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[Milo Caman]

Hm. True. The only issue I have with trying to spin events, though, is that if you guess wrong on CCP's path, then you'll look foolish. 

You can sort of step around this a bit by going with minor/side factions, and not doing things that are- well, huge. There's always a risk that CCP might tread on things, but frankly with things going the way they are, I don't really think that it's going to be a huge issue.

[Louella Dougans]

Affinity also said that she wants to be careful about putting lore into new content to avoid missions and other assets becoming obsolete in short order.

I don't know about this. Seems like separating lore and gameplay. How would someone experience the lore, if not through gameplay ? Books ? the wiki ?

If the lore isn't apparent to the player, then how would they become interested in the lore ?

While some people complain about popup messages in exploration sites or deadspace things "lore crap, get rid of it" and so on, then following their demands, so that everything you do ingame is just about numbers, then I don't think it's very immersive or interesting.

vOv

[V. Gesakaarin]

I don't see this as a bad thing if it means a move for the lore to be in the background and a shift away from concepts such as FW or Incursions. Where, while grand and epic for a few months end up stagnating because they become game features that whither on the vine of non-resolution. I think the direction chosen has a chance to have consistent lore part of the background and not just something scribbled on the back of a napkin to justify making everything as epic as possible.

[Louella Dougans]

Well, I like to do low level missions sometimes, because they often had lore stuff in them. And when I found something, it was like "neat!".

But if the future is one where missions don't have any lore stuff in them, then... there's nothing for me to look at in missions, except the numbers and red crosses.

Seems a bit kind of, I dunno, dry ?

[V. Gesakaarin]

Well looking at it another way, the content of missions were probably written down years ago and might be a source of internal contradictions with new PF and Source right now. I mean some of the missions still talk about there being a war in a future tense I think for one.

[Lyn Farel]

They are still going full epic/blockbuster in their lore. I don't believe it will change the slightest considering the last trailers we had not even a month ago.

Or did they just get an epiphany a few days ago before that announcement ?

[V. Gesakaarin]

I think I should clarify and say that having the storyline introduced in the same way as game design changes of, "Oh wow a new ship/item!" which translates into, "Oh wow a new epic storyline development!" Just makes things awkward. FW/Incursions seem to me a result of the thinking where combining the background story with the actual game just leaves the story/plot hanging in the breeze. They can't be taken out because they're game features and because there's no longer commitment to continue the plot behind them, they end up in the absurdity of a never-ending war and never-ending incursions. Any question of as to why they would continue as they do can really only be answered with: Just because.

That's why I think any move to keep a clear delineation between the world of players as capsuleers/dusties/valks and the background fiction is nothing but a good thing given the past track record of CCP essentially dropping any semblance of story development or support for the new features they introduce once the shine wears off. Do I actually things will change? Not really. Given the new videos and intimations of "Growing capsuleer power" I can only assume there's going to be something like CONCORD signatories trying to invade null space to a lot of furor and epic vids then it will just end up something like go and shoot some super secret Fed/Empire/State/Republic sites in null for loot and bpcs instead of running DED sites.

[Dessau]

FW/Incursions seem to me a result of the thinking where combining the background story with the actual game just leaves the story/plot hanging in the breeze. They can't be taken out because they're game features and because there's no longer commitment to continue the plot behind them, they end up in the absurdity of a never-ending war and never-ending incursions. Any question of as to why they would continue as they do can really only be answered with: Just because.

That's pretty much the reason I could never get beind FW, despite trying. Combining a perpertual motion machine with a meat grinder just felt, well, mechanical. The rational mind boggles to make sense of it in context.

In that regard, I'm in agreement with the change in tack, and as another player from the NA market, the perennial pipe-takers of Live Events, I can't say I'll miss them.

[V. Gesakaarin]

FW/Incursions seem to me a result of the thinking where combining the background story with the actual game just leaves the story/plot hanging in the breeze. They can't be taken out because they're game features and because there's no longer commitment to continue the plot behind them, they end up in the absurdity of a never-ending war and never-ending incursions. Any question of as to why they would continue as they do can really only be answered with: Just because.

That's pretty much the reason I could never get beind FW, despite trying. Combining a perpertual motion machine with a meat grinder just felt, well, mechanical. The rational mind boggles to make sense of it in context.

In that regard, I'm in agreement with the change in tack, and as another player from the NA market, the perennial pipe-takers of Live Events, I can't say I'll miss them.

Well FW in context basically has reduced four societies of trillions of people to being motivated by wholly irrational politics where the question of, "Why are we pumping all our profits and taxes into a war CONCORD won't let anyone win" Doesn't seem to be asked. Just as much as Incursions have reduced Sansha Kuvakei to the level of a vaudeville villain in Scooby Doo always foiled by those damn pesky capsuleers as he disgorges more minions through wormholes to be farmed for ISK and LP.

[Silas Vitalia]

The solution would be to let some of these gameplay things (incursions, FW) actually effect the game world.  That or discontinue those features one way or the other.

I see no reason why CCP couldn't flip a few systems, blow up a few NPC stations, and have faction X do a thing to their enemy that has lasting consequences. 

I'm not talking about The Empress bombing Pator but jesus have some movement on the warfront one way or the other.

Faction stuff doesn't necessarily = live events either, plenty of cool things could be done that don't involve dev loot pinatas, they are just choosing not to spend any intellectual time on this stuff.

[Lunarisse Aspenstar]

The solution would be to let some of these gameplay things (incursions, FW) actually effect the game world.  That or discontinue those features one way or the other.

I see no reason why CCP couldn't flip a few systems, blow up a few NPC stations, and have faction X do a thing to their enemy that has lasting consequences. 

I'm not talking about The Empress bombing Pator but jesus have some movement on the warfront one way or the other.

Faction stuff doesn't necessarily = live events either, plenty of cool things could be done that don't involve dev loot pinatas, they are just choosing not to spend any intellectual time on this stuff.

Sort of what Silas said, I always wondered why incursions couldn't sort of be rotated between the group doing the incursion to mix it up and have things not be static (like Sansha, then Amarr Navy into Minmater space, then Minmater into Amarr space, other pirate groups, etc). I hope the code doesn't require only Sansha npcs?

[Esna Pitoojee]

The solution would be to let some of these gameplay things (incursions, FW) actually effect the game world.  That or discontinue those features one way or the other.

I see no reason why CCP couldn't flip a few systems, blow up a few NPC stations, and have faction X do a thing to their enemy that has lasting consequences. 

I'm not talking about The Empress bombing Pator but jesus have some movement on the warfront one way or the other.

Faction stuff doesn't necessarily = live events either, plenty of cool things could be done that don't involve dev loot pinatas, they are just choosing not to spend any intellectual time on this stuff.

Sort of what Silas said, I always wondered why incursions couldn't sort of be rotated between the group doing the incursion to mix it up and have things not be static (like Sansha, then Amarr Navy into Minmater space, then Minmater into Amarr space, other pirate groups, etc). I hope the code doesn't require only Sansha npcs?

The current code is probably geared towards Sansha NPCs, but I don't think it'd be to huge to swap it up some. Only shift is they'd have to introduce a supercarrier and fighter (or equivalent loot) for the other factions.


Anyhow, I entirely agree about features which include lore becoming stagnant;  that was one of the things I appreciated about arcs like Crielere and the Defiants - they had definable ends with definable results. Of course, may be a :rosecoloredglasses: thing...

[Morwen Lagann]

The solution would be to let some of these gameplay things (incursions, FW) actually effect the game world.  That or discontinue those features one way or the other.

I see no reason why CCP couldn't flip a few systems, blow up a few NPC stations, and have faction X do a thing to their enemy that has lasting consequences. 

I'm not talking about The Empress bombing Pator but jesus have some movement on the warfront one way or the other.

Faction stuff doesn't necessarily = live events either, plenty of cool things could be done that don't involve dev loot pinatas, they are just choosing not to spend any intellectual time on this stuff.

Sort of what Silas said, I always wondered why incursions couldn't sort of be rotated between the group doing the incursion to mix it up and have things not be static (like Sansha, then Amarr Navy into Minmater space, then Minmater into Amarr space, other pirate groups, etc). I hope the code doesn't require only Sansha npcs?

2 things, primarily: time and means.

Creating NPCs, sites for all the different levels (Scout, Vanguard, Assault, HQ), new art assets, etc., takes a lot of time. CCP isn't about to commit to that right now - especially when their content tools are outdated and currently being rewritten.

Basically, we're not really going to be seeing any new PVE content until those tools are updated, but once that happens it should be much easier for them to make changes to things. Apparently it's something ridiculous like a week to make a single new NPC or something? I forget the exact numbers someone mentioned at Fanfest this year.

[Lyn Farel]

The solution would be to let some of these gameplay things (incursions, FW) actually effect the game world.  That or discontinue those features one way or the other.

I see no reason why CCP couldn't flip a few systems, blow up a few NPC stations, and have faction X do a thing to their enemy that has lasting consequences. 

I'm not talking about The Empress bombing Pator but jesus have some movement on the warfront one way or the other.

Faction stuff doesn't necessarily = live events either, plenty of cool things could be done that don't involve dev loot pinatas, they are just choosing not to spend any intellectual time on this stuff.

Sort of what Silas said, I always wondered why incursions couldn't sort of be rotated between the group doing the incursion to mix it up and have things not be static (like Sansha, then Amarr Navy into Minmater space, then Minmater into Amarr space, other pirate groups, etc). I hope the code doesn't require only Sansha npcs?

People would just farm them like they already do anyway.

[Matariki Rain]

From Svetlana's article:

Abraxas did not address these specifically, since the tighter integration of Eve, Valkyrie, and Dust/Legion was not revealed until the next day, but did say that how the various types of cloning worked was still a matter of some debate among CCP's writers.

This caught my attention because it sounds like it hasn't changed in the last two years. I wonder whether that's because there are strongly-held different ideas of cloning held by people with equivalent effective status within CCP, or whether they just haven't talked about it.