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When do we Walk On Stations?
EgaoNoGenki
Member Posts: 397
in EVE Online
When do we Walk On Stations?
As well as fly in planets' atmospheres, and maybe even land on them and leave to explore?
I'd also like to have my own pad in a planet's city. But at least give us station penthouses, so how long 'til we walk on stations at last?
You see, I left the game in spring 2009 because I got pretty danged bored of the game. Nothing was new and gripping enough to keep me, so I vowed to only come back once we get to leave our ships.
Warning: I could be on NoDoz caffeine pills so I hope I don't post anything outrageous!
Comments
Hopefully never.
CCP *still* hasn't explained what Incarna will add to the game other than wandering around in stations. It's become a sinkhole of developer time and effort and the rest of the game has suffered from neglect.
They should can the whole idea (along with the riduculous console-only shooter they are working on) and fix the original game.
Atmospheric flight isn't goign to happen in any forseeable future. You will walk in stations in summer of 2011. You will not like it if nothing in the game is of interest to you currently.
It is kind of funny, because I was thinking about this earlier in the night while out having a smoke - but I was too lazy to post a new topic on it (and for the life of me was not entirely sure where to put it).
But I have to wonder, if it really is about the Incarna thing or if it is something else, you know?
Because as many of us Negative Nancy's have pointed out, Incarna is not really going to change EVE.
Which brings up the question - is Incarna in EVE what people really want...
...OR...
...do people want a humanoid avatar game based on the sandbox elements of EVE?
Seriously, take the spaceships out of it. Take out the plethora of star systems.
Give us a planet that is not limited in scope like the planets we have now. Think about how tiny they are in comparison to our own actual planet. Imagine a gameworld actually along the size of our world in scope. You could easily have the concept of high-low-null sec, as you went away from the cities into the more rural areas and the wilderness.
You could have the market, the manufacturing, the corporations, etc - with whatever names you wanted to give them - clans, guilds, etc.
Along the lines of literally taking the "space" of EVE, taking out the spaceships and replacing them with common humanoid avatars, and working out any kinks to move the game from one genre to another...
...is that what people really want?
Or is that just insane, and people really just want to login to a 3D chatroom to hang out?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
(this is hoping i dont get bashed for bad spelling again lolz)
For me personaly, been playing EVE since 2004 now. Incarna is just a natural step forward. It migth not bring anything "new" to the game but it will increase immersion into the gameworld. Im hope it will bring us one step closer to the perfect space simulator. You can own a Bar play for ISK at the slot games etc. My hope is that CCP over time will give us more passive incomes like R&D agents and Planetary Interaction. And give drugtrading and smuggling a BOOST. Make them viable proffesions along with Hacking and Archeolagy and probing and exploring. Make it less about missions and 0,0 as the game play down there bores me to Tears.....
Im hoping Incarna is the first step towards making me own my own bar in a space station were I can sell drugs and contract smugglers and run ISK making gambling games(Casino style)......
Also the avatar changes coming is most welcome TOday we all look like clones
(lolz I know that we are but stil) Would be fun to get some more personal looks to the avatars
No to passive incomes.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Incidentally as far as the size of gameworlds is concerned, it is instructive to compare the size of one of the larger stations to... Azeroth. We dont even need to go down to the planets to have a plethora of pretty large gameworlds. There are many hundreds of player outposts alone, never mind the thousands of NPC ones. Just a thought.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Not sure if that is insane.
Granted, I'm not an EVE player but it seems that anything extra that can be added to the game to give some diversity is a good thing.
It might also attract a different type of player who might be more interested in the role play aspects of walking in stations.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Nah, the insane was the non-EVE game that was like EVE... because generally speaking, that is a game I would play until I died. I do not see the point of avatars in EVE, but I can see the point of a game with avatars that has many of the mechanics and scope of EVE as being the "next-gen" MMORPG. Something along the lines of taking the genetic matter from AO, SWG, and EVE... but built from the start to be that.
Not this Incarna thing - do people really expect this to change EVE into some form of SWG/AO?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Well, my thought is that if EVE is a "sandbox" (and I realize that conjures up different things to different people) then the Avatars are part of that Sandbox "pick your past time" type of play.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The key word is add, not change. It's about having a platform that CCP can add new gameplay to. At the moment it's difficult as hell for them to add or change things in EVE, simply because everything affects everything else. Adding a new ship type that isn't either broken or game-breaking or just plain doing something that other ships already do is difficult as hell. Removing things is virtually impossible.
But with Incarna, they have a clean slate. They've basically developed a new MMO platform and added it on to EVE. (Or at least the potential for this - as we know CCP aren't exactly well known for following through on the awesome concepts.) We can argue all day about whether this was a good idea (if it works then yes), and it's certainly very debatable whether the project was carried out in any remotely well-run or efficient way, but the fact is that they have made, and it is going to launch fairly soon. All this hurf-blurf about "CCP dump Incarna and fix EVE" is retarded - they've made it now. Jesus, we might as well see it at least.
I'm pretty certain that the amount of content at launch is not going to justify a 5 year long project, because it's basically a certainty that CCP have restarted the whole thing at least once. But shit, they've spent the money now, they've put the 150+ dev-years in to it and can't get them back. Instead of arguing over whether Incarna was a good idea, we should be thinking about how we want it to be and what we want to see in it.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
i will wait until the day EvE will include walking in station and perhaps Combining Dust into EvE! ( in a single seamless world!! ) so you could land on many planets which have it's own content!!
then i will give away my soul for it =P
So What Now?
If Dust was going to be playable on PCs you might have a chance but considering it's going to be console only it's doomed to fail. Trying to get PC mmorpg players to interact with console kiddies is a recipe for disaster.
This is exactly what I'm hoping Eve never becomes. You can go to all the bars and casinos you want in real life (and it's a lot more fun), you don't need a video game for that.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Incarna gets added to EvE next summer so CCP can test their graphics-engine for World of Darkness.
For EvE itself, Incarna does add nothing but a 3d-chatroom, so you don't have to spin your ship in your hangar anymore, while there's nothing else to do.
People who are not interested in EvE Online with it's current gameplay won't like the game after Incarna was added either, as Incarna doesn't add any gameplay to EvE Online.
Atmospheric flight will never be introduced to EvE and Torfi (CCD Head Dev) repeated this in the most recent interview again. The video was just some random gimmick done for fansfest sometime back in 2005/2006.
EvE Online is all about epic space-battles and it will never be about something else. If you like to play around with a character shooting stuff etc in the EvE Universe, then you've got to wait for Dust 514.
I have a problem with kind of thinking that goes "I don't like it, I won't use it so why should you add it". EVE is a sandbox by definition, which means there are many things at your disposal and you yourself pick into which parts of it you want to immerse yourself. Ship combat is just one of the things to do and there are many players who never touch it yet keep playing and paying. Market, industry, mining, or even just hanging out is done by alot of players who like the eve world for it's immersiveness. Nobody is entitled to claim that all those people are playing wrng and "don't get eve" just because their playstyle is different. Incarna is the expansion for those people. They are partly making things so you can break them which is what makes eve unique.
So instead of being selfish in your claims to the "right way" of eve, be happy that the sandbox is expanding, even though it maybe isn't your part of the anthill that gets expanded. Ask yourself how many new things were introduced in the past 5 years that centered arround pew pew in space, and how many were arround everything else.
Incarna will enrich your universe even if you never leave the safety of your pod, next time when you dock in the station, you will know that there are people walking arround there and your own ship will be more believable.
So instead of being selfish in your claims to the "right way" of eve, be happy that the sandbox is expanding, even though it maybe isn't your part of the anthill that gets expanded. Ask yourself how many new things were introduced in the past 5 years that centered arround pew pew in space, and how many were arround everything else.
Incarna will enrich your universe even if you never leave the safety of your pod, next time when you dock in the station, you will know that there are people walking arround there and your own ship will be more believable.
Sorry to say, but you didn't get the point.
I'm not against the addition of Incarna (Walking in Stations). I just want people to know, that if they don't like EvE in it's current form, they won't like EvE with Incarna added, as they still have to fly a spaceship for 75% of the time.
And it's not even known yet, if you'll be able to do the industry-tasks (crafting, selling, buying) while not in your ship, as lore-wise you need to be uplinked to the system via your POD.
And now those who like EvE in it's current form might find it funny and refreshing to walk around from time to time, but they could do without it aswell.
Incarna won't add any additional gameplay-functions, and I think that lots of people don't get this point. Incarna will be just what I said: a 3d chatroom within EvE and a testbed for the WoD graphics-engine.
I agree, although I do think that there's a bunch of people for whom the only reason not to play eve was cause they could not establish a connection between the ship and themselves.
I'm an idealist ... I'd like to think Incarna will be a 3D chatroom, but with a potential for more down the line.
It sure would be nice to get some idea of the things we'll be able to do. CCP haven't told us anything other than that we'll be able to walk. Candidly, I could do with a bit of good news about EVE right now.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I think it's a stepping stone to a much bigger picture avatars stations, bars, shops, dancing, leap 5-10 years later a ground game more skills more stuff to do like terraforming, building cities, military bases, more crafting abilities and skills, weapons, vechicles, armor, equipment, EVE is as close to a perfect MMO to me except the parts I want arent there, is a ground sim, and avatars, if they can pull that off down the road there is no reason to play another MMO again, it would have everything a sandbox lover wants with a competent studio at the helm, I dont think Incarna is a waste of developer time I see it as stated before as a big step forward, once Incarna is working properly they should go back and address bugs, and lag and broken features, then continue on with their next expansion. If they have a good development schedule the perfect setup would be 2 expansions a year in summer release a bug bash patch addressing problems with the game.
From the little info about Incarna I have found their is rumored features where their may be bars, dancing, owning a shop running a business, and gambling for isk in minigames.I'll dig up something here....
EVE Evolved: The development of Incarna
by Brendan Drain
Feb 7th 2010 at 6:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, MMO industry, Virtual worlds, EVE Evolved
One of the biggest differences between EVE Online and most other MMOs is the lack of a humanoid avatar. Even when you're docked up in a station, you can't leave your ship and walk around. The detailed avatars we create on starting the game are not so much avatars as passport photos; seen only as little square mug shots in chat channels and the official forums. In their never-ending quest to make EVE the definitive Sci-Fi simulation, this is something the game's developers CCP have always endeavoured to change. The introduction of a full body avatar feature, code-named "Walking in Stations", "Ambulation" and now known as "Incarna", has been undeniably the most anticipated feature since EVE went live. It's been in development since 2006 but has proven a much larger task than CCP originally anticipated. With the expansion tentatively slated for winter this year, new information on it is still harder to find than a sober Icelandic game developer.
In this week's EVE Evolved, I take a look at Incarna's development so far and why it hasn't been released yet.
Walking in Stations:
The ability to interact with other players using an avatar other than your ship has always been part of CCP's long term plans. Sometimes called "Walking in Stations" and sometimes "Ambulation", CCP first announced that they'd begun working on the concept at the 2006 EVE fanfest. CCP's lead technical producer at the time, Torfi Frans Olaffson, released further details in a bumper devblog shortly after fanfest. He gave a first look into the sheer depth of the project, from animation issues to rendering challenges and game-play considerations.
CCP was shooting for as realistic an experience as possible and that came with many questions to answer. How could they create realistic character movement while avoiding the "uncanny vally" effect? How would our avatars turn to look at things, push past each other in a crowded station or communicate while seeming completely natural? Was the technology even available to render hundreds of players on the same screen?
In retrospect, it was a ground-breaking project of such magnitude that perhaps we shouldn't have expected its timely completion. Developer Torfi Frans Olaffson is quoted in 2007 as saying "I always feel like we're just scratching the surface," an ominous statement that turned out to be very true. Walking in Stations was originally intended for a 2008 release but after two years of work, it was still firmly in the development stages.
War on the impossible:
By 2008 the concept of Walking in Stations had changed and at the EVE fanfest that year we got a glimpse of just why it was taking so long to make. For something as ground-breaking as Walking in Stations, CCP wanted to do everything right. Rather than hiring level designers, character modelers and texture artists, they made the bold move of looking outside the games industry for talent. They hired fashion designers to create realistic clothes for the EVE setting, with unique styles for each race. Rather than level designers who could create spaces suitable for use in an FPS game, they hired architects to create realistic spaces with realistic human usability in mind. Inspiration for station lighting and decor came from the film scene rather than traditional game design, with films such as Blade Runner and Aliens as their guide.
The EVE team have always seemed eager to incorporate new technology into the project, from GPU-based ambient occlusion techniques to the Enlighten realtime radiosity lighting engine. With each new morsel of information, we learn that the gargantuan task of creating Incarna is even bigger than before. Following the release of Vivox's seamless EVE voice service, it was even supposed by developers that Walking in Stations would include something called voice fonts. The idea is to distort your voice chat to be more like your character. Combined with directional sound and distance-based volume, that could be a very useful feature. Most recently, CCP have been spotted on the presentation list for the 2010 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, where they'll be demonstrating how they use physics simulation to make Incarna's clothing more realistic.
The finished product:
At the 2009 EVE Fanfest, CCP's game plan for 2010 was revealed and it seems Incarna is on the menu. Whether or not the expansion will make it to completion by the time the winter slot rolls around is anyone's guess. As we've seen from the past three years of waiting, Incarna is turning out to be a massive undertaking and CCP seem adamant that they do it right. At GameX 2009, Massively caught an exclusive interview with "Alli" Ottarsson and Nathan Richardsson from CCP to discuss EVE's expansion plans. They talked about some of the things we'll be able to do in Incarna, from gambling to playing mini-games that have an effect on the game as a whole. In effect, Incarna seems designed to be a more casual counterpart to EVE with a very low learning curve. Perhaps the most exciting feature they hinted at, however, was the presence of a criminal underground in some systems that can give out underground missions.
So far, what little we know of the actual game design elements have come from a few devblogs, fanfest presentations and interviews. The original design called for players to run their own stores, bars and gaming establishments. Players may even be able to join in on games from another station using a holographic system. When Incarna rolls around, a corporation's headquarters or offices could be transformed into EVE's equivalent of a private guild hall. It has been proposed that we'll have corporate recruiting offices with employable NPCs handing out leaflets. There was also talk of a 3D holographic war room where fleet commanders could preside over a battle in real-time and corporations could plan their next strategic move.
Summary:
Playing without a humanoid avatar makes EVE a hard game for some people to relate to. It's no wonder then that Incarna has been arguably the most anticipated EVE expansion to date. There are even players planning to live their entire lives in stations once the expansion finally comes out. When released, Incarna may provide a more casual side to EVE game-play with a much more manageable learning curve. It may even provide a new way for players to enter the game and slowly climb the learning curve as they progress to being fully-fledged capsuleers. I've got a feeling that the day Incarna is released is the day EVE becomes truly universal in scope. Like a lot of people, I just wish that day would come sooner.
"Incarna is not really an expansion, it's an addition to the game which is a stepping-stone in us realising our long-term goal of making EVE the ultimate science fiction simulator," offered Olafsson. "Essentially, it's the transition from EVE being 'the space game' to EVE becoming 'the ultimate sci-fi world'."
http://www.massively.com/2010/02/07/eve-evolved-the-development-of-incarna/
Hope the screenshots let people give you a little taste of what's to come for those who havent been following Incarna or those who may be interested in EVE in the future but are waiting for this expansion to drop on our heads
http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1676#anchor
'
They've been talking about this for so many years
Sadly its never gonna happen.. could have been nice game with WiS.