EVE was always the game of choices and they were a lot more serious than now, it was always essence of EVE, not flying spaceships exclusively.
Wow talk about a dishonest partial quote, the full sentence.
There is nothing unique in eve that has to do with spaceships, like it would be with WIS, its just the facets of the same gem. its just MMORPG with avatars replaced with spaceships. I never saw why not make it the orther way around and instead of spaceships, use avatar to do stuff in EVE. Leave spaceship and do stuff.
But for you it is forcing someone… You sound like you would grow engines and few meters of impenetrable armor on your head. 
Why I dont see people complaining in GTA that they have to leave car and shoot? Why I see this in EVE? Maybe because players here have so much grown into this partial EVE, and even into specific niches. Its like selflimitation.
Try something new.
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I have no issues with you making such an assumption - but that is the market value, roughly, of the FTP BR market.
It was an ex post facto comment. perhaps I should have reworded my response, but I didn’t think it was that egregious.
Apologies if it was.
Overall I think online gaming is in a transition phase. The golden age of it came and went. Does not mean there won’t be other ages. I don’t see another one though.
There are too many “browser games” and Eve is looking like one of them.
We have, at least, fond memories of the way things used to be, when the chronicles tied into the live events. Those were the days. I come back only to fly in the memorial formation over Caldari Prime and shoot fireworks on the holidays.
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Can you define ‘transition phase’ for me?
This is of key interest to me right now in RL.
We do need this project to succeed, not only to have something eve-related to play, but also to get fresh players. CCP did everything they could but eve is still a niche game that most players don’t even know about (or they do, but it’s like “I read an article 5 years ago, is the server still up?”). A semi-decent game would bring a new batch of players to eve (just like Dust did) and game launch is free marketing.
ps. talk to Valve to show actual number of players in game stats, as it is now EVE isn’t showing up at all…
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I slightly agree with you.
EVE is dead for Gabe.
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I don’t doubt the value. I doubt you were to one with the brilliant idea.
Oh, my mistake, I thought you meant something else.
Well, it was hardly brilliant an idea and a fairly simple thing to code and really just an extension with one of the maps I had.
I had been playing BF3 at that time and in particular the ‘Aftermath’ DLC map packs, which had ‘scavenger’ as a game mode.
The premise I had laid out was a wreaking crew map, as a clean up of a planetary battle. It was a map which catered for the traditional FPS game modes of TDM/DM etc, and then the idea of thematically adding an object/point on the map, for which players would fight over in Racial teams and be directed via satellite, with encroaching radiation that would kill players after long exposure.
As the map had a post-battle scenario, the idea was crews would have to scavenge for weapons, although to begin with they had minimal weapons, but racial. The weapons I had in mind would have been very similar to the weapons used in EVE, racially. So: Gallente with neutron-based guns, Amarr with Laser etc, but I did not know what the design principles of the weapon types would have been at that point by CCP.
My thoughts were, that as players ran out of guns of their own racial types, they would have the option of trying to pick up weapons they would have racial bonuses too, but could use weapons they perhaps would not be proficient in using.
The weapons were strewn across the map randomly, with back packs to open and pick off dead bodies etc etc etc. The types of weapons were of course designed with the map in mind, which was a large desert with bodies, vehicles, junk remains. Very gritty. Very mid-to-long-range effective ranges.
I remember I had a simple post-processing volume setup for the radiation, to indicate to the player they were in the ‘dead zone’, by blurring the image in a gaussian ‘crank’ , and increasing the ‘bloom’ of image, with a slowly decreasing health, that was a duplication of the post-processing volume movement inwards. This was blueprinted/coded to the level on a timer, just for show-and-tell on the Skype call.
It really was as simple as that. Battle Royale game mode, and it took an afternoon to set up.
The actual map took a lot longer, of course, but as it was BSP/converted to static meshes, the actual geometry was nothing more than cuboids/cylinders/pyramids, done up to look like ruins. Lots of concrete/rock, with twisted metal everything. Very orange, but had some lovely atmospherics, like dust clouds (I think I was going to be ‘cocky’ on the call and mention that this map had ‘Dust’ 
always good to have a sense of humour when doing conference calls).
The landscape was sand, so I used the landscape tool in UE4 and just created basic sand material and sculpted dunes out with the erosion tool, mainly.
There were a few underground bunkers, and these had some big horizontal doors that I scripted to open in a sequence trigger, and I recorded me blowing into the microphone, slowed the speed down on the audio file, added some distortion. This made it sound like something big and heavy was opening. Cheap and cheerful, but it was really just to convey to the guys what I was thinking.
As the map was multi-purpose (all game modes) I had laid out the areas on the map to be reasonably open, with sections clearly defined and visible. This way, if you are playing the map on a different game mode, it will be quite obvious what game mode you are in, without causing the player to mistake the BR game mode (for example) with another game mode, like TDM or CTF.
This was the only map with this mode, and when starting a match, all players would ‘space jump’ from near-orbit (I remember the trailer for Dust514 had soldiers falling from a great height, so knew they had this animation in a .psa/.fbx file) and the match would start.
It was a race, though. To get to the object before any other team. To not die of radiation. To find the best weapons one could.
Tick Tock.
I think that is everything I can remember. I might have added some sub-sonic resonance in an audio volume, and certainly did for one of the other maps, can’t be sure…I think that’s it.
Sure Alley. For you 'll take the time to explain it.
My observation is that the market is flooded and it’s looking like low-investment browser games are taking over in addition to people being somewhat tired of online MMORPGs or similar games. The addictive browser and mobile games have become the norm for bored people. I remember what it was just “Farmville” if I’m spelling it correctly.
The culture also seems to have changed a bit. Some would argue it’s the “quick gratification” culture. I tend to agree with them, except that we are dealing with games here and entertainment and gratification are strongly related motives. I don’t think that Eve suffers directly from decisions of CCP as much as (as much as being key here - there’s much they COULD have done and should) other games started giving Eve-like skill and gear customization with quicker access to PVP. I’ll use World of Tanks as an example. Heck their early commercials sort of made fun of Eve.
I would also add that there was once a time when it seemed like everybody had a WoW account but now having a WoW account is like a meme.
So what I mean by the use of “transitory” or “transition” in my post is that it seems to me like people are weary of online games, the market is somewhat saturated with all kinds of games having all kinds of choices, and we might not see anytime soon another “Era of the Great MMO”. But there will come a time when things settle in. The browser games, and games like it, which I think CCP is trying to compete with, are really the pendulum swinging the other way. The public now eschews games that are like the way Eve used to be where time investment and wealth building mattered, but the games that make you king in a day and sell you capabilities are already being seen as somewhat hollow and rent-seeking.
When things swing back, and it seems like it is a little bit now, there’s going to be some midpoint. When that happens, there is going to be room for “big” MMOs again, but not with the fanfare and pomp we have seen before. There will never be another WoW, and we probably won’t be hearing about great fleet battles of Eve in mainstream media again.
I suppose a “magic formula” of what I think would work and make MMOs great again would be in order, but for you I think you have read it before and know more than I on this matter. I’ll wait for the day and hope people like you will deliver in the future (my career is in other things).
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Appreciate the comments 'sir. You make some good points, not just here but I’m sure elsewhere, too.
In my rosy-spectacled world, I would like to believe that there is room for all genres in the market - and a developer that has a rich and diverse IP (CCP own an entire galaxy!) should have no problem in diversifying what they produce to market.
What you wrote is kinda agreeing with that notion!
Yes, the market is in transition, so here’s what you do: you produce as many games as you can in different genres inside the IP you own!
When a genre gets popular (FPS, CCG, RTS, RPG, w/e) including the many different ways of paying and interacting with that genre, then you got a game in that genre.
What you don’t do is what CCP actually did and try to stuff everything they could into one game, because as I mentioned above (in reply to a comment) it multiplies the workload for the game you are trying to:
( a ) Code/design/build
( b ) Maintain moving forward
( c ) New code for new features
So - you want to add planetary interaction and a new drone. This affects (a) and © in terms of workload and (b) for the support teams dealing with not just technical problems, but every player affected by the change.
If you had planetary interaction as an independent game - this problem of feature creeping is removed and you are free to create planetary interaction without being hindered by existing code and, dare I say it, the system resources of the player who has a new set of instructions to deal with.
The amount of time dedicated to fixing bugs and sorting out code problems is no doubt extraordinary - this is partially why developers like game engines like UE4/Unity/Cryengine as the major problems are solved, and they allow access to rapid prototyping. I have no doubt this is why CCP have used UDK/UE4 over the last ten years for side projects.
Back to my point.
If you have a balanced catalogue of games or even genres based on the same IP (much better) you will have a balanced flow of revenue.
Publishers know this! This is why they have a broad spectrum of genres!
If you are a jack of all trades, you are a master of none. CCP were a master of their MMORPG, but kept adding content to it, making it financially draining to maintain and support, which led to staff pressure, mistakes, staff leaving, animosity, blame-culture and a whole bunch of stuff I’ll never know about.
I think any publisher would rather be known for delivering the greatest game of any genre, like’ the greatest Basketball game ever made, with 10/10 reviews across the board and awards everywhere.
CCP would rather release an average Basketball game, and then add a management sim on top of it, with lots of clicks.
What other analogy can I muster this close to my coffee…
CCP would be the sort of company to release a new gangster movie, but have a sub-plot about a Queen who can turn water into ice…because that’s popular right now…
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Heh. Much of my coding these days is microcontrollers and IoT - lost of C and function pointers and arrays of function pointers that even confuse the voices in my head.
But Unity - even I dabbled in Unity. Roughly over a year ago I was making Crazy Uncle rounds and paid my sister a visit and noted that my youngest nephew really liked games. So I put Unity on his PC, grabbed a copy of the Minmatar Cyclone model that I extracted from the Eve Client some years ago, and showed the kid how to add models into a scene. Of course he was only 10 but he seemed to grasp the idea. Gotta start them young you know.
So based on what you are saying, if CCP was being on the ball about the trends, PI would have been a separate game system. That makes sense. If PI competed with Farmville that would have been a thing. Maybe some linkage to Eve, somehow - possibly through the market - would have been more intriguing.
During the time DUST was coming out, when I was not playing Eve, I was playing COD2 multiplayer. I played it up until 2012 - until that one day when I went to the same server I been playing on since 2006 and it was gone 
That was the end of it. So I hoped DUST would be my FPS fix but no, they screwed that up. If they just made it a separate system. I think it was impressive to get capsuleers to do orbital bombardments - they seemed to manage that towards the end, like that was someone’s dream but they begrudgingly implemented it half-assed.
What is a little sad about this is that the game does look better than it always has, and there are some devs still doing good work. But the “balance passes” have been a form of suicide. They managed to make every ship and loadout just one version of the next ship and loadout. That’s smells like browser game to me. They also made things too predictable.
While you state that other aspects of the IP would have been worthwhile, and I agree with that, one thing that I always felt CCP failed to do was to make Eve more than a game franchise generally. We only got like 3 novels? I’m thinking of Dragonlance right now: had a friend with enough Dragonlance novels to fill a room - because he DID fill a room!
But imagine if you will, the Battle of Wolf 359 in Star Trek TNG - an epic episode and turn of events in that genre - but instead of just “yeah I watched it”, you occasionally met people who were commanding a ship in that battle.
My point being, if Eve was more than “just a game” but an epic genre with player involvement, then you would have that effect. If STTNG was an MMO like Eve, but players were able to warp to Wolf 359 and be in that episode, how nerdgasmic would that have been?
If Harry Potter was an MMO (of sorts - don’t ask me how I could pull that off) and players were in that last battle, how would that have been?
I’m thinking “immersion” here. For real.
So for years I argued that real immersion means you make it more than just a game. I had hoped that “entertainment” would become something more than brainlessly sitting in front of a screen. I had hoped that Eve Online would be the place where that started.
But then one day, while pulling off my usual Captain Kirkery and trying to steel loot out from under sleepers in an exploration fit Cyclone (before SoE ships), I got a message “you can’t loot this container while it’s being defended”. And for me, that was the beginning of the end. For the thing I hoped would be the revolution in entertainment would, from that point, go in the opposite direction and head closer to just watching TV, predictable. Sure new features come out and the min-maxers sperg on it for a couple of weeks and then get bored, all having the same results.
Oh well. I just play Halo now and I didn’t even bother with that “free XBox live for a month” thing I got with the console.
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I personally feel CCP needs to either create a whole new game like EVE or double down on story driven content within New Eden. Out of all their games its obviously the only one to endure this long. All these years EVE has been PVP focused… perhaps they should try the PVE realm…Abbyssal space is a good start…
What I am about to write will never happen, and is just my own personal subjective extrapolation:
EVE needs scaling back
Now, I do not say this to be deliberately adversarial - I say it because this is what I personally believe. The complexity beyond Battleships for new players to understand is just too much. Then you got skills which can take in excess of a year to wait for until you can fly a ship you want to fly. Far too much.
Once EVE went beyond Battleships, I knew it would create a very thin end of a very large and insurmountable wedge, to market the game to new players.
New players do not want to wait (I honestly do not know how long it would take to train from beginning to capital-ready pilot…a year? two years?) But when it was just battleships as the biggest ship you could own, they (new players) could see this as a real and potential object to strive for.
Now? Now, CCP is in a position where the numbers do not add up, they keep adding content they have no way of being able to support and they lack the funds and fortitude to release separate games that are designed well.
I have watched all of the videos on the game (Nova), and I can see where the flaws are in the game design. The levels are extremely grid-based, as if they were designed on a grid-paper/math-paper, with far too many open areas. Very little curvature and painfully equilateral/square.
For an FPS, this is the definition of repetition and boredom, with uninspiring gameplay.
For example; you have no clear indication where you should be moving, nothing leads the players to move in a certain direction - and worst of all, a few of the doors as you exfiltrate a building have 180 degrees potential angles to watch out for on the horizontal and 90 degrees on the vertical.
So, you have got to track and trace with your eyes 270 degrees to ensure you will not take damage (or die) just by walking through a door!
That…is not fun, and is really poor level design for an FPS.
Just to play devils advocate, in de_dust2, you have got choke points at 3 locations:
- double doors / ct spawn / long A/B
- quad doors / long A
- short B / stairs
None of these locations has 270 degree angles/points to watch out for!
- is covered as the doors are angles outwards, allowing peek/peek/peek at 15-45 degree increments
- is covered (again) by the angle of the doors, allowing for cover as T, with a height advantage to T and options to lay down smoke for cover.
- although is the riskiest for T, is the fastest route and is balanced to such a degree that CT will get there 2-3 seconds before T could rush it and set up, if organised - but has cover and counter-cover.
The fun is that the tactics of team play is down to having choice, and giving players the options.
Nova (from what I’ve seen in the level design) does not appear to be catering to anything but a grid-based ‘square’ design, instead of (perhaps) a triangular or pentagonal non-equal design. I think they said (in promos) that they were going to have a focus on console gaming, and that to me says ‘3-lanes’ which can be fun, and certainly has benefited the COD bank balance over the years!
In any case, no one wants to walk through a completely open door and know they could be potentially shot from anyone in a 270 degree angle
It wasnt PvP map but PvE map with enemies that had to get routines and were cannon fodder mostly, it was like tower defence of sorts. I dont think they would use it in PvP.
That’s just makes it worse!
Why O Why have a PVE map with artificial intelligence able to use the most obvious tactic of ‘door-camping’ to win the game?
After adding a simple script like ‘addbots#5’ and PIE’ing the map, it should have been made apparent the map had flaws in the design - which it appears were fixed by spawning (from the videos) bots a farther distance away! Dull and uninspiring gameplay, because the thought process would be something like this:
“I know where the bots will spawn, so I’ll just wait on the ‘safe’ side of the door, and counter-camp, so, I don’t die and get easy kills”.
…
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I think they cancelled this because it was going to cost too much money to get it off the ground and they would also need alot of server resources and staff they do not have.
It a shame because it did look good and its something i would have paid for.