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Pulling the Plug on WiS

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Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#541 - 2012-12-11 12:04:11 UTC
Its always amusing to see the 'people weren't really protesting about Incarna it was [something else] they were all mad about' talking point wheeled out again, like Fox News trying to explain away Romney's failure.

Apply some joined up thinking here, people: Incarna/Captain's Quarters, "18 months", the NeX Store, "Greed Is Good"... these were all related manifestations of the same underlying issue. CCP had totally spiralled off course, the people in charge were wallowing in their own hubris, were more interested in the $1000 jeans they could buy if they got us to pay twice for the same content than they were in providing new and improved features (whether that be spaceships, or actual gameplay content for WiS), and assumed that the loyal little subscribers would surely continue to forever throw money at CCP regardless of the crap they shovelled onto our plates and the badly needed gameplay features that were repeatedly delayed to make way for monocles.

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
Sura Sadiva
Entropic Tactical Crew
#542 - 2012-12-11 15:13:23 UTC

WiS project has always been in EvE dna as an obvious and needed evolution of the game, since the beginning.

After years of talking and promises the release was planed in Trinity expansion (2007, most of the people talking about barby in space bla bla and pretending to explain to everyone else what is the "true" EvE were still struggling to level their night elf rogue in WoW at that time). Trinity was suposed to rlease three major feautures:

1. New graphic engine
2. Facrion Warfare
3. WiS (was called ambualtion at that time)

Then they delayed WiS and FW to a specific expansion. then only FW was relesead in Empyrean Age expansion and WiS delayed again.

in 2011, when finally they released it was an huge delusion:

1. the whole thing was limited to a single avatar trapped in a cell (btw was only one out of four racial CQ)
2. nothing of the planed and promised related gameplay
3. An item mall was atatched to it
4. The item mall had only few items ridiculously expansive
5. there were internal CCP documents leaks showing as the company was thinking to add int he NeX store "pay for win" items (faction bulelts, ships and so on).
6. The expansion had nothing else, no new content or anything. And it came just after another mediocre expansion like Tyrannis.
7. The carbon engine had severe performances issues: now they fixed it, but in the first releases it was used to melt player's graphic cards

So, yes OF COURSE people was upset. The rage was about this, pretending it was against WiS is only a stupid and unimportant forum troll.

Then, of course, tweaking ships (aka: changing some numeric value in a database) is far more easy than adding new strategic content to the game. But is not enough to keep the game alive and growing on a medium/long term.
Lors Dornick
Kallisti Industries
#543 - 2012-12-11 15:37:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Lors Dornick
Sura Sadiva wrote:


7. The carbon engine had severe performances issues: now they fixed it, but in the first releases it was used to melt player's graphic cards

Hmm, just a minor correction.

"Carbon" is the project name used by CCP for their ongoing work to clean up, streamline and generalize the old, quite yucky and often almost desperate code that was hacked together to create EvE Online in beginning of time.

So Carbon isn't just the marginally efficient Avatar engine, it's the entire updated code base.

And the fail, hopefully temporary, of the Avatar gameplay was down to a generic failure of gamedesign. To introduce a new mode, without any hint what so ever of what to use that function for.

Getting beautiful avatars to move is nice, but getting them to move without knowing wth they are supposed to do is stupid.

And that was the stupid that CCP did with their initial release, that some of their co-workers had to pay for and that they have publicly accepted the blame for.

Let Team Avatar to get back together and let them play and ponder to get up with a good and funny use of WiS, then I'll hop to it with joy.

CCP Greyscale: As to starbases, we agree it's pretty terrible, but we don't want to delay the entire release just for this one factor.
Hemi DarkStar
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#544 - 2012-12-11 15:39:04 UTC
I hope its not completely off the table. Im a fairly new player and kept playing because of the idea of WiS. If executed right it would immerse the players even more imo. Yes balance is key, and the ships need this of course. I can only look at myself when playing, and see myself wondering my quarters everyday. Looking at all the little details...hoping that door will open haha.

So can we asume it's never going to happen then? Or not untill a few years? As a designer I would love to see more of the EVE universe. The possibilities are endless! Don't make it stop at that wretched door haha.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#545 - 2012-12-11 16:36:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Jame Jarl Retief
Hemi DarkStar wrote:
So can we asume it's never going to happen then? Or not untill a few years? As a designer I would love to see more of the EVE universe. The possibilities are endless! Don't make it stop at that wretched door haha.


Never say never. But realistically? Yeah, possibly never. Blink

Me personally, I made this char shortly after Incursion expansion was released. Fresh account, fresh new start. Incarna expansion was next, and I was very excited. This was January 2011. Kept playing on the promise that WiS was coming soon. Well, it's almost 2 years later now (1 year, 10 months and some days) and look at what WiS is like now. So "until a few years" may actually be an unrealistic expectation as well. In a few years we might get a slightly bigger room to walk in, but probably not. And actual avatar gameplay? I doubt few years are going to cut it, maybe half a decade?

I'm trying to remain hopeful, but we also have to be realistic here. At the pace things have been happening the last couple of years, I very much doubt we'll see meaningful WiS content any time soon.

The way I see it, first Dust has to flop. Once it flops, they can re-route all that manpower back to EVE, and hopefully into WiS. Then World of Darkness MMO they're working on is a bit of a wild card - could be good, or could be ludicrously inimpressive and even more niche than EVE. I mean, not everyone is into vampires. They were big when Twilight hit, with the pre-teen audience, but I'm guessing that's not the demographic CCP wants, although those pre-teens are young adults by now, and will be adults by the time WoD hits, so, maybe? Hard to tell.
BJ McGreaves
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#546 - 2012-12-11 17:44:19 UTC  |  Edited by: BJ McGreaves
I Just read about 90% of this thread and as a new player, learned many things.
Sura Sadiva
Entropic Tactical Crew
#547 - 2012-12-11 19:19:27 UTC
Lors Dornick wrote:
[quote=Sura Sadiva]
"Carbon" is the project name used by CCP for their ongoing work to clean up, streamline and generalize the old, quite yucky and often almost desperate code that was hacked together to create EvE Online in beginning of time.

So Carbon isn't just the marginally efficient Avatar engine, it's the entire updated code base.



Btw, I was watching these old WiS demos they showed in 2008:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeghrHk7so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoOyvRTA2Ps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_ZjVyRxx4

If you see there was already more than what we got with Incarna. if yous ee the the CQ and avatar moviments is all already there in 2008.
Then from 2008 to 2011 (3 years) they simply retextured all in higher resolution. The turth is that all the resources was removed from EvE and redirected to WoT. So basically people subscriptions were used to develop another game; and when this became evident OF COURSE people got mad.

So now Team Avatar was moved to work on what? The launcher??? Seriously?



Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#548 - 2012-12-11 19:41:22 UTC
Sura Sadiva wrote:
The turth is that all the resources was removed from EvE and redirected to WoT. So basically people subscriptions were used to develop another game; and when this became evident OF COURSE people got mad.


I never understood why this made people mad.

Consider WoW and Blizzard. It's been known for years that Blizzard is working on the next MMO, under a working title "Titan". Why do I not see WoW players yelling "OMG, they are diverting funds from WoW development and wasting it on Titan! I quit!" Maybe it's because everyone realizes that every game has a finite lifespan and WoW is nearing the end of its cycle that can't be extended without a colossal overhaul. And with such an overhaul, it might be better to just start fresh with a next title, which is what Blizz is doing.

So why all the rage with WoD? So what if CCP is diverting resources from EVE? What else are they going to divert resources from? It's not like they have a bunch of other games that give them revenue. EVE is 10 years old, how much longer do you think they can drag it out? Another couple of years for sure, but let's face it, population has been stalled for 2 years now. It's not really growing in any significant way, and any player loss so far has been masked by propagation of alt accounts. So why wouldn't CCP want to diversify and try to get Dust and WoD to work?

I don't know, I just don't think I get it why people get so angry over it. They're just trying to keep their business going.
Natsett Amuinn
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#549 - 2012-12-11 19:48:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Natsett Amuinn
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Sura Sadiva wrote:
The turth is that all the resources was removed from EvE and redirected to WoT. So basically people subscriptions were used to develop another game; and when this became evident OF COURSE people got mad.


I never understood why this made people mad.

Consider WoW and Blizzard. It's been known for years that Blizzard is working on the next MMO, under a working title "Titan". Why do I not see WoW players yelling "OMG, they are diverting funds from WoW development and wasting it on Titan! I quit!" Maybe it's because everyone realizes that every game has a finite lifespan and WoW is nearing the end of its cycle that can't be extended without a colossal overhaul. And with such an overhaul, it might be better to just start fresh with a next title, which is what Blizz is doing.

So why all the rage with WoD? So what if CCP is diverting resources from EVE? What else are they going to divert resources from? It's not like they have a bunch of other games that give them revenue. EVE is 10 years old, how much longer do you think they can drag it out? Another couple of years for sure, but let's face it, population has been stalled for 2 years now. It's not really growing in any significant way, and any player loss so far has been masked by propagation of alt accounts. So why wouldn't CCP want to diversify and try to get Dust and WoD to work?

I don't know, I just don't think I get it why people get so angry over it. They're just trying to keep their business going.

CCP isn't blizzard.

And Blizzard doesn't show people the work they've been doing on a promised raid and then say nevermind we're not going to do that now -afer like 6 years of work-, and we're going to have those guys work on other stuff instead.

They especially never make it obvious that WoW developers are moved from WoW to work on titan without bringing in new devs to continue to work on WoW.

Why would you even make the comparison?
Every person playing EVE knows that CCP developing two other games was made possible, in part, by taking devs away from EVE. It's not like they did it in secret, or didn't promise anything, or give us a small portion of what they promised and then said nevermind.

I mean, did you not read the friggin thread topic?
Was that not a ******* clue?

WTF.
Kagumichan
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#550 - 2012-12-11 19:56:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Kagumichan
Red Teufel wrote:
I think ccp doesn't know how to compete. they will have to take some risks and put heavy investments into eve development or fall to new space mmos. I think they will fail since they have had a long and terrible track record with adding new content. i can't see how they could ever compete against companies who actually know that making the customers angry results in mass unsubs.


Compete with what? New space mmos? Where?
2 expansion packs a year is bad track record for adding content? You mean, compared to other mmos one expansion pack every 2-3 years?
Compete against companies who know making customers angry blah blah blah... err... Warhammer Online, Age Of Conan, Tera, and let's not forget the ever so tragic Star Wars: The Old Republic, the biggest and most expensive mmo failure in history. In comparison, CCP are godlike when it comes to communicating to their community and listening to their players. Sure they don't get absolutely everything right on their first try, but they do a better job than other mmo companies.
Incarna was bad fair enough but only because the bulk of it was implimenting and introducing the carbon engine. It may not have had any huge play-style changes, but it paved the way for future new shiny things to be put in.

It'd be nice if CCP could even-out their development cycles so the expansion we get at the start of the year added spaceship stuff, and the expansion at the end of the year added WiS stuff. This way everyone gets what they want, the carbon engine doesn't go to waste and one team can spend a whole year developing content for one side of eve and another spends a year on another aspect, so when the expansions do hit they're bigger than normal.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#551 - 2012-12-11 19:59:07 UTC
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Its always amusing to see the 'people weren't really protesting about Incarna it was [something else] they were all mad about' talking point wheeled out again, like Fox News trying to explain away Romney's failure.


It's because "Incarna" is used both as a name for avatar gameplay, and for the ill-starred expansion.

People were absolutely protesting Incarna the expansion, but not because it was going to bring avatar gameplay to EVE. CCP didn't know what it was going to bring, except for $1000 jeans and gold Scorpions, and when released it gave us the worst excuse for avatar anything in the industry.

Maybe it would help if people stopped referring to avatar gameplay as "Incarna?" Maybe it would also help if any mention of avatar gameplay wasn't automatically derailed into a discussion of how badly CCP bungled their first attempt. After all, discussions of how to fix sov null aren't automatically derailed into discussion of how CCP bungled their first attempt at that, right? What's important is that both features are considered important by a significant portion of the player base, and that CCP do them right.

(I wouldn't mind if they took a whack at fixing sov first, because Dominion came out before Incarna did.)

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Natsett Amuinn
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#552 - 2012-12-11 20:07:15 UTC
Kagumichan wrote:
Red Teufel wrote:
I think ccp doesn't know how to compete. they will have to take some risks and put heavy investments into eve development or fall to new space mmos. I think they will fail since they have had a long and terrible track record with adding new content. i can't see how they could ever compete against companies who actually know that making the customers angry results in mass unsubs.


Compete with what? New space mmos? Where?
2 expansion packs a year is bad track record for adding content? You mean, compared to other mmos one expansion pack every 2-3 years?
Compete against companies who know making customers angry blah blah blah... err... Warhammer Online, Age Of Conan, Tera, and let's not forget the ever so tragic Star Wars: The Old Republic, the biggest and most expensive mmo failure in history. In comparison, CCP are godlike when it comes to communicating to their community and listening to their players.

Everything Eve is, is the complete opposite of everything you said Blink

I think they were making it a point of things to come.

EVE has no compettition really, but that won't last forever.
Contrary to what some people are saying Star Citizen will be an MMO, and it will compete with EVE if it releases and works the way the guy making it wants it to.

Star Citizen will be very much like EVE, with twitch conrol, WiS style content, and a mission system that works like a single player game experience.

The guy had like an hour long video interview with MMORPG.com, and he didn't just call it an MMO, he pretty much describes a game exactly like EVE, but with the ability to get out of your ship.


Adn they didn't always release two expansion a year, and not every expansion actually included new content.
What exactly can you do today in EVE that you couldn't do a year ago? The next expact doesn't come out untill spring, that's a year and half or so that we'll go with no new content.

Other games may put out one expansion every year or two, but they usually do that becuase they're packed with actual content and system overhauls.

WoW's panda expansion may have taken longer to get out, but it did release with more new content than we got in EVE in 2012.


I'm not complaining about not getting enough new content or anything, just making a point.
Anne-Louise Chasse
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#553 - 2012-12-11 21:36:53 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Hemi DarkStar wrote:
So can we asume it's never going to happen then? Or not untill a few years? As a designer I would love to see more of the EVE universe. The possibilities are endless! Don't make it stop at that wretched door haha.


Never say never. But realistically? Yeah, possibly never. Blink

Me personally, I made this char shortly after Incursion expansion was released. Fresh account, fresh new start. Incarna expansion was next, and I was very excited. This was January 2011. Kept playing on the promise that WiS was coming soon. Well, it's almost 2 years later now (1 year, 10 months and some days) and look at what WiS is like now. So "until a few years" may actually be an unrealistic expectation as well. In a few years we might get a slightly bigger room to walk in, but probably not. And actual avatar gameplay? I doubt few years are going to cut it, maybe half a decade?

I'm trying to remain hopeful, but we also have to be realistic here. At the pace things have been happening the last couple of years, I very much doubt we'll see meaningful WiS content any time soon.

The way I see it, first Dust has to flop. Once it flops, they can re-route all that manpower back to EVE, and hopefully into WiS. Then World of Darkness MMO they're working on is a bit of a wild card - could be good, or could be ludicrously inimpressive and even more niche than EVE. I mean, not everyone is into vampires. They were big when Twilight hit, with the pre-teen audience, but I'm guessing that's not the demographic CCP wants, although those pre-teens are young adults by now, and will be adults by the time WoD hits, so, maybe? Hard to tell.


I disagree. If DUST flops then is game over for CCP. Also DUST developers work in Unreal engine, can be them good with CCP engine? WoD can work because the players are, WoD is a Role Playing Game universe and WoD the MMO is the old rules book of WoD and all the veterans want it.
Cygnet Lythanea
World Welfare Works Association
#554 - 2012-12-11 23:22:13 UTC
Kagumichan wrote:
and let's not forget the ever so tragic Star Wars: The Old Republic, the biggest and most expensive mmo failure in history..


Minor detail: it continues to remain profitable enough they're releasing free expansions and will be upping the level cap soon. So, 'failure' is relative in this case.
Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#555 - 2012-12-12 00:16:42 UTC
Natsett Amuinn wrote:
The guy had like an hour long video interview with MMORPG.com, and he didn't just call it an MMO, he pretty much describes a game exactly like EVE, but with the ability to get out of your ship.

Next time I have an hour to kill I should probably watch that, but if Star Citizen is simply an Eve clone with a WiS clone included, it'll flop hilariously. If you're going for a player-driven sandbox, you'll have to give a truly compelling reason for potential players to jump to your blank page rather than the one that already has 10+ years of player-driven sandbox content behind it. And to be honest, I expect to see WiS done properly long before I see Star Citizen released.

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
Korinne
The Partisan Brigade
#556 - 2012-12-12 00:37:49 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Sura Sadiva wrote:
The turth is that all the resources was removed from EvE and redirected to WoT. So basically people subscriptions were used to develop another game; and when this became evident OF COURSE people got mad.


I never understood why this made people mad.

Consider WoW and Blizzard. It's been known for years that Blizzard is working on the next MMO, under a working title "Titan". Why do I not see WoW players yelling "OMG, they are diverting funds from WoW development and wasting it on Titan! I quit!" Maybe it's because everyone realizes that every game has a finite lifespan and WoW is nearing the end of its cycle that can't be extended without a colossal overhaul. And with such an overhaul, it might be better to just start fresh with a next title, which is what Blizz is doing.

So why all the rage with WoD? So what if CCP is diverting resources from EVE? What else are they going to divert resources from? It's not like they have a bunch of other games that give them revenue. EVE is 10 years old, how much longer do you think they can drag it out? Another couple of years for sure, but let's face it, population has been stalled for 2 years now. It's not really growing in any significant way, and any player loss so far has been masked by propagation of alt accounts. So why wouldn't CCP want to diversify and try to get Dust and WoD to work?

I don't know, I just don't think I get it why people get so angry over it. They're just trying to keep their business going.


Because WoW players are known for having no taste and will play the same regurgitated garbage repeatedly until the world ends, they're the same people that pay to play Farmville. Just because Blizzard can and does do it is like saying it's okay for the CEO of Amazon to **** little girls because a drug cartel kingpin does it. It's not apples and oranges.
Natsett Amuinn
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#557 - 2012-12-12 01:11:03 UTC
Scatim Helicon wrote:
Natsett Amuinn wrote:
The guy had like an hour long video interview with MMORPG.com, and he didn't just call it an MMO, he pretty much describes a game exactly like EVE, but with the ability to get out of your ship.

Next time I have an hour to kill I should probably watch that, but if Star Citizen is simply an Eve clone with a WiS clone included, it'll flop hilariously. If you're going for a player-driven sandbox, you'll have to give a truly compelling reason for potential players to jump to your blank page rather than the one that already has 10+ years of player-driven sandbox content behind it. And to be honest, I expect to see WiS done properly long before I see Star Citizen released.

I didn't get the impression of EVE clone, as much as the same kind of persistant, player driven enviroment and economy.

It's going to be more like an EVE meets WoW I think. Sandboxy, but with a lot of the different content segregated from each other. Kind of the way some people would like High sec split off from the rest of the map. That's the impression I got from listening to the guy.

Personally, if it works, I think it'll be a good game. Not something I'd play though. I don't like feeling like there are "seperate" areas of a game world, especially when they have different rule sets.

I like the way EVE does it and star citizen isn't quite "the same". Think, UO post Tramell. I really don't dig that.
Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#558 - 2012-12-12 01:21:47 UTC
Star Citizen gives off way too strong a 'all things to all people' vibe right now for me to take it seriously. If its ever released, it won't even remotely match the full range of claims currently being made about it.

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
Lors Dornick
Kallisti Industries
#559 - 2012-12-12 01:22:07 UTC
Sura Sadiva wrote:


Btw, I was watching these old WiS demos they showed in 2008:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeghrHk7so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoOyvRTA2Ps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_ZjVyRxx4

If you see there was already more than what we got with Incarna. if yous ee the the CQ and avatar moviments is all already there in 2008.
Then from 2008 to 2011 (3 years) they simply retextured all in higher resolution. The turth is that all the resources was removed from EvE and redirected to WoT. So basically people subscriptions were used to develop another game; and when this became evident OF COURSE people got mad.

So now Team Avatar was moved to work on what? The launcher??? Seriously?




Indeed.

The issue was, as have been stated and asked forgiveness for by CCP, that they tried to do too much at the same time.

They wanted to continue working on EvE, but at the same time streamline their code base both in server and client ends so that it could be used to develop other games.

While being a wise move in general since most companies should be a bit scared on having their entire commercial survival locked to one single product it failed because they got struck by a bad case of hubris and started to develop 'nice & shiny' code without actually pondering what to use it for.

It's a trap that many companies, big small or imaginary, have fallen into. Getting mesmerised by one or more shiny feature without any idea of the actual use for it.

And in EvE it's not just WiS, checkout the old atmospheric flight video. A lovely idea and another wonderful addition to EvE.

But only if there was any actual gameplay ideas making it useful!

A qualified guess is that Team Avatar in some shape or form, and most likely another name, will be formed to investigate, brainstorm and trial new additions to EvE. But hopefully they will focus on the mechanics first, and worry about the shiny when there's a reason for it.

CCP Greyscale: As to starbases, we agree it's pretty terrible, but we don't want to delay the entire release just for this one factor.
Sura Sadiva
Entropic Tactical Crew
#560 - 2012-12-12 01:28:59 UTC
Natsett Amuinn wrote:
[quote=Scatim Helicon]
It's going to be more like an EVE meets WoW I think. Sandboxy, but with a lot of the different content segregated from each other. Kind of the way some people would like High sec split off from the rest of the map. That's the impression I got from listening to the guy.

Personally, if it works, I think it'll be a good game. Not something I'd play though. I don't like feeling like there are "seperate" areas of a game world, especially when they have different rule sets.

I like the way EVE does it and star citizen isn't quite "the same". Think, UO post Tramell. I really don't dig that.



My english is bad so maybe I misunderstood what they say in that Star Citizen presentation. However for what I understood they don't even plan to realize a persistent sandbox MMORPG. It sounds more like focused on solo campaing with a chance for group of friends to do misisons together. Kinda like Diablo.

Beside nothing exists of this game still. It's only a guy using his name and Wing Commander brand to collect money. Then they say they will ned to find an office to start to work (hell, they don't even hgave an office, the last video I've seen was with them talking from a private apt).

And after this they will probably need 3-5 years to produce something playable. It's obvious they wink to EvE playerbase, cause 90% of Sci-Fi fans are here. However I think in the best case will be something like that mech game that cloned EvE interface, how was the name? Perpetuum or something like that.

If a competitor have to raise I expect it from some asiatic company (China/Korea), like Perfect World, they already cloning with success all the major MMORPG titles and can rely on an huge base market.

Not that I like their products, but I mean they have the resources to do it.