Assembly Hall

PLEX for WiS!

Even though I hope to see "Walking in Stations", I would like to see the space part made as good as possible first. Besides, a greater experience in space would make a possible WiS expansion better as well.

There are some practical challenges with wis I have thought of.

Here is something about emotes. Emotes are necessary to some extent in order to have more immersion, because without the environment won't feel so alive. I have a novel idea, which is to make them partly automatic. So, no need to write in emote commands unless you want to, your character would still react to the environment. It's of course given that this is technically possible and possible in a multiplayer setting, but I have heard of a similar mechanic for sounds.

In general, it seems emotes are not often used in mmo games from my experience, even though you often have many to choose from. Perhaps the reason is that is takes too much time to enter the emote command, when the focus is on the action or writing text in the channels/communicating. Or it is just not interesting or it doesn't feel right to use them.

I suggested before a text based system for describing actions and expressions in this setting, where you are using your own words. I am just wondering if a system like that would be used by people. So I thought I would come up with something instead that didn't need any input but still work, which is a way to make emotes more natural and flowing, by making them partly automatic.

The emote would be automatic for your character, and dependent on if you stand alone or are walking, people are standing or walking next to you, how many people are next to you, an information display is next to you, a noise nearby and so on. For example, if someone walked past your character, he or she could turn slightly in their direction as they passed or if someone walks into you you get pushed aside. Or if you stand next to a display your character turns to look at it, until something other happens that draws the attention away from the display. This would be due to the influence on a decision system, for which emotes takes precedence.

The mechanic I have seen for sounds is this decision system. Parametres like distance, time and relevance make all the recordings "compete" and when the parametres are close enough the matching recording is played. In other words the game knows in which cases it should play which recording. I haven't heard about this being used for animations before.

The idea is not to completely replace other emotes, but instead that your character makes natural subtle acknowledgements to that there are other characters or activeties happening around, without you having to activate an emote. That the reactions are instant, helps make it more natural.

But a problem would be if all characters were having the same reactions, it would make the emotes too predictable and you wouldn't at all be able to affect how your character would react.So a system like this should have some modifications.

First, there could be several different base posture animations you could choose from when standing still. The posture animation you see in the captain's quarters is an example of a type of posture I would like to see, as it actually consists of several animations. But if more were made, you could choose which one your character would display, which could be the emotes when standing alone. The base posture animations could be based lightly on a particular feeling or the personality of your character. For example, curiosity could be looking interestedly around you, indifferentness could be not caring about what happens around you. In addition, choosing between different gaits for your character would bring some more individuality.

Another modification could be setting a premise for the automatic emotes. With premise I mean that you could make a base attitude or personality, that influences directly which automatic emotes your character has as someone walks close to you, you hear a noise and so on, so that your character reacts differently even though it is the same action influencing the emote decision system. Like for the base posture animations, curious and indifferent could be examples of these attitudes or personalities, making your character react with curiousity or indifferentess to things happening nearby. My hope is that if a system like this could be made, people wouldn't think that the emotes were there because it would fall so natural.

The possibility for emotes you activate could be added on top of all this again. The most common actions like greeting and saluting work well, because they are not so personal in displaying and are likely to be used more often. That's not to say other emotes couldn't be used. Expressions are more challenging to get right I think, but that shouldn't be discouraging in trying to achieve them.

Certain objects could allow for additional emotes, for example sofas for sitting down (eve already have this system).

Activated emotes need to be activated by something faster than typing them in,like the possibility for mapping to a dedicated key on the keyboard or pressing an icon.

For communicating,I imagine two ways in wis,one is a channel where everyone in the in-station wis are listed.Writing in this channel, or any of the other usual channels, is in-game practically communicating through writing on a pad or talking through a headset. If you want to show that this is what you are doing, there could in theory be an emote for this you could activate.I think of this as possibly being a flexible pad attached on the arm, for easy access. A headset is likely small and concealed.The other way is having a private conversation by either walking up to someone and inviting to a conversation, writing a message on a pad or it could be talking through a headset. It could be possible to invite to a private conversation with two or more people as well.

More immersion in New Eden would be nice. Especially being able to walk through your hangar and see all your ships. Walking through the ships. Walking in the new citadels. Inviting your friends to hang out. Gamble at bars or casinos. It would add so much to gameplay.

This feature was in the earlier Ambulation prototypes, as your player reacting to other players and NPCs. It keyed off standings.

In fact, there's a ton of really cool design work gathering dust. Oh, well.

I would certainly not expect anything until the giant push to drag EVE into the second decade has finished; i.e., when they've polished up the new shiny space experience and let us build gates to it, then polished it up further as we discover issues that slipped through QA. After that, anything's possible.

In the mean time, what we're looking at is 20% projects and part-time prototyping work by very small teams at the absolute utmost. What they can accomplish in a few years with the right tools will still be remarkable, but it won't be for public consumption. For that, CCP would have to make a big push, which means that they'd have to have everyone happy with the space game and the will to give the project another go. Whether that will exists is an open question.

Had an idea of how wis gameplay could be implemented, while making sense to things such as the lore, possibly technical restrictions and not having combat.

To make sense to eve, the stations have fixed the atmosphere in parts of the station, or there is a booster or treatment for capsuleers. Another thing is the implant in dust514 that could theoretically open the possibility for combat in stations. But I imagine that you can't both have this implant as well as using a capsule, because of interference that would occur between them. Since capsuleers then will be vulnerable, there has to be security measures, like drones at various places or automatic weapons within the areas, controlled by advanced AI, monitoring and detecting signs of possibly attacking other capsuleers, preventing (but not being too harmful) before there is time to inflict any harm. It is not a need to have these security measures visible, they could be behind opaque walls for example. To have this as a background would make for an interesting setting, as there is something intriguing about being left to the security systems in the station, even if it is just a background that doesn't affect anything. This is something that could explain if there are only few or sometimes no npc's in these places, but it would be interesting to have some npc's at least.

If there is a technical limit of the number of people at once, which I understand can be a problem, it could be coupled with the station security issues. Even with the security measures, due to the skills of many capsuleers, only so many could be allowed at a place at one time. I think capsuleers would be very reluctant towards this, but perhaps agreeing as recognizing the need to put safety first. In station there could therefore be many people docked, but instead of everyone being in one big place, there are smaller different areas in each station. And a station could have only a total certain number due to the security measures needed.

Well bought myself a ship in SC

and was particularly curious about the WIS in that game

i came to a conclusion...

it was Awesome to see (and i liked it very much)

for that it is a missed chance for EVE

i believe they did not hit the ball here
but made a hug mistake by not putting it in to this game...
( i believe eve devs made a mistake )

the bar in sc was really great and you coud talk to others there

if they are not stupid they change their minds on that matter
perhaps they invest 30 dollars and take a peek in that game its legit i think

Subtlety increases immersion on a grand scale. The subtle interactions on stations, the "back-room" or "back alley" dealings would take on a whole new meaning.

And the reaction to other players based on standings would be pretty ****ing cool.

There are just so many good ideas

Yes there are. You want to hang out in a not real spaceship with not real weapons and make not real kills.. You are playing already a kind of second life.

It's called Eve.

Walking in Stations is just one important part of making this game more versatile.

No its not.