Ines Tegator
Towels R Us
228
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Posted - 2013.01.26 04:44:00 -
[1] - Quote
I've read the majority of the CSM minutes, am I primarily (but not exclusively) solo player, and have a strong interest in developing EVE to remain successful for years to come. This puts me in the "dedicated but casual" category. By way of feedback, I choose to solo because it is not restricting. I'm not subject to mandatory schedules or activities, or blocked out of them by a wardec/camping fleet, etc, and can drift through the game as I please.
The best thing about the new long term plan is that CCP has recognized the need for a new long term plan. Stumbling from expansion to expansion, bringing in new ideas and improving old ones, has worked well so far. Two things it won't do is expand EVE, and guaruntee that EVE stays competitive with modern games. EVE is awesome, but it needs a lot of work (very, very hard work considering it's age). The bad thing about the new long term plan is that it's essentially to get a new long term plan. A very intense look needs to be given at the nature of EVE, the demographics that play, and where the development should go.
I didn't see anything in the minutes that I thought was totally off base, or terrible or any of that. So, kudos to all the Devs and CSM guys for being on track and listening to general feedback. What was missing is a discussion of who is the majority of players, what do they do, and what do they want. There were two entire sections, several pages each, devoted only to nullsec. The entire rest of the game got a passing glance in comparison. My thoughts, simply looking at the table of contents, was "Oh, great. My parts of the game get ignored again." I don't know how many others feel this way, but I suspect it's quite a lot.
What needs to be done is best summed up in a couple steps:
- GET DATA. CCP already has a lot of it, but it needs to be looked at in regards to the number of players that do what type of activity, and how often. Don't limit to basic stats, like x players run l4's... try to figure out if they run l4's to pay for a PVP habit, or if they go do FW or RVB a couple times a month, or whatever.
- Use that data to identify the areas of the game that see the highest usage.
- Look very carefully at these areas, and consider improvements they need. More importantly, look for how they connect to other areas (missioning to pay for pvp ships as the example again) and try to improve those connections.
- GET FEEDBACK. At this point, ask the players directly via survey or w/e about their motivations and feelings about these focus areas. Use that feedback to create a long term plan.
- Do it.
If you have to skip/shrink the summer expansion in order to focus on this, that's ok by me. A summer patch of iteration and bugfixes is a small price to pay for the life of the entire game.
That covers the general comments. I suppose I'll give some of my personal areas of interest as well, in order:
1. UI revamp. Seriously, it's 2013. With all the recent improvements, it's finally up to about 2004 standards. It needs to be completely redone. I suggest trying a "3-click access" strategy- any given feature or menu in the game should be accessable with a maximum of 3 clicks. Simply figuring out where some features are right now is positively obtuse. I'm used to it, but tired of it also.
2. Risk progression, exemplified by the Low/Nullsec and Highsec divide, and constant "nerf highsec" threads. See my signature and check my recent post history for much more detail.
3. PVE/PVP divide. PVE ships, fits and strategies should be close enough to a generic PVP ship that a pilot would be able to fight back against an agressor, even if at a disadvantage. This will go a long way towards integrating the various sides of EVE, instead of the current division of PVE, PVP, and Sov as effectively three entirely different games.
"A carrot on a stick will lead a donkey on forever, but not if the donkey is dead. Make the carrot as big as you want, that donkey isn't going anywhere." |