I also returned a bit puzzled by the lack of CQ. After reading the dev blog, I was reminded of the issues I had when running it under wine, so I’m less bothered now. That being said, I think the RP elements was an opportunity lost. And after all this time the technology needed to go.
I guess what some people wanted from the RP element is something that reflects Freelancer. Bars had NPCs you could get jobs from, but also people with snippets of lore. Like any sci fi book or movie, the focus is rarely on the technology, and rather on the people. Accusations that EVE just presents a thin veneer over a spreadsheet do have a slight ring to it. Obviously, boil down any game and they all get to that level, but each layer you add on top, the less mechanical the feel of it.
All that being said, it may be the technology was not there. The story telling elements of the game are somewhat restricted by what the writers can do. This is not a single player game, nor do people expect the experience to end as a book does. But player interactions may not easily coalesce into such an experience. Is this something we’re still waiting on AI for? To be RP game masters? Or at least intelligent augmentations for human game masters to reach more players?
RP and writers, they all gone long ago I think. Maybe some guy in an office basement, and they pay him in Hakarl. Lore suffers. CCP Falcon was writing some stuff previously, but now he seems entirely occupied by a community job.
I don’t believe in or do roleplay. That being said, the loss of the Captain’s Quarters, an extra option not forced on anyone, was a mistake by CCP.
If left, even with winers for it’s lack of completion, CQ would have done no harm to anyone and would have tailored to the actual romance of space, ships, and people. CQ’s removal even cost the loss close to 12% of the game’s actual population over the last year. (that means a large loss of PLEX sales. The amount of time and energy put into creating the captain’s quarters justified just leaving it in without bothering to do more than to make sure it stays accessible. The beauty alone justified more than that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjdqPiBvTBE
In a game where you cannot trust your corp mates to not use alts to steal from you, play as moles… ETC., and the lack of ability to reap true justice without sacrificing ; the lack of a place of respose leaves one’s mind outside and alone at there computer rather than in game where one is separated from their spaceship/pod avatar that they spend more time dressing up than their characters.
The question is, "Why can CCP not understand the human need to rest, as one would from any rat race in game or out and without having to stare solely at the space ships that limit you. That fail you. That you don’t understand why they fail you so easily. That are too expensive to fly like they should be flown. With the bell curve so high and the risk variables so ridiculously manipulated for plex sales, EVE Online is but a ball of stress without the true romance of a space faring society, the human element (note: We are human before we turn on our computers CCP.), that allows one to lose themselves in the game and forget the mundane world.
Since most of one’s time is spent in space and in hanger examining the enormous variety of ships, the CQ suffered the “lack of use” excuse that would have been fixed with the ability to interactively meet with corp mates at station bars or viewing areas with the ability to see outside the station while docked and examine those camped outside at war with you. The lack of ability to see and plan keeps most noob corps staring at ships they both can’t afford to fly and don’t know how to fight with. A major deterrent for noobs staying long enough to see how great life in EVE can really be.
Trunover is just too great as it is. CCP has one more problem. Players with personal ethics, the ones that will do anything to make things right. An option not available in eve. Financially or otherwise. There is more to it than an eye for an eye.
Thats it for this windbag and no I don’t expect CCP to change anything, I just pray.
CQ’s removal was regrettably necessary. It was based on software infrastructure we simply could not carry forward, and was blocking important changes to how Eve is built and distributed that are critical to the game’s long-term health.
That’s a statement that’s not supported by the data.
Most of the improvements removing CQ enabled are internal to the product and you wouldn’t see them. The one major change you might notice is in progress but isn’t ready to go yet. I’m not able to talk details at this time.
It would be rather hard to see how many people quit because of it. Every person that quits for that reason would have to write about that to CCP.
For that reason I think data is incomplete.
I am sure that people who could quit over CCP not delivering WIS, those who waited for that thing especially, they did not play for long and quit thru many years of CCP not delivering WIS content. How many percent it is? Maybe more, maybe less than 12%. CCP will never know, I will never know, nobody will ever know.
Few additional places where avatar is showing is not really the replacement for CQ. CQ was a place. It was the screen with links, sort of intranet where you could put your own videos, it was easy agent finding, clothes changing, planet interaction access, nice view from balcony. It was something like a home with bed and mirror. All of it in 4 empires flavours. I miss it.
Yes, I miss it too. Doesn’t matters much after I just lost interest on EVE beyond my “dead by November 2021” guess, but oh my, how low we’ve fall.
First I learned of Ambulation an wanted it.
Then I hoped WiS would cut it -it didn’t.
Then I wanted to keep WiS alive -they didn’t.
Then I hoped CCP would take PvE seriously -they didn’t.
Then I hoped they would get right wht little PvE they added -they didn’t.
Then I waited too see whether they just effin added more missions -they won’t.
Then… now… their time is running. Compared to 2013 EVE and CCP have got -20,000 PCU, -4 million $ a year, -250 employees and things are just getting “better” in the strategic field.
Hilmar’s plans to develop a new core engine will cost them the game. They don’t have the developer bandwitdth to do that and release enough content. They would need all the people who Seagull backburned when she decided that people played EVE to play nullsec style, against the easily available evidence that most players don’t give a sh*t of nullsec play. Rubicon plan has ended exactly where I foresaw it: a few little more happy nullseccers and heavy losses from the highsec crowd that kept population and financials afloat.
EVE needs a new core engine, that’s right. An old horse can do better with a new heart. But dead horses don’t need a heart at all.
November 2021, and I doubt anything coming with EVE Vegas will change that.
Now compare where EVE is compared to where nearly every MMO is.
MMO’s are not doing so well, claiming that because EVE has dropped in player number (Which also in unsubstantiated but likely from it’s peak, if not as big as the PCU drop), is trying to look at things in a vacuum. EVE is actually doing very well, it’s trend line stabilized and looks far healthier than the WoW trend line.
I wish we can talk to other capsuleers face to face by microphone in the meeting room, play chess and card games at Bars, view the Manufacturing process in the Service Module (room or something), or even decorate our own CQ in citadels or stations like The SIMS, in the future… well … not really, these things are not as exciting as fighting and takes much effort but will surely bring back some of the players who left for the removal of CQ
New character creation is down by 25% compared to last year in the same dates. In my book, that means that the F2P pool is draining. It’s not bad, I mean, the surge has lasted almost 2 years, but the thing with F2P surges is that when they’re gone, they’re gone. Out is out. Those people deterred by subcription have all already tried the game, played, sticked or quitted.
And without them EVE will be limited to organic trends. With hisec increasingly becoming a barren, the “ghost town” effect will kick in sooner or later.
This is a bit off-topic for the thread, but I gather from this comment that you either haven’t tried or didn’t like the Abyssal Deadspace sites. What would you like to have seen done differently there?
1 moderate difficult task with 1,000 possible solutions.
This is the key. I could rescue the damsel with anything between a T2 frigate and a Marauder. With every weapon system in the stock. Using almost every subcapital skill. And most of the time, it would work. I would be rewarded with another path to victory, instead of being punished for stepping out of the beaten-to-death road to Gila.
This is not about difficulty, but about rewarding diversity instead of specialization. It’s about giving us tools to build a LEGO instead of providing us with a very difificult scale model kit without instructions.
This haves 1 and only 1 solution, is cool but is not very repeatable once figured out:
This isn’t as perfect, but there’s 1,000 solutions waiting to be figured out, will pay for it:
The concept of bricks is very procedural. Bricks could became ships, rooms, weapons, targets, everything. Building bounty pool and loot table around such bricks could be also very interesting. Abyssal space mechanics with its rooms and spawns is a good direction but could be expanded outside abyss and some additional bricks added. Something like abyss only for cruisers, with its rather small experimenting field is definitely not enough. There is already a lot of work done with events and abyss systems, CCP should get idea what is hard enough, what is easy enough, what is impossible, what people would do.
Hell, even spawning outside any event an event site from past history would make wonders. That could be very rare, but people would actually get something interesting to do, other than dragging their dusty spaceships from one known mission to another…
There could be also something like current missions getting escalations mechanics that are in exploration.
The last few posts fit better in the CSM minutes thread. Like with any leveled mission, you can challenge yourself to complete Abyss T1 - T3 sites in a variety of different ships and fits. The higher levels were designed to be extra difficult, but even in T4-T5 something other than a Gila could work, if it was flown extremely well, taking advantage of implants and boosters, with knowledge of what each NPC does and leveraging the environmental clouds, if any are useful.
I can write that, but don’t do T4-T5. I prefer “lower engagement” content.
This post by CCP Larrikin should give players hope that someone at CCP understands how a wide variety of players interact with the Missions system.
Oh, i’m not thinking something that complex. I think that procedural generation and advanced AI in games are solutions looking for a problem.
Multi-option misison could do. Take gate A, bring a frigate (locked by size). On gate B you can bring up to BC, both gates have similar total bounties and you only need to clear one. Or you can clear them both in a frigate. Or reship. Maybe if you’re fast enough, there might be a container with large HP and some T2 salvage, so you navigate to it. Or maybe just blitz through the BC-sized gate.
Reward player creativity. Don’t electroshock teach them what to NOT bring, what to NOT do, what to NOT try. Being killed by a timer or a random spawn is sh*t design, specially when your loss means grinding the same old missions for 5, 10, or god knows how many hours until you recoup the ISK. Or maybe just be lucky for the next 10, 15, 20 sites.
Apprectiate it. I’ve been beating on the same drum for a while, but I could never put it together as well as that post by Yiole did. Hell, show them that post, it sums it all up.
If I could do it over again I would explain to Larrikin that it isn’t “low engagement content” we are talking about, it’s (like Yiole said) "content that we can engage with in more than one way.
You can do a little of that in the Abyss, people are using polarized fits in some cases or running them with HICs, but it’s not the same, and messing up means losing the ship. Messing up in missions (and anomalies) might mean that, or it might mean getting out in hull with your heart thumping. Heart thumping is good, unavoidable ship and pod death…isn’t.
I run abyss sites with a Gila (go to zkill, you can see my last loss lol, damn leshaks), it gets boring quick.
