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EVE Online: Kristoffer "CCP Soundwave" Touborg Interview
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller sat down with EVE Online Lead Designer Kristoffer "CCP Soundwave" Touborg to discuss the game and some of the more recent events, including the release of Incarna and the emergency Council of Stellar Management Summit.
We’re a very open company. A lot of us post on the EVE Online forums; quite a few of us have a twitter account etc. Most of us really love spaceships and don’t mind talking about them whenever we get a chance. I don’t answer every single tweet with my name in it, but I manage to reply to a lot of them. It’s pretty cool, I think all the secrecy in entertainment is pretty silly, so I enjoy being able to talk to the community about everything from the Reykjavik weather to internet spaceships.
The majority of concerns people have aren’t exactly industry secrets, so there is no reason to gag your employees. Are Blizzard or Zynga sitting there, hoping I’ll leak the next class of ships to balance? Probably not, it’s more likely no one really cares except our customers and I think we really benefit from just being open with them and keeping them excited. So anyway, if you tag me in twitter (I think that’s what the young people call it these days?) you’re likely to get a response. I’m on there as @ktouborg.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's Kristoffer "CCP Soundwave" Touborg Interview.
Comments
Great interview.
That's what many EVE players (me included) wanted to hear from CCP.
what exactly did he say that you so desperatly wanted to hear?
They still havnt given us a release shedule for Incarna like they did with incursion. Why not? And now he says they are gona concentrate on ship balancing, what about the rest of Incarna? ... another failed feature which will be left to rot like Faction Warfare?
Everything else is just "yea yea its ok, everything is going really well"
orly?
"Initiatives like the virtual goods store are a cool addition to EVE that I fully support [...]"
No it isn't. Virtual goods broke a fundemental design principal of EVE (everything on your character is destructable) on day one of its release. The tail is already wagging the dog.
I wasn't a player for very long (under a year) and I don't ever PvP so it's not obvious that EVE would be a natural game for me to play to begin with, but EvE is one of the few games that actually seems to "get" how to do strategic gameplay and virtual economies, so I get passionate when I see something that is so blatently, obviously broken added to the game.
What's so frustrating for me as an armchair developer watching from the stands is that it was so, so easy to have implemented Aurum in an EVE way that was logically equivilent and created a powerful framework for expanding the concept of parallel economies and overlapping games set in a single database. You simply have a single stat that could be used for passive income generation within your sub-economy of choice. Then by choosing which economy to set up those passive sources, you are effectively spending money to generate currency.
Instead of a NEX, have an Aurum-priced market (instead of the ISK-priced market). Then you have opened up a huge new design space of a station-based parallel economy with its own resources and it's own industry with monocles being the carrier-level-investment products of that minigame. Then all the talk about gold ammo instantly becomes irrelevent - the issue becomes rolled into the design principles of what materials/products are imported/exported between economies.
It's so obvious to me how to do NEX right that it is painful to watch CCP insisting on framing it to players as a way of spending money with absolutely no gameplay at all in return.
"...Winter is going to be a ton of fun, whether you like creating, or just tearing everything down."
Winter is coming ?
Pretty much my exact same feeling.
Incarna as it stands right now is just a TOTAL failure! Nothing more.
The whole Captains Quarters was so incredbly underwelming and dissapointing. It's not even funny.
So it is just sad to see how they completely ignore it and basically start talking about a "next" expansion and pretend Incarna never happened! /facepalm
Great interview. I really like what i hear from soundwave. Much better then his piece in "Greed is good"
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
From my perspective:
Incarna? A waste of time and energy when things this like ship balancing should be front and center.
What is there to like about this post? Well I for one have canceled all my accounts. One has been in place since late 2004 approx. My wife and I both play with two account each because we like to do it all in a VERY competitive universe
Or to be more precise, we used to do it all. Now we have not biomassed our characters, and our assets are still intact so we are going to watch the game to see if direction changes or becomes more solidified. However I am not holding my breath, I am cutting my losses and moving on at this point.
Look I find this article to actually be a very, very good piece. It represents a side of CCP Soundwave I guess I have not payed attention to, or just did not appreciate. The bottom line is this guy, as the first poster said, HAS said exactly what I want to hear "I would have loved to just copy paste “GOLD AMMMO GETS INTO EVE WHEN IT’S TAKEN FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS” everywhere." Only problem is, and this is supported by the fact he was not allowed to say this, is that I do NOT believe CCP Soundwaves opinion represents the upper management of EVE. Competitive game?? Damn right it is and many of us have invested YEARS of monthly fees, not to mention the hours of effort to get ahead in this sandbox. The rules were placed by CCP from the start and gold ammo, ships, aka: balance disrupting items, would be a game changing move that I WILL not pay to be part of. Nor will I keep paying to just have them implement "gold ammo" in the future to make a buck and shoot the majority of the pilots in the perverbial foot while doing so! Once again...just my opinion.
One other note about "balancing" they should look at. The whole three zone thing is a complete joke! High Security space?? BS! I say! Only thing high securtiy about it is that it gives large corps a chance to gank thousands of pilots that do not want anything to do with null sec. And they can do so without having to worry about getting ganked by other pilots while they are busy "ganking" new players that are defensless. How? By using CCP's mechanics that is how. Want to give new pilots a chance to enjoy the game and get a foot hold in EVE universe? Get those "null sec wanabes" off the new players backs. To easy to make money? BS again! unless you are a major null sec entity that can farm tech moons. Sheesh if it is high security space make it HIGH SECURITY SPACE! If you have to much high security then make the amount of high security space more limited...a total joke...and once again...just my opinion.
It's not a waste of time. As it's a totally different development team that worked (still working) on it.
What I do not understand is, that after all these years of development time, this is all they could deliver? The current implementation of Captains Quarters? Really?
After all those years this is it? Not even talking about the horrible animations of the characters and utterly clunky movement controls!
Me (and many others) were actually looking much forward to Incarnia, that we finally would have real avatars. It would make EVE complete and add a new dimension.
After all these years of talk talk talk and hype from CCP.... we expected..... well... MORE. /shrug
And that they now completely ignore Incarnia and not even talk about it anymore.... that is even more underwelming and just utterly dissapointing!
I understand you thoughts and feelings on this one mate. It is underwhelming to be sure. CCP created the expectation and has not delivered. I just do not put as much "value" on this idea as you do is all. Although I was a "Founder" in Earth and Beyond and I have got to say I loved the station environment
And as far as "that after all these years of development time, this is all they could deliver"? From my perspective? I am convinced that their "purpose" in investing this development time into EVE was to support their other projects, as much if not more so, than upgrading EVE. Their right to do so, and in the end may prove to be a very sound decision. But it has more to do, I think, with creating a platform CCP can use in other games. Like their vampire game for one, what ever it is called, as much as it is giving EVE a needed face lift. Once again companies decide to ignore important improvements on existing games to maximize profits by creating new products to sell instead of delivering "promised" quality in the existing game. I could be all wet on this but it sure seems to hold water given what I have observed. But who really knows besides CCP.
"We have a pretty good tradition of building on stuff we’ve released"
Is this satire?
Also, those questions were...very tame. Extremely so even. Oh, and the wis bit? It draws extreme amounts of resources away from Eve, to the point that Eve is handled by a skeletton crew. No balancing, no "building on stuff [they] have released".
It feels like The Mittani wrote the answers for him. Those two deserve each other, I honestly feel for the rest of this CSM.
Some of the statements, just made me read them again, to be sure. Granted it was not as heavy on spin as that recent interview coached by Reynolds elsewhere earlier this week, but still showing heavy signs of believing company propaganda which has been disproved years ago.
Yeah, like "we have a pretty good tradition of building on stuff we've released". I am truly sorry, but that is a flat out lie. Come on, it takes players what, two expansions, to figure out the actual state of that. Staggering releases is not the same as building on top of stuff you have released just because it adds a few bugfixes that in each case could have been avoided by doing some proper QA ..
Exactly, where he said "We have a pretty good tradition of building on stuff we’ve released," that really made me laugh. It seems CCP have made a knee jerk reaction and have decided to try and fix spaceships and sov in order to mollify the angry players.
I am certainly glad that they are going to fix some ships, some classes have desperately needed work for years but does this mean Incarna will no take a back seat?
I have my own slightly tinfoil related ideas about that, I think the Incarna engine is such a mess that further releases are going to be very difficult in the near future, after all it is basically a pre alpha engine intended for World of Darkness. Many people cannot run the captains quarters let alone have multiple characters in one area, its also full of graphical glitches and rendering errors.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
The interview only re-enforced the fact CCP has lost their backbone when sticking to their stated goal for EVE. Not impressed.
hello CCP Cashflow
now bye
BestSigEver :P
it has been stated that along with the nullsec improvements, the multiplayer incarna environments(read: establishments) will be realeased in the winter(or rather hopefully released) along with(once again this was kinda iffy on timing) contraband improvements. Just read the frakin meeting minutes from may's summit. You guys really need to not base your views on the interview with the Flying in Space lead. HE JUST DEALS WITH SPACE. Noaw Deal wiz it.
i love eve so so so much
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Face the facts - the large majority of the CSM want to make 0.0 a better playgound. They will suck up to and coddle the Devs (who are getting off on the hugs) to accomplish that goal. Read the CSM minutes carefully and you'll realize they want to nerf the economy and ruin Hi-sec industry for their gain. The wanting to remove ABC ores from wormholes was especially telling.
"First of all, we’re going to crank up ship balancing efforts. Continual balancing should be part of the EVE universe, it shouldn’t be a special event that happens every year or two, it should be a constant process and that’s being kicked off."
Does this mean we're gonna start seeing WoW-like patch notes like:
patch 1.0: kinetic damage was increased by 5%.
patch1.1: kinetic damage was lowered by 6%.
patch 1.2: kinetic damage now adds a percentage to thermal damage.
patch 1.2: kinetic damage was removed completely.
Cuz that would be just AWESOME
Oh and also, Soundwave... just shut up.
I find the responses in this thread rather confusing, considering for years now CCP has been paraded as a developer of excellence as well as one that understood the benefits of listening to their customers.
They do a few things wrong and all of a sudden people are acting as though the above was never the case. Considering most of the gripes aimed at CCP lately have been based on conjecture, rather than any real harm done, I'm confused.
If anything should have called for such backlash it should have been the devs helping out certain guilds long ago, nope they were just given a pat on the back over that and anyoen who brought it up was flamed.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I agree, CCP has not really listened to what people wanted, yet more or less forcing id down throats. The first few years, they were good actually and did listen and tried to do well. Their programming, rollouts, and timings have always been subpar. The T20 incident really highlights that they go off on their own. Not that it was a bad developer, but the guy worked there for years afterwards when there was rightful outrage about it. Factional Warfare, 0.0 warfare, and a lot of game mechanics are not even worked on as they concentrate on new items instead of fixing the old ones. The Factional Warfare was the promise to introduce people to PvP and get them interested in 0.0 and Low Sec, but with 5 on 5 fights being lagging, people got out of them quickly and now it is just a dieing part of the game.
Soundwave is right though about Eve is too safe... They built up HighSec and now there is no "reason" to head out, all of the good alliances have dibanded really and the 0.0 interesting things have been left to the Goons, who are great griefers, but are ot good enough to make things interesting in Eve like BoB used to. Liked them or hated then, they made Eve interesting.
Quite sad really as the graphics are awesome, but the gameplay is now click to lock, shoot. Eve has a sandbox, but sadly most of the toys are half broken now, but they are painted nicely. I do hope really that they concentrate on fixes and not just pretty new things that function terribly.
I think you missed the point I was making, for years they were heralded as the great saviour of this genre, basically ever since WOW starting spawning it's offspring, around that same time, they were doing some really shady stuff, that really effected the game, yet if you brought it up you were flamed, now since this occurance with MT, blogs, leaks etc.. there's all this hate going around. I was merely making an observation of the course that CCP has run, as well as a point that I find giving certain guilds a helping hand, far worse than any of the stuff I've read here lately.
What they've done patch wise, haven't fixed or what have you, isn't really part of the point I was arguing against, (IE: if that's your complaint I was not referring to you).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
They're getting so much flack because they fucked up so many things all within the span of 1 1/2 years. They managed to fuck up so many things that just about anyone has something to complain about even in completely unrelated areas of the game.
That takes skill and determination, to change the mood from generally optimistic with the occasional screwup to outright public mockery and hostility.
The t20 incident affected trust and 0.0 balance, but it did not affect trust in CCP to improve the game.
This culmination of disastrous fuckups undermined the last bit of rapidly evaporating confidence their old players had. MT is bit a catalyst to the unhappiness which had been building up rapidly since Dominion.
@ Bato, I really don't know about that, it's not something I've seen said a whole lot here, I've heard they have ignored aspects such as mining, possibly a few other not so stellar design choices, but nothing to the extent you're describing. But hey, I don't visit their official forum or other EVE commuity portals, so I am not really up to date on all that is eve's community.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Here's a list of things CCP has abandoned in no particular order and just from the top of my head. Some of those items on the list are actually multiple mechanics:
Industry
Mining
Pvp balance
Supercapitals
COSMOS
Epic Arcs (aka COSMOS mk2)
Factional Warfare
Economic balance (moon mineral balance for example, t2 production bottleneck located in one region of space)
0.0 industry
0.0 sov warfare (aka Dominion Sov System)
wormhole space (not quite as dire but still pretty bad as only one type of salvage is worth anything due to nonexistent balancing)
That's why "We have a pretty good tradition of building on stuff we've released" is so ridiculous. They never build on stuff they release.