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Dev Blog: Bidding Farewell to the In-game Browser

First post First post First post
Author
Jiradus Tazinas
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#221 - 2016-06-21 11:44:14 UTC
CCP Bugartist wrote:


As with most things in life there is not just black and white. EVE Online changes every day, and so does the technology around it. We cannot set a ruling (our policies) in stone about a technology we have no control over (third party overlay software). We can only provide information and put rules in place for what we know at a given point in time and grant ourselves the right to correct our rules in the future if required.

It would be bad and unfair to all of you to communicate today that overlays for web-browser are fine forever without limitation. In a few days the technology behind said overlays for browsers might change in a way we cannot predict and we have to change the ruling again.


let me end this post with a quote:
Quote:
“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”
― Tony Schwartz


The issue is that you want your paying customers to take at face value that tools will auto-magically appear on a solution that you don't support. Can't support, and have no ability to control. For all the platforms that you support in game.

This question of removing the IGB is a question of design.

Dieter Rams wrote:

https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/about/good-design

  1. Good design is innovative.
  2. Good design makes a product useful.
  3. Good design is aesthetic.
  4. Good design makes a product understandable.
  5. Good design is unobtrusive.
  6. Good design is honest.
  7. Good design is long-lasting.
  8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
  9. Good design is environmentally friendly.
  10. Good design is as little design as possible.


Because as you say that you can't set a ruling around a product that you have no control over, you can't possibly embrace a non-controlled technology (browser overlays) as a valid solution.

The IGB meets all of the criteria for what might be classified as good design.

It is innovative in that it allows for crazy cool interaction in game.

It is an incredibly useful product for all folks. (Even those that want to watch .gifs)

The browser is a clean design, and fits into the standard interaction principles of the game.

the IGB helps to make Eve Online understandable, and from a browser perspective is a clean easy understandable feature.

The IGB is unobtrusive when interacting with things that are outside of the immediate eve online game. Browser Overlays and 'alt+tabbing' out are not.

The IGB is a clean honest way of interacting within eve and interacting with the outside world, while inside the game. Browser Overlays have the potential to be 'illegal' and can't be managed by CCP. and support is spotty at best.

The IGB, as a product has lasted for an extensive period of time. As for the thoroughness of it, I can't really address that, though it meets all the basic needs for an in-game product.

Including the IGB means that I don't need to 'buy a second monitor' and makes for a better user experience than the alt+tabbing and overlay mess.

The IGB is a simple interface in-game browser that meets the baseline needs of interacting with the outside world of Eve without a need to complicate the interaction. It is an easy solution that "just exists" within the controlled sandbox of Eve Online.

Browser Overlays, while innovative and may make a product useful are obtrusive, can't be validated as 'Honest' is technology that can change and is not guaranteed to be any level of long-lasting. Doesn't have support for non-windows platforms and isn't something that can even be addressed as being a through solution that was thought down to the last detail.
Esrevid Nekkeg
Justified and Ancient
#222 - 2016-06-21 11:58:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Esrevid Nekkeg
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Sheeana Harb wrote:
I will be very frank here:

The (upcoming) removal of the IGB will make my ingame experience considerably less enjoyable. I use it quite often while in nullsec. Neither of the alternatives suggested in the devblog are good enough.

I'm very unhappy that the IGB is going away.


This food sucks.

VS

Any chance I could get this food without the nuts? I am actually allergic to them. :)

Once of those statements is useful the other is not. Care to take a guess which is yours?
I will not ask you to remove the nuts because I'm supposedly allergic to them. I'm not.

This food sucks. Period.

Again functionality is removed from the game for the N-th time without fully functioning alternatives being present. Yes, 3-th party programs, without any guarantee that they will function as should (or at all) on the wildly varied machines and OS's people play EvE on.
As opposed to the IGB. If you can use the client at all, you can use the IGB.

So for what it's worth, in my opinion, this food sucks. And that is a useful statement.

Here I used to have a sig of our old Camper in space. Now it is disregarded as being the wrong format. Looking out the window I see one thing: Nothing wrong with the format of our Camper! Silly CCP......

brother stud
Fud Face Inc
#223 - 2016-06-21 11:59:59 UTC
corebloodbrothers wrote:
Bit confused, we use external sites with fleet doctrines, u can open the page igb, and click the fit. It will open ingame your fitting window. Whihs is amazing to then buy all, fit all. Seconds later you are flying. Which is what you like.

As fc that feature lowered dramatically my fleet up times, and questions i got. There is no allaince fitting section. And this worked around that. Now 60 corps will need too work with mailing fits, saving, and any coorelation between them, to form a dctrine, is gone as well.

Its possible i miss a feature, but a igb version that opens your ingame fitting with a saved fit, is now replaced by ?




This is all irrelevant core, think of all the neutrals, WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE NEUTRALS!... VALVA will finally have a valid excuse to shoot neutrals now, we can't afford a second monitor (you know, from living on the 'PROVI-FOOD-STAMP')

By decree of thy monocle, I vanquish NRDS to the ashes with the IGB

HED by Xmas, or evicted to high sec by a solitary PL super
Red Yxa
Freedom Buildiers Corp.
#224 - 2016-06-21 12:23:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Red Yxa
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Rivr Luzade wrote:
So...

The Steam Overlay blocks you from playing the game. Which is great.
The Overwolf browser does not have a bookmarks functionality. Which is great.
XFire apparently is a wild hit and miss whether it works.

Any other suggestions?


Just heard about Evolve today: https://www.evolvehq.com/welcome

Have not tried it myself though.


Evolve overlay browser doesnt work with EVE since 2014.
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#225 - 2016-06-21 12:30:23 UTC
Ahuraa wrote:
I dont understand any of this.

You are removing a function in the game and then say you want third-party devs to take over with CREST.

I have googled and i have not found any software named Crest that does the function of checking Jita prices.

Where is this CREST you talk about all the time, are you creating this software into the game or are you contracting other to crate this Crest Software that i can use to check prices?

Wouldn't it be better to use the money you spent on Project discovery, that does nothing for the game, to keep up the IGB so we can use it for TRADING, THAT IS PART OF THE GAME?




https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/market/viewer/ perhaps?

CREST isn't a bit of software. It's an API for developers to use, to get access to data from CCP.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter

Evoque
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#226 - 2016-06-21 12:53:22 UTC
Rivr Luzade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#227 - 2016-06-21 13:12:24 UTC
Red Yxa wrote:
Evolve overlay browser doesnt work with EVE since 2014.

Does that overlay work at all? I smashed the hotkey to open it yesterday and nothing happened.

Furthermore, I just switched over to Windows 10 and now the alt-tabbing between full screen clients as well as to the desktop and from the desktop to the client is awfully slow, which makes alt-tabbing to use OOGB really unfeasible.
And window mode requires between 10-20% more CPU load than full screen, which is a lot for my machine and most machines people use (according to CCP metrics). Fantastic.

UI Improvement Collective

My ridicule, heavy criticism and general pale outlook about your or CCP's ideas is nothing but an encouragement to prove me wrong. Give it a try.

Dream Green
Dampier Holding
#228 - 2016-06-21 13:16:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Dream Green
Lazy design decision! Ingame Browser added dept to the game in a sense that you had the feeling of running some kind of EVE-OS (one could get the immersion of entering a whole world by starting eve.exe), with this its just one step further of being just another game of the many games there are out there... By abandoning it you admit of being lazy and call it "focusing on other things" - what a weak excuse!

you know how to make eve great again? by updating the browser, putting jukebox back in etc etc, a metaphor for what you are doing; ripping essential modules of a ship so its just good for travelling - but not for fighting anymore.

sad
Imin
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#229 - 2016-06-21 13:32:19 UTC
Garak n00biachi wrote:
You cant be serious; holy hell you guys are terrible at managing this game.
Im beginning to suspect you are deliberately chasing away the tiny playerbase you have left so you can pull the plug, there cannot be any other reason for something as ******** as this.


This.

Removing the igb is a terrible idea.
Houjuu Nue
Myouren Temple
#230 - 2016-06-21 13:40:10 UTC
This is first time I ever commenting an update. Thats how much it's suck.
Sophia Mileghere
Scandium Defense and Security Inc.
Sleeper Protocol
#231 - 2016-06-21 13:53:43 UTC

I was hoping the IGB is expanded and brought up to current standards. Too bad.
Cismet
Silent Knights.
LinkNet
#232 - 2016-06-21 14:27:46 UTC
Elenahina wrote:
Because, I'm sorry to rain on your parade, software quality trumps usability, especially in areas where client security is a concern.


I actually just processed what this means. Are you high?? You think that quality is actually more important to people than usability?

Let me give you an experiment to go try. Go survey 100 people and ask them if they'd use a piece of software whose coding was perfect with no bugs whatsoever, but where the design was so bad that it was nigh unusable or if they'd rather use a piece of software that had a few bugs, but was easy and intuitive to use?

Go ahead. I'll wait. The answer will be that the unusable software might get a few hard core users that insist there's something golden in there somewhere but the overwhelmingly vast majority will take usable software. All day long. People are inherently lazy. There's a reason why phishing scams work and passwords are generally insecure. People want usability and ease of use.

I'm not at all sorry to rain on your parade, but usability trumps quality every single time, in every single metric that actually counts. I.e. People purchasing/using the particular item in question. The only circumstance in which your statement is true is an area where there simply isn't a choice, in which case you probably have neither.
Veskin Sentinel
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#233 - 2016-06-21 14:33:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Veskin Sentinel
I can see that the arguments for shutting down the IGB are valid. I remember the first time when I learned that EVE has an integrated browser. I was really pleasantly surprised. It will be sad for me to see it go, but I can understand.

There will be no problem to use an external browser and overlay as long as it is set up correctly and mimics the functionality of the IGB.

What I suggest:

- Remove the IGB, but leave the Browser button on the Neocom; Make it configurable so that it can open a selected browser that is installed on the computer.

- We should be able to select any browser and overlay from the list and the EVE client should be set up so that it can recognise the installed browsers/overlays and show them in the list for selection.

( I usually tend to use a browser different from my default one, for browsing eve links, since the default one has many pages open and it is RAM consuming, I use another browser - maybe other people do the same so I guess it would be nice to be able to select a different browser for EVE)

- Then, when a link is clicked or the Neocom Browser button is pressed, a selected browser should open, but in windowed mode, so that we can move it around and not need to ALT-Tab all the time.

- If we decide to minimize the browser window, it should be able to be recalled via the Neocom Browser button, again opening in the windowed mode.

I hope this can be a solution.

www.veskin7.blogspot.com - my EVE related blog.

nezroy
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#234 - 2016-06-21 15:44:36 UTC
Jiradus Tazinas wrote:
This is not a solution for individuals who are NOT running windows.


The FORM of the solution is, however. "Always on top" is literally a right-click option for Gnome/GDK users already. (In fact, ANY form of customized window management is about a million times easier on a Linux platform in general, so the issue is completely moot there).

Approximately 15 seconds of searching for OS X always on top options yielded multiple possibilities. Check out afloat, for instance.

Hilariously, always on top -- and overlays, for that matter -- are not a perfect replacement solution to IGB removal for a lot of OTHER reasons, just not any of the ones you mentioned.

The point of my post was simply to highlight that there are simpler and better options for using a default browser than all the overlay chatter that is being tossed about. An overlay is complete overkill for what most people are actually looking to accomplish.
JetStream Drenard
Jerkasaurus Wrecks Inc.
Sedition.
#235 - 2016-06-21 15:54:13 UTC  |  Edited by: JetStream Drenard
I think I understand your reasons. Instead of getting rid of it, would you consider having a trusted website list? Then allowing only those trusted websites to be used igb? It would seem this would take only the effort of some sort of allowed list, since the most useful igb websites already work just fine there.

There are so many, so useful websites that we all use every day. Dotlan and Dscan utilities like http://vserver.zap.de.com/intel. There are many others I am sure.
Using overlays is a pita, and out of game browsers, would hurt some of those who only have one monitor.

I am only asking, because if it's possible, it would be so nice to retain. If you can't or won't, well at least I tried.
Duke Garland
Niflheimr Inc.
#236 - 2016-06-21 16:18:21 UTC
CCP Logibro wrote:
It's been limping along for a while, but it's finally time to say au revoir to the In-game Browser. Read more details on why we're putting it out to pasture and how we'll handle URLs in the client in the future in this dev blog by CCP FoxFour.


Mind you I've not (and won't) read the entirety of this thread, rather skipped over it via DEV posts and quickly glancing over a couple other player's posts. What I get from the DEVblog that is linked is a lot of "wohoo CREST-fanboi" speak with very little reasoning why removing the IGB without any replacement is actually necessary. Other than "oh yea we didn't quite work on it for a long time". While I don't use the IGB every day I'm still using it very frequently and forcing me to tab out of game is quite annoying. And no, copy/pasteing links into IGB isn't much less annoying. At least have the decency to keep things the way they used to be with an opt in to default to open links in one's OOGB. Pretty please anyone?
Ultimately to me the IGB is an element of immersion in the game and forcing me out of game while I wish to spend my time in the game is quite detrimental to my player eXperience and takes away from the "we create virtual worlds" (https://www.ccpgames.com/) slogan as well as "we don't believe in the word 'impossible'" (https://www.ccpgames.com/careers/) thingy.

CCP FoxFour wrote:

An overlay is inadequate but the IGB was not? How in the world does that make sense? Pretty much every overlay out there with a browser is years ahead of the IGB.
[...]
That isn't really a simple task unfortunately.
[...]
True, but it is a matter of prioritization. So many things we want to do and a limited number of devs.


This further cements my impression that after neglecting work on the IGB for perhaps YEARS somebody in the chain simply chose to hit the killswitch rather than admitting (or probably even just considering) that not diverting proper ressources could've been a mistake. And as such taking means to correct that, however long that may take. I'm perfectly aware CCP is probably among the smaller DEV studios, but maybe somebody could consider doing LESS many things at the same time and instead focusing on thoroughly doing fewer things at once? I remember how the ship tiericide to me felt like proceeding smoothly while being tremendously well received - now the module tiericide feels like it trickles away with a number of module types still waiting to be adressed since a while...

CCP FoxFour wrote:
We inserted some metrics a while ago every time one of the JavaScript callbacks was used but also just for every page load, how long the browser is open, etc.


I'm quite interested in actual numbers to back up those metrics. As with the announcement about the removal about the old camera (5.5% my butt) I somehow feel as if inactive accounts or secondary or tertiary characters from registered accounts are taken into such metrics whom naturally did/do not use either.

CCP FoxFour wrote:
Is there a reason you're unwilling to use an Overlay?

You've said yourself that CCP in no way supports nor intends to incorporate any of them - despite being "years ahead" of the current IGB. On top of that CCP (naturally, I'll give you that) reserves the right to include any and all overlays into the list of bannable offenses, after pointing players towards them and creating but a new dependency.



And despite all that what was written and what I've read this really took the cake.
CCP FoxFour wrote:

This food sucks.

VS

Any chance I could get this food without the nuts? I am actually allergic to them. :)

Once of those statements is useful the other is not. Care to take a guess which is yours?


Sorry, but are you quite sane in your mind? Did you forget about any sense or policy on how to deal with the community? The people that are responsible for your monthly wage (and those of your colleagues)? You're representing the WHOLE company you work for (CCP, as is quite visible to everyone due to the tag to the left of your username) and replies like that (be they intended to be taken as sarcasm or not) simply are not to be posted from any official employee. First and foremost this is a matter of showing respect to your customers, aside from this statements like that one cast a certain light on things that are probably not in general favor to CCP.
Gray Hinken
Strong Medicine
#237 - 2016-06-21 16:48:12 UTC
Why just remove a feature, without adding something? No IGB, and no support from dev's for overlays (and i don't like any).

“To fully immerse yourself in EVE Online select full screen mode...” But now I need a second-party browser running when playing EVE, so no full screen, only fixed window.

Please, CCP, bring me a new monitor. 27” with a support for 4K resolution, for example.
Emrys Alf
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#238 - 2016-06-21 17:03:16 UTC
This is all after telling us all that overlays were illegal..

is the left hand talking to the right..

HyperFlareX wrote:
Another overlay alternative would be Evolve's overlay.


As a Mac user this is hard... What do we use? Wormhole mapping wonder how that is going to work?

Cade Windstalker
#239 - 2016-06-21 17:10:51 UTC
Emrys Alf wrote:
This is all after telling us all that overlays were illegal..

is the left hand talking to the right..

HyperFlareX wrote:
Another overlay alternative would be Evolve's overlay.


As a Mac user this is hard... What do we use? Wormhole mapping wonder how that is going to work?



The security team already responded a few pages back with a link to a dev-blog that specifically calls out web-browser overlays as perfectly legal (along with most other overlay technologies).
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#240 - 2016-06-21 17:11:28 UTC
Emrys Alf wrote:
This is all after telling us all that overlays were illegal..

is the left hand talking to the right..

HyperFlareX wrote:
Another overlay alternative would be Evolve's overlay.


As a Mac user this is hard... What do we use? Wormhole mapping wonder how that is going to work?




Uh, you mean the one where the security team specifically calls out browser overlays as ok?

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/overlays-isk-buyer-amnesty-and-account-security/

Quote:
We also do NOT consider it unfair if you use other comfort overlays which do not affect how the game is played. This includes overlays for chat and IM applications, the Steam overlay, and Web-Browser overlays for example.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter