That quote by a corpmate about sums up my excitement about the DUST 514 connection to EVE Online.
For a DUST 514 player, the connection amounts to more. They call an orbital bombardment from an EVE player, they get to see it rain down through the atmosphere. They get to see the immediate results. The connection between games has immediacy.
What does the EVE player get out of the relationship? A standard, meaningless animation that bears no connection to anything happening in the other game. The EVE player does not get to see the actual results of the bombardment. Most times the destroyer pilot is not even going to be on comms with the DUSTies, so they don't get to hear the results of their F1 mash either.
Let's not mention that the faction warfare link isn't particularly useful, and most times a faction might even prefer not to have the small benefit temperate planet control gives to their plexing. There's no great pushback when taking systems most times, because the defensive plexing reward is not carrot enough. Given that, it's usually better for faction players if it takes more plexes to capture a system, since it means more offensive plexing, which means more loyalty points overall. When offensive plexing is most of a player's income, they're not going to want to limit that income source. It's not like temperate planet control affects loyalty point payouts (perhaps that's a consideration, if CCP wants to entice EVE players to participate in the EVE/DUST link.)
In terms of improving the immediacy for the EVE player, perhaps when the district satellite is interfaced, a window appears that gives some real-time data on the battle happening below. That way, when the EVE player does launch their bombardment, they can see immediately the results of that bombardment. Or perhaps the EVE player receives killmails on dead DUSTies. It gives the player the sense that they are actually connected to the battle. Which is certainly not the case under the current mechanics. There is a giant gulf between EVE and DUST from the EVE player's perspective.
Until some obvious changes are made to connect EVE players more immediately to DUST battles, the people who are most frequently going to engage in orbital bombardments are DUST players also connected to an EVE account on the computer sitting next to them. Like this guy:
We need this.....
ReplyDeletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bULmfOr6tG4/UPPjK8jvaCI/AAAAAAAAFVM/IUY9Jf_yt_0/s1600/dustpay1.jpg
Can never happen. Different game engines.
DeleteNonsense. Sure, actually rendering the window, no.
DeleteHaving a spectator client in the DUST game that renders and streams the bombardment to the player doing the bombardment.. Very doable.
Needs killmails, yes. :)
ReplyDeleteThat would certainly help.
DeleteAnd I think 'this guy' is an intended consequence
ReplyDeleteCertainly.
DeleteBut what proportion of PS3 FPS players, who will happen to also play DUST, will end up being "this guy".
I remember moving heaven and earth to get a shareware copy of Wolfenstein 3D and spent forever playing, mapping for it and sharing maps on some BBS.
ReplyDelete-- Enter life long obsession with FPS games here --
I've been a customer going forum ape shit over a game's impending release right up to working on AAA FPS titles.
Although I'll put my hand up and declare I've never played Dust 514 that does not exclude me from having the opinion that I'm not excited by this game at all.
Not excited enough to buy an old console with a dubious upgrade path. No media of the game can get me above the level of "meh". Yeah, some people will go crazy over OB and the likelihood for EVE conflict I suspect it will be seen by many Dust players as what much of what EVE combat can be - a boring grind with OB just being a PITA.
Maybe Dust will succeed wildly - whatever. I'm just not seeing how this game is going to be more that either a mill stone of half implemented features forever around the neck of EVE players. Or just a black hole where EVE money needs to go to pay debts. Either way you can't release just incremental patches every six months - forever.
Flame away arse holes.
I lost all interest in the dust link when my worst fears were clarified - eve players cannot just camp a planet and pound on it 'because'.
ReplyDeleteThe entire relationship is entirely one way and not at all in the spirit of eve online.
Would it be terrible for the Dust bunnies to have the big bad raining terror down on them from out space? of course. Give them a giant space gun to shoot back, or get them to get some space borne friends to engage the campers in orbit and make it a truly cross game interaction.
As it stands now dusties paint something, call in fire and if an eve pilot happens to be there, and has wasted his hard earned on the ammo, he can if shoot at something...
So disappointing. However if there ever were any words to sum up CCPs execution of their grand plans, "so disappointing" would be them.
You do realize that CCP just created gaming history right? they have linked two entirely different gaming systems in a way that was never thought possible. And your bitching about how you cant just camp above them all day and kill the game. Of course CCP hasn't given you the option to do that yet, they only just finished giving eve players the ability to kill dust bunnies, they haven't given dust players the ability to fight back yet.
DeleteWhether or not they've made game history or not isn't the issue here. The issue is whether or not it was a good idea. (from a technical perspective it is not entirely 'amazing' - they've not broken any new ground in the field of software design here..they may be the first to 2 get incompatable games to talk to each other but getting multiple incompatable pieces of software talking together via some middleware/api is something you'll just about every company with an IT department doing).
DeleteThe link is entirely:
1) dust bunnies call a strike
2) eve pilots get a lock and fire on it
......
What does the eve pilot get out of it.
There is no way on earth that eve players will ever be able to shoot dust bunnies without the above steps happening and this is a major major problem. Essentially it means the dust pilots can play the game with or without interaction with eve corporations in the meta game. The eve player gets nothing out of the relationship.
What is the point in linking the 2 games together in the same universe if one is a cold harsh place where people can ruin your day and another is just a shooter with air strikes that may or may not be coming from real people in orbit? Unless both games can create consequences within each others play ground there is no reason for the link to exist - it might as well have been a stand alone non-eve related video game.
The way the dust bunnies fight back should be to get capsuleers to fight for them. Pay capsuleers to break the blockade...a blockade likely caused by capsuleers being paid by the other side to soften up the defenses (but equally valid, just because). This is the dynamic i was looking forward to and it simply is not going to happen. The dust bunnies will be forever mollycoddled and protected from any real consequence.. capsuleers will just shoot a circle from space. Wow.
The link between Dust and Eve is being woven slowly. The last thing anybody would want is for the 2 games to be tied more tightly together prematurely which leads to important things breaking.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in its current state, the link between Dust and Eve is very underwhelming. But imagine for a minute that all of the other features of a 'full' eve-dust integration were completely implemented tomorrow. Things that have either been promised, mentioned, hinted at or just hoped for. Things like:
* Full market integration where Eve industrialists construct, sell, and trade Dust gear.
* Merc contracts from Eve players (as opposed to the current FW NPC ones)
* The ability to disrupt a planet's PI activity
* Null-sec sov being affected by the outcome of Dust battles
* etc.
If it all came at once, it might all just fall into place. But chances are high that there would be serious negative repercussions and balance issues.
Along with the announcement that Dust was linked to Tranquility also came an outline of future development. Namely that the markets would be linked between both games in a gradual way once the Dust market leveled out a bit.
When coming from CCP, considering how overreaching their vision usually is, it will likely take longer than expected to see some of these other links made between Dust and Eve. And some of them may never happen. But if we even see half of what's been outlined become a reality, I don't think you'll be able to say that the Dust-Eve link is a dud.
Things like:
Delete*Dusties taking the place of m-tacs in Incursions
*Dusties replacing pos-bashing
*yadda yadda
Not much to say, pretty much called this the second the "link" was announced. There's no way of making is fun and/or spontaneous within the Eve universe, without that being a broken implimentation within Dust.
ReplyDeletePeople saw the trailers and thought "LOL WE CAN JUST NUKE THEM ALL DAY LOLZ!" which is remarkably stupid.
People were getting all excited about this on #tweetfleet when Dust was announced and I honestly couldn't get much of an answer as to "why?"
https://twitter.com/Khanhrhh/status/288720013903409152