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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Immersion
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Ayumi Uchida
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-11-14 03:47:48 UTC
Hi,

I would like to make a plea for increasing immersion through adding detail and texture to the the universe of eve. I, like I'm sure so many other eve players, love the theme of eve with it's ships, stations, solar systems. But ever so often I feel detached from the game world, and there's a nagging feeling that I probably could play this game through an excel spread sheet with buttons.

To be fair there are truly cinematic moments in even small battles. The other day I watched from good old Kruul's point of view as my Navi Apoc broke right frame, turning in to follow while it opened up with a full broad side and proceeded to vaporize him. Although, immediately following the nice satisfying bang, the epic moment deflated as the data base churning away under eve's thin surface, reared its ugly head, noted Kruul's demised and replaced, what should have been a substantial wreck, with a little floating icon as indication that I could claim the items it had assigned to me. Hellooo game mechanics...

Here's some random examples of the things I'm talking about;
- richer station hangar environment ... maybe your other ships... maybe other players... maybe small transports going to your ship and back... maybe make it something more then just a animated desktop image by giving you the ability to interact with it.
- find ways to give scale to things... meaning to stats... maybe giving viewers a frame of reference they can relate to... station crew and equipment may help with size, mass, inertia.
- better ship AI .. your own ship tends to do ludicrous things like flying directly at a station while accelerating to the gate then bounce of it because it warp right into the gate's model. A 2.5km long freighter wobbles around like a drunken bouncing ball when exiting a busy station.
- better wrecks...similar mass to ship, leaking gas, glowing reactors
- in the same vane, asteroids could break of peaces and lose mass as they are being harvested
- escape pots other than the player... these ships have crews, right? or are the windows just for decoration?
- narrative stats.. i.e. how big is a ships crew? It does not have to have meaning in the game play but it would add depth..

Eve is a very stats driven game, and that tends to bring the game mechanics very up front and in the players face, which in combination with its application like interface works against player immersion. I love the idea of eve and many of its aspects which is why I would like it to be more true to the world it creates. Coming form the animated film industry, I know how much it takes/costs to make a cg environment rich and believable. But in film odd things like some of the once described above make you loose your audiences believe into the world or in this games case realize that you are really just pushing around numbers on database tables which is not as much fun.


Sorry for the rant



PS: The new Apoc is an awesome redesign!
Claud Tiberius
#2 - 2013-11-14 04:54:43 UTC
Wrecks have a lot of room for improvement.

  • They should have some similarity to the ship they came from (ie: a structure should be somewhat recognizable in the wreck).
  • You could add different death animations from basic explosions, to ships being split apart, because a weapon was powerful enough to cut through the center (not every kill animation has to end in an explosion). Another animation could be a vital engine part falls off, causing the ship to lose power.
  • Performance is not an issue, you could use the same method for displaying wrecks now, just adjust the draw distance of the wrecks if there are too many around the players camera (more detailed models -> lower performance, so you adjust it to get the right balance).
  • Ships should collide with the larger wrecks (thus avoid them). Not a problem since the wrecks do not move, they are static (except when being pulled in, you could make an exception there).
  • Detailed wrecks could be an optional graphic (or various degrees of detail).


You could add more particle effects to ships that are on low HP's. More flames/sparks/etc (different colour flames for different types of ships?) in different areas (especially important as I think they only appear in one place atm).... Again this isn't a performance issue, it only needs to collide with the host ship and could be an optional graphic.

Why do all ships have to leave a station at the exact same point? You cannot spread them out? Hanger doors are fairly large. Those who have ever been to Jita will know what it looks like with 10+ people simultaneously undock at the same time at the same exact spot, in the same direction.

The static objects in some missions are very boring and simplistic. eg: Getting the info of a decayed, destroyed station and all you get back in return is: "Ruins". Ruins by who? When? Why? What is the stations name? You don't have to give all that away, at least let the player know there are some things unknown about it Which reminds me, why cant we scan the ruins for salvageable items? There is bound to be tons, mega tons (you know.. :P) of materials in some of the ruins you find.

Missions are too linear, non-engaging, repetitive...

Texture details up close (especially on the larger ships) can become blurry. I know CCP, you tried to hide this by limiting how much you can zoom in on a ship, but its not good enough! You need to add more detail to the textures. You could also add a lot more immersion by allowing players to move their camera to the eye-view from the ships bridge (control deck). Something very similar to the Valkyrie teaser you made weeks ago.

Wops, am repeating the same comments already said :P Pretty much I could go on and on about the many immersive flaws in EVE, but in summary I agree with Ayumi.

Once upon a time the Golem had a Raven hull and it looked good. Then it transformed into a plataduck. The end.
Loki Feiht
Warcrows
NO NEED LOOSE FACE
#3 - 2013-11-14 10:01:12 UTC
+1
Always worth improving immersion and ai

More NPC - Randomly Generated Modular Content thread https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=220858
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#4 - 2013-11-14 18:36:07 UTC
i like the idea of more animations as a ship takes more damage and is eventually destroyed, and it would be cool if the wrecks left by ships were similar to the ships they belonged to (unless they took a massive alpha blow as a final hit). and missions could be overhauled for sure.

However, the issue with cosmetic upgrades like this are that the majority of the eve community consider them less important than system and mechanics issues.

with the exception of missions, i'd imagine the ideas here are a long way away.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Gerboah Cobon-Han
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-11-14 18:43:10 UTC
Ayumi Uchida wrote:

- escape pods other than the player... these ships have crews, right? or are the windows just for decoration?


That would be an excellent idea - give those pod killers multiple targets to pick from instead of the player pod having a massive red arrow over it ...

Fly Safe. 
Jeanne-Luise Argenau
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2013-11-14 20:12:43 UTC
+1 like it
Kaerakh
Obscure Joke Implied
#7 - 2013-11-14 21:36:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Kaerakh
In regards to crews, in EVE part of the reason why capsuleers are considered superior to the average person in the cluster is because the pod is based off of Jovian designs given to Ishukone. The pod interfaces with the pilot directly effectively making his body the mind of the ship and the ship an extension of the pilot's will. His effective body. Complete with camera drones to give you a third person perspective and synthetic sounds to take advantage of your auditory senses and to help your situational awareness(contrary to popular belief EVE has sound).

I don't remember where I saw this, but I think capsuleer ships have maintenance crews. Not sure about that. Most ships in EVE are converted for capsuleer usage. So that means the windows are mainly vestigial in nature. As well as any toiletries.

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Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#8 - 2013-11-14 23:15:02 UTC
Kaerakh wrote:
In regards to crews, in EVE part of the reason why capsuleers are considered superior to the average person in the cluster is because the pod is based off of Jovian designs given to Ishukone. The pod interfaces with the pilot directly effectively making his body the mind of the ship and the ship an extension of the pilot's will. His effective body. Complete with camera drones to give you a third person perspective and synthetic sounds to take advantage of your auditory senses and to help your situational awareness(contrary to popular belief EVE has sound).

I don't remember where I saw this, but I think capsuleer ships have maintenance crews. Not sure about that. Most ships in EVE are converted for capsuleer usage. So that means the windows are mainly vestigial in nature. As well as any toiletries.



https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines Roll
Kaerakh
Obscure Joke Implied
#9 - 2013-11-15 01:54:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Kaerakh
Danika Princip wrote:
Kaerakh wrote:
In regards to crews, in EVE part of the reason why capsuleers are considered superior to the average person in the cluster is because the pod is based off of Jovian designs given to Ishukone. The pod interfaces with the pilot directly effectively making his body the mind of the ship and the ship an extension of the pilot's will. His effective body. Complete with camera drones to give you a third person perspective and synthetic sounds to take advantage of your auditory senses and to help your situational awareness(contrary to popular belief EVE has sound).

I don't remember where I saw this, but I think capsuleer ships have maintenance crews. Not sure about that. Most ships in EVE are converted for capsuleer usage. So that means the windows are mainly vestigial in nature. As well as any toiletries.



https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines Roll



Cool, again glorified maintanence crews.Roll Crews have never had any affect on the capsuleer's actions(probably for gameplay/development reasons). If you read any of the novels, capsuleers are separated from the main population in EVE rather drastically; suggesting that they themselves feel an 'obvious' superiority.

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