I’ve been thinking about a very interesting thing lately. Do you feel the same way as I do, in Eve, a lot of items have a very interesting description, which is a very important reason for players to like this game. However, solar systems that are closely related to player’s daily game do not have a description.
Maybe it will be a bit difficult for CCP to write an interesting description to each solar system. But what if our player is involved? Let our players write our own stories about each solar system, and vote to choose the story of each solar system. And then update these story to each solar system`s description in game. Another interesting setting is that players can only read the story of local solar system, and if you want to read the story of another solar system, you need to go into that solar system. Isn’t it interesting?
Imagine that, more than 8,000 (maybe? ) solar systems and wormholes, more than 8,000 stories happened to our players. How exciting is this. Besides, maybe it will attract new players who haven’t played Eve before to go into this interesting new Eden.
First off. There is only one solar system and it’s not reachable from New Eden.
And secondly. If you can find someone that can make a system consisting of a static star and planets that is pretty much the same as every other star system in the game sound interesting, I’ll hire her/him myself.
Descriptions fr every constelation, solar system and planet, maybe also moon.
It can be done using CCP lore first to fill those, then next step would be competition between plaers, then filling the rest procedurally, giving, building ties between the already filled descriptions, ading random elements taken from a pool of additional parameters and numbers, using statystical data for each place taken from EVE.
The way it would be done would be a mix of different systems as you can see, living up to the expectations of even the most demanding kind of rpg player.
Simple procedural level of that system was already used in original Elite by Braben.
thissys.x=(((*s).w1)>>8);
thissys.y=(((*s).w0)>>8);
if (thissys.govtype <=1)
{ thissys.economy = ((thissys.economy)|2);
}
thissys.techlev +=((thissys.govtype)>>1);
if (((thissys.govtype)&1)==1) thissys.techlev+=1;
/* C simulation of 6502’s LSR then ADC */
thissys.govtype =((((*s).w1)>>3)&7); /* bits 3,4 &5 of w1 */
thissys.economy =((((*s).w0)>>8)&7); /* bits 8,9 &A of w0 */
thissys.techlev =((((*s).w1)>>8)&3)+((thissys.economy)^7);
Creating a description for systems that contain Landmark Beacons would be easy. The Landmark Beacon itself could be used as the base starting point for the systems description.
Perhaps it would be simpler if text didn’t need to be translated into all supported languages. But that fact adds a “hidden” cost to every new word put into the game. A description for EVERY system would be a LOT of words
It’d be cool to incorporate some stuff like why a system got it’s name, I think there are a few named places after CCP Devs. I think there’s a CCP-US in nullsec somewhere. If it’s got significant Eve lore or player lore that would be cool to add as well.
It would be neat to have a structure called a “Memorial Beacon” wherein players - whether for a fee or through ownership or both - could place some narrative for other players to later discover. There would be a list of timestamped entries, like mails, so returning players could choose to read the latest additions. This would not only allow players to contribute to and preserve a history of locales in EVE but would also provide more opportunities to honor departed players, etc., such as already occurs with the naming of stations, but in a way that is more likely to be preserved long-term.
I’d love to see the in-game description for Jita.
Starting small with some of the notable systems would be nice.
New Eden, Dead End, Old Man Star, Poitot, Thera, Heaven, etc. , all these systems have stories behind them, but finding the information can be an exercise in futility.
The one thing that the system description would be good for is to record the history of major player activity in the game.
Some of the old stories (eg. the loss of Steve) and major battles (eg. B-R, Asakai, M-OEE8) are still widely known, but there are a lot more, that shaped this game that most people playing the game now have no real idea about (eg. NOL-M9 back in the BoB war), but they provide such a rich history of activity and the community.
It would be great if the system description could act like a kind of encyclopedia of EVE history. No need to try to invent something interesting for each system. The history of activity in the systems is already unique and interesting all on its own.
Post 2011, CCP acknowledged that while they create the gaming environment, what makes it such an appealing product is the community driven stories. There seems to be less of that now (maybe I’m just nostalgic) but some of those stories provide real hooks into the game.
Seems like such a wasted field in the data at the moment that could be used so much more productively.
