I remember a Star Trek episode where the plucky crew of the Enterprise stumbled on a race of xenophobes, and the aliens kept erasing the crew's memory while Data tried to help clean up the errant loose ends. Problem was, a few strands were left hanging here and there and the humans, being human, couldn't help but tug at them to find out what they were attached to, which led to the inevitable nearly-fatal hijinks for the entire crew. I think of that show when I think of DUST 514.
DUST will be a fairly major accomplishment if CCP can take the idea they've been cooking since 2008 and get it to decently mesh with Eve. There are probably a fairly huge number of technical issues to deal with, and that doesn't even include the game balancing issues between the two games' populations and complicated market interactions. On one hand, CCP needs to develop slow enough that the ship doesn't sink when they smash the bottle off her nose on launch, but they can't wait too long either lest a fickle FPS crowd loose interest in a prolonged and de-featured beta, and the crowd goes looking for another ship.
I probably have more plans imagined for DUST than CCP does, but that doesn't mean what I hope DUST will be, is what CCP intends DUST to be. For non-Eve players, some of the very generally described game play features inspire a lot of speculation that tends to grate on the already fairly raw nerves of the Eve players, especially the null Eve players. FPS players are pretty jazzed about the ability to actually "claim" in-game resources and land, and that it can still be theirs tomorrow when they log in again. It's something that has only been possible on a very limited scale, and is completely transient in other FPSs. The ability to claim planets and space - sovereignty, is an exciting thing and some of the most vocal DUST players are looking forward to dropping in all over the Eve verse, scooping up planets left and right. Eve players think parts of the rumoured game play will be pretty cool as well, until of course planets and systems in null sec are mentioned. At that point, the nicey-nice, and genial conversation sort of hits the floor. The polite smiles go bye bye.
For non-Eve players, they really don't understand the time and effort involved in claiming space in null. FPS lads think that a few rounds of match play, run over some bunnies, capture a few zone guns, and they're well on the way to grabbing some tasty null sec space. An Eve player really doesn't want to hear about that shit when it takes them days and days to go through the iHub and TCU reinforcement timers, or what happens to the shit they have in the system's outposts. A DUST bunny says "WTF is an iHub and a TCU??" The short answer is, they're a couple of many things that are really going to piss off Eve payers, that's what they are. Eve players need to carry around supplies, plan moves, build ships and mods and ammo and take it with them when they go off to kick someone's ass. They really don't want to hear any bullshit about how DUST bunnies can drop from the sky, like the special snowflakes they are, and start poking gaping holes in their alliance's sovereignty. Eve players don't want to hear about a magic travelling market that goes with the bunnies, everywhere they go, and making their gear on the fly as they drop into the planet zones. Eve players don't want to hear that an alliance might need to go out and get a bunch of PS3s if they want to keep control of their space with the same effort as they do now.
Speculation is always going to be an issue when you have a bunch of gamers as excited as the DUST bunnies seem to be. NDAs, limited game functionality, and cloak and dagger references to game features are lacking just enough detail that they inflame the imaginations of the console players, and inflame other things in the Eve player base. After all, it's not like CCP dropping stupid shit in the lap of the player base is a rare thing. Eve players can do some crazy shit, if there's too much stupid shit. With too little understanding of Eve, the DUST bunnies will dream up some really optimistic, pro-console game play, and that already isn't very popular with Eve players, especially in null sec. With too little info on DUST, Eve players are going to dream up some really pessimistic pro-console game play, and that is not going to make integration any more acceptable with Eve payers.
Eve players are already on a bit of a short fuse and all the recent ship balancing and eye candy is helping a little, but I don't think it's really taken the heat off of the Eve pressure cooker a whole lot, especially with the null crowd. DUST is no where ready to come out of the oven yet, and there are so many aspects of the game that haven't even been tested or seen yet, it's got to be well into next year before they even think about an open beta, if they're smart. There are a lot of fancy games that have just come out, or are going to be released soon. Maybe CCP is being smart and they're waiting for the smoke to clear a little from titles that might be too close to DUST, like Planetside 2, MWO, Hawken and Halo. The longer CCP waits, the better the game will be, but the longer they wait, the more tired the enthusiasts will be of grinding the same beta content and over-speculating about features that that could be years away from implementation. I think CCP needs to start adding more little bits and pieces, a little more often, or people aren't going to be around in the months ahead that I think it'll take to test out even the most basic planet-taking features. I'd hate to be the guy planning the release date. While CCP claims that the nature of Eve's and DUST's game play connection is such that either game could survive without the other, it would be a real shame to see the incredible potential of DUST, roll over and sink to the bottom on launch.
Showing posts with label FPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FPS. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Gevlon + FW + DUST = theory
Perhaps it might be time to don either a tin foil hat, or some kind of protection from people who are wearing said tinfoil hat. Your choice.
Gevlon posted a few thoughts over at his blog, back at the end of last month, that postulated another viewpoint on the whole Factional Warfare fiasco.
In a nutshell, here are the salient points . . .
- DUST 514 is basically a black hole for ISK. When a DUST bunny dies, if they're paying for better-than-default gear, the gear is lost and they need to buy more.
- the DUST players will be initially fighting on, and for, temperate planets in and around the FW systems
- FW players will be issuing contracts for the bunnies to take planets for them
- CCP possibly "planned" for the FW isk faucet patch in an ill conceived plan to flood the FW players with tons of ISK so that highly lucrative contracts could be issued to the bunnies, who would then in turn be able to spend their ISK windfalls on highly upgraded DUST gear for their toons, which would cause the console players to be massively enthused about DUST and continue playing it
- with so many FW farmers soaking up too much of the ISK faucet, CCP realized that much of the bunny-intended-ISK was ending up in the hands of players who wouldn't be interested in FW PI, and therefore pre-emptively patched, and "fixed" the FW isk fountain
Some of that might be slightly more paraphrased than the original, but that's the gist of it, as far as I can make out. Interesting hypothesis, but I'd feel better about his post if it appeared nearer the beginning of Apr. Having some experience with DUST, and Eve/CCP, I have some . . . "observations".
1. While it would not surprise me that CCP would come up with a financial plan as entirely fucked up as this, and with one of the devs publicly explaining that if you don't use a "legal" exploit when it's presented to you, you're an idiot, well, I have a hard time buying the idea that this was intentional on CCPs part. More likely, they relied on their frequently clueless economist instead of talking to the players, specifically, the goons who raped their stupid patch.
2. For anyone that has played DUST, it's a long fucking way from being ready to come out of the oven. The maps (only two right now) look like they were designed by a flunked out class from the Vermtek Community College FPS Level Design course of 1991. It takes 5 to 7 minutes for the game to even load, and one of the two levels is a pure sniper fest (they had more maps). The graphics quality needs to come up to par, keyboard and mouse functionality needs work, and the chat and group mechanics are about 1985 level. If CCP was planning to leave the FW isk tidal wave flowing until DUST was released, Eve's economy would have been pretty much permanently trashed.
3. While lots of DUST fans, including marketing types and many people who have never even played it, will get dreamy expressions and misty eyes while they talk about the millions of DUST players, you'd be lucky right now to find 30 people in local. Only closed beta, I know, but from only about 25 years of console and computer gaming, for a beta, it's a ghost town. Keep in mind that's over 400,000 beta keys that CCP gave out, not to mention you can get into the beta by buying the mercenary pack for 20 bucks. If that extrapolates to going live, it would take a long, long, long, long time for a likely small console community to burn through trillions of PI contract iskies. Those, would be some fucking rich dust bunnies! They could buy a ton of trick shit! (even though it would be a long time before they could actually USE it)
4. Having tons of isk in DUST is nice, but not necessary to get "good" gear. Like Eve, skill training allows marked improvement in performance and survivability, so better performance is not necessarily money dependent. Additionally, to get the "best" gear, that requires you buy the items with AUR. AUR = pay to win. Again, even with great gear, it requires prerequisite skill trees be fleshed out to use the gear. The skill training requires skill points, not isk.
5. It's not hard to make isk, and to fight without losing ANY isk or to build up isk, you just use default or "special offer" gear, both of which have unlimited quantities. Additionally, the bunny market is going to scale and fluctuate based on console isk flow, players that die a lot will get a bonus to the isk they get rewarded, and players that don't get killed a lot get slightly reduced isk rewards. As mentioned, you can buy all kinds of cool guns and tanks and suits, but if you don't have the skills to use them, the gear sits there until you amass the millions of SP it takes to use them. Also, if Eve players end up being the ones that get the BPs for making the bunny gear, there goes the isk sink.
Maybe the goblin was trolling, and I took the bait hook line and sinker. Maybe he's serious. I can't tell. It's an interesting theory, but I think it's fundamentally flawed because the supposed end point, the focus, of CCP's master plan, is a FPS that has a long way to go. Mind you, it's not like it would be the first time that CCP sends something off to fly before it can fly. I don't know what Sony would say about a still birth from CCP.
Gevlon posted a few thoughts over at his blog, back at the end of last month, that postulated another viewpoint on the whole Factional Warfare fiasco.
In a nutshell, here are the salient points . . .
- DUST 514 is basically a black hole for ISK. When a DUST bunny dies, if they're paying for better-than-default gear, the gear is lost and they need to buy more.
- the DUST players will be initially fighting on, and for, temperate planets in and around the FW systems
- FW players will be issuing contracts for the bunnies to take planets for them
- CCP possibly "planned" for the FW isk faucet patch in an ill conceived plan to flood the FW players with tons of ISK so that highly lucrative contracts could be issued to the bunnies, who would then in turn be able to spend their ISK windfalls on highly upgraded DUST gear for their toons, which would cause the console players to be massively enthused about DUST and continue playing it
- with so many FW farmers soaking up too much of the ISK faucet, CCP realized that much of the bunny-intended-ISK was ending up in the hands of players who wouldn't be interested in FW PI, and therefore pre-emptively patched, and "fixed" the FW isk fountain
Some of that might be slightly more paraphrased than the original, but that's the gist of it, as far as I can make out. Interesting hypothesis, but I'd feel better about his post if it appeared nearer the beginning of Apr. Having some experience with DUST, and Eve/CCP, I have some . . . "observations".
1. While it would not surprise me that CCP would come up with a financial plan as entirely fucked up as this, and with one of the devs publicly explaining that if you don't use a "legal" exploit when it's presented to you, you're an idiot, well, I have a hard time buying the idea that this was intentional on CCPs part. More likely, they relied on their frequently clueless economist instead of talking to the players, specifically, the goons who raped their stupid patch.
2. For anyone that has played DUST, it's a long fucking way from being ready to come out of the oven. The maps (only two right now) look like they were designed by a flunked out class from the Vermtek Community College FPS Level Design course of 1991. It takes 5 to 7 minutes for the game to even load, and one of the two levels is a pure sniper fest (they had more maps). The graphics quality needs to come up to par, keyboard and mouse functionality needs work, and the chat and group mechanics are about 1985 level. If CCP was planning to leave the FW isk tidal wave flowing until DUST was released, Eve's economy would have been pretty much permanently trashed.
3. While lots of DUST fans, including marketing types and many people who have never even played it, will get dreamy expressions and misty eyes while they talk about the millions of DUST players, you'd be lucky right now to find 30 people in local. Only closed beta, I know, but from only about 25 years of console and computer gaming, for a beta, it's a ghost town. Keep in mind that's over 400,000 beta keys that CCP gave out, not to mention you can get into the beta by buying the mercenary pack for 20 bucks. If that extrapolates to going live, it would take a long, long, long, long time for a likely small console community to burn through trillions of PI contract iskies. Those, would be some fucking rich dust bunnies! They could buy a ton of trick shit! (even though it would be a long time before they could actually USE it)
4. Having tons of isk in DUST is nice, but not necessary to get "good" gear. Like Eve, skill training allows marked improvement in performance and survivability, so better performance is not necessarily money dependent. Additionally, to get the "best" gear, that requires you buy the items with AUR. AUR = pay to win. Again, even with great gear, it requires prerequisite skill trees be fleshed out to use the gear. The skill training requires skill points, not isk.
5. It's not hard to make isk, and to fight without losing ANY isk or to build up isk, you just use default or "special offer" gear, both of which have unlimited quantities. Additionally, the bunny market is going to scale and fluctuate based on console isk flow, players that die a lot will get a bonus to the isk they get rewarded, and players that don't get killed a lot get slightly reduced isk rewards. As mentioned, you can buy all kinds of cool guns and tanks and suits, but if you don't have the skills to use them, the gear sits there until you amass the millions of SP it takes to use them. Also, if Eve players end up being the ones that get the BPs for making the bunny gear, there goes the isk sink.
Maybe the goblin was trolling, and I took the bait hook line and sinker. Maybe he's serious. I can't tell. It's an interesting theory, but I think it's fundamentally flawed because the supposed end point, the focus, of CCP's master plan, is a FPS that has a long way to go. Mind you, it's not like it would be the first time that CCP sends something off to fly before it can fly. I don't know what Sony would say about a still birth from CCP.
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