Player Features and Ideas Discussion

OK so had this thought the other day while reading some thread about how to we get and keep more folks in game. This led me to two ideas one for eve itself and one just for CCP in general.

Thought I'd just drop them here maybe they have already been discussed or are just bad ideas but here goes;


Many people are using portable devices to play various games on android and apple gadgets. Why not increase the availability of EVE through these by two different ideas;

1) I know CCP have been of the premise that we want people playing eve inside of eve however there are some things you do in eve where you really don't have to log all the way into the game and not logging all the way in does not change your level of influence on the game. By logging all the way in I mean being able to undock. So why not allow an EVE light app to do some of those things that do not require you to undock. This way you can play on the go which might just appeal to more people;

* Setting up manufacturing jobs/invention jobs
* checking the market in general
* trading on the market
* eve mail - rather than separately by eve gate alone
* in game chat
* changing training que
* toon to toon trading
* setting up contracts
* making war decs

Your toon would still appear in system but you could not undock. Would this really be bad?


2) Now my other idea is a little outside of game and probably less of interest. Why not get a couple of smart app makers to create a simple clash of clans style EVE fleet fighting app to introduce much younger players to the Eve culture. If done well it might even be a fun to play on the go strategy game that CCP can easily set up as F2P P2win which appears very acceptable to people on many of those games.


Flame away

Add PI management

Just the other day there was mention of backend work currently ongoing to support the mobile app.

I can't find the reference right now, but I saw it in a reference Steve Ronuken made so I'll look at his post history and dig it up.

So it's still in development.

Edit: Here's the devpost, thanks to Steve:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6625292#post6625292







Obviously I agree 100% with the OP. He's such a tough CEO, that I fear being kicked from Corp if I disagree. Don't tell him though.

I'd like to see a PI game in the style of Clash of Clans (but more Eve like in graphics) that is free to play for anyone, but that also affects Eve players PI colonies through raids. Open up that minigame to non-Eve players.

Industry botting. PI Bots.
And considering the magnitude of market bottings impact.... That alone would be enough.

Yes other apps keep botting at bay, but you are probably quadrupling the security teams workload because of the number of different investigations they will have to do on top of what they already do.
And we do have market, industry, PI & even ratting bots in EVE.

Potential botting issues aside if we want to keep Eve a game that keeps breaking records for longevity we need to increase the convenience to be able to game and this is one way (noting nothing is a silver bullet) to do that and potentially get more folks back into the sandbox on the go.

Also a feeder App style game could improve the visibility to Eve and actually make money for CCP to keep Eve rocking.

There are literally thousands of people making apps surely CCP could find some top crew to develop a feeder game for them and profit share so that CCP does not have to build the feeder app game themselves and can continue to concentrate on Eve.

It's true. Remote desktop on phone is menacing and I find it hard to navigate market by keyboard effecfively.
But the bidding war will be insane. Everyone everywhere all the time adding 0.01 ISK to compete with bots.

Absolutely serious.

And that definition of "everyone" in combination with your suggestion that they (someone without an EVE account or at all attackable by me, ie. no consequences in EVE) should be able to raid my PI installations is a bit daft, don't you agree?

It is not about who remains unaffected and who not. You suggest that people who have no connection to EVE can just invade a planet, raid a colony and then turn off the app. And as a colony holder, you cannot do anything against it because it can happen all the time, without warning and even when you are not online to counter the attack. That is in fact not different from current mechanics like Sov or POS attacks; however, these mechanics have timers. Such timers cannot be part of an app experience meant to attract people and feed them into the main game -- which in turn makes actual raids on PI completely ridiculous. CCP has indeed thought about it (and scrapped the plans since DUST failed and that not even spectacularly), but this kind of unfairness is certainly not part of such a plan.
If you are not part of the EVE universe, you do not have PI colonies and thus you cannot be raided. If you have to have to be part of the EVE universe, you again limit the potential player base to those with an account. And if you limit it to only people with colonies, you have practically no participants. You seriously have to get your definition of "everyone" in order and think about what you really want.

Such an app experience would inevitably have to use heavily populated planets, such as around the trade hubs; however, if these installations get constantly raided by parties that you cannot engage or counteract against, doing PI on these planets will become unfeasible and people either just move away from these planets, closer to your locations (that spread would then also make your location more attractive because it has many installations) or decrease their PI activity because protection cost are outweighing market earnings, which in turn leads to increasing prices. In either case, activity on planets falls and that makes the app experience just as unsatisfying as the DUST experience was according to many people, and that counteracts the purpose of this app.

I agree the games you listed did not work out. However they were not portable device specific games and they were not persistant world games so were never going to last alongside a long term game like Eve.

My idea for a feeder would be more like a strategy game where you fight other factions via fleet fights in a clash of clans style build your fleet, boost your fleet semi RTS game.

Another idea would be to have RTS resource building game where you play a faction/or create your own alliance and fight against others for space (like in real eve). Think civilisation but in Eve.

Would certainly need a lot of work to develop and the first idea would be a far simpler game that would appeal to Clash style and Mobile Strike type players but in a known Sci fi world. Better or worse both those games are very popular so why not follow the formula?

Niether of these app based games have to have any real connection to Eve itself, you just use them the advertise the backside off the main game and make money via pay2win system these games use (an not a soul playing these games that I have come across cares that they are pay 2 win).

At the very least CCP could make more income, they may even bring in more players to big brother Eve.

I just can't see how getting a second solid income stream is not a good thing or worth a try on portable.


Also by "anyone" I mean anyone who is willing to play on the platform of choice. Unsure how hard it is to have an app that runs on all 3. As a start they just pick the most popular one and see how it goes. I'd go apple myself as a pilot (though I am not a fan specifically of apple stuff). Check out what prices people are prepared to pay for speeding things up in Clash. You only need a little of that to make it a decent income stream.