Blog Banter #36 - It grew on us

Our favourite cheap-shoed blogger put out the question for June, here it goes:

"With the Inferno expansion upon us, new seeds have been planted in the ongoing evolution of EVE Online. With every expansion comes new trials and challenges, game-changing mechanics and fresh ideas. After nine years and seventeen expansions, EVE has grown far more than most other MMOGs can hope for. Which expansions have brought the highs and lows, which have been the best and the worst for EVE Online?"

I only joined at the end of Apochrypha, so I probably have less of a broad perspective on the scale of expansions than other people. Still, I wish to add my thoughts to this. Nine years is a considerable time, even in human terms. In the cyber world it's usually months, or one or two years if you're lucky. But EVE is going on for almost a decade. There are core elements that it kept, or usually even improved, and there are those that changed drastically, even in the face of a few expansions. It was a long road so far, and if all goes well, it probably will take longer to come to an end. EVE is opportunity, EVE is history, EVE means something for most people that get in tough with it. A cruel mistress that also lets you know yourself better. And gets you probably a hundred or more friends. This is her lifeblood, the bonding of people over ends of a gun barrel, remote repairer, trade window, and so on. So let us look deeper, because there's so much to look at.

So it has come to this

Space MMO that is hard. It was hard to learn, hard to handle. Basically you had little chance without learning from others - and their mistakes. I still smile at the stories of the veteran players. It was a lot different, they say. It was harder, they say. But usually they forget one thing. Not only has EVE high learning curve, human nature of learning and getting better by repetition plays tricks with their memories. 'Didn't have the tools for' does not equal 'couldn't do it'.

When facing a new peoblem, some people just take out their wits and slove it. Others either learn their methods or keep on bitching. For the development of such a grand game as EVE, all is needed. Without the innovators, it would not be dismissed as not possible. Without the adopters, it would not be seen as a problem. Without the unsatisfied, it would, well, be dismissed as a non-issue. This is the case with many features we now have. The best known is the POS system. But CCP demonstrates that they watch their players closely time to time. They miss the mark sometimes, but they do develop the game for us and not to us. They very much care about how we play, and they always had to, to keep EVE what it is. When they didn't, it turned to a very long backlog and crazy crunchtime.

Like a flower in a digital garden, EVE has grown slowly but steadily. It opened its petals - and thorns - one by one. There were various types of things that happened. Expansive and extensive growth is both determining in EVE's growth. Extensive growth lies in the introduction of new features, entirely new ways to play the game. Expansive growth consists of additions that improve existing gameplay. This is a principal view and not one linked to a particluar piece of content. For example, the addition of Wormholes is clearly an extensive growth, but the addition of the ship Orca is merely an expansive one: it does not mean new gameplay, just expands on an existing profession.

Whith that in mind, most of the expansions had a healthy mix of both growth schemes, well... Up until Dominion. The balance has been upset. Some features were concentrated on, but some, that desperately needed an expansive growth had been left on the shelf. People have reacted to this unpleasantly, to say the least, finally stirring some media attention. I won't go into that here. What I wish to emphasize amidst this all is that EVE has become to the active members of the community more than just a game. It has given good times and bad times. It made people learn more about themselves through the unaviodable learning from their mistakes.

That is what keeps it alive, and that bonding is what should be built on by CCP. This they probably know, as they demonstrated many times that they usually know full well what their players want even if they are ordered to develop otherwise. Hopefully that era has come to an and. Cruicible's success despite being a somewhat half-sized expansion lies in the fact that it addressed some of the most desired expansive growths.

Changes and not-changes

In the life of a product, there are things that are wise to change, and there are things that aren't. There are so many conditions and contexts here. First of all, people tens to like their 'tea' just as it is used to taste. If it changes, it better does in their favor, else they will react negatively. Some will turn to another product, some others will scream that they wnat the old back. If the chage is favorable, however, they will probably attract more people to the same product. If the product has a realatively long lifetime (think of car models, TV shows, or your favourite music band - and of course, EVE online), it is more likely that there are features which people will severely miss, even if it's unimportant or bad (ship spinning anyone?).

So, to change, or not to change is a tough question for most things in EVE. If it's not, then it is neglected. What usually is the problem here is that CCP is not very good at balancing this part out. They sometimes change things that should not be touched. From a developer perspective, they might seem as a good idea, but human nature says otherwise. Some things just grow on us. We don't really like them when we meet them first, we know they are not very good but we learn to like them regadless. This is a time in EVE's lifecycle when the developers' focus is shifted on to expansive development, which is good, seeing that there are things that seem neglected, outdated, and as such, subject to change in the near future. However, the question will not be exactly what could and could not be changed in them, but what can and must be changed, and in a way that actually improves the experience for players, and does not reduce functionality.

So, CCP, watch out for these things! Unified invetory is the latest of the examples, but I think there are key questions that when answered, will help EVE grow and become more friendly.

• Is there an improvement in functionality (as in, can I do everything I could with the old one, but better / easier / faster / with less clicking)?
• Is there an improvement in performance?
• Does the change make the feature more dynamic, and does it allow further expansion of the feature?
• Is there a balance between all these factors?
• Is the feedback from the players testing constructive?

The first four is pretty simple. Now, let's dwell on the last one a little before I let you go. How does constructive feedback tie into this? Well, it's pretty simple. These players are people, and they act like people. If something does not meet any or most of their expectations, they will not sit and think, they'll usually just say it's bad / shit / fubar / whatever. But if they see any hope in it, they will tell you what they miss. Past experience shost that CCP is good at interpreting what players do and want correctly -.so lets hope they keep to that strategy and emergent gameplay will spawn emergent development as much as possible.

Sessym out.

Home

Blake sat on his couch lazily, almost sleeping. The strange brew beside his right elbow kept on sparkling with bubbles the size of a cherry. He rearly drank anything alcoholic. Mainly, because engineer work and booze doesn't mix well. But boredom gets into a man's nerves, and now, standards lowered, he just sat back on the apartment, counted his bills over and over, and sometimes burped.
   -Get all my ships in good shape, he said. I'll be back soon, he said. Hmph. Never trust someone who dies in goo and wakes up covered in goo the next second - the door almost sprung out from its frame. A slim figure materialized in the light, and yelled.
   -Get up you dirty pig! We've got work to do! - kem poked the tantalized engineer - You've been drinking again? Man, you smell.. How long is it since you've had a shower? Never mind, get moving, he's back. We're heading out!
   -We're what... Who's back?
   -The boss is back, you idiot! We're heading out to deep space.

He stood in front of the window, staring at the starfield in front of him. The thick composite glass reflected some of the pilot's features. He looked almost ten years older than when he last left this room. In the past six months, he's been wishing back to these parts many times. But there were things to be done. Things that must not be recorded by fluid routers. Things that matter more than a few months inside the capsule. A few things lay scattered over the table. He turned back, released a soft blow, and the dust ran up from the sudden movement of air. The uniform barely changed in color, but the insignias very much did. He took off the robes, the comfortable shirt, and put the uniform back on. Then he pulled out a small but heavy box from the shelf beyond the hanger inside the cabinet and put it on the table. He slowly took out the parts and assembled an old handgun, hiding it under the uniform. Stepping back in front of the window he released a heavy sigh. The Neocom booted up, and several messages started flashing on the mental projection.
- I'm home - he muttered, walking down the steps.

The Necrorant Take One, or EVE, EVE, What have you become?

Bold Pilot Log, Entry # 32

But I have returned. And I know you better... wait that's another line... Ahem.
There are things that you never guess. You don't guess some people who barely know you will remember you. You don't guess that after stopping to not only post but to log in to your dusty old blog people still visit it. You don't guess that you can start over what you abandoned... But guess what? They do, and you do.

So I'm back in town. First I want to say thanks for those that really keep visiting everants.com. It's not a big thing, but it feels good to see you want more. And more is you going to get. EVE, this cruel mistress have changed much in the past months. Yet the core things remained the same. After a few month's break I found that I can still enjoy EVE. Just not on my own. It is the key thought in all of this - I have returned because I'm certain I'll have people to enjoy my gametime with. With this, EVERANTS will also be reborn. I will have a lot of topics to rant about I'm sure. There will probably be people joining me. Will you?

First off, there's yet again a controversial change in EVE, this time in the interface. With it, the community has a kind of love-hate relationship. We want it to be simpler, yet we don't want radical changes... Then what do we want? Well, certainly not exactly this, do we:


Actually, the idea of solving all inventory problems in one window is excellent. The core of the problem stems from the limitations in dimensions. You see, the inventory itself, be it in any game is a table of items. And that's already two dimensions taken. Your average monitor doesn't have an extra one. For that matter, the valid technologies are few and far between to show a third. So how do you resolve a problem of list of inventories? In most software, the multipage approach is used. Which is usually eligible, feels natural and is handy. Inventory in inventory problems are easily resolved by the tree view. What, then, you might ask, is the problem? What does this approach miss?

Well, in EVE, this too is a special things. In its current form, we miss cruicial information that the many windows approach gave us. The biggest setback is that we now can see the contents of only one container. Then we only can see the name of the container, and after looking carefully and no other information in a flash.

But there's a solution. I would, if I could, change the following (not in any particular order):

• Display shorter names for containers. For example, Station, Ships, ETC. Also, if I named a container I probably did so because I wanted to see its name, and nothing else. So exile the descrption (Large Secure Container) to the back of the line.
• Implement horizontal slidebars everywhere already...
• Instead of displaying only the dropdown arrows, draw lines that show clearly where the container belongs.
• It should be possible to see multiple containers' contents and capacity information at once. Suddenly, Dividers! Thousands of them! Okay, maybe a limit of sixteen will be enough? Just buplicate the right-side part of the current window with vertical sorting.
• Add checkboxes in front of the containers, so we can easily select which ones we want to always see. This information should be saved, so when a container becomes inaccessible, it disappears from the list, but when it comes back, the divider comes back, too.

The speed improvement for the Unified Inventory is so visible. It could do so much more for the user than it currently does. It would be amazing.

Sessym out.