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General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Ember Vykos on 25 May 2011, 10:09
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If only you could reach out and stroke it. (http://youtu.be/vqwQecPcqpM)
I haven't been on duality lately to see if its improved any from the initial test release, but this looks like it'll be pretty sweet once its released.
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I hate to say it, because I try to be positive about these things, but..
This looks like utter crap.
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v0v I dunno it looks a heckuvalot better than what I experienced when I toyed around with it on Duality when CQ was first released there. I'm not sayin it's perfect, but I wouldn't go so far as "utter crap' either.
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Yeah, I think it looks pretty good to me
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Unfortunately, I would call it utter crap. I've never been opposed to Incarna like some of our players, but what we're seeing is not at all inspiring to me. When they said they'd release the captain's quarters first, I was a bit dismayed because interaction is the great possibility here. Well, interaction and realizing some types of game play not possible earlier.
To look closer at what's "utter crap" to me, let's see. Firstly, there's the gameplay aspects which in this iteration are just replicating station services. They do that in a rather unimaginative manner, too. So, pardon me for not waving the company flag and singing the anthem. Sure, there could be more stuff coming down the pipe, but there's only talk of some contraband business. Ok... hope it will be interesting, but how about building on what we already have? Maybe some corp management stuff that can only be done in this type of 3d environment? Fleet visualizations? Combine that with sovereignty mechanics and create a whole new profession in Eve of the strategist or planner who sits in station and plots, plans and leads, interfacing perfectly into current mechanics. That's just one idea of meaningful gameplay. Instead, we get station services and then later maybe something we've never heard about before.
Second, there's the visuals. Eve is a game that looks good (on a good 'puter). The CQ is still work in progress so it will get a bit better and smooth, certainly, but those graphics are absolutely nothing to write home about. In fact, they are disappointing.
The third disappointment is about characterization. At the beginning of the design process, CCP was talking a lot about how the players react and interact with the environment. They said it was gonna be awesome and I thought "wow, they're really going to make something that's different from all the other MMOs, where our avatars just sort of stand there". There's no talk about anything like that, nor any sign of anything like that in the current incarnation. We'll get our one way to stand, one way to do idle animations, one way to wave, one way to fail. Right this way to RP heaven, people. It's back to chat channels.
Interestingly, for me the best thing about WoW was the character animations. Other games have avatars which barely fit into the world and have clunky animations with a lack of verisimilitude. It's odd that a game with so old graphics as WoW can still be the king of that, but you can't beat quality designers.
Anyway, here's hoping this will evolve and grow a lot more towards what is possible. Best thing about Eve is the possibility of further growth and iteration, but at some point CCP will have to start reaching towards their lofty goals and not just paint pictures of a tomorrow which may never come. Right now they're going for the very lowest hanging fruit so that they can say "look at us, we did it! We can walk on stations!"
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I'm "meh" about it for the sole reason that I want socialization. Beyond that, it looks okay. But until I can invite attractive women to my quarters or, better, make shady deals someplace, then it's just irrelevant eye candy.
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For now its irrelevant, except for new players maybe. I will have an opinion when we will be able to exit this damn claustrophobic closet :p
And the view on the hangar is still crappy and unrealistic/credible. Other than that I am still more or less eager to see the next steps (the really important ones).
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I think the designers are more excited about this than the players. It should be introduced but, I don't think as a main selling point, especially when functionally it has very little use (if any) beyond what we are capable of doing now. Now, when they finish Incarna and allow people to interact and open up their own locations and make products you can sell? That's at least -something-.
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I'll probably be crap when it's released. Buggy, or goofy, or click-festy, or generally unnecessary. So, here's hoping it won't be forgotten for the next ooh shiney.
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Right now they're going for the very lowest hanging fruit so that they can say "look at us, we did it! We can walk on stations!"
That's not what I take away from this at all.
CCP has been pretty clear on what it wants for Incarna, and this isn't it. Yet. This is the teeny little baby step, the proverbial camel's nose in the tent, and if CCP is trying to paint it as a nifty thing in its own right, that's ultimately just marketing. But you have to start somewhere, and CCP (along with us) has gotten burned in the past by trying to do too much, too fast.
Am I thrilled? No. Am I satisfied? Hardly. Am I rolling my eyes and predicting a miserable outcome? No.
Hell no.
Saying that this is "utter crap" is like looking at the camel's nose and saying, "This is what is going to carry me through the desert? Pfft." (Yes, I know that's not at all what that story's about.) It's like looking at the poured-cement foundation of a house and saying, "This house is shit."
This isn't a finished product; it's not even the equivalent of a freaking demo level. It's redundant and ho-hum precisely because they want to get it in and get it working before they expand on it.
If CCP fails to expand on it, we will have cause for rage: you can't ride through the desert on just a camel's nose; just a foundation won't shelter you from the rain, much less provide you a cosy spot to set up your WiFi. Until then, however, there is little reason to think that the next "shiny thing" won't consist of a bunch of social spaces and storefronts.
And no, I don't think this is a goddamn thing like COSMOS or faction warfare. Both of those are finished, if violently flawed, products; Incarna, so far, is a fragment.
Nothing more.
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Here is the slide of technical hurdles that must be accomplished for CQ:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9kSMkp3juM&t=8m42s
So yeah, if the content is a bit lacking in the first release, I don't blame them. They just built a new engine from scratch. The tools need to be ready before content can be made rapid-fire.
Having been on Duality I can tell you that most of these details in the engine are being hit. The image-based lens flares look really cool.
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If CCP fails to expand on it, we will have cause for rage: you can't ride through the desert on just a camel's nose; just a foundation won't shelter you from the rain, much less provide you a cosy spot to set up your WiFi. Until then, however, there is little reason to think that the next "shiny thing" won't consist of a bunch of social spaces and storefronts.
A lot of people are arguing that the previous noses that got stuck into the tent turned out to be detachable pieces which never amounted to anything else. No camel, just nose. Now, while that argumentation does have a point, I don't have a problem with the game's design in general (while yes, I would like them to build and iterate on what's already been done too, for sure).
Yes, there will be more. The "big vision" that they've shown us is that there will be social spaces, stores and contraband stuff. [irony] Color me frickin' amazed. [/irony] That's what they're doing with this opportunity?
Of course, we'll have to see when all of it gets done and what else is promised. I'm just saying that right now I'm not at all impressed. If there's not much gameplay there, I'll at least hope it will look good. We all hope - I think - they'll succeed in blowing my socks off.
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It looks good, but there's no meat.
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If CCP fails to expand on it...
I know where I'd be putting my money given CCP's track record. Were I a betting man. :P
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They'll be expanding this for the simple reason.
It relates to their standing in the game development world, for them to pull this off. It's not like factional warfare or other game features, which have absolutely no standing when measured alongside this technology.
I believe thinking otherwise is erroneous.
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We get to be alpha testers for World of Darkness :psyccp:
Yay \o/
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Why do people keep saying that? It doesn't make any sense to me. Yes, we get the first crack at the underlying base code. That applies to most everything -- and this has been planned since long before WoD became a CCP property.
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Well, I don't mind alpha testing WoD's underlying technology, actually. Hopefully it will be a good game 'cause I can easily see myself playing it.
But yeah, while technically true, I don't think it's quite right to say that. We may be partly doing that, but we're not only doing that. Incarna is - or ought to be anyway - more than that.
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One could say that we've been alpha testing WoD all along, since so much of the underlying core is getting re-used. But that seems like a misrepresentation of what is happening.
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The WoD thing is what virtually guarantees that Incarna will be expanded on.
Anyway, this model - where they release something that is a foundation, or framework, with little in the way of interesting content yet, and then build on it is basically exactly how the early years of Eve played out. I would view it through that lens, rather than the lens of say WH space or FW.
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Well, I half joke when I say that, but serious development for Incarna started only when WoDO was announced and put in the workings. Yes, CCP has dreamed of Incarna for a good while now for EVE too, but take look at how they implement it to EVE, in small pieces. We won't even at first have height differences come first character interactions for one. And what better way to test a new game engine and hone it than to put it under the scrutiny of a hundreds of thousands of bitter vets who rip it apart and test the engine for you while you develop it. Clever CCP is clever.
Secondly, people assume it's a bad thing when I say that. It's not. I'm extra excited by Incarna because of it. Not only am I getting a new shiny for EVE I also get a glimpse of what sort of stuff to expect for WoD Online out of the basic engine.
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Well, back in the day CCP said that there would not be walking in stations.
Because the Earth and Beyond crowd were constantly asking for it.
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Am I like the only guy who has never heard of World of Darkness or any other pieces of media discussed on this forum?
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http://www.ccpgames.com/en/products/world-of-darkness.aspx
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Oh yeah, I know what it is NOW, just when it was announced, everyone went omg and I was more wut
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Oh yeah, I know what it is NOW, just when it was announced, everyone went omg and I was more wut
Me too.
Then I got around to playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines) and it all fell into place. That game is a mixed bag, but a bag worth rummaging through nonetheless. The early game is good, with flashes of brilliance. In particular, the section of the game where you have to explore an abandoned hotel was a fantastic piece of design that riffs on The Shining to great effect. It rivals notorious Thief level The Cradle (http://gillen.cream.org/thecradle.pdf) (Warning: link to PDF). Sadly, the later stages of the game become a hack n' slash grindfest (particularly sinful when you are free to choose the way you play, à la Deus Ex, and you can quite easily have happily focused your character on being a charming stealthy beast rather than a tough combat character and find it next to impossible to complete the game) that expose the hurried development of the game that was shoved out of the door by the publisher before it was ready.
In general, vampires don’t interest me, overwhelmed as we are with the glut of supernatural media these days. V:TM-B though, that was an interesting game, and I think there is an awful lot of potential with the World of Darkness setting. For me, as much as anything, it is refreshing to find anything set in the present day rather than in yet another yawnworthy sub-par sub-Tolkien clichéfest fantasy world. So, I am at least curious to see what CCP come up with on that basis alone.
I also wonder how ‘Eve-like’ the WoD game will be. Could we actually have the first MMO that will compete with Eve? Everyone else is still busy churning out their monotonous innovation-free WoW clones. As such, Eve’s bittervets have mostly never migrated to other games with any real enthusiasm – s’why they keep hanging round Eve like a bad smell. :P The first time someone actually squeezes out an MMO that attempts some of the same things that Eve did, it’s going to get a lot of attention. It may make for an interesting dilemma for CCP: what if they do come up with the only competition for Eve? Would they water down WoD to avoid risking their precious cash cow?
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Even if the gameplay has strong elements of EVE design, I don't think it would suck away too many people. You have the whole "spaceships pew pew" crowd, those of us who are SF junkies, and people who just don't want to deal with the (inaccurate) perception of "omg twilight game ftl".
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I don't find vampires really appealing either, yeah.
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I had a roommate who was this goth chick, her and her girlfriend would play Vampire all the time with a couple of their friends. They kept trying to get me to play, "but vampire are gay," I would tell them, "but you're totally gay" they would retort.
Eventually I sat down and rolled up a character that was a hunter. I spent the entire evening setting traps, getting in their way and all around unravelling their campaign. They didn't ask me to play again. Victory.
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I had a roommate who was this goth chick, her and her girlfriend would play Vampire all the time with a couple of their friends. They kept trying to get me to play, "but vampire are gay," I would tell them.
Eventually I sat down and rolled up a character that was a hunter. I spent the entire evening setting traps, getting in their way and all around unravelling their campaign. They didn't ask me to play again. Victory.
Now I want to play Vampire table-top RPGs with you, good sir. PvP via tabletop is the best PvP. The frothy rage is a mere few feet away.
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The news screen they have seems like it will update more often than the concord billboards.
Seems like every piece of text that scrolls past is also clickable, opening up a news story, bounty office, skill queue, character information, or agent dialogue. And other things too.