Player Features and Ideas Discussion

First, like the idea.

Second, how do you stop it from being instanced? How do you warp out? Can your pod communicate across time?

So what?

As far as sci fi is concerned, time travel is still something to play with.

I mean, sure, it's only been proven that time travel is impossible. But then again, wormholes and fluid space and laser beams and immortals flying two-mile long ships while incased in fluid pods and ...

Didn't read the actual proposal. Just wanted to say, that time travel is almost without exception lame and detrimental to any universe. At best it still creates tons of plot/lore holes, because it's used as a cheap gimmick or a convenient plot device and the full implications are ignored. What I'm saying is, that I don't see any use of time travel being necessary or good for EVE. Maybe the idea proposed isn't total crap, but I'm betting the time travel part of it is either totally unnecessary for the actual gameplay or a lame gimmick with the full reprecussions totally ignored.

Time travel as an aside, the concept of a time-limited wormhole-like system in which to explore isn't a terrible one. The core idea is great. I can imagine the mechanic working something like this:

1. The player discovers this anomaly. It could be considered a very unstable wormhole that needs player assistance to become passable.
2. The player lays down a structure of some kind nearby which must be filled with fuel to operate.
3. The structure stabilizes the anomaly and makes it passable, but only as long as the fuel lasts. Interfering with the anomaly in this way causes it to become unstable, and therefore collapse completely, when the structure runs out of fuel (or is shot).
4. Entering the anomaly is very much like entering a wormhole system, except there is one way in, one way out.
5. The entrance/exit is automatically visible with a timer (similar to POCOs in reinforced mode right now).
6. This gives you an idea of how long you have to do your thing inside of this space. Other players, of course, can follow you in. There may / may not be total mass limitations, but there should be a per-ship mass limitation (or limit by ship class).
7. You do your stuff; combat sites, exploration sites, harvest special materials, etc.
8. If you don't make it out before the timer ends, whelp, you're stuck. Forever. Whelp, sucks to be you!
9. The "system" completely despawns when everyone leaves.

When you think about it, this is really no diferent than the FW complexes or deadspace missions where you need to activate a gate in order to enter. This simply takes you into a completely different system entirely, with the risk of getting stuck if you don't pay attention. It isn't really instanced any more than a mission is instanced; anyone could enter and come after you.

In low / null, or in highsec if you're at war, people that don't like you could shoot your anomaly stabilization structure to trap you inside...

...but stop with 1% structure remaining. They send in an envoy and politely offer to let you out for a nominal fee. : >

I imagine that it would only be fair to broadcast a warning inside the Anomaly system when the stabilizer is under attack, and at 75%, 50%, 25%, 5% overall EHP left.

I also imagine that rewards found in system would increase the longer the Anomaly remains open - which would also mean the closer it is to closing. This in itself makes for an interesting choice. Do you keep the Anomaly open for only 15 minutes to minimize the chance of someone else scanning it down and coming after you, or do you max out the amount of time you have in there, which maximizes your potential reward, but greatly increases your risk from other players?

In a way, this is a lot like I had hoped what wormholes would have been when they are released. Entering one of these systems should be unpredictable. You really have no idea what is on the other side. Colonization is completely impractical, as once the conduit between the Anomaly Space and K-Space is broken, well, that's it. You're stuck.

Obviously, CONCORD would have no jurisdiction in these new areas that capsuleers are messing with.

Time travel or not, this could be an interesting mechanic. It has the potential for solo, small gang, PvE, and PvP content, all in one.

I believe that Eve does not currently have the ability to spawn systems on command; the set of systems is static and known. I have no idea how much development effort it would take to develop dynamically created and destroyed systems. An alternative would be to create, say, 200 such systems in a static way, but have a system that would "reset" all of the content when everyone leaves.

Dynamically created systems, by the way, could tie very well into the concept of allowing players to construct jump gates.

So here's more content that could be added into the mix.

A group of players discovers an Anomaly with enough oomph to allow several freighters worth of building materials through. They enter into this new unexplored land. Maybe it has a few planets with some moons, maybe not, whatever. In any case, this is a new virgin system. They can drop their materials and start building a star gate.

What if building a star gate requires special, built materials? Drop a POS, mine gas / artifacts / minerals / etc. inside of this system. It may take a while, but that's okay - you've been trapped there, and your only way out is a meat jump at this point. During the several-day long process, your towers are attacked by waves of increasingly more powerful NPCs - battleships, carriers, etc., enough of them to pose a serious threat to a POS with manned guns and a small support fleet. (Again, something else I had hoped would come with wormholes, but never materialized). After all, you're invading into their territory.

Eventualy, assuming your POS survives to create the necessary pieces of the jump gate or however the gates will be built, your gate goes online, connects to whatever system, and you now have built yourself a new piece of the Eve universe. Congratulations.

That second story - finding empty space, surviving a strong NPC attack, attaching said space to Eve - would require a lot of work on CCP's part development-wise, but it sure would be cool. The only part missing is a way to get other players in there to act as an obstacle.

Perhaps the gate has a long process to online, acquire its destination, etc., but it put out enough signals or warps space enough to create standard wormholes. So this allows W-space to connect to this virgin system.

Need resupplies? Time to navigate through wormholes. Enemy alliance figures out what you're up to? They'll pay good money to an entrance to your new system.

So the system gradually moves from Anomaly, to W-Space with inactive gate, to a new null-sec system with a gate.

There's a lot of ways you can massage this idea and come up with cool stuff.

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