missing here too and i would guess for everyone else also as shown in other threads…
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how many of you think that fenris is going to complete the rest of the military campaigns during downtime if necesarry later to be able to update it, i mean, if you promise it then you better already be working on that code, they probably have it done by now.
all the scordite is gone from minmatar space!!!
it was all mined…
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It took me a while to write this post, notably because I was busy with other things and other writing projects, but also because I wanted to explore and play through the Minmatar campaign long enough before sharing my thoughts. I hope it’s not too late for this post to get noticed, but I wanted to at least add my tow cents to the subject of military campaigns.
I’ll start by sharing an excerpt from the feedback I posted on the Vanguard Discord regarding the playtest of EVE Vanguard’s Operation Avalon, as it covers most of my criticisms about military campaigns:
I have a major concern regarding the addition of military campaigns to Vanguard: that they might turn into a mere grind rather than genuine conflicts, repeating the mistakes made in EVE Online. EVE Online’s military campaigns were billed as “living conflicts with clear arcs, goals, escalation, and resolution”, supposedly creating “moments worth committing to, outcomes worth fighting over, and histories worth remembering.” They were meant to make conflict “more meaningful and consequential,” yet what we actually see in EVE Online are missions that, for the most part, don’t even require fighting other players or participating in faction warfare. There is no need to capture specific, strategically important systems, actions that could rally players and lead to fun, interesting battles shaping the future of the universe and its empires, reminiscent of the Triglavian invasions, the Floseswin IV conflict, or the build-up FW campaigns for the Uprising expansion. No, instead we have to grind mining, hacking, and PvE, or occasionally capture random complexes and go out to kill more-or-less random players. To me, that feels neither dynamic nor memorable. I once read a player’s opinion comparing it to a chore list rather than a genuine campaign that rallies people to fight together in fleets, and I tend to agree. Apparently, this is because it’s still in the testing phase, so I hope future military campaigns will truly center on PVP and specifically capturing designated systems, much like the events I mentioned earlier.
And also, it seems strange to me to make an update like CoW just to test a feature like the campaigns considering FC already made the events I mentioned earlier. They weren’t perfect, but why come up with a new grind-fest system instead of just reusing what had already been designed and coded in a better way?
There is also the issue of RNG, or at least of something that feels like RNG. Sometimes, we get objectives that are really long, difficult and tiring to complete, objectives with staggering quotas to meet, like this:
I don’t exactly know for how long these objectives were available, but they are still far from finished because of how tedious they are. In my opinion, they almost perfectly represent the problems of CoW and it’s grind-fest like feeling. Fortunately most objectives have been completed but it’s still a problem that some of them are so tiring to do that they are still unfinished.
Moreover, the fact that this initial version of the military campaign is so disappointing that it makes the expansion seem pointless and empty, as it’s supposed to be the main focus of CoW. In my opinion, it will be hard to hype players up and make them engage with such content if the next expansions are similar to CoW and if upcoming campaigns are still like this.
I would also like to address FC Okami’s response regarding the criticisms of CoW:
FC Okami: I’ve personally had some really awesome experiences in the Campaigns I’ve played and made a ton of new friends doing social activities, which I think really is the heart of EVE - so I love hearing from folks who have had similar experiences.
It’s great if it allows players to meet people and make friends, but I think it would be even more effective if the issues I mentioned were fixed, if it featured really engaging and truly memorable moments that motivate people to come together at one place with a lot of activity and fight hard together against the enemy.
FC Okami: I’ve also heard from folks who aren’t enjoying them and honestly that’s ok! EVE is many games in one big game and not everything is for everyone. They were designed to be opt-in and also something folks didn’t need to think about if it wasn’t their jam. I hope we can make some improvements in the future that can garner some more interest, but if they have found their niche with a subset of you capsuleers, then I’m happy.
I disagree. As far as I’m concerned, the problem isn’t that I don’t like capturing complexes one after another (it’s actually the opposite, I like feeling useful in the greater war by capturing and defending them), or mining and manufacturing if I have to (it’s easy to do and I can do something else while I AFK mine), or running missions or killing NPCs (it’s really easy and quick to do), it’s that so much more interesting things could be done with the campaigns. In my opinion it’s mainly a problem of structure. In my opinion, making them real campaigns where players will have to come together to, for example, capture a specific set of system could lead to the same things: mining, manufacturing, complex-running, fighting NPCs and players, and it would be much more appreciated and interesting. We could even include hacking by inciting players to hack special data sites and use the items they recovered to unlock specfic sites. I’m happy for these happy capsuleers, but we could have even more happy capsuleers if campaigns were different and actually exciting.
The worst part, in my opinion, is knowing that FC is capable of creating a fantastic campaign system and a great FW expansion. Uprising was really good, and from what I saw, its build-up events looked nice too. The Triglavian Invasion brought people together and generated activity, enough to draw back sufficient veterans during the Drifter Crisis to ensure the Triglavians won the Race to the Hive hands down. We could have had something much better, and I really hope the next expansion lives up to how that FW arc was teased.
I’d also like to make a comment about how the lore is written. It feels like campaigns are the only source of lore, aside the lore about OpAvalon and the bits about Drifter technology research sites in FW, and that makes the universe feel quite empty. It feels like the lore is now just a tool to tease upcoming content and not a way to make the universe feel alive, or at least it feels like there is less effort to make the universe feel alive outside of expansion content and build-up. The absence of Scope videos also reinforce this feeling I have. It’s a shame, because EVE’s lore is very rich and interesting; there is so much that could be done with it. Even during the Triglavian invasion, the lore focused on several different topics, not just the invasion from the abyss. The lore surrounding the campaigns is interesting, despite numerous issues with the build-up on the Caldari side for example, but in my opinion it is undermined by the campaigns’ flaws.
On the other hand, the changes to FW itself, outside of the campaigns, seem pretty good to me, except for the anti-seagull updates. Those didn’t seem very effective, and it looks like FC realized that pretty quickly.
In my opinion, Exordium and related additions seem effective enough. I imagined myself rediscover EVE through this update and I think I would have done well and enjoyed it if I was a new player again.
The Theaters of War window is a nice idea in my opinion as we got an easier access to all the information there is about the warzones.
Conclusion: There are some nice things in CoW but the main addition, military campaigns are for now really far from perfect, but there is so much potential in them. Deep down, I think they could be far better and more engaging. Overall, I get the feeling that this expansion seems empty because of all the problems it have, and that’s really not how I usually feel about recent expansions.
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seconding many of the points raised by @Michael_Minate .
I want to hold out to see what the devs can do with the system as given, but also while at fanfest I asked if the campaign system would effectively put the ‘story’ of the setting in limbo while its all going on, and was rebuffed by the devs regularly saying it wouldn’t, but it has been proven that indeed the story is effectively in limbo because ‘nothing else can happen while the campaign is occuring’ is the current reality.
There’s no political maneuvering in any of the empires, there’s no little blurbs about small things happening in different constellations, its just… empty… and will remain that way until the end of the campaign, and the next campaign will likely follow the same path.
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I just learned via a third-party website that the Minmatar Valkyrie manufacturing and the Gallente Pioneer Manufacturing objectives, which I cited as examples of grind-fests, respectively went live on June 15 and 16. There has been no progress on them for nearly three months. In my opinion, that speaks volumes on how flawed the structures of these campaigns are.
I also agree with what Lauralite said above.
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Why does it take so long to unfit/fit a module today.
Similarly, jumping from system to system, the overview can take up to 30 seconds to load. I’m a carebear in HS, so not an issue other than my patience growing thin. But if this is a wider issue, people in lower security spaces might have a bad experience.
they aren’t writing 2.4 mil lines of code, its already done, its MOVING 2.4 mil lines of code.. and only 3300 lines are actually needing repair or fixed out of that 2.4 mil..
Log on and i find no content, 8 days left until i win eve.
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random question, can fenris turn jita to nullsec for a day, i just want to see the chaos it would cause.
Sure. Let me know in advance when not to login… 
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or just sit cloaked the whole day watching everything happen from a safe distance.
well in case i don’t see you in 7 days.. bye.
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MMOs with compelling lore use professional writers. I suspect this is the fundamental reason why everything feels so… irrelevant. Also, as usual, there is very little follow through. Do you know who Silphy en Diabel is? Apparently months ago she escaped from custody. It all sounded very important., but I don’t know why, nor what happened to her.
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I’m Aiko Danuja!
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Silphy’s one of them Intaki, right?
Something about the Caldari Empire coming apart at the seams, I spect.
Not very interesting to me really.
vOv
Thing about EvE is that it’s not the stories the writers write that really matter, more people care about the stories we all ‘write’ with our actions in game.
This is a good thing.
I’m comfortable in either a theme park or a sandbox, but I agree Eve is the latter hence the players write the stories.
The problem with CoW is that it was massively hyped, is very much theme-park in spirit, and nobody gives a tinker’s cuss (outside of FW) because it’s poorly executed and has no real consequences.
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