EVE friendly players, created a true **** storm of negative reactions from those in love with the idea that Star Citizen is going to be the new space love child of Miley Cyrus and Chris Roberts and hit EVE like a wrecking ball (I try too hard sometimes) and those loyal EVE bitter vets gallantly rallying to EVE's defence.

After Incarna, CCP suddenly discovered that openness and transparency were both good ideas. We'd get some fun videos of CCP Guard showing us what was coming and strange and beautiful re-enactments of 2001: A space odyssey. We also had honest interviews with actual CCP Designers and the CEO.

Now we get this:

“Hold on a second, we haven’t confirmed that Valkyrie’s on PC,” he interjected when I idly noted that Dust 514 is the only non-PC extension of the EVE universe. “It’s capable of playing on PC right now, but we haven’t confirmed what we’re going to launch it on.” - David Reid quoted on RPS

Begging the question then, why are you talking to RPS?

And now we have seemingly awkward sit down videos of CCP Guard interviewing people, that apart from the ever likeable and enthusiastic CCP Fozzie (Whatever they put in his coolaid, I want some) was a truly poor introduction to unfinished ideas and a seeming lack of finished actual game assets to show us stuff that apparently is just 8 weeks away from release. What were you guys doing then for the past four months then?

Oh dear CCP. It was all going so well.

Rubicon is without question, one of the lightest expansions yet released. At least Incarna gave us a lovely Minmitar door to stare at, thus ensuring the release of untold vitrol and outrage that CCP finally took notice. Then they gave us Crucible to appease us and a series of expansions fixing much of what was broken, along with the promise of continually iterating on those fixes and features. I'm not sure what Rubicon is though.

Promises to continually iterate on more recent features already seems to have wained. The lead feature on the Rubicon page - hi-sec custom offices being player controlled, hardly smacks of 6 months development time and it certainly doesn't seem like a feature I'd place at the top of Rubicon's list, but lets face it, it is slim pickings.

Yet again, Ship Balancing is being offered to us as some sort of panacea for our continued investment in EVE. In Rubicon they even manage to turn this into the 'Guerilla-style Warfare Support' feature, i.e. rebalanced e-war frigates and dictors folks.

Don't get me wrong, these changes are welcome (including the long overdue fix to warping), but I feel, at this stage ship balancing is being used extensively to paper over the glaring cracks in lack of overall progress and a feeling, from me at least, that real development time in EVE is reducing, not increasing.

And it is easy to see the culprit this time around. Valkyrie.

Rubicon introduces Direct X 11 to the client, but no actual benefit for doing so at this time. Thats because a significant portion of the art and graphics guys have been pulled into Valkyrie. It's pretty obvious that is the case. It is equally clear Valkyrie is CCP's latest cause célèbre in waiting. Will it be on PC, won't it. Who knows. A fanfest tech demo that is now turning into a game that somehow, someway, will be tied to EVE whether we like it or not. Sound familiar?

Yet again this will divert development away from EVE while adding very questionable benefits, for a game focused on an audience for either an expensive Sony VR headset yet unreleased, or an expensive Oculus VR headset yet unreleased neither of which may prove commercially successful and will certainly be considered niche for many years to come. And it isn't like Valkyrie will be the only VR space game in town, a certain other space elephant in the room has promised Oculus Rift support along with actually having no qualms about being a PC game.

So will Valkyrie be iterated on? Tied to the EVE universe but once complete, left to rot? Or will it demand yet more developers. Yet more money while the focus is once more reduced on EVE.

I like what CCP Seagull has envisioned for EVE, but from the Rubicon announcement, it doesn't look like we should expect that vision anytime soon. Not with statements like: "This journey starts with EVE Online: Rubicon, and will unfold over the next several expansions to EVE Online."

Several? Eck! So expect gate building at least two years after it was announced.

I certainly will be hoping that vision is followed through to completion however and not left half baked. Its about time CCP finished one of their better ideas. But personally, I'd like to see an awful lot more being done to develop EVE within that timeframe, a return to iteration and a return to the openness and transparency we were getting not that long ago. Right now, CCP feels like its going backwards on several fronts.

Where is CCP and EVE heading?

Turn your back to your monitor, bend over and grab your ankles. Youll get your answer shortly.

CCP believes in change for the sake of change.

So the plan is, to fix all the bugs they've introduced over the last ten years, but it's a twenty year plan.....

Guys are you stupid or something?

CCP IS NOT ONLY EVEONLINE.


Eveonline is just and only one of their games/projects.

As any other company they CCP is in many other ventures, trying new things.


When are you gonna learn this??? Not everything CCP does is about eveonline, it can be connected somehow but its really up to CCP.


Stop being fools.


I even applaud CCP for trying new and innovative things like dust and valkyrie to be played on consolea while still connected to our eve universe. No other company has done anything like it.


And because you cant play on PC thats not a reason to talk, you wanna play buy a console, pretty simple. I much rather CCP have its own way than just generalize everything to PC like all other games on this planet.

EvE is the only one that makes a profit though. CCP might not only be EvE online but it depends completely and utterly on EvE. All their other projects, all their development is funded by those playing this game. Last time they pissed off EvE's playerbase sufficiently that had to fire whole teams of people working on the other stuff.

Is it just me, or does it seem the OP spends way more time doing everything but logging in to the actual game?

Mr Epeen

Star Citizen looks awesome.

This game, not so much. The combat sucks, manual flying is a joke, they operate on 1second pings FFS.
The large battles they tout are not enjoyable at all. Unless you enjoy massive forced lag and only getting to shoot off 6 or 7 volleys in 3 hours.

When Eve fails, it will only be because CCP killed it themselves.

You will continue buying PLEX, and you will LIKE IT!

Eve has beem failing since its launch, and after 10 years it still the same amount of people, only this time with more alts


Wait until you get your tears going if you donated to star citizen.. You will feel like you were robbed.

Star citizen is the biggest scam of todays.


Do you have an idea of what 20 million can do in terms of gaming development? But one thinh i can tell they arent a company to handle that amount of money, they will invest 1/4 of that, put up some random game and keep the rest.

Damn they kept that quiet, where do you sign up? :)