Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Don't get me wrong im not delusional thinking this will change everything. But hell you guys need an opinion from one of the most veteran players in the industry. Apparently no one is listening to the players?

Stick with reading this I know it is a jumbled mess but it is an honest account of this game and how it is run. I wanted to make sure that CCP and Forum Moderators understand I am fully qualified to say this is one of the worst examples of standing still I have seen gaming. Don't get me wrong this is a decent game. But when I googled UI in Eve Online? If I judged buying the game on the complaints? I would never look at this game again. People will judge this game on looks alone. I will say there are people daily poking around and will refuse to play this game thinking its crap because of the UI.

I come from 20+ years experience, 50,000 and counting hours of gametime played, my library of games is over 2000. Now if Im not qualified to say this? No one is!

First off we are finally on an upswing in PC gaming once again. What does this mean? More players and more money.
What entices a player to play a certain game?
Cool looking trailers.
Cutting edge graphics.
Genre
Maybe they see a particular style?
There are a ton of reasons

Why do people leave a game?
Maybe the look is 2nd rate?
The mechanics are horrid?
Tons of reasons

You can giveaway a car for free.
But if that car becomes a confused mess?
Person gets stuck out on the road?
Or say they wreck it?
People will complain and complain and will walk away. Even if the car was free. You could pay them and some will still complain and walk away.

One of the #1 rules in business is retention baby. Im assuming you want people to come back?

Eve has been around for years. The game is fun. It is exciting at times. But I will tell you this if my wife didnt take care of herself? I would be divorced. Same goes for me. Everything in life needs to be updated and cared for.

When I log into Eve? Your girlfriend has a horrid UI. Yes I have seen thousands and this one is a mess and the more you add the messier it gets. I look at it and I wonder why you have the amount of players you do? Im being honest. You want people to come back and yet I see you have refused and refused to bring this UI into the 21st century? In fact the dating on this UI reminds me of Rift. Their graphics are dated as hell. Your game will probably go on for years and years. But instead of having 100,000 players on a variety of servers? You will have your 20,000 on each server?

I will be honest to retain me within the game? If I dont see huge updates and this UI stays this way?? I will be one of your players who log in once every three months to see if it has improved.

In fact ill say it straight. If you cannot take care of the simple looks of the game? And yes the UI is a simple UI with complicated modules. Basically if you cannot take care of your baby? Many players will be out. Especially if they see in Google the clear refusals to fix the UI up.

Humans are very progressive and looking at this UI alone? This company has not been.
Gamers are very aggressive and looking at this UI alone? This company has not been.

Honestly I wonder if your management even knows what they are doing. Yes you had an awesome game back 10 years ago. I think you have a mediocre game. If you stand still you will never get back those players who judge the game solely on the look of the UI.

Now Forum Moderator I dont know if your a player or an actual employee? But if your the latter and like your job? Pass this on. Because if it gets passed on like all the other comments? This game will not last. Veterans will leave and you will get fewer and fewer players and that means your job is at risk? Or maybe not? From the looks of the UI I think the company might keep you on hoping that the players will come back?

Anyways thanks for sticking through this mess I sat down and let my fingers run. I just hope that they do something to fix it up. I like the game. If I cant kill time looking at a beautiful piece of technology? I will move along. No one wants to sit and stare at something ugly as sin.

Thanks for your time and hopefully this will help open up some eyes. But if it doesnt? Nothing will. Which is sad on their part that they wont even try to fix it? Good Luck to all the other players out there and enjoy your gaming time within EVE

UI is a beautiful piece of technology.
However if you want it improved, please provide a mock up showing your idea that will keep at least as much information on screen as is currently available but will look better.

Remember EVE presents vast amounts more information to the player than most games do.

That's part of the problem. There needs to be less certainty in the Eve UI and less information provided without effort by the player.
More information needs to be moved to in game intelligence tools.

For example; there should be a range where on grid objects show up as unknown. Naturally that goes with no Eve on easy mode Local Chat.
The Overview shows way too much information. The overview itself should be completely reworked, with the information being moved to several different tools. Long range objects should be in a navigational library. On grid objects should show up in a local scanning system, with maybe a long range scanning system to find nearby objects at safespots.

The biggest issue would be the resistance of players who have gotten used to Eve on easy mode and will refuse to alter having all the information provided free of effort.

The biggest issue with the Eve UI is the binary nature of most of the information provided. Only the wormhole way of doing things is a slight move in the right direction.

Frankly, I have to disagree. On grid is kissing & knife fighting range with regards to space combat. There is information that should be available on the overview that isn't even.

Off grid, I'll allow that there should be more uncertainty in things but not on grid, and off grid information is not presented on the overview.

One of the more elaborate rants I saw here, reported as such.

That might have been more so with ~350km grids, but not 8,000+km grids.

Eve's biggest problem has always been the spoon feeding of 100% accurate information; Sov changes, tower anchorings, kills in recent time, pod kills, people in space, people docked up number of anoms in system and etc.

All of that free information should have some form of game play tied to it to get it, such as probing, in space observation, actually being there. You shouldn't just receive a mail from the "system" naming what, when, and how with only the why possibly being a mystery.

Too much information is simply given to players without any meaningful gameplay associated with it. And players are used to being given such information, so there would be a resistance to changing it. They want their local, their map stats, and free Sov information.

Having it not free would expand gameplay and increase the uncertainty factor in the game.

Just had to point out..
You may suffer from information saturation and overload.
We do not.
Learn to cope with your disability.

And yet you're too afraid to post with your main? Not much confidence in what you are saying huh?

Oh look, another guy who thinks crying about player retention somehow makes his stupid idea or in this case complete lack of an idea look better.

Man am I impressed with your credentials? Not even in the slightest.
See I started playing video games when this was the hottest ticket in the computer gaming industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
That's 43 years ago for those who are not good with math and do not have a calculator handy. In fact based on the published average age of an EvE Online player I have been "video" gaming since before most of you were born, in fact I have been video gaming since before some EvE players parents were born. Does that make me an "expert" on video game UI design, hell no and your "20+ years" does not make you an expert either.

As others have stated EvE presents us with a level of information that is orders of magnitude more complex than many games. And even those that present close to the same amount of information require you to select various tabs or fly outs to see the information you cannot see it all at the same time as you can in EvE.

I would like to see a more up to date UI for this game I really would. But one of my real life jobs is a part of a UI design team for software (not games) and as we are all EvE players we have spent many hours looking at and exploring various UI design ideas. And in the end everyone we come up with that gives us the same information displayed on screen as we have now ends up looking a lot like what we have now.

However we are not experts in game design and they do have different UI needs than what we work with so it is likely that you have an idea that may be better than anything we or CCP has come up with so here is the deal. You present us with your idea in a visual form, something computer created, hell even a cell phone photo of something you put together using paper and a pencil and let us decide if you and your idea has the right stuff.