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[Mithfindel]

IIRC there's some rumours around that the original Incursion faction would have been the EoM, later change to Sansha.

[Borza]

^ Looking at the previous fanfest it appears the Incursion enemies were going to be Jovians at some stage.

[Casiella]

Confirming that I have heard two different devs say that they originally planned for EoM to be the Big Bads of Incursion, but the player response to the Sansha live events changed their mind.

[Chowda]

Confirming that I have heard two different devs say that they originally planned for EoM to be the Big Bads of Incursion, but the player response to the Sansha live events changed their mind.

I can confirm it was said during the live dev chat a few weeks back.

[Graelyn]

How retarded is that?

Seriously.

EoM? Mobilizing thousands upon thousands of ships and followers?

A lot of folks still believe that the plots of EVE are written down and kept in a vault somewhere. Things like this firmly convince me that they''re mostly made up a week before during week-long whiskey benders.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

How retarded is that?

Seriously.

EoM? Mobilizing thousands upon thousands of ships and followers?

A lot of folks still believe that the plots of EVE are written down and kept in a vault somewhere. Things like this firmly convince me that they''re mostly made up a week before during week-long whiskey benders.

Well I know they don't have a region of their own like the Sansha. But they do turn up as mission targets quite a lot and I guess they must get the resources for those comedy-fit Imperial hulls somewhere.

[Graelyn]

But they do turn up as mission targets quite a lot and I guess they must get the resources for those comedy-fit Imperial hulls somewhere.

They have one mission (unless I'm forgetting another one).

They have no bases of operations.

Even in the missions, they have no infrastructure of any kind.

They have a philosophy that does not appeal to all that many people, as compared even to the message of Sansha. EoM relies on a very twisted view of the Amarrian religion, just like the Blood Raiders, and even with their region and stations, the BRC doesn't come close to having enough ships and personnel to take on the entire cluster.

It is literally the single most unsuitable group to propose. And it was the plan. It's extremely disheartening to find out how little CCP understand their own game world sometimes.

[Kybernetes Moros]

It is literally the single most unsuitable group to propose. And it was the plan. It's extremely disheartening to find out how little CCP understand their own game world sometimes.

I agree that the EoM make less sense from a logistical standpoint, definitely, in gathering up the resources that'd be needed to undertake the Incursions.

I can't help but shake the feeling that story and the established game world was secondary to the Incursion mechanic, though: if memory serves, one of the videos released in the lead-up to Incursion's deployment said pretty much "we picked the Sansha because they're scary". I think it was Ken (could have been someone else; memory's not quite working today) who summarised my feelings best. To paraphrase, it was something like:

"Right, we need a new group PvE mechanic."
"What about big NPC attacks on constellations?"
"Cool!"
"Yeah, we need someone scary, like the EoM, or the Sansha."
"Let's use the Sansha, they make a little more sense -- and wormholes are scary, right? Let's put wormholes into it."

Irrespective of what faction it is doing the incursing, for want of a better term, the entire mechanic just seems clunky to me. A handwaved 'we want to do something with group PvE' with story jammed in as an afterthought. That may or may not change with the mutterings about increasing the story element to them that we heard on the live devblog a few weeks back. If it was TonyG who said that, though (again, memory being a little dodgy), I guess you can refer back to much of this thread to guess my feelings on that. :U

[Chowda]

They have one mission (unless I'm forgetting another one).

And this is bad how?  Do the old Sansha missions make sense without the new AI?  Not really.

They have no bases of operations.

That we know of.  "attacking from a location which remains yet a mystery to CONCORD" makes more sense to me than "attacking from that area of space, let's not go there".

Even in the missions, they have no infrastructure of any kind.

That we know of.

They have a philosophy that does not appeal to all that many people, as compared even to the message of Sansha. EoM relies on a very twisted view of the Amarrian religion, just like the Blood Raiders, and even with their region and stations, the BRC doesn't come close to having enough ships and personnel to take on the entire cluster.

They are maniacal terrorists, looking to destroy.  How does that not work in an Incursions setting?

It is literally the single most unsuitable group to propose.

After having Sansha for the live events, I found the choice of having them do Incursions to be a bit unimaginative.  And it makes the old missions and the fact they hold territory without a massive CONCORD-led invasion to be illogical to me. 

And it was the plan. It's extremely disheartening to find out how little CCP understand their own game world sometimes.

In conclusion, it would have been nice to have a mysterious entity fleshed along with the expansion.

Oh well, got any EM ammo?

[Graelyn]

Do the old Sansha missions make sense without the new AI?  Not really.

Yes, they do. The Sansha we've seen for so long were stated to be remnants of the Old Nation, automatonic fleets simply following the last set of orders given. The New Sansha fleets are freshly built fleets, full of new tech that has been in development all this time, crewed by the victims of the Initial Incursion planets, and commanded by Sansha himself. Of course they behave differently.

The 'old' Nation remnant is still out there doing it's thing. Sansha just hasn't switched it off. Then again, maybe he can't?  

"Attacking from a location which remains yet a mystery to CONCORD" makes more sense to me than "attacking from that area of space, let's not go there".

This makes no sense. Having an imagined, off the map origin is better than one that is explained? I vehemently disagree. In this case, Graelyn commands a force of 70 titans in an unexplored system, surely.

They are maniacal terrorists, looking to destroy.  How does that not work in an Incursions setting?

The basis of the massive amount of personnel Sansha deploys is explained, both in the activities of the Remnant forces working all this time to harvest what they can, to the mass abductions in Empire space, and even a constant trickle of consensual followers trickling in from the Empires, people who believe in Kuvakei's dream. You have a massive slave force augmented by implantation, and devout followers.

Small extremist cults like the EoM remain small due to the outlandishness of their goals. It's hard to fathom a more extremist cause than the one they follow (Kill all life! Period! Arrgh!). There would be no massive influx of men or materiel. Hardly anyone would join them on purpose, and there is nothing in their background that points to an ability to force a population into serving them. As such, any attempt to shoehorn any of the above into their story would be completely pulled out of someone's ass with no supporting data. That's the sort of thing that no believable story should allow.
There is no basis for anything EoM related in an incursion setting. An argument that 'well, nothing says we can't' is not just a slippery slope, but a sheer cliff into a rocky ravine of doom.

After having Sansha for the live events, I found the choice of having them do Incursions to be a bit unimaginative.

Perhaps you wanted a group less likely to invade the cluster to go ahead and do so. In my view, a group that seems likely to do something should be the ones to....do it. Things making sense should be occasionally encouraged.

And it makes the old missions and the fact they hold territory without a massive CONCORD-led invasion to be illogical to me.  

Here you have a point.


(Edit: Mods, this thread may need a split)

[Lyn Farel]

It would have been possible to make EoM the incursionners, but with a lot of radical changes and explanations. And well, it would definitly have been rubbish/cheesy/unrealistic.

[Ghost Hunter]

EoM could have been the Incursion force if they had somehow gotten the Rogue Drones to ally with them. To the Rogue Drones, a human society dedicated to purging all human life in the cluster might be worth an ally. That is presuming the Rogue Drones have such a extreme goal as part of their agenda. That would have made the Rogue Drones the main incursion force, however, with EoM in supporting details (still). I am having trouble seeing how their organization would recruit effectively.

Unless they would have taken the whole rebirth/mass cloning schtick from the Sansha, and simply replicated their existing members endlessly to generate a clone army. That, would in theory, correct their membership issues. As for their space based infrastructure? No idea on that still.

Did TonyG give away much info about the selection / building process for Incursion during the Fanfest at all? Or does he just work on Novels?

[Casiella]

In this area, I think the criticism has gotten off-base.

So they had an initial concept and modified what may or may not have been a good idea into something bigger based on enthusiastic player response. This is a problem... why?

Look, nobody's "first idea" is always good. If you generate a lot of ideas, some of them will be bad, by definition. They realized early on that there was a better option and went with that. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that CCP reacted to what players liked and went with that?

[Ghost Hunter]

In this area, I think the criticism has gotten off-base.

So they had an initial concept and modified what may or may not have been a good idea into something bigger based on enthusiastic player response. This is a problem... why?

Look, nobody's "first idea" is always good. If you generate a lot of ideas, some of them will be bad, by definition. They realized early on that there was a better option and went with that. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that CCP reacted to what players liked and went with that?

Opportunity lost, in some respects, I suppose. I can understand that some people will lament about EoM not getting any love since the abrupt death of that planet burn event arc. On the flipside, the Nation has also experienced very little progression until the live events reboot. Now one of the most mysterious factions is starting to get fleshed out a bit.

It's possible EoM will get involved in the Sleeper Arc, since the event team seems to want to move the Nation away from being intimately involved with that. The exact origins of the wormhole generator are a mystery, but Omune (Fed Actor) did divulge the device was of pure Sansha origin - Not a Sleeper relic stolen.

[Casiella]

Sure, I'd like to see EoM fleshed out as well. A little part of me wishes they'd stuck with it.

But I think it's counterproductive to criticize CCP for altering plans in response to what players seem to like, including the sub-community that gravitates to Backstage and all the other tools we often share in common.