The release of the new expansion known as Incursion is fast approaching. There is much hoopla being made about it. Specifically pertaining to the character creation and ambulation (walking in stations).
This is the area that I find myself wondering about.
One of the biggest arguments or replies to the question, why?, that I have seen is, "because it is CCP's goal to provide a total experience rather than just being a portrait". I'm paraphrasing of course.
I have to say that that answer is BULLSHIT!!
Look here. Admittedly I may not be the longest player of the game, nor even all that "vetted" considering I started playing the game in August of 2008. But I read. I read a lot about the game. I see things players say and have said all over the place. And as you all know Eve is well known for its epic large scale fleet battle. Huge battles of massive proportion. When I read, how in days gone by, about giant battles taking place with almost no lag at all and compare those reflections to the current state of the game as told by many-a-player in post after post, complaint after complaint, I have to wonder where ambulation is going to lead the lag monster from hell.
Eve is a player versus player spaceship fighting game first and foremost. Yes there are other forms of PvP such as market PvP, etc...
And while ambulation may seem like a really cool idea, it's carebear at it's finest. Who is going to enjoy walking around a station, sitting in a bar getting their internet jollies off over some internet created illusion of a female? Carebears are.
People who play the game to have fights in space, be it one on one, small gang, or epic large fleet fights aren't going to give a rat's ass about walking in a station. Carebears who are war dec'd will flaunt their "I jizzed in my pants" characters running around a station chasing some blonde Gallente chick trying to score a piece of internet ass while those who are playing the game as created wait outside for a battle that won't ever come. And to this problem I ask: Will we be able to dock and slit the throats of the pussies who dare hide from our sweet sweet lasers?
Oh sure, it may be cool at first. But it's going to get old. And what will all this extra load that is going to be created on the server do to our game that is riddled with "soul crushing lag"? I believe it will add to it.
I should have prefaced this with saying that I personally do not engage in the large 0.0 fleet fights that endure such poor performance caused by lag. But that doesn't mean I don't know about it. It's part of the game that I play and write about in this here blog.
Why do you care of it doesn't effect you Harri?
Because it could thanks to ambulation. That's speculative, I know. Also, I am a firm believer in if you're going to do something or have something do it right or get the fuck out of the way and don't do it at all. There are a myriad of problems that plague the game. Problems that are left to go unsolved leaving one to shake their head at the hypocrisy.
Specifically, the parts in the previous link pertaining to the striving for excellence.
While I'm not the first one, by a wide margin, to write about such things I am certainly entitled to have an opinion. And I still ask why?
How many players have left because of the broken promises? How many have left because the game they love to play has gotten to a point on unplayable for them? Sure, it's just a game. Or is it? Eve is like no other game. It is heavily time consuming and not free to play. It is something people chose to invest in. While it may be CCP's game to do with as they want it is also considerably beneficial to sometimes listen to those who have a view of the situation from a different angle. And with ambulation on our heels I can only say that CCP is not listening to the player base. They are listening to the sound in their head with the hopes that it jingles like a cash register. Cha-ching...
I hope you are right CCP. I don't think you are. Time will tell.
8 comments:
Let's see:
1. You seem to think that ambulation will run on location nodes. Are you high, or have you just been completely ignoring devblogs for the last 6 months?
2. You seem to be asserting that the purpose of the game is to do what you want it to. This is actually not the case.
As a 0.0 player who actually is affected by lag, I am in favor of ambulation. I think that making a comprehensive universe simulator is a better and more ambitious goal than building a game that caters only to the hardcore pvp crowd, and much more likely to be successful in the long run. How many hardcore pvp MMOs exist? Why do you think that is?
I also know firsthand how much lag has improved over the last six months, and understand that graphic designers are not well equipped to fix lag.
tl;dr you are poorly informed and whining about lag is so four months ago.
Maybe, just maybe, carebears will spend more time in stations, but I doubt it will be for the toons as much as it is for the fact that warp scrambled ships won't be able to re-dock ;) thats a big boost to any high sec war deccers already.
I don't need walking in stations, but I really can't see it giving many lag issues either as those in space don't need to know where those in stations are, I guess we will see when it rolls out if it was programmed in a way which works as it should, my guess is yes.
Oh no, you just realized the game doesn't revolve around you. CCP's desired market includes other people as well that they want to cater for.. It seems you are getting your knickers into a knot because an expansion isn't targetted at you.
Grow up and realise that you are a minority group with just about whatever aspect of the game you play.
Also people that you camp in station (you pvp god) are likely to log off. And CCP obviously prefer them to be playing the game.
For some reason your post reminds me o carebears tears after some mission runner lost his prize golem to a ninja salvager.
Two points regarding lag:
1. The lag monster will never be slain. The point at which it raises its head will move, and has moved both for good and bad, but without an infinitely quick system it will always be there.
2. Don't believe everything that you read. For every battle you read about where lag has been a problem there have been countless others that it hasn't. In general, people only post bad news, you don't get messages saying, "had a battle today and there was no lag.".
IMO ambulation will have little or no impact on lag. There will be more people in system but they will be docked. As CCP have partioned off the market etc onto specialized nodes, I'd expect them to do the same with ambulation. The only cross-over between in space and in station is the local channel.
@Jeff> I didn't write this post thinking the game revolved around me. While I was involved in high sec warfare prior I am no longer. So station camping is not something I do nor did much of to begin with except when I was a merc as part of the contract. I was generalizing what ambulation would likely mean for those who seek to skirt the intents of this game. This is a pvp game. Period. Well, it was intended to be at one point. Your point about CCP preferring them to play the game rather than log off is a good point. Why CCP would care if they are logged in playing versus logging off I don't think does anything for CCP except have a higher "pilots logged in to the server" number. Whether logged in or off it's still a paid account.
@Parasoja> I'm not whining about lag. I'm simply stating what is obviously still a problem. There are continuing posts about lag fests. The latest PL Titan loss is being touted as due to lag. My point about lag affecting the over all game is derived from Eve being a single server. Everything in this game runs off of one server. If CCP can not take care of lag from in space fights, which is what this game is, then what in the hell is adding ambulation going to the over all game performance on a single server?
I need to correct something I said in my previous comment. Eve isn't a single server. However everyone playing is on the same network using the same back end data base. My opinion from my topic is that ambulation is going to add to the size of the data base which may cause lag when queries are run and commands are executed against the game. This all adds up to an increased load on the over all game.
If the database were overloaded the entire game would get laggy during peak times. You use the y-w fight yesterday as an example, for which I am grateful.
During y-w, as the location node was brought to the brink of collapse and as thousands of players across nine regions logged in and rushed to get to the fight, my alt in the next system experienced no lag. Ergo, the database is not close to being overloaded.
Your idea that ambulation might cause database overload is also predicated on CCP neither knowing what the database server/s upon which their entire livelihood is based are capable of nor being able to increase their capacity. This is not a bet you are likely to win, especially as they were clearly able to accommodate additional database load for apocrypha and PI without problems.
Fair enough Parasoja. I completely understand what you are saying. I'm not technical enough to know how all these systems work but I form an opinion and get ranting on it. Thanks for repying and taking the time to read my post. Happy New Year mate.
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