EVE Online: Incarna

[charlemagne]

So, "Walking in stations" is here.

Well, no, not really, it's "walking in a locked room" that looks exactly the same for everyone and really does nothing besides adding loading times and gpu stress upon docking (seriously, my 9800GTS always stayed around 55°C in EVE before, but the Captain's Quarters instantly push it above 60°C). I'm glad they left a ("temporary", fuck you CCP if you ever remove it) option to disable loading CQ, otherwise it would be pretty wasteful to leave your trader char just logged in idling for hours, updating some orders whenever you wander by your computer. For the life of my I cannot understand why they didn't leave the old hangar view and added a button "leave your pod" to enter CQ.

But, we now have "real" avatars besides a mugshot and we can sit down on a sofa! While I of course look forward to real walking in stations - you know, actually meeting other pilots and hopefully getting to do fun stuff, I really don't see the point in what they gave us now. There is literally no point in even buying microtransaction-pants or high heels for your sexy space chicks because you can't even show them off to other players. The biggest impact the WiS-part of Incarna has on EVE as a whole right now is "buy goggles for your character and make a new mugshot".

Besides all the butthurtness about loading times, system requirements and lore rape (lol): how do you guys feel about Incarna? I'm talking about just the CQ-part, not the new turrets and firing animations that are actually pretty nice (for the 1% of play time where you're zoomed in enough to notice it).

[Havok]

Jeezuz. I stopped playing years ago it seems like and the next big thing then was walking in stations. They just got around to this?

[charlemagne]

Yeah, they scrapped everything they've done and started from scratch a couple of times. Still got only one room done though

[Jaevric]

Can't get excited about Captain's Quarters. The room is small and my character walks obnoxiously slowly. On top of that, even if I wanted to buy stuff from the Aurum store, the prices are ridiculous. 1.2 billion isk for the cyber-monocle? If I wanted to spend real life money on it that's 4 PLEX which is $60.00. I can buy fairly nice real-life clothes for that much or a whole different computer game. It's utterly retarded and CCP should be embarassed, but so far the only response from CCP has been a guy posting, "It's all in the eye of the beholder" and getting flamed by the players.

Maybe when the actual stations open CCP will redeem themselves. But I'm sorta doubting it and since I'm getting increasingly disenchanted with other aspects of the game after playing for a year I'm not sure I'll wait around that long to see what happens.

[White Haven]

Yeah, the backlash over the Noble Exchange pricing fiasco is truly epic in scope. Someone over there does not understand microtransactions at all. They are supposed to be a pittance, small enough that players can just shrug and buy something 'because why not.' A capital ship is not in that category. Neither is eighty dollars. Eighty dollars is, in fact, enough to buy a completely different, brand new A-list game. A monocle for a single-player captain's quarters experience, or an entire other new-release game. A game that just might have a full range of character customization options without an attempted price gouge. A game made by developers who are slightly less blatant in their attempts to attach a suction pump to their players' wallets.

CCP has a pretty good history on that sort of thing, which is why this has come as quite the shock. As for Walking In A Minmatar Shack...uh...wake me up when there's a reason to care? This should have stayed on Singularity as a testing environment while they worked on the actual Incarna content.

[Jon]

If they increase the exchange rate to 35000 AUR (versus the current 3500) per plex that would make things more reasonable. As it stands, a joke.

Still, there is something satisfying about logging into find my character instead of just a ship. Disappointed they only shipped the expansion with 1 CQ though. No real new gameplay has been added in this expansion for existing players either.

[Ryan Thunder]

Aside from the hilarious cost of Noblex stuff, my only complaint so far is how processor-intensive the captain's quarters are. If anything one would expect it to be a reprieve from the higher graphics requirements of the game proper. I think its the character renderings that do it. That, or its just because they used Python and they haven't fully optimized it or something.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

CCP has a pretty good history on that sort of thing, which is why this has come as quite the shock.

While I think not charging for the software to access their monthly subscription service is a gesture more MMOs could benefit from, I don't think it qualifies them for a good history. Especially not after the whole "Renders your computer unbootable," fiasco.

[Ryan Thunder]

CCP has a pretty good history on that sort of thing, which is why this has come as quite the shock.

While I think not charging for the software to access their monthly subscription service is a gesture more MMOs could benefit from, I don't think it qualifies them for a good history. Especially not after the whole "Renders your computer unbootable," fiasco.

Que?

[charlemagne]

Some update years ago fucked up the boot.ini on Windows machines.

Anyways, there's always shitstorms on the official forums after updates, but CCP is laying lower than usual. I'm not sure they can just wait it out this time. I wonder what the first responses to the major criticisms will be.

[Feil]

I tried it even though I don't play EVE and am not really interested in doing so, because I like character creation more than I like most actual games. The character creator technology is pretty fantastic - it takes a little while to get used to, but once you do, it's so natural and effective that it's hard to think about going back to a bunch of sliders and option lists. It's under-used, though. Not enough flexibility from the default settings of the race.

The select-from-lists options are badly done: they really need to be precached by the creator. It's far better to wait thirty seconds when starting a creator than to wait three seconds every time you want to try on a different pair of shoes.

Character creator is going to need an overall-size slider once there are more than one person in the game world, or else it'll doubtless be another weird cloneworld where every man is 6'1 and every woman is 5'9. Graphics in the creator are fantastic. The rendering post-creation, on the other hand, is sloppy and needs improvement: it destroys most of the detail and makes everybody look flat and washed-out - but the technology to render it nicely is obviously there, so this is probably a fixable issue (badly configured lighting engine?).

Good tech demo, but only a decent but incomplete character creator.

As for actual usability, fun-factor, gameplay, etc, I leave it up to other people to comment.

---

PS: Not one but three degrees of freedom for adjusting the precise appearance of your lady's breasts, but not a single "package" slider for gentlemen. Discrimination!

[Prannon]

The Captain's Quarters are a neat addition, but useless. Completely and utterly useless. There is *nothing* I can do in my captain's quarters that wasn't more convenient just using the tabs on the left of the UI. I am looking forward to when the actual station environments are made available, since that's when I'll be able to leave the captain's quarters and meet other players and do stuff, but I doubt that even that will be all that much. I play EVE for the spaceships and gewd fites! I think CCP will quietly cease development after it is proven that this feature didn't do much for them.

[Kingmaker]

I think that CCP will continue development, because Incarna is actually the engine for their Vampire MMO, and they're using EVE players as guinea pigs. The reality is that EVE has been on the back burner at CCP for quite a while, and will continued to be so for some time.

PS: Not one but three degrees of freedom for adjusting the precise appearance of your lady's breasts, but not a single "package" slider for gentlemen. Discrimination!

Complaints have been filed by the female players of EVE. Both of them.

[Temjin]

I find the CQ to be cool. I find the News screen to be strangely hypnotic. And I thought it was an awesome sight when I walked over to the viewing window and saw my Abbadon floating there.

But there's not really that much content for it yet. There's really nothing to do with it. I don't think anyone would have much of a problem with it if they didn't try to center a whole expansion on it. I understand why they did it, but it really bit them in the ass. They either shouldn't have focused the expansion on it, or waited until the common ares were available.

The Noble Store is a joke. If they think those prices are micro-transactions, they really need to lay off the sniff. And the funniest part is that the Noble store is a good arguement for why they should have waited to roll out the CQ. Why the hell would I want to spend 15 dollars on imaginary pants when no one else can see them?

I only wonder, come August, whether they still intend to roll out the Ishukone Scorpion. The last Dev comments I saw said that even though the Noble Store system can't yet accept a normal scorpion for the Ishukone one, they were still going to roll it out in August for a week or two "as a test" and you can just pay Aurum for it. A nice side effect is that since those Scorpions would be refinable, players would be able to get minerals for money, screwing over the in-game economy.

Of course, that was before the Noble Store prices were known. That Ishukone Scorp could end up costing 500 dollars.

On the plus side, I love the new turret effects. And I like how tractor beams don't just appear out of your ship like magic any more.

[charlemagne]

I agree that CQ/Incarna could be nice once there's real content in there, but I still wish they'd bring back the old hangar view. I don't get how CCP doesn't see how making idling clients still push GPU and CPU like it does with active CQ will seriously bother a lot of people, e.g. all station traders that leave the client in the background all day long. What are we supposed to do, put our traders in cloaky ships in safespots all over Jita? I'd be curious what the server would think of 1000 more clients in space all the time

On the plus side, the recent changes to the UI codebase have had a serious impact on UI responsiveness and speed, and it makes updating 100 market orders a much smoother and less bothersome affair.

[Temjin]

There is an option in the ESC menu to turn off the CQ. That should help those people that leave their clients open all the time.

[charlemagne]

Yeah, but CCP said something about that option being temporary only.

According to the shitstorm on the forums I can't imagine they won't rethink that though.

[Broken]

The shitstorm on the forums is not so much about CQ, the Noble Store and all the rest of the non-sense Incarna released. It's about the leaked newsletter that basically laid out plans to charge cash for game-altering items, ships, standings, and destroy the sandbox. CCP appears to have decided they can charge for World of Tanks golden bullets while keeping their subscription base. The threadnaught on the EVE forums is now up to over 150 pages in around 24 hours.

[ArmorPierce]

Eve always been about attempting to squeeze as much money out of the players. From encouraging players to have multiple accounts by making the benefits so huge, removing skill training while character is inactive (so you have to keep the alt accounts open constantly) to selling plexes. I'm not surprised about them selling game altering items and such.

At least now through plexes, people still have to invest it into the in game economy. Outright selling items removes it completely from the economy

[Temjin]

The shitstorm on the forums is not so much about CQ, the Noble Store and all the rest of the non-sense Incarna released. It's about the leaked newsletter that basically laid out plans to charge cash for game-altering items, ships, standings, and destroy the sandbox. CCP appears to have decided they can charge for World of Tanks golden bullets while keeping their subscription base. The threadnaught on the EVE forums is now up to over 150 pages in around 24 hours.

Wow. I was out of the loop on that. I didn't even notice that shitstorm until you mentioned it.

Yeah, it's nice to see that CCP is handling it in it's usual incompetent way.

[Kingmaker]

There are riots in Jita and Amarr over the "Greed is Good" memo, and the EVE forums have a 200+ page threadnaught.

[Temjin]

And now there's been a e-mail leaked written by CCP Hilmar:

Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:16:54 -0400
To: riverini@gmail.com
Subject: ccp ceo global msg sent today
From: evewatch@hush.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=.UTF-8.
Message-Id: <20110623221654.CF1E76F438@smtp.hushmail.com>

sent by hilmar to ccp global list-

(strt)

We live in interesting times; in fact CCP is the kind of company that if things get repetitive we instinctively crank it up a notch. That, we certainly have done this week. First of we have Incarna, an amazing technological and artistic achievement. A vision from years ago realized to a point that no one could have imaged but a few months ago. It rolls out without a hitch, is in some cases faster than what we had before, this is the pinnacle of professional achievement. For all the noise in the channel we should all stand proud, years from now this is what people will remember.

But we have done more, not only have we redefined the production quality one can apply to virtual worlds with the beautiful Incarna but we have also defined what it really means to make virtual reality more meaningful than real life when it comes to launching our new virtual goods currency, Aurum.

Naturally, we have caught the attention of the world. Only a few weeks ago we revealed more information about DUST 514 and now we have done it again by committing to our core purpose as a company by redefining assumptions. After 40 hours we have already sold 52 monocles, generating more revenue than any of the other items in the store.

This we have done after months of research by a group of highly competent professionals, soliciting input and perspective from thought leaders and experts in and around our industry. We have communicated our intention here internally in very wide circles through the Virtual Economy Summit presentation at the GSM, our Fearless newsletter, sprint reviews, email lists and multiple other channels. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Currently we are seeing _very predictable feedback_ on what we are doing. Having the perspective of having done this for a decade, I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say. Innovation takes time to set in and the predictable reaction is always to resist change.

We went out with a decisive strategy on pricing and we will stay the course and not flip flop around or knee jerk react to the predictable. That is not saying nothing will change, on the contrary, in fact we know that success in this space is through learning and adapting to _what is actually happening_ and new knowledge gained in addition to what we knew before and expected.

All that said, I couldnât be prouder of what we have accomplished as a company, changing the world is hard and we are doing it as so many times before! Stay the course, we have done this many times before.

(end)

The amount of trafic generated by that e-mail shut down EVE News 24.

This is all quite entertaining to watch.

[Commander 598]

As far as I can tell half of EVE is literally frothing at the mouth over an internal newsletter that's been laying around in CCP's lobby for a few months and a couple of bad PR moves. If that email is actually real I put good odds on Hilmar trolling people on purpose.

[Temjin]

As far as I can tell half of EVE is literally frothing at the mouth over an internal newsletter that's been laying around in CCP's lobby for a few months and a couple of bad PR moves. If that email is actually real I put good odds on Hilmar trolling people on purpose.

Oh, it gets even better. There was no verification that it was actually real. EVE News 24 actually put a hold on the story for 24 hours due to it doubting the authenticity of it. All CCP had to do was ignore it.

Instead they deleted the original thread on the forums, causing a massive shit storm. And in their attempt to cover it up, they just confirmed to everyone that it was a real internal memo. By it's self the memo isn't that bad. It's just a bit of internal PR. But their reaction to it has just blown it up in their faces.

EDIT: Oh, and before I go to sleep, a link to the original newsletter for those who want it.

http://www.evenews24.com/2011/06/22/gre ... direction/

And a link to a forum post (who knows how long until it might be deleted) that concisely expresses the issues.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.as ... =786186716

[Commander 598]

One positive thing in all this:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/ ... 181208.jpg