Eve Online - toons go walkabout at last

[Endie]

I know that there is an Eve forum, but I suspect that this might be of broader interest.

Ten Ton Hammer just posted some GDC demo footage of the upcoming Eve feature where players can see their characters, walk around a station (and do social stuff like gamble or even (possibly) karaoke).

This element was sorta announced back at the Eve convention a few months ago, but the footage looks pretty good stuff.
The holographic star map hovering over them is nice, the graphics and models seem right in character with the existing game, and everyone scowls a lot, which is as it should be with Internet Spaceship Serious Business.

Warning, contains gratuitous nerd-attracting, tight, shiny, leather catsuits.

Edit:  for those who haven't seen it, the other huge element under development is planetary atmospheric flight.  Some rather pretty youtube footage here. Edit: this one is, indeed, probably misattributed.

Further edit: Here is a definite Eve Online atmospheric flight demo.  This one also looks impressive - volcanos and stuff - but is shakeycam. 

[Falconeer]

What can I say? I won't hide here: *drool*

EDIT: Some guys claim the atmospheric video is a fake...

[Yoru]

They're not demoing this to us proles on the show floor.

Guess I have to buy 'em some hookers or something...

[eldaec]

Whatever happened to 'we will never develop an interface where you control walk your character around a station because it would divert resources from the spacecraft game'? 

[Endie]

Whatever happened to 'we will never develop an interface where you control walk your character around a station because it would divert resources from the spacecraft game'? 

Or, come to that, "when you plug into a pod you are there forever".  Times change.

Hey, maybe there will be a use for all those exotic dancers I've had to ship around!  result!

[Falconeer]

Let's hope they don't develop some diku mechanic about the damsels in distress.

[eldaec]

and space-elves ofc.

[Soln]

pass

Eve ==

[Falconeer]

Pass? Just because the devs cheat?

[Endie]

I'm pleased about the walking around and flying within the atmosphere things because, well, when I had that nice wireframe Elite on my BBC Micro model B, I remember thinking "wouldn't it be awesome if I could get out my Cobra Mk3" and "I wish I could flightsim in this thing, too".  Those ideas are so deeply imprinted upon me that, even though the grown-up me realises the danger of retards with /dance emotes, I just can't help myself.

And I don't mind the sort of players that a real socialisation element might fleetingly attract to the game.  That person that dances in the Jita cantina while cybering will eventually want to go to Kaunokka for some Gorean costumefest or something.  I'll leave them a can saying "free furry ears and tails!", they'll loot it, and their screams of outrage at then being podded will resonate right out to the drone regions.

Edit: spelling

[tmp]

Or, come to that, "when you plug into a pod you are there forever".  Times change.

The "pod forever" thing is mentioned in backstory as something which affected the first experimental pilots -- once they got it they'd never go out. The players are free from that because it both happens some X years later (technological progress was made) and the players themselves are supposedly elite few of human race that are able to cope with psychological stress that comes from getting in and out of the pod.

That station video is nice, if nothing else it finally gives some sense of scale to the ships in game. And I guess they have plans to reuse that (parts) of engine for their WoD game, so it will have to be rather flexible... not a bad thing.

[Surlyboi]

Now, give me the ability to arm up with a squad of marines and do boarding actions and I'm there in a heartbeat.

[Hoax]

Station video is pretty cool.

[Ixxit]

Pretty cool.  One of the reasons I never got into EvE was the sense of detachment from the game; it almost felt you were playing a RTS. Never felt that I 'was' playing my avatar.

Once this is in and if they ever introduce planetary type operations EvE could easily be the best virtual world ever.  Until then.. meh.

[SnakeCharmer]

Now, give me the ability to arm up with a squad of marines and do boarding actions and I'm there in a heartbeat.

Oh hell yes.  I would as well. 

If the flight mechanics were flight sim-ish (a la JTL, or something similar), I'd be all over it.
How DO you fly around in EvE?

[Dundee]

They look very nice.

And sitting! In chairs!

Crazy.

[Bix]

Wow, that looks very cool.  I tried to get into Eve but the hour long tutorial got on my nerves, but after reading everything on these boards the game sounds like alot of fun.  Is the PvP in Eve button mashing or is there actually some strategy involved??

Dundee - Your game looking this good?  When the hell are you guys going to annouce somethin??



Bix

[Morat20]

They look very nice.

And sitting! In chairs!

Crazy.

They have an edge, to be honest. They're developing it without much legacy requirements (other than having to be able model their crazy-ass collection of garments and facial structures from their character selection process), and they can instance the whole damn thing. AND they things just need to walk, talk, and interact. Combat's probably not even being looked at now.

So they get a "Looking good" social system that's utterly seperate from their combat system, and not even using the same resources. They can afford to make it look good. Hell, if they throw in a good market interface when in Avatar-land, I'd be thrilled spitless.

[Dundee]

They have an edge, to be honest. They're developing it without much legacy requirements (other than having to be able model their crazy-ass collection of garments and facial structures from their character selection process), and they can instance the whole damn thing. AND they things just need to walk, talk, and interact. Combat's probably not even being looked at now.

So they get a "Looking good" social system that's utterly seperate from their combat system, and not even using the same resources. They can afford to make it look good. Hell, if they throw in a good market interface when in Avatar-land, I'd be thrilled spitless.

I think Earth & Beyond had that same edge.

[Morat20]

They have an edge, to be honest. They're developing it without much legacy requirements (other than having to be able model their crazy-ass collection of garments and facial structures from their character selection process), and they can instance the whole damn thing. AND they things just need to walk, talk, and interact. Combat's probably not even being looked at now.

So they get a "Looking good" social system that's utterly seperate from their combat system, and not even using the same resources. They can afford to make it look good. Hell, if they throw in a good market interface when in Avatar-land, I'd be thrilled spitless.

I think Earth & Beyond had that same edge.

Didn't play it, so don't know. :) A guy I work with LOVED it -- kind of surpised he never tried EVE. I think he's currently drooling over the Firefly MMO.

Still, I guess my point was -- it should look good. They're not dealing with a lot of the technical constraints avatar-based MMORPGS deal with, and since it's an add-in, it's not tied to their current engine. They can code it with a heavy eye towards looking good, using a lot of the new shinies -- rather than using an engine that's going to be a few years old by the time they're done.

[Falconeer]

Earth & Beyond, yeah, with 3 ships to choose from and battling flying space skulls. Same thing. Wonder how come it sunk.

[Yoru]

Now, give me the ability to arm up with a squad of marines and do boarding actions and I'm there in a heartbeat.

Oh hell yes.  I would as well. 

If the flight mechanics were flight sim-ish (a la JTL, or something similar), I'd be all over it.
How DO you fly around in EvE?

Doubleclicking in space makes you fly in that direction.

And don't forget - this is all probably a prototype of their landscape system for WoD Online.

[ajax34i]

RE: Bix.  It's not a click-fest, there is strategy, but most of the strategy happens before the actual fight, and it consists of deciding how to best fit your ship for the task at hand (keeping in mind what resists / ships the enemies are likely to fly) and also the movement before the combat, trying to gather intelligence about the enemy's positions as well as catching / holding him in place.  Once the ships are in range and/or locked so that they can't run away, there's not much you can do (or have time to react to) to alter the outcome (this is because everyone shoots with everything they have from the first second, nobody keeps some of their weapons or electronic warfare modules "in reserve" so that they can "surprise" you halfway through the fight).

RE: SnakeCharmer.  Flying around in EVE is "destination-based", I don't know the word for it.  In order to move to anywhere, that location must appear either in your overview (like, for example, planets, stations, asteroid belts, etc.), or be given to you (most agents give you bookmarks, "click on this bookmark that has the coordinates to the mission area"), or you must scan for it (this is how you find enemy ships that are hiding, you scan for them and once you've pinpointed them, you can then use the results of the scan as a destination to go to).  If you double-click in space in any direction, you start flying at sublight in that direction, but this is mostly used to get unstuck or to maneuver while in combat.  Not that combat is manual flying; in most cases, you click the target and you choose "approach", "keep at x km", or "orbit at x km", whatever is best for the range of the weapons that you have.

[Nija]

When Planetside goes bottom up within the next 2 months, they should buy the existing technology and use it towards planet colonization/assaulting.

Game within a game stuff.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

Having never played Eve, is the actual space combat "twich" or what?

[ajax34i]

No, it's not twitch.  It's not dogfighting...  imagine World War II battleships shooting each other.  Although you have direct control over the ship and its guns, shields, armor, and modules, the ships in EVE have crews and are sized from frigate to cruiser to battleship and larger.  You get in position, activate guns, and hope that your turrets or missiles track and hit critically, while at the same time trying to boost your shields or maneuver to keep outside the enemy's range, etc.  You also do Electronic Warfare, which involves modules that disable the other guy's targetting, or reduce his range, accuracy, speed, or ability to warp away.

[tmp]

Having never played Eve, is the actual space combat "twich" or what?

Frigate fights can require/involve quite a bit of manual navigation due to high speeds and (relatively) small distances involved. Beyond that it becomes more of pre-planning (having robust ship setup able to cope with situation at hand) and quick tactical thinking (when to attack, when to run, at what range, who to focus fire on, what modules to activate when and for how long so your ship doesn't run out of energy used to power them all etc)

[SnakeCharmer]

Bah.  Boring (The combat/flight model).

I can see the other appeal of it though, especially the political pvp / economic pvp game to it.  Hell, just reading about it here makes me want to play.  But I think I'd grow weary of it rather fast, so I'll keep my fascination at arms length and just watch.  I need my combat to be a different kind of engagement.

Now, if I had the ability to twitch control a fighter or small freighter type (with friends manning the turrets, missles, etc), I would be all over it like white on rice.  I *LOVED* JTL for that very reason, though I wish DS would have been 10 times its size with asteroid fields and blown up ship hulls to use as cover.

[Morat20]

Bah.  Boring (The combat/flight model).

I can see the other appeal of it though, especially the political pvp / economic pvp game to it.  Hell, just reading about it here makes me want to play.  But I think I'd grow weary of it rather fast, so I'll keep my fascination at arms length and just watch.  I need my combat to be a different kind of engagement.

Now, if I had the ability to twitch control a fighter or small freighter type (with friends manning the turrets, missles, etc), I would be all over it like white on rice.  I *LOVED* JTL for that very reason, though I wish DS would have been 10 times its size with asteroid fields and blown up ship hulls to use as cover.

There are really two models for space-sims:

1) Dog fights.
2) Modern Naval battles.

EVE went with the latter. Why, I don't know -- although at least part of it has to be the problems with doing twitch on an MMORPG (freakin' lag). Interceptors come closest to twitch -- they specialize in nasty hit-and-run attacks. Combat can be fairly heated, as you have to make lots of quick (and correct) decisions if you'd like to win -- but that's more about keeping at the proper range, and managing energy (energy feeds your guns, keeps your shield and armor up), and knowing when to try to run.

The deeper tactics involve choosing the ship and loadout that are best for your fighting style and skills, and coordinating large-scale fleet movements and logistics. 

[Viin]

Allegiance always had the online space flight twitch thing down, it's really too bad MS canned it - though the user community seems to be doing pretty well.

We just need an meshing of EVE and Allegiance to get a kickass space game, and then StarWars Battlefront for the ground game.

[Lantyssa]

And sitting! In chairs!

Crazy.

*cackle*

[Woody]

They look very nice.

And sitting! In chairs!

Crazy.

Considering the last game you worked on featured toons floating in air off to the side of chairs they tried to sit on, that probably does amaze you. :-D

[Yoru]

Bah.  Boring (The combat/flight model).

I can see the other appeal of it though, especially the political pvp / economic pvp game to it.  Hell, just reading about it here makes me want to play.  But I think I'd grow weary of it rather fast, so I'll keep my fascination at arms length and just watch.  I need my combat to be a different kind of engagement.

Now, if I had the ability to twitch control a fighter or small freighter type (with friends manning the turrets, missles, etc), I would be all over it like white on rice.  I *LOVED* JTL for that very reason, though I wish DS would have been 10 times its size with asteroid fields and blown up ship hulls to use as cover.

There are really two models for space-sims:

1) Dog fights.
2) Modern Naval battles.

EVE went with the latter. Why, I don't know -- although at least part of it has to be the problems with doing twitch on an MMORPG (freakin' lag). Interceptors come closest to twitch -- they specialize in nasty hit-and-run attacks. Combat can be fairly heated, as you have to make lots of quick (and correct) decisions if you'd like to win -- but that's more about keeping at the proper range, and managing energy (energy feeds your guns, keeps your shield and armor up), and knowing when to try to run.

The deeper tactics involve choosing the ship and loadout that are best for your fighting style and skills, and coordinating large-scale fleet movements and logistics. 

From what I caught at the CCP talk this morning, they went with the latter at least partially for technical reasons; because of the way movement works in Eve, the deterministic naval-style combat is much easier on the network layer. From a design/player's standpoint, it's easier to handle that more sedate style of battle in a high-latency environment.

[Fordel]

Sometimes I think EVE would've been better off as a turn based game, but keep the animations and motions fluid in between turns. Have some kind of global turn for everyone, where you have 10 seconds or so to choose your actions or have your previous actions continue.

Would that help with the lag EVE has or am I on armchair designer crack?

[Xerapis]

So they're transitioning to Freelancer Online, but flying and shooting will still be boring as hell?