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[Louella Dougans]

I've not really been involved lately, so I don't have a good overview of things, but:

what direction is the eve storyline going ? because I can't seem to get a grip on things.

Faction warfare is kind of going nowhere, incursions are a dull roar in the background, most pirate factions are seasonal events now, and the Drifters seem to be a bit sidelined by these new Triglavians.

It feels a bit kind of weird. Like, I can't seem to get interested in the whole Drifter thing, and this Triglavian thing doesn't seem to grab my attention either.

And it's like, past couple expansions, have introduced factions that might as well be aliens, and the only interaction possible is to shoot them.

[Samira Kernher]

EVE seems to be getting taken into a space opera/adventure theme these days instead of its original cyberpunk. It's a shame, and has killed a lot of my interest.

[Mizhara]

Couldn't tell you. I doze off halfway into the first few paragraphs whenever there's something about the Trilobyte Clans and Derp Jove and so on. There's ways to make "ancient forebears/offshoots of humanity" interesting in a setting, but this isn't it.

There's no feeling of conflict that can be invested in, there's no feeling of "this matters to me and my people". It's just... "welp, New Eden's suddenly inundated with strange new ways for capsuleers to go blow up non-capsuleers for money. Again. And again. It's almost as if the world is entirely static now, occasionally getting an expansion pack with new dungeons and raids OGOD I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T EVEN SEE THAT FOURTH WALL IT WAS SO THIN AND TRANSPARENT OGOD OGOD I GOT DUCT TAPE I CAN FIX THIS SHIT SHIT SHIT" and so on.

I was all excited when they started killing off the TonyG bullshit, but now I'm regretting that horribly, as it turns out they had nothing to replace it with. Ominous Stock Alien Villain Category #4: Silent Overwhelming Force and Stock Mysterious Ancient Offshoot Variant #12: The Clans do absolutely nothing to keep the main universe alive. It does nothing to advance the story of New Eden. The Tribes. The Federation. The State. The Empire. The Serpentis. The Angels. The Sansh... okay, those got fucked right good and proper even before they got started on TonyG's nonsense. The entire damn setting for a god damned decade has been laid fallow, and all we got to show for it are some new god damn dungeons that are incapable of being interesting even from just a gameplay perspective.

I'm so fucking bored with Eve at the moment. There's nothing left in it that's even remotely interesting to dig into conflict wise, or story wise.

Edit: Someone else put it brilliantly. "EVE is showing what happens when you don't have a story team. It means your game becomes incredibly shallow."

[Louella Dougans]

It does nothing to advance the story of New Eden. The Tribes. The Federation. The State. The Empire. The Serpentis. The Angels. The Sansh... okay, those got fucked right good and proper even before they got started on TonyG's nonsense.

I guess that's fairly true. The drifters though, did something to change the Empire, in that it resulted in a new Empress, one of Udorian heritage, which was a fairly profound change in the Amarr establishment. But the drifter incursion things... they kind of fizzled out, didn't they ? Existential threat that the Empire is about to go to war with, turns out not to be existential threat after all. okay.

But the Triglavians, it's like... CONCORD says go shoot them. The SoE says go explore the Abyss. okay but why ? what reason is there to do that, other than fun and profit, which can also be obtained elsewhere ?


Pirate factions - the Angle Cartle, is now the valentines day event, isn't it ? Sansha's Nation is the permanent comic book "I'll get you next time" recursion incursions, Blood raiders are the halloween event, Guristas the easter event, Serpentis are rolled into the cartel for the valentines day event. So... they all get handed the idiot ball regularly.

I find it kind of hard to take the pirate factions (and their player supporters) seriously, when the factions are all a clownshow for at least 1 month of the year. Which kind of saps my attachment to the primary factions - Louella the character tries to work towards religious reform of the Empire, but when the alleged threats to the Empire don't feel like genuine threats, then it's like... why am I doing this ?

I dunno, maybe I'm just at a low point mentally or something ?

[Mizhara]

Eve's at a low point, as far as I can tell.

[Korsavius]

Hmm what to say that hasn't been said yet already...I will add on that I, too, have no interest in the whole Jove/Drifter/Endhuehueuhe/Triglav story arc CCP seems intent on pushing. My interest in EVE sparked with the grimdark and cyberpunk atmosphere of the main empires and various subfactions.

I try to do what I can with the other peeps in I-RED to promote this original fantasy, but alas, there is only so much we can do to fill in for what CCP has left in the dust. S'all good though, we can still find ways to have our fun

[Silas Vitalia]

Someone else put it brilliantly. "EVE is showing what happens when you don't have a story team. It means your game becomes incredibly shallow."

Yup.

Incidentally I was recently discussing similar with Revan in another venue, it's a real shame that CCP decided to flush it's IP down the toilet. 

Have you seen the fucking Cyberpunk 2077 videos? Look what they can do with an old IP given proper treatment by people who give a shit.  One must weep when they think of what World of Darkness could have been.

[Mizhara]

Yeah, that was literally one of my first thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077's E3 trailer. "This is what Eve could be inspiring in the minds of the players." It's basically Eve: Dirtside for me. Gods I can't wait for that game, every article about that 'behind locked doors' 50 minute demo almost got me gibbering with excitement about it.

Eve has such amazing potential as a setting and a game world, but nope. Seasonal ratting events and Derp Jove/Spaceballs Clans. Woohoo.

[Silas Vitalia]

I think this might be a case of something not knowing it's already dead?

They've kind of found the minimal dev input to keep the plex train / whales going and will farm it out until the point it becomes unprofitable.  Literally every spinoff CCP has tried to do has crashed and they keep doing the same things wrong.

[Mizhara]

Don't even particularly care about the spin-offs. They're fucking the main franchise up by forgetting what the fuck it once was. It was about New Eden and its gloriously "dystopian heaven" setting where you and the rest of the mad gods got to be great and small kings and wastrels in a living cluster, watching it happen around you as time passed.

Four superpowers clashing, skirmishing here, forging peace behind glassy smiles there while the guns were drawn under the table, Insorum bombing someone, heirs invading feds and so on and so forth. The universe lived. Now it's... static. Even nuking the god damned Empress did nothing. It's the exact same status quo.

I know this is rosy tinted glasses. Little actually changed in the past either, but it somehow managed to pretend that it could. It kept up the illusion. The powers felt like they could flex muscles and do something. I think it's safe to say that right now, New Eden feels quite simply like a game, not a world.

[Silas Vitalia]

One of the silly things is that iirc they have a lot of new AI tools for NPCs to do all sorts of dynamic things; I imagine they could script all sorts of neato torpedo npc events in space and background all over the place.    But it really is no reward for them to waste time on this kind of thing with the current playerbase and direction of the game.   Ten years ago maybe.

[Vlad Cetes]

The question I look at this is: Is there anything out there that does it better that is actually released?

[Mizhara]

Only piecemeal or singleplayer, from what I can tell. Ironically, the ancient X3TC feels infinitely more alive than Eve at the moment. Funnily enough, Star Citizen is starting to actually look good. Imagine my surprise when I see they actually make progress with that game. If they don't make the massive mistake E:D did and let you pop in and out of the multiplayer part at will, it could actually be exactly what Eve should have been.

[Samira Kernher]

Only piecemeal or singleplayer, from what I can tell. Ironically, the ancient X3TC feels infinitely more alive than Eve at the moment. Funnily enough, Star Citizen is starting to actually look good. Imagine my surprise when I see they actually make progress with that game. If they don't make the massive mistake E:D did and let you pop in and out of the multiplayer part at will, it could actually be exactly what Eve should have been.

Unfortunately, unless things have changed, that's exactly what they're going to be doing.

Yeah, that was literally one of my first thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077's E3 trailer. "This is what Eve could be inspiring in the minds of the players." It's basically Eve: Dirtside for me. Gods I can't wait for that game, every article about that 'behind locked doors' 50 minute demo almost got me gibbering with excitement about it.

How I felt when playing Battletech. "This is basically EVE but the capsuleers use giant stompy robots instead of ships."

EVE's just let all its potential evaporate. Sigh.

[MakotoPriano]

So, shockingly, I'm going to disagree a little bit.

Let me first say: god, yes, I want more factional shenanigans going on. I'd *kill* for pre-TEA-style cold war maneuvering, Cyberpunk-y corporate espionage, shady happenings that don't devolve to "GRR HAT <opposing faction>" but instead allow for nuanced positioning and ideological debate within factions.

That said, one of the issues we face is that once plot is written into game mechanics, it becomes a fixed point. After all, changing incursions, FW, etc, would potentially destroy existing and fairly major niches in the game, in addition to soaking up tons of development time and being incredibly risky for CCP. This isn't to say they shouldn't do it; clearly, FW is in need of a massive re-work, and the incursion system needs some major changes also, so on. However, it means that CCP can only move so far away from 'GRR HAT <opposing faction>' before preservation of game mechanics starts to constrain them. Already, we see this happening: the State and Federation have open borders and trade happening, even as GalMil and CalMil pewpew each other. Somehow, FIO's still operating black sites in Black Rise after all these years. Ohai, a Minmatar head of state went to an Amarr coronation thing. That all seems a bit odd in the context of unending border skirmishes.

Of course, CCP has made an effort to try to make space more dynamic, but it runs into a number of issues. The NPC mining fleets were an early trial for adding dynamism, but didn't seem to be well-received as the balance of risk/reward was badly skewed. Part of this is CCP's being overly cautious about payouts, as they want to avoid excessive injection into the economy. Part of this was also CCP not really being sure how players would interact with or fight the NPCs, and wanting to avoid a situation where they'd be easily cheesed/farmed.

That said, for those who don't feel strongly about 'GRR HAT <opposing faction>' stuff, Drifters, Triglavians, Rogue Drones, etc, give us something to play with. For me, Drifter shenanigans were a logical extension of my love for exploration gameplay and lore diving. It's fun! But I do agree that because it's easier, and is tied with CCP's feature expansion, the non-factional lore stuff has forced factional stuff out of view.

In my ideal world, there'd be at least a couple or few news articles a month for factional stuff, on top of the feature-driven lore development. Ideally, the Scope would come back on a monthly or at least seasonal basis, with tickers being used to plant seeds for story ideas, give the illusion of a changing world, and so on.

In the meanwhile, we do what we do. vOv