Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Walking in Pos's.

The idea here is pretty simple. There were a great deal of players who were disappointed by Incarna, and many of those players would like to see it have some sort of associated gameplay. Other players want to see social areas developed, where you can interact with other players' avatars. Simultaneously, we've been left with a pretty crappy POS system for years. POS inventories can be difficult to manage, income from moon goo is generated passively without interaction (which is "bad" according to CCP), and anchoring and maintenance couldn't be any more boring.

What I'd like to suggest is that Incarna be used to add gameplay to the eventual POS overhaul. It's been suggested that a limited number of people will be able to dock at or enter a POS while their ship is nearby. This finite number will keep the rendering difficulty and server load relatively small. While inside, our space barbies would be able to engage in POS activities that would be both productive and interactive, as outlined below.

These are all avatar-based gameplay ideas I'd like to see if POS's ever become more than floating trash piles in a bubble.

Mining
Moon mining is currently non-engaging, and CCP has stated that they'd like a level of user interaction. At the same time, people who hold moons feel that the effort they put into defending the moons is enough to warrant some free income. I think that a nice compromise could exist here. While moons would continue to mine passively, the rate would be reduced, however, a player inside the POS could calibrate the mining laser to a new goo pocket using a scanning/calibration interface. Similar to research missions, this would double the yield for 24 hours. This would encourage players to take the time to visit their alliances POS's, and possibly interact with other layers.

This could be extended to work with any scientific activities in the POS. Basically mini-interactives that would allow players to accelerate research, manufacture, or anything else you do in your POS.

Repair/Maintenance
Onlining and offlining modules, anchoring, and repping, refilling fuel, and producing reactions are all pretty boring, and involve a good bit of clicking and dragging or waiting. While there may not be solutions for all pos activity, there's definitely room for improvement, starting with repair, though all Pos activities could benefit from an intuitive interface. Team Avatar was working on hazardous-environment based avatar gameplay (with the infamous box ninja). This could be easily extended to POSs, allowing players to run around POSs after they come out of reinforce and "fix" things to assist with the repair rate outside. Dropping nanobot hives, using spot-welder style armour repairers, and possibly removing hostile drones or disarming munitions payloads, with a chance of recovering salvageable materials all come to mind.

Pos Gunning
This may not be feasible with current technology, but the idea of actually hopping in a turret and shooting at ships seems pretty fun. If anyone has an idea for how this could be integrated, I'd love to hear it.

Ultimately, the requirements for Walking in POS's would be as follows:
-Must augment existing POS activities, but not replace them.
-Must not interfere with the ability of POS's and their directors to fullfill their current duties.
-Must be unique enough in order to give Incarna a draw or appeal; if it's completely redundant then it likely just won't be used.

To avoid some of the commonly anticipated trolling responses.
-"Delete WiS." WiS isn't going away. "Delete WiS" is not a viable alternative.
-"Eve is about FiS!" Eve isn't entirely about FiS. It's also about industry, marketing, science fiction, emergent gameplay, and user interaction.
-"Baaw my graphic card sucks and I'm poor and can't get a job, so how dare you suggest a feature I can't use!" This is a fair point. However, this is also a not a short-term suggestion. This is more about a direction to work in, and I can't see any of the features being implemented SOON™. You've got plenty of time to upgrade between now and then.

I typed this in vi to make it look like I was being productive at work, so I apologize for any spelling errors.