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Team Avatar and the future of our prototype

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Author
Trii Seo
Goonswarm Federation
#2961 - 2013-11-27 13:58:50 UTC
Yup! Solo players then tend to find themselves a community they feel like they belong to and discover that whetever was they're doing can be even better with friends. Hell, even rolling solo you can sit on voice and brag to your corpmates how you just punched a Raven to death with your bare damn rifter.

And let's leave "but poor newbies!" out of this - there's plenty of communities ready to lend a hand to a newbie.

Proud pilot of the Imperium

Arek'Jaalan: Heliograph

Jadiss
HUN Corp.
HUN Reloaded
#2962 - 2013-11-27 14:14:28 UTC
Trii Seo wrote:


I think it's time to get rid of the zombie, pin the whole thing as a locked sticky with Rise's statement so that it's clear where CCP's words stand.



I think it would be unwise to take Rise's statement into consideration as He works in a different area of development.
Resetgun
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2963 - 2013-11-27 14:40:26 UTC
It is dead, Jim. Nothing to see here move on!

(Sigh - I should have made female avatar - at least that way I could have stared my ass in this captain room)
Cpt Tirel
Institute For Continuous Glory
#2964 - 2013-11-27 14:47:45 UTC
Trii Seo wrote:
Yup! Solo players then tend to find themselves a community they feel like they belong to and discover that whetever was they're doing can be even better with friends. Hell, even rolling solo you can sit on voice and brag to your corpmates how you just punched a Raven to death with your bare damn rifter.


What about those that dont? They dont deserve any new content to play with?

Quote:

And let's leave "but poor newbies!" out of this - there's plenty of communities ready to lend a hand to a newbie.


Yea im sure they will be fine.Roll
Eli Green
The Arrow Project
#2965 - 2013-11-27 14:53:31 UTC
Trii Seo wrote:
Yup! Solo players then tend to find themselves a community ...


Exactly they tend to. However there is a portion of the player base that doesn't. It's unwise to base your arguments off of sweeping generalizations (especially when CCP mentioned before that the majority of EVE's players are solo according to their definitions)

wumbo

Naomi Tichim
Sovereign Hospitaller Order of Saint Katherine
#2966 - 2013-11-27 15:02:22 UTC
Jadiss wrote:
Trii Seo wrote:


I think it's time to get rid of the zombie, pin the whole thing as a locked sticky with Rise's statement so that it's clear where CCP's words stand.



I think it would be unwise to take Rise's statement into consideration as He works in a different area of development.


I simply took Rise's statement as a "we're going to take our time". Avatars are obviously something CCP wants to do, and something I think they should do, but it's also something CCP realizes will take a lot of work. A lot of the opposition to avatars is that many people think (with good reason) that avatar play would be nothing more than a fancy interface. CCP knows this, so they have Team Avatar working on how to give avatar play some actual use - introducing gameplay elements that require you to use avatars.

My guess is that they'll shoot for a big avatar-focused expansion in two to four years. They can do this because CCP is rightfully confident that EVE will still be around then. That should give them enough time to figure it out. It would be smart for them to include some non-avatar content, like rebalancing ships or somesuch.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#2967 - 2013-11-27 15:55:33 UTC
Rhes wrote:
This is actually a good point (probably the first one I've seen from a pro-WiS person in this thread). I have admitted that I wasn't against the idea of avatar based content before Incarna was released but after suffering through the game being neglected and then getting a single room maybe it's the sad truth that CCP doesn't have the resources to realize their "vision" for an all-encompassing sci-fi simulator. After DUST failed and WoD continues to linger it's become clear that any more time spent not focusing on what made Eve great in the first place is just wasted development time and money.


Have you actually been reading the thread? Erica's point is right in line with what a bunch of us have been saying for thread after thread after thread. I don't want the shipping game neglected either; I agree with you that Incarna failed on execution, not on concept. The difference between you and me is that I look at the releases from Crucible forward and I see good execution; I look at the great patience CCP is showing with WoD and see that they're taking the time to do it right instead of rushing out some graphics-card-destroying, dirty little room.

I think that it may be some years before we see it, but where the old CCP failed I think the new CCP can succeed.

Rhes wrote:
This might have been true before Incarna was released but for the most part the people who just can't enjoy Eve without an avatar have left and quietly moved on to other games. The people who are left (the people mucking up this thread) are just trolls who are literally asking CCP to make the same mistake they made with Incarna. Why CCP allows them to continually troll in this thread is beyond me.


Er, no. I joined EVE on the tail end of Incarna, just in time to see the mandatory Minmatar CQ and experience the terrible framerate and the complete lack of gameplay. Despite a poor first impression, I stayed because I hooked up with good people who had fun playing the actual game, and I'm enjoying that game as is, and (for the most part) more so with each release (though the Discovery Scanner can go, thanks). I love that CCP has a crazy gleam in their eye and huge plans for their universe and I wholly support that. I want avatar gameplay because I love EVE as it is, and I would love more EVE even more.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!

Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#2968 - 2013-11-27 21:47:18 UTC
Watch out everyone Rhes is posting again. His posts give me cancer.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf

Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#2969 - 2013-11-27 23:31:08 UTC
Oberine Noriepa wrote:
Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
I have heard that future plans for avatar content centre around eva in radiation rich structures that only capsuleers can withstand in radiation hardened clones. I can't remember the source though. I wish ccp would confirm this as in a way it ties in with seagull's vision. We scan down structures and loot them in person through avatar gameplay.

Is this sarcasm? It's in the first post of this thread. What?

Arduemont wrote:
Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
Apparently there's lots of art assets left over from incarna that they never did anything with.


More than 100 items of clothing unreleased. It was in the CSM minutes at the time.

A majority of those unreleased items are just color variations of the pants and shirts already available.


No sarcasm I'm a regular on the forums and post on lots of different subjects, very long threads like this of which I've read every page also make the memory a bit blurred especially when they started over a year ago.

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...

Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#2970 - 2013-11-28 00:33:13 UTC
Dust and wod took resources away from eve long before incarna and cost CCP a lot of cash, to the point that they had to take out an emergency loan to stay afloat whilst continuing dust and wod development, without the loan dust would never have been finished, the non eve development diverted resources away from eve and lead to a poorly executed and badly handled incarna and micro transaction store, which itself only existed because of CCPs desperate need for cash. Hilmar himself has admitted all of this in various post incarna statements.

My point is that wod and dust and soon to be valkyrie do not pay the bills and probably never will and had CCP not devoted so much resources to non eve projects and had spent the money on eve online instead then we all could have the eve we want, outstanding avatar gaming alongside and fully integrated with flying in space, a proper living world of science fiction to echo CCP seagulls words...

I support CCPs desire to create multiple streams of income as this makes for a healthy company but it's wrong to do it at the expense of the core game that's paying the bills. Sadly this is exactly what's happening now with wod and valkyrie whilst dust is being pushed of life support.

Two years of ship balancing, ui improvements and minor additions to game play disguised as expansions are not what the fis community deserve, likewise zero development on avatar content is not what the wis community deserves. CCP created this problem by creating an industry leading character creator and a badly implemented room, all I ask is that they finish the job and do it fairly by working on both wis and fis.

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...

Sura Sadiva
Entropic Tactical Crew
#2971 - 2013-11-28 01:38:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Sura Sadiva
Naomi Tichim wrote:
I simply took Rise's statement as a "we're going to take our time".


Well, basically Rise said we're not working on anything relevant for EVE, nothing new, we aleady knew.

I was reading the review of that "meeting" here:

http://themittani.com/news/ccp-rise-hosts-ama-reddit

"developments" (in that speecch) are summarized as:

Quote:

No walking in stations content will be developed for the foreseeable future. This is because Eve is a spaceship game and spaceship content has priority, and working on avatar based gameplay is resource intensive.
Team Gridlock (a group devoted to improving server performance) has some ‘cool stuff in the pipe’ to reduce lag in large fleet fights.
More features similar to the ISIS Ship Browser will be implemented in the future to make the game clearer for new players.



The most relevant thing he foresee is "some ‘cool stuff in the pipe", go figure :)

And people ask to him about some of the stuff they feel as more important for EVE: Eise, what about WiS?

"naaah too complicated for us, is not something you can do editing an excell file, one should write code, we understood we're unable"

Ok, then, what about nulls ec sov? is broken since years

"forget it"

Then people try with small things like off-grid booster and ECM

"yeah, we know, they sucks, maybe in some remote future we could work on it"

Ok, Rise, but... at least could fix the Federation Navy Comet's flashing light...

"nah, is not going to happen"


Is all focused on this guy saying they're not going to do anything except never ending editing of the same ships balance excell datasheet :)
Lipbite
Express Hauler
#2972 - 2013-11-28 01:55:45 UTC
Even $3.5 millions worth Elite: Dangerous is going to implement avatar gameplay at some point yet for CCP it's "costly" with their $66mil/year budget ($12-16 millions on R&D alone). Greed is good!
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#2973 - 2013-11-28 05:53:43 UTC
Rhes wrote:
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
Still trying to figure out why "meaningful" gameplay is so important for WiS.

Yes, let's encourage CCP to waste more time and money on adding gameplay to Eve that has no meaning. Roll

you know what i mean, read my post.

why is simply a "social area to hang out with freinds and watch dancers" not good enough? plenty of games have areas dedicated to it, and its generally a fun place to meet with old/new friends, add some ambiance to a meeting, or to just sit around and listen to all the drunk australians trying to do dance emotes with the dancers before passing out drunk with their wallets safely set aside on your table and perhaps soon in your pack.

but seriously, i want WiS finished, not as the first and foremost focus of development, but over time, and i dont really care if it comes with some "compelling and meaningful gameplay content", social places/experience can be content in and of itself.

EVE is supposed to be all about player-driven and created content, WiS would be better as an extension of that, rather than a hub for more meaningles or trivial mechanics or obsolete functions to be shoved into a dark corner and be forgotten about by the rest of EVE.

Just think, Gallente Rave-bars, Amarrian... well... lounges?, minmatar bars complete with brawls and gunfights, and of course all i can think of with caldari would be some shadowrun type deal. fun places to hang out, different styles for different people, no need to throw in "something to do" because hopefully the players would be that something.

but yeah, probably borderline incoherent right now, not enough coffee or sleep. yeah probabaly really incoherent right now, not enough sleep or coffeee.
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#2974 - 2013-11-28 05:55:41 UTC
Sura Sadiva wrote:
Naomi Tichim wrote:
I simply took Rise's statement as a "we're going to take our time".


Well, basically Rise said we're not working on anything relevant for EVE, nothing new, we aleady knew.

I was reading the review of that "meeting" here:

http://themittani.com/news/ccp-rise-hosts-ama-reddit

"developments" (in that speecch) are summarized as:

Quote:

No walking in stations content will be developed for the foreseeable future. This is because Eve is a spaceship game and spaceship content has priority, and working on avatar based gameplay is resource intensive.
Team Gridlock (a group devoted to improving server performance) has some ‘cool stuff in the pipe’ to reduce lag in large fleet fights.
More features similar to the ISIS Ship Browser will be implemented in the future to make the game clearer for new players.



The most relevant thing he foresee is "some ‘cool stuff in the pipe", go figure :)

And people ask to him about some of the stuff they feel as more important for EVE: Eise, what about WiS?

"naaah too complicated for us, is not something you can do editing an excell file, one should write code, we understood we're unable"

Ok, then, what about nulls ec sov? is broken since years

"forget it"

Then people try with small things like off-grid booster and ECM

"yeah, we know, they sucks, maybe in some remote future we could work on it"

Ok, Rise, but... at least could fix the Federation Navy Comet's flashing light...

"nah, is not going to happen"


Is all focused on this guy saying they're not going to do anything except never ending editing of the same ships balance excell datasheet :)

so basically, making the game cooler for new players, so after they chase all the vets out, they'll know they have a good 5-10 years before the enw players get to a point where they start seeing the same shortfalls we do in the servers/game?
Ishtanchuk Fazmarai
#2975 - 2013-11-28 08:01:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Ishtanchuk Fazmarai
Lipbite wrote:
Even $3.5 millions worth Elite: Dangerous is going to implement avatar gameplay at some point yet for CCP it's "costly" with their $66mil/year budget ($12-16 millions on R&D alone). Greed is good!


Well, CIG is about to hit the 34 million mark -that's 6 months worth of income for CCP. That is, between Odyssey and Rubicon, 34 million $ have been earned and mostly spent by CCP, and in exchange for that we got...

- On EVE: Rubicon and some details on the Hallelujah Plan
- On DUST: 4 monthly intensive care patches with neutral demographic impact
- On WoD: a few extra guys have been hired and they keep doing the stuff they must ready in order to start doing things next year
- On CCP: the Newcastle outpost has been beefed up with 15 surplus developers left over from the DUST development, and they're going to develop Valkyrie, a (so far) small, simple and cheap project with huge expectations and a very concrete risk to stop being small, simple and cheap if platforms and "I dare you!" are added to it

Looks like EVE spaceships are getting what they deserve... not much new nor exciting, as just touching EVE is complex and difficult enough. Thinking about adding new spaceships stuff requires at least 3 years of development. And that without a word on fixing the long-dragging issues left over from Incarna (Sov, POSes). There is a lot of spaceship stuff pending to do with what's left after all the other non-EVE projects get their non-spaceships resources, as to add non-spaceship content to EVE itself...

Not even of the "not meaningful" kind, which, amazingly, drives hordes of players to other games...

Roses are red / Violets are blue / I am an Alpha / And so it's you

Trii Seo
Goonswarm Federation
#2976 - 2013-11-28 12:28:09 UTC
So huh, I actually read the article on themittani and noticed something about new models - got me to read up the entire AMA thing with Rise. There's a lot of "management will toss me into the piranha pool if I say anything more" which is understandable company policy. A Dev saying something about a feature usually leads to wild rumourmongering.

But, there's a few fun tidbits:

"CCP Rise" wrote:

We know the sov system and super caps need work, but I can't say exactly when either will go to TQ.
I really feel weird about the starting point that 'X system is broken, when will it get fixed'. A lot of these systems are really large and complex, and they are getting used by tons and tons of people. If it was literally broken there wouldn't be much risk in just ripping it out and starting over, but because so much of the game happens around systems like Sov, we have to be very delicate with changes.
That said, there are a lot of pieces we aren't happy with, and hopefully we see steady improvement over the next several releases as we continue doing balance work (eventually caps/super caps) and as we keep working on the big core game systems like sov.


They acknowledge there's a problem with sov, they also acknowledge replacing it will not be easy. They need to be careful working on it, else we'll end up with something even worse than Dominion system for Sov.

And, something for the fans of zooming in or spinning in hangars:
"CCP Rise" wrote:

I'm sure that model (or some version of it) will make it in before long. There are other ship model reworks in the pipe as well and they are all so fantastic. Whenever us designers get lost and wind up in the art department we start freaking out and demanding everything go to TQ immediately until they usher us out.


More on rebalancing, black ops and T3s. Let's hope Covert Legion ceases to be useless because hey - lasers pew pew!

"CCP Rise" wrote:

I can't say THE plans for black ops and t3 cruiser balance other than to say we are planning to rebalance them. We have the beginnings of plans for both but I don't want to be too specific. I can say that we aren't going to destroy T3 with nerfs, but we hope to make more subs viable overall.


Judging by him not saying "No!" I reckon a SoE BS is in works too. Time to get that Gal/Amarr BS up to 5 + Large lasers, we've got a faction Black Ops coming in. By the tone of things, POS code revamp may hit before SOV does simply because it affects more people (Pretty much everyone really.)

Proud pilot of the Imperium

Arek'Jaalan: Heliograph

Chinwe Rhei
Syn Interstellar
#2977 - 2013-11-28 12:56:42 UTC
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
Rhes wrote:
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
Still trying to figure out why "meaningful" gameplay is so important for WiS.

Yes, let's encourage CCP to waste more time and money on adding gameplay to Eve that has no meaning. Roll

you know what i mean, read my post.

why is simply a "social area to hang out with freinds and watch dancers" not good enough? plenty of games have areas dedicated to it, and its generally a fun place to meet with old/new friends, add some ambiance to a meeting, or to just sit around and listen to all the drunk australians trying to do dance emotes with the dancers before passing out drunk with their wallets safely set aside on your table and perhaps soon in your pack.

but seriously, i want WiS finished, not as the first and foremost focus of development, but over time, and i dont really care if it comes with some "compelling and meaningful gameplay content", social places/experience can be content in and of itself.

EVE is supposed to be all about player-driven and created content, WiS would be better as an extension of that, rather than a hub for more meaningles or trivial mechanics or obsolete functions to be shoved into a dark corner and be forgotten about by the rest of EVE.

Just think, Gallente Rave-bars, Amarrian... well... lounges?, minmatar bars complete with brawls and gunfights, and of course all i can think of with caldari would be some shadowrun type deal. fun places to hang out, different styles for different people, no need to throw in "something to do" because hopefully the players would be that something.

but yeah, probably borderline incoherent right now, not enough coffee or sleep. yeah probabaly really incoherent right now, not enough sleep or coffeee.


I think what many non-technical people don't understand is that there was a turning point in the development of WiS when CCP had to make a decision of "do we go ahead with this or not ?" and they decided against it because there was no gameplay to justify it. And that was not something that can be done in baby steps, it's a big step, and i don't think EvE is going to ever go ahead with it.

That big step is multiplayer WiS. Right now the avatar gameplay we have is centered around the character creator work that is at it's core and that they worked on independently anyway. That's where most the existing WiS code lies. In addition to that you have a rendered enviroement that the character navigates around and plays a few animations in and you have a few surfaces for playing video and acting as shortcuts to station functions but that's it. Most of that is the work of artists rather than new systems.

But any kind of multiplayer WiS requires hardware support and new server code and a big investment in both. Avatars move much faster and require more interactive response from the server than the sluggish eve ships do, and server load (and graphics load) rises very quickly with multiple characters interacting with each other, especially the non-game optimized EvE avatars that were initially meant to be pre-rendered not interactive. It's not much easier to have "social WiS" over "shooting WiS" but they're both much harder than single-player WiS because that's just a skin over the station interface.
Trii Seo
Goonswarm Federation
#2978 - 2013-11-28 13:12:42 UTC
Chinwe Rhei wrote:

That big step is multiplayer WiS. Right now the avatar gameplay we have is centered around the character creator work that is at it's core and that they worked on independently anyway. That's where most the existing WiS code lies. In addition to that you have a rendered enviroement that the character navigates around and plays a few animations in and you have a few surfaces for playing video and acting as shortcuts to station functions but that's it. Most of that is the work of artists rather than new systems.


That's well put but I bet it'll just get lost in the drivel about how CCP is bad for not developing WiS and working on spaceships instead. Gamedev is kind of like pimpin' - it ain' easy.

Proud pilot of the Imperium

Arek'Jaalan: Heliograph

Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#2979 - 2013-11-28 13:23:10 UTC
Chinwe Rhei wrote:
I think what many non-technical people don't understand is that there was a turning point in the development of WiS when CCP had to make a decision of "do we go ahead with this or not ?" and they decided against it because there was no gameplay to justify it.


I don't think you've actually read any of this thread, have you?

CCP Unifex wrote:
It has been fantastic to see the Avatar team show everyone that there is meaningful gameplay using more than just your ship as your agent in the EVE Universe. The prototyping work they have done in Unity has allowed them to rapidly explore different themes and make a game which is challenging, fun and in the true spirit of EVE.


Second post in the thread.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf

Thetabetalpha
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#2980 - 2013-11-28 14:32:34 UTC
Trii Seo wrote:
That's well put but I bet it'll just get lost in the drivel about how CCP is bad for not developing WiS and working on spaceships instead. Gamedev is kind of like pimpin' - it ain' easy.

You and Rhes (it made me think you are his alt, since he completely disappeared from this thread once you started posting your tirades about spaceships and how bad avatars are for Eve) are the ones that love to troll this thread with so much of your own nonsense - how bad WiS, Incarna and whatever Avatar content is or would be for "only spaceships" game. It went as far as you two posting your crap in the "Team Avatar and the future of our prototype" while Rhes saying that 95% people who are avatar content proponents are trolls, all while he plastered "dress-up spacebarbies" and "2nd Life" in every his previous post.

Now please give us an example where anyone said it is bad for devs to work on spaceships? The only concern here that ppl express is that CCP does too little for what their "vision" is. Ship balance is not an expansion worthy material again. Most people agree on that the latest expansions lack much content and are merely patches. Also what most agree on is that side projects were main reason Eve is more or less in maintenance mode now.