EVE General Discussion

All of that sounds pretty cool, if we didn't already have the option to do all of that right now and much more conveniently than in a "boardroom."

For instance, having FC tools like what your scout sees is already a very integral part of fights. Set up a private twitch stream for your scout and look at what he sees. Even better, you're not limited to a room!

Information readouts that are already readily available don't add anything.

Most people on this forum quote only those statistics that they think support their argument (whilst ignoring the rest)

9 out of 6 people know this.

Agreed, but also - Eve is "only about spaceships" detected. "Me, me, me."
These guys are always going to do spaceships-only mantra ignoring every argument why WiS can be good and how good it could be - provided proper implementation.

"Oh but look at incarna and the riots it caused!" - Anything poorly implemented with crappy release would be followed up by a fallout.
"We better get the spaceships only, as a paying customer i want spaceships only!" - You aren't the only one paying for Eve, nor the only one driving the Plex market bringing CCP revenue.
"But they dared to talk about $1k jeans, microtransactions and how about that awful 'greed is good' leak!" - It's all about micro-transactions already. Would be interesting to see the statistics on Pay2win through plexing to replace losses. Or amount of accounts these players got on average.
Also how dare CCP make any profits off the game many of them dedicated a decade of their life to!
Not only more meaningful, but maybe even much more efficient as an interface between player and eve. I don't think i'd be the only one to mention that Eve is weak in that regard. Many game's aspects look as spreadsheets - good luck trying to "immerse a newbie." Of course nobody wants WiS that would hinder interaction between player and the client. But what if the same "boardroom" included and maybe improved those 3rd party tools, in such a way that we do not have to alttab out of the client?

Should be all about immersion, improvement of interaction between players, improvement of interface.

Shamelessly bumping The Thread to post something interesting I crafted earlier today:

Arguments in favor of avatars as they were in 2011, and still are valid in 2013:

- provide a immersive New Player Experience
- improve player attachment to the game
- optimize and exploit the resources spent in developing WoD
- gain female players
- enable vanity microtransactions
- expand EVE beyond its "cult" niche

Arguments new and specific to 2013:

- attract new players
- compete against a new generation of "classic" space games featuring avatars
- expand beyond its stagnant niche

Must be noted that all the points above except the expansion can be achieved without additional gameplay. Must be noted too that the ongoing Hallelujah Plan does not adress any of the above.

Shamelessly pointing out where I think you're fundamentally wrong.

- Eve shouldn't trap innocent gamers by pretending to be a game it isn't.
- Eve players already has an unhealthy attachment to the game.
- CCP is optimizing and exploiting the resources spent on developing WoD. Go down to Georgia and they'll tell you (in that slow country style).
- As heterosexual male with female offspring I duck for this one, whatever I say will be 100% wrong.
- Tricking people to pay for vanity items without telling them how silly they look is pure evil.
- EvE has survived for 10 years thanks to it's "cult" niche.

- Attracting new players with a false perception of EvE is bad marketing.
- None of the new generation of "classic" space games competes with EvE, unless you first transform EvE to compete with them.
- I don't know what game you play, by the Eve I play is far from stagnant. I have to admit that I'm quite busy trying to keep up.

I think I can safely say that whatever direction CCP takes WiS it won't be that.

-Surviving is not thriving, especially when EVE pays for 3 other games.

-Tell that to the people that keep making avatars important parts of the expansion trailers as of late even though avatars are still mostly just portraits and nothing more

Couple of things I had to point out, I'm sure others will pick this post clean.

For clarity, will counter-point one by one:

- Eve shouldn't trap innocent gamers by pretending to be a game it isn't.

That's exactly what it does now with its marketing, hisec content and everything not related to asploding ships. To be honest, EVE's NPE should consist of spawning new players in space in a 0.0 island in hisec. Any gate leads to safety... but you must die a few times before getting there. Surely that would weed out all the wrong players right on arrival. But maybe also would have some angry stakeholders asking for Hilmar's head not-so-metaphorically.

- Eve players already has an unhealthy attachment to the game.

Those who feel attached, yes. But a vast majority find themselves not involved with an anonymous ship and a pile of spreadsheets, and quit the game easily enough to kill all growth for the last two years.

- CCP is optimizing and exploiting the resources spent on developing WoD. Go down to Georgia and they'll tell you (in that slow country style).

Using those resources in their money maker game would make them more money. Maybe it coud even pay for the development of WoD before it is complete and (hopefully) paying itself. And it even was the original plan, as it makes so much good sense that everything else reeks either of incompetence or hopelessness.

- As heterosexual male with female offspring I duck for this one, whatever I say will be 100% wrong.

This game smells so much of neckbeard that we should name it "spaceships, spreadsheets and neckbeards"... I am glad that you understand what is wrong with that.

- Tricking people to pay for vanity items without telling them how silly they look is pure evil.

Was there a point? I think I missed it.

- EvE has survived for 10 years thanks to it's "cult" niche.

It used to do more than survive, it used to grow without spending millions in marketing. Now it spends millions just to keep the numbers where they are. Two cult niches are larger than a single cult niche.

- Attracting new players with a false perception of EvE is bad marketing.

Point 1, CCP is already doing that. Just look at the latest trailers and tell me they look like anything you can see or do in the actual game.

Point 2, advertise what you can deliver and deliver what you advertise are good practices. Nobody is asking CCP to do it wrong again...

- None of the new generation of "classic" space games competes with EvE, unless you first transform EvE to compete with them.

They don't compete with, they compete against EVE for a limited amount of customers, their money and their time. To every enterprise, most of their customers are "wrong" customers. If someone offers those customers what they want, and does it better, they will leave. And so far, EVE's only competition have been "WoW in space", not the kind of game we old farts played when we were young.

- I don't know what game you play, by the Eve I play is far from stagnant. I have to admit that I'm quite busy trying to keep up.

Just look at PCU versus marketing expense, or try to unsub an account and wait to see how much they shell you with return offers up to 40% discount. The user base is not growing, and that means that anything that increases unsubscription rate will shrink PCU, and past a certain point, will damage the game economy both ingame and IRL. And earlier in RL than ingame, actually: Incarnageddon, with all its dramatic consequences, is rumored to have caused a drop of just 8-10% in subcriptions.

And by the way, if we look at the proliferation of multiple accounts, the damage taken if they start unsubbing will be even larger than if EVE had a healthier mix of single/multiple accounts.

I just remembered that even battlestar galactica online has more WiS in it than EvE does

FOR SHAME CCP FOR SHAME!! eleventy



maybe to you I look silly, but to me
I
AM
http://goo.gl/FuoAd8

Station windows actually sound way more possible than a lot of the WiS visions mentioned here. The server knows the station and since (correct me if I'm wrong!) station grids are allocated in a static way (A grid around a station/belt/celestial always exists regardless of player presence) it can refer to it for a list of objects on said grid.

They then could be rendered outside of a fake window - maybe not in their exact position, to create an illusion of what's where. Not a true reflection - I guess you could get standing/status coloured dots though. And it could add a function to the door - a bigass balcony behind it that has a window you can moodily stare at when docked and not spinning your ship.