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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.23 19:40:00 -
[1]
Great discussion - I'd love to see the perfect information of Local replaced with something where recon within a system is a tactical advantage.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.24 17:14:00 -
[2]
I think some people are making the mistake of looking at a proposal like this and failing to employ any vision or imagination in how the basic idea would be integrated into the reality of the game.
Surely concerns like "It'd be too hard to find fights" could be easily addressed during the development of the actual mechanics and solutions found for minor problems such as these. I hope CSM candidates weighing in can demonstrate their skills in this area, especially with this idea which has tremendous potential and merit.
It would be my expectation that anyone elected to the CSM be skilled at constructive criticism and capable of taking an idea and running with it instead of simply offering a shrug and a "It's got flaws." Especially when their job is going to partly consist of recognizing good ideas from the community and helping to develop them for presentation to CCP! We need council members who can pitch an idea to CCP with maximum effect.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.24 20:17:00 -
[3]
There's also the fact that if and when Local is removed there will certainly be a revamp of the On-Board Scanner that will to some extent take the place of the intel lost via Local.
What I imagine is something like a sonar - passively detecting the presence of other Players (not empty ships) within a certain range - that doesn't cover the entire system. So you could check for the presence of players by warping to just a couple celestials in a system. That eliminates the omniscience of Local chat without blinding players so much that they can't ever find each other to fight. I think a revamp of the way the scanner works (to make it more passive) could lead to some exciting things, like what Jade describes in the OP.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.24 22:27:00 -
[4]
 Originally by: Maidel
Based on that 'local' or a list of blue, neut and reds should be avaliable to every member of a soverenty holding power in their own terratory based on this. (And I would add that to high sec because the empire factions would have this information too and probably make it avaiable to friendly pilots)
Not to stray too far from the topic, but that may be something that factors into an eventual change to how Sovereignty works, based on some recent Dev posts - there is talk of allowing Sov holding alliances to check the logs on Stargates to see who has been using them.
But back to this topic - I don't think this particular discussion benefits from viewing it through an "attacker/defender" lens. The omniscience of the Local chat list is something everyone acknowledges as lacking in dynamism, including most importantly CCP. So if Local is going to go the question is what can replace it that will be fun and functional?
Anything other than the current system will be in some way a movement towards less than perfect information, so how can less than perfect info be fun and not frustrating? Jade's story is great because it highlights exactly that - how a lack of information can be fun instead of frustrating.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.25 04:15:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Maidel
Dont want to argue with you on semantics, but CCP has never said that they are going to remove local - they have just said that it is one of the things they are considering.
Well, this is the thread I was thinking of: http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=729912&page=2
And the focus of the dev posts in that thread is indeed the nature of what would replace Local "if/when" it is removed (granted, "if/when" is not a certainty).
Given that CCP has expressed an interest in replacing Local, it's great to see people taking that idea and running with it, just to get some ideas out there! I wouldn't view it through an "attacker/defender" lens, since I don't think the question of Local chat favors one or the other - it's just a tool.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.26 17:22:00 -
[6]
Originally by: Cailais
If we think of the scanner perhaps it should detect not just individual elements (such as ships) but the combined effect of large numbers of ships in one location. For example, the scanner might act to detect 'mass signature' readings created by ships in close proximity to one another.
This is a brilliant idea!
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.26 19:24:00 -
[7]
Edited by: Kelsin on 26/04/2008 19:24:06
Originally by: Archbishop
Lets say the ABC mining corp is out mining in 0.0 and has 3-4 mining ships or even a rorqual and 2 guys in ravens to defend against belt rats and they're just minding their own business. With the current local system if 10 pirates jump into system they'll be seen. With no local that warning is gone. Sure some proximity sensors might help and the two defending ravens could swap a high end weapon for a "scanner" to keep scanning but why then would this be any different from what we have now.
This is a good example to work with. With local, the pirate scout jumps in, sees players in system, and starts hunting for them. The mining op sees someone pop into local, and knows something might be up.
With a scanner-based system the Pirate jumps into system and doesn't know if anyone is there and the mining op doesn't know anyone jumped into system. Now the Pirate starts searching for pings on his sonar. He gets a hit - but at the same time the mining op gets a ping too, and the game is on. They both have imperfect information.
Now in your example the mining op would actually do better to station their guards at the stargates leading into the sytem. Then when a pirate scout jumps in, they see him, but he still doesn't know where the mining op is located, and the battle becomes a system-wide situation with a front at the stargate while the mining op in the belt has to start making decisions about what action to take, as intel comes in from the front lines.
This sort of scenario is just more dynamic and has more possibilities than the current Local chat list. It's not that an improved scanner system would be either identical to local or just not as good - it's that an improved scanner has a wider range of dynamic possibilities than Local for how intel plays into conflict.
Your question about "If Local is just getting replaced by something that does the same thing, why bother replacing it?" is understandable - but the real reason Local needs to be replaced is not that intel is bad, it's that it's a static system.
Imagine Eve was a game with a single class of ships that are all fast and powerful. Then someone suggests getting rid of that single class of ships and instead introducing some ships that are light and fast but fragile, and other ships that are heavier and well-armored, but slower. The same question you raise could be asked then: "Why take away our ships that do everything if you're just replacing them with two different classes of ships that amount to the same thing?" The answer is to make the game more dynamic.
Replacing the static tool of Local with a more dynamic tool that can range from being superior to Local intel to inferior, depending on how it is used, will make the intel side of Eve more dynamic and more fun. That's what I'd like to see happen anyway.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.27 14:33:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Maidel
But with this example you are showing that you need FAR more people to do the same op. Now I havent mined since '04 so please dont tell me im getting it wrong, im just using it as an example.
In the first instance you have a 3-4 miners and 1-2 guards + possibly a hauler or two. Thats max 8 people. Now if you remove local, you need someone one each gate, and in most average systems thats another two people so we are up to 10 and everyones profits decrease.
Now someone warps in, the scouts on the gate tell them someone ebil has appeared and they all get to a safe spot.
The game has become no more dynamic, the results are the same, accept you have just made the game a little less fun for everyone. 2 people have spent their evenings staring at a star gate, and the miners have made less money because of it. Now mineral prices will rise, pirates will start whining that their ships are more expensive...
you get my drift.
Existing in 0.0 would indeed require more vigilance without Local, I don't deny that. But again, it's as though Battleships were great Ewar platforms, and then CCP introduces dedicated Ewar ships and downgrades the Battleships' Ewar potential - people might complain that they're just requiring them to have more pilots in a gang in order to use Ewar, but creating specializations in the end makes the game better, even if it's more "work".
If, in our mining op example, having "eyes" for the op was something advantageous then maybe Recon probes could be changed to act as those 'spy beacons' that Max brought up. The mining op could hire a CovOps pilot to keep probes up covering the gates to passively detect anyone entering the system and give an early warning to the mining op before the pirates know the op even exists.
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Kelsin
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.04.28 15:13:00 -
[9]
We're seeing a lot of the same comments popping up in relation to this issue. Personally I think it's just a misunderstanding of what is being suggested and why, so this is my take on clearing some of that up:
1) Misconception: Replacing Local is being suggested in order to favor one group or playstyle over another.
In truth, replacing Local is being suggested to increase dynamism in the intel aspect of the game. It's the difference between an RTS with a fog of war and one without - adding a fog of war doesn't shift the balance of power, it affects all parties equally.
The Pirate will be affected by the same limitations and have the same options to gather intel as the Miner or the Mega-Alliance member.
2) Misconception: If the balance of power will stay the same, why bother changing it at all? It's just more work!
Replacing local with a dynamic scouting/scanning intel system would be adding a new layer to the game. It opens up new weapons tools and tactics to be used in the intel battle that takes place prior to the combat battle. So although balance wouldn't be affected in a political sense, the possibilities for gaining and losing advantage would be widened and a more complex game resulting.
3) Misconception: The OP's proposal is to simply remove Local.
Many straw man arguments can be concocted centering around doomsday scenarios that would result from simply shutting off local tomorrow and seeing what happens. But what Jade asks in the OP's story is that we open our imaginations to the possibilities of trading our static Local intel for something more dynamic and layered, that can be as simple or as elegant or as complex as we can imagine. Let's not assume that players would be "forced to sit and hit scan every five seconds" when we can easily imagine a revamped scanner that automatically and constantly scans for us. Since the possibilities are wide open, let us not be deterred by 'what is' when we can concieve of a better 'what may be'.
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