New EVE Online Expansion Detailed 96
Eurogamer reports on the EVE Online Fanfest, at which developer CCP revealed details on the game's next expansion, due out in March. It will be the biggest expansion yet for EVE, and it will "introduce 'Tech 3' modular ship designs, branching epic mission arcs, further improvements to the new player experience, and exploration of uncharted space through unstable wormholes. ... The focus of the expansion will be 'true exploration,' with players using new skills and modules to travel through wormholes into all-new, unconnected space." CCP also hinted that further graphical upgrades would be coming, and a standalone first-person shooter based on EVE may be in development for a console release.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
They claim to have cracked down. Yet they never fired those responsible. The developers still play the game that they run. They claim this offers no advantages to the alliances that have developers among their ranks. It is of course utter bullshit. Any inside knowledge will confer an advantage, and we already know that trusting the devs to not abuse their position is untenable.
The developers should remove themselves from the game - there is absolutey no need whatsoever to be among the playerbase to develop
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Will it be enough? (Score:2, Insightful)
I must say this: (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought Eve you just log in, select your skills then log out for weeks waiting for them to train up.
At least that's my experience with it. I always hated crafting in MMOs and Eve (with it's corporations and focus on money it seems) feels like a huge crafting MMO to me, without crafting.
I played it for a month and a half and originally, I thought I'd go out and adventure. I'd check out all the bases I could. I'd see all the cool systems I wanted to see. Then the reality of space kicked in. Traveling w
Re:I must say this: (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand your frustration from the game-play side of things, but in terms of game lore, this makes a fair amount of sense. Comparing an automobile to a space ship is pretty silly. Consumer autos are designed with a fairly standard set of controls and features, and don't vary to a huge degree in terms of capability. And I think it might take more than an hour to learn how to safely drive, say, an F1 racer.
In EVE we are talking about talking about ships far more sophisticated than the space shuttle and are generally built with very specialized functions in mind. Pretty much all of the ships are larger than the Eiffel tower (even the lowly frigate) and most are bigger the the Enterprise-D. Also keep in mind that the pod pilot replaces the entire bridge crew.
While it's essentially impossible to "catch up" to someone who's been playing longer than you (providing that he is good about remembering to have a skill in training at all times) it's not necessary to have an equal number of skill points to effectively compete with him in different circumstances. A manufacturing-focused character may have no advantage over you in combat, and the opposite is also true. Also, skills are subject to diminishing returns compared to the amount of time that is invested in them. Achieving Level V in a skill may yield a 5% improvement in one area, but take months to train. Most people don't bother. If you have the skills to fly the same type of ship and the same type of modules, generally speaking you can stand toe-to-toe with someone who's been playing for years longer than you.
Also, the advantage to this style of skill advancement is that your character's capabilities isn't connected so directly with how much time you can spend playing the game. It's more casual-friendly, in that sense.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. EVE-Online is probably the most open-ended MMO out there. More than any other game, it is left up to the player to decide what his goals will be, and how best to fulfill them. The game gives you relatively direction, but there are many directions that you can decide to take. Yes, you will need to play for a certain minimum length of time before certain aspects of the game become fully available to you, but that's no different from other MMOs -- in EVE, at least you don't have to run on the treadmill for hours on end to get there.
Re: (Score:1)
The thing that made me quit Eve after years of playing was this: ships are big and their graphics have window-like bright spots on them....
Really? This is what made you quit?
I've been playing for a while now. There definitely -are- reasons to stop playing. I've taken breaks (one or two months) because there weren't many fleet ops going on and I've seen others leave entirely for numerous reasons (getting blown up in a ship they'd spent weeks saving up for). But...
Seriously? If the lack of storyline verbage really bothered you that much, why didn't you just go read EVE Chronicles [eve-online.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, it takes 6 months for a US Air Force pilot to become (rated as, at least) proficient in any particula
Re: (Score:2)
But the pilots aren't given the ability to take off to another country to trade iron while they are being trained either...
So, this is where I hit the wall of stupidity. The skills are time based to make them take longer, to make you keep feeding them money. That's the ONLY reason for a time/skill based system like this. It's an artificial barrier to keep "power gamers" from out pacing the developers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I must say this: (Score:5, Interesting)
True enough. I tried EVE for the 14 day trial period. I loved the idea of EVE; however, it was a pain in the ass to get anything accomplished. If you wanted to get new quests you had to be referred to the next quest giver or else they wouldn't even talk to you. Then, some of the quest lines were cryptic at best and I couldn't figure out where/who to turn the quest in to. I gave up but not for a lack of trying.
EVE is a very intelligent game, one requiring patience and perseverance. The problem is, at the end of the day, I've used up all remaining patience and just didn't have enough for those frustrating quest lines you inevitably will run into.
Space fantasy game where you can get your own super-destro-death-star warship: +5 points.
Poor playability: -5 point
Help Forum FULL of too many people for an overtaxed support agent: -3 points.
I'm sad that I feel this way. EVE holds so much promise.
Re:I must say this: (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly misunderstood the mission system since what you are describing is only storyline missions and not regular agent missions.
You need a couple of tools to survive in eve.
1) eveinfo.com/missions Google for more support sites.
2) A friend that has played. Message me in game if you don't know anyone else My player name is Locke DieDrake or Chloe DieDrake.
3) a general introduction to missions. Read the FAQ and the Forums sticky guides. They will tell you exactly how it works.
Missions require that you have standing with agents, but even on your first day, you have standing with your faction agents and can grind missions for weeks no problem.
The problem new players have is that they aren't at all prepared for EVE to be as complex and deep as it is. WOW is a shallow stream next to the ocean of EVE.
Start a new character (or whatever) and open your bio. Go to the standings tab and select the highest ranked corp, then hit the agents tab. Pick a security, or internal security or whatever agent (those two are combat type) and select an agent, his/her location will be listed, right click, set destination, and go fly there. When you get there, dock and ask the agent for a new mission. Do the mission, and then come back to the same agent. Rarely you'll be expected to drop something off at a different location, this will be clearly marked in the mission journal and a hyperlink bookmark to the location will be provided.
It's simple, really. ;)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Those three things ARE bad design, a well designed game would teach you that by itself.
Re:I must say this: (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
> can grind missions for weeks no problem.
Okay, but why would I want to? Now, sure, most MMOs suffer from the same issue; if little numbers going up doesn't give you a kick, you're going to get bored quickly. EVE seems worse for this, though. In WoW, I only _think_ I could wander AFK during combat to get coffee, in EVE I actually can. The electronic warfare and jammers and other stuff you get later seemed like it may make things more interesting, but I've never understood why it's expected I sink my time
Re: (Score:2)
Any game that you need to have a friend who plays in order to learn it is poorly designed. Eve has many great strenghts; playability and learning curve are not among them.
Re: (Score:2)
Correction: If you are high-school level litterate, and know the basics of using your rational faculties, you can learn on your own. In fact, as an excercise, DON'T read eve-info and sites, try to figure it out for yourself. Someone has to figure it out at first. And in EVE, that gives you a real advantage. Albeit somewhat simplistic, this comment actually describes EVE fairly well: "In EVE, there are two kinds of people: The Do:ers and the Followers". I myself am a Do:er: I spend time analyzing changes to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that the vast majority of time the scenery consists of empty space or an out-space background. Maybe there are asteroids around or in the background. Maybe a planet is nearby. But with the warping around it feels... dunno, meh.
Re: (Score:2)
My main problem with EVE is that before you play you have to fill in about a thousand different attributes for your character, most of which you have no idea what they mean unless you've played the game or spent weeks reading up. Would it not be possible to let me get a feel of the game before I spend half an hour selecting what colour my character's underpants are and what his golf handicap is?
The next problem of course would be sitting there watching your spaceship fire lasers at an asteroid.
Re: (Score:2)
*shrug* I learned EVE on my own. The UI is a different style then WoW and all of it's clones, but I would not describe it as difficult.
The Secret Of Eve... (Score:2)
...is that it is many games for one subscription. Since you can accrue skill points ("level up," such as it is) while logged out, the only real objective yardstick for "success" is how much money you acquire. And there are dozens of different ways to make money.
Arguably the least time-effective way to make money is PvP combat, but PvP is fun -- which is the measure of *subjective* success in Eve (or any game). You can fight, explore, use hacking and archaeology skills to complete specialized missions, ma
Re: (Score:1)
They are constantly improving on the new player experience. It is a lot easier to learn now then it was 5 years ago. Biggest issue now is a lot of people try and skip over the tools they give thinking they will just pick it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it DOES help if you have friends who have been playing for awhile, and, in my case, I was able to get into a decent corporation quickly. Eventually, after some incidents with a war declaration against our alliance, a friend of mine (who'd joined at roughly the same time) and I split off an
eve upgrade? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they ever get station ambulation up and running yet? They'd bought White Wolf a few months before I quit playing and the talk of a World of Darkness MMO made it sound like the dev pool was about to suffer a major drain.
I love space combat games and if any MMORPG was going to suck me in, it would have been this one. But it just required way too much grinding. What finally got me, I had finally worked my way up to a battleship and was doing the hard missions that made the battleship worthwhile and the NPC frigates warp-scrambled me. They're so damn fast, you're scrambled before the fight even begins and if you realize you're overmatched, you can no longer escape as you could with cheaper ships in easier missions. A battleship represents the product of more game time than I'd care to consider and it can be destroyed in seconds.
The other thing that made it so awful is that the loot tables kept getting tweaked so less good stuff would drop, the addition of salvage meant that you now had to run your missions in a warship and then run through those same stupid rooms with a salvage ship, doubling the grind time without doubling the revenue...
All of that finally hit me upside the head and made me say "Self, what are you doing with your time here?" I won't even go into the devs cheating and shit, that'd take all night.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, much amusement is to be had laughing at noobs flying battleships in missions without the proper support skills and fitting know-how.
Re:eve upgrade? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you were "just" getting into BSs and you thought "hey I can run level 4 missions now" you are sadly mistaken.
The problem with eve isn't that it's hard, it's that it's harder than most people think it is.
However, lots of players have been around since the start and this makes it nearly impossible for new players to compete on an even field. In fact, there is no such thing as a fair fight in eve. You either get smeared, or you smear the other guy.
I've got 2 accounts since day one. They are both ELITE. I never go anywhere alone. EVER. I've got a corp, and if I'm flying outside empire, I've got friends with me, lots of them most of the time.
The good thing about eve is that it's the only online game that allows players to build and hold an empire. It means something to do this, and it means something to hold on to it. And it opens the door for some EPIC level fighting and intrigue.
I'm an on again off again player, in fact I have probably spent more months not playing, than I have actually playing, but it's still the only MMO I've ever liked at all.
There is a major problem, actually several. One is BOB and their empire founded on developer cheating. Another is massive imbalance between new and old players. Another is that there is no such thing as a fair fight. But I don't seem them fixing any of that anytime soon.
Re: (Score:1)
I dunno if I wholely agree on impossible-for-new-players-to-contend thing,
It's the same in almost all games imo.
For example if you start playing an RTS you're not going to be winning any 1v1's anytime soon, not when the everyone you're against knows all the shortcut keys and what's good against what, etc. And in an FPS you won't fare much better against those that know the maps and have uber reactions built up. I think you stand a much better chance in EVE than in almost all other game genres, even other MM
Player Error (Score:2)
Everything can be bounced back from. Went a little too far into 0.0? oops... Grind a little, buy another BS, and don't make the same mistake again.
Someday they're going to get walking in stations implemented; and I'm never going to make money in the real world ag
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I love space combat games and if any MMORPG was going to suck me in, it would have been this one.
Jumpgate Evolution [jumpgateevolution.com] is what I'm hoping will deliver a quality space combat MMO, but if you prefer the more tactical (from what I've seen) combat that Eve has, JGE may not be your cup of tea. It looks like it's going to be more like an MMO version of something like X-Wing or Freespace.
Re: (Score:2)
What finally got me, I had finally worked my way up to a battleship and was doing the hard missions that made the battleship worthwhile
training mindlessly for a bigger, and not necessarily better ship, without support skills is not a good idea.
They're so damn fast, you're scrambled before the fight even begins and if you realize you're overmatched, you can no longer escape as you could with cheaper ships in easier missions.
why didn't you just use your drones on them? any BS can load a bunch of small drones in its belly.
A battleship represents the product of more game time than I'd care to consider and it can be destroyed in seconds.
you did insure it, right? even if you didn't, you still get a standard payment (of about half the value) and some of your modules back from the wreck. doesn't sound like a major loss to me. especially if you're a mission runner. don't fly what you can't afford to lose and all that.
The other thing that made it so awful is that the loot tables kept getting tweaked so less good stuff would drop,
meh
the addition of salvage meant that you now had to run your missions in a warship and then run through those same stupid rooms with a salvage ship, doubling the grind time without doubling the revenue...
you could salvage on
Re: (Score:2)
I think I once ran a mission in a battleship... it was boring, so I went back to 0.0 where all the action in EVE is.
Also, warp-scramming frigs are what drones are for. All battleships have a good drone bay, and light drones can be trained up within a week, easy, to the point where they'll kill an NPC frigate in seconds. your overview even shows you which ships are scramming you, now.
It also sounds like you went too aggressively for large ships without paying attention to the base skills. A battleship should
Re: (Score:1)
No, Ambulation I think is scheduled for the patch after the one being referred to here. I hear they are making a lot of progress on it though, but don't expect it to be quick.
As far as grinding is concerned, EVE is a sandbox, you do not have to run a single mission. Personally, I prefer the 0.0 wars. Last week we had a 100 dreads +400-500 support vs 100 dreads + 400 to 500 support 5 hour fight that was rather lag free for most of the fight. I had ok frame rate, could target, activate modules, etc without pr
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't sound like Joe-No-life if he puts it on autopilot and walks away, sounds more like Joe-has-life in my opinion..
It's going down the toilet (Score:2, Informative)
I've been playing for 2 years, and loved playing it for most of that time. Recently there was a staff reshuffle and things have gone downhill since then. So-called "game re-balancing" is nerfing months of skill training in gunnery and speed modules to make it completely useless. That means 100 euros worth of subscription money paid for training which is worthless now. Players have tested the changes on the test server and given feedback to the new CCP dev team, but it was completely ignored.
On top of that i
Re:It's going down the toilet (Score:5, Informative)
Declining? I'm showing 21 thousand on right now, and that seems about right for this time of day.
I haven't seen any major change in population status in some time, so I think obvious troll is obvious.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Not trolling.
http://eve.coldfront.net/status/tranquility [coldfront.net]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There are multiple graphs. You can't just look at one. There seems to be a very slight increase in players in the past week or so, judging from the daily graph. However looking at the big picture, it looked like Eve growth was doubling every few years until early this year. There has been a no-growth period for the last 6 months. Who knows why that's the case though. The shitty economy could very well be the reason why growth is now stagnant.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
You should really look at that bottom graph. It looks like some users dropped right around the time ghost training was nerfed. Other than that, i see a gradual and steady growth in the userbase from 2005-present date.
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh...I may be loosing my mind here, but it appears that graph is going up, or remaining the same....Not a decline.
But what do I know....
Re: (Score:1)
I've no problem with being charged to play a game or avail of a service. I never said I did. What I object to is when I put in a lot of time (and money) to get something out of a game, and then the company running it decides that my skills are now useless. I'm speaking about T2 large blasters, it that makes my comments any clearer. Several months were spent training those skills, admittedly the last month of that was during my exams and my account was inactive at the time. I reactivated my account when my e
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If anyone laughs at your complaining, or rolls their eyes, they have no idea just how big of an effect such a nerf is.
For those who haven't played EVE for any appreciable amount of time, here is how skills are trained:
Skills are trained over real-world time. Some skills can take over a week, month, or longer to train. You can only train one skill at a time.
That means over a month or more can be wasted on your skill-ups, and training skills in EVE is not a trivial thing. EVE is built around players stayin
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Your skills are NOT useless, why would they become useless? The fact that you can fit & use T2 large blasters is fantastic. Do you understand why people are saying blasters will become uselsess? It doesn't have much to do with blasters.. it's the weakened webifier and MWD stuff. Blaster Megathrons won't be able to zoom up tackle and kill any ship in the game anymore. You certainly will be able to refit an Afterburner instead of MicroWarpDrive and focus your attacks on other Battleships and slow ves
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
If you take a look at this thread you might appreciate what I am talking about.
It's not just related to speed nerfs, blaster specialists have also been hit very hard, just so that the speed issue could be "re-balanced". There is a multitude of well though out suggestions in this thread which are superior to CCPs solution.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=831524 [eve-online.com]
WARNING! it may take you a few days to read the 4275 comments.
Another 5406 comments on an unrelated issue can also be
Re: (Score:2)
The second thread you link almost reads like a Monty Python skit.
"You won't let me *not* play for free?! Well, in that case I'll cancel my *second* and *third* accounts dedicated to not playing! See how you like me not playing for free now! And my first account? Well, it'll not only 'not play' all that often, but pay to do so! In your face, CCP!"
Re: (Score:2)
I include it as a demonstration of CCPs unwillingness to listen to player feedback. They seem to have forgotten that in a player-defined universe, the players opinions are as important as the developers.
how about the hundreds of threads full of "narf speed plox" whining which lead up to the actual nerf. you got what you asked for. it's very easy for people to complain when they don't understand how the big system works.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't be so down about it. This nerf is light (yes i said light) compared to nerfs of the past. Remember Warp to zero? Nos nerf, ECM nerf, the first nano nerf(remember the NanoTyphoon?), Torp range nerf, WarpCoreStabilizer nerf, modifying ships like Drake, Myrmidon, and others. Not all changes are bad either. I remember when they literally doubled the hull/armor/shield points of every ship in EVE, that was crazy. But all these changes keep the game fun and on a level playing field. Small ships will b
Re: (Score:2)
While I fully agree with the spirit of your comment, it's worth pointing out that snake sets certainly got a major nerf - they used to be this hideously expensive way of making any relatively fast ship nigh-invincible, and that's no longer true. Also, webbers got nerfed massively, and it sounds like they're stack-nerfed as well now. While I can't disagree with that, it means that anybody focusing on a Rapier or Huginn is going to find them much less valuable now that you can't permanently trap anything in t
Re: (Score:2)
What happened to the original CCP dev team? Were they pulled off for a new project or something?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been playing for 2 years, and loved playing it for most of that time. Recently there was a staff reshuffle and things have gone downhill since then. So-called "game re-balancing" is nerfing months of skill training in gunnery and speed modules to make it completely useless. That means 100 euros worth of subscription money paid for training which is worthless now. Players have tested the changes on the test server and given feedback to the new CCP dev team, but it was completely ignored.
This right here is why I prefer single-play to MMO's. If I enjoy Grand Theft Auto 4, that's great. It will remain the same game today as it will four years from now. Do I like some MMO? Better hope nobody mucks it up. If GTA5 sucks, I can stick with 4. I can't stick with an old version in an MMO.
I loved my Gallente drones but they were getting to be about worthless. Stupid drone AI always meant you'd be losing one in difficult missions. Is it so hard to return to the fucking ship when I say return?
Source code for the expansion (Score:2, Funny)
I've had to pull a few strings to grab a hold of the expansion's source code. Luckily the download should be a small one.
GenerateExpansion()
for (i = 1..200)
GenerateSolarSystem()
end for
end GenerateExpansion()
GenerateSolarSystem()
GeneratePlanets(random(1..20))
GenerateBases(random(1..3))
GenerateAsteroidFields(random(1..5))
GenerateSecurityLevel(random(0.0..1.0))
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, please... Destroy 5 years of backstory and legends.
Re: (Score:1)
EVE needs a new server all right. But not like that.
Node crashes with 'only' 400 people (or less) in system. Happened in M-O several times during a fleet battle before CCP decided to reinforce the node. It was so bad they even did rollbacks. People who had lost ships got them back, insurance payout and all. Of course, you can request through petition that CCP reinforces the node, providing you do so 24 hours ahead of time, and give them the system where the fight will take place (Yeah, right..) They're
Re: (Score:2)
To me, in my limited experience with the game, it seems like that even those speed is being dialed downwards, ships intended to go fast will stay fast, like interceptors.
that's right, frigates go even faster now
Afterburners will be more desirable, and assault frigates may become viable again.
right again, but assault ships were always viable *grin*
Ultimately, there will probably be smaller, more specialized gangs, which may (or not) help with the lag.
this will affect small scale warfare mostly (pirating) while the other optimizations (StacklessIO, 64bit servers, etc.) will help with the 0.0 scale encounters. oh, and Jita. have you seen how snappy Jita is lately? it's actually a pleasure to go shop there now, and not a chore.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: assualt ships, my experience is that yes, they're viable... if you make thim into slightly slower, far more powerful interceptors. The Jaguar is the only one I've found to be really good at this, though I've not flown the Gallente AFs. You simply can't put a meaningful tank on something that small (except against other things that small) so it's all about speed tanking... and with small weapons, you are forced into web range (instant death if they have a web, see comment about tanking) if you want a res
Re: (Score:1)
600 ship fight, no lag
New Graphics? (Score:2)
BBH
Grain of Salt (Score:2)
I take these announcements with a grain of salt.. ok, an entire salt lick. CCP has a long history of announcing cool stuff and then never following through (or deliving something so watered down that it is almost worthless)
They have been promising walking in stations for years, as well as T3 and the new exploration system. They have also been promising an industry expansion which was originally going to be this summer (but got preempted for Empyrean Age, i.e. combat content), and then rescheduled for thi
Cheating? (Score:1, Insightful)
Does it have new and improved cheating by the developers?
Learning curve FTW (Score:1)
And its true. After 5 years, I have a few lessons to pass on.
For anyone who is used to simple smash-n-spell MMO's, Eve can simply be overwhelming. The sheer number of fittings that can be put on even a Tech 1 frigate is huge, although after you learn to fit a ship properly the pool shrinks considerably as you stop fitting shotgun-style and start fitting purpose-specific.
Google is your friend, as is EveMon (a