EVE University graduate. Drama Llama. Covert operations pilot. Poetic Stanziel has been very active in the blogging community bringing views from seasoned high-sec pilots, we please to share his stories and views on current Eve Online events and invite you to read more stories from his Poetic Discourse blog.
Poetic Stanziel: WTFiS
WTF in stations? Walking in stations, a thing?
Maybe this demo and discussion about walking in stations [WiS] development has been a thing and I’ve just not been paying attention. Something this potentially massive for EVE Online, usually this gets talked about, on the Team Speaks, on the Mumbles, and in the blogs. Especially in the blogs. I haven’t seen much of anything written about it. And the forum thread has been a discussion thing since June.
Again, maybe I’m just living under a rock.
This does seems massive though. Granted, it’s a very rough demo, and even if CCP management greenlit it for development, it wouldn’t see beta testing on SiSi for at least a year, and likely wouldn’t see gameplay for another six months after that.
I realize walking in stations excites nobody. Especially after Incarna. But this demo, this work by Team Avatar, this is exactly what Incarna should have been. Not just a static room, but an actual game within the game.
Here, watch the very rough video first. It’s recorded with a handheld, at some player meet in Russia. The devs are speaking English though, so no fear that it’ll be incomprehensible angry talk (i.e., Russian.) Afterwards, I’ll discuss some of the things CCP Bayesian and CCP TorfiFrans have been talking about on the discussion thread (up until the point they were squelched by their bosses.) I’m hoping the video starts at the 9m6s mark, if not, fast forward to that point.
Yeah, that demo is rough as hell, but that’s of no matter, given that they’re demonstrating some actual gameplay concepts. The point of all this work is to demonstrate to CCP management (and to the players) that fun avatar gameplay is possible. Granted, that’s an odd thing to be demonstrating, considering there’s a plethora of fun FPSes on the market that already demonstrate that fun avatar-focused gameplay is possible. To be fair, they are demonstrating an aspect of FPS play within the context of EVE, that of exploring a deadspace complex for the module loot. Dock your ship, head on inside.
Leaving your ship does bring up a few questions. What happens if you die? What happens to your ship if you die? Team Avatar is not at that stage of development, not in the slightest, but they are thinking about these design issues:
We do have various ideas regarding death within a site as there will indeed be dangers for you to overcome, including other players. (if we, Team Avatar, get our way.)
Here are some:
1. Death will be like the standard pod kill death but then that leads to the issue where your ship is still docked at the site.
2. You enter sites with a clone rather than your actual avatar.
3. You enter sites with crew members rather than clones.These are just a few as there are multiple ways we can address this issue, but the actual designing of these features is obviously still to be started in earnest.
So before jumping to any conclusions about design and development, remember that the video is purely conceptual, there is no development path, this is not on the development radar, nothing has been greenlit.
It’s great to see everyone debating how these sites would fit into EVE. I’d like to take a moment to reiterate that our focus was on the minute-by-minute gameplay rather than looking at the idea holistically. We wanted to make sure there was some fun gameplay to come out of the concept before we started deep diving in how it might be integrated into EVE proper, which is a question worthy of serious consideration.
Lots of people are off making assumptions about how the gameplay would fit into EVE as if it were decided and implementation was already in progress! We’ve definitely talked about this subject within Team Avatar and with others in the company in much the same fashion you guys are here but there is nothing set in stone. There are a lot of ways this could work that complement what exists already.
So keep that in mind. Don’t start getting all frazzled with thoughts of “They’re doing it all wrong!“
Concerning death and betrayal. Remember that EVE: Future Vision trailer? It was released a couple months before Incarna. Whereas we all knew at that point that Incarna was going to consist of not much more than captain’s quarters, the ending of that trailer is what everyone wanted WiS to be. The potential for betrayal. The potential for violence. To be able to stare your adversary in the eye from three meters away and maybe shoot the hell out of them.
Technically, shooting an avatar is no more personal than shooting a spaceship from 15km away, but psychologically, avatar to avatar gameplay has a more personal impact. If WiS is going to be a part of the EVE Universe, then it has to incorporate EVE concepts. Walking around a single room is not the EVE we play.
Roaming deadspace exploration structures on foot. We’d want to do that with our buddies, be all cooperative and such. But we want to shoot people in the back when the moment demands, too.
Frying Doom wrote:Tags Incarna OMG Poetic Discourse Poetic Stanziel
I must ask that, Please for the love of God. Keep the true nature of EvE.And let us shoot our own team members in the back.
This has already been happening in our playtests.Hell, if CCP wanted to give Team Avatar another 10 developers, plus a few artists, I’d have no problem with their concept of WiS going forward into development. Granted, it would be another long wait, and giving up developers for WiS would set back some development for FiS, but the Team Avatar dudes seem to have a good grasp of where WiS should head. Unlike Incarna, which seemed more of a technology demonstration than anything related at all to EVE, these guys seem to know how to put EVE into WiS. I’d give them the 12 – 18 months to put something together:
I’m not saying soon. I’m saying we’re working on a prototype and that it is down to the EVE Project Management group, the executives and investors as to what actually happens to make this a reality. To emphasis what that means, if we were green-lit to continue tomorrow and we could staff it as planned without impacting FiS development I doubt players would be running through these structures on TQ for over 12 months. I’d sincerely like to get any in-development work into the hands of the players early though and that must be part of any pre-production and production plans we make. It’s definitely not soon however much I wish it could be.
The basic point in terms of timescale is that It’s not an expansion, it’s making another game to sit inside the EVE universe. I think that’s a fact that has not been addressed in the past and why WiS has always been a unfulfilled wish on the part of CCP. It’s not on the scale of DUST514 or World of Darkness but it is more significant in terms of effort required on technology and gameplay development than any previous EVE expansion.
Unfortunately, the long-awaited devblog, showing us all the headway they’ve been making with WiS, the updated graphics, the proper avatars, further gameplay examples, none of that is going to see the light of day anytime soon. Management has put the kibosh on showing the public anything. (Only the CSM know what’s happening and have seen the progress.)
I’ve got bad news about the devblog we promised. It’s been swallowed by the black hole of corporateness and won’t be seeing the light of day for the foreseeable future. The team have been as vocal as we can about the merits of putting it out but to no avail. We’re continuing to try and work out a way of showing you work we’re proud of and think you will like but for now our hands are completely tied.
That’s a crying shame. No devblog, and the discussion thread is more or less dead, with respect to developer participation. The tone of the apology obviously shows Bayesian is more than a little annoyed at the decision, and kudos to him for taking a chance and expressing that annoyance. Shows he cares not only for his project, but for the community.
But on the flipside, given what happened with Incarna and the player response to it, it’s not hugely surprising that CCP is going to be especially cautious presenting anything to the community concerning WiS.
For the time being, Team Avatar will continue their work, and we’ll just have to wait to see it at a future date. What we do know, seems promising, and if WiS ever does go forward, Bayesian and Torfifrans seem like more than able architects. They understand EVE, and they understand what WiS must be if the players are to accept it.
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WiS is bad and you should feel bad.
I really, really, really want them to come out with a version of WiS that works and is fun.
It is a shame that Incarna was so poorly released and that it has turned many players off to any idea of WiS. I really believe that EvE can be more than just spaceships but an entire Sci-Fi simulation (with space ships being the most important aspect).
I like the idea of using WiS as a way to spice up some PvE!
But EvE is Spaceships!
Don't forget the PvP too!
I think CCP is maybe overreacting here. The community was annoyed at an Incarna rollout which wasnt true to what EVE online was about (cold, harsh shoot you in the face etc). But the whole "Incarna debacle" wasnt about Incarna at all, but about the possibility of a hybrid business model that would enable pay-to win – real money for virtual, game affecting goods. This is what sparked the Jita riot, not the dissapoiting avatar gameplay.
I am still annoyed (or slowly getting there again). I get your general principle, i really do.
We however still live in a world where CCP are not competent to run POS rework and Ring mining simultainously, yet intent on letting things like WiS and other artsy bullshit overlap.
What do that say about the dimension of design resources over in Iceland?
What do that say about the the commitment to their core product of FiS?
For the past year now, we've been fed some new ships and other little stitches, but that's also all we've been fed. Three-headed monkeys while it's evident that CCP Iceland still have a high percentage of barber-school drop-out emos that "whoa dude, we creative multimodal life and immersive experiences" and way too few number-crunching basement-dwelling nerds that create online spaceship games.
That's what the "Incarna debacle" was all about. Not focusing on THE GAME.
I don't mind for a second if they have the resources to run some WiS development on the side. The thing is, they are not delivering POS rework, Ring mining and Crimewatch in a timely fashion. So they DON'T have the fucking resources, and all these fashionable accessories should go.
They are in the gaming industry, not the $800 pants one. It's about priority and allocation of resources. I hope getting tossed some new frigates doesn't cloud that judgement.
That video reinforces that game play inside a station is crap.
You must be bad at thinking.
-A- is a shithole.
"WiS is bad and you should feel bad. "
Wholeheartedly agree with you good sir.
A is a shit alliance fuill of carebears
sup
wow quoting frying doom, a freak faggot.
I really hope they don't go the star trek route on this. I always thought the idea of the captain of a ship going out for recon missions was a terrible idea (logically / lore wise) and rather immersion breaking. Sure, allow players to do this if they want, but perhaps incorporate a way to include dust or some new rts style game play with those Caldari mercenaries we all have locked away in some far away hanger.
It would be great to have boarding parties for other ships too.
I really hope they don't go the star trek route on this. I always thought the idea of the captain of a ship going out for recon missions was a terrible idea (logically / lore wise) and rather immersion breaking. Sure, allow players to do this if they want, but perhaps incorporate a way to include dust or some new rts style game play with those Caldari mercenaries we all have locked away in some far away hanger.
The devs might consider abandoning using their carbon engine for this too. Sure it looks great and all, but it melts graphics cards. Going the Unreal route, like they did with Dust, might be a better option.
"This does seems massive though. Granted, it’s a very rough demo, and even if CCP management greenlit it for development, it wouldn’t see beta testing on SiSi for at least a year, and likely wouldn’t see gameplay for another six months after that."
And during those 18 months (I see what you did there) developers that could be working on fixing space ships will be fiddling around with Second Life IN SPAAAAAAAACE!
And I know that CCP said that any work they did on WiS would never take away from work on FiS. But that doesn't really work because they still need to budget for all those programmers working on side projects. So lets say CCP makes enough money to hire X developers. And their incarna WiS project takes N devs to get done. Then CCP will be able to afford (X – N) devs to work on eve.
I would love a proper FPS integrated into EVE. Incarna was bad because it was essentially an engine for squeesing extra cash out of players, and little else. If I could, I'd rather play Eve instead of Planetside or WoT when I want to just relax and shoot people for fun
fuck shooting people, gay avatar sex however….
WiS gameplay needs to be restricted to actual stations, and anything that involves combat needs to be pushed over to DUST 514. If you want to send in some combat units to attack a deadspace complex, hire some mercs, and launch a boarding craft from your ship's cargo bay. The dusties can take the station, they get paid by you, maybe finding some shinies on their own, and you get some bonus loot for having captured the station intact without having had to destroy it.
The same can be said of capturing hostile alliance stations and other structures: Station attackers can hire dusties to board the station and capture the command section, as part of the final station timer. Station owners can set up an automatic contract that hires dusties to defend their station.
There isn't any reason why WiS needs to be extended to actual FPS style combat, or to anything other than bars and card games and titty bars that we can populate with slaves and prostitutes and other human live stock.
AAA has no tech and we are doing fine. According to the numbers from this article we just need to keep up the pressure on test for 3 months and they will be screwed. Our alliance is cash sustainable fighting full time.
looking good
So what we're probably will see in a few years is BATTLECRUISER 3000 AD but a working version
Look at it: we now have: spaceships, planetary resources, planetary FPS (Dust) and soon WiS with boarding crews….hence BC3000AD.
Nice concept, but not sure if exited ot scared
omg guys … 2009 we saw dust 514 beta presentations with were way better than this WiS-shit ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlJbah93tM
Now 2012 there is still no exact Dust 514 release ! with over 300 ppl working on it the last years.
So i expect this WiS-thing not before 2017-18.