CCP Shanghai making console FPS aka EvE 360 - via Kotaku

[NiX]

I'm sure the fact that taking over a planet requires multiple districts to be taken over means an abundance of "matches" to be played.

[Surlyboi]

FW

Yeah, I think this is the key to giving dust players bikes to ride while they wait for their fleet to open opportunities in the real war. I imagine they'll have the factions issue open contracts all day long.


In EVE players can be occupied with NPC missions and ratting, not sure that translates so well to the FPS.

I don't see this as being much of a problem. There are plenty of little brushfire border wars on the edges of empire that players could get involved in without need for the alliances to get involved. The Caldari/Gallente fights are plenty for starters. Turf wars in zerospace and lowsec may just be more rewarding.

[eldaec]

I'm not suggesting it is a problem, only that I think most of the action will be NPC triggered through FW, and that this is essential because the alliance game won't generate contests that are either common enough, or sufficiently open to non-members, plus PvE doesn't really work in context.

I honestly don't see alliances of any size being wiling to let random scrubs fight on their behalf (partly because lolspiez, partly because in fixed team contests like this organized teams >> all). I'm sure there will be a few people doing all sorts of weird shit (afterall, EVE) but I doubt it will be enough to reach a relevant proportion of the dust experience.

[DLRiley]

Well if you make your bread and butter appealing to people who have to plan their entire week around playing 3-4 hours a day at minimum, its kinda hard to make the games for the 10-30 minutes crowd. I don't see CCP making casual friendly game design decisions even if they are as obvious as a flashing neon sign. Especially if they plan to integrate DUST involvement with tangible changes in the EVE MMO world. However if the lead dev behind Dust had a copy of game design for dummies on his desk then we may have nothing to worry about.

[gryeyes]

Having the game play of DUST contingent in anyway to the situation in EVE would be a disaster. Either by admittance to an alliance or as a facet of actual conflict.

[DLRiley]

But I think that is the goal...its already a listed feature 

[palmer_eldritch]

The Dust players are meant to be mercenaries. They go wherever the action is.

I suspect they'll just log on and see a list of fights going on and choose one, or something like that. They won't need to join an Eve alliance or get any kind of intel to take part.

[NiX]

He even stated that they hope maybe in the future DUST teams will be able to align with alliances. That means pending CCP being able to implement it, it'll be possible.

4-5 years post launch it'll be in. When the game doesn't matter anymore.

[schild]

I can't wait to have a loyal enough fan base that I can use the words "Hope" "Maybe" and "In the Future" in a sentence just to make them slobber.

[Amarr HM]

I hope Schild nukes the politics section from orbit 

[patience]

And replaces it with an economics forum.

[eldaec]

He even stated that they hope maybe in the future DUST teams will be able to align with alliances. That means pending CCP being able to implement it, it'll be possible.

4-5 years post launch it'll be in. When the game doesn't matter anymore.

There are obvious game breaking problems with the idea that goons players can log in to dust and 'oh hey I'm fighting for AAA'.

I honestly don't see how they can avoid providing the tools for private dust contracts, leading in short order to the top end game being a closed shop.


The only alternative is not allowing players to know which planet they are on or which side they are fighting for. Which would be retarded, and from the perspective of the EVE alliance doing the hiring you might as well replace the process with dice rolls.


I'm sure out of game negotiation will go on for independent dust groups to support EVE alliances, but just like in EVE itself, these initially loose or mercenary relationships will slowly form into political blocs, even if they are occaisionally the subject of drama and back stabbing.

[DLRiley]

CCP would save themselves a lot of tears if they don't bother expecting Dust fps'ers to care about the EVE mmorpg'ers.

[patience]

CCP would save themselves a lot of tears if they don't bother expecting Dust fps'ers to care about the EVE mmorpg'ers.

DL, read my sig.

[Amarr HM]

I think you missed that one Patience, I agree DL they won't give a shit about MMO politik or COSMOS forums as long as they get to shoot stuff. How to incentivize it so they fight for a certain side is the major stumbling block I can see.

[ajax34i]

"How to incentivize it" will be less important than "how to contract-scam them"...

[eldaec]

If EVE and dust can supply each other with any type of resource (isk) it is just fucking bizarre to imagine that Dust corps/guilds/clans/whatever won't get caught up in EVE politics.

The most lucrative activity will be coming from the most lucrative regions of 0.0 (because that is where the money is and that is where people are willing and able to pay), but Goons or Razor or AAA or whoever aren't suddenly going to be issuing open invitations to their enemies to fight in these regions and get access to their isk, Dust corps are either going to become allied to these blocs, or are at least going to have to come to arrangements with them, just to get into the end game.

CCP don't have to do much to encourage this other than providing isk intensive toys for dust players, and keeping the current reward structure, which rewards players substantially more for being successful in 0.0 than for existing in empire.



The only way the two will remain reasonably separated is if they do not share a market, Dust is designed so that sabotage of your own team is practically impossible, and EVE and Dust have very limited influence over each other.



In a typical FPS (and even in planetside) there is no economy, no meaningful persistence, and no development beyond player skill; its adding that which leads to politics, not the nature of combat mechanics.

All that said, I'm sure large numbers of dust players will only play in small gangs that only ever see empire, those people won't care about 0.0, and 0.0 won't care about them. This is exactly like EVE.

[ajax34i]

If EVE and dust can supply each other with any type of resource (isk) it is just fucking bizarre to imagine that Dust corps/guilds/clans/whatever won't get caught up in EVE politics.

The most lucrative activity will be coming from the most lucrative regions of 0.0 (because that is where the money is and that is where people are willing and able to pay), but Goons or Razor or AAA or whoever aren't suddenly going to be issuing open invitations to their enemies to fight in these regions and get access to their isk, Dust corps are either going to become allied to these blocs, or are at least going to have to come to arrangements with them, just to get into the end game.

You're assuming that we'll continue to be in control of the planets or the market.  

Imagine this scenario:  DUST (console) players outnumber the EVE playerbase 3:1 on opening day, and CCP implements automatic battleground generation to accomodate the number of DUST players looking for a fight.  ALL of the planets in [Your Alliance Space] suddenly become battlegrounds, and, contracts or not, DUST players fight over them daily.  Planets change sovereignty daily, at the whim of a much bigger playerbase.  Daily, no matter what EVE players do, just cause there are so many console players looking for a fun fight, anywhere.

[DLRiley]

You mean 30:1 assuming this game is successful. Only what 30k players actually actively stay in 0.0 space on a regular basis. At most 10% of those players actually control significant blocks of it. Ending in tears.

[eldaec]

If EVE and dust can supply each other with any type of resource (isk) it is just fucking bizarre to imagine that Dust corps/guilds/clans/whatever won't get caught up in EVE politics.

The most lucrative activity will be coming from the most lucrative regions of 0.0 (because that is where the money is and that is where people are willing and able to pay), but Goons or Razor or AAA or whoever aren't suddenly going to be issuing open invitations to their enemies to fight in these regions and get access to their isk, Dust corps are either going to become allied to these blocs, or are at least going to have to come to arrangements with them, just to get into the end game.

You're assuming that we'll continue to be in control of the planets or the market.  

Imagine this scenario:  DUST (console) players outnumber the EVE playerbase 3:1 on opening day, and CCP implements automatic battleground generation to accomodate the number of DUST players looking for a fight.  ALL of the planets in [Your Alliance Space] suddenly become battlegrounds, and, contracts or not, DUST players fight over them daily.  Planets change sovereignty daily, at the whim of a much bigger playerbase.  Daily, no matter what EVE players do, just cause there are so many console players looking for a fun fight, anywhere.

That scenario isn't a matter of who is in control, you are arguing that CCP might design a sov system where sov switches trivially between factions such that nobody can really benefit from it anymore and so nobody cares about it in EVE or Dust. Sure, in that case all of EVE politics would breakdown anyway, player 0.0 would start to look like NPC 0.0, and the major alliances would probably crumble.

I think it is pretty unlikely, because CCP will have no intention of letting the sov concept die and it would add nothing to either game if they did so.

OTOH it is quite possible that dust and eve players have to cooperate to maintain sov, or even that dust players have the upper hand in holding sov. My point is that in that case, whoever leads alliances (EVE or dust) is not going to work with random punters from the other game, players will form blocs to control resources across the two fronts. Politics will continue in either case, and will merge across the two games so long as a meaningful sov system exists and provides resources that both sets of players need to compete at the top level.

It seems like some people are expecting CCP to make a game where the FPS crowd don't need to worry about isk or other resources, and can just pick weapon loadouts like they do in TF2. I can't see that happening.

[DLRiley]

Control over any significant part of land requires time, dedication, and generally a lot of energy invested. At least that is the general thought process of those making open world pvp games. They introduce a large cost to filter the amount of people gunning for the reward. The problem is a few things compounded. For one assuming the Dust players don't care about the sov mini game or at least the vast majority of them don't, then it is probably not a good idea to allow Dust players to que in for 0.0 space.

Dust players will vastly outnumber the actual EVE online players who control 0.0 space even the assuming the game does moderately well. Sov will change withing the hour due to the shear number of participants alone, even if the Dust players have to work together with EVE players to change Sov. If Dust players can affect Sov then shear number of activity will generally make involvement with the EVE player base unnecessary. However it is quite easy to simply scale the amount of activity needed to some ridiculous amount. In which case, if it turns out a majority of Dust players do want to affect Sov they will be hit by the filter. Which if you are the console shooter type is going to smell like bullshit.

[eldaec]

You are making an enormous assumption if you think dust players will be able to arbitrarily attack planets without any fleet support. And tbh I'm guessing you have no idea how sov works in EVE?

Personally I doubt it will be possible for anyone ever to conquer a system without substantial fleet activity triggering a condition to open the system to attack, and then Dust players doing whatever on the ground. It is daft to think that CCP are going to let Dust players piss all over 0.0 for exactly the same reasons they don't let EVE players do so.

It isn't even theoretically possible to flip sov in EVE in less than eight days from start to finish right now. CCP aren't likely to think the new system needs to be much faster.

It'll be something like this...

Given what we know of EVE lore and CCP design philosophy; my guess is that on order to take control of an installation on a planet, the fleets will have to shoot at a shield for 15 minutes then drop a pod onto the surface.

X hours later the dust players on the attacking side can clone jump to the pod and start the FPS instance. (X being a number adjustable by the defending team choosing how much strontium goes in a fuel bay and calculated from that by some arcane formula only understood by 3 people, 2 of whom are dead, and the third of whom is in Epsilon squad.)

Defenders can clone jump in any time they like.

And to be honest, I'd be very surprised if CCP even allow anyone to jump in on the attacking or defending side unless invited by the defending sov owner, or attacking potential sov owner (whether future sov owners are dust based or EVE based).

For one assuming the Dust players don't care about the sov mini game

This is a stupid assumption if the game has an economy and shit to buy. And if it has no economy linking it to EVE would be pointless.

[DLRiley]

Hasn't this come full circle. Now we are back to Dust players reliant on EVE players for content = fail..

[ajax34i]

You are making an enormous assumption if you think dust players will be able to arbitrarily attack planets without any fleet support.

Why would CCP restrict their new playerbase in any way?

Forgetting about EVE, if Dust is a battlegrounds PVP game, and the battlegrounds aren't instanced, it is theoretically possible to run out of planets to fight on.   Dust game opens, there's a land-grab (fighting in a battleground with no opposing force, just NPC's, is nice), and then it's up to them to defend their newly-conquered planet, and maybe they'll care about opening communications with the space fleet above for free gear and ISK bribes, or maybe they won't care and will just roam the queues for pew pew.  Fleet support is only needed if the enemy has it.

[eldaec]

If they have any sense they'll do it just like EVE.

There will be a hierarchy...

0.0 sov warfare (graduated into more levels by truesec)
NPC 0.0 (more aggressive form of the same, with opportunities to control installations, but not take sov)
Lowsec (Player generated freeform conflict with low barriers to entry but without much lasting impact)
Factional Warfare (NPC continuing drama)
NPC corporation missions (NPC generated one off contests)

Bottom end is low risk/reward, easy to get in to, but limited reward.

Top end requires vastly more coordination, vastly more resources put at risk, and gives out vastly more reward. It will only be worthwhile to the more organised and wealthier groups. Happily EVE alliances can provide organisation and wealth in spades.


This isn't about limiting one group or another, it is just basic game design.

You create something that everyone can play for shits and giggles, but escalate risk and reward for those who want to move into more competitive play and those willing to organise to a greater degree.



I mean sure, CCP might just create a basic open fps with no resource or economic model, no character or equipment development, and might just tell people to go at it. In that case you are all right, there is no obvious way to link dust and eve, and in all likelihood the impact on 0.0 will disappear before long.

But it doesn't fit at all well with the EVE mythos, or with CCP design approach, and wouldn't really make much sense.

[patience]

They even said it would be a strategy game. Even though they haven't elaborated on exactly how it obviously has to discard some of the pick up and play aspects of the FPS genre so players are forced to think even more about resources, territory and/or manpower.

[NiX]

They even said it would be a strategy game. Even though they haven't elaborated on exactly how it obviously has to discard some of the pick up and play aspects of the FPS genre so players are forced to think even more about resources, territory and/or manpower.

They said it would have RTS elements, not that it would be a strategy game. It'll probably end up being 80-90% FPS and the rest "strategy". There's a reason GoW, Halo and CoD are the top played FPS. You don't need to think, just be good at shooting.

[Endie]

Yeah, Eve is at least partially RTS (admittedly only really for those in a few exalted positions at the heads of corps and alliances).  Doesn't dominate the gameplay of most, though.

[patience]

They said it would have RTS elements, not that it would be a strategy game. It'll probably end up being 80-90% FPS and the rest "strategy". There's a reason GoW, Halo and CoD are the top played FPS. You don't need to think, just be good at shooting.

So what? Before it could've been argued sports gamers don't like getting bogged down in managing their teams over playing the game but the complexity of managing a team and career mode have been adopted well. Before it could've been argued fps gamers wouldn't like being forced to not be able to run into a room and gun down people because in 1-3 hits they die but stealth games took off.

 It all depends on the execution.

Yeah, Eve is at least partially RTS (admittedly only really for those in a few exalted positions at the heads of corps and alliances).  Doesn't dominate the gameplay of most, though.

Can't agree with that unless you are completely segregating how players have to plan and manage their career plans from SOV when considering Eve's strategic elements. SOV isn't the only thing in the game that requires strategic thinking.

[Endie]

Yeah, Eve is at least partially RTS (admittedly only really for those in a few exalted positions at the heads of corps and alliances).  Doesn't dominate the gameplay of most, though.

Can't agree with that unless you are completely segregating how players have to plan and manage their career plans from SOV when considering Eve's strategic elements. SOV isn't the only thing in the game that requires strategic thinking.

The fact that I wasn't just referring to sov is why I mentioned corps, which can't hold sov.  Building up a ship cache and money for a wardec, moving it intol place, running training ops to get your newbies experienced, wardeccing the opposition, telling your members where to go, setting a fleet doctrine, FCing them and giving them orders on who to shoot in what order... all have analogues in RTS games.

[NiX]

So what? Before it could've been argued sports gamers don't like getting bogged down in managing their teams over playing the game but the complexity of managing a team and career mode have been adopted well. Before it could've been argued fps gamers wouldn't like being forced to not be able to run into a room and gun down people because in 1-3 hits they die but stealth games took off.

It all depends on the execution.

It all depends on the demographic. Execution will not change the 12-20 crowds taste no matter how hard you try. There's a reason why the big 3 shooters only deviate slightly from the typical formula.

[Skullface]

Well initially I thought DUST was going to be small scale battles like 32 players max but in an interview he said the rooms they are going for would range from 16-256 players. (well after watching that youtube clip I see that it is supposed to be less than 255, bah) So at the very least they are getting close to the large sizes PS offered while at the same time offer more intimate sessions for people who want to get away from feeling like a cog in the war machine.

This is a bit disappointing. FPS' with large scale combat tend to slow down game pace to the point of near boredom (example - being the one guy who couldn't get a tank/plane/jeep in Battlefield.) The size of the maps that are needed to accomodate that many players really slams on the brakes. Most console players are used to Halo/COD style FPS' now, I doubt they're going to be into waiting 5 minutes for a tank respawn.

(Just call me bitter that it's not going to be on PC.)

[Fordel]

The trick is to give everyone JetPacks.

[Goumindong]

Well initially I thought DUST was going to be small scale battles like 32 players max but in an interview he said the rooms they are going for would range from 16-256 players. (well after watching that youtube clip I see that it is supposed to be less than 255, bah) So at the very least they are getting close to the large sizes PS offered while at the same time offer more intimate sessions for people who want to get away from feeling like a cog in the war machine.

This is a bit disappointing. FPS' with large scale combat tend to slow down game pace to the point of near boredom (example - being the one guy who couldn't get a tank/plane/jeep in Battlefield.) The size of the maps that are needed to accomodate that many players really slams on the brakes. Most console players are used to Halo/COD style FPS' now, I doubt they're going to be into waiting 5 minutes for a tank respawn.

(Just call me bitter that it's not going to be on PC.)

I thought planetside did that pretty well in terms of being able to get to the fight. So long as you knew where it was you were never really more than a few minutes away. And that was pretty consistent unless you were really unlucky.[I.E. you got to the battle as it ended and then had to run to the next... and got there as your side won...]

[NiX]

Stop dragging out the 16-255 number. He was being facetious.