Use an external music player.
If you want to have control over the EVE music played, use this http://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/sets/eve-online-in-game-tracks/

Just a small update.

Today I thought I would bring sound back and just check it out again to be fair.

Every time, every time I jumped a system the music track changed.

I flew 32 jumps in a pod. Every-single-jump I made, I listened to about 15-20 seconds of a song and then it changed again.

That, CCP, really does not showcase the good work you have put into the game. I mean seriously, thats shoddy coding and imlementation of what, in theory, is a good idea.

Please, please change it, its embarrasing as a player. Once again, sound is off.

Did you think of maybe staying in one system and doing something for a little while instead of wapring and jumping as fast as possible to see what the music was actually like?

+1 for Jukebox.
Why was it removed? For what reason?

Forget forever about jukebox. Waste of developers time and resources.
Just use external music player of your choice. Better and dedicated.
Use Alt-B and web interface like http://www.winamp.com/plugin/winamp-web-interface/92511 .
Just google for same functionality in other players.

BTW, as I said, I just got back to eve so I'm a bit behind on the news. Is there an official statement somewhere as to why the jukebox was removed?

There's no reason to laugh, as CCP said they wanted feedback on their new sound system (although they were probably looking for more constructive feedback than 'bing back my jukebox dammit!').

New Music Style

It would be impossible to know what music everyone is in the mood to listen to so i think this is a pretty irrelevant statement.

Removal of Access

It is not always about visible gain and not always about your gain. EvE has to cater to many players doing many things in many ways, not all changes have to give you a gain at all times, people have to strike balance.

The Jukebox was outdated and you think it should be resolved. As will all code in eve it has to be maintained. If you think this was such a tiny task, you are free to volunteer to CCP to maintain the code for the jukebox for no money, and also cover any problems caused from malfunctioning code by the jukebox from you own pocked. No? Didn't think so.

Just for clarification the JukeBox was never there to give you the freedom to listen to whatever in-game music you want whenever you want. So please don't argument something that was not existing in the first place.

Limiting Innovation

You hit the nail on the head without knowing. Why fix something that was meant for a purpose that does not exist anymore?
Why waste dev time when they can be spending it designing new ships or coding new fixes?

If you have a jukebox that you play whatever you want in it that is not experience nor immersion because it was not mastered or designed by anyone to match anything in game its just a guy listening to music.
Resources Concerns
There is no proof that an external player is more resource hungry then the in-game jukebox.... So your resource and memory intensive point is wrong.

Also i want to see you run eve at a decent playable frame-rate on a machine that has problems running a mp3 player at this point you sir need a hardware upgrade badly. But i have yet to see a machine that can run EvE at a playable frame-rate to be unable to run a mp3 player

Your profession background has nothing to do in this circumstance - I enjoy this feature, and I will argue over it.
The fact is that EvE still plays music. It still plays the same songs, just at set times and when certain actions are performed. Will those sections of the code need to be updated as patches are released? Of course, as certain game mechanics change they will need to be updated.
But if EvE is still playing music, then it still has the ability to play music files in the same way that it did before. The output is still exactly the same, we hear music when in EvE. A gui, one which already exists, is all thats lacking.

By the way, I have used Winamp for a decade. No joke - It's my all time favorite music player when you use it with the Enhancer 017 plugin. I also like to use WMP as it binds with my X4 nicely.

All I am arguing for is for a feature that already exists in the game to be restored.

yes, definately bring back the jukebox.

i miss it...

perhaps in fact, CCP could add new tracks to it every new patch release.

Also, i'm a musician- how do i submit tracks for consideration by CCP?

@GrandArtificer I represent the reality-based community. Jukebox is a total waste of dev/QA resources. I would rather have any other feature

http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/n572/the_grand_artificer/eveo.jpg

I had my own play lists that I use to listen to while mining or ratting solo as sometimes I am at home during the day due to shift patterns.

I would like to have the option to keep it .

If they ignore the thread, they cannot also ignore Twitter :)

[quote=DarkestHeart]
Challenge accepted ;p

[quote=DarkestHeart]
Challenge accepted ;p

What a shining example of the absolute joke CSM7 really is.

I don't like Alekseyev at all but that was a perfect response to histrionic **** like this.

I feel i likely speak for the majority of players when i say the following

I knew there was a jukebox, im fairly sure the last time i clicked on it was a number of years ago. if i dont want to listen to the ingame music i turn the music volume slider down. if want to listen to my own music i use one of the MANY free available players (i.e. winamp, spotify etc etc)

If you only want to listen to certain in game tracks they're on spotify.

Additionally CCP have stated the reason for the removal of the jukebox iirc it was basically legacy coding from the launch of eve, coding which they are currently going through removing and updating. If a feature is no longer widely used (jukebox) it is not worth the man hours recoding it, hours which can be better spent on improving quality of life in the game

tl;dr - Get over yourself, the majority don't care about the lack of jukebox or your argument

Its a fair statement to say the majority dont care about the JukeBox.

But this isnt about the majority is it? It's about a substantial number of players, and no matter how you wrap it up, there is a significant number of players that want it back - A lot dont know about this thread, and you can't spam in help chat which is where a lot of complaints are.

Should a minority suffer ofer the majority's choice? Isn't that the problem that society faces as a whole? Without this thread going onto a society based argument, its fair to say that each person has their own view and that as we are all patrons of this company, paying customers, all our views are valid.

Your points are fair, they are also valid - but they have been addressed by many players in earlier posts.

Not to mention this is also now about how we are treated as paying customers as well as CCP removing a good feature.

Regarding encoding - The music exists in exactly the same format as it did when the JukeBox existed, CCP simply removed the GUI. As I have stated in the first post and subsequent posts - the method of playing music is crud, it doesnt work. Another example of CCP implementing something about proper prior testing, and when players speak out about how crap it actually is, they ignore it.

I wasnt refering to the encoding of the music, i was referring the actual coding behind the jukebox itself (iirc CCP explorer made a comment on this in the retribution feedback thread)

I will admit to being surprised by the number of players upset about the removal of the jukebox, but i dont feel its is a significant minority of players. I would imagine some of the players may not have even known about the jukebox until threads protesting about its removal started to pop up.

I wouldnt class the jukebox as a good feature, it was an underused extra no doubt required when it was first launched to provide music to the game, the changes in retribution i feel have actually improved on this situation.

Generally though i would consider we are well treated by CCP in terms of the amount and type of feedback we receive both on here and through twitter, this treatment and interaction has improved massively since i started playing 4 years ago and is something ive not seen from other MMOs

I will accept that some people want it back, but surely you would rather they continued to improve and introduce new features, ships and improve the general running of the game? (war against lag etc etc)

Return the GUI for the JukeBox and fix the new system, job done - much less whining, much less bitching.

Happy people :)

10 days and 7 pages of pissy bitching shouldn't be enough to make a dev turn their computer on, let alone do anything. Maybe next time pick a less ridiculous idea to get behind.

The maintenance argument doesn't really ring true to me at all. What kind of maintenance do you need on a working feature that is separate from all other features?
...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't make much sense, logically, to just boom and remove it.

Well, I don't really care about the Jukebox, though I did use it fairly regularly to pick tracks that I was in the mood for.

However, having said that, it doesn't make much sense to remove a feature that you already spent time working on. The maintenance argument doesn't really ring true to me at all. What kind of maintenance do you need on a working feature that is separate from all other features?

I'm really having difficulty remembering any game developer, after spending time on a feature and that feature being in the game for many years, to just remove it altogether, and claiming that it is redundant because a 3rd party can do it? Further, if you are removing the jukebox, why not remove the notepad and calculator within EVE as well? Both of those are implemented within most operating systems by default.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't make much sense, logically, to just boom and remove it.

How hard would it have really been to code a new MP3 player?

from what i remember there was talk about the notepad and calculator going as well due to the same issue. my understanding of the tech issue was it would take more effort than it was worth to update it to the level the rest of the coding ingame than it merited. Especially as they where changing how the music was interacting with the game. You would have to hunt out ccp explorers post on the issue though

There has been no talk and no plans "about the notepad and calculator going as well due to the same issue". I simply asked in a thread how important they were, if the OS tools could be used instead, and how important these tools were in comparison to other things we could be improving and extending.

There has been no talk and no plans "about the notepad and calculator going as well due to the same issue". I simply asked in a thread how important they were, if the OS tools could be used instead, and how important these tools were in comparison to other things we could be improving and extending.

I get what you mean in general about lack of answers etc, but really, anything like this is all about picking your battles. This is just about the dumbest possible battle to pick.

73 votes.

The CSM have conluded their 'Player Experiance' session, of which the JukeBox going to be discussed. News to follow shortly.

Tweet #JukeboxGate and #csmsummit about getting the JukeBox back!

I'll save you the suspense. I did mention people whining about it, and that I thought the whining was dumb.

point is you have to take your attention away from eve to use the outside programs... that is why people liked using the jukebox in game, same with other tools that are in game

There has been no talk and no plans "about the notepad and calculator going as well due to the same issue". I simply asked in a thread how important they were, if the OS tools could be used instead, and how important these tools were in comparison to other things we could be improving and extending.

point is you have to take your attention away from eve to use the outside programs... that is why people liked using the jukebox in game, same with other tools that are in game

I'll save you the suspense. I did mention people whining about it, and that I thought the whining was dumb.

10 days and 7 pages of pissy bitching shouldn't be enough to make a dev turn their computer on, let alone do anything. Maybe next time pick a less ridiculous idea to get behind.

I feel i likely speak for the majority of players when i say the following

I knew there was a jukebox, im fairly sure the last time i clicked on it was a number of years ago. if i dont want to listen to the ingame music i turn the music volume slider down. if want to listen to my own music i use one of the MANY free available players (i.e. winamp, spotify etc etc)

If you only want to listen to certain in game tracks they're on spotify.

Additionally CCP have stated the reason for the removal of the jukebox iirc it was basically legacy coding from the launch of eve, coding which they are currently going through removing and updating. If a feature is no longer widely used (jukebox) it is not worth the man hours recoding it, hours which can be better spent on improving quality of life in the game

tl;dr - Get over yourself, the majority don't care about the lack of jukebox or your argument

I have difficulty believing that people are this incredibly stupid.

Then again, this is the melting pot of EvE... where even the mentally challenged are allowed to post.

The reasons for removal were clear and concise, the alternatives simple and spelled out for you.

Move along.

Youtube and other places are getting more difficult to play various music content in a row like a play list though and I keep getting songs that are not eve from these places.

Try Grooveshark. It's pretty great.

Try Grooveshark. It's pretty great.

point is you have to take your attention away from eve to use the outside programs... that is why people liked using the jukebox in game, same with other tools that are in game

[quote=Nova Fox]Youtube and other places are getting more difficult to play various music content in a row like a play list though and I keep getting songs that are not eve from these places.

what these ignorant trolls that tell us to use media player and such seem to be too dumb to realize is that lately alt tabbing from eve has been causing crashes and socket errors repeatedly so messing with a playlist outside eve... not a viable option for some players

Believe it or not, CCP is able to see exactly how many people are doing something in EVE. For example, they can tell you how many players were flying Apocs with 280mm Artys on Jan 23rd, 2007 if they wanted to. That is how deep and accurate their data mining goes. Because of this, they are able to base design and development decisions not off of forum posts or speculation but actual hard data. The fact is that the percentage of players over the last nearly ten years that used the jukebox was so minuscule that it barely registered on the radar. In the process of refining the UI and adding additional functionality to other areas of the game, the Jukebox was obviously considered too low of a priority for resources.

It's gone and it's not coming back, at least not in the form that you've been used to, if in any form at all.

Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like what he has to say, this is just the way it is. BTW, you can still DL the music here or stream it over SoundCloud here if you want.

am i the only one who notices that csm staff never has player interests in mind?

Unsure if we're getting trolled now by CSM or not -

If what you are saying is true, which due to other evidence that has been given over the past two weeks - CCP are able to get client data logs, which goes against most petition responses for reimbursement.

If what you are saying is true, which due to other evidence that has been given over the past two weeks - CCP are able to get client data logs, which goes against most petition responses for reimbursement. But thats another topic all together, back to the jukebox.

Use an external music player.
If you want to have control over the EVE music played, use this http://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/sets/eve-online-in-game-tracks/

Hi,

I want to thank you all for taking time to give this matter you attention. We (meaning the CCP sound department) are monitoring this thread closely and take all opinions into consideration. I hope you don't think we made this decision lightly.

First, some back story.

As many of you know that used the jukebox it was quite buggy and we got a lot of negative feedback regarding its use, it didn't measure up to other media players, it didn't support this or that codec etc. The jukebox works as a plugin to our audio engine (Audio Kinetics WWise) and was based on a now deprecated Microsoft MP3 decoder that was used as an example on how to build plugins for the WWise engine.

As mentioned in the blog these were the biggest issues that factored into the removal the jukebox. We believe we made the right decision but that is for EVE's community to decide. If we however made the wrong decision and you decide that we will put the jukebox back into the game, it will happen at the cost of adding new game-play related features. And I ask you all to weigh that into your thoughts on the matter. The jukebox needs a lot of love, and if we will give it all the love that it needs it will take development time away from game-play related features. If you decide that there is more value for you in the jukebox than there is in new features we will shift our focus back to the jukebox.

Regards,

RealX

what these ignorant trolls that tell us to use media player and such seem to be too dumb to realize is that lately alt tabbing from eve has been causing crashes and socket errors repeatedly so messing with a playlist outside eve... not a viable option for some players

I'm worried about this game, quite a lot, and its falling user-base.

Stopped reading here. Where do you get the idea that the user base is falling?

Online players != active subscribers
I simply asked for the source of your information.

If you want rough statistics then go here.

The 1 week, 1 month, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year graphs all look like they're going up to me. The all-time graph is a bit hard to read without any scale on the bottom but the peak would be several years ago at least - so I don't think jukebox removal has anything to do with that.

You will however see people are voicing concern that the removal of the jukebox may, in the long-term, contribute to the decline of subs.

I'm worried about this game, quite a lot, and its falling user-base.

I feel that cutting out certain features in this game are contributing to the falling user-base.

CCP, can you add a Word like Office application while you're at it? Also, some CD/DVD burning software would be good, I don't wanna use an external application.

/sarcasm mode off

Music players freely available on the internet are way better at playing music then EVE's player ever was (not to be rude or anything, just stating that specialized software does the job better). Time of developers is better spent coding and developing something that benefits the gameplay anyway.

/sarcasm mode on

If only every single other game did not come with their ability to play their own music scores.

Oh wait, they do.


Removing the Jukebox also had the nasty side effect as well: you can't run 4-5 clients without getting crazy with the concurrent music cacophony so you have to manually turn on and off the music every gaming session... and it won't persist so the next session you have to do it again!

There are better media players out there, no need to have a jukebox for the reasons the Dev's have said they got rid of it in the first place.

There are better media players out there, no need to have a jukebox for the reasons the Dev's have said they got rid of it in the first place.

I loved the fact you can set the mood ingame. An external player just isnt the same thing. I miss the jukebox very much, and so does the rest of our corp.

Hi,

I want to thank you all for taking time to give this matter you attention. We (meaning the CCP sound department) are monitoring this thread closely and take all opinions into consideration. I hope you don't think we made this decision lightly.

First, some back story.

As many of you know that used the jukebox it was quite buggy and we got a lot of negative feedback regarding its use, it didn't measure up to other media players, it didn't support this or that codec etc. The jukebox works as a plugin to our audio engine (Audio Kinetics WWise) and was based on a now deprecated Microsoft MP3 decoder that was used as an example on how to build plugins for the WWise engine.

As mentioned in the blog these were the biggest issues that factored into the removal the jukebox. We believe we made the right decision but that is for EVE's community to decide. If we however made the wrong decision and you decide that we will put the jukebox back into the game, it will happen at the cost of adding new game-play related features. And I ask you all to weigh that into your thoughts on the matter. The jukebox needs a lot of love, and if we will give it all the love that it needs it will take development time away from game-play related features. If you decide that there is more value for you in the jukebox than there is in new features we will shift our focus back to the jukebox.

Regards,

RealX

Also, we do have the player's interests in mind; that is why we aren't bothering CCP overly about a feature like this which can be easily duplicated by downloading WinAmp and the soundtrack.

I don't care about the Jukebox, and judging from the very few actual people posting here, very few players care either.

As a Mac player all I can say is *@^# NO!

All this crying to bring that awful thing back would be amusing except I'm almost afraid you'd convince CCP to do it. Mac players didn't have a working jukebox for years. I didn't even know that the songs in Eve had endings until early this year when they finally got the jukebox to play most of them completely. We never could import our own music without crashing the game and now I hear all the cries to waste developer time on a feature that won't work on our computers anyway so a few people won't have to deal with a few minor audio quirks or use a media player. I say rubbish to that!

As a Mac player all I can say is *@^# NO!

All this crying to bring that awful thing back would be amusing except I'm almost afraid you'd convince CCP to do it. Mac players didn't have a working jukebox for years. I didn't even know that the songs in Eve had endings until early this year when they finally got the jukebox to play most of them completely. We never could import our own music without crashing the game and now I hear all the cries to waste developer time on a feature that won't work on our computers anyway so a few people won't have to deal with a few minor audio quirks or use a media player. I say rubbish to that!

Thats what u get for using that apple crap for gaming.. Obviously macs are not made for gaming and obviously games are not made for mac.. Buy pc if u wanna play games. Buy mac if u wanna do modeling, rendering, animations and stuff..

I have removed a rant from this thread. Ranting is never good, folks.

From out here on the user-end of the Eve experience, I can see the ground littered with the broken spears and swords of fresh battles: internal debates and technical difficulties. The most obvious casualty, of course, is the smoking feature hole where once, a jukebox stood proud. This module brought functionality into Eve Online that is rarely seen in an MMO, and now that functionality is lost, likely gone forever.

As someone who has sometimes engaged in such battles myself, I think I can see how the battle went: There's a big push to modernize the dustiest corners of the game experience, and as part of that, someone sold the idea of a cool new set of dynamic background noise. That's a great idea; it helps set the ambient mood in a unique and interesting way. There were technical hurdles to overcome, and the most obvious one was the current sound implementation. The Klang team found that they couldn't comfortably integrate the new features into the old system, and so the decision was made to scrap the old system.

There are two problems with that decision: First, while the new feature is cool, it's not -that- cool. When I play Eve, I'm not listening to the elevator music in the background, I'm listening to my fleet on Teamspeak. This is important: I'm totally ignoring your new feature because it literally doesn't add anything to my game experience (but to give credit where it's due, I don't think it actually detracts from my experience at all; it doesn't hinder me hearing people on TS either). I can see how it's cool, and it could add something to someone's experience, but for me, I have other things I'm looking at. An entire team spent a lot of time and resources on something I just don't care about (sorry!).

To add insult to injury, if I'm doing something that doesn't absolutely require me to hear the FC's voice, I've probably got Pandora running -- and I've actually got it running -on top- of your new dynamic bg noise; I didn't turn it off because I didn't even notice it was there! So now all your new feature is doing is subtly mangling the music I wanted to listen to. On top of that, I can no longer control my playlist from Eve if I have a hard-drive based playlist; I've lost a feature I was accustomed to using, and, importantly, my playlists and preferences were likely lost when the player was. So the work I, as a player, did of importing and tinkering with my playlist was also lost.

So, to summarize, the new feature is really cool. Unfortunately, it's not THAT cool; when you ripped out the old player to put it in, existing functionality was lost, and when you did that, user data, in the form of my playlist order and song choices, was also lost. That's why you have so many players unhappy at this decision, and I hope you choose to reverse it.