Ranita Drell
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Posted - 2007.03.10 07:46:00 -
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Edited by: Ranita Drell on 10/03/2007 07:43:25
I'm not dead-set against ambulation, though on the other hand I don't see it adding much in the short term.
This is the sort of feature that has to be executed very well to be worth anything at all, in my opinion.
Frankly, in most games, the whole "walking around" thing hasn't been done very well. Particularly in MMOs where people almost never walk, but instead run everywhere -- running over each other, sitting on random spots on the floor, crowding around particular points of interest, repeating the same robotic emotes, everyone using the same identical movements. It all begins to look very silly and bad after a while.
Not that it is a problem totally foreign to EVE. It has same issue, in evidence whenever you undock from a busy station ... the ships stacked on top of each other, the rubber hulls and asteroids, warping straight through planets and structures, etc. If they wanted to add some "fluff" eye-candy, this might be an area worth examining too -- they're not easy problems to solve, I understand, but it would be nice to have them addressed in some manner.
Also, I suppose that since ambulation will be a 100% optional feature in EVE, perhaps that will cut down on several of the problems with avatar movement and interaction in other MMOs. People will be in the station because they want to be in the station, and thus there is no need to run around like a chicken with your head cut off, or even run at all (they wouldn't even need to animate running, and in fact I think their efforts might be better spent programming different styles of walking -- nothing too over the top though, please -- make it subtle!)
Still, I think that EVE is pretty immersive as is. The fact that from the player's point of view we never exit the pod, and that in game communication takes place in text keeps a certain believability intact. The moment the female avatar speaks to you in a deep masculine voice with his/her lips all out of sync (if they move at all), the spell is broken. The atmosphere pretty much ruined.
There is the whole "uncanny valley" thing too. Sure the avatars look good, but when they're actually interacting, will it continue to look good, or will it just look weird? EVE has a rather photo-realistic art style that is very difficult to pull off effectively in video games.
If they are careful it could be a cool feature that will draw a lot of people in. The fact that they've stated that there will be no /dance emote is encouraging. If they do it right, it will indeed add a nice touch, and it would be cool for them to expand the scope of the game beyond spaceships and starbases.
Although I don't think I like the idea of pod-pilots getting in gunfights in spaceship corridors so much but allowing corporations and players to begin some sort of planetside enterprise would be nice, as well as perhaps terrestrial (in atmosphere) aircraft combat and remote command of non-ship NPC forces.
So I think it would be cool for EVE to get ambitious and try to step beyond what it is today, and ambulation is a small move in that direction, which is fine with me. Of course there are a lot of thins I want to see fixed first, but the game development shouldn't stand still until ever bug is fixed. They have an art team and folks who are useful on a project like this, so they might as well use them for what they're good for.
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