What is your evidence for this? A couple hundred players who visited frequently, and a few thousand that opened it once, went ‘that’s cool, but now what?’ and never went back? That doesn’t contradict what CCP reported: only a very small portion of the playerbase actively used this feature, and it is not feasible to keep maintaining it as literally nobody is playing the game just to sit in CQ. It’s a Return on Investment consideration. Maintaining CQ was costing more and more money without it driving any subscribers. The best that could be said of it is it might encourage players to buy clothes in the NES.
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Right from the start CCP said they wanted Eve Online to be more than just a Spaceship Simulation game, they wanted it to be a Sci-Fi Virtual Reality Universe which included Avatar game content. Course as usual CCP stayed true to their reputation of promising big, delivering little, then abandon it to finally removing any evidence of it ever existing.
CCP = Can’t Code Properly
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No argument there. Doesn’t mean it was a bad business decision to discontinue CQ when it reached negative RoI territory.
There would have been a lot more player interaction with WiS if CCP had added some game content to it. Instead CCP decided to abandon it and then use the lack of player participation along with some technical BS as an excuse to completely remove it from the game.
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I used CQ couple of times and then turned it off, mainly because there was considerable loading time difference, docking and undocking to CQ vs hangar. And also because there was no gameplay attached to it.
I dont think I personally would use it if they’d return it the way it was before. But the option would be nice. Delonewolf’s youtube CQ couch market review videos were fun to watch.
I personally don’t trust some numbers put out by CCP if it’s something that serves their own interests, especially if it’s something players can’t verify independently. So while, like you, I’m willing to believe CCP puts out false numbers in some cases, I don’t believe this is the case.
I played during CQ days, I used my own CQ quarters, yes, all things considered, if it was a develop-once-and-forget-it issue, they should have left it in. But since it’s the sort of thing that needs to be updated with each graphics change and release, it wasn’t worth it.
When it was around, nobody talked about what they did in it. Virtually nobody shared screen shots or videos of them in their captain’s quarters. There was nothing you could do in the CQ that you couldn’t have done faster and easier elsewhere. And personally I found the animations a bit slow and awkward so it wasn’t even a great visual experience.
And when you talk about the “enthusiasm for it here, in this thread”, you literally are pointing out, like all other threads on CQ, that a tiny percent of the players (forum goers) have a tiny percent of RP/MMO’ers who want CQ back. So say 5% of 5%, being generous, expressing “enthusiasm”. That correlates with my own experience with CQ back in the day, and with CCP’s released numbers.
When your core game is space ships, you don’t waste time sticking in a half-assed captains closet so a couple percent of players can watch their butts as they walk. Either make it a game feature (like if they had integrated DUST with EVE properly), or shelve it and focus on your actual game.
Avatar gameplay was one of CCP’s goals for turning Eve Online into a Virtual Reality Sci-Fi Simulation. A little while after the Summer Of Rage fiasco, CCP tried to implement WiS into Exploration Hacking sites. Their plan was to have it be a semi-secluded instanced site that would allow access to a small amount of characters. Unfortunately when they added more than 2 characters, the system would crash and since they couldn’t get it to work properly they abandoned it.
Their main reason for removing Captains Quarters was that supposedly only 3% of the playerbase used it. Course that’s understandable since CCP implemented that content with no gameplay associated with it and over the years never bothered to add any gameplay to it.
Then they tried to justify the removal by saying that 4-6 weeks of development time each year was required to maintain it. They also stated they could update the CQ to 64-bit but it would take roughly 6-8 months of development work. When you think of it, that’s not really a lot of time to preserve and not waste all the time they originally invested in creating it. The last reason stated for removing it was all that Dev time could be better served elsewhere.
The untold reason for removing Captains Quarters - it was a thorn in CCP’s side, a sore spot that always reminded them of a complete failure. As long as the Captains Quarters was active in-game, players would continue asking for WiS content. To get rid of their embarrassment, CCP not only removed the Captains Quarters, they also removed all their videos and Dev Blogs that showcased plans for implementing WiS content to Eve Online.
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Sunk cost fallacy. Putting more hours into something that has failed so you don’t ‘waste’ the hours already spent on the failed thing is not logical. At some point, you (general) have to recognize when you have hit the point where you are literally just pissing away time/money that really could be used elsewhere to greater effect (see again: return on investment). Especially for a business that has to justify expenses to executives and shareholders.
Sunk cost fallacy, lol.
The only reason it failed is because CCP didn’t finish what they started. At the very least they could have added some single player avatar content to it. The fact that you think it’s more cost effective to throw out years of work instead of investing a little bit more time to make it viable tells me you’re a big proponent for not adding avatar gameplay to Eve. Definitely not going to waste any more of my time debating it with you.
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The problem I see is that there is a software and hardware limit on full integration of an avatar component of gameplay. The captains quarters was very small and insignificant. Cool, it added a small layer of immersion.
However, their grand plans of integrating a fps into eve would have destroyed eve on the whole.
They don’t have the staff or resources to build what they wanted to, so we’re left with what it reliable and viable. In the grand scheme, this is still a groundbreaking game, 17 years after creation. That says a lot, in my opinion.
No I talked about this thread, the other thread, all the other threads, and in game enthusiasm such as in the Rookie Help chat. Daily, month in, month out, for years. Not ‘this thread’.
That there are two concurrent threads about it this week alone on these forums is enough for me to strongly dispute 5% of 5%, which let’s face it is a figure plucked out of thin air. I don’t believe anything with a 5% of 5% fanbase would come up so regularly and be supported so strongly.
Your numbers just don’t add up.
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as an example;
For over a decade, players of world of warcraft advocated for a classic server. For years, the gm’s said it would never happen, players ridiculed the ones wanting it, and everyone said it was the tiniest of percentages of the population.
They released classic servers and saw a jump in subscriptions and active players. It was enough of a success that they’re going to make a burning crusade classic too.
The point being, for years. over a decade, people kept saying it was the tiniest of percentages of the population, it wasnt viable, there was no market for it and nobody really wanted it.
When it was announced, millions of people kept saying people would join it for a month or two then it would die.
They were wrong.
It turns out, when people like something enough, even if they quit playing, they will come back for the feature they like.
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There is of course another element to this, which is that it was left in that state and then it having been left in that state became the excuse to can it. Bit of an odd circular excuse that feels cheap.
We all know it could have been (and was intended to be) so much better. But hey. Dreams of other worlds at this point.
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CQ and WiS is the best way to get aloooot more $ from game. Selling furniture, avarat costumes etc also some of this would drop from NPCs etc so more moddern approach to gameplay but it also needs PVE to be redone especially to just play with friends
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Because of business decisions we got Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and look what happened. But they made their money all right. Just peeps are left with a game that on the previous gen of consoles is a buggy mess and will never be fixed most probably because of tech problems, only move to free upgrade for next gen consoles will be encouraged.
Business decisions are not always good for players. Its mainly about more money in CEO pockets.
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DUST Agrees.
And so does Gadget
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i like it to
gigantic ship view
sofa
maybe add Doritos
That’s quite the hasty generalization there. Nothing I said was against CCP properly implementing a viable avatar system that is actually useful for gameplay. I strictly emphasized that throwing more money at CQ when it had no functional uses and was entirely a drag on resources that actually could keep the rest of EVE development moving forward was a logical business decision even if it was disappointing for players (and I am one of the players disappointed by the lack of delivery on the original promise of a functional avatar engagement system). Regardless of our feelings as players, CCP is a business, and has a right to decide that throwing good money after bad isn’t a proper use of their resources. Honestly, they should have admitted their failure years earlier and either scrapped it or properly invested in it, instead of dragging players’ hopes along for ages and ages.
CCP was not in a position to make CQ work in a way that was cost-effective with a reasonable RoI at the time they made the decision to end it. If they can find a way to do so now I am all for them adding avatar-based gameplay - but they first need to actually put together a functional implementation plan that doesn’t give us another useless iteration of CQ, and deliver on it. I don’t see that happening (given their previous attempts at delivering on their promised features), but if they can get a team together capable of doing it, more power to them. I’d love to see Walking in Stations as it was always supposed to be: an immersive experience that adds value to the game. Not just another piece of little-used eye candy that is a constant drain on CCP resources.
This is the result of their own business decisions too.
If they can find a way to do so now I am all for them adding avatar-based gameplay
They were always able, but they would need to change people who actually manage the company.
Incredible as it is, CCP is still hiring people for next game they are going to release, while EVE development suffers.
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Yes, it was. I never said otherwise. They made bad decisions that led to having a useless section of their product that was a money sink, and finally realized that they should quit doing that and shelve the whole thing instead of limping it along pointlessly.