EVE Frontier is a lost oportunity... AGAIN

Dear CCP, I write this letter here so the whole community interesed in EVE Games can read and “friendly” discuss.

Im and avid reader of dev blogs/forums and related stuff, and found that EVE Frontier has plenty of interesing emerging features that can fit into EVE Online, some straight with a 150MB patch and some with some revamp/overhaul of game kernel and some into a dedicated “Hard Mode” since line minions may not like to play this way. All aproaches are ok.

Well, I will list what concepts I extracted from this lecture of your blogs/reddits that draw my attention.

Sorry if any misstypo, Im not a native english neither a Bot.

THE GOOD

FRESH START: Many players demanded a fresh start/server/seasons over the years to get rid of stagnant behaviours with plenty of legacy mistakes. Frontier environment encourages this.
SERVER PERFOMANCE: 0.25s server tick instead of 2s.
WILD JUMP INSTEAD OF FORCEFUL GATING: Using an optional fitting WARP ENGINE slot and a dedicated fuel, and allowing to not be constrained to gates /cyno lighting anymore even for small boats is a thing that could improve game play a lot and open new ways to play the game. Gates can still be used for convenience (long jumps instead of neighbouring systems, being cheaper than wild jump, faster etc)
WILD SYSTEMS: Stationary location of solar systems but with no system operated gates. A sweet spot between J and K space mechanics. Also galaxy is massive and NON TRIVIAL to explore. Indeed, real exploring should be made under Frontier rules.
FUEL: Adds realism since all activites consume it, then adds more specialized mining ops to be made and more content.
TRACING OCCLUSION AND COLLISION UPGRADES: Hidding behind objects its a fair improvement, better phisics too. It makes easy to hide and to set up traps. No more silly collisions with an outdated physics model. Projectiles have more realistic physics too.
ATMOSPHERE OCLUSION: And better visual dynamics with gameplay implications. You cannot see stuff among a dust/fogged zone. Mix this with sleeping sleepers that awake all at same time like in the cynematic and this would be really nice.
MINING AND ORE OVERHAUL: I like ore overhaul in line of Hard-SciFi instead of Soft SciFI.
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: Temperature/gravity or system wide interessing effects that make navigating non trivial and need special fitting ships. Environment is really dangerous not only a dead debuff in your ship.
ICE: Ice masking your signal and hidding trasure/deadly mobs is an awesome idea.
ACTIVITY SIGNATURE instead of SECURITY SYSTEM RATING: Being more visible (for players and mobs) once your activity profile raises is a very nice addition, it keeps small/lone players safe from high tier bloobs, and provides content for ones to seek for profit (disrrupt big ships, raid bases for profit)
DISCOURAGED MULTIBOXING: The amount of micromanagent is a bit excesive, but I agree it encourages 1player=1character gameplay. If economy is balanced arround the amount of resources a single player can provide itself/to others is good.
LORE and AMBIENCE: I do Love that dark lore of derelict stuff and greatness once forgotten… and dangers who dreamt that should never be awaken, it fit perfectly about what could be on the other side of EVE Gate, so we have a significant place to connect both gameplay modes.

THE BAD… WELL BAD IS NOT ENOUGH THIS IS… EVIL

TOO MUCH MICROMANAGEMENT: I know this can be fixed, but for now there is no vertical integration of production. If you want more of something, spawn more printers. No No. =>This point is only bad and CAN be fixed.
REAL MONEY SINK: Eve Online resources FAUCETS being drained AGAIN TO A SINK, into dead end offsprings instead of boosting greatly the R+D on the product we pay for. “The Good” should be right now in SINGULARITY for live testing, instead on a dark side project.
POCKET PREDATION: According the dev blog, the tools to get fuel and many other items will be tied to RMT. CMON CCP REALLY?
BLOCKCHAIN ■■■■■■■■: Only lures speculators and people barely interesed in the game, most of them just come to inflate bubbles and poop them to earn real life cash. Also CCP hasnt dived enough about Real Life concerns since governments recently want to TAX crypto transactions. Imagine being taxed by increases in PLEX value when you buy a sub or a skin lol.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: Founders dont know how the final monetisation model will be (sub costs, sub advantages, influence of the blockchain ■■■■■■■■). Suporting this development is like trowing water in a drilled bucket.

DEMANDS:

Make Eve Frontier =>EVE 2 or implement its content via lore / EVE GATE to eve online so all comunity who supports your COMPANY may enjoy. Get rid of “the bad” before the baby is born dead. GET RID of RMT and BLOCKCHAING NOBODY DEMANDED and monetise the game the way you used to do in Eve Online which is proven, relatively fair and works. Yo still can.

Best Regards,

First ,the server tick is 1s. Second any faster is insane. literally. Thats the ping around world distance to server already matters too much, the shorter the interval the more it becomes living next to the server. At 250ms people start gaining a full ping advantage on every action over the competition.

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Action games usually balance ping response arround the worse player ping in a given instance (a way similar on how TiDi works), but I get you point and its right.

hilmar know this project is a waste of money but, just like piratesoftware, he can’t admit he is wrong so he will just keep driving into wall after wall until the cocaine line dry out and close the studio.

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Well got a like way to fast to edit the post. This should be “the shorter the interval the more the game becomes about living next to the server.”

Most Shooters or RTS like StarCraft II or BroodWar are way more complex in-combat than EVE combat usually is. And they neither have nor need an artificial limitation to 1s reaction time.

I personally would like a test-run in rarely crowded places like Shattered WHs that could be outsourced to a dedicated cluster that runs at 0.5s in the first iteration. Collect feedback from the players how that feels. If the feedback is positive, test 0.25s. I can imagine it would reward skilled players for clicking faster and more accurate in the first place. The phyiscal “ping” from player to server should really play a minor role, especially since most of the players who meet are actually from roughly the same timezone and usually should have somewhat comparable pings. And really, whoever plays EVE with a ping of more than 250 has other issues than the server tick rate that set him at a disadvantage to others…

Of course, the change has to be implemented in a way that the system automatically switches back to 0.5 and 1.0s once the serverload becomes too heavy.

Because we only play on close servers. Eve online can not be compared as people play frm all over the world not only within 20ms ping.

Isn’t EVE Frontier under NDA? I shall flag this thread for possible breach of NDA?

how excatly can be a breack of NDA if ccp also stream, talk and explain eve frontier ?

Ok, my bad. NDA was removed on June 11th it seems.

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By mentioning something that isn’t public knowledge but protected by said NDA (if it was still in effect sounds like it is not).

It’s not like the name was, thats been announced a long time ago.

You can’t breach an NDA that you never signed.
You did sign though that CCP can disown your EVE persona at any time and without reason:

Do you still feel BRAVE?

With wary regards
-James Fuchs

Except Hilmar has signed a contract to receive funding. Hilmar is using this extra money to bring some things back into EVE Online (Like the upcoming upgrade from Python 2 to 3, or the visual updates that were teased at fanfest). But Hilmar can’t just not make this game, he is legally obligated to see it through, no matter how much people scream and shout in EVE Online about it being a waste of not CCPs money.

FYI there are more people in the EVE Frontier discord than EVE Online’s by almost twice as much. Saying that it’s a failure is just based on a feeling and not any facts.

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same thing you agree to when you sign in to EVE online.. whats your point?

So im assuming, those were the EULA for frontier not just EVE online.. just pointing that out.

Be sure to post feedback in the EVE Frontier discord, EVE Frontier and not the forums of another game.

How much money does Eve Frontier make per year?

Eve Online finances itself, at all costs covered +12m per year that CCP throws away at other things.

No idea, but not a lot considering it’s in development and still early alpha. Games are not expected to make money until it is actually released. No one expected EVE Online to make money in 2000-2002 (or earlier).

Yes, and that gets funded back into itself or at the other games (Vanguard/Conquest) that don’t have an extra 40 million of external investors like Frontier does.

In order for CCP to stop making EVE Frontier, they HAVE to pay that $40 million back with any additional fees and interests that is stipulated in their contract with a16z, AND fire all those people that were hired.

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And all comments discussed here, at least the items I propose, come from public open sources like the Eve Frontier DEV blog, the guidelines published in their webpage and some early gameplay videos (also open) or their official reddit /evefrontier. I started to read all this content in exploration if this new project deserves to be funded or not. I funded some steam projects, some good and some lol too.

In the creative way, as I said, EF has plenty of creative aproaches and new systems that “may” fit under the universe we know. Creative team is doing good job. Ok. ¿Why is not this creative team hired/working for in Eve Online?

And alpha states sometimes have tons of fun. Guess many of these experiments will stay experimental and fade off, but I remember a game I played on early alpha (no advertising, will not say the name) stage and got the most fun on A8 release, because of a weird bug zombies RUN in dark places not only at night and chase you when entering a building.

My personal main concern to suport it (for the fun and space gaming, and yeah test new fool stuff) is to be caught in a shady RMT scheme I dont want under any reason; and forced to quit by an ever massive sub cost inflation provoked by whales stacking $EVEs or a publisher cost not explainer properly.

I published the comment here because I think this side development concerns us, in some degree. As example, the game uses certain graphics engines used here (I think is called “carbon”), and certain interface designs we are more than familiar. Its clearly an iteration of the product we use, and we, somehow, banned from these possible upgrades.

Also, forums have a reflexive aproach that discord lacks. Im from the generation previous to discord and dont merge good with this environment with too much brimming colors. :smiley:

We are not banned from the upgrades, actually we will be seeing upgrades to EVE online as shown at EVE Fanfest. Namely the code update and visual upgrades.

That being said, the developers of EVE Frontier do not look at the EVE forums for feedback, there are discord forums within their discord server if you prefer a forum format.

As another example they promised us a degree of integration of Eve Online Universe and Eve Vanguard, a modernisation of what they did with RUST. I resubbed my account after reading this, and after a year we can do nothing in vanguard other than play events.

CCP used to consider all their games a single game universe. Developers work in the same offices. Then, its fair if we the players/users/customers do the same and consider the cross-interactions that both projects could have.

Good night.