Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: kalaratiri on 02 May 2014, 08:00
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Source. (http://dust514.com/news/blog/2014/05/introducing-project-legion/)
Battle-hardened players!
(http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news.control/66114/1/JeanCharles.jpg)
I’m really excited to reach out to you again, and I hope you are following EVE Fanfest 2014. It’s a blast and a great chance for me to meet some of you in person and get feedback on our current and next endeavors. No pressure!
DUST 514 has seen a lot of improvements since launch and I hope you all enjoy the content the most recent update, Uprising 1.8, brought you. The community has banded together like never before and has simply smashed apart events like the Million Clone Challenge! For all of that, I am incredibly proud of our team and our community.
I promised some big news, and today we delivered it: One of the highlights of our DUST 514 Keynote was a sneak peek at Project Legion, an early prototype that a part of the team in Shanghai has been working on for the past few months.
Involving the community as early as possible has always been the way we build features and games at CCP and that’s not about to change. This is a great opportunity to share something exciting and special with you all and get early feedback. But, let me give you some more context…
When I came to CCP several months ago, it was to fulfill a vision that was our goal since DUST 514 was first announced: Merge a deep sandbox experience with an FPS in New Eden, to create a massive living world more meaningful as real life. As the team and I worked on that vision, we came to understand the effort centered around four pillars. We had to build the right ecosystem incorporating a fun and balanced competitive shooter; player vs. environment allowing for emergent behaviors; a player-driven economy that is distinctly CCP; and deep immersion that brings it all together.
We realized we would never be able to do it by iteration, any more than one could overhaul the engines of a plane in flight, and to do this right it would need to become something new -- a distinct and separate experience from what we’ve previously offered on DUST 514. We also feel that, to do this right, we need to do it on the PC platform first.
To achieve this, we'll need much more focus on the user experience than ever before. As I mentioned during my keynote today, the starmap will play a larger role in the way you'll interact with that huge universe. I envision New Eden’s mercenaries scanning the universe for loot, battles, Guristas-sponsored tournaments and such, and then making meaningful choices from there.
Let's start with the loot. I didn't want to add drones simply to have AI to shoot at; instead we tried to find a way to make that meaningful. That's when the idea of scavenging emerged. What if the loot being dropped is gear that the other players and reclaimer drones (which, by the way, are cool so long as you don't get too close!) are fighting for in "open" scavenging grounds? In High-Security space the loot is more basic and the drones less aggressive, but in Low-Security the stakes get higher. As all those in New Eden know, with greater risk comes greater reward. So in lowsec, with CONCORD nowhere to be found, the line between friend and foe becomes very blurry – you and I might team up to go after better loot against more powerful drones… but you won't shoot me in the back and steal my stuff, right?
A lot of work will also be going into the shooting mechanics, emergent gameplay and diversity of roles. An overhaul of the progression tree supports this effort.
(http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news.control/66114/1/ProjectLegionArt.jpg)
Levels, environments and visuals will also be enhanced, with the sole objective of making the experience even more immersive and dense: How is the surface of a planet in the EVE universe supposed to look – exotic, scary, calm...? Should atmospheres have an effect on gameplay? That's what I’ve tried to demonstrate today on stage with the live demo. Even if it's still early, I hope some of that thinking was well communicated.
Finally, the economy piece, the cement of that ecosystem as I call it. A player-driven market is not a “nice-to-have”, it's a must. Loot can be used or sold through the market. The ones who don't want to go scavenge can make big ISK through Mercenary contracts and restock or upgrade from the market directly.
Although DUST 514 and Project Legion will function independently of one another, and are different projects on different development paths, DUST itself has a lot more shooting-in-the-face action to come. The team and I remain committed to continuing to improve the experience on PlayStation 3, while simultaneously making sure “Project Legion” becomes the experience we’ve all dreamt of.
The journey continues.
CCP Rouge
Executive Producer - DUST 514 / Project Legion
Sooooo, Dust is being dropped like a hot potato :D
Edit: And the Dust players seem to have reached the same conclusion as I did, they're busy complaining loudly (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=728) all over their forums.
2nd Edit: Interview with CCP Rouge (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150763/meet-project-legion-the-epic-new-first-person-pc-shooter-from-eve-onlines-creators.html) about the future of Dust and Legion
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Sucks to be a DUSTie. That said, EVE Legion sounds like a potentially awesome development. I've been of the mind that CCP's team would need a mediocre shooter under their belt before they could make a good one. :x
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I'm just, what?
Seriously, after a year and a half of suffering through the bugs, the glitches, exploits, protostomps, tank spam, nade spam, uplink spam, nanohive spam, equipment spam and Flavor of the Month bullshit, just to one day see the vision DUST had come true, you're telling me that this vision is being fulfilled on another platform and a completely separate game? You're telling me that all that time, effort, tears and frustration I've put into this game was for nothing?
Many people are going crazy on the forums about DUST being abandoned and officially declared dead, I don't think so. Nevertheless I'm extremely pissed that the original vision DUST had is not and possibly will not be fulfilled in DUST 514. And unless I get a new PC, it's jnlkkely that I'll never get to play this thing myself.
Sigh.
I just don't know what to do anymore. Should I just abandon ship and focus my efforts on another game or should I stick to a broken game that will probably never see the grand vision it had? My optimisim towards seeing that one day are getting thinner by the second.
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I'm watching the Dust Progression presentation, and I retract my previous statement.
They're not dropping Dust at all, they're completely reworking it from the ground up. The skills system, the item levels, everything, is being simplified and streamlined to make the game easier to play and just generally better.
As Dust and Legion are going to be seperate games, I may even play both :)
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I feel sorry for the DUST 514 players because this can seem like a sock in the gut. But, at least they now know what we original PC EVE players felt when they announced DUST was PS3 exclusive.
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Lol.
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(http://i.imgur.com/HK9DcWE.gif)
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(http://i.imgur.com/HK9DcWE.gif)
So much win from you, always.
I wonder why this legion business was not just introduced as a different match type for DUST?
Long story short, they should have looked at Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer in a big, serious, stealing the idea sort of way. That game got it seriously right with co op pve shooty shooty. Change a few skins on the ME3 pve and you are already 90% done.
Dust will continue to limp along until the money math doesn't work for CCP anymore. I feel sorry for you Dust guys and gals, too. Promised the world, delivered a turd sandwich occasionally polished.
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As painfully rickety as DUST is, I still rather fail to see why this couldn't have been incorporated. It feels like it'd just need a couple of tweaks (NPCs, free-fire/no-teams mode, some sort of resource counter) to work just fine.
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(http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc432/Isoline/MegalomaniaClu1.jpg)
And that executive producer speaks at the first person. Lol.
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Okay, so apparently the reason it's a separate product is to deal with the "exclusive to PS3" deal they did with Sony for DUST. They finally came to the conclusion that consoles are... not a suitable environment for long-term development.
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is Legion free to play ?
also, would Legion be possibly a better method of having non-capsuleer characters in a corporation, for RP reasons ?
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is Legion free to play ?
also, would Legion be possibly a better method of having non-capsuleer characters in a corporation, for RP reasons ?
Yes
No idea.
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I seem to recall CCP aversion to having any shooty fps bits befouled by non-shooty standing around and chatting.
I imagine the best you'll get is a bunch of armored merc types standing in the same 'planning' room before a PVE drop ala DUST.
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I seem to recall CCP aversion to having any shooty fps bits befouled by non-shooty standing around and chatting.
I imagine the best you'll get is a bunch of armored merc types standing in the same 'planning' room before a PVE drop ala DUST.
I was thinking more like, you know how in your events, you had your alt "House Staff" doing stuff ?
would Legion be a more useful tool for that sort of thing ?
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I seem to recall CCP aversion to having any shooty fps bits befouled by non-shooty standing around and chatting.
I imagine the best you'll get is a bunch of armored merc types standing in the same 'planning' room before a PVE drop ala DUST.
I was thinking more like, you know how in your events, you had your alt "House Staff" doing stuff ?
would Legion be a more useful tool for that sort of thing ?
I feel like it would make those things much worse - the game is likely dedicated to FPS shooty things, so it's not like you will have 'social' oriented avatar areas or clothing / emote / social props (bars, drinks, items, whatever).
In some ways all text makes it easier to do as you imagine...
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Provided they do full market integration, I actually rather like the idea of EVE: Legion. The original rumor was that it'd just be DUST 514 on PC-- but if they're adding scavenging, PvE, full market integration, and a more sandbox-y feel, then I'm much more curious. Mind, F2P makes me twitch, so we'll see how I actually get caught by Valkyrie and Legion-- but I definitely like the idea of more games in the universe, ideally as a method for CCP to do a sort-of-WiS thing.
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full market integration
Seriously!
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To apologise for all the shite the Dust players had to wade through, CCP should allow them to port all their character data to Legion and let them keep the SP. I think that's only fair.
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Were they making any money with DUST ? If not, how would that prove different with Legion, where it is not even backed by a major publisher/console maker like Sony ?
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To apologise for all the shite the Dust players had to wade through, CCP should allow them to port all their character data to Legion and let them keep the SP. I think that's only fair.
This looks like it will be happening. (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2124157#post2124157)
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An important factor here that I didn't see anyone raise: CCP Rouge seriously did not realize that the Q&A session that was being held after the Dust keynote was not being broadcast on the Twitch stream. He deliberately ended the keynote early so he wouldn't run out of material and intended to finish it all, on camera, live, for the stream, at the Q&A session. The kneejerk reactions that the Dust players gave, if anything, showed exactly how much like EVE players they are. :P
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I haven't seen either of those sessions - what did the Q+A add that wasn't in the main session?
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More or less exactly what he said at the keynote on Saturday. Development on Dust WILL be continuing, AND the plan is for Dust players to be able to migrate their chars to Legion IF it goes anywhere.
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Legion sounds more like what seems to me what brings people to Eve, and keeps them stuck there even when they throw hands up in the air and rage quit in a fit of bittervet, and that's its social dynamic. Eve as a game can be pretty shit as regards its gameplay: the PvE can be a boring and repetitive grind done by rote muscle memory, the industry and PI can be so convoluted, difficult to manage, and unclear you might want to stick a rusty spoon in your eye, and the spaceship PvP can end up pretty simple once you have a clear understanding of the meta, what's FOTM, and how to exploit things to your own advantage to the point that it's just not a challenge anymore.
What the appeal to Eve is for me though is that while pretty terrible in most of its gameplay, most will remain because of the friends you meet and the enemies you create, the alliances and the rivalries, and that the social element is the actual sandbox. That even while you might hate the game, you'll probably stick around for the familiar people and relationships you've created in the virtual world - good or bad. Even if that means you have to remain in a state of constant self-loathing that you're still participating in what is probably an almost masochistic enterprise.
Dust ultimately failed for me because it didn't try to provide some sort of meaningful social experience and it just didn't convey that sense of "scope" that Eve can have by virtue of its design and where it sets the boundaries of what you can and cannot do. In the end, Dust didn't provide anything meaningful and seems to have tried to compete directly in the same vein as CoD or Battlefield. The thing is, a new CoD or Battlefield game is released every few months because eventually all the gun porn and shiny gimmicks and the appeal fades because all you're doing is just shooting people in the face. I just don't think Dust has the same sort of brand or resources to get people to buy into it all the time, and if all that it really offers is 16v16 shooting people in the face gameplay then nothing fundamentally differentiates it from any other 16v16, 32v32, or 64v64 FPS multiplayer gameplay.
I'm not sure why CCP tried to compete on that level, and on a console that was probably going to be a legacy system soon around the time Dust was released, but I do think Legion is a step in the right direction from making their FPS generic as all the rest except with shiny sci-fi toys but more in-line with Eve in providing some sort of meaningful social experiences for its players. I can only hope CCP learns from Dust and try to build in some sort of solid social elements into Valkyrie because in much the same way it might suffer from the same consequences with long term retention and interest as Dust seems to have had if the core gameplay becomes generic and repetitive as "Just another space fighter shooter."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXc-Ka65QI
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXc-Ka65QI
I laughed so hard. Partly because it's so true and tragicomic.
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I also think Legion is a step in the right direction.
At the same time, I am furious on CCP on how they went along and introduced the thing.
Before the announcement and long before the Fanfest, they introduced a LOT of extra prices on Aurum and boosters, and several weeks of bonus SP and so on. In other words, they milked the community as much as possible before the PC announcement...
As the announcement was made, they said NOTHING of what would happen to those that were hardcore console players. They literally left them there on the spot, in that room. :psyccp:
Now, I think you can be more positive than this guy, but I feel with him:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=159617
Moreover, I'm a bit tired that just because Fanfest is there, they have to make such announcement, even before they have all the answers. Of course people will get frustrated and leave the communities for that. They could've easily waited and announced this later, all while having more answers on the following questions:
- Legion for PS4?
- Dust 514 character transfer to Legion?
- Expected PC requirements?
- Release date (even if it was a hard guess)?
Also, while dust 514 and Legion will be "two different games", they will essentially mean the same thing. So as far as I know, you won't be able to play both of them at the same time. When Legion is released for real, Dust 514 is going down.
How else would they pull of a character transfer?
That is their wish, at least. See CCP Logibro's comment here (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2112464#post2112464).
Nonetheless, this game is looking awesome and for sure now they can actually make the game that they've dreamed of.
PIE will follow it through Dust 514, into Legion.
FOR THE EMPIRE!
Edit: Another topic worth reading, especially for the backstage, is this RP influenced topic starter. He nailed the feeling quite well IMO:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2115239#post2115239
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At the same time, I am furious on CCP on how they went along and introduced the thing.
Before the announcement and long before the Fanfest, they introduced a LOT of extra prices on Aurum and boosters, and several weeks of bonus SP and so on. In other words, they milked the community as much as possible before the PC announcement...
But it was to help the R&D department ! :P
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A very informative post you have made there, Ordo. I am enthusiastic about the future of Project Legion, as much as Dust514 may now be set on the road to retirement (despite promises of support - it seems more like 'we will keep it until the PS3 is deprecated' at which point it is a loss).
The key issues, as you have pointed out, are not in the vision, potential project management or platform; but in the horrific miscommunications that characterise almost every CCP announcement. They think they are 'one of us', while maintaining that this is a two-class society of developers and players. They cannot expect accolades for work done, but compliance with polarising or downright unpopular decisions. The attitudes coming out of the Community department are a worrying indicator of how CCP think that 'bro mentality' trumps social responsibility when you are building social groups in the interest of profiting off of them.
With the Project Legion announcement, CCP broke the social contract with Dust 514 players in an ugly, open-fracture-like, fashion before walking away as if they'd done nothing wrong. The fact that one could almost see frost creeping along the stage and walls during the Dust 514 discussions after the keynote, complete with golf claps that would have put tears into the eyes of the most hardened public figures, showed exactly how people felt. Putting the squeeze on people via events and aurum fueled sales only made the betrayal all the worse.
Dust was a failure in most terms. It over promised, under delivered and showcased the worst aspects of EVE's Community Dev's willful blindness or complete slavish worship of their parent company in the pursuit of 'forced success'. The announcement of switch over should have been a humble moment, espousing the need to return to core values and a core platform, and reduce the responsibility the company has for supporting an architecture that has been all but abandoned by the gaming industry (Cell, that is). Instead we get a presto-change-o that would make Dynamo blink in awe, followed by a crass denial that this changes anything. It ONLY makes it awesome you see? You should be emotionally invested already. BTW it isn't greenlit and is pretty much a call for the forensics teams to start picking over dust's still twitching corpse for cause of death, but it is AWESOME.
I believe it will be awesome despite this bare faced duplicity. But I also believe that CCP still has a lot of growing up to do. We're not your friends, we're your customers. We might be close, but there is a professional boundary. You have an obligation to be even handed and open with your customers when you are going to change things. You have nothing to apologise for but mistakes made and promises broken, and you have no obligation (when apologising) further than to clearly state such an apology and hope it sticks. The continued culture of 'one of us' when it suits you and 'hand of god' when it doesn't isn't lost on your player base. You built your game on a (spurious and incorrect) claim that you have to be smart to survive in New Eden. Give us the respect that the pedestal you lead people to believe they stand on should grant, and treat us like logical, capable human beings - come clean, be honest and follow your vision. Do not stoop to replying to rage and do not manage yourselves as 'walking among the peasants' to try and curry celebrity status. Keep it clean and keep it professional, but stop this 'I'm good for it bro' nonsense.
Pseudo-rant done.
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Sometimes in abusive relationships the victim can be brainwashed into thinking they deserve the treatment they are getting, even that they want it on some level. :psyccp:
They have such a difficult/weird relationship with the playerbase. On the one hand trying to be cool and friendly and then on the other hand being secretive and back-stabby on a regular basis. We have to remember that it's a big company and plenty of people are making decisions for plenty of other people who may or may not agree with what's going on.
If it's your paying job to tell the proles that 'everything is alright' even if you are lying through your teeth, we can't get too upset with the messenger.
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I agree, though when they know that duplicity will be part and parcel of community management an element of professional distance might actually be beneficial. Rather than cultivating a community that already has certain individuals earmarked as 'liars' or certain policies as 'betrayal' at the Dev level. These emotive labels are products of the 'wanna be like common people' attitude that CCP Devs seem to revel in; the policies are pretty much standard fare - the bad press something almost every developer runs into eventually. It is the 'abusive relationship' as you so aptly put it, that magnifies these small issues into prime evils in the eyes of the community members affected.
Shooting the messenger might seem unfair, but when he or she is sticking you in the back (or so you feel, regardless of what is really happening), it is pretty hard not to pull the metaphorical trigger despite assurances it is 'nothing personal'. The guys up top won't get the message until they run out of messengers or customers.
Having said this - I consider it noteworthy that CCP itself and only a small subset of it's representation are the only thing I feel embittered about. EVE is a great game that I enjoy, warts and all, but cuddling up with Devs that like to dutch oven you and say 'that's love baby' turns me off a fair bit.
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I agree, though when they know that duplicity will be part and parcel of community management an element of professional distance might actually be beneficial. Rather than cultivating a community that already has certain individuals earmarked as 'liars' or certain policies as 'betrayal' at the Dev level. These emotive labels are products of the 'wanna be like common people' attitude that CCP Devs seem to revel in; the policies are pretty much standard fare - the bad press something almost every developer runs into eventually. It is the 'abusive relationship' as you so aptly put it, that magnifies these small issues into prime evils in the eyes of the community members affected.
Shooting the messenger might seem unfair, but when he or she is sticking you in the back (or so you feel, regardless of what is really happening), it is pretty hard not to pull the metaphorical trigger despite assurances it is 'nothing personal'. The guys up top won't get the message until they run out of messengers or customers.
Having said this - I consider it noteworthy that CCP itself and only a small subset of it's representation are the only thing I feel embittered about. EVE is a great game that I enjoy, warts and all, but cuddling up with Devs that like to dutch oven you and say 'that's love baby' turns me off a fair bit.
Do we have examples of gaming companies who do this the 'right' way? I'm not that familiar with the rest of the industry. What's a good developer that is open and responsive to the community?
I want to see how CIG (star citizen) does once the rubber hits the road because right now it's easy to look fantastic and open when the game isn't out yet and a thousand people aren't yelling about 'nerf x'
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No one does it right IMO, but people should always push for better - of themselves, their community and their community representatives.
That is all I am saying really - I do not expect miracles, but decoupling what is said from how it is said, and requesting a professional, clear, concise report on the changes being made, regardless of the community hurf blurf, would level out a lot of the emotional roller-coaster and out-of-synch responses.
The improvement of customer-provider relationships is an iterative process; part arms race between the thinking audience and marketing dept., part clearly defining changes and managing community expectations (in this case what to expect from a Dev interaction). We don't need to be unreasonable pushing for better, and hell, we ourselves need to have a good hard look in the mirror (or at our families, jobs, outside) when we feel a sense of betrayal welling up over a game. But push for better we should, starting with that mirror and ending with offering it to those would state they represent our community, when they are merely an interface with the company that provided the sand we distributed ourselves, the community, in.
Tl;Dr - I cannot disagree with a thing you say Silas, because we're pretty much two sides of a spinning coin right now. You are absolutely right in your assessment of how things are and the general state of gaming communities. I just hope that I am in that ballpark with my insistence that through introspection, analysis and a demand for better standards, we can have authority figures who act the way they would like us to, and dispense of this false camaraderie in favour of a more honest, friendly-but-professional means of disseminating information.
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No one does it right IMO, but people should always push for better - of themselves, their community and their community representatives.
That is all I am saying really - I do not expect miracles, but decoupling what is said from how it is said, and requesting a professional, clear, concise report on the changes being made, regardless of the community hurf blurf, would level out a lot of the emotional roller-coaster and out-of-synch responses.
The improvement of customer-provider relationships is an iterative process; part arms race between the thinking audience and marketing dept., part clearly defining changes and managing community expectations (in this case what to expect from a Dev interaction). We don't need to be unreasonable pushing for better, and hell, we ourselves need to have a good hard look in the mirror (or at our families, jobs, outside) when we feel a sense of betrayal welling up over a game. But push for better we should, starting with that mirror and ending with offering it to those would state they represent our community, when they are merely an interface with the company that provided the sand we distributed ourselves, the community, in.
Tl;Dr - I cannot disagree with a thing you say Silas, because we're pretty much two sides of a spinning coin right now. You are absolutely right in your assessment of how things are and the general state of gaming communities. I just hope that I am in that ballpark with my insistence that through introspection, analysis and a demand for better standards, we can have authority figures who act the way they would like us to, and dispense of this false camaraderie in favour of a more honest, friendly-but-professional means of disseminating information.
I don't think we disagree at all :P
I guess what I want is EVE people to expect more from CCP. Shiny trailers are awesome. Shiny demos of walking around and shooting things are awesome. They don't mean shit aside from tapes of people clapping and cheering, though. Instead of shiny trailers and cryptic announcements why not just be honest and open and talk about what the plans are?
CCP is one of those developers that's particularly guilty of showing something shiny and super cool looking, 'look at all the awesome shit coming your way!' and then radio silence for months or years 'oh, uh, you didn't want that anyway'
Now this following example could be completely full of shit as well, but this is exactly the kind of thing I'd want from CCP every month. Every department just writes a few paragraphs, shows a few pictures, and you wouldn't believe how far that can go. Read this and see what I mean.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13848-Monthly-Report-April-2014
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I want to see how CIG (star citizen) does once the rubber hits the road because right now it's easy to look fantastic and open when the game isn't out yet and a thousand people aren't yelling about 'nerf x'
My balls tighten just imagining how this bunch will face down the reverse swing of the hype pendulum. My money's on a lot of shell-shocked community managers lying around hugging themselves, moaning "what the fuck happened" over and over while copiously bleeding out the ass.
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I want to see how CIG (star citizen) does once the rubber hits the road because right now it's easy to look fantastic and open when the game isn't out yet and a thousand people aren't yelling about 'nerf x'
My balls tighten just imagining how this bunch will face down the reverse swing of the hype pendulum. My money's on a lot of shell-shocked community managers lying around hugging themselves, moaning "what the fuck happened" over and over while copiously bleeding out the ass.
Get them 10cc of HTFU serum each, STAT!