Doug Dannger
Department of Public Works
2
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Posted - 2014.07.18 00:29:00 -
[3] - Quote
This Dev Blog should be renamed Eve Online: A Eulogy
You're taking a decade of, while not perfect, functioning mechanics and throwing them away just to change it.
There has been a decade of iteration on the current system. There are countless players who've made websites that take an intimidating structure and break it down into easy to swallow chunks. There are calculators for every aspect of manufacturing, and blogs to explain their mechanics. People were proud to call the game spreadsheets online, and it was a point of pride to show friends what you've made, or a nice surprise when friends gave you yet another tool to help you along. Players also gained a sense of accomplishment knowing that after some study, work, and often some mistakes, that you had conquered the beast that was industry in Eve Online.
Does anyone really think that the average industrialist, new or old, will be better off losing all of these out of game features, that will probably never be updated again to the scale we have now in favor of this new system? Do players really thing they can depend on CCP to create these tools? The only thing that needed to be changed was the UI.
Do we have another decade to spend on players to create sites and guides to muddle their way through CCP's perplexing scaling mechanics? Will anyone take the time to update them? Does CCP even have a handle on their own new mechanics? A lot has changed since it was first proposed, most of it because the people who thought of it, did not think the entire thing out. They showed their massive disconnect with their player base when they thought that people wouldn't take the time to online and offline dozens of modules in a POS just to save some isk. When they were confronted with the realization of how far people will go in this game, they decided to scrap the entire idea all together and pass it off on some lame excuse that it was difficult. They changed batch costs, because they couldn't even articulate with any degree of success on how it worked.
Then for me it was the blueprint ME/PE shaft. I've spent months researching blueprints to obscene levels to gain a very small advantage. Just like people spend a month to train skills that give guns 2% better damage, or reduce the sig radius on their interceptor another little bit. This game is based on diminishing returns, and celebrated those who were devoted enough to spend that much extra time to gain a little advantage. The prints weren't that much better, but when it came time to sell your copies in Jita, mine were the ones that sold because I had taken that extra time to make mine stand out among the crowd. Now, someone who's researched their Drake print for a month, ends up with the same print you've spent 6 months or more to research.
That's only the mechanics, the entire roll out of this patch has been insulting. One team wants to raise the barrier to entry, the other seems fundamentally against it. There is no cohesion it seems at the highest levels. The explanations on changes were confusing at best, spread out, and all discussion was lost in a sea of noise on threads where very little was accomplished. To think that the original plan was to put these changes in over a month ago just shows how little serious thought has gone into this change. Then to try and sneak in a ridiculous skill change that anyone with any kind of grasp on their player base would never have attempted just again shows the amount of thought that these changes have received. And then to tell their players, who have long since grown tired of the meme, that it would be looked into GÇ£soonGÇ¥
This attempt to create Hello Kitty Noob Twitch Space Adventure Super Fun Time Online is not only going to alienate a lot of older players, but raise the barrier of entry to newer players as they will suddenly find themselves devoid of the knowledge that was meticulously crafted by devoted players over the last decade. They are also going to be forced to disperse themselves around the galaxy just to get a decent manufacturing price, and then forced to move on once again when the price gets high. A new player will gravitate to a hub to build if simply for the fact they canGÇÖt afford a freighter. I hate to draw real life analogy, but Ford isnGÇÖt forced to move their plant every month to remain competitive, theyGÇÖre forced to ship their product to where it can be sold, as industry should be.
I can understand attempting to justify one's job with the ever present threat of constant layoffs over your head, but I fear that your attempt to seem busy has doomed us all.
And no, you cannot have my stuff. |