Reddx Panther
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Posted - 2010.10.24 16:36:00 -
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Yes, EVE is a game, so it's not meant to be realistic. Good game mechanics are often difficult to explain with pseudo-scientific prose. But immersion is part of the game experience and lack of plausibility ruins it some. There are lot of basic game mechanics in EVE that are not plausible at all to me and limit immersion - thus limiting the game experience every day for thousands of players and, potential subscribers.
Here is my top 8 of top hated plausibility glitches:
1. Why does Concord pay the highest bounties for pirates that are the furthest away from civilization, somewhere deep in 0.0 where there is no rules, no concord, not even players? What are they pirating there anyway?!
2. Why do asteroid belts have like 100k diameter and look like they'd belt around a beacon?
3. Why are there so many static underwater-style structures and small, glowing clouds in deadspace?
4. Why do NPCs attack even if extremely outnumbered and outdps'd?
5. Why don't NPCs try to warp away once they hit armor/structure? Why do they 'spawn' instead of warp in?
6. Why are missions not generic, but static?
7. Why are there items that can't be built, but only salvaged?
8. What's the matter with all those acceleration gates these days? Wouldn't a beacon be enough to give the warp drive nessary information about the destination?
X up if you think the lack of plausibility described in the eight points dents your game experience too.
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A few proposed ideas to fix plausibility for the more tenacious reader:
To 1.) In low and high sec Concord could still pay bounties, but in nullsec only loot should drop. May pirate tags that can be used for cool rewards in high sec LP stores. Nullsec ratters will scream, but for noobs tag trading/smuggling might become an interesting profession. Increase bounties and rats in lowsec, where piracy would plausibly happen, and it will get much more busy there, too.
To 2.) Remove belt beacons, make asteroids exploration sites, or if belt beacons are to stay, at least make them look ice belt style.
To 3.) Go over art work and remove a lot of the redundant space **** aka nebulas and structures, weird space fence structures not only waste render time, but also immersion.
To 4. and 5.) Hell, give NPCs a chance to bail out from being blobbed - increase average bounty and/but have them warp out when not warp disrupted, give them a warp-in graphix when spawning. Noobs in rifters could then join old mission runners as tacklers to increase ISK/hour.
To 6.) I did the damsel a few hundred times. I like this game, and i understand you need grind to make all the virtual stuff precious, but the repetition grates on my mind. Make it generic, call it 'Family Member in Distress' and randomize between e.g. the 'Damsel', the 'Sister', the 'Brother', the 'Aunt', 'Mr. Gay Lover' and 'My Cat'.
To 7.) Include blueprints for salvage materials, they need not be efficient as an alternative to salvaging by default, but they should exist imho.
To 8.) Remove acceleration gates, use beacons that are off grid, but can only be seen when on the mission/deadspace grid. Pull instead of push. Make them golden so that noobs see the beacon is something special and that they can warp to there. Every time my ship gets stuck on an acceleration gate it makes me cry.
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