What is the game missing most

Communications Center General Discussion
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Ok. I am a person who has started playing EVE just recently. So, this is a pretty fresh look at what this game is missing (at the point where I am) and what I wish I could see in it.

But first thing: this game is AWESOME. There are TONS of great things about it. The simplest complement is that I love it and I intend to continue to subsrcibe. But I want to focus on what could be improved because this is probably more valuable.

Now, the constructive criticism. One. The payment. It’s a mess. At first I thought the game was really expensive (20 euro/dollar per month–this is the value of 500 plex). Then I thought: it’s actually free, because you can earn plex in game. Then again, I thought no, buying plex for isk is not a great idea. AFTER A MONTH, incidentally, I found out that you can subscribe this game for a more reasonable, although still pricey amount.

I don’t want to argue with the prices. My problem is with how it is presented. I hope you see the confusion from my last paragraph. To be honest, my own preference would be to have a simple subscription, without all this alpha and omega mess. It should be clear that I pay X, CCP earnsX, and I can play.

Now what bothers me the most: no life. Yes, this is a multiplayer online game and you can meet and do stuff with other people, but what you see on the screen is only cold machines and space. All that character creation system at startup is wasted. There is an AI in the tutorial and then… That’s it.

You never even see the inside of any of your ships. You see very little of the inside of the stations. You never see any planet up close. No life.

I know that changing it seems like a huge deal but it doesn’t have to be, if it’s tackled in tiny steps. Why not add some people to our ships, people that we could interact with? Which of you guys wouldn’t like to carry some hot girl mechanic around, eh? They could be capsuleers, AI, or whatever. They could have some small influence on how the ships work, again, whatever. Nothing much, because the game mechanics seems nicely polished as it is, but this could serve as a great way to introduce more rpg, more storylines, perhaps show station or planetary life.

As I said, this is what I’m missing, so there :slight_smile:

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First off, gross. No thank you to that “hot girl mechanic” comment.

Second, no. Walking in Stations was (fairly) recently removed because it was almost never used by an extremely tiny minority of the players and all it did was cause problems each patch. EVE players don’t want it, and CCP’s got the data to show it.

I hope it stays missing because it’d be a crap ton of work to create useless assets that almost no one will use. Dev time can be put to something that actually matters and has an impact on the game. Go fantasize about owning “hot girl mechanics” in your own time.

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Welcome, and glad you are enjoying the game. Good points in your post. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for CCP to make it a little more up-front, in character or account creation, or even the startup tutorials somewhere, that “the best way to experience all EVE has to offer is a monthly subscription, and here’s the easy 1-2-3 on how to do it! To welcome you as a new player, we’ll even offer a 20% discount on your first subscription!”

The second point, that of no “human interaction”, is a bit trickier. I know a number of people over the years who have dropped out of EVE fairly early on, saying they just didn’t connect with it. When I talked to them about the things they do connect with, one thing was pretty clear - they considered ships to be gear or equipment, and their ‘character’ (and other people’s) to be ‘themself’ - and the lack of character interaction in the game made them feel distanced and unattached to their gaming persona.

I think this was what ‘walking in stations’ and various ‘avatar’ initiatives CCP has mentioned over the years was supposed to address. The problem with it is, there is really no place in the game for natural character interaction. They could graft something in, but it would feel pretty ‘tacked on’ and would likely annoy some players unless it could be turned off without losing anything.

About a year or so back, EVE had a startup tutorial that featured popup videos of your ‘faction superior’ assigning you tasks and guiding you through the tutorial (along with Aura). So that was kind of interesting but they had to nuke that version of the NPE because it had some bugs in it. Plus, as soon as you were done the tutorial you would never see video of anyone again, so it kind of set up false expectations.

It would be nice if a clever way of making our characters a bit more visible and interacting with others was workable, but I haven’t any solid ideas along those lines yet. Maybe someone who’s a bit more creative can come up with something.

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Wrong.

It was not removed it never went live beside of captains quater which was basically JUST A SINGLE ROOM,so no wonder ‘nobody used it’…it never was given a chance by CCP.

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Didn’t realise it was unclear.

I agree with @Kezrai_Charzai a simple sub is the best way to enjoy all of eves perks without it feeling like a second job. I don’t think it would hurt ccp if they dialled back the ‘play for free’ and pushed the sub a bit more.

So when eve was originally designed it was fashioned as a ‘player run game’. The idea was that your interactions were almost entirely with other players and that made the ‘life’ in the game more immersive. Seldom visited systems had little life in them and more populated systems we’re full of interaction etc. Npc ‘life’ wasn’t necessary so it wasn’t built in.

I don’t mind the addition of npc life and even suggested that colonies on planets get a face-lift where you can see planet-side haulers moving between structures.

Mission agents with living character portraits wouldn’t be terrible. Or just the epic arc agents to be made more life like.

Considering how much work would be needed to create environments for ships and stations, what would you do?

Talk to crew members? Go to a bar in a station? Spend a few minutes going through every dialogue choice and then what? And why?

There’s no function for stations or ship crew that cannot be already covered faster and cheaper by adding a station button. So there’s no point in putting in the huge amounts of effort to create the environment for something that players will think is cool for 5 minutes and then turn off because it gets in the way (which is exactly what happened to captains quarters).

Balance issues.

You’ve already got mods that go down with the ship or implants that stay with your pod. What are crew going to do that isn’t already covered?

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Random Thoughts
~ Cloaked ships that launch special purpose covert scan probes that can find cloaked ships, but they can’t scan while cloaked.
~ Planetary interaction could be a game within a game played out on the surface of each planet, with it’s own trials and tribulations.
~ A special game mode that would allow a player to select the ship of his choice and activate a new filament that would randomly “jump” you to a completely different region at each login, random system, random security status. With the reward only coming if your ship simply survives uncloaked for a predetermined amount of time, with reward bonuses for any pvp interactions. Immunity to all Concord involvement at all but you have a bounty on your ship that pays out to anyone who can destroy it within the hour.
What is the game missing most?
To me I guess I would have to say, my fellow, now retired bitter-vets (if they read this, come back).
Side note
I always carry a stripper…Female… in my cargo hold.

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My longtime “missing most” component is a proper Bounty System…I think this would a a ton to the game and make the dynamics of HS (and to some degree LS) way better.

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Agreed that CCP really missed the boat when they took bounties from “too abusable” to “simply pointless”. It would probably require adjustments to a few other game mechanics to make it work, but an actually functional bounty system would add a lot to the core gameplay.

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I was actually thinking this would be a fun occupation, maybe even make a decent living as a hired service.

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Counter covert-ops…interesting…it would have to be pretty SP heavy/specialized like for a JF pilot though I would think.

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Not only is it a bad idea that’ll never be implemented in game, no one would ever pay for such a service even if it were. Why would anyone pay a random nobody like you when they can just rely on their own corp mates that they already trust.

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A compass and elevation gauge would be worth more than the past 5 years of quality of life improvements.

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The CQ of course, with the ability to open the doors.

Whats behind them? Corridor leading to a hub where other CQs are, and a level lower, when you take elevator, there is a bar and corporation offices where people meet and look at starmap and out of a big window into space full of oportunities, while planning the future empire shape.

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And even further down, areas where you don’t want anyone to know you’re an egger. Not unless you’ve got good security with you.

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What they didn’t tell you is that all doors in Eve lead to CCP Zulu’s wardrobe full of $1000 pants.

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You pay a monthly fee and you can play. How much simpler does it need to be?

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No, go away.

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Should keep them to yourself.

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That’s no way to talk to a newbro just entering the player community. And neither is getting creepy incel political about boobs.

JFC people, try having some basic manners. Everyone here should be at least 13 and so capable of it.

As to the actual questions/comments: one thing to realize about the EVE setting is that when in space, you as a capsuleer pilot are not on a ship as much as you are the ship. You are not standing on a command bridge, you are immersed in a gel-filled pod that hijacks your sensory and motor functions to control the spaceship. So when you fire the guns, it’s like a weapon in “your” “hand” and when the shields take damage it’s “your” skin getting scraped. There’s still crew on your ships, for the necessary maintenance and manual tasks, but you’re not on Enterprise anymore, Toto.

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You mean I should have said: “no, ■■■■ off”? I usually reserve that for the more experienced idiots here. But if you insist I can edit the post for you.

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