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mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
   |
Posted - 2012.08.03 15:51:00 -
[1] - Quote
The EVE Players among you will be familiar with the CSM (Council of Stellar Management) which is elected by EVE players to provide them with some representation during the development process of the game.
They get flown to Iceland twice a year and have three packed days of meetings with CCP regarding a variety of issues. One of the sessions this time around was about the Dust <=> EVE link.
The minutes can be found here. and the relevant section is on pages 69 to 75.
I find the content of the discussion as presented in the minutes very worrying.
Let's take a walk through what was discussed:
CCP Jian seems to not grasp the fact that the CSM is not a static entity with the same people in it year after year, as was demonstrated by:
Quote:CCP Jian: I thought we covered that in the last meeting (Editor's note: CSM6 met with the Dust team before Fanfest
Emphasis mine. In his next statement CCP Jian references the previous meeting saying that they're on track for everything that was previously talked about. What was that? He talks about the E3 update which is already live (down to the delay on getting the minutes out) and also about another update which is on the way for 2012. No clues as to what will be in it though, but then he's talking to EVE's CSM why should they care about the details? (I'll get to that) The 'big' update discussed is not given a timeframe, but it will be the one where everything is moved to TQ and the two games can start interacting. Except they won't.
What follows after the move to TQ is to be Factional Warfare based and not anything to do with 0.0, so far so expected. 0.0 integration will come in 2013. Again, pretty much what was said at Fanfest.
One of the CSM delegates, UAxDEATH, asks when they'll be able to run for a Dust CSM. A very pointed question that CCP Jian rebuffs with "We haven't sorted that out yet." Not surprising really, a representative body like the CSM requires a society large and dynamic enough to need it.
An admission was made that he current state of the beta is miles behind where they actually are in the development of Dust. Personally I wish they'd get their finger out and throw the new stuff at us quicker so we can test it properly, that's what we're here for after all.
The next step for the Dust Beta will be the introduction of Hi-Sec matches and a matchmaking system. This is the 'drop in and play, aspect of Dust that will be most like the way things happen in CoD and BF3. Matches with no greater consequence beyond the match itself, played against players of comparable skill (or not, but again, I'll get to that). Next up will be integration with Factional Warfare, here is where we'll begin to see the link between EVE and Dust take shape, but only in a limited way. Orbital Bombardment will be available and Dust battles will influence control of a system in Factional Warfare.
Two Step (turning out to be my favourite CSM this time around) then drops the big question:
Quote:What about Corporations? Right now in the Beta you can't join one, is that stuff just not in the beta yet?
And the answer comes back:
Quote:CCP LeKjart: It is not in the Beta, and the whole corporations owning districts thing will be part of the null-sec update.
WHAAAAAAAAAT!?
It gets better: Being able to form and join player corporations is not going to be available in the beta at all it would seem. This is wrong. This is so fundamental to the way New Eden works that it needs to be part of the game from the minute it's released, or even before. CCP's main worry is that the corporation management mechanics of EVE (or New Eden as a whole) would be too much for Dust players to handle. How condescending is that?
I'm in full agreement with Two Step here. Not having the ability to start building the social foundations of Dust as a priority for release is a HUGE problem. and I don't believe Kelduum's suggestion of a kind of 'corporations lite' system is going to work either.
CCP claims to understand the importance of corporations and the rest of the social tools that are essential in a multi-player game, but I am of the opinion that if they truly understood their importance we would have these tools in the Beta and the game would be built around them.
That CCP seems to still be in the conceptual phase of deciding how corporations should work in Dust is very worrying. The answer is obvious, there should be absolutely no difference between an EVE corp and a Dust corp (apart from the obvious ones) and this should have been decided a long time ago. I really hope that the option that the CSM goes for is the first of the three presented by CCP during the meeting. The kinks can be worked out later, but parity between Dust and EVE corporations (and players) should be priority. Dust players should not be made to feel like the poor cousins of EVE players and equal consideration should be given to both.
To this end there should be at the very least a Dust representative on the CSM, if not an entirely separate (but complimentary) CPM (Council of Planetary Management) that is elected by Dust players.
If there was one maybe the seemingly short-sighted and haphazard design decisions being made with regard to the Dust/EVE connection and Dust's social tools would have been avoided and the apparent lack of any kind of solid plan for them addressed.
The discussion then progressed to more high level discussions of how Dust would interact with FW (only on temperate planets so systems with more temperate planets would have more Dust activity) and the economic considerations of the connection between EVE and Dust (Scaling of prices from a pistol to a battleship, needs to be carefully managed and considered. Daft if an assault rifle costs as much as a cruiser). Continued below... |
mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
|
Posted - 2012.08.03 15:52:00 -
[2] - Quote
The CSM then focussed on more EVE centred concerns regarding Dust, which I'm going to assume you're not interested in. The main crux of things was that until the district system was implemented in the 0.0 update for Dust in 2013 then we weren't going to be able to see how such things affect established EVE mechanisms. Which brings me back to the first of the points that I said I'd get to. Namely: Why should EVE's CSM care about the details of Dust development.
The question could equally be reversed to read: Why should Dust players care what EVE's CSM does and says when they visit Iceland?
The answer to both of these questions is as follows. Dust and EVE are being presented as happening in the same world. What happens in the development of one game, in that case, is going to have an impact on the other. It helps is you don't think of Dust and EVE as being separate games at all, they're different windows into the same universe. So anything that affects the way that universe works will be reflected in the view seen through these different windows.
The CSM should care what happens in Dust, and should be rightly concerned about the lack of socialization tools or a firm idea of how corporations are actually going to work. They really should have a Dust focused delegate, someone nominated from the currently sitting CSM would do for now, but by the time the next CSM is due to be elected we should be allowed to vote for our own.
The next item I was going to come back to was the matchmaking. Matchmaking in online FPS games is notoriously flakey, but something to match players of comparable ability is practially a necessity. A new player who is constantly getting his face owned by others playing with better gear and skills is going to get sick of it pretty quickly and stop playing in disgust. A good way to retain players is to allow them to group up with their friends and it is easier to matchmake for groups than it is for single players. which brings us back to the necessity of social tools.
All in all I was disappointed with quite a lot of the Dust discussion at the summit. There wasn't enough of it, considering that it has the potential to change the face of New Eden, and what there was revealed that CCP really haven't been thinking about what makes New Eden the world that it is.
The game is the players and their social interactions (outside shooting at each other, either in or out of space), without the tools to enable those interactions, there is no game. |
mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
|
Posted - 2012.08.03 17:05:00 -
[3] - Quote
Well, that was a useful contribution to the discussion, thanks for wasting your time. |
mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
|
Posted - 2012.08.03 17:41:00 -
[4] - Quote
Then surely working on the Corp management UI (and integrating it into dust at the same time) should be a priority?
What I find more worrying is that CCP seems to be unsure as to how corporations in Dust are going to work. I would have thought that this was a fairly important thing to get nailed down very early in development. |
mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
|
Posted - 2012.08.04 09:03:00 -
[5] - Quote
Avenger 245 wrote:they dont have any plans to release of game with grouping? so in all the argumetns you find here about one thing being OP or underpowered and the argument is grouping will cahnge this is crap? is are expectation of how things should be implemented right should we expect grouping and test and stress the beta with the knowledge that grouping will be brought into and be a major part of the game or should we be testing things we the mindset that random matchs will be all there is at release? in that case alot of stuff is OP or underpowered, should we be working on changing on mindset?
grouping should fall into a few diffrent degrees a small with friend groups were the matchs pair people up with thier friends automaticly and their friends can start matchs together and join matchs were one friend is al ready in. a medium grouping where people with low skills get paired up with hi skill people in matchs and corpration where it works like a big friends network.
First off, grouping; so that you can just form a squad or team with your friends is 'planned' for release. But, it should be part of the beta now.
What concerns me more is that forming persistent corporations (clans, guilds, whatever you want to call them) is not planned for release and won't be available until Dust is integrated with 0.0 sov warfare. That one of the fundamental mechanics of New Eden's social structure is not going to be available until 2013 is deeply worrying. The sooner we're able to form such corporations the better for the game it will be. We need to exert some pressure and get this moved up in the priority list. |
mandrill the red
Circle of Huskarl
Minmatar Republic
21
|
Posted - 2012.08.04 09:05:00 -
[6] - Quote
Boss Dirge wrote:Is it just me or is every CCP UI pretty terrible? Is that really what's holding this back? Seems like a lame excuse if you ask me.
Agreed. It's not just the UI though, the underlying mechanics are overly complex and confusing. The best solution is to combine the redevelopment of the EVE tools whilst they're being developed for Dust. |
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