EVE General Discussion

Pretty darn good for a post from your phone, aside from your tide shower ;)

Very interesting to know how CCP sees the situation. Personally, the only reason I use the IGB is for the sites like staticmapper that track your location. Definitely wouldn't have any issue with the IGB being gone if CREST does what it sounds like you can make it do, even if I do have concerns about other players intercepting personal location information (ingame, not IRL location)

Yes, I have a smartphone with a small (compared to my computer display) screen. But, that misses the point. Why remove a convenient in-game feature that's widely used and force us to rely on a second display, a smartphone, tablet, etc.? As another poster pointed out, when the current IGB was created it was touted as a major upgrade in terms of both functionality and future maintainability. Was that all just hogwash? Was CCP being dishonest with us then or, are they being dishonest now?

As to the jukebox, you ignored my main point again; in order to get beyond hearing the same 4 tunes over and over we're supposed to use a 3rd party app whereas before we didn't. My question is where does this all end? Eve already relies far too much on 3rd party software and websites. I don't feel that dumping the IGB in favor of having to use yet another out of game program is the way to go. I've never played another game that required me to run multiple out of game programs in order to use features that were once (and should still be) built into the game client itself.

The entire CFC uses it in every activity we do.

Second, third and fourth screens are for alts, not for some damn web browsers, you ****** dev!

Okay, I actually have only two screens. But at least with two screens the situation is that if I'm actually playing the game, using external browser is much more inconvenient than using IGB even if it's laggy at some sites. The problem with external browsers are that they always are either blocking the view or going invisible when you don't want them to. I haven't tried overwolf though, but I actually feel that IGB is just fine for my use (though I would love to see it play videos also, fleets would be much greater if opening videos would be as easy as gifs and images).

This is a good example of why third party applications or out of client solutions are a stop gap measure and not end goal for a your product IMHO. No one really wants to add more hard drive clutter and run more processes as a requirement to have the entire EVE experience. I've been around long enough to see many third party products and websites stop being supported (abruptly) or documentation grow stale because third parties are not bound by anyone to continue working on or growing their products because it's just a hobby. Some do. Bless them, but not all.



Metrics? I certainly do not have a second, third, or forth monitor. I have a Manhattan apartment and I cannot fit the NORAD war room on my desk just for gaming. I work in development and my users would be appalled if I made assumptions without any metrics or research when brainstorming functionality. Pictures on /r/eve/ of setups with LED lights behind their 2-4 monitors to set the mood is hardly the norm in my opinion. Not everyone cares enough to have an optimized computing set up that rivals small nations. They just want to hop in a space ship and shoot stuff. Using their one monitor. For folks like me who are completely fine with one monitor only, this seems like a step backwards regardless if it is a new technology or not.

When I first saw EVE in 2005, the fact that it had an in game browser mind blowing and a huge selling point to me that this is a pretty advanced game (at the time) and convinced me to start a pilot. When I am being told the next generation solution to the IGB is API and third party development, I am less than enthused. In fact it seems like more work than it's worth to me. I'll just alt tab to chrome, PYFA or whatever else third party app I have to use because useful information is clunky to navigate to in the EVE client if that useful information even exists at all... unless CREST is mind blowing and can be easily demonstrated. The IGB was easy enough - you open the Browser and low and behold, it's a Browser! No tutorial required. You can surf the net just like Firefox. It's about the only thing that is easy out of the box with EVE. I am already anticipating a Community Spotlight where you showcase a few CREST highlights and discuss what an overlay is within two paragraphs, then the post gets buried under years of other community spotlights and anyone coming into the game after X date has no idea what what this even is without digging to find info that may or may not be stale. They get called a noob on some forum for asking questions and quit.

The main take away from this post is that as a veteran (like most of your subscription base), I am not getting any younger and patience diminishes every year for solutions that are actually more complicated than its predecessor and requires tutorials or research (which isn't just a CCP trend, it seems like an industry thing). Apple iPhones revolutionized its market by adding a simple, yet functionally advanced phone with features a blackberry could already theoretically do (but in much a more cumbersome way). How is RIM doing these days? Answer: Interest and enthusiasm for Blackberries is non-existent. I just had to check yahoo finance for RIMM/BBRY stock ticker to see if they even still exist. It's abysmal but it's still there. The minute there is a space ship/sci fi game just as engaging as EVE but with a sleeker and easy to use package, this is where you perspective client base will go. You will retain veterans like Blackberry did... for a while.. I am not saying this mythical new game will ever happen, but we all know how the story would play out and I would consider this when planning your development.

The IGB may be archaic, a security risk and have a slew of negative marks on why it has to go. I can appreciate that. But CREST/API/3rd Parites will have big shoes to fill in terms of simplicity, ease of use and function. Losing the IGB is simply something I am not looking forward to in all honesty. You don't have a very easy sell. If this is the route you want to go, I recommend a well thought out rollout and CREST Support system. The IGB has been a staple feature since the beginning that is ever present because I locked it to my neocom bar. I am sure countless others have done the same. I wouldn't take this change too lightly.

Yes, but it's a fairly silly and cumbersome hack compared to just automatically feeding the data to an external processor.

I agree - I already alt+tab out of EVE to play EVE too much already.

The prospect of having to use a third party overlay instead of alt tabbing is almost a step in the right direction. Almost.

IIRC, I remember reading years ago that one of the reasons CCP never allowed third parties to develop complete UI redesigns & custom plugins to allow advanced readouts like in other games is that it would give the fully customized pilot using third party setups a distinct advantage in EVE PVP over new users or users that opt out of third party plug ins. So they never explored this avenue for this level of third party integration. I actually don't know much about CREST nor do I want to spend the time reading up on a feature that may or may not be implemented in the far future. But it sounds like it could be leveraged somewhat in this capacity. One thing that is true in EVE is information in king.

Yep, exactly this. Alt + tabbing to check ever single wormhole, every single day. I must go through at least 15+ wormholes in a single scanning / maping session somedays. To tab out on each of them would be quite frankly, a pain in the ass. Then theres the checking of killboards if I find a lone Drake in a hole ratting to see if he ever flies alone or acts as bait. Etc etc.

its part of the webkit that chrome is based on yes...but it is not chrome. Although they could easily update the browser as it exists right now simply by updating the toolkit. It would be a very small and significant patch. Probably result in another boot.ini incident somehow so it is avoided :-P.

I fear the developers are confusing figuring out how to make their jobs easier with figuring out how to improve the game.