Turix
Interstellar eXodus
BricK sQuAD.
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Posted - 2011.01.27 11:24:00 -
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While this is something I would by no means do myself, personally I find it rather tasteless, it is a matter of freedom. Freedom is something Eve stands for, not only from a player perspective but also it is the way CCP advertises the game, after all the Sandbox is supposed to have no limits right? CCP, the average age and maturity (Well, discounting most of these forums) of your players far surpasses that of every other major MMO(RPG) I'm aware of, including (And I can vouch for this) Age of Conan; which is a mature rated game!
I agree entirely with some of the replies above, Eve currently is very two-faced in the way it is presented; the Books and other fluff present a very gritty, mature and generally well designed view of the Eve universe (One that specifically appeals to the mature player) whereas in the game you seem to be deliberately avoiding anything that links this fluff in at all. Now I understand that RP and player interactions are supposed to be completely that, player driven, but if you don't provide the players the tools and the freedoms they require; then how can they create this sandbox environment that you market so much?
Now I'm going to be a bit geeky/philosophical now and quote something from The Cathedral and Bazaar; "Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected. Now while CatB is primarily above open source development (And shame on any software developer who hasn't read it) several other of the points made there would suit CCP very well I feel; however I chose this one in particular because the core features of Eve, the ones listed on the box shall we say, are how Eve is expected to be used. Which means everything else, the bit that CCP dubs "The Sandbox", comes under that unexpected category, aka that is what makes Eve great! What I'm trying to say is don't limit the feature that makes your game as good as it is, even in just small ways because small changes lead to bigger changes and so on; especially when you are aware of your audience. I would personally find it very interesting to hear from CCP in the form of a Dev blog or otherwise about some demographics about Eve players, what is the average age, level of education, etc (I'm sure these might exist somewhere, but I'm guessing if they do they are now out dated). Maybe that kind of research might help the development direction of Eve, or at least quench someones curiosity ?
Now I'm very aware that what I've just written is very liberal in nature, and blows the proverbial fish of the water (then guts, cooks and eats it) but I wanted to address the issue as a whole, rather than just the specific issue.
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