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And here we go again…

Sorry CCP, but another vague devblog concerning the future of WIS is starting to feel like days of old.

Why develop WIS at all? You already have a growing community that didn't need this function before, so I can only assume that CCP's thoughts are towards attracting new customer and/or better subscription retention from new pilots. If that's the case would it not be a better idea to try and ascertain as to what those groups would expect to see in WIS? Might be a good idea to reach out and gather feedback outside your own gaming community. I really hope you are not pinning all your hopes on a FanFest round-table discussion, which certainly does not hurt but in no way should be considered the end all be all of feedback for future WIS development.

If you really want ideas I wish you guys would put some parameters up? What are your capabilities? At this time multi-avatar environments are not possible and with such a small team should are ideas be grounded in this little thing called reality? Big picture is great but you can talk about that big picture until the cows come home and nothing gets accomplished.

CQ, what a mess, and really was the downfall of Incarna. Talk about not meeting expectations would be a gross understatement. You gave us an avatar with a small static room with absolutely no game play value and you thought micro transactions in this environment would fly, congrats. If that wasn't bad enough, you pulled in a metric ton of resources from Papa (EVE Space) to give us this not so grand expansion.

Righting the wrongs, actual ideas:

Let me just preface that I have absolutely no idea what your Carbon engines capabilities are, I am running on an assumption that multiple avatars are not in the cards. These ideas are really how to possibly get CQ in better shape.

1. These static rooms you created, did you guys leave room for players to place objects into them? If not, what kind of hurdle would it be to allow players this capability. Customizing the CQ's, to me, is a no brainer. You make it fit into the space side of EVE by making everything player created using the good old fashion blueprint/material side of the game. Maybe consider some items requiring materials from both PI and mining and I would not rule out rare materials only acquired from certain sec's of space (looking at you LowSec). The micro transaction side of this should (if ever) come much later. Items like bed, tables, chairs and other common items go without saying but what about cool stuff like a display case where I can put a corpse into or a pole to place the head of a corpse? Alliance or Corp. logo holograms? Hang pictures on walls, which could be portraits of other players or even a screen shot of an actual battle someone took. The possibilities are endless but the bottom line, this stuff is built and sold by the players. The important part here is the implementation, meaning someone can truly customize their CQ the way he/she wants without the limitations of all tables should be placed in this exact location and oriented in this exact way. SWG, gone, but man did they have a kickass housing system and COH/COV's base building isn't to shabby either.

2. The customizing above should be on a station by station bases. You got this really cool setup but you have now changed corps. and are moving, you need to move your CQ stuff also which of course opens them up for the great gank. Don't want to move your stuff, fine, rent another room and rebuild. Oh, did I just say rent, I did. All new players should have a basic CQ, no question. After that people should be paying rent for additional CQ access. Don't pay your rent, your stuff is kindly kicked to the curb and placed back in your station.

3. Create different interiors with different sizes and configurations like a CQ with no ramp but a window to my ship. Rent obviously changes based on the size of the room. Heck, you could even go so far as to require these different configurations to be actually constructed with blueprints and in space materials and to be made and sold by players. With all that of course means opening access for room additions which of course means more rent and in a perfect world player created and sold.

4. You did it, you created this highly customizable single player environment that fits into the EVE economy. Players are gathering materials, building and selling this vanity stuff. While some might think that is actual gameplay, which it can be, you still need some other things to get people to want to use their CQ. I can't have other avatars visit me in my CQ but you still need an actual purpose to have a CQ. You NEED this because in other games housing is used more often then not for simple loot dropping, something CQ will not have. You need a some type of mini-game that allows players to challenge other players. The device or table used for this mini-game should be something, once gain, built, sold and bought by players. The game should allow players to bet and if possible allow you to see your opponents full body avatar while playing. It could be a hologram but anything that gives a person a reason to show off their avatar's bling, thus a reason to get tattoos on my arms or legs.

I really think soliciting input from people who don't play may be worthwhile regarding WIS ideas. The ideas above are not new but what I like about them is you start small in a single player environment then if you bring WIS online this same foundation can be used. If people ever do own storefronts you don't want the same look and feel to every store but a uniqueness that identifies with that player.

If you are serious about adding and supporting to the WIS side of the game then please don't let this be the thread that a year from now people are still bumping and asking, "Any word?".

When you get podded and someone collects their corpse, when will it look like you?

The main concern I have for WiS is *another* big jump in the system requirements for reasonable access to "all of EvE." Ok, maybe it was unrealistic to expect to play the game on the same system I got to replace the one that replaced the one that replaced the one I first played on, but my CQ *still* annihilates what I would consider a "general purpose" computer and feels not-quite-right on a machine that does fine with the likes of BF3. Drop a couple dozen avatars in a room and I'd expect it would replace whatever's current from CryTek in "can it run" jokes.

All the side-entertainment ideas sound great and fun, but I weep for my video cards...

WIS offers an amazing opportunity to do some truly immersive game play.

Now that you have a half decent (ok I am assuming their) combat engine (i.e Dust) for planet based – why not turn that loose on stations for PC players. This could be made even better if the Dust players could join us in the station for 'activities'

You can have in station based fighting – you can use security status to determine what level of weapons are acceptable to use. EG 1.0 – no weapons; 0.6-0.9 Knifes / body amour; 0.5-0.6 non-lethal guns (sticky guns/nerve gas); 0.1 – 0.4 some close combat weapons capable of killing. 0.0 mass killings. And of course an in station dojo to practise in.

If your killed – you can regen (you may loose your implants). But you wouldn’t loose your ship.

Stations would have their own defence force (aka station based Concord equilivent) to stop high sec muggings.

Extending it further a new class of agent could offer in station missions – i.e Travel to station and kill the surgeon who has been killing off citizens as a form revenge.

Anyway 2 isks worth of what could be.

I feel like you think the negative reaction last summer was because of WALKING in stations as you envisioned it.

It wasn't BECAUSE of that, it was because of the NEX Store, because of the lack of completion on what you were planning on delivering (full captains quarters, etc).


Walking in Stations ITSELF wasn't the negative reaction, your plans weren't what the community had a negative reaction to in itself. It was the WAY you released things, that was a slap to the face repeatedly (to the community's perspective) that caused the negative outlash.


Walking in stations as envisioned has all the potential we want for the system, just MORE from it.


Establishments, customizable spaces, and so on are so much of what some are looking forward to, but also with more from it that synchs into the gameplay of EVE as not just social spaces, but places for social play, politics, etc.

Sooooooooooooo this.

I have been talking exact same thing but that few anty wis ppl are always singing the same song "ppl shoot jita statue because of WiS" - that's just not true!!! - the main thing why ppl shot that statue was "golden ammo" leak and that things that Bloodpetal wrote.

Establishments, bars, and other social places. even just being able to leave my quarters and sit on someone else's internet space couch would be nice

"Come to my CQ and i will teach you some basics of EVE play"
->invite to CQ
accept invitation
loading CQ environment
loading CQ chat
"You here?"
"Yep"
"Oh, I see you. seat on the couch, it's gonna take a while..."
->main screen-> play back "instruction video 1"


Just figure what could THAT do for NPE. Now put a conference room instead of CQ and you got E-Uni alive.

Emergent gameplay. Social gameplay. Minimal investment (art assets), maximum impact.

The main bit of concrete information in here was the fact that they've scrapped the previous work done on WiS gameplay.

It's more of an un-dev blog at this point.

I would really love to see something interesting done with the viewer in your captains quarters.
Ideas:
1) Broadcasting the EVE Alliance Tournaments
2) Live streams from events happening in the game
3) News broadcasts with vids (Major battles, systems being taken, big events)
4) The ability to full screen the playing vid

I mean come on... who doesn't want to sit on the couch in front of their flat screen watching their character sit on a couch watching a flat screen of ships being blown up. :D

I have high hopes on this, good luck