Blog? omg! (Concerning game design of EVE vs. other games)

[SpaceDrake]

So like, wtf. I evidently have a blog now, located at http://spacedrake.blogspot.com/. And, like the mythical, ethereal HRose (who I admittedly owe my knoledge of this very forum to), I plan on blogging mostly about visual gaming media in general. I've started off with a discussion of the core gameplay of EVE Online - it's always surprised me that so few people seem to understand how simple EVE is, at its core. Of course, it's also much, much different than the Diku model, which makes grief (almost) impossible.

The blog entry in question: yarr.

Reply here or at the blog, I'm easy.

[Mesozoic]

So like, wtf.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

[schild]

So like, wtf.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Yea, why post on a blog when you can just post in forums and get rapid response? So like, wtf?

[SpaceDrake]

So like, wtf.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Yea, why post on a blog when you can just post in forums and get rapid response? So like, wtf?

Specifically, I can write the post once, then cross-post it to multiple places at once.

Besides, I needed to announce that my blog at least existed.

[schild]

I fear for the day everyone has their own blog and just trackbacks to everyone else's blog and online communities just die off.

[Mesozoic]

Besides, I needed to announce that my blog at least existed.

Ah, here we differ.

[SpaceDrake]

I fear for the day everyone has their own blog and just trackbacks to everyone else's blog and online communities just die off.

Then we'll be one big happy InterWebNetTron family![/b] 

In seriousness, I only plan on doing something like this when an essay vomits forth from my fingertips and I wish to spread it around the Intertron without copy-pasting huge posts to forums that may or may not have character limits and whatnot. Hope I haven't annoyed too greatly.

And comment, darn you all! The actual blogpost has to be mildly interesting, at least. :-(

[Xilren's Twin]

...
Thus, if someone is preventing you from obtaining resources in a certain place... just go elsewhere, if you must. Combined with that, though, is the underlying principle of EVE that I mentioned earlier: resource competition. You're supposed to compete for resources, especially in the less lawful parts of space, where the NPC police don't break up fights using lasers and missiles. So if someone is trying to keep you from resources, by all means, make them spend some resources to keep it from you! The game is about competition, and you should be more than willing to step up to the plate. Thus, you can't really be "griefed" in EVE. You can end up fiercely competing for resources, but true grief is almost impossible.

I'll keep this brief; the word 'grief'... I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Grief" is more about player expectations and the frustration that results when those expectations are not met and it's a highly subjective thing.  You can't really tell some newbie who got podded when all they wanted to do was mine some space rocks  "objectively, that wasn't really griefing; in fact you were really having fun and didn't even know it!"  He logged in expecting to mine and earn some cash; instead he lost his ship, needs a clone and wasted X minutes/hours doing stuff he didnt want to do.

Hell, the very concept of some other player taking over your spawn point, mining spot, trading market, or camping your base to kill you and forcing you to "just go elsewhere" would be the definition of grief to many b/c it forces you to spend your playtime doing something other than what you wanted (especially considering EVE's non trivial travel times).

IMHO, all game companies need to do a much better job of setting and managing player expectations so they can avoid 90% of the complaints about griefing and only code what behaviour you want to allow.

Xilren

[Nija]

No griefing in Eve? haha

[Venkman]

I think Eve does a pretty good job of explaining the sort of experience it is. It certainly doesn't do anywhere near even a passable job of telling you what to actually do in the game, but for the interested, this means doing what the interested would do anyway in a game where they seek socioeconomic relevance: ask other people.

Eve is like old school UO. You don't go out into the wild traipsing around your best shit. Some people could handle thinking before acting. Other people cried about it until they got WoW.

Now, we could argue all day long about proper game instruction and player direction, but that's why there's contrived linear games like WoW and EQ2 out there. You want a traditional RPG-esque game with other people? Go play those. You want an open-ended virtual lifestyle where you customize everything including inventing a role for yourself ingame? That needs fulfilled by the Eves and ATITDs of the genre.

From a business end, if you're EA you'll look with awe at WoW. If you're new_MMO_Dev, your options are less limited. Scale your business to match the amount of people you think will play it and go from there (like, CCP would fall over dead if they ever hit SWG numbers, but they'd have to radically change the game to do that).

[5150]

I deliberately haven't advertised my blog (pretty sure I havent even linked it from my website)

It's not that I don't want people to read it I don't really care either way (and I don't blog frequently enough to keep any sustained interest, nor is it on a single subject) I just use it as therapy I suppose.

[Rhonstet]

You got it backwards.  EVE Online is about finding enemies and camping them in the station until they get bored and logoff.  Or ganksquads.

In short, the defining quality of EVE Online is that _all_ you do is grief other people. 

[Venkman]

Hrn?

[El Gallo]

like the mythical, ethereal HRose (who I admittedly owe my knoledge of this very forum to),

lucky us.

[Yegolev]

I have a blog, however it is left as an excercise to the reader to find it.  Hint: it's not at blogspot.

There is a lot of griefing in EVE, but the interesting part is that a player does not remain in the dark about that for very long.  A total newb in high-sec is probably going to at least have some jerkoff steal loot from them... the knife's edge is what to do afterward.  If you have the balls to open fire on the thief, you'll fit right in to EVE.  If you shrug it off, you must be comfortable with the gameplay.  If it makes you cry, time to unsub.  Personally I think there is quite a bit to do in EVE, but generally these things are competitive in nature and not subject to game controls.  You might say one of the sanctioned game activities is griefing.  Specifically using gatecamps as an example, the game provides tools to deal with it, such as "don't go through that gate" or "buy better modules" or "lrn2ply".  It is entirely possible to configure and fly a blockade runner, but don't expect the game or other players to make it easy on you.

[Venkman]

Old school UO. In Space. Without Wookiees.

[bhodi]

I'd *so* play if the ramp-up time wasn't so god-damned long. I don't want to spend 6 months crafting a viable character.

[Venkman]

I should say "I was effective right out of the gate", but, well, I was only really effective in the tutorial :)

Eve is funny. It specifically lets you calculate, to the exact minute, just how long it'll take you to do whatever it is you want. I've had to stop using that Eve Character Management System because I realized the game has a better chance of changing than I do of being so single-mindedly focused on a specific goal. Particularly with the next expansion potentially bringing full scale inter-Empire war (or so the F13 folks were talking yesterday).

I take it in baby steps. Anything beyond two weeks is an abstract as far as I'm concerned. As long as I can make some money, fight when I need to, run when I don't, I'll worry about a Cruiser and Tech 2 Weapons later. Like, when I can afford to replace them all four times over ;)

[Soln]

Of course, the problem with EVE is that your advancement takes twice as long -- you have to be able to cover the replacement value of your ship and its components "now", but you also have to continue to grind to earn enough to cover any improved ship and components you want to get in the future.  They in effect have you grinding twice as much, once to cover buying that ship your skills unlock and then again to make enough to cover its full replacement value (with or without 70% insurance).  Since most players don't care about time, I didn't mention how long this takes, but you get the picture.  That's the risk certainly, I just don't get where the reward is, since after all the game is based on PvP.

[Hoax]

I'd *so* play if the ramp-up time wasn't so god-damned long. I don't want to spend 6 months crafting a viable character.

I'll run the exact calculation but:

Frig IV
Small weap X IV
fitting skills IV
Navigation IV
MWD III
some cap skills III

shouldn't take too long, the big initial time grind is picking up the 1mil-1.5mil sp's worth of learning skills, I've found I got good results doing something like:

basic learning to III
-train so I can fly the best racial combat frig effectively
basic learning to V
-train a basic level of cruiser skills
advanced learning to III
-train whatever I need to use modules I think I'll want on my cruiser
advanced learning to IV
-never touch learning again, start training in whatever fields I feel like.

[Nebu]

And, like the mythical, ethereal HRose...

I'm guessing there are two differenet people using the same "HRose" handle now as that does not describe the "HRose" that I'm familiar with.

[Murgos]

I think HRose is actually an experimental learning AI .  Gone horribly wrong, of course.

[Venkman]

Frig IV
Small weap X IV
fitting skills IV
Navigation IV
MWD III
some cap skills III

You'd want Gunnery/Missile support skills in there (Gunnery example: Rapid Fire, Sharpshooter, Motion Prediction, etc), but all of what you've plus support listed is no more than 3 weeks of solid training, online or offline. And you're using these skills as you train them. But by "solid" I mean someone who has access to a computer each time a training is done and something with an alarm to remind them of it. Eve is brutal in this regard.

I think someone could probably create a chart that corrolates one's level of effectiveness to a "level" in like WoW or EQ2, from the standpoint of a player looking for an analogous experience (skills to get equipment to get skills). From here skill templates could be proposed, with the time it takes to use them, and compared to how long it takes to hit Level X in game Y. That could at least form a frame of reference.

The big difference is that Eve doesn't really promote a diku style experience. It's there. Gangs=Groups, big/tough ships=Bosses, there's rare drops and all that. But the game isn't focused at delivering this content linearly. As such, it doesn't have the hooks nor lower barrier to entry that helps people discover this. The bane of SWG too, but whereas that scared SOE away, it works well for CCP (smaller company, lower overhead, more solid codebase, less expectations, no license, blah blah).

[Hoax]

Actually because I'm thinking pvp viable and therefore frigate tackling, the gunnery/missile stuff can come later.  The important thing are fitting skills, speed skills and some cap skills to run the mid slots.

[Nija]

Hey if you guys get REALLY bored, you can make an alt that can use suicide destroyers in 14 hours worth of training.

Takes 2 people to kill a retriever. 4 to kill a covetor. Cost to you after insurance kickback is about 300-400k ISK.

Who said there was no griefing in Eve?

Tell that to the guy who was macro mining as an egg for 12 hours the other day.


Hypothetically it'll take 6 people to kill a mackinaw. Maybe 5, but we want to be sure.

[bhodi]

The big difference is that Eve doesn't really promote a diku style experience. It's there. Gangs=Groups, big/tough ships=Bosses, there's rare drops and all that. But the game isn't focused at delivering this content linearly. As such, it doesn't have the hooks nor lower barrier to entry that helps people discover this. The bane of SWG too, but whereas that scared SOE away, it works well for CCP (smaller company, lower overhead, more solid codebase, less expectations, no license, blah blah).

That's where corps come in though, right? If I were serious about trying, and was willing to put aside the ramp-up time, I'd join the corp and my saftey net would be right there.

[Yegolev]

About the ramp-up, you are not likely to get it right on the first shot.  I was able to get started much more quickly with my second character than the first.  EVE forces the player to train him/herself, rather than just training the avatar.  Just running the tutoral again three months later caused some lightbulbs to go off over my head.  I had a better idea of what I wanted and what I should do to get it, so after two or three days my new pilot was killing rats in .5 space with half-shit equipment.  Just avoiding some real bonehead maneuvers I did on the first try helped immensely.