Monday, October 14, 2013

Drackarn - Eve-O's EP. BB50

Blog Banter #50 - Changes
Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 50th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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With the Rubicon expansion being announced and the SOMER Blink scandals (or non-scandals depending on your point of view) that have erupted on the community at the same time, it truly feels like an age of EVE has passed and a new one is dawning.

But which direction is it going? This blog banter can be about several different topics:

  • Where do you think EVE is going? Is it a good or bad vision ahead?
  • If you were EVE's new Executive Producer, where would you take the game?
  • What comes (or should come) after Rubicon in terms of the mechanics and ship balancing we've seen? (CSM8 not allowed to answer this one!)
  • Is there anything in EVE's ten year past that should be resurrected? Or buried and forgotten?
  • What is the future of the community? What should or should not change?


OK, I'll take the second option. I am Eve's new EP!


I want there to be wonder back in the game. I want there to be proper immersion. I WANT SCI FI GEEKERY!

Yearly Expansion.
That's right, not expansions, expansion. Singular. There would be one proper expansion in the summer and three other 'updates' in Autumn, Winter and Spring. Working still on the agile development process and very similar to what we have now. But this gives a vision for a year, not just a six month release cycle. This does two things:-

1 - Allows longer for bigger more head-line features.
2 - Manages those bastard players expectations.

The second one is pretty critical. Call something an expansion and players expect an expansion! Call it a update, patch, content release or whatever and peoples expectations are lowered. Less disappointment, less rage. The summer would be the feature release. Autumn would be fixing the problems. Winter will be minor features, little things, the minor improvements. Spring would be finishing off the previous expansion and laying the groundwork for the summer expansion.

Balancing.
Fozzie, Rise, Yvit... Yyvat.... Yvettaebu..... and that other guy are doing a great job with the balancing and rationalising the ships. They may have gone a bit overboard on the EAF but I think that is pretty obvious and the EAF that are on SiSi are unlikely to ever see TQ in their current state. There are still lots of ships to balance and then we can get onto the modules, then the ammo, then may be implants, then skills and then back to T1 frigates.


Ships.
More T3. 'nuff said.

Ship Skins, Decals and the NeX.
CCP needs money. In the last week a few blogs have been looking into CCP's financials. With DUST attracting as many people as an all-you-can-eat razor blade buffet more cash is needed. Micro-transactions are not evil when done properly. The problem with CCP's roll out was it was heavy on $70 monocle and light on everything else. The NeX would be revamped. More items.... but never pay-to-win. A different skin for your ship, the ability to put your corporation logo instead of the faction logo. New clothes especially some ones for pirates, does everyone in New Eden dress so boringly. And these would be priced to sell and not monocle madness. A new income stream for CCP.

Incarna.
Limited walking in stations. Bars with small population caps. Sorry big alliances, the client is like the Celtic Cross, only a certain number of people allowed in before a queue starts to form. Lets have NPC's in the bars dealing boosters. Players can sell to these NPCs, these NPCs then adds on their commission and sells to players. Players can deal direct person-to-person and cut out the NPC middle man to make them cheaper. But that requires you hanging around in the bar! Corporation offices! Customisable captains quarters. Ability to make one station your 'home'. Items on the NeX store to furnish. You can change 'home station' but that only occurs at DT. Scotty has less to do in the hanger these days so does a 'home moving service' on the side at DT.

POS Revamp
You know the one mentioned at Fanfest 2012. There is repressed demand there. The new space yurts are a step in the right direction. People want a home in space whether that is a customisable captains quarters or a small space base to call your own.


Exploration.
When did you last feel sense of wonderment and fear of the unknown in Eve? Probably Apocrypha. That needs to be reintroduced. Jove space can easily be opened up. As they were dying out the Jove destroyed all the technology so there are no uber powerful sites to find, but there is a lot of the older sites still around with rewards for whoever finds them.

Free Gifts from CCP
Right lets give out some iScorps! Looking for members of the community who do a lot of work and make New Eden a better place for all.... for very little reward. People I'd start with?

SCL guys - Done.
Mark726 for the Lore Guide.
Chribba for Eve Files, Eve Agents, Eve Offline etc
Sindel Pellion for the Angel Project
Open discussions with RvB and especially Eve Uni to see who in those organisations should get one.

Golden Magnets, Silver Cynabals, Ruby Ravens and a whole host of other ships will be compiled as available for "give aways". However, those given away will be publicly announced and stating the reasons why. There will be a limited number of ships and the ships will change each year. 2013 will be 200 iScoprions. 2014 may be 200 Quafe Domi's or another race or corporation. Limited number as thanks for those who help massively for little reward and limit the numbers each year to make them special.

0.0 Rework
Yeah, years since I was a null-bear. All I know something needs doing?


So there you go. What you'd get if I was made Executive Producer. In a few hours I'm jumping on a plane and going to an island that is 600m long, 300m wide and is located in a tropical ocean. For the next 10 days it is going to be sun, sand, scuba and being sozzeled! But fear not. I have posts all lined up to go on the normal days and they will spring into life by the magik of the interwebz. Comments may take 10 days or so to appear though! Have fun whilst I'm away and as always, fly deadly o/

8 comments:

  1. Very nice Ideas, especially the WiS part. That really needs some love. There is so much you could do with that stuff...

    Shiny stuff in NeX would be helpful too. More variety in clothing is really needed, it is all too common. Painting ships is a long wished feature, that would be well accepted for the right price. Buying a paint job for the next 200 ships of class X for 10$ maybe? Of just 5$? The cheaper it is the more we will see in eve (flown and blown up) and that is increasing the variety in eve which is always good.

    0.0 Rework... yeah lot to do there.

    Have a nice Vacation.

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  2. Drack for EP !
    all ideas are very good,

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  3. CCP just can't seem to catch a break. They were trying to give us big(ish) features, then Incarna happened and the playerbase said - or at least the prevailing consensus at the time said - "no more Jesus features". So CCP moved to the new development cycle unveiled at Fanfest - which most people seem to have forgotten - which means no more big features introduced in a single "expansion", but instead rolled out gradually over the course of 3 years (or 6 "expansion" cycles) or something like that.

    Now, everyone seems to be clamouring for CCP to go back to the way it was before. You almost have to forgive them for wanting to ignore players.

    All that said - and it's all still valid points, I think - I love this blog post. Yes, for the love of God, please, CCP, stop calling something an expansion when it is little more than a patch or an update. Want to call it an expansion, then give us some meaningful game content.

    But, yeah, things do need to change. The old way wasn't quite working out, and the new way sure isn't.

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  4. In the mean time if they could consult the lore team as closely on clothing items as they do on ship names, that would be nice.

    The t-shirt-and-cargo-pants look is left over from their hopeless dalliance with real-world fashion designers. It needs to die in a fire.

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  5. I'd vote for you. :)

    Interesting that yours and Rixx's release strategy is almost identical. I have to say, I think it's a great concept and you explain the reasoning behind it really well. I'm sold. The only shame is that I doubt it'll happen because the twice yearly shot in the arm that EVE's marketing gets is too valuable to reduce by 50%.

    I'd love to see the WiS content expanded. At Fanfest (2012 I think) Torfi showed us video footage of a player character wandering through endless corridors, hallways and elevated walkways all using existing art assets. I'm sure it's not technically overwhelming to deliver *something* that allows social integration and some rudimentary gameplay. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking and PvP-centric. I'd just settle for complete.

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  6. While it would hurt at first, the yearly expansion followed up by major updates or point releases would actually help manage player expectations. No longer would players be expecting big things twice a year and be disappointed both times but it would fall into the planning and allow them to release more complete stuff for each playstyle instead of just bits and pieces.

    Not sure about you but if I get a laptop I'd appreciate if it had a motherboard when I buy it.

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  7. I like this set of ideas. I would love to be able to get ship paint jobs in the NeX. I won't be buying clothes for my characters since I never look at them. I would buy a lot of paint if that were an option. I know if I could get a Bengals paint scheme that would be awesome. Probably some legal stuff there, but it would be pretty cool. Besides, if the killboards listed the paint scheme as part of the ship it would add to the effect. Who wouldn't want kill mail with a Bengals paint scheme on it?

    -RHunter 13

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