Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Silas Vitalia on 22 Aug 2015, 11:27
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http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/court-chamberlain-confirms-death-of-empress-jamyl-i/
Well that only took a few years. Bravo ccp for finally getting it done. No sarcasm, well done.
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Should have done something about the fact locator agents still find her in Chaven though, heh.
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Hehe! Scope: https://youtu.be/46aRYr0IZi0
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Honestly... in my opinion it's not always a good thing to change a situation just because it came about by some good measure of derp. Especially if the change is done itself in a derpy fashion. We still have to see how this works out exactly, but the way how players were entirely unable to even pretend to have had influence in what is happening is a bad omen for how this will play out.
Sandbox? Not so much, here.
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Given that the Succession Trials will be done by players, I'd say this is about as sandboxy as a game can get.
I'll grant you, the actual event (all forty seconds of it) was kind of shit and would have been infinitely better presented by simply making a youtube video with a couple of cheap voice actors and footage from the test server.
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I'll grant you, the actual event (all forty seconds of it) was kind of shit and would have been infinitely better presented by simply making a youtube video with a couple of cheap voice actors and footage from the test server.
Eh. As with most things, depends on point of view.
The Drifters have been shown all along adopting capsuleer tactics and doing them with better coordination than we do. This was the culmination of that pattern. To my eye, that's pretty neat.
It also produced a "when Kennedy was killed" moment with a good percentage of Amarr roleplayers as the Secret Service. Nice traumatic RP catalyst.
Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't mind at all when bad stuff happens to my character, but that's a gift that's going to keep on giving for years.
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Doing the succession at Fanfest for all the house reps sounds interesting in theory, but this will 100% depend on how the champions are selected, and if we end up with 'lord derpaderp00885' as the champion for House Kor-Azor or whatever let's not kid ourselves it's going to look sort of stupid.
In my head it sounds like a cool plot and event where some of the long term loyalists get to wave their house flags and have an awesome storyline, in reality I imagine more of a CSM popularity contest with some pilots who don't care about RP getting to do a fun tournament.
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Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't mind at all when bad stuff happens to my character, but that's a gift that's going to keep on giving for years.
This wasn't about bad stuff happening to the character.
This was about players spending a week getting people informed, taking off work, and waiting for five hours, only to be treated to a short, four minute spectator event.
Killing Jamyl was fine. The event itself on the other hand left a lot to be desired.
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Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't mind at all when bad stuff happens to my character, but that's a gift that's going to keep on giving for years.
This wasn't about bad stuff happening to the character.
This was about players spending a week getting people informed, taking off work, and waiting for five hours, only to be treated to a short, four minute spectator event.
Killing Jamyl was fine. The event itself on the other hand left a lot to be desired.
Is that actually how long the event went down?
Good lord. :/
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It was a bit longer than that, but not by much. They warped in, said a few lines, got insta-blapped by drifters, then they said a few more things, then event over.
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Remember when they had a huge hours long thing for the last titan they killed and everyone got involved?
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Doing the succession at Fanfest for all the house reps sounds interesting in theory, but this will 100% depend on how the champions are selected, and if we end up with 'lord derpaderp00885' as the champion for House Kor-Azor or whatever let's not kid ourselves it's going to look sort of stupid.
In my head it sounds like a cool plot and event where some of the long term loyalists get to wave their house flags and have an awesome storyline, in reality I imagine more of a CSM popularity contest with some pilots who don't care about RP getting to do a fun tournament.
I suspect this, pretty much. We will have to see, but so far I've not the 'optimism' of Mizhara that CCP is treating everyone but the Minmatar 'great', story-wise.
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For me, who was up from about 2:30am till 5:00am to be at this 'Epic Drifter Fight for the Empress' event.
I was pretty f*cking pissed at how it went down.
That being said I am glad the last of TonyG is gone, It was one of the reasons I left was his derpalicious stuff.
Now however, I am really keen to see what they do with the Succession trials and while I hope to gods that Khanid will be involved I am not holding my breath haha
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Given that the Succession Trials will be done by players, I'd say this is about as sandboxy as a game can get.
For every rule, always a few exceptions I guess.
It's nice though, if only they could do that for everything else like proper GMs...
Doing the succession at Fanfest for all the house reps sounds interesting in theory, but this will 100% depend on how the champions are selected, and if we end up with 'lord derpaderp00885' as the champion for House Kor-Azor or whatever let's not kid ourselves it's going to look sort of stupid.
In my head it sounds like a cool plot and event where some of the long term loyalists get to wave their house flags and have an awesome storyline, in reality I imagine more of a CSM popularity contest with some pilots who don't care about RP getting to do a fun tournament.
That was my initial fear too when Affinity talked about it with Falcon and Delegate Zero...
Now though, they promised to show the rules after the AT, so i'm holding my breath for now and criticize after if needs be.
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So, I held off posting this a bit in the hopes that the hydrostatic podcast would hold some revelations that would change my opinion. So far, no luck - so here goes.
Issue #1: The cascading negation of storylines.
Simply put, killing Jamyl negates a lot of other ongoing storylines. The clone/not-a-clone debate appears to be at an end for one, but more importantly 4/5 of the heirs are going to have to die. That's a lot of characters to purge at once, and a lot of storylines abruptly dead-ended. Catiz' shenanigans with Khanid? Articio's turnaround? Ardishapur's excellent chessmaster handling? Come tournament completion, 80% of those excellent storylines are going to have to end.
And... for what? Shock value? Getting rid of a character some people didn't like, because they'd been written badly in some cases? That's a lot of collateral damage for what could have been done with a much smaller impact. Worse yet, it was abundantly clear from news stories and chronicles both that Jamyl was not an unsalvageable character - she just needed to be written reasonably well enough.
Understand, this isn't purely an Amarr issue either. It was an issue when CCP dropped a Sansha-themed hammer on Heth's head instead of having the State catch him, and it was an issue when Midular was abruptly killed and seemingly brought an end to the Minmatar cooperate-or-fight divide.
Overuse of 'shock' and 'epic' tropes.
It's been said elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating: If you pound a button long enough, that button becomes broken. CCP's been pounding the 'epic' button for several years now, and it's pretty much shattered into a thousand pieces by now. I can't go 'OMG, the empress is dead' when how I really feel is 'Well, the empress is dead. Again. And the last emperor too. And the guy before him. And a good half-dozen other heads of state in recent times.'
Simply put, SHOCKING BIG DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS have become the norm... at which point I can no longer enjoy the shock of them.
You know what would have been truly impressive, but lacked the problematic storyline issues in the first point? Have the Drifters blow up the station. We've been conditioned to accept stations as immovable, indestructable monoliths of EVE topography. CCP's wanting to shake that up with Citadels, so why not have them start off by nuking that station to begin with?
Use of pre-programmed AI as an excuse
This is more of a minor quibble compared to the other stuff, CCP have repeatedly claimed that they "did not control the Drifters" at the event, that they were "entirely run by AI" - and that as a result, Jamyl's death shouldn't be considered "dev intervention". I really don't think that counts as an excuse - if you code it so that they blap and warp off immediately on firing, so you only have to /spawn a huge number of them and sit back, you are still directing the situation.
For that matter, I will be frankly shocked if we ever see the point where Drifters display this same behavior against player-owned titans.
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So, I held off posting this a bit in the hopes that the hydrostatic podcast would hold some revelations that would change my opinion. So far, no luck - so here goes.
Issue #1: The cascading negation of storylines.
Simply put, killing Jamyl negates a lot of other ongoing storylines. The clone/not-a-clone debate appears to be at an end for one, but more importantly 4/5 of the heirs are going to have to die. That's a lot of characters to purge at once, and a lot of storylines abruptly dead-ended. Catiz' shenanigans with Khanid? Articio's turnaround? Ardishapur's excellent chessmaster handling? Come tournament completion, 80% of those excellent storylines are going to have to end.
And... for what? Shock value? Getting rid of a character some people didn't like, because they'd been written badly in some cases? That's a lot of collateral damage for what could have been done with a much smaller impact. Worse yet, it was abundantly clear from news stories and chronicles both that Jamyl was not an unsalvageable character - she just needed to be written reasonably well enough.
Understand, this isn't purely an Amarr issue either. It was an issue when CCP dropped a Sansha-themed hammer on Heth's head instead of having the State catch him, and it was an issue when Midular was abruptly killed and seemingly brought an end to the Minmatar cooperate-or-fight divide.
Overuse of 'shock' and 'epic' tropes.
It's been said elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating: If you pound a button long enough, that button becomes broken. CCP's been pounding the 'epic' button for several years now, and it's pretty much shattered into a thousand pieces by now. I can't go 'OMG, the empress is dead' when how I really feel is 'Well, the empress is dead. Again. And the last emperor too. And the guy before him. And a good half-dozen other heads of state in recent times.'
Simply put, SHOCKING BIG DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS have become the norm... at which point I can no longer enjoy the shock of them.
You know what would have been truly impressive, but lacked the problematic storyline issues in the first point? Have the Drifters blow up the station. We've been conditioned to accept stations as immovable, indestructable monoliths of EVE topography. CCP's wanting to shake that up with Citadels, so why not have them start off by nuking that station to begin with?
Use of pre-programmed AI as an excuse
This is more of a minor quibble compared to the other stuff, CCP have repeatedly claimed that they "did not control the Drifters" at the event, that they were "entirely run by AI" - and that as a result, Jamyl's death shouldn't be considered "dev intervention". I really don't think that counts as an excuse - if you code it so that they blap and warp off immediately on firing, so you only have to /spawn a huge number of them and sit back, you are still directing the situation.
For that matter, I will be frankly shocked if we ever see the point where Drifters display this same behavior against player-owned titans.
All of this. All of it.
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You are entirely misunderstanding the situation of how the AI behaved, Esna.
The bit of AI in testing was not "mass spawn and group doomsday", it was "if there's a particularly valuable/threatening target on grid, override the need to wait for the overshield to go down before firing the doomsday, and fire it immediately at that target". If I understood CCP Affinity correctly last night during the lore panel, the only hand that CCP Paradox had in the affair was spawning the Drifters in the first place. He may have also told them to go to the station, but beyond that he shouldn't have needed to do anything. The reason there was a mass doomsday was not because the Drifters were told to "all shoot this one target" by some overseeing AI, but because each individual Drifter made the same decision when looking at the grid as to what was the priority target. There is a BIG difference between the two.
Putting a titan on grid was the only way to ensure that Jamyl would be at the top of that priority list - otherwise one or more of her escorting Aeons would have bitten the dust instead.
As to why the Drifters podded her... I'd be surprised if that wasn't part of a new behavior loop too.
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1) Glad she's dead, let's not overlook how fantastic that is :P
2) Killing the empress should probably deserve more of a long battle with high stakes and reinforcements and desperate capsuleers trying to save or harm her. A 'culmination' of increasingly bleak events.
Having 100 drifters or whatever blast her instantly maybe could have been the end of the fight as a 'lose' result, not the entire fight if that makes sense? Like oh crap we've been fighting waves of drifters for an hour and we failed to save her escort supercarriers, omg wtf they bbqd the titan! I'd want amarr actor supers trying to suicide in front of the doomsdays shouting all sorts of religious martyrdom. Like it or not remember how much chatter and the duration of the Caldari Titan fight?
But I think every event in EVE should have an A/B branching plot depending on what people do :P
Edit: Mucho kudos to new AI though, if they actually pull out the stops and have these things start engaging player capital ships shit just got real.
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Esna, I really agree with your view and have been putting the emphasis on how boring the surplus of epicness is starting to turn into a bioware "you press a button and it's awesome!".
On Jamyl though, contrary to Midular, it's like Heth to me basically. The character is not ininteresting, but the character is defined by the changes he brought up to the faction. Nobody cried when Heth was sent to the trashbin (I agree with the question as to, why did it have to be Sansha though!). Everyone wanted to get rid of "Hethler". Hethler was bad because he totally redefined what the State was about. It murdered the classic Caldari lore.
I see absolutely no difference with Jamyl myself. The character is ok (though the way she has been portrayed is really different to what she was before her death). The problem is that Jamyl is totally defined by what she is : zombie empress (ok, we got rid of it), the savior of the Empire (that didn't really need to be saved in the first place), the divine intervention, the implication into sleeper tech, etc. She is a litteral walking Deus Ex Machina... Like Heth was a walking Hithler.
Also, the problem with the AI here is that maybe they intended for it to remain on field after or whatever, but it obviously warped out right after. Not sure why.
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Honestly, you can't hide behind a 'we didn't do it, they acted on their programming' if you did the programming. Just not possible.
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So, I held off posting this a bit in the hopes that the hydrostatic podcast would hold some revelations that would change my opinion. So far, no luck - so here goes.
Issue #1: The cascading negation of storylines.
Simply put, killing Jamyl negates a lot of other ongoing storylines. The clone/not-a-clone debate appears to be at an end for one, but more importantly 4/5 of the heirs are going to have to die. That's a lot of characters to purge at once, and a lot of storylines abruptly dead-ended. Catiz' shenanigans with Khanid? Articio's turnaround? Ardishapur's excellent chessmaster handling? Come tournament completion, 80% of those excellent storylines are going to have to end.
And... for what? Shock value? Getting rid of a character some people didn't like, because they'd been written badly in some cases? That's a lot of collateral damage for what could have been done with a much smaller impact. Worse yet, it was abundantly clear from news stories and chronicles both that Jamyl was not an unsalvageable character - she just needed to be written reasonably well enough.
Understand, this isn't purely an Amarr issue either. It was an issue when CCP dropped a Sansha-themed hammer on Heth's head instead of having the State catch him, and it was an issue when Midular was abruptly killed and seemingly brought an end to the Minmatar cooperate-or-fight divide.
Overuse of 'shock' and 'epic' tropes.
It's been said elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating: If you pound a button long enough, that button becomes broken. CCP's been pounding the 'epic' button for several years now, and it's pretty much shattered into a thousand pieces by now. I can't go 'OMG, the empress is dead' when how I really feel is 'Well, the empress is dead. Again. And the last emperor too. And the guy before him. And a good half-dozen other heads of state in recent times.'
Simply put, SHOCKING BIG DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS have become the norm... at which point I can no longer enjoy the shock of them.
You know what would have been truly impressive, but lacked the problematic storyline issues in the first point? Have the Drifters blow up the station. We've been conditioned to accept stations as immovable, indestructable monoliths of EVE topography. CCP's wanting to shake that up with Citadels, so why not have them start off by nuking that station to begin with?
Use of pre-programmed AI as an excuse
This is more of a minor quibble compared to the other stuff, CCP have repeatedly claimed that they "did not control the Drifters" at the event, that they were "entirely run by AI" - and that as a result, Jamyl's death shouldn't be considered "dev intervention". I really don't think that counts as an excuse - if you code it so that they blap and warp off immediately on firing, so you only have to /spawn a huge number of them and sit back, you are still directing the situation.
For that matter, I will be frankly shocked if we ever see the point where Drifters display this same behavior against player-owned titans.
Have to agree, however it bears the question
How to make drastic changes, or cleanup without big epic tropes?
How can you change the status quo of the Amarr Empire without killing some of the heads?? or change the Political landscape in the Federation without introducing an epic turnaround?.
I understand the button has been smashed too much lately, but i have to say, that in order to return to some form of slow-pace changes, you need to put some brakes or make u-turns first....and i think CCP has given falcon some liberty to do just that.
If he is able to adjust everything so it becomes a drip-irrigated field...with lore making small steps and with multiple small-ish storylines...then i'm all for it.
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How to make drastic changes, or cleanup without big epic tropes?
I think you can do so quite well by having actual structured events and longer campaigns that -eventually- lead to different scenarios, determined by the players.
The difference is the way they do it now, you have a few tiny events with relatively predetermined outcomes, and you are on a plot freight train towards 'x' 'epic' event. Epic event shows up regardless of what players are doing and there are no stakes, no one cares because no one has spent time supporting alternative outcomes or stakes.
Whether 50 people showed up or 5000 people showed up Jamyl was going to be instagibbed by those drifters.
Why the hell should anyone show up or care about that instead of just watching a news report the next day?
As far as lore and IC plots go, CCP is treating the game and the playerbase more like a plot dissemination device rather than an interactive fiction/choose your fate experience.
It's the fundamental difference in having a good DM and having a guided adventure experience, or a quicktime event cutscene in most games today.
This isn't a stab at the writers or the people doing these events, they have their jobs to do and they do what they are paid to do, I question the underlying approach to the design of the interactive experience is all.
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Remember how when the Shadows (Drifters) showed up in Babylon 5 they were strategically attacking one race in order to destabilize the empires and plunge everyone into war so they could pick off what would be left?
I would have loved some sort of give and take with a few NPC minor factions thinking they are pulling the strings of the Drifters and eventually it being the other way around.
Maybe player events where capsuleers somehow after 'winning' an event get to request of the drifters to secretly destroy from among several NPC targets. (An amarr border station? A federation Outpost? A republic mining colony?)
Use the drifters to systematically blow up border outposts on the Republic border, use the drifters to explode the Federation's Tripwire system. Sow chaos, get the Empires at each other's throats, leave a breadcrumb of clues and missions for the capsuleers to try and stop or support what is happening. Have the drifters accepting and rewarding capsuleer supporters with equipment and tech. Make it a Mass Effect Reaper situation, if we are going to go the Drifter route?
I guess maybe I had imagined in my head more of an 'ultimate sacrifice Jamyl martyr' sort of space battle to stop the drifters instead of lol alpha'd?
No terran superweapon? Would have been neat if she used it and blew up 100 drifters only to have 100 more come in while she was recharging :P
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You are entirely misunderstanding the situation of how the AI behaved, Esna.
The bit of AI in testing was not "mass spawn and group doomsday", it was "if there's a particularly valuable/threatening target on grid, override the need to wait for the overshield to go down before firing the doomsday, and fire it immediately at that target". If I understood CCP Affinity correctly last night during the lore panel, the only hand that CCP Paradox had in the affair was spawning the Drifters in the first place. He may have also told them to go to the station, but beyond that he shouldn't have needed to do anything. The reason there was a mass doomsday was not because the Drifters were told to "all shoot this one target" by some overseeing AI, but because each individual Drifter made the same decision when looking at the grid as to what was the priority target. There is a BIG difference between the two.
Putting a titan on grid was the only way to ensure that Jamyl would be at the top of that priority list - otherwise one or more of her escorting Aeons would have bitten the dust instead.
As to why the Drifters podded her... I'd be surprised if that wasn't part of a new behavior loop too.
I'm aware of how the AI works. I put two and two together pretty quickly after the event, between Jamyl and the guy who unexpectedly got his Thanatos blapped on a station undock a few days earlier.
However, I don't think that invalidates my point - if you have an AI which behaves in a very specific manner (target largest thing, blap it, kill pod, warp off) and then you set the conditions such that - given the ships on field, the number of Drifters you are spawning, etc - there is only one possible outcome to the encounter, you do not get to then claim that you had no part in the outcome of the event because it was "just the AI".
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Actually if they are going to go the 'elder race returning' trope I would have maybe liked a new Jove (drifters) vs Old Jove with New Eden races and factions as the puppets and caught in middle? Player events eventually assigning loyalties or support for either Jove faction (or none), commence with cluster wide pew pew and border shuffling before one defeats the other and then who knows what.
Would have made for some very pretty jove v jove space events
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Epic event shows up regardless of what players are doing and there are no stakes, no one cares because no one has spent time supporting alternative outcomes or stakes.
And in this case some people weren't quite aware that there were no alternative outcomes, no stakes, not even minor deviations in how the same outcome would come to pass. So they prepared as if they had a stake in it, just to find out that they hadn't.
It has been pointed out to me that you shouldn't treat CCP like that. It's not like a GM and players who work together for a joint and mutually enjoyable story. CCP acts more like an opponent in a PvP situation and the playing field is not level (just as it shouldn't be when you do PvP in EVE). For that to be enjoyable you need to approach it with a different mindset. - If you want to enjoy it. There's always that choice.
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Epic event shows up regardless of what players are doing and there are no stakes, no one cares because no one has spent time supporting alternative outcomes or stakes.
And in this case some people weren't quite aware that there were no alternative outcomes, no stakes, not even minor deviations in how the same outcome would come to pass. So they prepared as if they had a stake in it, just to find out that they hadn't.
It has been pointed out to me that you shouldn't treat CCP like that. It's not like a GM and players who work together for a joint and mutually enjoyable story. CCP acts more like an opponent in a PvP situation and the playing field is not level (just as it shouldn't be when you do PvP in EVE). For that to be enjoyable you need to approach it with a different mindset. - If you want to enjoy it. There's always that choice.
The interesting/occasionally baffling thing for me is that EVE has some wonderful, wonderful sandbox selling points that could be leveraged into some extremely meaningful storytelling, steered by the players. Other games can't sell that.
There's a magical place that could live somewhere between the 00 sov stories and the railroad plotting of the lore where they combine the NPCs and the players in an amazing way.
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Epic event shows up regardless of what players are doing and there are no stakes, no one cares because no one has spent time supporting alternative outcomes or stakes.
And in this case some people weren't quite aware that there were no alternative outcomes, no stakes, not even minor deviations in how the same outcome would come to pass. So they prepared as if they had a stake in it, just to find out that they hadn't.
It has been pointed out to me that you shouldn't treat CCP like that. It's not like a GM and players who work together for a joint and mutually enjoyable story. CCP acts more like an opponent in a PvP situation and the playing field is not level (just as it shouldn't be when you do PvP in EVE). For that to be enjoyable you need to approach it with a different mindset. - If you want to enjoy it. There's always that choice.
At least this time they didn't pretend that it WAS open to question. I'm still bitter about the Caldari Prime event, where they had clearly pre-determined the outcome, and I wonder how many of the people that worked so hard to turn up and stock the place with reships would have done it if they'd known it was a fait accompli?
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I imagine it's a combination of lack of staff and resources and management interest in the sorts of events some people might want to see.
I imagine the people doing the lore and events would love for things to be bigger, more involved, and more intricate.
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my prediction is that DRIFTER INVASION OF THRONE WORLDS SUCCESSFUL
constellation changes to Drifter sovereignty, Everyone dies. Stations destroyed.
Because
EPIC
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What is the sadest is that since 2005, I continue to see people surprised and hurt due to CCP railroading their events.They basically continue to trap people unaware of it again and again... and I keep seeing the same drama...
It has always been the case (minus very, very few exceptions and the only one that comes to mind right now is the Amarr Succession).
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my prediction is that DRIFTER INVASION OF THRONE WORLDS SUCCESSFUL
constellation changes to Drifter sovereignty, Everyone dies. Stations destroyed.
Because
EPIC
The thing is things actually become epic (tm) when you have invested time and energy in getting there. The end of a single player RPG, the end of some eve sov war or campaign, etc. It can be a natural consequence of cascading events over a length of time with winners and losers and a story to remember.
I don't mind big epic 'eve' epic sorts of stuff at all (yay pew pew npc fleets pew pew pew all the things) so long as it's the end of a larger story with high stakes and winners and losers
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my prediction is that DRIFTER INVASION OF THRONE WORLDS SUCCESSFUL
constellation changes to Drifter sovereignty, Everyone dies. Stations destroyed.
Because
EPIC
The thing is things actually become epic (tm) when you have invested time and energy in getting there. The end of a single player RPG, the end of some eve sov war or campaign, etc. It can be a natural consequence of cascading events over a length of time with winners and losers and a story to remember.
I don't mind big epic 'eve' epic sorts of stuff at all (yay pew pew npc fleets pew pew pew all the things) so long as it's the end of a larger story with high stakes and winners and losers
It means one thing though.
If the Drifters take over the Throne Worlds, then it means that the Amarr RPers won EVE Rp.
Because, the likes of PIE never failed in their duty, were never beaten by the Minmatar, were always there when the Empire needed them.
And then the rules of the game were rewritten so that they lost.
The anti-Amarr Rpers don't get to brag about defeating the Empire, because they had sod all to do with it.
Total Amarr Victory.
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Remember when they had a huge hours long thing for the last titan they killed and everyone got involved?
Hell they even involved Dusters in a titanic....pardon the unintentional pun..... ground based conflict.
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My $0.02 -
I knew Jamyl was probably going to die, that's why I took off work to be there. I'm torn on how it was handled.
I'm kind of glad there was absolutely zero-zipp-nada we could have done to prevent or change what happened so there is no way that Mit can feel that she somehow failed. If there had at least been a fight(even if predestined to lose), there would be serious IC sense of responsibility and who knows how some of us loyalists would react to that. So, yeah, I guess thanks CCP for not making my toon commit seppuku?
On the crap side, it really was a blue baller that I know at least a few people made some pretty big concessions to be there for. In hindsight, I would rather have my vacation day back, thank you very much.
Well, at least I can say I was there. Ugh. Like I said, torn.
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I feel pretty guilty suggesting people skip work. I had honestly expected something a lot more to the event.
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I'm waiting for Jamyl and Hilen to show back up under drifter control. Or even for Jamyl's clone to resurface and see her make her own plays on the side, even though she can't get back on the throne.
She was so obviously a capsuleer that I can't really see this being the end of her storyline. There's lots of crazy places for the story to go from here.
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*so obviously a clone
Everyone already knew she was a capsuleer.
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I can't really see this being the end of her storyline.
To paraphrase/quote Falcon from the lore panel last sunday night... she's "dead as a can of spam" and is not coming back.
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What did you think about the things and the stuffs?
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What did you think about the things and the stuffs?
I dunno, I prefer stuff over things
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I feel pretty guilty suggesting people skip work. I had honestly expected something a lot more to the event.
It eventually took my day off too, but that's no big deal, it's just one day, and besides I had others things to take care of anyway.
Really, really not a big deal for me.
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It was a rather pathetic demise for someone of such importance. I guess it was CCP's last "fuck you" to TonyG or something.
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It was a rather pathetic demise for someone of such importance. I guess it was CCP's last "fuck you" to TonyG or something.
IC, Aria (not knowing about the Other) thinks it was an intentional insult to get the Amarr trying to fight the Drifters themselves without calling for aid.
OOC? I'll go for a combination shock and awe, epic drama intended to play on the expectation of a massive event, tech demo, and warning shot to those who might consider running Drifter incursions with supercaps.
Edit:
Also, I'm looking forward to the day a random AWOXer lands a supercap fleet in the middle of a Drifter incursion. I don't know how effective it'll be in practice, but that will be a hi-lar-i-ous moment.
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I don't know why people still think that capitals are going to be a thing with Drifter incursions. CCP's already stated multiple times you aren't getting capitals through the acceleration gates.
You can cyno in caps to shoot at the Drifters roaming around outside of the sites (there's no cynojammer effect for Drifter incursions) but that's it.
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I can't really see this being the end of her storyline.
To paraphrase/quote Falcon from the lore panel last sunday night... she's "dead as a can of spam" and is not coming back.
Well of course he'd say that. It would ruin all the surprise when she comes back controlled by the Other at the helm of a drifter armada.
And honestly, if that was really it for her, I'll be a bit disappointed in CCP. What about The Other? What about the fact that she's a capsuleer and already cloned herself once? I think it would be pretty cool if she came back in some description.
Can you just imagine the uproar if a new clone of hers surfaced a month from now in some lowsec pocket where she's quietly been gathering resources? That would make for some good RP.
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I don't know why people still think that capitals are going to be a thing with Drifter incursions. CCP's already stated multiple times you aren't getting capitals through the acceleration gates.
You can cyno in caps to shoot at the Drifters roaming around outside of the sites (there's no cynojammer effect for Drifter incursions) but that's it.
I figured as much, but I'm maybe a little unclear on how many drifters are roaming around.
Or whether they'll form up to take out a priority target.
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1 shiny ISK says that just like The Other piggybacked on her consciousness xfer during her first 'death', she piggybacked on the Other being xfered back to Drifter land.
So when the other or whatever drifter shenanigans gets to climax point, Jamyl will break into their consciousness at the last second and steer their deus ex machina plan into the ground.
que local chat Jamyl saying something majestic as drifter titan doomsdays drifter HQ or whatever
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I just want to give you all some tinfoil that the Drifter incursion happened in Nandeza, Silas' old HQ for low sec shittery :)
SHE BEEN BUSY YO.
Also +100 you khanid folks best get into that tournament and run that. Or pay the best solo pilots to. KHANID MUST BE EMPEROR.
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1 shiny ISK says that just like The Other piggybacked on her consciousness xfer during her first 'death', she piggybacked on the Other being xfered back to Drifter land.
So when the other or whatever drifter shenanigans gets to climax point, Jamyl will break into their consciousness at the last second and steer their deus ex machina plan into the ground.
que local chat Jamyl saying something majestic as drifter titan doomsdays drifter HQ or whatever
This would be so awesome.
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That would be so rubbish...
Some have suggested though that the Other might have piggybacked on Matshi Raish when he scanned the empress ship...
Also, Jamyl coming back as a demented clone or anything sure would ruin her messianic/saint image.
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Also, Jamyl coming back as a demented clone [FOR THE 2nd TIME] or anything sure would ruin her messianic/saint image.
fixed that for ya :P
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What is the sadest is that since 2005, I continue to see people surprised and hurt due to CCP railroading their events.They basically continue to trap people unaware of it again and again... and I keep seeing the same drama...
It has always been the case (minus very, very few exceptions and the only one that comes to mind right now is the Amarr Succession).
The funny part will be after Succession Trials, when people will finally think they had some meaningful impact on the story, but CCP will do their usual CCP thing. Some of the holders will refuse to commit shathol'syn, there will be no emperor, amarr will erupt in civil war and head of the houses won't even change. :lol:
CCP, CCP never changes.
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Also, Jamyl coming back as a demented clone [FOR THE 2nd TIME] or anything sure would ruin her messianic/saint image.
fixed that for ya :P
The Fallen Empress raises an army of drones from the distant corners of space...
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What is the sadest is that since 2005, I continue to see people surprised and hurt due to CCP railroading their events.They basically continue to trap people unaware of it again and again... and I keep seeing the same drama...
It has always been the case (minus very, very few exceptions and the only one that comes to mind right now is the Amarr Succession).
The funny part will be after Succession Trials, when people will finally think they had some meaningful impact on the story, but CCP will do their usual CCP thing. Some of the holders will refuse to commit shathol'syn, there will be no emperor, amarr will erupt in civil war and head of the houses won't even change. :lol:
CCP, CCP never changes.
Makes sense for 'civil war' storylines.
I sure as hell know Khanid II isn't committing Shathol'syn for any of those scrubs :P
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Khanid probably won't even have a chance at competing in the trials.
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I somehow, don't feel that CCP are going to do the whole Shathol'Syn thing again.
Look at how much detail has been put into the new characters of Merimeth Sarum and for the Minmatar, Acassa Midular. We know hardly anything about them.
Compare this to the vast amounts known about the existing Heirs.
If they do the Shathol'Syn thing, then most of them will be gone. And who is going to take their place ?
I feel quite uneasy about this.
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Yes Louella, is they end up Shatol'Syn-ing them, they sure as hell will need to flesh out replacements... And I fear they will not do it due to team or time constraints... Like they didn't for Midular.
What is the sadest is that since 2005, I continue to see people surprised and hurt due to CCP railroading their events.They basically continue to trap people unaware of it again and again... and I keep seeing the same drama...
It has always been the case (minus very, very few exceptions and the only one that comes to mind right now is the Amarr Succession).
The funny part will be after Succession Trials, when people will finally think they had some meaningful impact on the story, but CCP will do their usual CCP thing. Some of the holders will refuse to commit shathol'syn, there will be no emperor, amarr will erupt in civil war and head of the houses won't even change. :lol:
CCP, CCP never changes.
Oh, they did it a lot more subtle than that in the past... Doriam lasted 2 years and got assassinated since Jamyl was the planned choice and the result done by the players seemed to embarass them more than anything...
Or maybe they will do as you say, since now they press a button and it's awesome/epic.
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I somehow, don't feel that CCP are going to do the whole Shathol'Syn thing again.
Look at how much detail has been put into the new characters of Merimeth Sarum and for the Minmatar, Acassa Midular. We know hardly anything about them.
Compare this to the vast amounts known about the existing Heirs.
If they do the Shathol'Syn thing, then most of them will be gone. And who is going to take their place ?
I feel quite uneasy about this.
I don't think that lack of fleshed-out characters will stop CCP from anything. But they won't stop from just plunging the Empire into a civil war either.
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Civil war would be super fantastic, but I'm not sure how that would look in engine or with the background info?
There's a hard line between dynamic one-off game events and static npc game assets (region sovereignty, station ownership, characters, etc).
If they implement FacWar style changes across all of the region borders that could work perhaps? This is why I've always wanted sec status in systems to be a dynamic thing they can slider up or down for IC or player reasons.
It's also a huge, huge undertaking with hundreds of star systems and an enourmous backlog of lore to keep up to date if the slightest thing changes across the board.
IE super neat if 4 heirs commit suicide but I have sympathy for the Mercury crew that have to write 4 new bios and change all the references to the heirs :P
My bet is there will be a new emperor but the other heirs aren't going to go along with it for reasons (tm).
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Don't worry, new bios will just look like those of Merimeth Sarum. ;P
Also, who thinks that it will have consequences gaming wise if they declare there's a civil war? I'm sure it works by just declaring it in some news articles. Also, don't mind updating background info, just declare 'the newest thing counts', maybe get another book out that brings everything 'up to date'. Better anyway to monetize background change then paying for it. If people make the mistake that EVElopedia and chronicles or the intros at character creation are up to date it's not CCP's fault. They're kind'a outdated since Source anyway.
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Someday after they turn off the lights I need to talk to a lot of these employees about many things.
It just seems like sometimes there are so many different cooks in the kitchen fighting over the direction of the game, the look and feel of the IP, and all the things.
After the Vampire game was canceled and the former employees started airing dirty laundry a lot of things made more sense for me; I'd love to get more of the story someday. There's a lot of really talented artists and writers and programmers there who sometimes seem to be at odds with management.
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It means one thing though.
If the Drifters take over the Throne Worlds, then it means that the Amarr RPers won EVE Rp.
Because, the likes of PIE never failed in their duty, were never beaten by the Minmatar, were always there when the Empire needed them.
And then the rules of the game were rewritten so that they lost.
The anti-Amarr Rpers don't get to brag about defeating the Empire, because they had sod all to do with it.
Total Amarr Victory.
I just had another thought about this, relating to these drifter incursions, and also to things I see on the IGS.
Drifter Incursions give out Amarr LP and only Amarr LP. Amarr LP will, inevitably, decline in value as a result.
This makes Faction Warfare as a source of Amarr LP, much less valuable, permanently.
Which makes the Faction Warfare farmers switch to other factions, permanently, instead of the usual switching which is generally a temporary thing, following saturation of the markets for the various faction goods. There's topics on the IGS about Amarr FW farming corporations leaving.
So, in future, in FW, Amarr will never again have the numbers it did in the past.
So, Drifter Incursions gamed FW in favour of Minmatar.
And once again, the Minmatar have been depicted in game mechanics and lore, as being unable to do anything without outside help.
Should the Minmatar now actually achieve 100% occupancy of the warzone, it'll be tainted by these facts. Diminishing the achievement of those who weren't in it to farm LP and isk.
And if the Minmatar don't get 100% occupancy, then it's "neener neener neener, you can't beat the Empire even with one hand tied behind our back", all over the IGS, forever.
:bash:
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Hello STPRO lp.
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It means one thing though.
If the Drifters take over the Throne Worlds, then it means that the Amarr RPers won EVE Rp.
Because, the likes of PIE never failed in their duty, were never beaten by the Minmatar, were always there when the Empire needed them.
And then the rules of the game were rewritten so that they lost.
The anti-Amarr Rpers don't get to brag about defeating the Empire, because they had sod all to do with it.
Total Amarr Victory.
I just had another thought about this, relating to these drifter incursions, and also to things I see on the IGS.
Drifter Incursions give out Amarr LP and only Amarr LP. Amarr LP will, inevitably, decline in value as a result.
This makes Faction Warfare as a source of Amarr LP, much less valuable, permanently.
Which makes the Faction Warfare farmers switch to other factions, permanently, instead of the usual switching which is generally a temporary thing, following saturation of the markets for the various faction goods. There's topics on the IGS about Amarr FW farming corporations leaving.
So, in future, in FW, Amarr will never again have the numbers it did in the past.
So, Drifter Incursions gamed FW in favour of Minmatar.
And once again, the Minmatar have been depicted in game mechanics and lore, as being unable to do anything without outside help.
Should the Minmatar now actually achieve 100% occupancy of the warzone, it'll be tainted by these facts. Diminishing the achievement of those who weren't in it to farm LP and isk.
And if the Minmatar don't get 100% occupancy, then it's "neener neener neener, you can't beat the Empire even with one hand tied behind our back", all over the IGS, forever.
:bash:
That acutally attracts me to the Amarr side of the conflict.
I never have done FW for the LP I just did it for the PVP I could care less about LP and trading it in to make money. I always liked fighiting for the underdogs cause that means a target rich environment...sure it also means a higher chance of just getting blobbed to death but so be it.
I'd also imagine this will shift and eventually even out if/when the drifters reach out to touch the other empires.
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So, in future, in FW, Amarr will never again have the numbers it did in the past.
Amusingly, Amarr has always been the smallest Militia, so this probably isn't going to have as much of an impact as you think. The Farming population in Amarr has also never reached quite the same heights as the other three, usually because Amarr control of the higher tiers has been very temporary over the years. Amarr is, and will continue to be, the second strongest pvp-centric militia after Gallente. I don't see a reduction in LP prices hurting this too badly, as almost nobody joins the Amarr to actually make money anyway.
They're there to fight.
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All of this doomsaying about the devaluation of Amarr LP due to Drifter Incursions seems incredibly premature, shortsighted and, well... ridiculously pessimistic. The damn things were only up for a day before CCP took them down again because of server performance issues - I sincerely doubt anyone's actually seen an LP payout from them yet, and I don't remember hearing anything about how it works from Sisi either.
And even then, the only way it'll "devalue" LP in general is if you can convert it at 24th Imperial Crusade stations and there's a cost-effective way of getting LP out of the sites.
As it stands, you'd be better off grinding L4 missions for LP if you're not in FW already. Way better off - you're making up to 9-10k LP per mission, you get loot/salvage and sometimes tags, and you aren't losing multiple ships per site either.