Assembly Hall

"He [CCP TomB] noted that the NPC creation system had essentially not been changed since EVE has started. However now a new template system has been created streamlining the process considerably. This allows a game designer to select a ship "hull" and fit it with pre-made attribute sets."

Going with the whole "dynamic world based" idea over instance type model, wouldn't it make more sense for NPC creation and mechanics to be the exact same as fitting a player ship, where random utility slots could produce variations according to the NPC type, but still using real word modules (and whatever is fitted drops as though it were a PvP kill)?

The remaining attributes to fill out would be the blackboard behaviors mentioned earlier, defining how they behave and organize to do stuffs. Blackboard - A blackboard is a way for them to share their intentions with each other. They have a shared blackboard where if one of the NPCs posts a location or primary target, they will behave like a well organised fleet following their FCs commands.

Once tweaked, the "blackboard" modeling of NPCs can reduce the numbers required for them to be effective and could eliminate the bloat and oddity of killing cores and scores of red crosses in a mining like fashion. Bounties could be raised and NPC farming can more closely simulate normal PvP and create dynamic content at the same time. Might as well even have them have to hold sov like we do, and attack and defend in a similar fashion...talk about dynamic content ;)

They could have to mine and defend against those pod pilot rats that keep trying to kill their miners etc etc etc...just sayin...

...oh yeah, and this:

"CCP Affinity asked the CSM to let them know if they had ideas to try out with the new behaviour trees. Corbexx brought up them speaking in local. Sugar Kyle brought up random small events going on in the world, such as NPC pirates fighting NPC faction police in locations."

My earlier post in regards to the Blackboard would fall into the behavior trees as well...

Here's something that should of been talked about with Team Pirate Unicorns concerning the New Player Experience & retention of these players;
The fact that many of these players are getting frustrated, with what content is offered to them & how they can achieve a sustainable source of income.
Once players get past the tutorial missions & progress to low level missions they soon find:
* the rewards they can receive from completing these missions are hopelessly out dated in comparison to modern day market prices. They might of been fine when EVE first started, but they are pathetic by today's market standards.
* New Players get frustrated from having to go through numerous repetitions of running the same set of missions for a agent over and over again whilst trying to make isk. Even if they do decide, to go to another high sec region and try missions for a different agent of the same type, they find that there is still little to no difference in the storyline, the objectives &/or the rewards on offer to complete the missions.
This creates a barrier for some, who don't want wait for their skills to improve sufficently to a point where they feel comfortable with moving out of empire to either low sec or nul sec where the rewards from missions & anoms are much, much better.
So in the end they get bored & frustrated with EvE fast & end up leaving.

There has to be a way to improve & make the missions each agent offers, more unique & immersive, as well as improving the rewards on offer for missions, so these players don't feel like they are wasting their time and getting nowhere fast.

A new story line mission idea, that might help in opening their eyes to what's possible, could be something like;
For a 72hr time period;
The NPE finds they have been somehow conscripted into an empire navy, they see short video of their ship being magically titan bridged to a non player accessible area of low or nul sec, where they see themselves docking at a station & they are given a number of prefitted ships together with the skills to fly them. They receive a list of objectives from an NPC FC, that they must attempt to complete, the idea behind the tasks is to show off what's on offer in this type of space, as they patrol it. ideally it should show them the difference in risk vs reward from empire thru to nul sec & also serve as a kind of tutorial for fleet op's.
It could also give NPE's chance to actually see a variety of ships like; frigates thru to Battleships, Carriers, Rorqual's, Super's & Titans in an ingame enviroment, that, they might not otherwise get to see, if they up & quit EvE.

Hopefully more dynamic missions in conjunction with a rebalance of mission rewards, could serve as a possible means of an improved source of income & provide them with inspiration & drive, to set lofty goals of being apart of the low / nul sec communities, should they choose to do so. Whereby they could someday obtain & fly their own copy of the ships they saw out there in their mission.

Wormholes


Please do so, it isn't just new players that need it, there is allot of older players as well that would benefit from it too.


UI Modernization Project
For the love of God, please increase the maximum number of ship fittings in the fitting management window.
Also please, increase the maximum number of in game mails that you can trash/delete at a single time.


Customer Support
I think its pretty obvious, that the whole petition, ticket system needs to be better explained to players & expanded on.
Often players are confused about what catergory there problem should be filed under & they file under the wrong option.
It not only leads to delays in the player getting a response from the GM, but also has to frustrate the GM's as well.
Please expand the support ticket window and give it the ability to create/insert a link.
Sometimes a screen shot speaks a thousand words, if the player just happened to be frapsing at time, a short replay of what happened as seen by the player, could be handy.

Thanks.

They do also do user testing. Generally not with CCP devs, as a dev is the worst person to test their own code (as they know how it works).

Testing with gamers, who haven't played eve before.

Would love to see those numbers How many W-Space residents we currently have? :)

That IS what the societies are. Player made groupings and tools to facilitate them.

m

Dear Mike, dear Steve,

I agree that what you proposed as "social clubs" or "societies" correspond to what i call "Organizations".

I was just suggesting not to use another name for something that already exists in game but for NP only.
Eve is enough complicated so that we shouldn't use another word.
Moreover, today, the "Corporations, Alliances & Organizations discussions" forum is forbidden for non alliance/corporation members. If we give the name "Organizations" to what you call "societies" or "social clubs", i see no reason not to open it now.
We should call a spade a spade.

Best regards and thanks for your work.

I think he just wants to say that Organisations is a better term than societies or social clubs.

But the name does offer up the potential for "secret societies" no cake there, cake is a lie.