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why are people against "walking in stations"?
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Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#21 - 2016-11-23 04:59:18 UTC
Jake Warbird wrote:
No one is against wan... oh, you meant walking. Sorry, need more coffee.

Expected character name of Jackson Pollock.
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#22 - 2016-11-23 05:09:16 UTC  |  Edited by: SurrenderMonkey
Iria Ahrens wrote:
The thing I want from WIS is a way to bring the EVE Meta back into eve. One thing I thought was extremely cool in UO was people would own houses, and the houses would be full of books. And you could go to those houses and look up important information all within the game, without having to use google.

If Eve uni tutorials could be brought into station environments. Video Games. Eve central, or Eve Mogul, or all the many other sites could somehow have their information available in-game that would be awesome. If players could sell out of their homes, so that if someone wanted something on the market, they could trigger a barter exchange and do business personally instead of via the market. Simulations where players could go into a betting room and watch eve unfold from the perspective of another player. Or instructional simulations where an instructor could control and share her perspective, and give temporary control to students so they could demonstrate their technique, then the instructor could re-assume control to show the student what they did wrong.

It's all about creating new content, or integrating old content in a more personal way. In fact, the name "Walking in Stations" is the problem. Who wants to just walk around in a station? "Content In Stations!" That's what I want. Strategy rooms where leaders can plot out their intended attack patterns on an interactive 3d display. Using markers to represent fleets and outposts. Complete with notes and record able to chips that can be passed around. Libraries of tutorials like the current NPE. Where instead of watching a video. The a player made tutorial leads the player through the steps in an interactive simulation so the player actually gets a "feel" for it without leaving the safety of a station. Or just libraries of books. Why can't we make our own books and notes to pass around in-game? If a corp has a guide for newbies, they should be able to physically hand that to other players for them to read in-game. Binding arbitration, where leaders can meet face-to-face to form treaties with automatically enforced clauses, such as automatic penalties for attacking or killing own members, or penalties for not coming to mutual aid. Maybe benefits like preferred trading partners, etc.

People could make a living in eve making these tutorials. People could make a living in eve in popular tournaments that are not special CCP events, but happen daily or weekly to huge audiences that buy "tickets" to witness the event from their favorite players pov. The problem seems to be with CCP's attitude. CCP said that they aren't going to bring WiS until they can think of some way to make the content relevant. They don't want WiS to be purely decorational like the CQ is now. This is good, but, CCP doesn't need to make the content. CCP just has to give us the tools to make our own content, and we will. I think in a way, when it comes to WiS, CCP forgot that we are the content creations, they just need to concentrate on making the tools.



The trouble with much of this is that simply doing it in game isn't good enough. It has to do it as least as well, and at least as conveniently, as the out-of-game alternatives. Anything else and it's merely a novelty developed at great expense. For example:

Quote:
If a corp has a guide for newbies, they should be able to physically hand that to other players for them to read in-game.


That would be cool for a minute and then we would all go back to linking publicly available web content, sharing Google Docs, etc., because they are more mature tools that are faster and fundamentally better than any toy facsimile we could ever have in game.

A "Strategy room" is another thing nobody would ever actually use. That's basically a setting for some scifi/fantasy Starwars roleplay, not a tool anyone would genuinely find useful.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#23 - 2016-11-23 05:31:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Iria Ahrens
SurrenderMonkey wrote:

A "Strategy room" is another thing nobody would ever actually use. That's basically a setting for some scifi/fantasy Starwars roleplay, not a tool anyone would genuinely find useful.


I'm talking about utility not roleplay. I don't know what you are thinking of, but think of google docs, with the eve map. Mutual collaboration, editing, and strategy from a 3d perspective.

But anyway, people always think new things are just fads that will go away, but a lot of them don't go away, they stick around and change things.

Things out of game are not inherently better, they are only better because the tools available out of game are better. If we had better, or at least compatible tools in game, with the additional benefit of native integration, then players would be able to make things in game BETTER.

Quote:
And here's the problem. The ideas there that are worth consideration would work better *without* having to do the walking in stations part. Combining any of them with WIS takes them from "could possibly be a useful thing to at least a small handful of players" to "a big hassle not worth messing with." That's exactly what the devs were confronted with in the burning wreckage of Incarna.


The problem is that you think it would work "better" without the WiS part. Having something be a big hassle that most players don't feel like messing with isn't a bad things in EvE at all. Check out Mining, or Trade, or even Hauling. These are all facets of eve that are "a big hassle not worth messing with" to a majority of eve players. What matters is not that many will consider it "a big hassle" what matters is will a significant portion of the user base enjoy the change. Heck, one of the common questions in the rookie channel is "how do I skip the tutorial." It is apparently "a big hassle not worth messing with" to some people. PvP "a big hassle not worth messing with." FW "a big hassle not worth messing with" to many. I can go on with this you know?

No matter what change CCP works on, there is a significant number of players that don't care. So that is not a valid reason to put the idea down.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Mark Marconi
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#24 - 2016-11-23 05:31:49 UTC
I am too buggered to write or read anything long.

But the short version was CCP spend piles of cash on it then threw it away and then did it again and then again, on that iteration they tried to do something massive, wasted a huge pile of dough while ignoring everything wrong in the game.

Long story short, CCP is only able to do one thing at a time. So no WiS especially while there are balance and mechanics problems in the game.

The CSM gets in the way of CCP communicating properly with the players of this game.

After all we are not just players, we are customers.

Time for the CSM to be disbanded.
Selene Dukat
Hideaway Hunters
The Hideaway.
#25 - 2016-11-23 06:00:26 UTC
The main reason is, no one playing Eve Online is playing in order to walk around somewhere in third person. If CCP had unlimited resources and an unlimited budget, then sure - make walking in station as a cute little side option. But since it doesn't, I would much much rather CCP focus those resources on the game I actually came here to play, not the time I spend in dock.
Selene Dukat
Hideaway Hunters
The Hideaway.
#26 - 2016-11-23 06:01:18 UTC
Mark Marconi wrote:
I am too buggered to write or read anything long.

But the short version was CCP spend piles of cash on it then threw it away and then did it again and then again, on that iteration they tried to do something massive, wasted a huge pile of dough while ignoring everything wrong in the game.

Long story short, CCP is only able to do one thing at a time. So no WiS especially while there are balance and mechanics problems in the game.


I don't really disagree, but there will always be balance and mechanics problems in the game.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
Safety.
#27 - 2016-11-23 07:05:01 UTC
(This story is from my point of view and may differ from how others experienced the events)

The reasons why walking in station is a topic CCP avoids is actually rather complicated. To understand it, you have to know about the expansions, problems of the EVE client and CCPs reaction to it all prior to and during the Incarna expansion.

So it all started with CCP adding new stuff to the client every expansion but never ever iterating on it. A good example of that is stuff like planetary interaction which got added with big promises about how players would compete for resources and nuke each-others factories from space. What they actually added was a pile of crap witch can barely even be called a minigame. And this was the case with a lot of features. Always big promises and visions and really crappy implementation.

At the time before Incarna the player base was actually already quite agitated because of all the bullshit CCP was talking and delivering. The EVE client itself had serious problems, bugs and shortcomings that went back years without getting addressed at the cost of adding crappy worthless new features. And by serious problems I mean stuff like crashes in big and not so big fights which made the game actually completely unplayable (as in really unplayable), not just some annoyance.

With Incarna they even went a step further and they split the teams and only a couple of devs where left to work on what they called "flying in space" and the others where designing cloths and what not and there where big promises about walking in stations, opening your own shops, meaningful player interaction, shady businesses in dark corners of the station, even videos where they walked in a bar etc.

And then they delivered one frecking room!

Really, the Incarna expansion consisted of one room, the Minmatar captains quarters and a new cash shop with 50$ monocles. At the same time an internal magazine leaked with the title "greed is good" and a mail from the CEO where they talked about the outcry from the players about this bullshit with the words: "Currently we are seeing _very predictable feedback_ on what we are doing. Having the perspective of having done this for a decade, I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say."

Then the whole **** blew up and the in-game riots began, people mass unsubscribed, etc... And CCP had to actually look at what we do rather than only listen to what we say..

CCP actually got the message and from the following expansions started to iterate on all the broken stuff which was not touched for years, starting with the crucible expansion. This process was going on until recently when they actually started to add thing again, but with a much more reasonable approach and with an actual big plan about what the future of EVE should look like.

I think CCP never said they will not iterate on the feature, but only if it adds meaningful gameplay to EVE. The current plans are more about what makes EVE great and that is the space gameplay and not "space barbie".

Evil RatKid
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#28 - 2016-11-23 07:24:12 UTC
Iria Ahrens wrote:
SurrenderMonkey wrote:

A "Strategy room" is another thing nobody would ever actually use. That's basically a setting for some scifi/fantasy Starwars roleplay, not a tool anyone would genuinely find useful.


I'm talking about utility not roleplay. I don't know what you are thinking of, but think of google docs, with the eve map. Mutual collaboration, editing, and strategy from a 3d perspective.


But there is absolutely no chance of the utility ever matching the utility we can get using grown-ass adult tools out of game. That's my point. All you would end up with is a cute little toy feature that nobody would use because there's no chance the utility could ever be there relative to the more or less limitless options that the real world provides external to the game.

A physical in-game document, for instance, will never provide more utility than, say, one on Google docs. Way more convenient ("Click the link, done"), with a vastly more mature toolset, accessible without actually being in the game, accessible from different devices, etc. It is cute, but functionally worse than the alternative.

For any of those ideas to actually provide real utility, they would have to meet or exceed the capabilities and convenience of the out-of-game alternative from within the game client, which is an impossibly high standard.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Nana Skalski
Taisaanat Kotei
EDENCOM DEFENSIVE INITIATIVE
#29 - 2016-11-23 07:41:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Nana Skalski
But muh spaceships! Pirate

CCP developed/are developing simultanously a lot of stuff meanwhile EVE players get only part back of their cash in updates. Some of this stuff while developed have never been released. WoD, or previous prototype of WIS called ambulation.Pirate

Mentioning WIS is for some like old wound that is aching from time to time.

ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴀ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ʜᴇʟᴘs ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴀ sᴛᴏʀʏ 📕

ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs ᴀɴɢʀʏ ᴄᴏɴᴄᴏʀᴅ ɢᴜʏ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʜɪᴍ

ᴏsᴘʀᴇʏ 🚀

≡⋁≡ ♥
Hir Miriel
Elves In Space
#30 - 2016-11-23 08:17:41 UTC
Snyzer Erata wrote:
I'm new here. I have talked about "walking in stations" with some people in the game and the old players seem to be against it. Could someone explain to me exactly why this is such a bad idea? It seems simple to implement and would increase the immersion of the game.


Walking in Stations would be a shift of dimensions. I understand the attraction. To have your own little piece of Eden. Perhaps something that will never happen in real life for some of us. But might be possible in a real virtuality.

The sale of ship skins shows that people do like to add their own touch to the world, real or not. Ship skins don't appeal to me, I'd like more variety of what I could do to make EVE, my EVE.

I mean why should the developers have all the fun of creating things?

I'd like walking in stations, and I'd like it to be safe from damage/decay while I'm not playing. I have enough decay in the real world. Not sure why but EVE seems to like being like the real world where everything falls apart.

Me, I like the illusory world of game worlds where I can have a little control and create a little order.

*waters carnivorous plant in his newly built conservatory*

But that's just me.

~ ~~ Thinking inside Schrodinger's sandbox. ~~ ~
Zimmy Zeta
Perkone
Caldari State
#31 - 2016-11-23 09:01:58 UTC
mkint wrote:
Even after dumping a ton of cash into, taking on a ton of debt, and subsequently firing 1/3 of their employees, CCP never really had a good reason why it should ever even exist. The "why bother" question was passed to the players in a limited way on the forums, and it turns out, literally nobody had a good answer.


Well there are very good reasons why it should exist, unfortunately those were not really addressed with the whole Incarna project.

One of the core tenets of this game is "nowhere is safe"- so it's a little counter intuitive when in reality it is : "nowhere is safe except in npc space stations". If you've ever spent a prolonged time in a market hub and fought 0,01 ISK price wars against other players who are probably market bots or suffered through the same obnoxious local spam for hours, all done by characters who never, ever undock and thus are 100% untouchable, you will slowly realize that there's something amiss in this game.

Unfortunately, even when Incarna was still a thing and everybody was full of expectations and wishful thinking, CCP told us that WiS would *not* be about indoor violence but about social stuff. Then they proceeded to focus on fashion design, but no meaningful gameplay concepts.

Personally, I wouldn't even need to actually see my character animated or walking around in stations....just an option to bribe some hired thugs to have some other character beaten up and forcefully ejected out of a station so that I could take care of him myself would already do it for me....

I'd like to apologize for the poor quality of the post above and sincerely hope you didn't waste your time reading it. Yes, I do feel bad about it.
Mara Pahrdi
The Order of Anoyia
#32 - 2016-11-23 09:26:30 UTC
Snyzer Erata wrote:
I'm new here. I have talked about "walking in stations" with some people in the game and the old players seem to be against it. Could someone explain to me exactly why this is such a bad idea? It seems simple to implement and would increase the immersion of the game.

Consider the size of a station. The amount of design to be done. Then multiply it by the four races and a plethora of corporation specific stuff.

Obviously you can cut down on diversity for the sake of sanity but it will have an impact on immersion.

If on the other side we'd get "shooting in stations" that would mean actual gameplay taking place and you could still walk around at your leisure if nobody's after you for the moment.

Remove standings and insurance.
Rovinia
Exotic Dancers Union
Hatakani Trade Winds Combine
#33 - 2016-11-23 09:32:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Rovinia
Well, they could have at least added a lobby to each station...

The problem i see with (too much) WiS: For good gameplay, we should encourage players to UNDOCK and not hanging arround in stations playing minigames or other stuff. That would drain much Sand from the Sandbox.

This classic video summs up pretty good of what was promised and then delivered with the Incarna expansion:

++ The Door ++
Orgah
Doomheim
#34 - 2016-11-23 10:00:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Orgah
Snyzer Erata wrote:
I'm new here. I have talked about "walking in stations" with some people in the game and the old players seem to be against it. Could someone explain to me exactly why this is such a bad idea? It seems simple to implement and would increase the immersion of the game.
People in general aren't against WIS, as long as you consider that Incarna was a perfect storm of fail. There's a only a visible vocal minority who are.

But I wouldn't count on WIS happening anyway - because, you are wrong and it is the opposite of simple to implement. I think the people who created the original engine for Incarna and WoD do not work at CCP anymore, and everything avatar-related now is a barely usable six year old mess. They'll have to start everything from scratch.
Jaxon Grylls
Institute of Archaeology
#35 - 2016-11-23 10:21:40 UTC
Valkin Mordirc wrote:
WiS is somewhat demanded but largely useless in how the game functions as well, and the majority of players want to have proper balanced game over a distraction.

You got that right. I remember Incarna and it tarred WIS with the bad things that were happening with micro-transactions and so on.

Where I disagree with you is in saying that WIS is useless. It is now but could have been a real boost to the immersion that so many crave. Being able to hang out in a public space gossiping and trading tall stories could have brought EVE to life. Currently EVE is a bit too abstract for my taste. Players are simply names in a list or a ship. No real human contact. Now this is only my opinion. A lot of players who have been in the game from 2003 don't want that sort of play style and sadly Incarna hardened that view point to the level where CCP decided to drop WIS.

In my opinion a missed opportunity but others have a different view and at the moment they are in the majority.
Cutter Isaacson
DEDSEC SAN FRANCISCO
#36 - 2016-11-23 10:27:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Cutter Isaacson
SurrenderMonkey wrote:

But there is absolutely no chance of the utility ever matching the utility we can get using grown-ass adult tools out of game. That's my point.



Anything that can be implemented within the existing structure of the game would automatically outmatch standalone third-party software, as long as it is implemented correctly. Your assertion that an external solution is always better is incorrect, and ignores the option of integration of existing technologies. That would not only provide a superior in-game experience, but also allow for use of said technology outside of the game client.

"The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination." Elim Garak.
Salvos Rhoska
#37 - 2016-11-23 11:43:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Concept was good and opened new potential.
CCP at the time was attempting to crosslink their character/fps work in conjunction with the WOD project.
Also they must have felt the pressue of Star Citizen/ELITE on the horizon.
Attempts where made to diversify EVE into various interconnected projects of different formats.
EVE was booming preceding that. Money was good.

CCP came very, very close to building a vast MMO empire with many forms of access/content to many genres/platforms, and the famous unprecedented hardcore EVE bottonline.

The grand scheme was ingenious and suitable at the time.
It made sense. A culmination of interconnected projects.

Unfortunately, implementation/actualization failed to deliver.

They bit off more than they could chew, in many mouthfuls.
Its tragic, but I applaud their ambition, plan and attempt to pull it off.

PvE v PvP <> Old School Exploration <> CODE Licenses <> CODE Special Agent
Agondray
Avenger Mercenaries
VOID Intergalactic Forces
#38 - 2016-11-23 12:06:49 UTC
Solonius Rex wrote:
Snyzer Erata wrote:
I'm new here. I have talked about "walking in stations" with some people in the game and the old players seem to be against it. Could someone explain to me exactly why this is such a bad idea? It seems simple to implement and would increase the immersion of the game.


Years ago, someone from EA posted a facebook picture of a practical joke of filling someones office up with confetti, with a comment of "It also took a large team of employees to clean it all up... (We think it was totally worth it though)".

The reply to that comment, of course, was "Maybe you should get around to fixing Simcity instead of f*cking around".

When I was talking about Walking in Stations a couple years ago with some of my corp mates, we were talking about how interesting it would be if Dust 514 could somehow be connected, and if you could possibly raid other peoples hangars and steal stuff.

But thats kinda the point. Unless walking in stations actually adds content to the game that is actually meaningful, Dev time is better spent elsewhere.


I have that picture fyi, it was the release party for SimCity and they filled an office with Styrofoam packing peanuts. the game was massive overhyped with an AI that couldn't track everything in the city, the beta worked better than release and took 1 1/2 years to make it less of a headache followed by EA/MAXIS leaving the game with an offline mode as it was online only and they haven't touched it since. EA's made a nasty habit of taking over very good games with a huge player base to cash in on and kill it.

ie Westwood Studios C&C generals was decent, C&C red alert series used great big actors with subpar scripts compared to actors never heard of with great script, and the tiberium series was a complete kill off

origin is also a huge kill with every ea game having to be linked to its launcher requiring me to have internet access to play games that don't even need internet like PVZ, because I moved to Africa im required to enter a cd code for plants vs zombies that was a free download game...I mean wtf. so I limit myself from companies I buy from now and other companies I wait for games to pan out

"Sarcasm is the Recourse of a weak mind." -Dr. Smith
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#39 - 2016-11-23 14:20:18 UTC
Cutter Isaacson wrote:


Anything that can be implemented within the existing structure of the game would automatically outmatch standalone third-party software


That's why there's this totally awesome and up-to-date in game browser, right? Roll

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#40 - 2016-11-23 14:44:18 UTC
"why are people against "walking in stations"?

Lots of reasons:

-EVE is a game focused on spaceships and imo many of us like that focus. Walking around on legs is not spaceships. EVERY time CCP did something that wasn't spaceships (WiS, WoD, DUST etc) it was bad, so calling for CCP to YET AGAIN try something with EVE that isn't spaceships strikes me (and I assume many others) as stupid.

-Pie in the sky, pushy, unrealistic "I want to have a fake drink in a fake restaurant on a fake space station" WiS fanatics are a major factor in people disliking the idea of WiS. There is a scientific reason for this btw. The people who want WiS seem to want this super immersive all-encompassing sci-fi world, and don't care in the least to understand that CCP making the effort to do that could spell the actual end of their company.

-CCP (bless their collective hearts) can't even patch the EVE we have now without breaking something, for example EVERY patch for the last year has broken drones and required a fix that comes out days or weeks later. And this is the company WiS advocates think can successfully tack on a whole new gameplay module onto a 13 year old game and keep it all running in usable form...

As an aside, every game I've played has had it's own version of the annoying WiS advocate, whether it was the "I wish we had elementals and aerospace fighters" guys in Mechwarrior 3, 4 and MWO, to the "why is there no infantry?!?!" guys in world of TANKS.