Matakage wrote:Here's my message to all of the Eve veterans who might have their heads stuck in the Eve fishbowl:
Dust 514 and Eve cannot be compared and cannot be held to the same standards.
I know.. your eyes started twitching, your face is red, and your neck started itching a little. I'll explain:
Eve Online, from what I understand is some no-holds-barred free for all MMO, with a deep economy and faction system. From what I've seen in videos, combat looks like a ship sitting still in space while a bunch of laser fly around. Basically, Eve Online is a unique and quirky MMO that has the distinct luxury of being held by it's own standard.
Now that CCP has created Dust 514, that luxury is gone.
When CCP created Dust 514, they stepped into the largest, highest earning, and most competitive genre in all of gaming: first-person shooter games. And whether they like it or not, their game is held to that standard. Gone is the unique privilege of playing by your own rules and expecting everyone to accept it. Economy, loot tables, skill systems, planetary conquest, faction warfare and all other things are secondary in priority to gameplay control, game balance, and accessibility of new players. And if you think I'm dead wrong about not being held to your own standard, let me remind you who decides. Here's a hint: It's not you.
This game will live or die by the experience of players within the first 30-45 minutes of playing.
I'm an incredibly patient gamer, which is why I'm still here. (400-lap races in Gran Turismo, anyone?) Unfortunately, most players are not very patient. They know that Dust 514 is an FPS game before they play it, and they're going to hold it to the standard of other games like Call of Duty and Battlefield the first time they play it whether you like it or not. And frankly, that's their right. Ultimately they have a choice, and they'll choose what's most fun in that moment. After all, video games are an escape from reality so you need to replace reality with something fun and not so tedious. There were many times when I first started playing Dust 514 when I asked myself, "Why am I doing this when I could be playing Battlefield 3 and actually win?"
This is getting too ranty, so I'll cut it short here. Keep in mind that we're competing for the attention of FPS players against the heaviest hitters in the industry. Unless we make sure they have fun from the start, we'll lose them. When choosing the direction of Dust 514, everything takes a back seat to gameplay controls, game balance, and new player accessibility.