On The EvE of Contention…

or ~  Are “WE” failing EvE?

Fathah!!!  the Sleepers have...  Awakened!!

I have been hearing a lot on how there has been no ‘new content’ from CCP since the Incarna Expansion… in the MMO Media… Massively; “EVE Evolved: Expansions, not excuses” and, though not mentioning EvE, this addresses the ‘lack of content’ push to FTP (Free To Play) for some MMOs, The Escapist in “Lack of MMO Content Forces Free to Play Transition”; and at Gamasutra we have a validation and some interesting ideas on what we in EvE call ‘Emergent Gameplay’, “Cryptic's solution for new MMO content: Let the players make it!” [<- THIS is really worth watching] Add to that the usual EvE forum whining, “Expansion after expansion with no new content?”; and from Robert’s Space Industries forums, “CCP’s lack of creativity…”; and from the EvE blogshere, Mabrick’s, “Keeping EVE Online Relevant in the Coming Decade” just to name a few…

CCP’s Executive Producer Jon Lander comments on the issue of ‘content’ in a Wired article; “Star Wars’ Stumble Points to Free, Open Future for Online Worlds”: “You end up in a race to keep enough content out there before the bulk of your players become bored,” said Jon Lander, executive producer of the space exploration MMO EVE Online, in an e-mail. “With [EVE], the more people who come into the game, the less chance you have of getting bored. That overall idea is what has kept us steadily growing now for 10 years.” And in this interview on ZAM by Gazimoff, “Caretakers of a Universe”, “…Lander was eager to stress that players need some new content. ‘We are in the business of giving tools to our players in the sandbox – it gives us a lot of flexibility. But you can’t just give tools; you’ve got to put something new out there. In Retribution we’re putting out five new ships and rebalancing 40.’”

Which brings us lastly to this very interesting comment… from Massively’s Jef Reahard in “The Firing Line: Star Citizen shouldn't be EVE with joysticks”: “…CCP isn't really interested in making a sandbox with consequences as much as it is interested in providing a semi-anonymous social networking fight club. Trust me, I've met several high-ranking EVE devs, and I've talked gameplay and design with them at length. To a man, these guys just enjoy messing with people. It's who they are, both personally and as a company, and as a result, EVE is as much a safe outlet for base impulses as it is a sci-fi sandbox MMO.”

The Incarna Expansion itself has been perceived as a ‘failed’ attempt to add new content to the game via WIS (Walking In Stations) and the addition of Avatar based gameplay in EvE. Having made great strides forward on the Avatar itself, CCP did not have any ‘content’ to go with it, content that would give the players somewhere to use their new and greatly improved Avatars, add to that CCP’s addition of Micro-Transactions and the concurrent unavoidable possibility of PTW (Pay To Win) and those perceived Incarna failures brought on ‘The Summer of Rage’…

After that CCP redirected it’s time and resources to FIS (Flying In Space) so we are still not able to open that damn door in the CQ (Captain’s Quarters) and so the New and Improved Avatars and the CQ are still of no real value to EvE’s playerbase… and therefore, a ‘content’ failure… though CCPs Ned Coker told PCGamesN (as stated on VG24/7) that EVE Online Incarna content “definitely not shelved”…

And yet… isn’t EvE a sandbox? Aren’t WE supposed to be the content? Are WE failing EvE instead of CCP failing us?  Ask not what EVE can do for YOU, ask what YOU can do for EVE!

EVE is a ‘PVP’ game with PvE ‘content’ designed to allow players to make ingame ‘money’ but NOT designed to be the point of the game. IE “My alt mines the rocks to make the ISK to buy the ships to gank the miners who mine the rocks to make the ISK to buy the ships to gank the miners who mine the rocks to make the ISK to buy the ships…” rinse and repeat ad infinitum… right?

So what content is there is not supposed to be awe inspiring and a major focus of player activity. The missions in EvE are basically just a job, a way to make ISK. Even the Epic Arcs and the COSMOS Missions, which are vastly more fun, difficult, engaging and rewarding are still not a fulfilling way to spend years of time in EvE. These are as close as EvE gets to the idea of quests as implemented in WoW and other MMOs. But EvE is different…

EvE is a sandbox (AKA an open world) MMO(RP)G. As far back as I can find CCP has consistently advertised the sandbox nature of EvE. “The Butterfly Effect” video has a miner in a Hulk under attack in the opening minutes of the video, this is intended to conclusively highlight the ‘freedom of choice’ inherent in the sandbox nature of gameplay in EvE... The freedom of choice we each have to decide what we do and how we play. They have created a page, ”Find Your Path in The Sandbox”, on the main site to showcase the ‘variety’ of gameplay in EvE AND they even have a “Personality Analysis” questionnaire to help you determine the gameplay that most suits you… and these are not limited to just PvP gameplay.

The character type they have listed are: Empire Builder; Fleet Commander; Loyalist; Freedom Fighter; Bounty Hunter and Pirate… they also list Planetary Industrialist; Manufacturer; Trader; Miner; Salvager and Explorer.

CCP promotes at the least six ‘official trades’ that are not PvP centric… Planetary Industrialist; Manufacturer; Trader; Miner; Salvager and Explorer all do not list ‘combat’ as part of their playstyle. All six of these non-PvP trades require, to varying degrees, ‘content’ written and coded as part of the game NOT created by the players. The first six, Empire Builder; Fleet Commander; Freedom Fighter; Loyalist; Bounty Hunter and Pirate are combat, IE PvP-centric and do not ’require’ ingame content nearly as much as they are basically player interaction gameplay, or emergent content… content WE create by our actions, responses and interactions with and against other players.

This BTW, leads me to now ignore those who state flatly that EvE is a PvP game. The creators and owners, CCP, have openly shown that half of the official trades they are advertising on the EVE Online Home Page are PvE centric gameplay styles, NOT PvP centric. EVE IS A SANDBOX offering and supporting many differing playstyles in BOTH PvP and PvE.

Unofficially there are a butt-ton more things to “do” in EvE as shown in this Giant Clickable Poster, all kudos to St Mio, in which I count 105 ‘unofficial trades’ one can ply in the skies of New Eden… a few more than CCPs official site… and this poster breaks them down into easily understandable careers showing the interconnections and divergences between PvP and PvE…

FPS’s (First Person Shooters) are great examples of pure PVP and decent PVE. In Doom, Quake or Halo, if you are not shooting someone or something, there is really nothing else to do… I mean you can drive a Jeep all over the beach and a tank and such for a while, but that gets lame quick… In Quake or Halo enter any area the enemies (NPC’s or live players) are in and as soon as you are spotted you are attacked. The only way to avoid being attacked is to go nowhere and do nothing but with live players even that is not true, as they will hunt you down and kill you…

I know whereof I speak I played FPS’s almost exclusively starting before Doom was released. They were, and still are, fast-paced, non-stop pewage but that is also just about ALL they are. Any storyline they have is, for the most part, just there to support the ‘why’ you are there. Halo at least pays some homage to a story… but all in all it is still boils down to ‘run into a room, kill everything in sight, take everything you can carry, rinse and repeat’. Even my personal fav, ‘Splinter Cell’ and all the Clancy logo’ed FPSs were just upgraded versions of basically the same rules with more covert sneakin’ around stuff and a greatly enhanced array of motions and actions.

But in FPS’s there is really NOTHING else to do but fight, no Industry, no Economy, no ‘real’ exploration... The action is immediate and EASY to find… also the players, of course but NPC’s also, have the ability to ‘win’, to kill you, a lot… but that doesn’t matter as you immediately respawn… and finding a wide variety of guns and ammo is not hard at all. Getting back in the fight is easy. There is no LOSS. So where is the ‘content’ in FPSes? The content is the scenery, the weapons and the NPCs you can fight solo, the rest of, and the most interesting ‘content’ is always the other players.

In EVE however, there is a universe of other things to DO… May I refer you to the Giant Clickable Poster above again? In EvE the ‘action’ can be, in comparison to an FPS, rarer and harder to find, though it is often much faster paced and shorter lived than the usual FPS fights. EVE PVE is not like FPS PVE either… It is not as immediate and fast-paced… and it is also much more susceptible to ‘figuring out’, to finding a ‘formula’, an attack pattern that takes it from interesting, read: ‘dangerous’, to boring and easy to beat… IE grinding, IE not fun. So, in a sandbox game, with so many interesting things to do other than PVP, things that BTW are necessary for continued PVP, IE mining, Industry, PI, ship building, etc., etc. …

In this sandbox, what are we playing for? What is there to captivate our attention day after day, week after week, month after… you get the idea right? Well, there are those who want to play EVE like they play FPS’s… they want to fly all over the place and attack whoever gets in their sights. But EVE is also a social game and there are costs for the uninhibited attacking of just everyone. In Hisec and Lowsec you run the risk of getting CONCORDED, in null you can’t attack anyone who is blue to you or even good friends of blues. EVE is not an FPS. It is vastly more complex than that.

So… what is it we want? The main lament of ‘not enough new and interesting content’ falls a little flat for me. WE ARE THE CONTENT. My corp, HBHI is a small wormhole corp. We do PI and run our stuff out to sell, we run the C3 Sleeper Sites for fun and profit, and we have gotten real good at it too, as C3 is the beginning of really good PvE in EvE. The Sleeper AI is designed to be very tough. As you go up in the class ladder they get more and more like fighting live players. We all know the computer could easily be programmed to use standard fit ships, and yet target, focus fire, maneuver and react faster and more accurately than us simple limited biological sacks of mostly water humans… In fact the Devs have to code carefully to keep the AI from wafflestomping us every time, like CONCORD, which is supposed to do just that.

What CCP does, as I have stated before, is set the stage, make the props, arrange the lighting and paints the backgrounds we play with and against... The stage is ours and the play’s the thing. So is it new sets and props and décor and furniture and backgrounds that we want?

Demo of an explorable Sleeper Station

I know I do. I want Walking in Stations…

But I want more immersion… I want to dock my ship, but I want the option to watch as the tractor beams actually pull my ship into the docking port (maybe on the opposite side of the station from the undock, maybe beside it…) and an animation that show my progress through the station to the actual landing bay. Then when I leave my ship I want the option to transition to my POD and fly it to the balcony of my CQ. I want to land it and make my Avatar climb out (and no, I personally don’t like the POD goo thing, so I would want to be free to choose a gooless POD where I am clothed and it is more a really tight single seat mini-ship than anything else…) so, I dock my POD and climb out and walk up and through the CQ and get to OPEN the damn door and walk out on the concourse…

The windowwalls on the concourse would WORK and show us the real time activity taking place at the undock… there would be NPC store fronts and offices, player run store fronts and offices, bars, eateries, etc. You would be able to buy your ships and mods and stuff the old way or walk around the concourse and visit Duvolle Labs, or Fed Navy to make purchases, or stop by a FacWar militia office and join up…

But most of all, I want to see is this, Walking in SLEEPER Stations… exploring W-space structures for fights and profit… ooooohhh  ahhhhhhhh…  and so I will keep flyin’, PI’ing and dyin’ while I wait for it…  =]

This isn’t all I want in the way of new ‘sets’, but we have the Avatars and the ‘door’…come on CCP, open the GODS DAMNED DOOR! I wanna kill Sleepers up front and personal with a SPOON!!

So… what stage do YOU want CCP to set for you?

I make my way to the first airlock... Spoon at the ready!

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=