Taking a quote from CCP LogicLoop:



So this brings up, in my mind, an interesting point of discussion that warrants its own thread. What feature or features distill the universe of New Eden into a tangible form for you? How can somebody make a game that feels like it belongs in that universe, and what components are core to it's setting.

I think that is a topic we would have the best shot of answering, and hopefully bring insight to the devs who read the forum (or at least LogicLoop if nobody else)

To that end, I feel New Eden is best defined by its sense of Consequences.

By that I mean that choices you make in the game have a weight and importance to them that have meaningful impact down the road. This is done by having them affect all levels and types of play, from the minor details of skill application defining your character, to the larger politics of entities that affect the power balance of space.

New Eden's history is, in my opinion, defined by player action and the consequences those actions carried. DUST was able to achieve this through a number of ways, from the skill point system, to the ISK cost of suits, to the tug of war between Faction Warfare and Planetary Conquest.

When these features fell flat for the players was only when that sense of consequence and impact was disrupted or began to ring hollow. Such as when people had enough money to not care about it, or when the FW battles seemed arbitrary and had little impact on the greater war, or when Planetary Conquest felt it had no real benefits aside from the fights it generated.

To that end, I feel that any game that wants to feel like it belongs in New Eden needs things that tie together individual play experiences to feel like they are impacting a greater whole.

• There needs to be player progression that involves choice, not just a static level that dictates what you have for you.
• There needs to be an ability for player's moment to moment gameplay affect some meta aspect of their experience that goes beyond simple statistics. DUST did this with consumable fittings that impacted the player after a match.
• Activities need to be in place for a group of players to impact larger aspects of the world in a way that has some degree of persistance. DUST tried to do this via FW and PCs.
• Players need a variety of ways to impact other players beyond simple combat mechanics. This can be done via trade, industry, politics, or any other activity that touches upon the play experience of other players outside of matches.
• The world / universe needs to feel as if players can impact it in some way. Some aspect of the world needs to be able to be changed by player action. Such as ownership of a system, availability of resources, or generation of missions.

All of the general points I laid above help to create a setting that is more distinctly New Eden, even if it lacks some of the more familiar trappings of EVE or DUST. The important things about New Eden and the experience players seek from it lie in a perception (not necessarily a reality) that their actions can ripple through the universe and some consequence of their actions affects future events which can be limited to themselves, a few others, or the entire cluster.