*cheers* Matt Firor (former DAoC producer) leaves Mythic

…to start a brand new studio, it seems. (another one? yay?)

While Lum seems to pay his tribute, as if he owed him a favor.

I don’t really have much to comment since I know nothing about this last event, nor I know how he worked or if he was doing a good work. My impression from DAoC was actually positive about him. But wasn’t him between those strongly supporting “Imperator”?

Reasons? Paint me skeptical:

I know the Internet TRUTH BRIGADES are immediately streaming toward the Batforums with the tolling of doom for Mythic, but, like me, his move was more about location than anything else. Since marrying he was commuting on a daily basis from Hunt Valley, MD to Fairfax, VA. There’s only so much of that a wife will put up with.

I’ve never doubted of Lum’s frankness, this is a first.

Anyway, who cares? That’s the best decision he ever made. I wonder if he was between those applauding.

I can already see a number of Mythic developers following him and jumping ship. With the only difference that, in that case, it won’t be publicized.

Good luck with the new studio. It won’t be easy to start from zero all over again.

The Baldur’s Gate endless saga

I somewhat already anticipated what I was going to do. Beside fiddling with Triton and Prey I spent a whole lot of time trying to figure out all the mods for the two Baldur’s Gate to be able to join them into one seamless game.

The new boxed set I ordered arrived on Monday, on two DVDs for each game and two CDs for each expansion. The choice was to use BG1 TuTu mod, that allows you to play the first Baldur’s Gate in the BG2 enhanced engine (640×480 doesn’t cut it anymore) and that seems slightly more popular or BGT – Baldur’s Gate Trilogy, that does the same thing but also merges the two games into one, with a seamless transition.

I decided to go with the second because I didn’t find significant differences between the two and also because I like that idea of the seamless transition.

(here begins the updated part)

The installation isn’t too complicated, but I had to repeat it a few times before getting it right and without errors. The first steps are standard:
– Custom install BG1 (install all components)
– Custom install ToTSC (install all components)
– UK Patch (5512)
– Start BG1, make your settings, create a character and make a quicksave with Q in Candlekeep
– Full install BG2 (different install directory than BG1)
– Total install ToB
– English patch (26498)
– Start BG2 and ToB, make your settings, create a character and after the autosave quit the game

(apply CD crack)

-After these installs open and edit the “baldur.ini” file from the BG1 directory to delete the references to the CDs. Make sure that your backup filename doesn’t end still in .ini (which will lead to errors, as I found out).

(the following two steps are to be done early to avoid conflicts with BGT)
– Install Ascension (1.4.23)
– Install BG2 Fixpack (v8)

– Install BGT (1.07)
– Run setup-GUI.exe
– Run setup-BGTMusic.exe

(after Baldur’s Gate Trilogy is installed you can delete the directory where you have installed the original BG1)

– Restored Textscreen Music (v7, two files – one with localized music files and one with the patch)
– Mini Quests and Encounters (bgge) (4.1) minor quests
– g3anniversary (v5) other quest to check
– Oversight (Just the Tougher Sendai patch) (v12)
– bg1npc (v17) banters for BG1
– bg1ub (v7) Unfinished Business, just added material cut from release and minor additions
– bg2ub (v18) Same as above, but for BG2
– scs (v12) Sword Coast Stratagems, enemy AI improvements for BG1
– BGTTweak (v8) Tweaks for BGT
– BG2_Tweaks (v7) Tweaks for BG2 (and 1)
– ItemUpgrade (v37)
– TacticsMod (v24) enemy AI improvements for BG2
– eSeries (v1.8) scripts for party
– DEFJAM (v6) experience adjustments to fit larger games

– There are also three other mods that I wanted to add, but that it is better to patch in only after the transition to BG2 to avoid possible conflicts (Banter pack, de’Arnise and NPC flirts).

All these mods/patches can be found on four sites:
BGT dir (BGT, restored textscreen, BGTTweak)
WeiDU page (Ascension, Item Upgrade, Tactics)
Gibberlings3 (BG2 fixpack, mini quests, g3anniversary, bg1npc, scs, BG2 Tweaks, eSeries)
PocketPlane (de’Arnise, Unfinished Business 1&2, flirt&banter packs, DEFJAM)

Check the weidu log I added for details about which parts I used.

( here ends the updated part, May 5 2009)

I dared to set the XP mod so that monster only give 25% of their experience, no xp for learning spells, 25% for thievery actions and 50% for the quests. Since I intend to keep the difficulty at “core rules” I wouldn’t mind some challenge considering that it’s quite easy to get too powerful (and the bored) in these kinds of game.

I have all set up nicely right now (I included the WeiDU log if you want to see my install in detail, but I’m far from being an expert). I played the very beginning and it all works nicely. The only problem is that new version of the mods come out often, with more bugfixing and features, but it seems that upgrading your install isn’t so simple and you even risk to have to restart from the very beginning in a few cases, if there are certain changes. So when you start you are sort of stuck with what you have, and hope everything will be okay till the very end.

Now the only problem is about having enough time to play the whole saga from the beginning to the very end. That’s a considerable chunk of real life ;p

EPIX!

(I wonder if I like more to setup/research things more than actually playing. Like with Linux, I used to spend lot of time playing with Debian and tweaking everything to perfection. But at the end I never really *used* anything. It just sat there being pretty and polished. Duh.)

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Prey – Great game and “inventions” but impaired on a few levels

Prey is officially out and I had to struggle with Triton (digital download) but I finally managed to make it work, even if there are still some problems with that client. For me, still thousands times better than retail since I hate translated games over here and ordering a copy at release from Play.com would always mean having to wait about a week for the copy to be delivered.

So, despite the flaws, the digital download will be always my choice. And not only. If a game is available on digital download it is also more likely that I decide to purchase it.

There are three basic advantages:
– Being able to play right the minute the game is released. Sometimes with the possibility to preload
– Avoid to wait about one week for the delivery, and/or having to pay for the shipment (which can be more expensive than the game itself)
– Can pick the language/version you want

With the game out the most heated debate everywhere is about how long it is and if it’s worth the price. As always the playtime varies considerably, but most people agree clocking it at about 10 scarce hours. Some people finished it in around seven, some even less than five. The demo with the first five levels was about one hour of play. In my first run I spent there more than two hours, while in a second, sperimental run I finished it in less than half an hour, also considering all the narrated parts that slow you down quite a bit. So you can imagine how the playtime can vary so much.

On Q23 this spawned a discussion about “quantity” and “quality”. My opinion is that, in particular in this kind of FPS, quality and quantity are deeply interconnected.


The point is that a “quality” FPS is about offering a fun experience through visceral, frenetic combat. Quality and quantity, with this kind of games, are EXTREMELY interconnected.

That “FEAR” that people praise was almost ALL filler content. It looks all made with the same art assets with nearly zero “level design”. You exit a room and enter another that it’s exactly the same.

But the game was fun, supposedly even long.

So the point is that the quality of the FPS also leads to quantity. FEAR had an AI system so satisfying that it didn’t need much else to entertain for a good period of time. Even if the locations finish to be all the same, the combat is so involving that people do not care.

What matters is the support for fun variations IN the gameplay. If the gameplay is complex and deep enough, then it will be easier to make a long game that doesn’t feel just redundant.

Now this thread is about Prey. Prey, beside setting and story, is about the introduction of new interesting mechanics, such as wall walking, gravity flipping and portal technology.

So, guess what? This technology was thought and introduced for ONE REASON: add variations.

See? See how the discussion about quality and quantity is so deeply interconnected, in particular when Prey is the subject?

The point is: Prey introduces a technology so powerful that you can do a WHOLE LOT with it without making the game feel repetitive. It’s a support for variation. It’s an “enabler” for content. Good, fun content is only possible when in the game the technology has built-in support for a good variation. It is ALL about that.

That’s what is relevant discussing. If Prey is too short it will be disappointing not because of “pacing”. But because the game had the support for a long and involving game. They have the right resources.

And it is even more interesting discussing how strong is the technology behind. Because while the implementation of the new possibilities seems solid and powerful, I still didn’t see ANY MONSTER being aware of it. Monsters cannot use gravity flipping because they just die, monsters have limited movement, monsters don’t walk in/out wall walking pads, monsters seem to use portals only when scripted.

Now take these limits. Work on the technology so that the AI makes those mobs use seamlessly those possibilities like a player. Voila.

The game can easily now double its length because there’s now support for a lot more FUN variations.

And that’s, really, the point.


That’s a premise to what I wanted to say. I’ve already written my opinion about the demo and all the details about the innovative ideas it introduces (links here). I think I was right on those points but there’s to consider the potential behind those ideas and see if the implementation betrayed them or not. As I said it’s all about having support for variation. A FPS is a game that relies heavily on the technology because (before Half-Life) the game was all about the mechanics and possible variations. So the engine was directly an “enabler” for content.

The basic point is that the design is completely powerless if the engine doesn’t support interesting patterns. So this is why with this kind of games there’s always a very strong tie between abstract game design and the technical realization. In fact the technical realization IS the game design of the game. Technical execution above all, sophisticated graphic engines. In particular in a game like Prey where it is the use of the new possibilities to make the game stand out among the competition.

While I’m still not very far from the point where the demo ends, I was still able to recognize some limits and some design choices that I think do not let the game express itself fully.

The problem about the game design is probably the one that could have been fixed easily and it’s about the “death walk”. Tom Chick describes it best, so I’ll quote:

Prey manages to keep moving at a steady clip. It helps that you never had to save or reload, thanks to a gimmick called “deathwalking,” which is apparently the Cherokee ability to die, visit limbo for about 10 seconds, and then just pick up where you left off. And it actually works pretty well. Prey has its share of boss fights, most of them clustered unceremoniously at the end, and deathwalking is a great way to circumvent the hassle of getting stuck at a really hard part. Plug away long enough at any fight in Prey, and you’re going to prevail.

The design goal behind this idea was about preserving the “flow” that was usually broken by encouraging the players to save/reload often. In some cases we have seen games with no saves and just checkpoints for similar reasons, but that choice has always been criticized. Prey has a much better solution since now the action never breaks or stops and you play from the beginning to the end without having to worry about repeating a fight just because you haven’t executed it in a optimal way. Similarly to a mmorpg, you are projected forward and the mistakes aren’t something that forces a repetition, but are instead incorporated in the gameplay. In a word: no downtime.

That solution has a problem, though. The “death walk” goes very close to a god mode. Dying has absolutely no penalty and you can keep respawning as many times you want. It is quite obvious that, while the action is continue, the combat encounters are trivialized since you aren’t required to fight well or “fear” anything. But just to persist. There’s nothing to “win” or solve, which makes the game feel a bit cheap.

My opinion is that this mechanic could have been implemented better, and it could have even helped to make the game last a bit longer, since its scarce duraction is also due to the way the death was handled. Without anything holding you back, the game is even too much straightforward. My idea is how I actually expected the system to work.

Proposed “death walk” changes

– (Normal difficulty) Instead of just respawning the player, all the monsters spawned and still alive would have their hit points completely restored.
– (Nightmare difficulty) Add consequent power-ups to the monsters (hitpoints or resistence) after each consequent death of the player in a short time span (a minute should be good).

This is a simple change that wouldn’t disrupt the original idea (not breaking the action), but that would still require some attention during combat, because if you don’t kill the monsters then you’ll be back with them fully healed (at standard difficulty), or even stronger (at “nightmare”). Combat, and then more combat without downtime. But combat that would be meaninful, instead of just redundant.

Sadly that’s not the way Prey works and it’s one element that ruins the game for me. The other solution wouldn’t have been much harder to implement and it would also have given the “nighmare” difficulty a lot more appeal. As it is currently in the game the only difference is that there is no healing around the levels and that the monsters do more damage when they hit you. Which doesn’t really add anything particularly interesting or fun.

That’s the first problem. The second problem is instead a structural one and that is about the interdependence between technology and design I pointed out above. So it’s a significant limit in the game that cannot be easily solved.

While the new gimmicks suck as the dimensional portals, wall walking and gravity flipping are interesting *for the player*, I was disappointed to discover that the monsters are completely “blind” about them. In the cases they use them actively it seems just as result of a script and not of a seamless, spontaneous interaction.

In particular I observed that monsters cannot see you through a portal and they usually just keep shooting into it at the direction you entered it. So if you can put a portal between you and them you can exploit this by shooting at the right angle without getting hit back.

Now join these observations with what I wrote above and you can arrive at the conclusion. Those new mechanics that Prey introduces are definitely interesting (old post) but they still have to face the limit of the lack of real interaction. They are passive objects because the monsters still “understand” only a very simple, flat space. So still suck to a 3D trick as the original engine that powered Duke Nukem 3D. In my review of the demo I complained about the staticity of the mosters and I fear that was the obligatory solution they had to made to avoid those mosters to get stuck in odd behavious due to the new elements that Prey has and that the monsters still do not understand.

That limit I described about the monsters being “blind” against a portal is more significant than how it appears since it basically forbids a level designer to use two-ways portals in a combat situation. Exactly when they could offer fun and interesting variations in the game.

So all those ideas are meant to add variations, but while the team did a great work with the rendering engine to make all that possible, they still hit against the wall of the monster AI. Because it is probably too hard at this point to “teach” the AI how to use those devices and understand a different kind of space. So cutting consistently on their real potential and “faking” the gameplay through the smart use of scripting.

Prey is a wonderful game, but at the same time it exposed some weaknesses that, when solved, will surely power the games of tomorrow.

Woot

Italy won the world cup!

People are going crazy since soccer is the most followed and practiced sport over here. Deeply rooted in the culture. The match was surreal, with Zidane losing his mind and everything. During the second half France was definitely prevailing, they kept the ball most of the time and continued to attack restlessly. But the reality is that Italy had the very best defence in the world. That’s undeniable. In the whole tourney they didn’t suffer any goal coming from a normal action, just the own goal in the harsh match with the USA and penalty kicks, nothing else. So they won by defending and with some luck occasions here and there.

I’m not really a sport enthusiast but I watched all the matches. For some reason I “felt” a lot more the semifinal with Germany, that was also a better match to see. This one I was more detached. But still glad.

Btw, how comes that the great majority of France’s players are black people?

(I guess it’s time to go back writing about games?)

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Mark Jacobs should seriously stop with the interviews

No comment.

GameSpy: What was your team’s reaction when they found out? Was there any sort of unanimous sentiment?

Mark Jacobs: Recently, I talked to the entire company and gave them the scoop on the deal and our future. When I finished, the company delivered an extremely robust round of applause with personal congratulations afterward. It is safe to say that Mythic, as a company, is behind what we did, how we did it, and what the future holds.

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A fun exchange of opinions about “voice chat”

I’ve written about “voice chat” in the past (1, 2, 3, 4) and pointed it as a danger for these games. The danger isn’t its use, but its imposition on all the players. Simply put: another process of exclusion. Another barrier used to discriminate.

It can be “optional”, but in a game with support for it, if you don’t use it you are excluded by other players.

The sad part is that I see this process (toward voice chat) as something that cannot be fought back. So, while the rants and dangers can be justified, it’s still something to which you’ll have to adapt.

Yes, voice chat can be a slight advantage and, yes, players will always take the shorter route to the carrot. But it is still not *required*. It’s an ease of use, it helps trivializing some forms of content and transform other players in just puppets. That’s why 5-man instances can be so much more fun. The players can regain their will and play the game in “first person”, instead of being there just to be a number and hit a button when yelled at.

Brainwashing could make some production processes more efficient, it’s true. But brainwashing doesn’t really lead to competence or people who are really good at what they are doing.

Voice chat can “compensate” for the presence in the group of some very bad, careless or distracted players. But it doesn’t really help to make them better ones.

From the latest thread on FoH’s.


Zehn – Vhex: One of the chief aspects about Vent I really like is that I don’t have to keep scanning the chat box. Anything that helps me spend less time staring at components of the UI and more time watching the game is a good thing. That’s why I have pretty much every ability with a cooldown tied to a sound to play when it refreshes. I’ve known many mages who rely on the sound the netherwind bonus or clearcasting makes.

Voice is becoming more and more important in WoW simply because you don’t have the time to type shit out. I miss the days of having our guild leader type, “JSSUFHCKING CHRIST SOMNE TANK THS SHTI” when a mob gets out of control…but I welcome the days of him screaming over vent, “You fucking cocksuckers need to go learn how to dodge the giant fucking red beam” with open arms.


Abalieno: Yeah, laziness.

As in that example, like if it wasn’t obvious enough that the mob gets out of control and should get tanked. If your players suck, it’s another problem. The voice chat can be an help to babysit people, but again it’s just not *required*. Its advantage is a false one because it requires maybe less attention from each player. But it’s something that you can easily compensate with some attention.

Let’s say this. Flipping the difficulty of the game to “easy” doesn’t mean that the game was impossible otherwise. Just that you settled for something slightly simpler because you are lazy, don’t want to pay attention to a chat box, don’t want to learn coordination, don’t expect awareness from all players, don’t expect them to take initiative and so on.

Voice chat works for “herding”. It isn’t really necessary if your players are competent and are really trying to learn the game. Which, then, it’s about ALL the fun you can have in the game.

Executing commands without even understanding them is what makes raiding so absolutely dull, pointless and unfun. You are just a puppet and the true challenge of the game is one: stay awake.


EmiliaEQ: And a God Send blessing for Fucktards.
Because now those fucktards will have their fucktardness hidden.

Want a simple example ? Chromaggus

CTRaid Emote : AE Fire DoT INC in 10 Seconds
TS/Vent (Raid Leader) : 10 Secs to AE ! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE

Do you need TS/Vent to dodge the AE ? Nope.
Hell i remember people using stopwatches with EQ (hella lot harder)

Who’s willing to bet there is more than a handfull of players that couldnt dodge the AE without TS/Vent.

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Diablo 2’s fun core mechanic was discovered in 1981

Just an observation I made on Q23 on a thread discussing the recently released Titan’s Quest along with the unavoidable comparisons with Diablo 2. The thread is particularly interesting because one of the game designers is there discussing and explaining how they arrived at some of the solutions, also taking suggestions and critics (which is also a good demonstration of what I wrote here).

Anyway, beside the loot system and the mood/setting of Diablo 2 (graphic, animations, sounds effects and all), what really made it “fun” was the visceral gameplay. It was rather fast paced and action packed, and you got to fight droves of monsters all at once, often mixed types. To the point that most gameplay is about pure slaughter and “crowd control”.

And while other elements are kind of obvious and universally recognized, it’s the crowd control that is one strong element. I compare it to Qix, that classic game where you need to draw and close rectangular areas in a finite space till you reached a certain percent of completition.

In those massive battles in D2 you didn’t just had to click on every monster. In fact the important mechanic, the “fun” one, wasn’t clicking quickly, but it was the movement. In this game you had to constantly move on the screen, trying to “circumnavigate” the monsters to prevent them to surround you and trap you without a possibility to escape. D2 was ALL about movement. Territorial. The moment where you were trapped and couldn’t move anymore, you were dead.

Which is also (not a case) a basic gameplay pattern used in God of War, another game not short on “fun”.

I write this also because this draws a sharp line between those games and that kind of “visceral” gameplay patterns, and mmorpgs. In mmorpgs “movement” is often irrelevant. It can have a role in the group-play but it isn’t really used for what it is. In a mmorpg you cannot try to circumnavigate the monsters or use terrain and distance to your own advantage. It’s just not something part of the combat mechanics. It’s completely missing. If you are fighting against a group of monsters you cannot move around them so that you can manage to hit and get hit just by only one of them, because “distancing” is not an available mechanic (if not when you are fleeing) and with no collision detection all the mosters will stack one on top of the other.

Another proof of what I’m saying: I think in Diablo 2 most of the mosters moved *slower* than you. Again to let you exercize your movement superiority. If you didn’t have the possibility to move “faster”, then the circumnavigating patterns and “space managment” (or how the hell you want to call it) couldn’t have been possible.

In a mmorpg all that is missing. Everything is “intangible”. You swing your weapon at the air, you don’t see your enemy recoil, you cannot “reach and touch”, you cannot push. There is no contact. And, in the end, there is no space. And “space” is an extremely strong element of our reality and perception, so obligatory for a game to be “fun”.

Remember that it was not the clickfest to be fun in D2. And that mmorpgs are “not so fun” because they are “nerfed” on some founding values.

(then it would be interesting to discuss possible solutions to minimize that innate limit, since the connection latency will always prevent a direct fix)

Eve-Online to add potions, socketed items and the Auction House

I’ve read in the past that the auctions in WoW could be considered a form of player-driven questing (“bring me three gems and I’ll give you three gold coins”), I’ve also imagined a reversed system where the crafters don’t just have an unified marketplace, but where the buyers post orders directly (the consignment system) that then the crafters can take and fulfill. It would be a system more driven by the demand than the offer and that I think would be more usable.

One of the main features of Kali (Eve’s next expansion that will be delivered in smaller chunks along the next months) is a “Contract System” that seems to unify some of those ideas.

But let’s go in order. In the last weeks the devs have been quite prolific with their blogging and have released more details about what they are working on. I’m going to parse the interesting bits.

To begin with, the first Kali “chunk” should be still on track for a September release. It is unsure if it will include even some updates to the graphic engine that are almost ready or if they’ll deliver them all at once at a later date.

Before this first patch that is going to add some significant new features there will be another one that, I suppose, should be out for mid/end of July. Its content wasn’t really specified:

One of the first thing we’re considering to do is release our Dragon code branch to Tranquility. Currently you are in the Red Moon Rising/Blood code branch. Dragon is the branch which has the localization and translation framework, tons of improvements, optimizations and a couple of minor features. This is the code branch currently running on Serenity in China and is approaching a release state.

The reasons to release it are numerous. We want to seperate it from the first Kali release to minimize risk. The Dragon branch contains a lot of refactoring and rewriting of code and we don’t want to be troubleshooting that at the same time as the new big features in Kali 1. The second is that it contains previously mentioned optimizations. These are general improvements rather than any specific thing. It also allows us to concentrate our testing efforts on current core functionality.

So they split the patch in two even here. A first part to be delivered within the next few weeks with general tweaks and improvements and another one still slated for September that will plug in the game some of the new features planned for “Kali”.

What are these new features?

In the recent dev blogs they have written about Combat Boosters, System Scanning, Invention & Reverse Engineering, Salvaging & Ship Rigging and the Contract System.

The “Combat Boosters” are supposed to be something tailored for experienced PvP players that have access to high-end resources. Even if there will be different kinds of boosters, more or less accessible, I believe that even the simplest version isn’t something that will be simple to obtain.

From their description they will be temporary bonuses (think about potions) that may trigger negative side-effects if you are unlucky (random dice rolls). The goal is: “Ideally, they would not be so powerful that everyone wants to have them to PvP but good enough so they are worth manufacturing”.

From a design point of view I’m not sure how adding an higher degree of randomness can add to the fun (not having control is frustrating), but these combat boosters are supposed to be occasional and slightly situational, so they may still fill a role in combat that is appropriate instead of disruptive. Though they also say that the effects should last “hours”, which would lead to another frustrating mechanic if a player is unlucky and triggers some nasty negative effects without any way to purge them. One thing is about using them *during combat*, with the effect lasting some minutes. Another is having them as an incentive to min/maxing BEFORE combat, trying to get the optimal result and only then move out to look for the action. So I really do hope they change this part of the design to make these boosters more situational.

If you think about it, this could lead to similar issues of buffbotting, where players never move out to fight till they are all full buffed and ready. The real point is about designing these booster to be in-combat items instead of preemptive out-of-combat setups. And this can only happen if the duration expires in the arc of a few minutes at max.

As I said it doesn’t look like these items will be easily available for all players. To manufacture even the simple booster you need to be in 0.0 space (open PvP area) and have access to a player-driven starbase with the modules to create boosters active. Plus ingredients that are again only available in 0.0 special regions (COSMOS).

System Scanning will lead to changes to the UI and changes to the gameplay. There should be a new “seamless” map that allows you to zoom out of the whole universe and in till inside a solar system.

The new feature about the System Scanning is also related to the addition of new things to discover (they call this “exploration”). To scan a solar system for these new “objects” you’ll need to deploy probes. Before you needed three of them: “three probes to create a pizza-alike triangle to find objects within”. With the new system each probe will work as a “singleton”, with two statistics: scan radius, scan strength. With a possibility of mistakes (inaccuracy) depending on the stats of the probe and the stats of the object to find.

With the new seamless map you’ll also be able to monitor the probes radiuses. And they also merged the types of objects to scan into only five categories. So, concretely, usability changes and some new content added.

Invention & Reverse Engineering. Reverse Engineering won’t be in the September patch, while Invention will. The two should still be somewhat related.

They are quite original ways to toy with the crafting process. New interesting and definitely appropriate (for the setting) patterns. Reverse Engineering will let you “break” an item to study it, with the possibility to figure out its recipe. While “Invention” is a type of research made through new skills and modules that lets you discover higher quality recipes by studying basic modules (from T1 to T2 tech).

Even here it is unsure how much they will be accessible. “Invention” will depend on a side-profession that is only available in special systems (COSMOS), while the other component should be simpler to get since it is acquired by running research missions (then it depends on the level of the mission, I guess).

Salvaging & Ship Rigging. Even here the system is curious because inspired directly to Diablo’s socketed items/jewelcrafring that will also be one main feature of WoW’s first expansion. Each ship will have some free slots: “T1 ships will be given 2 slots for ship modification and T2 ships get 3 slots”. Then you can plug “rigs”/jewels into these slots, that will be permanent and won’t be removed anymore. To craft “rigs”/jewels you’ll need a new skill/profession (“salvaging”) that will be used on the “wrecks” of the enemy ships you destroy to extract those materials that you’ll need in the manufacturing process.

The other interesting part of this new feature is that the ships won’t leave anymore just a loot container when they explode, but a more realistic “wreck”. Quoting:

This feature has me pretty excited because it addresses one thing that’s always bugged me about EVE. When your ship blows up a pristine can floats in space with some modules inside it. This immersion breaking feature will be no more when Kali1 hits. When your ship blows up a smoldering wreck will be left behind. The wreck will have a few modules intact of course but will also have other items of value only extractable by a skilled salvager.

Due to technical / architectural constraints on the client and server, most of the ways that you could do individual wreck models for each ship type would be bad (inability to preload in warp / type spam in the DB / increased disk access / extra CPU load ).

It’s likely that we’ll see something like a wreck type per race and class, ie. “Amarr Cruisers”. It’s a fact of life that we have to evaluate everything not just by how neat an idea it is, but also by the practicality of implementation (in game design, typically a wider self-critical analysis as well) in ways that can be inscrutable from the outside – lots of nice ideas return from that fight somewhat worse for wear.

And finally the “Contract System”. This one will have a significant role when the Factional Warfare will arrive in the game next year, since it will be the backbone of the new, “automated”, mission system. But already this September it should have a relevant impact on the organization of players’ corporations and the interaction outside, toward other players.

The latest news is what I’ve anticipated above, they will integrate the new mission system with a type of orders that look exactly like WoW’s Auction House. See this image. You have “Current Bid”, “Buyout Price”, owner of the order and a vague “Time Left” definition as in WoW. The only two differences I notice aren’t so small, though. The first is that in your auction you can bundle different items together instead of just one (or stacks of the same type) as in WoW, the second is that the AH in WoW is an unified place and items are delivered right into your mailbox, just a few meters away. In Eve the “Auction House” should be just an interface, always accessible (in WoW you have to walk to it), but where you need then to travel to the system where the item is located if you want it, instead of have it delivered to you (time for automated NPC transport systems?).

My first worry is that this could overlap with Eve’s complex market structure. I’m not sure how this new Auction House fits with the way the current market works and which role it will take. So I see this as a risk and CCP should be careful to implement such a thing.

Despite the possible problems it is quite interesting to see the devs taking ideas from a game so different from Eve. We have potions, jewelcrafting and the Auction House, all perfectly adapted and integrated that they may finish to feel more appropriate in Eve than in WoW. As I said there’s a risk about the AH, but the rest looks like solid design and not just a mess that contradicts the premises of the game, trying to steer it in a direction that doesn’t belong to it.

Oh, and don’t forget the BattleGrounds, that should become a reality the next year, with the arrive of the Factional Warfare.

Again CCP seems committed to let the game develop as it needs, focusing all their resources and reinvesting on it. Doing a very good work in particular with that seventh commandment that is so important for these kind of games and that CCP respected better than everyone else in the mmorpg space till today.

While a menacing cloud appears on the horizon:

As long as there are players playing EVE, we’ll be there evolving it, but we also have plans for world domination, like all respectable game developers have (right?) so there will be other titles.

Please don’t be so stupid. Do not ruin the recipe for success that you used till now. Don’t throw everything away like that. Don’t start to sound exactly like every other, clueless mmorpg producer.

I fear the success they are currently having will ruin things in the end.

And you know, I would love to write these kinds of comments about a bunch of juicy features every few weeks even for other mmorpgs, but it looks like CCP has no competition on this front. Everyone else is asleep.

About The Commandments

I’m impressed.

And I personally like #1 (masterpiece), #4 (the “why all is as it is” part), #7 (the idea of “cultivation”) and #10 (because it’s just true).

I’m starting to seriously think that #8 is overestimated (edit: Oh, and Matt agrees). People are picking Raph too much on that one.

Not much else to add. He wrote something that I suspect will be quoted a whole lot. which, I guess, was the point (and a risk, when they will be used against him as blunt weapons).

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