General Discussion

Dan Fortier sat down for a quick chat with CCP's Huni "TomB" Hinrichsen about EVE Online's New Combat Features.

MMORPG.com:

The new changes to the gang system seem to be focused on making them more manageable both for players and your server cluster. What changes do you expect to see in the way large fleet battles are fought with this new system?

Huni "TomB" Hinrichsen :

There are a lot of improvements that the new gang system creates. Broadcasts give faster and better communication between gang members whereas before they had to spend time searching for the target objective once they'd received it via voice communication or chat text. The group system allows the commanders to create squadrons or wings that are dedicated to a specific role such as a group of electronic warfare specialists or logistical support and so on.

I would like to point out, however, that this is only the beginning of our focus on fleet combat. We have been working like mad scientists on finding more group focused activities that will add more fun, versatility and excitement in the second installment of the three-part Revelations expansion. (Revelations II is coming in 2007, but we don't have a firm release date yet.) A few things you can look forward to seeing in Revelations II are massive bombs for stealth bombers, remote ECM bursts, remote force field arrays and totally revamped star base combat.

Read the whole article here.

Finally, bombs for the stealth bombers. They were in the database years ago, but did not enter the game with the bombers as was expected.

Hopefully they can add a useful and purposeful formation system too, but thats certainly a ways off.

Awesome, looks like i'll be training up skills to use these.

One possible option might be to allow the commander of a group to assign the gang boosting ability to another gang member but continue having the limit of only a single person per group that can give bonuses.

That would be nice. Sure I may have high leadership skills, but that doesn't mean I'm actually any good at leading gangs in reality. I would rather not be forced to do so.

Look, I like the ideas behind the changes (except the gang system that mostly sucks).

But saying that the killing fo the two main lag creators had any uipact worth mentioning is nonsense. The situations where lag is most annoying and game breaking still experience a comparable amount of it, and that's a LOT.

 

I switched from WoW to EVE very recently, I have to say, they're doing ten times more than what Blizzard have done with the expansion pack burning crusade, way more features, the mere fact that they've bothered to upgrade the entire server's graphics engine throughout the year whilst people are still playing amazes me, Blizzard would never have the guts to implement this type of thing because of their huge customer base and they're content to let us play with these horrible low polygon models which is partly the reason why I quit it in the first place, kudos CCP! Your caring about your customer base!

First off let me say this....I LOVE EVE!  

 

Lag is much better since they introduced "Warp to 0".. It did not remove the need for Instas( BookMarks) but,

made for far fewer of them for sure...Still, I don't get it as much (Lag) but, In group encounters  I get quite a bit...

Especialy where Drones are involved....During a recent Corporation Mining Op we had all deployed our drones for Rat protection...

I almost instantly had to ask everyone to dock their drones cause I was lagging badly from it.....However it may be due to my DSL and System possibly...I also run 2 Acct's as well at the same time so....

 

Can't wait to see the future changes! 

Tomb is lie'ing out his fat arse.

Lag is just as bad, but due to the lack or need for bm's, those exploiting the copying to have a few thousand bm's in their cargo hold, to induce lag, is not easy to excuse (as in, the exploiters get banned now). Why would I see lag with 15k online, then Tomb claims that when the 30k+ were online and the lag was freaking horrible in all the 18 systems I jumped into, that the server was trouble free...LIES LIES LIES.

The 30k'ish number after 3 years???????? and the servers are not lag free, nor stable....still...no matter how many lies Tomb or any ccp propaganda drone can make up.

The game is only hitting 30k players online after 3 + years, and only about 100k active accounts...while other games are in the MILLIONS of players online and 10's of millions subscribers..oh yes, CCP and their private sandbox sure as fsck isn't impressing me.

in the truly successful games, the employees are not allowed to abuse the games mechanics to favor the group they play with...i.e. cheating via their special tools and inside knowledge. (having been a GM in two mmo's,  I know the successful companies do not allow staff to influence the outcome of the game as a participant taking sides, )

To  improve the game, and achieve the numbers in the millions other games seem to achieve with ease, CCP needs to look at their 'sandbox', pull heads from their butts, and stop forcing violence on all the players (and allowing selective use of exploits as long as it makes the grief style players/corps/alliances happy, which the ccp staff have admitted to be a part of)...or they can settle for a very very very limited number of players,all that like to cheat, scam, lie, sell credits from the game on ebay (as well as characters, ships, other items...hell, some think it is ccp themselves selling those things on ebay because their subscription numbers just won't grow fast enough...)

Ask why CCP allows players to buy loads of GTC's then sell them for isk in the game....no matter how you look at it, CCP sells isk in their game. (isk = in game credits). With twisted logic and morals, who can say CCP is not selling things on EBAY just to fatten their wallets.

I was happy to play for a bit, put up with a few bugs, even a bit of lag here and there....but when the staff of the company running the game, lie, use their powers to help their pet corps and pet players, while fsking over other paying customers, then I draw the line, and have canceled my 3 accounts. (been with the game since it was in beta, hoping CCP would pull head from arse...tired of waiting)

CCP = lies
CCP = encourage grief  play
CCP = censor happy goons (see how fast anything that isn't a fanboi post on their forums, is removed, threads vanish, and the threats run rampet from their 'staff'. you don't have to violate a forum rule, you just have a negative comment about ccp or their game and poof, your post vanishes...can't have bad opinions in their own forums...people might see it and think the game has issues...)

goodby to CCP, they can kiss my fsking arse, and use their tounge to clean my bunghole.

btw, out of 15 people I got to try the game, none stayed...having been griefed out of the game within a month...so back to the other mmo's we go (     )*(     ) <--plant your lips here ccp!

The person that turned me onto the game quit for the same reasons I am after 3 years...too many lies and the encouragement from ccp to be grief players (not wars, just pure fsking grief play)

Looking for a 'good' game, then look to FF series, or even WoW, just steer clear of grief play based games like Eve-online.

so CCP, go get your clubs, bash some baby seals to death while on coffee break, slaughter some whales, and then back to the fun of your little sandbox, minus 17 players (Iceland pasttimes, wonder if those two things influenced the CCP staff to enjoy senseless grief style play...nothing like killing those that are unable to defend themselves huh???)

Very nice.  While EvE isn't really my cup of tea (tried the free trial for a bit), I have to respect them for addressing issues that plague the existing player base, rather than adding content to keep the min-maxers and draw in new blood to replace unsubs.  :)