Eve Online - toons go walkabout at last

[Yoru]

CCP: 3 words: Avatar Based Combat

Why own a station when you can own a planet? (or conquer one), instanced cities, mining operations planetside, player owned housing, .....its not rocket science....

This is all in the works and/or on their board of "we really want to do this in the future" megafeatures. Well, except the instanced part. That's not very Eveish.

[Morat20]

CCP: 3 words: Avatar Based Combat

Why own a station when you can own a planet? (or conquer one), instanced cities, mining operations planetside, player owned housing, .....its not rocket science....

This is all in the works and/or on their board of "we really want to do this in the future" megafeatures. Well, except the instanced part. That's not very Eveish.

Actually it is. You can just invade someone's instance. :)

[HaemishM]

Does that come with foreplay?

[ajax34i]

Of course!  What do you think all the smack talk and forum warrioring is?  They just open a planetary channel in-game, and a Planets forum, and voila, foreplay 4 u.

[Endie]

Eve Tribune has a fairly lengthy update and opinion piece on the proposed station-walking changes in the current issue.

It's pretty crap, actually.  Just a "wouldn't it be nice if..." piece for much of it.  If you'ev not read the developer's blog though, the link at the end is worthwhie.

[Venkman]

Doesn't Eve have instance analogs though? I thought those "Deep Space" places you'd jump to for missions were the same thing? Or could just anyone show up to them if they could find the gate you flew though? Heck, even if that is the case, imagine trying to find that gate without being directed there by the NPC... needle in a haystack.

Question: Last E3 or thereabouts CCP was talking about a major vamp for DX10 including a new user interface dashboard. Is that still in the works? I would love to check out Eve again when my new rig arrives, as already it is one of the prettier games out there (with appropriate ambient sfx/music in my mind). I actually like Eve alot even if I don't feel like I have the sort of time it takes to maximize growth in it.

[Nija]

The "deep space" things are actually just that - deep space. When you can jump to anything farther away than 150,000 km you do a lot of jumping. Some systems are 100 AU across, with 1 AU being 14,000,000 km. (or so) Plus you can only jump to objects you probe out or preset locations like planets, moons, stations, and asteroid belts. Some complexes (space dungeons) are actually not listed either, so you'll have to have a probed out bookmark or have a gang member who does.

A popular griefing tactic is to use probes to find people in level 3 and 4 missions tanked a specific way for a specific type of damage and warp to them and blow them up using a damage type they're not tanked for.

[Endie]

Am I right in remembering that the missions spots aren't even completely random, and that they were reachable even before scanning was improved?  I'm sure that I recall seeing a griefer talk about his mission bookmarks, saying that he would check out the ones for a system one by one and often find victims...

[Nija]

Yep, that's correct. You'd get the ________ Extravaganza missions from certain popular agents and they'd wind up in the same handful of places. Same with Worlds Collide.

[dwindlehop]

A popular griefing carebear re-education tactic is to use probes to find people in level 3 and 4 missions tanked a specific way for a specific type of damage and warp to them and blow them up using a damage type they're not tanked for.

All joking aside, I would bet for every Joe Blow who enjoys running some L4s after work to blow off steam there's five 0.0 alliance alts farming isk in empire via L4s. Especially in times of war when the ratting isn't so good. I couldn't approve more of the devs' plan to move more missions into lowsec. If they'd make player corp membership a requirement to get past a certain level (say, 3), I think that'd be pretty much the bee's knees.

Personally, my lowsec PvP tends to turns out wonky because sentry guns and I do not get along, but I approve of the concept regardless.

[TripleDES]

Works for me, I am an admitted graphics whore. The question I have is this, have they made the endless jumps tolerable or at least less boring somehow?

To answer that one, warp to 0m for manual warps. As in, implied instas.

[Secundo]

Here's a novel idea; How about if you earned access to top secret super efficient gank weapons by helping a newbie? For every newbie you helped you could get access to hardcore weps that would surely blast another hardcore player to kingdom come two times at least.

I know, I know.. this goes against the established dichotomy that you should endure shit to pass on the same shit to others. Maybe I'm just another malcolm x waiting to be shot down but maybe.. just maybe it could, you know, work?

[Calantus]

Shit, I'd forgotten that way way back in the Waterthread days. I found it on The Way Back Machine.

Snoring in the Vaccum of Space

Haemish, I just realised while reading that again that you are the main reason I never tried Eve until last year.

[squirrel]

Shit, I'd forgotten that way way back in the Waterthread days. I found it on The Way Back Machine.

Snoring in the Vaccum of Space

Haemish, I just realised while reading that again that you are the main reason I never tried Eve until last year.

Heh, he did you a favour then. Until 18 months ago it wasn't really worth trying :P.

[Endie]

An interview here on the next major (free) update to the universe.  Besides wandering around in stations, it mentions the upcoming factional warfare, constellation sovereignty, the new graphics engine, higher-level missions for groups and capital ships (and grouping for lower level missions) and more stuff like that.  Due out "in the summer".

Pages 4, 5 and 6 are the English version (1, 2 and 3 are the same article in Ubermensch).

[dwindlehop]

We’ve got 2.0 slated for release sometime this summer. Kali 3.0 should be out before the end of the year and the graphics upgrade should be early 2008. Revelations Part 2 is all about warfare and player infrastructure and lays the groundwork for Factional Warfare.

I'd expect changes to sov, POS warfare, and missions in the summer. I'd expect graphics upgrade in 2008.

If the new group-friendly mission mechanics were in place when I started Eve, I might have actually run missions.

[Endie]

Yeah, the lack of formal grouping for missions is a problem.  I have friends who join Eve, but there is no meaningful way for me to group with them.  we can form a gang and run through that Worlds Collide mission they're having trouble with, or I can invite them into a level three mission and let them jump in once I have aggro, but the standing and loyalty points all go to one person, so it makes it seem a bit pointless.

[ajax34i]

What do you guys want?  "Formal Grouping"...  What's next, "Industry Standard NPC AI", with aggro lists and all that?  Just play the game, sheesh!