EVE General Discussion

The essence of the issue was really simple. EVE rests on foundations of emergent behaviour, but at some point some people at CCP forgot the inclusive nature of any such dynamic, and got the idea to do something else - just using EVE. The result of that was a feature project hijacked to a point where it became as much a resource as a perception problem.

Not to mention the results themselves, to much of the customerbase it demonstrated an urge within the company - though not carried by most of the company - to no longer focus on EVE as such, but to do new and different awesome things using EVE. Nothing wrong with this as a concept, unfortunately this type of venture is always a fine line to walk. It really boils down to matters being about the customer, not about the company. And the company might have been considered ready, it turned out it was not.

Approach, methodology, marketing, presentation - it was all at odds with what was present and engaged with the product.

To be fair, today's CCP is a very different CCP than in those days. It's probably best to not mention names of ego's parked away, suffice to say that the company as a venture, a team and a culture had to learn a lot through quite a few hard lessons. Which they did.

Incarna's original concepts were vastly different from what it became as it got hijacked by awesomesauce - I'm sure older CCPians and players will recognise the hint :P Still, even the original concept was not a feasible project at the time, nor was it something that technology or (existing and potential) customer groups were ready for. Sure, it didn't help that it got fubarred all the way. Sure, it didn't help that some people were tweeting champagne pictures from the top of the world while EVE itself was in shambles on that infamous patchday. And sure, it really didn't help how things were handled in terms of communications. I'm sure some of the old CSM people still remember the sheer headaches :P

Be all that as it may, it's a different EVE. It's already a different venture, and while the nature of EVE's prime dependancies remains at odds with the executed concept of Incarna this does not mean that there isn't potential for CCP to build on lessons learnt. Still, as a concept it's so mundane these days in this industry that there's isn't much real incentive to go down those roads, unless it becomes a complete connected-yet-seperate universe type of product in its own right.

Personally, I think they figured out the tough lessons, a cocktail with the lessons from Dust will not be amiss. Just, elsewhere :P

The cost of Incarna was high though.

EVE once was about internet spaceships. Then those became serious business. The old being not as awesome as what might be new. Then after further pain all that was left had to be serious business, and spaceships were docked for two years till after the Dust of Incarna. It took a bit longer, but CCP did go quite a bit deeper, and it is paying off. EVE is once again about internet spaceships, where the human hides behind the pixel, and overcompensates for it. With a little shiny, and a gold standard like once upon a time. But it doesn't get in the way, and if you adopt an Alpha, you can make everyone's day.

Thing is, WiS was not the same as Incarna. It's fun to look up the old CSM threads & blogs, there's a grand canyon between the original concept as a gateway construct towards a human experience angle and what some folks at CCP turned it into :P

I'm not saying the concept is bad, there are plenty games around entirely based upon it. Question is, does it match with the things that make EVE work? If so, how do you balance that with what people used elsewhere to such gaming concepts bump into when they enter the "EVE version" of that. And if no, how do you balance doing it anyway with creating different customer segments which effectively approach the same medium from vastly different behavioural angles.

That's not easy. That's the kind of project a major agency would have severe concerns about engaging upon. Even without what happened to the concept, it's highly unlikely it would not have done damage to foundation requirements. It's worth learning a little more about the origins of EVE's innate concepts, its inspirations from a much older game, and where CCP's founders came from when they were tackling questions on how to create something which was profoundly different from anything else out there.

It's also worth learning more about emergent behaviour concepts, something CCP at the beginning wasn't fully aware of to be laying the foundations for - in many ways they were lucky, in just as many other ways the outcome was guaranteed.

EVE is a beast, what can I say. Human behaviour without the innate constraints of human perception can go many ways, but it always creates pathways for exces. Which is exactly what it boils down to, everything follows from that.

Incarna - as the CCP of the time - pushed and presented it (in spite of much constructive feedback, not just from customers, but also from within the industry) was a road down the hill. The amount of resources required to even maintain a delivery pace to match expectations - should you be able to generate those from scratch in the first place - was beyond what the CCP of those days had, and was capable of organising and focusing. In that time CCP was going through its second transition, but its first really in terms of going from something you mortgage someone else's house for to an enterprise level venture. CCP was huge, yet it could (would) not run two development / maintenance tracks. That should tell you a lot.

Incarna being followed through would have killed them off. Pure and simple. That's recognised now (though in Cologne a while ago there was still one oldie maintaining that it was awesome), but in those days there was no room for anyone to really stop and make observations - let alone communicate those.

While I'm sure that some still see pushing Incarna to the side as giving in to player rage, I don't think that is the case. CCP already knew player rage. Heck, there was no actual player rage in EVE, no matter the drama or the upheavals, until much later. Not even the so called Summer of Rage was that kind of thing. CCP only once really faced a foundation problem, and that is when that internal newsletter leaked on the topic of microtransactions, showcasing fundamental differences in venture vision (versus product vision), and what CCP said to players versus itself. That did blow up. But it still wasn't rage which woke people up, it was the shock of the moment, forcing the making of observations. And that, had not been done for years in a meaningful way.

What did push Incarna to the side was the results of those observations, by CCP, seperate from their customers. Not just in terms of resource allocation was it a problem too close to lethality, CCP simply did not have the capability in those days to produce such a construct and create a customer base, and maintain balance, and avoid perception challenges, and invest in multiple very delicate marketing tracks - and so forth.

WiS was an interesting concept. Aside of the difficulties of matching it to the foundation concepts which make EVE work the way it does, what became of it was very different.

That doesn't mean the idea was bad, or that as a game it would be bad. But as a vision, it sucked monkeyballs, and no amount of - shall we say - washing powder was going to change how that vision was at odds with the established venture would magically result in awesomeness out of the blue. Once CCP realised that, they pulled the plug. But they did learn lessons.

Perhaps the original WiS would have been interesting. But we must recognise that at the time, in that day and age of industry trends and customer developments, it would have been extremely tough (and thus costly) to establish it as a seperate game, let alone as a connected client game.

I wouldn't call it regression in game design, I could call it a risk management decision on a venture level - which supercedes the game design level. Not without good reasons. Sure, I can understand that to some people this presents an opportunity missed. That's the thing here, EVE isn't just a game, it's also bread & butter - and dividends.

Where it went wrong, from WiS to Incarna, wasn't even a game design problem. It was a vision problem. Some might even say an ego issue. Be that as whatever it might be, it is as it is.

But as I said, this CCP is very different from that CCP. EVE's universe is huge. Right now CCP have implemented hard learnt lessons in regards to shiny, bling, microtransactions and integrating f2p concepts in order to reinvigorate a declining demographic. They've also managed to figure that EVE does not make the universe. They also figured out that gateway concepts can be quite risky. So who knows, more lessons to apply, and do interesting things with. But yes, seperate from EVE.

Zachri - I would not really argue against many points you've mentioned, and as I also mentioned in my post, it was a business decision to ditch WIS and it did make sense and customers rolled with it happily except a few (like me). I would not get into 'regression' discussion here as I've just had that like a month ago and what I see as a 'regression' is very technical term without value attached, but people tend to see 'regression' and think of it as 'better vs worse' type of thing.

I do agree that WIS is not easy to implement, and there are many commercial risks attached to it, and I can understand and accept that CCP decide not to pursuit it, for greater good or whatever. I was just speaking purely from personal point of view, as someone who started playing EVE NOT because of any space ships, but because of EVE as a space sim. I play EVE differently from some people (although there are many people who play EVE the way I do). I mean the ship I flew the most this year is Victorious Luxury Yacht. I haven't done any PvP for like a year (although I have done quite a bit in my eve life time, with Toobo and also with other toons). I do not fly space ships to do PVE much, except for very limited hours.

Space ships, for me, don't matter much at all in this game anymore, except as commodity to buy and sell. I welcomed Citadels and now EC because that expand game play for those like me who don't care play much with space ships, and WIS was one of such things where I saw that my game play options could increase greatly if implemented over long term. Even if it became nothing more than a 'space doll house' as I call it, for me at least, that would be more than any ship changes CCP can implement now.

Most of the 'ship balances' over the past years did not affect my game play experience much, because space ship flying was just a side aspect of the game for me so it didn't matter they were finely balanced or not against each other.

But I do concede that commercially, many of CCP's customers care a lot about space ships, so it was probably right decision for them to spend so much time and resources on them and publicly state multiple times that they will focus on space ships, whatever.

So I think that explains a bit now - for someone like me, it didnt' matter that Incarna was a big failure. If they took years to get from Incarna to good/working WIS, so be it, that would've been more interesting than all these years spent on space ship balances. But now that option is probably forever closed, which I personally find is a pity. That's all.

Personally I would love to walk around a station and RP in a bar with people, given how some people don't like it tho why not make it a module for citadels, then corps could install it if they want allowing them to use it when they want and not have something pushed on those players who dont want it.

Personally I think it's an area the game could vastly expand into to really widen its appeal screw the vets their old and bitter.

The most important questions that I would have to ask before I could even have a discussion about the merits of is WiS worth it are

1. Do I believe CCP are capable of designing, implement and maintaining a viable and more importantly, game enchanting WiS environment in a reasonable time scale.

2. Do I believe they can do it and it not be at the expenses of Flying In Space development.

Personally I would answer Yes to question 1.

I think CCP have some of the most talented and dedicated game developers in the business and importantly they are passionate about Eve.

However in relation to question 2, As talented and as passionate as they are, I do not believe as a company CCP have the resources required to proceed on such a mammoth job as WiS would be, and still develop the Flying in Space aspect of the game.

Let me make myself clear, it is not that I do not believe they cant develop a meaning and impactful WiS environment, its that to do so would be like designing a new game and then trying to integrate into a 13 year old game.

It is a mammoth undertaking and with all due respect to CCP, they do not have the finances or resources of a EA Games, or Blizzard.

I do not believe that they could pull it off in a reasonable timescale and it not have an impact on the most important part of Eve, its core, Flying in Space development.

Until I can answer Yes to both of those question then whether having WiS is worth it is a mute point

That's so cool, I want to have it at any cost.

The Incarna Expansion of 2011 failed to deliver the WiS (Walking In Stations) that was promised years ago in 2006 known as Ambulation. The Incarna Expansion basically became the catalyst which, when combined with resulting events after deployment and previous in-game problems, ended up being 'The straw that broke the Camel's back' prompting player outrage and mass un-subs which quickly became known as 'The Summer Of Rage'..

Despite what some players may say, WiS was not the reason for 'The Summer Of Rage'. There's a lot of other issues that contributed to it which I've listed here in no particular order.

1. CCP ignoring 'The 1001 Papercuts' thread - large list of broken game mechanics and unfinished content since 2003.
2. Numerous expansions constantly being rushed out half finished, untested and bugged breaking existing content.
3. CCP introducing NEX Store and MT - selling overpriced items for real money bypassing player market and production.
4. Threat of 'Gold Ammo' and 'Gold Ships' enabling 'Pay to Win' exploitation.
5. CCP dividing their development resources to work on 3 different projects at the same time.
6. The 'Fearless Newsletter' leaked memo - Greed is good.
7. CCP statement of Eve Online being viewed as the Golden Goose.
8. 3rd party Developers being demanded to pay real money to CCP for providing free Eve Online applications to players.
9. CCP failure to keep and maintain their promise of 'Commitment to Excellence'.
10. Showing players 'The Door' and removing player option of choice, forcing player participation in Captains Quarters.
11. CCP attempting to diffuse the situation with excessive thread locking and banned accounts.
12. Lack of communication from CCP resulting in poor Public Relations due to ignoring the player base.
13. CCP releasing poorly written un-optimized code in the Incarna Expansion resulting in various client side issues.
14. Hilmar's statement - "Watch what they do, not what they say."

Basically Hilmar's statement became the rally cry for the mass un-subs. Those un-subs combined with a large loan payment being due resulted in CCP downsizing their company and placing the other projects on the back burner in order to refocus resources on fixing various issues in Eve.

A couple of expansions after Incarna (mostly 'Fix-it' patches), CCP once again tried revisiting WIS / Avatar Ambulation intending to incorporate it into exploration. Even though there were a lot of ideas presented to CCP to turn it into meaningful game content, the player base got into a rage war and couldn't agree on the basic game mechanics governing Avatar game content. Since 'The Summer Of Rage' was still a sore subject, CCP ended up dropping the project ..... again.

Hopefully CCP will revisit WIS / Avatar Ambulation in the future. I don't expect it to be anytime soon, at the very least it'll be a few years from now, probably even longer.


DMC

Google Moniclegate.

To EXPAND universe, someone adding more systems to colonize would make it only half of the way its intended to be in my oppinion. It will not bring anything new to the game than just few new systems. So what if you could build gates and fight over them, it would be just a variation of current system. B O R I N G. Nothing totally new.

We would need to EXPAND on more fronts. Seek new horizons. Planets and station interiors. With completely new mechanics.

Yeah I started a bit earlier than that on a different toon, but Toobo's my main now and from 2009. I remember the Empryan Age trailer and there was also a lot of lore things going back then with faction wars and Jamyl's inaugration, later Templar One and so on. Couple that with the awesome Apocrypha expansion and it was just awesome times. I was playing EVE, reading the fictions, chronicles, and just loved the total concept of the whole thing.

Sure lots of things have 'improved' and I won't complain about those or say CCP didn't do well to keep EVE going and such, but there were many 'little things' that kinda died out. Even Jamyl (ahtough I hated her) getting killed in drifter attacks out of no where was a bit meh for me after having built up the character and lore for so long with series of published fictions and chronicles and such.

So I can't really say 'this ruined eve' or I never said the usual 'eve is dying' stuff, because I still enjoyed the game very much over the years. But small things kept on getting put aside, and players have become very cynical too and many things are now frankly focused on the core mechanic balances. I'm sure that's a good thing in a way, to address the core issues of space ship pew pew and fleet fights and conflicts over resources and sovs, but I don't know. I want my 'little things'. Not so much in the way of UI improvements and stuff like that CCP now calls 'little things'. But these 'little things' that made EVE richer from many different angles.

FW introduction, for example, was coincided with the whole lore development and publications to go with it, Empress Jamyl, rise of Titus in Caldari, although many people may not have cared so much for those, I think I'm not the only one who found such things really cool. Now when CCP does 'events' it's pretty much grinds to get the special/limited loots. They still do make some 'lore' behind it, but no where as elaborate as they used to be.

It's a difficult issue because on one hand yes, 'player driven narrative' of EVE is awesome, and there are still a lot of things you can dig up and appreciate and many player driven contents, and I love having a chat with someone who's been around and did things I haven't tried, or have their own story to tell and such. But I also do miss some of the CCP driven/produced stories and world fabric they were building in many layers. WIS, although incarna obviously failed, would have pushed things further into that direction. As Nana said, that would 'EXPAND' the game in so many fronts - maybe not in a way that space ship pew pew crowd would care, but I think there are still plenty of people who would wait for such an expansion patiently, even if it took long time to get it right.