Assembly Hall

I would add new types of missions. Something more pictorial and more story driven than the current ones.

Like this:

Here we have an example of how Eve in Stations adds a greater variety and intensity of missions. Combining game mechanics from the existing core game with new ones. It also doesn't have to be linear. Different ways to get a solution and to end it would be nice.

I wouldn't say that missions which are more complex define a new game. But they can tell a story, which can be continued with every update. Giving people a reason more to stay or even to join.

The question how such missions, which "force" the capsuleers to fly into space, should encourage them to stay docked I can't answer. I say it's rather the opposite.

Is the playerbase big enough for that? I really don't know. I could point to self invented facts like with gambling halls on stations nobody would undock. Same with quartiers which can be modified. For both examples you need ISK. To get that you have to go out into space!

After all, WiS will add definitely a new type of gameplay to the existing game. Is it per se bad to have more ways to play this game? To add more possibilities to spend your ingame money? No it isn't.
Will it wipe out the pvp player base and make them docked, staying 24/7 in their corp headquarters? No it won't.
Will it provide Eve with a new face or facette of it outwards? Yes it will. Is that bad? No it isn't.

Not as long CCP thinks that people play this game only for shooting at stuff.

They are creating a sandbox and giving us mostly weapons to play with. That reminds me somehow of this citate from Henry Ford: "People can have the Model T in any color - so long as it's black." (I know he probably never said that but nevertheless). I still want this game more sandboxier with more different toys to play with.

True words. Fortunately the previous 9 pages of this thread demonstrate that it isn't just me. They also contain some examples of what to do with it and why it is not just a nice to have thing.

I understand that CCP is cautious regarding changes to their flagship game. Investing resources in other projects (WoD, Dust, Valkyrie, Legion) is presumably the easier solution to open new money sources. I'm not sure if this strategy has paid off since Incarna.

Thanks for the informative link.

One thing I still don't get is, reading about Incarna is always about the NeX store and the price policy about ingame items which don't do anything game breaking. Only sparsely there are informations about WiS between the lines.
And yet WiS is used by many old player as scapegoat for the failure of the Incarna release. Something that doesn't fit in my opinion.

Eve online is a game about meta politics, the null sec shite-lords saw that the company did the following and changed the perception of Ambulation, now known as Walking in Stattions (WiS) to further their cause for Flying in Space (FiS).

1) CSM was told by the company no "resources" were available for at least 18 months (this covered the time frame of incarna) to be used on any of the CSM ideas (this would be the internet space ship part = serious business).
Since the CSM is a player voted organization, and null sec alliances having larger constituents, this meant the message was delivered (in)directly to these people.
source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/24/massivelys-eve-online-csm-interview-community-backlash/

2) The company told that 3 teams, approximately 22 developers were working on the space parts of eve online.
However since Captain's Quarters was an integral mandatory part of eve online, this soon was also considered as the space parts.
source: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/iterative-development-and-whats-happening-in-2011/

3) The higher echelon management of the company interfered in the usual negotiation process the players and devs had unofficially established during the years, this meant that Incarna became the company's prestige project and was centered about money.
source: http://eve-radio.com/media/podcast-download

4) The price point of the NEX store was extremely badly handled, instead of showing the customers a 3 tiered price range of "goods" the company immediately sold $68 monocles and was proud of the fact they sold over 50 in a few days.
(These no doubt did not even cover the cost of the dozen last minute plane tickets the company had to pay for the CSM to come over to Iceland and negotiate a solution)
source: http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/PoeticStanziel/Vol-1-Greed-is-good.pdf (from Chribba's website !)

5) The NEX store could be used to, magically make appear "goods" out of thin air, and thereby ruin the player driven market with produced items. Nullsec leaders where quit firm, you do this and we leave this game, since this is game breaking.
The famous rule came from this:
The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time.
source: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/accord-reached-at-ccps-special-summit/

6) And there we have it, Incarna became a failure of epic proportions, we are talking about melting video cards, a mandatory feature costumers could not opt out off, only one CQ was delivered instead of 4, no multiplayer establishments on the near horizon (Ambulation), the ingame cash store debacle, information leaks from within the company, a rigid higher echelon management ("It's not what they say, but what they do!), the list goes on and on, and afterwards Ambulation was used for supporting the notion "barbies in space" will ruin the Flying in Space development.

Now to a(ny) forum moderator, this is my perspective (with sources mentioned) to the question from Aelavaine,
about why Incarna is being used as a scapegoat to not have a Walking in Stations.

Regards, a Freelancer

And where is he now?

In addition to WiS I would like to have a kind of virtual reality device which my avatar can plug in into his neck while lying in bed.

With the help of this little device you can transfer your mind into a station clone on a different station and do there whatever you want. Maybe with some restrictions because of your security status or reputation. It should give you the possibility for player interactions but not replace an actual visit (price checks, buy and sell stuff etc.).

Also with this device we can implement new types of training missions and tutorials.

I like the idea to start the game for the first time and find myself inside a ship right in the middle of a battle between two huge fleets. Explosions everywhere, huge Titans dwarfing your own ship, the sound of your firing guns together with alarm sirens filling the air. After a while your ship explodes and your avatar awakes, covered in sweat in his dark empty quartier. Yes you should be able to switch on and off the lights. He then is plugging of his virtual reality device and giving you back the control over him.

Replaying historic battles or parts of it can be a feature of this device too, to show new capsuleers what Eve can be. Eventually as part of a tactical simulation or just for the sake of space battles. It also provides a virtual room to train with more and different ships, in a controlled environment.

Some ideas for what a Ambulation/wis gameplay could include.

For content it would naturally be interesting to have npc's in the station. Apart from those just being there or passing through, you could have occasional mission offers when you meet certain criteria, like good standings with the corp running the station. Similar to the storyline missions. The agent would invite you to meet personally, because of the sensitive content of these offers.

There could also be information brokers. Who could offer you information and coordinates about special asteroid mining fields, exploration and hacking sites, not able to scan down otherwise because of their location in deadspace. More often than not the coordinates would not be sufficently accurate, making it necessary to bring out your probes when arriving at the location. For this information a reflecting amount of isk would asked from you to get the info.

Some npc's could also be talked to without any particular purpose, if anything it would be interesting to see their reactions towards a capsuleer coming up to them. It could give an interesting background to how capsuleers are regarded in society. They could also tell you some general news or reactions to recent happenings.

Other players would of course be interesting, not only when communicating but just seeing them there.

Shops with content relevant to this setting, of the see and try before you buy type, like apparel. These would be something for the players who wants to show stylistic imagination. Selection in shops could maybe vary somewhat between stations and regions.

Buying apparel could not be the only way that would change your appearance. A high security status would make you eligible as a concord recognized person offering you a badge or symbol to put on your clothes. Completing certain tasks would offer other further symbols. Like it is currently in eve, a high standing with one of the four navys could give you similar visual acknowledgement.

Another possibility of this new setting would be as a backdrop to explore the differences in culture, trends and events between the four empires. For example, depending on which station you were in, on the news screens in the common areas you would get some news centered around what is most important to them and from their respective companies, in addition to galaxy spanning news from the Scope.

A purpose which I think was one of the things that CCP had in mind for Incarna, and that would have even more meaning now with Valkyrie and Legion soon to come, is to have Ambulation as some sort of UI for accessing and tutorial for Valkyrie and Legion and EVE. This would also work as an introduction or starting module for new players, being able to present the different game modes as well as new eden. But even for existing eve pilots, this could be a transition setting or at least a place to try out exploration and warfare down on planets, or flying spaceships in different way not using the capsule. Maybe this would work in some way with your capsule or the VR device suggested by Aelavaine to remote control a simple drone test ship with a first person view like in Valkyrie and a trial, though basic compared to a capsuleer, droid soldier in Legion. Giving you a taste of the action before taking the step of getting your own clones for these purposes, and before spending isk on the special ships and equipment required.

This could also be a place to plan shared operations, for the features where that's possible between eve, Legion and Valkyrie.

Some things I find interesting from a design perspective, is to have the light and play of lights types, varying between the four station types. It could also change with the seasons, making it feel more vibrant and alive (this idea comes from evelopedia).

It's amusing that you're almost indecently quick to disclaim your chosen quote as "penned by senior management", but the facts are as they are; it was obviously bullshit when Zulu said those words, and it's proven bullshit by now.

Here's a challenge for you WiS diehards:

The primary blocker for any further meaningful WiS development is that the large majority of the people that worked on the core engine aren't at CCP any more, and the ones that remain are fully committed to other projects and, very likely, have little interest in returning to a failed project. This, combined with the well known limitations of the WiS engine, means that realistically, for anything useful to be done in WiS, it means starting the project more or less from scratch. Again. And CCP

The secondary weakness is that CCP simply don't have the money or the dev resources to do it. No money. No devs. The basic weakness of the WiS project was always that it meant CCP effectively producing a full new game, committing to continuously develop it for the indefinite future, and giving it to us for free, and that's a real problem now.

Tertiaries are things like institutional unwillingness to revisit a failed project, individual hostility, no space for it in the current dev roadmap. All sizable problems, but nothing that can't be overcome if the primary and secondaries can be resolved and there is probably sufficient customer demand


That means if we players want WiS, we're going to have to make it happen. We're going to have to make the first move. I'm talking about a Kickstarter style project that would need to raise in the region of $30 million dollars or so to fund the development (and pay the lawyers to work out how such a publically funded project could be integrated with a private company's primary product).

I'll believe people are serious about WiS when I see a serious effort such as the above from them to make it happen. Until then it's just self-indulgent whining that you didn't get exactly the toy you wanted for your birthday.