EVE General Discussion

I'm still not seeing how this hurts one side more than the other. Yeah, I get the loss of intel part, but that's on both sides of it.

Look, from the game design perspective, EVE has some issues and it's strangely the same as other MMO's.

Nearly all MMO's have perfect playability and perfect intel capability. Whether it's a map radar, or Local Chat, or whatever, you tend to know who is where and or easily find it out. Your ship functions perfectly until the moment it blows up, just like your Level 90 Mage happens to cast spells perfectly until their last hit point lost kills them.

Then there are mechanics that try to introduce questionability of those perfect mechanics. Stealth, cloak, skills or spells that make it imperfect.

The watchlist, to me is just one of those perfect intel things that couldn't be subverted. Now, with it gone, everyone's perfect intel is now less perfect. You have to work harder to get your targets, and you have to work harder to see who's hunting you.

I'm not sure it's more of an issue on one side or the other.

It's not like it's gone forever, they could always bring it back if it becomes too harsh of a loss. Gameplay without it will determine that. Give it a chance folks, bailing out of the game is entirely your option and sends a message... however, staying, playing and figuring out the effects of the changes is probably far better for everyone- especially if you LOVE EVE. Leaving it is just tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

By the way, CCP has already play-tested the effects of the loss of the watchlist, of that I'm certain. We could try trusting them a little and then trying it out ourselves.

They wouldn't say it outright. It's implied as any game company will retract horribly unpopular changes. CCP has done it before, as have about every other MMO game company. It might not be exactly like it was before, but they can revert things back.

This stuff isn't done willy-nilly. They have serious discussions and testing around this stuff. They have to evaluate balance issues and such before implementation of these changes. The player base always has the last say though because they vote with their wallets. My point was that to leave without even trying the change is probably premature at best.

If they didn't have a fully mature software production process, EVE would not have lasted 13 years.

Citation needed.

Actually this one was a forced issue
the recent api changes made watch listing easier by several orders of magnitude and thus pushed a resolution sooner than one might have otherwise come.

I have seen several knee-jerk reactions and pooly thought out design decisions from CCP in the recent past (tool tips, firs iteration of the ship icons , fleet warp and tracking camra removal off the top of my head)

its important for us to be outspoken to get CCP to iterate or re-evaluate on things like this.

And again I'll clarify for the inevitable smart arse about to jump down my throat about his super cap,
I have absolutely no issue with changing the watchlist work, however this one need iteration with consideration given for the plethora of other uses players from all the other facets of eve have for it.

I haven't figured out how to 'cite' coding reality yet. I also don't have access to CCP's internal policies and procedures so I can't 'cite' those either. I could give you links to hundreds of coding best practices pages that are found even in companies 1/100th the size of CCP, but you'd discount those because they weren't CCP's.

Simple truth, even to those that state otherwise here out of snarkiness, is that you can't have a code system this large and fragile (i.e. subject to fail when changed) without an in-depth change management process. I don't need to cite it, I know it exists, and for the snarky amongst you, I'll cite black holes as a punny analogy. We can't see them but we can infer their existence based on the environment around them.

Since this code doesn't crash every 30 minutes, and is massive is scale/scope across dozens of systems, they have a change management system or are really in good steading with the Voodoo gods.


For the other posts...

Willy-Nilly = ad-hoc, unplanned, spur of the moment, aka 'a lark' or for the heck of it.

Willy-Nilly =/= poorly planned, poorly executed, bad ideas, or ill-advised.

I never said they always made good decisions and everything they do is correct, even CCP has owned up to mistakes. I have said/intended/implied that we actually do need to give changes a fair shake to know how they actually play out.

Taking my comments out of context to advance some kind of alternate agenda is typical for forums like this, so I don't hold it against people, but I hope most folks can see through the straw-man stuff.

It is my opinion that we, as players, should be more receptive to changes by staying positive. Yes, we should shout out possible impacts of decisions like this, making CCP aware of real concerns, but hand-wringing and griping over it doesn't do anyone any good. Arguing over perceived situations that may or may not become realized, really doesn't help at all.

Yes, other players effect the game I play, this is as the game intends. No, I do not let other players dictate to me what is and is not fun for me. I can always hop on an alt and go blasting around in a rookie ship. Hey, taking a rookie ship and going up against a Gate Camp and Shouting out in Local "LLLLeeeeerrrooy Jenkinsssss!" might actually be amusing to do for an hour straight and funny/annoying as heck for the campers! You can't camp me as a player, watchlist or not.

I play EVE, it's my game.

Great job getting off topic.
I write software for a living. I'm aware of practices, methodologies, etc.
What I'm saying is even though a change might be well planned in code, it's not a well thought out change for the actual gameplay.

Imagine if CCP made kspace local similar to wspace local, we wouldn't be worried about "but it might break the codebase!", we'd be worried about "This idea is absolute ****".

Not seeing how my post is off topic. It was a rebuttal to the previous points (including one of yours) and is very much on topic.

I won't address your 'Imagine..." statement because it's a misinterpretation of my position.

CCP clearly feels that this change needs to be made, for whatever reasons they have. They have talked about it, planned for it, executed the code changes, announced the changes, and likely tested it... at least internally. That is a change management process.

That fly's in the face of all the posts claiming that this is all done without thinking and is knee-jerk. It also stands against the posts that claim that the game is truly dead with this change, clearly the CCP staff can still play it along with their testing group.

If people honestly feel that they cannot play the game and have fun because the watchlist vanishes, then they should vote with their wallet and leave. I personally don't see how they can reach that conclusion if they've never played under the conditions. Thus my position and my point.

I hope that is 'on topic' enough.

well... some people would think that killboards have timestamps of kills on them.... and people usually have the same times for their regular play periods.... and one could make some educated guesses from kill one can find on killboards.....

however i agree: the game needs to provide RL statuses for players like "he is active and on keyboard atm" or "he is afk" or "he is in ship with this fit" so players can evade all unneeded stuff like killboard digging, scanning, predicting and just have fun in this game killing each other.....

Exactly, that's why alliances like "PIRAT" have 9000+ wardecs, to harass people, so people stop playing.
If an alliance can get 9000 wardecs in a month, something is really broken in this stupid mechanic of wardecs.


As of right now P I R A T has 205 active wardecs, just because they can.
If we get a huge fleet to their home camping system all of them will just dock, log off and not play, what we can do is just sit there and watch the station undock for 30 days or more.

Funny thing:

A specific game feature will remain unchanged as long as 99% of the gameplay around it remains within the scope of what game design intends with that feature.

-Some players will purposely abuse a game feature in order to force a game design change.

-As well, some players will purposely abuse a game feature to its maximum extent just because they can, completely oblivious to the fact that that could force a game design change related to that feature and rage when it does.

Privateers did that with the original wardecs.
Nano-Typhoons and others did that when rigs were first added which allowed for insane kitting.
...Along with many other changes that resulted from gameplay around a feature operating outside of the intended scope of that feature.

And that could happen anytime any other group who tries to maximize the advantage of some game play related to a feature in this game,
like recently with watchlists.

Suddenly players are doing things outside the intended scope, and it gets nerf'd. Expect it with anything.