Despite all the bitter vet posting EVE is still a game which does many things - often quite well, sometimes poorly - which no other MMO even attempts. There's no alternative comparable game as with most MMORPGs and it's not going to die until there is.
Well Perpetuum is still in beta, but once it is out EVE will have some actual competition.
What happened to Jumpgate Evol. ?Originally Posted by Eejit
If there is one thing i would love to see EVE expand into its Freelancer style dogfights; imagine being able to fly a fighter or fighter bomber out of a Carrier/MOM in the midst of a 0.0 fleet fight. No i dont want counterstrike in space.
Not Dead, Just Sleeping
shit, I had said "with" here originally, instead of "without"
Besides Jumpgate there is kinda also Black Prophecy http://www.blackprophecy.com/ (from a company which forked another game with great potential Neocron though)..
While I have signed to the betas either have somehow lost the track of events or they didnt actually have started yet..
I don't like your name
Sorry. If it is any consolation, it is more an exasperated observation from my wife than a name.
Its a joke, you're both hermits in space.
Eventually would be good enough, as it brings the dynamics that was in eve few years ago.
Look at drone regions, when it started, literally tens of groups fought each other, than it boiled to smashkill vs. russians/irc/ed than it end up with from russia with love. Now almost dead 6-7 regions, where no changes nor some exciting stuff happens (by exciting i mean changing). Stagnation is death.
The boredom of the older players is a product of this consolidation, as there is no challenge for them. Yeah join blob a and hope for login, or for slaughter on either side. That results of many players going numb and you see people going apathetic.
to continue the above, yes a casual player or new players (which are the targets of eve marketing department) seem to do okay, but there are few problems connected with the i dont care veteran:
a) retaining a customer is far cheaper than to get a new one, especially a loyal one. So surge of new players isnt really that interesting, unless they stick at least for few years.
b) yes we 0.0 vets are the minority, however we are those that all the rest looks upon in the thats waht i would want to do one day (or most of them). We are the reason the game exists and the game advertises our doing, our gametime, as in all ads you see empires, players having cap fights, working together in epic wars, etc.
c) the 10% as said in 0.0 (i think its more) are the most active players, having most accounts and thus creating the content of the game. The game isnt for solo players, and without 0.0 groups, the culture live and possibilities of a players would be very low in empire. As most of the game features can be only experienced in 0.0 and only in big groups of players.
= keeping the old 0.0 vets happy and in game should be priority of CCP if they want to at least stay at the same unique player build universe.
One thing CCP could do to break up the blocks a little bit is remove jumpclones, remove jumpfreighters, jumpbridges and shrink space and prolong travel time between systems.
Atm people from south or north go to fight 10 region away and in 24hours they are back home. Make them move the old fashioned way, make them run freighter runs for every pos, make them wage a war too far from their regions.
So if you venture on a roadtrip, someone can just go and camp your home and burn it down, without you being able to react fast if you god know how far away. You need to leave some defense home and thus it would remove the dead regions of sov but no active players.
Wars would be fought in neighbouring regions, as logic assumes. And people would naturally remove blues as otherwise it would be too painfull to find hostiles closeby. So members would force their leadership either to move to space closer to hostiles or make hostiles as close to their homesystems.
A trip from farthest south region to farthest north region should take a day with fastest ship.
Its really stupid if you can fly few times a day to mpire freely from the farthest outbounds of space. Yeah its convenient etc, but it takes out the fun for all of us, in various professions allover 0.0.
Fuck off with trying to make eve bigger, with the current 0.0 situation you sometimes have to fly 60 jumps to find something to kill, that is easily 1hr wasted just flying there in a bc/bs sized ship.
You obviously have never lived in one of the deep 0.0 regions (omist, branch, period basis) moving shit to these regions is a bitch on the best of days, it can take 45mins-1hr to do one trip to omist in a jf (if you cant use station systems for cap regen) and sustaining the JB network to these regions runs into the tens billions every month, because you need so many bridges (along with the initial cost of the system, upgrades, ihub ect and the recurring costs of fuel and sov costs).
If CCP were to make it harder for 0.0 to function, they would further shorten the (already pretty fucking short) list of good reasons to actually set up in a non-npc 0.0 region.
Without any smack:
a) its not my fault you have blues 60 jumps around you - see you argue thats a problem however you have the solution in your hands
b) find a region closer to mpire if this is too tough for you - again move to region closer to mpire like scalding if its too far
For droneregions that's true. And you just gave an example for what I ment. Every clutter turns into bigger blocks eventually. Saying that a fresh game hasn't advanced in that process compared to EVE is nothing but obvious. I'm not even arguing that having 20 blocks fighting each other would be more fun than what we have now, not at all. But EVE's way past that point. Without totally switiching out the majority of 0.0 corp/aliances vips/ceo's/directors and putting everyone back to square one it simply won't happen with EVE. You'll need EVE 2.0 for that. And even then it's just a matter of time you'll find 2 to 3 big blocks again.
Or in other words: There certainly are parameters to adjust the pace but not to totally prohibit it. Even if a Par Mollen wouldn't have started to play EVE back in '03 and there wouldn't be an NC, you can be sure we'd have similar powerblocks by now, only with differing names, colors and borders. Without being able to back it up, I think we can be lucky the big blocks are duking it out between each other whereas I heard from other MMO's the big boys stick together to rule as oligarchs. That would be even less desirable.
Nontheless, I fully agree, Droneregions are the most dead/stagnant 0.0 area in EVE and the dronerats probably add up to it as it's seen as undesired space except if you're a renter's slumlord or industry whacko with refinery monople.
Given that there are even under current lag-conditions enough people log in to fight and according to your own map we have +100k chars in 0.0, at least I don't think CCP is in any danger of running dry of 0.0 participants. And while you are correct that the 0.0-pvp'er is somewhat of a rolemodel for a empire-dwellers, I don't think the details matter to them too much, less our bitching. For example you can find a good share of posts from former providence members on this board demonstrating how little they know about what's going on outside of providence, the average empire-dweller knows even less. Most they do is hate on goons cuz they don't get them, curse on blobs and laugh about lag with the reasoning "why bring so many people", all totally unfounded. What am I trying to say is that even peple within empire who may have all the 0.0 experiences yet to gain restrain from it. And not just as of now but are sucking on veld or dwelling in Motsu for years and years.a) retaining a customer is far cheaper than to get a new one, especially a loyal one. So surge of new players isnt really that interesting, unless they stick at least for few years.
b) yes we 0.0 vets are the minority, however we are those that all the rest looks upon in the thats waht i would want to do one day (or most of them). We are the reason the game exists and the game advertises our doing, our gametime, as in all ads you see empires, players having cap fights, working together in epic wars, etc.
c) the 10% as said in 0.0 (i think its more) are the most active players, having most accounts and thus creating the content of the game. The game isnt for solo players, and without 0.0 groups, the culture live and possibilities of a players would be very low in empire. As most of the game features can be only experienced in 0.0 and only in big groups of players.
= keeping the old 0.0 vets happy and in game should be priority of CCP if they want to at least stay at the same unique player build universe.
CCP can use the 0.0 population for advertising needs for years to come because the majority of the subscribers (new and old) will never get into detail enough to experience the flaws (and positives) first hand.
I don't think the 10% is correct either, alone for the potential amount of lvl4- or industry/researching alts held by 0.0-players. Still that leaves the majority of players living in empire, some for years, and they apparently have all they need in empire without missing 0.0. So I disagree with the later part of that quite. For those EVE would work just fine without 0.0, maybe less fortunate for the builders and faction/officer/deadspace-loot sellers.c) the 10% as said in 0.0 (i think its more) are the most active players, having most accounts and thus creating the content of the game. The game isnt for solo players, and without 0.0 groups, the culture live and possibilities of a players would be very low in empire. As most of the game features can be only experienced in 0.0 and only in big groups of players.
The facts have a strong anti-A- bias.
if everyone took that stance then there would probably be 10 permanently empty 0.0 regions, and exceedingly overcrowded NPC and close to empire 0.0 regions.
There would be always groups that would take empty space. Considering Detorid/Omist is like 10x better in moon/ratting isk possibilities than Scalding Pass for example iam sure it would still be of a advantage. Plus i dont see really anything bad on having the farthest regions being only for the toughest and most capable people. Equally populated regions are not needed.
The problem, dear Aurora, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.
You have to make the "harder to fight on the other side of the map" change along with the "you need less space" change, so that you can fight people half a dozen jumps away because you only need/can hold a constellation or two.
If you still insist on napping all your neighbours at that point then its not CCP's fault.
Detorid yeah, its a good region. But Omist is really pretty terrible, the only thing it has going for it is that it is essentially the safest region in eve to build supercaps in due to its location and distance from other regions.
My understanding is that reinforced mode already is this. Normal nodes run two systems in two separate processes, a reinforced node runs just one.
it's more than 2, it's a bunch, but yes basically.
THE GREATEST POSTER
i know for me one of the defining moments in EVE for me over the last year or so was sitting in front of my computer for 3-4 hours staring at a black screen. Which is nothing exceptional in of itself, however because i had tried to login after the node crash my titan had appeared in space, meaning that im staring at a black screen with my titan sitting at a safespot and not dissapearing. (i was staring at my other account's blackscreen, hoping my titan would disspear)
It is truly a helpless feeling knowing (close to half) of all my eve assets are sitting in space, with no control, no ability to affect it, merely luck of the draw on some probers login screen. Just sitting there, asking on channel command every five minutes if my titan is still there. That helpless feeling is not something i would ever repeat. It is also the main reason we have likely not seen a major capital fight in the north and likely wont. Both sides know that the jumpers wont load, because of which, HOW do you cause such a fight to happen?
Take out JF's and bring back freighter ops. Even though PL lives by it, being able to pack everything you have into a couple of carriers and moving regions is too easy. This wasn't so bad when it wasn't fucking capitals online. I remember watching the Last G Campaign when I was a noob and remember them having to do freighter/bs move ops just to be able to assault. Right now it seems way too easy.
freighter ops were boring as shit.. i remember having to do freighter ops for weeks in the preparation for RISK to attack phoenix alliance in branch.. those ops took all night, since freighters warp so slow.. going back to that is a big pain in the arse and just means everyone in 0.0 is doing freighter ops.. this was all with small POS as well.. trying to build supercaps would be nigh on impossible.. which doesn't sound like a bad idea, except theres already hundreds if not thousands of them already.. it borks the whole thing up and just won't happen...
too high to use grammar will edit later
Right now there is a huge difference between a industrial and freighter. They need to make a new ship class that is about right in the middle to make logistics way easier for the average person.
What, like... an Orca?
They take mining barge and foreman V to fly. We need racial ships.
I think logistics difficulty is part of what made CCP think that only 2 or 3 would ever end up getting built. As to fucking newer players over... tough, even now titans are still uncommon when compared to anything else so if people want to own one all they'll have to do would be get the isk together and buy one instead of build one. It would be the first time in years that the titan population actually goes stagnant/down and we'll finally have those ships start to be rare in the sense that they were set up to be.
People need to start losing them, but with the current server performance nobody is stupid enough to field them (apart from pl) so there is almost no chance of any dying in combat.
Also a few supercap builders who i know, who were planning to build titans have switched to building Supercarriers because they are easier to sell and cheaper to build (with a larger profit)
I have not particularly enjoyed Eve after Dominion rolled out. In the past few few years I have always been a fan of the game in one way or another, but post-Dominion it just sucks. It could be the culmination of so many years in the game, but I don't think that's it. The game has always sucked on multiple levels, but the people always made the game fun.
I used to enjoy trolling all of the assorted forums, but now there isn't much to troll for some reason. There has been so many fucked up problems with Dominion just about everyone is railing on CCP. The grid lag is fucked, super-cap changes are ridiculous, sov mechanics are ten times worse than they were and CCP makes random game changes /wo much insight into the fucking game.
Personally, I think the game is in it's final decline. There has been very little innovation in Eve in quite some time, outside of back-end architecture. Anytime you ask your user-base (CSM) for game mechanic ideas, I think the end is near. Have they run out of ideas or are they simply bleeding the game, while they create a gay vampire game for twelve year old girls?
Little by little, one goes a long way
Formerly the artist known as Serj, Ykatni, Acobar, Intravenous deMilo and about fifty other mains/alts the last few years.
No more character sales when I ragequit, seriously....
It's a shame really, there's so much depth that could be added to the combat mechanics if server performance wasn't an issue. The biggest one: gun collision. Having guns hit ships in between them and their targets would add a whole new dimension to combat. Right now the only real dimension is how far away you are. With real collision fleet positioning would be paramount; we could use larger ships to shield smaller ones, do broadside attacks, etc. I'd say under a certain speed ship-ship collisions would just be bounces, and the gate jump range would have to be increased greatly so as not to damage yourself on warpin, but most of the problems would be easily fixed.
There's also room for power management, changing effectiveness as a ship is damaged, buffering shields on attack vectors (goes hand in hand with gun collision), and a multitude of other changes that have all been hashed out before. I'd happily accept lag in 200v200 battles if we had that sort of combat depth.
CCP will never do this
EVE 2.0 however, our hypothetical golden game...that should have a proper damage system.
and transfer of inertia.
Not Dead, Just Sleeping
Making logistics harder won't change anything. It would be bypassed by having multiple fleet ships stationed with jump clones. Power projection can only be countered by the lack of need to do it.
The giant naps that make the game stale is our own faults. It's up to us the player base to change it.
Current sov mechanics are shit. We need multiple objectives spread about many different systems. Something that forces the blobs to split up.
The server must be fixed. Combat can't exist with the threat of blackscreen death. It's just not fun. Why they haven't put out any patch attempts boggels my mind. I still think it's that fgt fleet finder shit.
New ships like a t2 orca that can cyno jam a system. Would stop hotdrops and force conventional fleets to duke it out.
With the current state of the game, the only hope I have is the renters take up arms against the big boys. It's the only interesting thing I can see in the future but I doubt it.
So basicly it's up to us and ccp to fix this game or sit back and watch the fucker burn. Wall of text on an iPhone suck
It still ends up to players themselves - look for example at IT/Molles plan - Team A goes there / Team B elsewhere / Team C.. and those are still megablobs on their own even with multiple objectives/targets.
Regarding the new ships could agree.
It has always worked better rather than to completely rework existing ships/mechanics (on this matter I still feel that MS getting some shield emitting module which could protect surrounding ships from the AOE DD of titans would be more interesting than putting them now in solo gankers role).
Jump clones are one of the things I want done away with.
I dont think CCP is overly bothered about fixing the blob lag situatin. Imagine if it was sorted next week. IT or one of the other Mega Blobs would then put a couple of thousand in a system instead of 300 to ensure victory. NC or whoever is fighting them will try to counter with the same and the lag would return.
As others have stated we need to get smaller Alliances into the 0.0 arena. Being able to cover vast distances in a few mins needs to be nerfed. If you look at the South atm we see from Delve to Prov either blues or nearly blues (Props to coven/Stain/Brick for bucking the trend. If Caps couldnt jump nearly as far or needed tons more fuel that would help a little i think. in the North there has always been fight within a few jumps, Tri, white noise, C02 and others are always harrasing NC.
If we cant get far quickly we will all have to start fighting those closer to us or stagnate and die. This has to be the long term answer and not just clear lag so we can have super mega blobs (SMBs).
No it wouldn't, the lag was never this bad in the year leading up to Domination despite both sides throwing in the kitchen sink multiple times.
Of course your summation of distance issues is spot on, though.
If you want to make capitals consume more topes then CCP would also have to redo Ice Mining to make it worthwhile.
Whenever capitals start being used and lost tope prices skyrocket due to supply/demand, the idea behind nerfing range by increased fuel needs shouldn't mean using capitals become economically non-viable.
Well its not as if thats something that basically should be done anyways because the only people who mine ice currently are Chinese bot owners overseeing 20 chars at once.If you want to make capitals consume more topes then CCP would also have to redo Ice Mining to make it worthwhile.
Believe it or not, I know a few odd non-chinese folks who mine ice with only 1 to 2 chars.
The facts have a strong anti-A- bias.
Yeah these people do exist. Mostly its guys that would rather mine ice for their own tower than buy it (because if you mine it it's free!!!!)
Not Dead, Just Sleeping
People always ridicule the idea, but it can make sense. You can mine ice with far less attention and afk far more of the time than most other isk-making activities. Opportunity cost isn't exactly an issue if you wouldn't be making isk at all otherwise, perhaps due to missioning being a bigger distraction from your movie, book or whatever.
i got my first cap ship by mining on a spare computer at work. i had a little app that would beep every 28 minutes to warp the hulk (i think? maybe mack, dunno) in and out
you clearly never played WoD
THE GREATEST POSTER
When I saw a CCP shirt at GDC Shanghai give a demo where half the people got up and left the room upon seeing the rapping nords fill the screen (wtf??), I was ready to pounce on him about the core of their development processes, which were supposedly using SCRUM for Apoc at the time. He looked a bit nervous that there was actually an Eve player in the room. The conversation would inevitably lead to bugs and whether the agile model would be continued with Dominion or not. The answer was no, and in regards to legacy code...... ding, no time for questions.
In the biz its pretty tricky for us game developers. You do have to stop somewhere, because you can just keep straightening detail after detail to the most infinite degree. Most managers like to cut things on the rough and get it out the door sooner than later - even the almighty Blizzard follows this process, with its players whining about rampant bugs and poor testing processes. But Eve takes it to a whole new level. One thing that irritates me to no end is how on Singularity they don't post patch notes. They have *patch notes* but not like build-to-build notes so you actually know what little tiny things to test for. Someone once told me to "just test for everything." I mean, sure definitely go back and do comprehensive testing instead of just unit testing before you push it out into TQ, but you can't ask volunteers to do that for each compile. What really gets me, is on a couple of occassions they just skipped the comp. test for the TQ candidate, so go figure. The forum moderator said don't make a test thread for this build because we've already decided its going to TQ - Are these guys for real?
But anyway, I understand that a finishing line has to be drawn and usually its shorter than where customers like it -- just to the threshold that they will put up with it - but CCP likes to walk the edge of the cliff.... they really should hit the brakes and focus on breaking gameplay issues.
Mod cleanup, aisle three
That's the first I heard that they abandoned Scrum.
EVE will go down as the last successful MMO to use the pre-November 2004 MMO development model of release total crap and hope to fix it overtime (but still be broken in many serious ways). No serious MMO will ever get away with this again — the expectations are raised, the niches are filled.
You really think MMO's are released nice and polished? Most MMO's you play during the first few weeks are all buggy as hell.
Optimism. Now i KNOW you haven't been here long
Not Dead, Just Sleeping
Yes, I registered just to post this soon to be flamed crazy-or-already-mentioned idea.
Totally remove the standings system from EVE. Leave only the little blue star and green star for corp and alliance mates for identification. Maybe go as far to even remove corp/alliance tickers from overview. Limit corp and/or alliance sizes to a size that makes sense in what the servers can handle in one fight.
This will reduce the epic NAP fests we have now (as it will be much harder to practically quickly identify NAP buddies - NIPs should be doable still, I guess). This should, to some degree, limit the typical size of biggest fights around. For instance, to avoid shooting your NAP/NIP/whatever buddies, you cannot blob up together. It will more be, you defend/attack system A en we do B.
Of course this will make the game suck in other, new ways, but I'm wondering if it won't be worth it to try and counter the suck that is NAP blobs.
I'm sure people will jump on me with a zillion reasons why this is stupid - go ahead, change my mind.
blobs will still happen all it will do is require a little more communication
blob fc 1: we are jumping in now dont shoot us
blob fc 2: ok
we had "standings" before standings.
THE GREATEST POSTER
Seems you haven't played Eve before goons came up with the idea to alter the portrait images (from a remote standings base) in cache to immideatly see how many reds/blues are in local.. and then CCP banned for it and later adapted the feature
p.s. which was also why CCP had to implement cache file checksumming.. bassically slowing the client load time
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