Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for being this guy, but from what I'm seeing, Nova is headed for disaster. I also foresee that I'm going to be called... whatever derogatory term groundies have for pilots, as my main grievances are, obviously, vehicles, or lack thereof.

I'll first start off with non vehicle stuff, and go straight to the suits:

1) Not much variety really: So I'll be honest, I may have just read the wording the wrong way on this one. But if I am reading this correctly, then without further ado: The way I read it, it states that people will have to constantly play the same role to receive the benefits and reap the whole rewards of constantly playing it, to a point. The problem with this is that it locks people in for that set class, giving them little variety to respond to various situations that may demand a different class.

Solution: Keep in mind I probably read this wrong, but my idea is to give the player a choice between three separate suits, modules, and weapons (sidearm and main separate). Three was honestly a random number, but continuing... if the mercenary wants to suddenly change one of his classes, he can choose to eradicate one of his classes, and start anew with his new suit. Another idea I'd like to see is extra bonuses to using suit/weapon/module friendly fits that fit the race you're going for. Example: Amarr fat boi gets bonuses to lasers, and armor plates, and the mods/weapons get minor bonuses in turn.

Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for being this guy, but from what I'm seeing, Nova is headed for disaster. I also foresee that I'm going to be called... whatever derogatory term groundies have for pilots, as my main grievances are, obviously, vehicles, or lack thereof.

[...]

2) Vehicles:

I'm going to be honest again, hearing that we're not getting to be in Nova at launch was quite insulting to those who devoted time and SP to vehicles and piloting them. Along with the dedicated AV players as well, because without vehicles, why are you even here?! And to be blunt, the fact that I'm sober is the one thing keeping me from saying quite unspeakable things to you.

In order to properly show you what a big mistake removing us, the necessary evil, is, I'm going to have to list all the reasons why it is a terrible idea to push us aside/save us for later:

1) Loss of playerbase: Without vehicles and AV, and no connection to EVE, we bittervet devoted pilots and demolition experts have no reason to play your game, and likely never will.

2) attracting different playerbase: Again, without capsuleers, and pilots/bloweruppers, you will attract a certain playerbase centered around ground combat, I call them COD players. And in the event that you do add us to the fold later, you will **** off not only your current playerbase with that crap, but you will **** off the vehicle/AV community even more, basically telling us that only now are we worth your time, which is even more insulting, I see this happening for two reasons:

A) You take too much time. It's no secret that you guys took way too long to make dust even remotely playable, and by then it was too late. I predict about a year long wait for vehicles to make their dramatic entry, IF we get it. And by then, we'll have forgotten about Nova, and will move on to other things, like having a life.

B) Your overly cautious approach. Ironically enough, the lessons you learned during the Rouge Wedding may actually cause Nova to fail. While I see it's hard to balance vehicles, stating this in some nerd newspaper will only solidify the opinion of your playerbase that your weak, and unable to commit.

3) Lack of originality: Without vehicles and our eternal rivals, AV, Nova will be a pretty game, and probably a good one. But it will fall right smack dab in the middle of "every lobby shooter ever". People will see this, get bored and leave, thus you're left with a tiny playerbase, who are COD fans, and will abandon you once Call of Booty, Bad Cops 4 comes out, or their mom buys them the latest console.

4) Bittervet anti-community. A lot of pilots will become immensely butthurt, to the point of playing your game, just to convince people to quit. Granted, you'll already face this, but it will become larger without us.

5) Lack of satisfaction: Any AV/vehicle pilot will tell you the best moments of dust was when they blew up a whole crapload of vehicles, or barely escaping a hellzone of enemy fire by the skin of their teeth. This type of satisfaction is hard to top in any other game, because we cost a lot of money. Blowing us up is the reason some people still play.

Now onto the solutions of this crap:

1) Take the hard road, balance vehicles and keep us in Nova. It'll be a headache, but you actually have a few hidden aces, a CPM board with more than half a brain, and quite a few butthurt vehicle/AV players who are still willing to debate and give multiple feedback threads involving the balance. These two weapons are more useful than any software you can buy. All you have to do is use your hearing aids, and LISTEN TO US!

2) Don't bother with vehicles. Don't insult us by adding us in later. If you want this to be a pure ground shooter, make it that. You're liable to **** off more people with us in the picture later, than now. If you take this road, you'd also be best prepared to link Nova up to EVE and Valkyrie, and fucking quickly, you'll lose the ADHD players fast if you don't set Nova apart.

3) If you chose option 2, then you need to provide a place where we devoted pilots can get in the EVE universe. I speak of Valkyrie! By connecting Valkyrie to Nova, and to EVE, you can, in theory, successfully merge these three games together if done right. You'd have to add in ship types, of course. My idea is to have space fighters, atmospheric fighter (support for Nova fighters in FW/PC), and hybrid fighters, able to traverse both systems with ease. Also, don't forget about tanks and ground vehicles, which should stay in Nova.

Anyway, enough of my rant, it's taking too much.

Dust 514 was pitched to us in 2012 as eventually having Public Contracts, Faction Warfare, Planetary Conquest, some form of Arena-shooter mode with classic game types from other shooters, and various forms of PvE. Basically, it was supposed to have the same variety of experiences that has allowed EVE Online to be around for 13 years and still be going strong.

However, many of those experiences were not initially part of EVE Online. Sovereignty didn't come in until at least a year after the game released, and Faction Warfare was put in in 2008, five years after the game released. It could be argued that if the CCP of 1999-2000 with their limited team and resources had tried to make EVE Online then with all the features it has now, it probably would have been trapped in development hell for years before eventually being shut down just like Dust 514.

I was one of the people that was worried at the idea of vehicles not being in at first, but when I look at EVE Online as an example, I understand what they're doing. They want to take the slow-and-steady approach that has occasionally been lost but has most of the time been a guiding principle of EVE Online's development.

But I'm still kind of unsold on vehicles being saved for later, especially seeing as they're taking the slow approach. I, and I'm sure many other vehicle pilots/AV mercs have suffered quite a few headaches from Dust and all its issues. To tell us that we're being set aside for later is, in my opinion, rather insulting.