New EVE Online Expansion Detailed

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.

Comments

Will it be enough?

[lordsid]

Will it be enough to bait old players to come back? I doubt it. I certainly won't be.

I must say this:

[iamwhoiamtoday]

How hard Eve Online is: http://www.sgnonline.com/vb3/showthread.php?p=127720 It's insanely hard to learn... even when you have friends helping you through every stage of it. I much prefer WoW over Eve, because at least I can learn how to play WoW without consulting someone else every 5 minutes.

Re:I must say this:

[lordsid]

That is more a reflection on you then it is on the game. It is utterly simple if you follow the tutorials. They actually already have a pretty decent new player experience. But then again it doesn't sound like you have been playing mmorpgs for that long. Personally I started with Ultima Online over 10 years ago.

Re:I must say this:

[Like2Byte]

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:

[Anonymous Coward]

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:I must say this:

[MindlessAutomata]

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:I must say this:

[KDR_11k]

Those three things ARE bad design, a well designed game would teach you that by itself.

Re:I must say this:

[Xugumad]

> 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 into something dull for a possible future reward.

Re:I must say this:

[drsquare]

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:I must say this:

[dreamchaser]

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:I must say this:

[nschubach]

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 was pretty boring, I couldn't use a ship I acquired from killing some Pirate for weeks (...weeks), and combat was your typical MMO target and shoot. What irked me most about the game though was the lack of ability to drive a spaceship before being trained. I mean... I can go out and buy a car and learn to drive it in a few minutes... at most an hour if it were a REALLY complicated car. Sure you may not be an expert at it, but you CAN drive it. Maybe the future makes all ships so different from each other that it requires special degrees from a major university to teach you how to drive each one. The same applies to weapons, and pretty much everything in the game.

Add that to the fact that you can never "catch up" seems to remove the skill of advancing your character faster/slower than someone else. Oh, and it feels like they already plotted out how much money (real life) it is going to take for anyone to play the game. They know exactly how much time you've invested in the game and how much money you've given them. It just feels like it's "on rails" too much.

Re:I must say this:

[tukkayoot]

I can go out and buy a car and learn to drive it in a few minutes... at most an hour if it were a REALLY complicated car. Sure you may not be an expert at it, but you CAN drive it. Maybe the future makes all ships so different from each other that it requires special degrees from a major university to teach you how to drive each one. The same applies to weapons, and pretty much everything in the game.

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.

Add that to the fact that you can never "catch up" seems to remove the skill of advancing your character faster/slower than someone else.

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.

Oh, and it feels like they already plotted out how much money (real life) it is going to take for anyone to play the game. They know exactly how much time you've invested in the game and how much money you've given them. It just feels like it's "on rails" too much.

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:I must say this:

[kv9]

it teaches you that by itself. just dont skip the damn tutorial and initial mission.

Re:I must say this:

[Shinobi]

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 mechanics, shortcuts, new ways to utilize the established mechanics etc

So it's not designed badly, it's just the players that expect dumbed-down bullshit like WoW, or the crap that passes for games in general on both the PC and the consoles that are badly evolved.

Re:I must say this:

[jythie]

*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.

Re:I must say this:

[rhathar]

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?

Re:I must say this:

[Stephenmg]

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:I must say this:

[Erbo]

I will say that EVE is one of the single most complex games I have ever played. Learning to control it is a little like learning to fly a 747. But people DO learn how to fly 747s, and I did learn how to handle EVE.

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 and founded our own corp, and we've brought other people into the game ourselves (including my girlfriend, who's now an addict!).

Re:I must say this:

[brkello]

I don't think Eve is difficult to play...more that it isn't all that fun to play which makes it more difficult to learn. I really hope they make PvE more interesting. The PvP players will cry their eye out but when PvP amounts to who gets more people together or sitting at gates blowing up people who can't fight back...it would be nice to have some PvE to make the game fun for the other 95%.

Re:I must say this:

[brkello]

I think the game really isn't all that deep or complex. Certainly, PvE is much more shallow than WoW. Most of the problem is that the user interface is extremely unintuitive. Fighting is about targeting something and hitting f1-f6 and either orbiting or flying towards a station so you can warp out quickly when you get overwhelmed. That is nice of you to offer to help people though. The game is all about other people. If you don't have friends that doing something, it has to be the shallowest MMORPG of all time.

Re:I must say this:

[brkello]

It's a game. In reality, it should take like 5 people to pilot a small ship and hundreds for the big ships. But since it isn't reality, we don't have to worry about it. You could just write the lore to say that your brain is a computer and you are uploading how to learn to fly all the different ships. They do it just so that it takes longer to train anything...not because it fits in to lore. All that stuff can be written to say whatever you want.

Re:I must say this:

[dwye]

I can go out and buy a car and learn to drive it in a few minutes... at most an hour if it were a REALLY complicated car. Sure you may not be an expert at it, but you CAN drive it. Maybe the future makes all ships so different from each other that it requires special degrees from a major university to teach you how to drive each one. The same applies to weapons, and pretty much everything in the game.

OTOH, it takes 6 months for a US Air Force pilot to become (rated as, at least) proficient in any particular type of plane. If this is any particular type of fighter, vs. cargo plane, this includes being able to be better in it than most other competing air forces, of course, since they don't want you to die in your first combat like this was WWI (average pilot lifespan was 2 weeks, then) and, incidentally, wreck a $40 million plane when you do. Maybe they are modeling that?

Re:I must say this:

[nschubach]

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.

eve upgrade?

[jollyreaper]

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:eve upgrade?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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:eve upgrade?

[bigstrat2003]

I love space combat games and if any MMORPG was going to suck me in, it would have been this one.

Jumpgate Evolution 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:eve upgrade?

[x78]

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 MMO's such as WoW where you don't stand a chance against someone 2 levels above you.
At least in EVE I thought I stood some chance after playing for 2 months and getting a T2 frigate on the go, still not much use when you get warp jammed and webbed in some 0.3 space asteroid field though :'(

Re:eve upgrade?

[kv9]

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 the go (big wrecks) while looting. this was addressed with the T2 mission battleships (marauders). but some people favor the specialized salvage ship approach because it's more efficient.

All of that finally hit me upside the head and made me say "Self, what are you doing with your time here?"

it's not like you don't have options. running missions is one of the gajillions of things you could do in this game.

Re:eve upgrade?

[cbhacking]

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 easily tank most level 4 or lower missions for much longer than "seconds". Heck, I've run level 4 in battlecruisers (though it takes a long time).

Finally, with full insurance and no super-expensive PvP modules, a money-making battleship shouldn't be more than perhaps 50 million final cost (that's actually a bit high if it's a tier 1 or 2 battleship, but you also don't get the insurance back until after the ship explodes). Running level 4 missions, you can make 50 million in well under 10 hours without even bothering to collect loot.

Re:eve upgrade?

[Stephenmg]

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 problems. This was the biggest so far, but there have been other fights that have been close.

It's going down the toilet

[johno.ie]

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 insult, they have nerfed the old feature that allowed you to continue training 1 level in 1 skill when your account expired. Apparently they think it's unfair to them if people get any training for free! This change was made with 2 days notice and resulted in the largest discussion thread ever on the forums. Also completely ignored by the CCP dev team.

I'm still playing a bit at the moment because I like talking to the friends I've made in the game, but I'll be quitting when the current months subscription expires. It's not the same game it was when I started playing, server population has been declining for the last 6 months. I think it's going to die off in a few years.

Pity, it had so much potential.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[Drakin020]

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:It's going down the toilet

[johno.ie]

Not trolling.
http://eve.coldfront.net/status/tranquility

Re:It's going down the toilet

[johno.ie]

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 exams were over, mainly to play with the new toys that I had finally got and they will be nerfed to death with the new patch on Tuesday next week.

That is what I would call unreasonable.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[ChinggisK]

I don't think it's fair to accuse them of not listening to players about the speed nerfs without mentioning that most of the players complaining about it were flying ships that could go so fast that they were pretty much invincible, something that CCP never intended to be possible. Also, IIRC, they did delay the rebalancing a few times because they were listening to player input coming in from the test servers and making adjustments. I haven't been following it that closely but apparently the finalized plan is quite different from what they originally intended to do.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[MindlessAutomata]

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 staying for the long term, and to do anything you need to train up skills for a long period of time. There's not a real comparison situation in other MMOs. This type of thing is a real kick in the balls to those people who spent training that skill. It's not like a nerf to some "epic loot".

I haven't played EVE in a long time, and I didn't even play very long, but I understand enough to know that's a real big safety pin through the testicles.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[johno.ie]

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

WARNING! it may take you a few days to read the 4275 comments.

Another 5406 comments on an unrelated issue can also be found here.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=896318

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.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[AnonGCB]

But... that graph shows an /increase/ in players!

Re:It's going down the toilet

[tibman]

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 be a viable option in fleets again.

Your skills aren't worthless, wtf were you training? This was not directed at you, this is a blanket nerf to all of EVE. So refit your ship, get creative, and most of all; undock and kill some bastards

-Fly Safe and Happy Hunting

Re:It's going down the toilet

[tibman]

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:It's going down the toilet

[LordOfYourPants]

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:It's going down the toilet

[tibman]

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 vessels. This is good news for the rest of EVE, frigates will become very useful again.

Gallente have been THE pvp race for a while, it was Amarr once and Amarr are pretty balanced now. It looks like Minmatar will be a much better option after this next patch. Caldari are still pretty much the same since the birth of eve. The changes that you are worried about will affect everyone in EVE, not just Gallente.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[Aereus]

What happened to the original CCP dev team? Were they pulled off for a new project or something?

Re:It's going down the toilet

[jollyreaper]

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?

Re:It's going down the toilet

[kv9]

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:It's going down the toilet

[kv9]

they are still on board (most of them) it's just that they have new people.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[Drakin020]

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:It's going down the toilet

[cbhacking]

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 the game (short of a jammer) at 37 km and blow it to smithereens with heavy missiles and artillery.

Re:It's going down the toilet

[Cornflake917]

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:It's going down the toilet

[AnonGCB]

True, but johno said that it was declining, not stagnant.

Source code for the expansion

[LordOfYourPants]

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))
      Connect(this, universe)
end GenerateSolarSystem()

I kid, I kid...

Re:eve could be a really interesting game

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Yes, please... Destroy 5 years of backstory and legends.

Re:eve could be a really interesting game

[electr01nik]

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 touting StacklessIO as the be-all-end-all-death-to-the-lag-monster, yet the same problems still crop up. Instead of things like Tech 3 ships (I'm barely into Tech 2 ships and I've been playing since April.. ), make it so I don't have to wait 30-60 seconds for a module to activate, or fixing the varied and numerous bugs.. overview not displaying targets properly, resulting in friendly fire (Always fun to explain to your CEO), or Traffic Control popping up when you're on the move (waiting 1-2 minutes for the gate to fire in hostile territory can get the adrenaline going nicely), or the address book not properly displaying who is and is not online (for keeping an eye on that Titan pilot trying to ruin your day.)

EVE has so much going for it IMO, but there is so much more the devs could be devoting their time to fixing, rather than just throwing new features at us. EVE is still fun for me, and will most likely continue to be for some time, but some of the problems it has are frustrating.

Quantum Rise will be interesting to see how it pans, especially with the speed changes (I haven't been on SiSi to try anything). 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. Afterburners will be more desirable, and assault frigates may become viable again. Ultimately, there will probably be smaller, more specialized gangs, which may (or not) help with the lag.

Re:So with this round of "enhancements"...

[Anonymous Coward]

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 and run the game no matter what excuses they give.

Re:eve could be a really interesting game

[kv9]

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.

New Graphics?

[BigBuckHunter]

Will a new particle system and planet generation improve the 30 minute black screen when jumping into a fleet battle? Did CCP change the shade of black?

BBH

Grain of Salt

[jythie]

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 this fall but got preempted for blob support (more combat content) and then got rescheduled for march, which it looks like some of it might trickle in so who knows.

T3 is already sounding depressingly lame and not very useful from an industry perspective, so I will not call T3 an industry expansion.

So yeah... I'm not sure how much stock I put in what they promise.

Re:So with this round of "enhancements"...

[BenLeeImp]

Personally, I would think that having developers that actually like to play the game they are developing would be a big benefit to the playerbase, albeit indirectly. Speaking personally, I am much more likely to put extra effort into a project I have affinity for. In addition, having the developers playing the game allows them to get firsthand looks at how things are going out there, and get ideas for how things should be improved. Getting this information through analysts, of one kind or another, is rarely as useful - in my experience, that is. YMMV.

Re:EVE online.

[LingNoi]

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..

Re:eve could be a really interesting game

[ChinggisK]

Apparently the recent upgrades have helped with fleet lag considerably - http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=918868.

600 ship fight, no lag :o

Cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have new and improved cheating by the developers?

Re:eve could be a really interesting game

[cbhacking]

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 respectable DPS (drone boats aside). Sure, an AF can pound the shit out of any frigate it can catch (and hold - often meaning you *need* a web) or possibly a t1 cruiser without a web, but that seems the limit of their usefulness, and that t1 cruiser costs a lot less and can actually put out more DPS in a real fight.

The Secret Of Eve...

[RobotRunAmok]

...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, manufacture (and/or smuggle) illegal narcotics, haul other people's stuff for profit, hire out as mercenary, put on a white hat and be sheriff in the solar system of your choice, build starships, space stations, or empires. But you can't do it all, or even a good fraction of it. And *That's* what the tutorial does not teach you... it exposes you to a smattering of everything, and more than half of what it throws at you on day one you won't touch again for a year -- maybe NEVER -- if you don't switch careers. Of course, unlike other MMORPGs, your career is switchable, and not defined by an artificial "class," but by the types of skills you learn. Want to play an "Enchanter with a Bazooka who Hides in Shadows"? Play Eve. It will take you a while to learn the mix of skills, but nothing is artificially off-limits.

I know some players who never leave their station. Make a point not to. They make their money buying, selling, manufacturing, and investing. They seem to enjoy themselves, their characters are "rich"... more power to them.

Other players aren't happy unless they are flying the biggest ships. Unfortunately, many of these do not take the time to properly develop the several tiers of support skills necessary to fly a big ship well, and they are routinely massacred by both players and NPCs.

Thousands of Eve players mine in High-Security space, watching their slow-moving mining barges orbit asteroids and extract ore. And although it's undeniably beautiful (my jaw dropped the first time I flew through an ice field and saw the starlight refract through a hundred giant prisms) it's still akin to watching paint dry for many. Different people, different game.

And many more play the game like a live-action wargame, working out logistics for massive fleet actions, managing teams of recon specialists, covert ops people, battleships, fighter carriers, small frigates, massive dreadnoughts, all in near-constant skirmishes to hold parts of the star map they've decided are theirs.

So, clearly, Eve is not WoW. And Monopoly is not Chutes and Ladders, which doesn't make Chutes and Ladders a bad game, just easier to play. But there may be *one* game within Eve that you enjoy, once you realize there is something there for everyone.

Player Error

[DaftShadow]

Losing a ship (even a pod, if you don't go overboard) is just not that big a deal. New players learn this with time. If they stick around, stop complaining and stay diligent, they will get beyond the hump and reach a point of success.

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 again... :)

- DaftShadow

Learning curve FTW

[Watersharer]

I have heard people complain about Eve, and how hard it is for a new player to get into and enjoy.

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 charater skill planner) and Eve Fitting Tool (a ship fitting program). New pilots should also do the tutorials, this isnt like most games where you can just jump right in, the tutorials have a lot of very important information.

Eve is a very dark universe, which may be part of the hurdle to overcome for people used to kindness and caring in a game community.

Paranoia is a good thing. People ARE out to get you.

Re:So with this round of "enhancements"...

[brkello]

It would be silly to expect devs not to play the game. I think it is important. But they have cheated in the past and they did not fire these people so it makes it hard to trust them. They may not use hidden commands...they might just give information on what is coming out next or how to do something which can be a huge advantage to a corporation. And since this game is a single shard, it essentially spoils the whole game. The game is forever tainted by the stuff that happened in the past and it is hard to believe they are being honest with us now.

Re:So with this round of "enhancements"...

[random coward]

If you would keep up with all the "balancing" happening in the expansion on Tuesday, it would become very obvious to you that the developers, in fact, don't play the game anymore. It was better when they did and cheated, than now that they don't and swing the nerf bat in game breaking ways; and don't even realize why the changes are bad. These changes they are talking about are a FUD campaign to try to preserve the player base that they have ignored and angered. Its quit funny.