EVE General Discussion

Why do people keep saying "it's probably not going to be on TQ" or "I don't see how it could be on TQ"?

I quite agree, without an overhaul of the mechanics of both EVE and Valkyrie (assuming it remains essentially unchanged from the Fanfest build) I don't see how Valkyrie players could share the same in-game grid as EVE players and meaningfully, entertainingly or fairly contribute to the fight - among other things, under heavy TiDi, Valkyrie would largely cease to be fun unless you REALLY like bullet time. Maybe I'm wrong and it's actually a simple affair, but I doubt that. EVE fights tend to be slow, and take place in pretty open space around stations and stargates, whereas Valkyrie fights are intense, and had some asteroid "terrain" around to weave between.

Throw in the HP and firepower of fighters versus, say, frigates and getting Capsuleers and Valkyries onto the same grid in the same fight shooting at the same ships and receiving the same information and keeping that all balanced and fair for everyone involved begins to look like a nightmare. I wouldn't call it impossible, but certainly bloody difficult and liable to wash away several villages in the resulting floods of rage and tears.

TQ is more than one grid, however. None of that stuff is actually an obstacle to having Valkyrie connect to the server - there are other components to the EVE IP such as skill training, gear fitting, persistence, ownership, loss, sandbox, building and so on. All of which is handled by Tranquility.

If it does the same thing as DUST and has battle servers which communicate database info to TQ then I don't think it would even add much of an appreciable load to the server.

Understand that there is no such distinction.

The former is merely a specific kind of the latter.

You're not getting it. if the game connects to TQ in any capacity whatsoever, then it's on TQ. End of.

As I said, I agree that it's unlikely for Valkyrie fights to take place on the same grid as EVE fights. But "not being on the same grid as EVE players" is not the same thing as "not connected to Tranquility."

It's the same server, and it handles a variety of different interactions, only one of which is "flying around and seeing other players and shooting them".

I appreciate the technical complications, but TiDi is getting to be less and less common. I don't know how they are doing it, but CCP has made pretty dang huge strides in that area. 10k vs 10k players sans TiDi may only be a few years away at the rate they are improving things. The FiS engine is getting pretty dated too. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already eyeing a major overhaul (POS's might be a good excuse to do it), and as we've seen in Dev posts in these forums, CCP is already giving thought to their 10 year plan. I think CCP is learning a lot from the collapse of DUST, and I also think they recognize the tremendous opportunity they could have with Valkyrie, not just for CCP as a company, but for the future of EvE itself. I think what it will ultimately come down to is a serious and carefully considered business decision on CCP's part, which will consist of variable I admittedly have little to no knowledge of. It'll look like this:

Do we have the technical resources to pull off so much development in so short a period of time (timing I think might be important given SC)? If the answer to this is 'yes' ---> do we have or can we get the financing available to pay for this kind of development without putting the company in perilous financial danger? If yes ---> Will we be able to placate the playerbase with expansions during this overhaul development time (another separate programming resources question)? If yes ---> Has the company's culture become too 'fat' to attempt this (diminishing returns)? if no ---> Integrate the games meaningfully.

One other thing: A variable they will probably also consider but doesn't fit into a binary flow chart is what common systems could be developed to add value to both games. For example, if fighters can take off from carriers, why not modular stations so they can run their little tie fighter adventures and augment modular station defense at the same time? In this way Valkyrie pilots might earn a salary, paid by eve corps, to operate out of their modular stations. There are a zillion synergies to be found here, which would certainly add value to both games.

The difficulties of pulling it off are big, but the potential gains are likewise big, as are the risks of screwing it up. Thinking in the other direction, what if Valkyrie is not added meaningfully to TQ? It could turn out to be a "one hit wonder" and lack the draw of persistence EvE has in spades. There are risks either way, really. I can't begin to answer the question myself... only to say that I would really LIKE it if Valkyrie was on TQ, and that it would be a lot easier to draw in newbs if it were.

Yes, I understand what you mean now.

This attitude is kind of like if the pilots of those lions that formed Voltron were determined that their lion should be awesome in itself, and not just a part of some giant space robot.

I got news for you - EVE IS awesome in itself. We're flying a freaking black robot space lion here. And it has the potential to be part of something even MORE awesome. How are you not enthusiastic about forming Voltron?


... I may have let that simile run away with me.

The point is, there is absolutely nothing stopping the component pieces of the EVE IP from individually being excellent games. The potential for them to accomplish even greater things when taken as an interrelated unit in no way diminishes the quality of any single one of them.

They may start out rough (who knows, maybe Valkyrie will buck that trend) but CCP's style is to expand, and polish, and iterate, and improve. EVE was rough on launch, look at it now. DUST just launched, and is still kind of rough - that'll improve with time.

What exactly are you afraid is going to happen to EVE? The game's not about to start slipping backwards from where it is today if some of CCP's devs are working on DUST, and on Valkyrie, or WoD. It's going to keep moving forward and being expanded upon. It's not like there's a bungee cord attached to it that's going to yank us straight back to the Second Genesis build without perpetual Sisyphean effort by the dev team.

It's okay: you CAN be enthusiastic. you CAN be optimistic. Let go and be happy.

The moment this comes on PC hell I'll play it and this might even take me out of Eve once and for all.
Looks great, really great.

Why is it so hard to understand that those two things can be done at the same time?

I had a much nicer post typed out about how I, like many other players, wondered in the early minutes of my EVE experience "How do I leave my ship?" and about how I was very excited when "Ambulation" was later announced and how I fantasized about what an awesome game EVE would be in the future when it's expanded more because I felt like CCP really wanted to bring the ultimate sci-fi space game. But the forum ate it so here's the main point:

I realize TQ most likely can't support OR or make any kind of decent FPS platform. I'm not actually upset that they are releasing these "EVE based" games as sub-games. What upsets me is where I think it's going. Looking at the Avatar Exploration thing that they apparently have demoed. In the post they say things like "It's part of the EVE universe" and "Like DUST514, this part of EVE should contribute to the overall economy as well as supporting its own ecosystem."
This to me says very clearly that Avatar Exploration content will be released in a sub-game.
I hardly think there is something so difficult about Avatar Exploration from a hardware/coding standpoint that they actually need to release it separate but (probably) they are just going to do it anyway because if deals with other developers or whatever reason they have. When this happens they sub-games are effectively detracting from the parent-game, because content that would have worked just fine on EVE TQ is released separately. That is what frustrates me.

And if it doesn't happen with Avatar Exploration it will sooner or later. One could argue, that the jobs performed in DUST/EVR are jobs that - from a more RP standpoint - high and mighty capsuleers wouldn't do anyway, but what decides what content, what in-game tasks/jobs are"worthy" of EVE TQ? Where does the line between sub-jobs and capsuler-jobs go?

Doesn't always, even though it's supposed to.


Yes.