CCP Comes Out Of Left Field, Shoots Everyone In Head

Found some gameplay footage.

If plays as half as good as the presentation, this might be enough to fish me back in to EVE Online.

But I won’t grind spreadsheets.

Personally, I like the idea that you can pay console players to be mercenary bands securing planetary assets for you. However, I can see it play out a few different ways:

1. People get bored of playing Dust. It turns out to be a largely unused drag on the rest of the game where you’re not so much paying people who enjoy playing the game to decide where to play as you are paying people who hate playing the game to power level you.

2. People prefer playing Dust over the real game. It leeches the life out of EVE Online by pulling a great deal of players out of the EVE Online universe so they can frag eachother on planets. (Unlikely: If you’re an EVE Online player, chances are your choice of weapon isn’t a gun but a spreadsheet.)

3. A perfect symbiotic balance of fun is achieved between Dust and EVE Online, promoting the general awesomeness of both games through the diversity of the activities that each game offers.

4. Any extreme in between.

Will people “feel forced” to participate in Dust? I’d say it depends on the balance alone. If planetary assets emerge as completely essential to every major activity in EVE Online, then absolutely they’d feel forced. If planetary assets are barely applicable to any activity in EVE Online, they’ll not feel forced but Dust will largely collect dust. If a good balance is established, then people won’t feel at all forced but they will be incentive. This is not quite same as the fun balanced outlined above because it has more to do with how to play the games and less to with if anyone enjoys them.

@IainC
To be fair, the “amount of time you can spend without contracting keyboard face” model of success would seem to apply to all persistent game models.

EVE Online does seem to push things slightly further in that direction by causing evil to flow from the game, into the user allowing a little more of what you accrue to occur as a consequence of time instead of from choices.

The skill advancement model is the foremost aspect – if you can advance just as fast offline then your involvement is invalidated in this aspect – but there’s also a general “time investment > skill” focus in just about every activity in the game.

Mining? Grind to get better mining lasers and the ships that can carry them, play when there’s likely to be less competition or danger for the rocks you want.

Cargo Hauling? Grind to get better ships with bigger capacity, play when less players are likely to be on your cargo route.

Combat? Though this is probably where they’ve tried to even the playing field the most, better components and ship hulls will shortly bring about success. In corporation on corporation combat, the one that fields the most ships (e.g. has more players investing time) will have a definite upper hand.

That said, it’s probably the core mechanic itself which makes it difficult to identify where player skill can be applied in EVE Online. There is a certain subtle advantage you can pull if you know how to wield a spreadsheet, but the in-game interactions usually break down to pushing a few buttons and waiting. When you’re badly out-classed, you know it, there’s not much you can do about it but to hammer your panic buttons or wait for your inevitable destruction.

You’ve answered a different question to the one that I asked Geldon.

I’m not sure if I’ve answered a different question so much as was so long-winded in my explanation that it may have seemed that way.

What I was trying to say is that the line is fuzzier than usual in the case of EVE Online because where the player skill lies is not in the overt activities in themselves, but rather in the planning stage.

That said, it’s probably the core mechanic itself which makes it difficult to identify where player skill can be applied in EVE Online. There is a certain subtle advantage you can pull if you know how to wield a spreadsheet, but the in-game interactions usually break down to pushing a few buttons and waiting.

The rest was pointing out that EVE Online’s activities, being a time sink and/or popularity contest in general, push this already subtle skill aspect even further beneath the surface.

There is a certain context of what falls in the definition of a game that will vary from person to person. To wield the cooperation of other people falls outside the context of many gamers because it just doesn’t make sense that you should win the game by getting other people to win it for you.

However, is it truly outside the context of EVE Online? Not at all. This is because the game’s primary appeal is as a meta-gaming spectacle. Played as game of personal skill, it leaves much to be desired. Played as a game of not playing the game, it can circumvent much of the responsibility required in providing more than a pretty 3D space backdrop for numbers to increment and decrement in response to time investment.

Even meaning that in the worst possible way, it can be interpreted in the best possible way. A game in which you can play by inventing ways not to play it is a game that some will find enjoyable. If they find the activity enjoyable, it’s as good a game as any, right?

The goons are excellent at EVE Online for precisely this reason. They take great joy in finding how to excel at not playing a game as intended. It’s their unofficial mission statement behind their visit to any game they play. What they didn’t realize, perhaps, was that EVE Online has become a creature that specifically seeks to cater to this niche.

What I’ve mostly been going over in the past few entries is just that asking, “what makes the dividing skill between a good or bad EVE Online player” is missing the subtle point of what EVE Online is, really.

This is a strange claim to make.

I don’t think so. Reading between the lines here, all I’m saying is that that different people will define different contexts in gaming. These definitions will determine the type of games I enjoy.

Me, I am a “chess” type (as you put it). I prefer to win at games because I’m a good player, and not because of the people I know.

EVE Online isn’t a game I enjoy so much because it doesn’t provide much avenues for me to be a good player – victory is more about who I know or how long I’ve been there than who I am.

It is interesting to consider that one thing Dust will be doing is providing the avenue for the Gladiator/Chess types to participate in the EVE Online universe.

That is, assuming the matches aren’t completely unbalanced popularity contests, as the typical open-PvP “War” model is.

This thing where you call managing your guild as being a game-playing skill… or where you might say it’s okay to roll up alts to spy on other factions in the game because Somalian kids were ratting out soldiers with cell phones IRL… these are not things many gamers will see eye to eye with you on.

They’re not wrong, insofar as you can identify these things as definitely being factors of victory in certain games, it’s just that many gamers find it a fair assumption that games are primarily supposed to be fair contests of skill between players. If you decide the game is, instead, about exploiting social networking, then you’ve opted for an incompatible focus.

@JuJutsu

You have any basis for your claims about ‘many gamers’?

You’re confusing “Many Gamers” with “Most Gamers.” The later requires I’m able to quantify, while the former is a common sense assumption that, given the diverse tastes of humankind, “many” (meaning simply a goodly amount) gamers will have tastes suitable to what I was mentioning.

In any case, you’d have just as hard of a time quantifying gamers to disprove such a claim as I would to prove it, so (assuming you are indeed a logical fellow) you’re just going to have to accept what I’m saying is a viable possibility.

@Gx1080

The issue is that a large scale PvP game its going to have social networking you want it or not.

The issue as seen by the “many gamers” of my previous comment is precisely that. A “large scale PvP game” – or, more accurately, an open PvP game where there’s no regulation of the involved parties on either side of the conflict – is inherently an unbalanced game. As far as being a fair and reasonable competition is concerned, such a game holds little value. Thus, “many gamers” would prefer to play something else where a fair measure of their skills applies.

Life isn’t fair. We prefer our games be, nonetheless. Perhaps it’s because, for many of us, it’s more enjoyable when we’re reassured the competition isn’t stacked against us.

I think that, of most the people who enjoy EVE Online, they’re not really concerned about “fairness” as much. They’re mostly there to participate in an epic happening of sorts. It’s not really a game, insofar as a game would be defined as, “a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators” so much as it is a spectacle, as defined as, “a public show or display, esp. on a large scale.”

Are they wrong to do this? No! If you enjoy what you’re doing, far be it from me to say you’re wasting your time. However, different people find different things entertaining. It has ever been such, and this is why trying to get my “many gamers” to see eye to eye with your average EVE Online player is an exercise in futility.

@JuJutsu
It would be intellectually dishonest if I were trying to prove something with it, but I’m not. I’m not trying to wield my “many gamers” as a bludgeon to convince anyone that’s there’s something wrong with EVE Online. I’m just saying that, amongst those who do not enjoy EVE Online, this is the reason why some of them will not be changing their minds. It’s not talking science, but rather elaborating a bit on a difference of philosophy.

Actually, I would say that CCP offers their veteran players some pretty preferential treatment in that, by the very model of how skill and asset progression works, it’s unlikely a new player would ever catch up to them.

But then, there’s also been what you’re talking about – evidence that the GMs had been doing favors.

From the perspective of a player who plays games for the reasons I do, the odds are so stacked against new players or players lacking in social connections that I find it fairly indistinguishable from a GM cheating. Whether those competing assets that crushed your fledgling space empire were generated spontaneously or earned from years of grinding, the bottom line is that they’re well out of your means to do anything about.

Put another way, it seems as though the player is irrelevant in EVE Online. It’s not who you are, it’s what you have: ships, character skills, contacts. This is where “fairness” becomes a factor towards EVE Online’s value as a game. We don’t sit down to a table of Monopoly where the banker has dealt everybody else 1,000,000 dollars (“because they earned it before you joined”) and you get 100 and honestly feel we’re being invited to play.

Personally, I’d say progression based complaints are more than just excuses. They are a fundamental problem with the design of the games.

Maybe the trouble with really identifying if “fairness” belongs in a discussion about EVE Online is that there’s really not much in the way of a working alternative in the MMORPG genre.

I just finished explaining about how there’s no way to catch up the existing veteran players in EVE Online. This is true in EVE Online more than other games because EVE Online’s progression is locked behind a RL time investment table that cannot be circumvented by simply playing more or getting help.

On top this, there is no “maximums” in EVE Online. If you’re playing World of Warcraft or you’ll eventually hit level maximum, and be pretty much equivalent to every other maximum level player with the exception of gear whose earning is largely chance-based anyway.

However, upon starting out as a level 1 player in World of Warcraft, can I compete with a maximum level player? No, any progression-based game will manifest these kinds of “in-game assets trump player skill” mechanics.

Now, here’s what I’d like to point out: Unbalanced MMORPGs doesn’t have to be that way. They usually choose to be that way because it’s easier than trying to achieve fairness between players, or else they feel it’s important to preserve the power fantasy involved in allowing players to lord these kinds of advantages over each other, but it’s not like any of this is unsolvable.

I’d give you some examples (Guild Wars tournament model to assure even teams in PvP, for example) but I’m short on time.

It’s not that you’ve sat down at the Monopoly table, and the banker has given everyone else $1,000,000 while you just get $100. You’re coming into a game that was started a week ago, and all the properties have been acquired, and you are whining that you don’t own Boardwalk. Damn, I hate whiners!

From a perspective of a “play to crush” follow like yourself, I can see how you’d feel this way: I need someone to crush, you’re the one who hasn’t earned the right not to be crushed, so sit there and stop whining as I commence with the crushing.

However, from the perspective of a, “I play games with an understanding that they’re fair competitions,” it’s not whining, it’s pointing out that this is not the kind of game I’d be interested in playing.

It’s possible to have exactly the same effectiveness as that perfectly skilled character regardless of the ‘headstart’ that he benefits from. Saying that ‘you can never catch up’ is true only in a very technical manner that has no relevance within the context of the game.

Perhaps, but would a new player be able to gain this kind of understanding implicitly? It seems to me that this is the kind of thing you’d only be able to figure out after you’ve been playing the game for months. The point is that this apparent skill gap is very off-putting to potential EVE Online plyers.

Then there’s the matter of actual asset accumulation – earning ISK. EVE Online is a very good unregulated capitalism simulator in that the rich simply get richer, and the players starting off are pretty much working for them to make sure they stay richer. Those giant offers to buy piles of ore in newbie space are coming right from the pockets of veteran players who can break down the ore and make more profit from it than the newbies can.

Personally, I’m not such a great believer in tradition to find that something which survives is necessarily in an ideal state.

@Owain
Judging by your dropping frequent references as to the irrelevance of what I’m saying, it’s sounds like I’m rubbing you the wrong way again (though I’m not entirely sure I’d ever rubbed you the right way). Considering how what you consider what I’m saying is so very irrelevant, I’ll not pester ya with the gritty details of where you misinterpreted me.

So instead, lets step back a bit. We’re in general agreement that EVE Online is a game which doesn’t particularly care about “fairness,” it’s closer to real life.

A new player will grind one million ISK worth of ore, and the veteran player who purchased that ore will have the skills and connections to turn a ten million ISK profit by manufacturing parts from that ore. This is the “rich getting richer” with no chance of the new player to catch up.

As a new player, my 10 million ISK ore trawler might be all I have, while the guy who I’m selling the ore to is able to afford ten said ore trawlers.

Sometimes, as these new players with their ore trawlers are harvesting for the safety of 1.0 space, somebody will come in with a tricked out Frigate and they don’t particularly care about losing, and obliterate the trawler. The new player loses everything, the guy in the tricked out Frigate loses the frigate to the 1.0 security forces. He ganker doesn’t care because the Frigate is cheaper and, unlike the new player, he might have several fold more wealth than the new player.

This happens so often that this is what Ganking means in EVE Online. Again, realistic, if not particularly fair.

Now, if you’re fine with “realistic, if not particularly fair,” then that’s all that needs to be said. Many EVE Online players don’t particularly care – they’re just in it for the moment, not to win. Me, I prefer to have a chance to be something more than the established player’s wage slave or pinata to burst.