Mr Kidd
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Posted - 2010.03.13 20:06:00 -
[2]
 Originally by: Catheryn Martobi
Originally by: Mr Kidd
Edited by: Mr Kidd on 13/03/2010 03:20:46
Is it me or is the whole concept of clothing reacting to physics kind of a slap in this face?
This is a.......SPACE GAME! Where are the frickin PHYSICS? Screw the clothing! Great, I'll be able to watch my fabrics obey physical laws as they draep across a stairway but my ship bounces off a station. You incarnia supporters are un-frickin-believable!!!
dra-pe....a bad word....really?!?
Well, the fabric rendering is going to happen client side, meaning each computer running the game will draw up everything you see and only download data for where people are, but not their clothes. This means that no one will be seeing the exact same image (for instance if you see a bug in the clothing, it's likely no one else will see it). This is fine because it's not important to gameplay, however if we were to have ship physics, the Eve cluster would have to calculate and transmit everything, not only would that significantly increase the demand on the server, but bandwidth requirements would skyrocket. because Incarna wont be integral to gameplay, they can cram as much technology as they want into it.
Why are you justifying not having more spatial physics in Eve versus justifying having second life in Eve? It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be collision physics for every aspect of the game, and it doesn't have to be transmitted to everyone online or in a system, only those within a certain range. I understand there are technical considerations that need addressed. But that is what CCP is doing one way or the other. They're choosing to make technical considerations for a second life in Eve. In essence they're expending a great deal of time and effort, technically, to take Eve in a direction that detracts from game play as we know it in favor of game play that doesn't appear to contribute to what most players spend most of their time doing (grinding, missioning, mining, pvping, exploring) and will continue to do Eve even with walking in stations.
So, if having more spatial physics for the game play that we currently have is technically challenging and creating a walk in station environment is technically challenging, are you saying you would prefer walking in stations, what IMO amounts to fluff (i.e. not a lot of playability)? I'd rather they spend the time to rework the game for some more realism in space rather than reworking it purely for eye-candy.
If they added more spacial physics they could potentially change blob warfare by providing dynamic battlefields that currently and technically are 3 dimensional but are more suited to 2 dimensional tactics. By providing a physical landscape with some collision physics and other physics such as not being able to scan and see everything within a given range where fleets could hide behind moon's, planets, in belts, etc, much smaller fleets could potentially tackle the blobs with real, solid tactics. But hey, lets have walking in station because it's pretty. And oooooh, look at the way my fabrics glint in the lighting, flutter in the non-existent wind.
I've played a lot of games in my time and I can tell you that playability goes much further towards creating dedicated players than eye-candy does. At best eye-candy is a short term means to generate a larger player base on a small time scale. If that's the way Eve is going, and it sounds like it is, then the game is already on it's way out. Don't let the peak number of users you're seeing online these days fool you. That's being achieved without the coming eye-candy. Many decaying cycles are preceded with very positive performance characteristics. One only need look at STOL to know that eye-candy alone isn't enough to sustain a player base.
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