That's a lot of stuff to promise – My Loot, Your Tears

I'm really liking the turn-around we've seen in the last month with CCP. Hilmar has fallen on his sword to make nice with the EVE community following the Incarna PR disaster, and then we're promised a whole bunch of nice stuff for the winter expansion.

Then player owned custom offices, and then new tier-3 battlecruisers, and then implants on killmails, and then engine trails and new backgrounds.

I am in no way faulting CCP for thinking big and awesome. I am slightly concerned about if they can actually deliver all of this by the winter expansion. Assuming "winter" is pushed out to mean "February", that's only 4 months. It's a big list of stuff to make in just a few months. Particularly since they just axed 20% of their workforce; this always causes some people to start looking for other jobs, and lowers morale.

The worst disaster they could have would be another Incarna-release which didn't meet player expectation at all. I think we all would have been OK with "this stuff for winter, all these other things between winter and next summer".

Comments?

6 comments

Planetary GenocideOct 21, 2011

Well, they did claim that most of that 20% was on the WoD project...

tbh I think if they just drop all the Incarna shit they're working on they could probably do all this, but then people accuse them (yet again) of dropping a released feature to work on new shiny shit. At least this time it's stuff that players actually want, for the most part, but still.

Ash RossenOct 21, 2011

So...time dilation. If time is moving at 33% or 50% (or anything less than 100%) and time outside that area is not dilated, what's top stop people warping out, charging/repairing, and jumping right back in? They'll be running at double (or triple) the actual time of anyone in a battle.

peegeeOct 22, 2011

You would have to jump out of system, which would, to say the least, be a big risk on a loaded node. I guess it's hypothetically possible, but you risk blackscreens, fail-to-load grid, node crashes etc by doing it en masse, it would outweigh the benefits of repping up out of system slightly quicker than your enemies could in system. Havin gjumped from a non-TiDi system into a TiDi one, I blackscreened and had to relog. I wouldn't advise it as a tactic.

Druur MonakhOct 22, 2011

I think CCP knows too well that they can't afford another Incarna debacle; so my hunch is that all the stuff they are announcing are things they are confident of delivering.

A few things may fall off the wagon in the last moment (that's the nature of software development), but even that won't be a problem if a) the rest is awesome, and b) they can provide a timeline for the things missing.

Personally I am less concerned with the winter expansion, than with what happens afterwards: not all new features will be balanced, and iteration (tm) will be required. Delivering on the follow-up will be the real litmus test.

Jonathan FergusonOct 22, 2011

Custom offices don't affect me. I'd be pissed if I was still doing PI in a WH though because it'll be griefer central now. But it's true to the nature of EVE so so be it.

The tier 3 battlecruisers are stupid. We have enough ships. This reminds me of every failed CCP idea. Add a 'shiny' to the game. Then forget about it. A solution in search of a problem. No thanks.

Implants on killmails is my favorite new thing. I might start PVPing in cheaper clones though.

I don't care about engine trails. My concern is lag. It better not cause it and if it does, the option to switch it off better be there.

I agree about liking what I hear. When it comes to CCP, hearing still means very little, though. Still a lot of stuff I'm not hearing: 'Aurum is gone.' 'We're devoting X additional teams to flying in space development.' 'We've banned X bots this month.' 'We've come up with such-and-such a solution to deal with the colossal ISK faucet we created known as Incursions.' 'We'd like to apologize to Mynxee and the rest of CSM V for ignoring them.' 'We're not going to remove ABC from WH because that would be retarded.'

If I start hearing stuff like that, then my ears'll perk up. This stuff is just throwing a stale crust to a starving beggar. Yeah, he's happy to get it but he's still wondering 'Where's the beef?'

SeryOct 22, 2011

What Druur said, especially the part about iterating.

I don't find the list of features to be unrealistically large because the individual items are mostly either things they've already been working on (new BCs, time dilation) or stuff where most of the code is probably already written (player owned customs offices, balancing stuff). Beyond that, CCP isn't trying to cram everything into a single, giant patch anymore, so as long as a feature is out before summer they'll say it was part of the winter expansion.

Planetary GenocideOct 21, 2011
Well, they did claim that most of that 20% was on the WoD project...

tbh I think if they just drop all the Incarna shit they're working on they could probably do all this, but then people accuse them (yet again) of dropping a released feature to work on new shiny shit. At least this time it's stuff that players actually want, for the most part, but still.
Ash RossenOct 21, 2011
So...time dilation. If time is moving at 33% or 50% (or anything less than 100%) and time outside that area is not dilated, what's top stop people warping out, charging/repairing, and jumping right back in? They'll be running at double (or triple) the actual time of anyone in a battle.
peegeeOct 22, 2011
You would have to jump out of system, which would, to say the least, be a big risk on a loaded node. I guess it's hypothetically possible, but you risk blackscreens, fail-to-load grid, node crashes etc by doing it en masse, it would outweigh the benefits of repping up out of system slightly quicker than your enemies could in system. Havin gjumped from a non-TiDi system into a TiDi one, I blackscreened and had to relog. I wouldn't advise it as a tactic.
Druur MonakhOct 22, 2011
I think CCP knows too well that they can't afford another Incarna debacle; so my hunch is that all the stuff they are announcing are things they are confident of delivering.

A few things may fall off the wagon in the last moment (that's the nature of software development), but even that won't be a problem if a) the rest is awesome, and b) they can provide a timeline for the things missing.

Personally I am less concerned with the winter expansion, than with what happens afterwards: not all new features will be balanced, and iteration (tm) will be required. Delivering on the follow-up will be the real litmus test.
Jonathan FergusonOct 22, 2011
Custom offices don't affect me. I'd be pissed if I was still doing PI in a WH though because it'll be griefer central now. But it's true to the nature of EVE so so be it.

The tier 3 battlecruisers are stupid. We have enough ships. This reminds me of every failed CCP idea. Add a 'shiny' to the game. Then forget about it. A solution in search of a problem. No thanks.

Implants on killmails is my favorite new thing. I might start PVPing in cheaper clones though.

I don't care about engine trails. My concern is lag. It better not cause it and if it does, the option to switch it off better be there.

I agree about liking what I hear. When it comes to CCP, hearing still means very little, though. Still a lot of stuff I'm not hearing: 'Aurum is gone.' 'We're devoting X additional teams to flying in space development.' 'We've banned X bots this month.' 'We've come up with such-and-such a solution to deal with the colossal ISK faucet we created known as Incursions.' 'We'd like to apologize to Mynxee and the rest of CSM V for ignoring them.' 'We're not going to remove ABC from WH because that would be retarded.'

If I start hearing stuff like that, then my ears'll perk up. This stuff is just throwing a stale crust to a starving beggar. Yeah, he's happy to get it but he's still wondering 'Where's the beef?'
SeryOct 22, 2011
What Druur said, especially the part about iterating.

I don't find the list of features to be unrealistically large because the individual items are mostly either things they've already been working on (new BCs, time dilation) or stuff where most of the code is probably already written (player owned customs offices, balancing stuff). Beyond that, CCP isn't trying to cram everything into a single, giant patch anymore, so as long as a feature is out before summer they'll say it was part of the winter expansion.