Maken Tosch
Planetary Response Organisation
Test Friends Please Ignore
1591
   |
Posted - 2012.12.26 23:41:00 -
[1] - Quote
Before I continue I just want to state that in no way is this thread meant to be some kind of fanboy post supporting CCP as I have jumped on CCP's case on certain issues in the past (most of which were later resolved). Therefore I can be critical of CCP when the time is appropriate.
Anyways, back to the point of this thread.
As many of you would know CCP had been (or is currently) withholding a lot of features that were promised in the past and are only slowly letting them loose for us to test. For example: It took some time for CCP to give us profile dampeners, repair tools, orbital bombardments, corporations, squad management, and other things we currently take for granted at this point. Then there are the fighter jets, MTACs, selling salvage, more open market, rogue drones, etc. that have yet to be released at the moment. Some of which probably won't be available until AFTER full release as a later free expansion.
Knowing CCP's history and personally experiencing their history in many ways since 2007, it seems that many of us here are forgetting why CCP is taking so long on many things.
We have to remember CCP's design philosophy for New Eden. Let's take a look at Eve Online since that is the game in which Dust 514 is based on. Unlike other MMOs out there, according to Forbes, Eve Online has a very unique economy that operates exactly like a real world economy from a small microeconomic scale to a full blown macroeconomic scale. There are players in that game that are real world economists, real world corporate auditors, even real world diplomats as noted by a famous player known as Sean 'Vile Rat' Smith (may he rest in peace).
Here is how the economy general works in Eve Online (something CCP intends to emulate for Dust in the future):
- Player A mines asteroid belts in space and refines those ores into minerals.
- Player A either sells those minerals for profit or saves them for later use in production.
- Player A decides to sell those minerals instead because he needs ISK now and can't wait.
- Player B buys the minerals from the market sell orders that Player A posted and uses them to produce a ship or module.
- Player B then sells those ships/modules to Player C after posting a sell order.
- Player C uses those ships/modules for either PVP or PVE and loses them in the process.
- Player C buys more ships/modules from sell order posted by Players D-Z.
- Player D goes around different regions buying cheap ships/minerals/modules (aka commodities) so that he can haul them to other regions where they sell for much higher and makes a profit off of the margins. Players like Player D generally makes billions of ISK in a single months without firing a single shot.
- Player E catches Player D hauling precious cargo and attacks his ship unprovoked, loots the cargo and salvages the wreck. The PHAT LEWT is then sold on the market for people like Player B and C to use.
- Player F works the PLEX market to his advantage as a market trader just like how Player D works the market for ship/minerals/modules to his advantage.
- Player G attempts to corner the market for Hulk production by attacking and controlling the technetium moons in null-sec so that the market prices for Hulks sky rocket in his favor in high-sec while he pays large rewards to gankers to constantly destroy high-sec hulk miners.
- Player G looks to Players A and B for production of ships needed for such an attempt and looks to negotiate with Player D to help restrict flow of certain commodities.
I could go on, but I am sure to run into my post's character limit pretty soon before my bullet point list is over. It is that complex. I'm not kidding here.
The complexity of the economy didn't emerge like this on the first day of release. Eve Online became fully released in 2003, but the PLEX market didn't exist until 2009. Tech 2 ships and modules didn't come out until way after 2003. Wormholes and Tech 3 didn't emerge until almost two years ago. The economy kept expanding and expanding during the course of nine years. It suffered many things and still managed to endure:
- 2011 Jita Riots
- 2012 Burn Jita
- Gallente Ice Interdiction
- Hulkageddon (five straight years worth of high-sec tears).
As you can see, if Dust 514 is to be fully implemented, it will have to be fully finished in parts. In CCP's case, these parts are called "free expansions". This is because everything you do, every suit, every vehicle, every weapon, every module, and every action will have an impact on the economy of Eve Online. If CCP is not careful with this, if a bug or exploit is discovered that would potentially break both games, then those nine years of blood, sweat and tears will have been undone in a very short time. I don't want to see that happen to either of the games.
That said, I would prefer CCP to take their time to get things right. I don't give a damn if it will take another 9 years to get this right. For those of you who stuck around since replication, you know that every time a feature is added, bugs emerge inevitably which is why CCP has to take things slow. And with a game like Dust that will soon be equally complex and confusing as Eve Online, there is very little margin for error.
This is why there will be free expansions after full release because Dust will be built over the years rather than over the months. Just like Eve Online, Dust will be on permanent beta even after full release.
So for those of you who are just too impatient and want "this" and "that" now, I suggest you stop right now, calm down, and look at what's at stake here. |
Maken Tosch
Planetary Response Organisation
Test Friends Please Ignore
1591
|
Posted - 2012.12.27 22:55:00 -
[4] - Quote
@BMSTUBBY
The "mining" example that I gave was only meant to be an example of the major complexities of Eve Online. Another example that would probably best serve my point is the incident that happened not too long ago during the Codex build of Dust 514 when CCP finally allowed Eve capsuleers to communicate with us directly. During that time it was discovered that Eve capsuleers were able to transfer billions of ISK to Dust corps and mercs directly via their Sisi wallets. But it was quickly discovered that this was not intended and that CCP accidentally switched the feature on by mistake in the process. They quickly shut it off but not before the incident made a big impact on how the Testers Tournament turned out with Dust corps now wielding wallets that were billions of ISK fatter in one day. Players even went as far as stocking up on hundreds of units of everything that could use in the meantime before CCP emptied their wallets.
This is just one of many things that can have me concerned with Dust and Eve in regards to the economy.
I understand you want to have some things now that don't seem to have a negative impact on the economy such expanding on squad sizes, better corp management, etc. Those I can see coming pretty soon. But you have to be patient even for that. Remember that for every feature you put into a game you will get a few bugs or exploits that need to be resolved. Even to this day, Eve-side capsuleers still report problems with corp management though not as much now as compared to months past.
CCP did mention that Chromosome is mostly designed to resolve issues that cropped up during Codex or were neglected since Replication and that content took backseat for this build. We already knew this nearly a month before Chromosome came out.
Now, I don't mind seeing fighter jets, cloaking modules, skyfire batteries, etc. coming out now, but honestly I felt that gameplay imbalance and bugs needed more attention than all those new features. Nothing can break a game more than imbalance and bugs. |