First of all, Star Citizen is not an MMO. It is a game that will have a single-player and multi-player components. The multi-player component does not automatically mean MMO, even if the multi-player component lives in what the designers are calling a persistent world. Hell, their FAQ even flat-out states that their game is not an MMO.
MMOs are not developed with single-player play in mind. Nor are they developed with modding in mind. Nor are they developed with private servers in mind.
The scope of this game is nothing even approaching the scale of EVE Online. It shouldn't be part of the conversation, but somehow has entered the conversation.
If Star Citizen is even released (and I would bet 2015 as a more realistic target date, rather than their optimistic summer 2014 target), I'm sure people will be excited. I'm sure people will play it. I'm sure playtime in EVE will be lost to Star Citizen for awhile. In terms of it being an actual competitor to EVE Online, I'm also sure it will be a great disappointment to all those EVE players who are looking for it to be their space MMO saviour.
Star Citizen will not have the scale or the scope of EVE. (Apparently they are shooting for 100 star systems.) That's a bare fraction of what EVE offers. Sure, there could be gameplay options that EVE does not offer, such as planetary exploration, but those options will be limited. I very much doubt the entire geography of a planet will be open to exploration. (That is certainly technically possible, but is it feasible given their developmental time constraints?)
It will not have sandbox appeal. Persistence does not translate into open-endedness or freeform gameplay. If anything, this game will move more towards theme-park style play. The developer's previous games have had linear storylines and quest systems (Starlancer, Freelancer, Wing Commander), so he's apt to return to that well. It's what he's familiar with in terms of development.
As a persistent game, the ability to transform the play environment, to conquer, to hold territory, is going to be limited. Game companies are generally very careful on this front. They fear the possibility of successful players actually gating areas of the game from newer, less successful players. Chris Roberts has expressed his dislike of "griefing", which is really just shorthand for players being able to affect the gameplay of others. A sandbox does not seek to eliminate certain types of interactions between players, it might seek to limit or penalize certain interactions, but never to eliminate them. It seems apparent that a great many possible player-to-player interactions will be eliminated outright. A sandbox requires there be consequences to actions, that players have real affect on other players. Chris Roberts dislike for certain types of sandbox gameplay negates Star Citizen ever being a sandbox game.
Based on interviews, it would seem that Chris Roberts' idea of persistence revolves around story. Complete quests, the game's story trajectory changes. Of course, this is a form of roleplaying, and story trajectory is so much just making stuff up. And then rationalizing why Y happened after X was completed. A story that sort of makes sense can be concocted for any set of scenarios, when the real reason why Y happened is because it was already in development, so it was going to happen no matter what.
Does it need mentioning that the only discussion of combat so far for this game has been of the arena battle variety? Again, not a sandbox concept. Not too mention shunting PvP off as almost an afterthought. The developer talks of PvP settings, and avoiding PvP if that's not gameplay you desire. This is definitely theme park gameplay, and not sandbox gameplay. Most of the focus on this game seems to be on NPC encounters. Any game that shunts PvP into instanced "arenas" has already determined that PvP is not going to be a focus of design or development.
There's talk of instancing. So, whereas exist in a single galaxy, that's only true to a point. If your group is large enough, you travel instanced, never seeing anybody else in game, but your pals. And I suspect a large number of players will simply run their own private servers. Carebears really do not much like playing with others, at least not being negatively affected by others. They don't mind cooperative play, but they'll get that on their own private servers with their pals, who they already know and trust. Carebears aren't keen on interacting with the random, unwashed masses.
The economy is, perhaps, the only potentially promising part of this game. The goal is to support all players in one persistent-universe, which immediately lends itself to a functioning economy. That said, his dislike of players interfering with other players will lean the result towards a runaway economy. Not being able to interfere with other players means any real loss that players can (and should) experience is kept to a bare minimum. I expect inflation will be a huge problem within a short while. Money in Star Citizen becomes a scoreboard tally, not something that becomes fluid with the economy. Without frequent real loss, the economy will simply inflate. The only way to keep it propped up, especially given the lack of consequence Chris Robert's says he prefers in his multiplayer games, is to hit the player with a constant barrage of "gold" sinks.
Granted, all of this is supposition of my own. But I am taking into account the developer's historical track record in game design and comments he's made on his vision for the game. Roberts is known for a particular type of game, and sandbox does not fall into his sphere of influence.
There's also the possibility that this game never evolves beyond vapourware, and that Kickstarter supporters have just been throwing their money into a hole. I personally believe something called Star Citizen (what an unfortunate name for a game) will be released, sometime after 2014, but will it live up to expectations? It's certainly not going to be what a lot of EVE Online players hope it will be.
I realize a lot of what I've said here has been negative sounding. But that's only from the perspective of people who are expecting Star Citizen to be something other than what it is advertising itself to be. It's baffling how so many EVE Online players have been mistaking this game as some sort of competitor to EVE Online, especially when it seems so obvious to me that it lives in a completely different gaming genre. Sure, they're both sci-fi, but that seems to be the only similarity, it's all differences beyond that.
Star Citizen might be a great game. It'll probably be a game I'd like to play. It'll probably offer a few months of interesting distraction, something new to get involved with. But it won't be a replacement to EVE Online. Not by a long shot. CCP has nothing much to worry about from Star Citizen. That is for sure.
but it will have joystick support and therefore is an eve killer.
ReplyDeleteIf you want real-time flight control in EVE, then you have to greatly limit the number of people (and objects) allowed on a grid.
DeleteEve is not about space ships, its about people. A virtual economy, massive conflict, towering wealth and intoxicating corruption: these are the things that drive Eve Online.
DeleteYes, it's in space. Yes, the spaceships are pretty (unless you're Caldari). But what Eve is really all about is banding together for survival and seizing opportunities to thrive.
Chris Roberts' vision is more immediate: the thrill of combat, the joy of skill. Perhaps more strategy will emerge than is immediately clear, but I doubt it will even approach what Eve Online is.
I hope that Cloud Imperium has learned something from CCP. And I hope that they borrow many things from Eve, but as Poetic already pointed out: twitch games limit the amount of people on grid. You simply can't have the tapestry of human chaos that Eve provides with a game so fundamentally different than Eve.
"The developer's previous games have had linear storylines and quest systems (Starlancer, Freelancer, Wing Commander), so he's apt to return to that well. It's what he's familiar with in terms of development."
ReplyDeleteWing Commander Privateer was VERY 'open-ended, free-form' gameplay. In fact, if he made an MMO that was pretty much WCPriv Online, he'd nail what EVE _should_ be in one shot.
(Hint: your actions would matter to NPC space as well, to a MUCH greater extent -- the depth of player influence would extend far beyond The SovLands or who's "occupying" FW-lands)
You mean he would made a grittier, cooler......WoW. You obviously have no idea what goes into a game like Eve. The difference in magnitude between his previous efforts and Eve are massive.
DeleteHaving said that, I have a lot of faith that he can create a great game, just don't expect it to have staying power like Eve.
@Anonymous
DeleteAgreed. It has the potential to be a great single-player, and limited multi-player game.
I'm simply arguing that anybody who thinks this game will be an EVE killer, they are drinking some whack Kool-aid.
@Hong
DeletePoetic makes a very fair point in saying he likes to do stories though, he recently had an interview with TotalBiscuit in which this was brought up and he really likes doing the stories.
As I understand it, his idea of a persistent world will be one with expansions that push the story forward. His example in this was a spin-off campaign in which you enlist as a soldier and in the larger universe this spin-off campaign would become part of the lore and impact the world.
He also commented how a lot of the spin-offs and some of the sequals where games he was not directly involved with. So while I'm not sure, it could very well be that WC Privateer was not one of his own. But regardless, from that interview it very much seems that star citizen will be story driven.
Also, in the 'open world' space sim world there has been X for a long time. X is a better "eve" then eve will ever be. But it's single player.
As long as there isn't a sandbox space sim that's actually an mmo, eve has no competition.
OK. First question: are any of you OLD enough to have played the first WC Privateer? Judging by the comments, you guys had to go Wiki it real quick. ;-)
DeleteIf EVE was HALF of what WCPriv was, translated to an "MMO" model:
1) You'd be able to JOIN a pirate faction. The militias, CONCORD, etc would then appear to you as little red crosses, and your pirate faction would appear as gray ones, and would NOT aggress you.
2) There'd be no "insta-blap CONCORD". With fast enough ships with sufficient DPS, you could conduct a gank and escape with loot in your hold, BEFORE CONCORD arrived. 2b) Even if CONCORD got there because you were slow, stupid, didn't bring enough DPS, etc ... they wouldn't perma-jam and insta-blap. You could tank them, even fight them off for a while, though they would just keep showing up and in greater numbers with bigger ships.
3) The "static" game universe ... wouldn't be. Whether you were a hisec bear with your head up your ass in an NPC corp in the middle of hisec, or a FW type out on the fringes, things would change. System sec statuses would fluctuate gradually, a HISEC system on the border between 2 warring factions might just change hands, and that change would be much more meaningful than a linky-name at the top left corner of the screen. Yes, even to carebears. Lowsec stations and nullsec outposts would be destructible, and require defense lest people log on in the clone vat of the nearest 'friendly' station with med bays, minus all the stuff they had there.
Also, I'd like to point out that "grittier, cooler .... WoW [in space]", is pretty much exactly what many EVE players themselves have said about EVE, and to a degree, I'm included in that number.
tl;dr: I stand by what I said. I know there was a project to re-create the original WC Privateer for the modern Windows OSes, though I don't know if it ever made it through to completion. If it has, then all of you questioners, and all the CCP Devs, should go play it at length, and experience for yourselves exactly what I'm talking about.
interesting comment - "what eve should be"
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly is that?
I think there should just be an entirely separate server cluster for toggle based flight in Eve Online and allow players to fly fighters. On Eve, they're just small little blips that move around, but on their cluster, it's all engaging and in your face.
ReplyDeleteMeh, maybe one day, right up there with crews on ships.
You should get back involved with faction warfare. I'd really like a Roc Wieler killmail. :)
DeleteBehaviour Interactive to work on Star Citizen. Behaviour is known for their movie tie-in games, like Dante's Inferno. The prospects for Star Citizen keep getting better and better.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviour_Interactive
A game does not need the number of star systems as EVE Online has, to offer more to do. In EVE, action happens at the star gates, followed far off by a few POIs in system. We do not know yet how systems will be populated in Star Citizen, but I expect a lot more sites in them to do stuff than what you would find in a typical EVE system. Also : there will be bars with exotic dancers off launch.
ReplyDeleteThe server technology they want to attempt in Star Citizen appears to me superior to EVE as well : a server is allocated per grid if two or more pilots cross paths in space. That scales better to the one-server-per-system model which CCP cannot move off of.
I'm still excited for Star Citizen, if only because I do in fact enjoy fighter-style piloting. I know it's not exactly an EVE-killer, but I will admit that my playing time in EVE (assuming I still play by the time SC comes out) will definitely be reduced by this.
ReplyDeleteAs the author of the linked article, I think I have every right to compare EVE Online to Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous. For me, they all appeal for the same reasons: they all offer (or plan to offer) freeform open-universe gameplay set in a futuristic space-based environment.
ReplyDeleteie. internet spaceships.
Of course there will be differences between the games, I even wrote that Star Citizen had the "most potential for 'theme park' game play, which could dilute the free-form sandbox concept." But I see this is a good thing. There's little point in delivering an identical product to one that already exists. In my article I took care to evidence facts based on historical evidence and by what has been presented by the developers.
All three games compared in my article clearly share the same lineage, a huge amount of design elements and I suspect a significant portion of the same fan-base. EVE Online designers have openly cited Elite as a primary inspiration and I'm sure Chris Roberts would say the same for his work. I also stated that I hope all three will be different enough to stand apart as viable alternatives within the sandbox space-sim genre.
There presently isn't any real alternative multiplayer space-sim so EVE Online became the only available game of its kind for those looking for an online persistent universe spaceship game.
Both Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen quite clearly fall into this category so I stand by my comparison, but thank you for linkage and your interesting, if slightly rabid, alternative view.
What exactly is rabid about it, other than I don't feel Star Citizen crosses over into enough of EVE Online's territory to even have a discussion on it being a competitor.
DeleteIt'll be a game that many EVE Online players will play, but I don't see it at all as a replacement. I don't even see it as being sandbox-like.
Well, since you ask...
DeleteYou have a tendency to deliver opinion and assumption as flat-out statements of fact with an underlying inflammatory tone. In many cases it's not exactly what you write, but how you write it. You communicate in instructions and demands and are very aggressive in your delivery. But I'm sure you're well aware of this, it's part of your schtick.
eg.
"they really need to stop bringing Star Citizen into that discussion" - No they don't. It's a discussion, people can bring in whatever opinion they like.
"Does anybody seriously believe...", well yes, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.
"Stop diluting the term sandbox" [from Twitter] - Um, no? I'll use it how I like thanks.
Whilst you are got an endless source of interesting well-written opinions, your delivery often means the message gets missed because the reader is too busy being irritated. But that's just my opinion - you carry on, it's part of your charm.
On an aside, you're spot on about Star Citizen's FAQ carefully positioning itself as "not an MMO" but their documentation also states it will be a "persistent universe" which will be "focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person". So it will be delivering many of the same things as EVE and Elite: Dangerous, granted with less of an emphasis on the "massively". A significant difference, granted. But not one that justifies your demands that EVE Online and Star Citizen should not be uttered in the same sentence.
I'm not going to preface every single sentence with "I think ..."
DeleteYes, we notice that on occasion. ;)
Delete(Joking - but the opening was too good to pass up)
"I'm not going to preface every single sentence with "I think ...""
DeleteDo you at least preface your posts with thinking? ;-)
jk, you know I luff joo, Stan.
Wrong that the game will be sharded (http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/chris-roberts-on-multiplayer-single-player-and-instancing/), although there will be a limit on how many people you can interact with at once in a combat scenario. But Star Citizen is going to be a much higher fidelity game than EVE, and as you pointed out in a comment above, you can either have real-time flight control or an unlimited number of people in a fight. You can't have both.
ReplyDeleteBased on what you're saying, I'm curious how much you've actually read about the game. You don't give any reasons or support for most of the claims you're making. Worse still, you state all of them as facts and then admit that "this is all your own supposition." Why do you think that most people will end up playing on private servers? What makes you think that the economy will be mostly NPC driven?
I think you vastly underestimate what the game will be able to accomplish. They've raised over $7 million with nothing more than a vision for their game, some artwork, and a badass cinematic trailer. And the game is being developed by someone whose vision for what computer games could be was more than a decade ahead of his time. The fact that you suggest that Star Citizen will remain nothing more than vaporware is laughable.
Star Citizen will be similar enough to EVE that it will attract a lot of EVE players. But it will be different enough that many of them will probably want to continue playing both games and won't see Star Citizen as just a 2-month distraction.
Thanks for that link and the additional information.
DeleteAfter reading that article, my opinion of Star Citizen is even lower. This sounds like a truly boring game. Instanced battle "arenas" for PvP? Instancing elsewhere (orbit's for example)? The economy is likely to fail into an inflationary mess.
Now I would be completely surprised if this game is not a complete failure.
Carebears cannot design sandboxes, because the can't stand the type of gameplay that even makes a sandbox what it is. Chris Roberts is definitely a carebear.
Therefore he is likely to entice carebears away from EVE. Possibly a good idea to a PVP-centric person, but is CCP going to think that when so many of their players fit that description? One-eyed views can be entertaining (I enjoy reading your posts) but not necessarily very accurate.
DeleteDisclaimer : My posts are written from a personal viewpoint and therefore do not represent the EVE community as a whole.
Oh, I know there'll be an immediate appeal from carebears for Star Citizen.
DeleteBut I also believe that a one-player game masquerading as a multi-player game will prove stale and dull and not particularly rewarding in the long run.
For all the complaining and "leave me alones" that carebears do in EVE, I also think they appreciate the danger and what-ifs that EVE Online possesses. You can't get that fear and thrill from a coddle-me theme park game.
You can't expect Star Citizen to launch as a complete MMO universe from day one - that would be extremely foolish, esp. given the initial funding. What you are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. If the launch is a well received as Chris expects, then further investment will fund a rapid expansion into many areas to make Star Citizen into the first truly sci-fi MMO, and not just a spaceship game.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, too, that CCP has had 10 years to develop EVE Online. The first years were exciting, and it was deservedly well-received, yet, in the past year or so, it has almost completely stalled out, development-wise - with regards to becoming a sci-fi MMO universe. The Incarna expansion was a major faux pas, and it is unknown if/when EVE Online will ever develop beyond just being a spaceship game. Some would even argue that CCP has actually taken several steps back, and is now focused more on making EVE Online into a PVP shooter and less of an MMO universe. This argument seems to be well supported by the last three expansions.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Never could understand folks who hold on to the past, and stubbornly & futilely attempt to pretend that the future isn't coming.
ReplyDeleteEVE Online has had its run, and it has been a good one. Since Incarna, however, CCP has finally lost its mojo, as well as its ability to attract more funding. Their last-ditch foray into the the console FPS domain isn't going to play out well, as everyone who has compared DUST to PS2 knows, and that will put an end to any further expansion plans at CCP. CCP is financially over-extended and unable to pay back what it already owes. Unfortunate and a bit disappointing, but nothing (except the Simpsons) lasts forever.
After six years of playing EVE (and yet never a bittervet), I'm ready to move on and I'm looking forward to Star Citizen becoming a success.
You're right that it's not a competitor to EVE. It's not intended to be one. The sharding mechanism intended to be used in it doesn't allow for massive space engagements or even reliably intercepting another ship, it is intended to be PvE friendly, which means that piracy is pretty close to out of the question and the "merchantman" role will be much different. As the blog post said, it will largely be a themepark - which is no bad thing. It is also an action space simulator as opposed to an RPG.
ReplyDeleteI'm psyched as hell for Star Citizen, and I did back it. It has the pedigree and the passion to be an amazing game. However, there's no way the game as it is currently being presented could be mistaken for Eve.
Imo how eve should prep for this is to have an epic content update planned for *after* star citizens's launch, maybe by like 2-3 months. that means they have approx 2 and a half years to do it, and in this kind of time-frame, eve has a high chance of getting the better end of the stick in the long term.
ReplyDeleteWell said Poetic.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a group of Eve players constantly looking for the reasons that Eve will fail. What was the name of that "Mech" game some former CCP people made a few years ago? I remember people saying that one would hurt Eve when it came out. I also remember the same talk about World of Tanks for goodness sake.
Personally I play all kinds of other games. And if Star Citizen turns out to be good I'll play it as well. But Eve is my heart and the place I go for what those other games still can't bring to the table. And I really don't see that changing anytime soon.
True, Star Citizen isn't going to be a competitor for EVE Online... it is going to be its replacement.
ReplyDeleteRIP EVE Online o7
Trolololol. Good luck with your story-driven (as driven by the designers) RPG.
DeleteIn a properly written essay, one must never say I think, because it is assumed.
ReplyDeleteTurns out Star Citizen is a competitor for EVE Online in one important respect.
ReplyDeleteApparently, enough EVE players were talking online about SC, and contributing to its kickstart, that some of the CCP investors are taking a look at backing SC, rather than throwing more money at CCP.
See what happens when you guys talk so much about the competition? Just STFU, people.
[Citation needed]
DeleteSo... because it has a single player aspect to it its not an MMO? He plans on having a dedicated server that players can hop in and out of just like any MMO... but with that you get to have a storyline, singleplayer version, and the ability to have your own private server... He's including ALL the worlds so that means because he has an MMO aspect and all these other aspects its not an MMO? Are you on drugs?
ReplyDelete