Kevall Longstride
DUST University
Ivy League
596
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Posted - 2013.10.27 14:50:00 -
[1] - Quote
A History Lesson.
CCP have never really been very good at the tutorial thing. Just look at the Eve one. A decade since the game's launch and the tutorial is still minimal. It's miles better than it first was and CCP have recently been doing some of their versions of lectures in chat channels for new players.
Our sister corp and fellow member of the IVY League Alliance, EVE University, perform the same function as we do in EVE but with 9 years of history and procedure behind it. We're very young in comparison. D-UNI was founded in 2009 when Dust 514 was first announced by then CEO of E-UNI, Kelduum Revaan, so as to reserve the name. Between then and when the game entered closed beta last year, there was very little movement in the development of DUST University.
Then I got involved.
Fanfest 2012 was the first I'd attended and the one where Dust was first there as a playable beta by the attendees. My initial thoughts were that the game was a fairly low rent COD wannabe and had a bloody awful control system, handicapped by what was and continues to be considered, the worst console controller of this gen. But it had potential and with OB's being demonstrated for the first time I was excited by what CCP were trying to do. All attendees that year got a beta access key, so when the closed beta started, I bit the bullet and brought a PS3 just for Dust 514. Other than the rather excellent The Last Of Us, it remains the only game I have on the PS3.
From the beginning of the closed beta, it was clear that CCP had listened to a lot of the criticism that was given to them by those that played it at Fanfest and I found that I was rather enjoying it. As a member of E-UNI at the time I asked Kelduum if I could help with D-UNI in some way. Kelduum was too busy with E-UNI and being on the CSM at the time so he instantly said you can run it!
The actual corp itself was unavailable as the game wasn't linked to TQ in any way, so I created a proto-corp within Dust 514 and with Kelduum publicly confirming that I was the guy in charge, I set about using the forums and the Eve Client to start up the corp proper.
Those of you that had been around at the time will remember just how much of a ball breaker running a Dust corp was back then. While many others were lobbying for weapon balancing and the shiney in the forums, I was lobbying hard for the corp infrastructure to be improved. While I would never claim to be responsible for the introduction of corp mail, notifications, roles, I like to think I had a part in getting them in the game earlier than they would. Even if it was just so CCP could shut me up about them. Anyone that was a Dust player at this years Fanfest will know just how much I was pushing for all the infrastructure to be brought in. I still do now and I'm not going to stop till I get it all.
Now, as to if we do CCP's job, I don't see that we do. I see us more as a companion to the NPE. There have been some pretty big improvements to it in the last point build. Some of it almost mirroring the suggestions I've made for it in emails to CCP, You'd have to ask them how big a part community ideas were factored into it.
Games as complex as Eve and Dust don't tend to have tutorial that cover everything. They evolve too much for such things to stay current. And CCP have a great resource in the community that their games create. Even if this game has a complete tutorial, we'd still be here. This IS meta gaming. We're using the tools that CCP create and we make play in the sandbox and shape it to what we want.
It's why I'm here and I suspect, its why you're here reading this too.
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