EVE Online involves the creation of many objects, and spaceships are certainly a mainstream element of the game. They are an opportunity to occupy Artisans. Indeed many Artisans could be involved in the crafting of a single ship. That is an unexplored experience in games: group crafting. Imagine players beginning with the crafting of each component that goes into a spaceship. Each engine could be crafted individually by one player. Or even a team of players.
I can imagine an assembly game that involves the same basic process as crafting a sword; the players assemble components for an engine one part at a time, aligning and calibrating each piece. Once the entire engine is assembled, the computer examines everything to see what its performance should be. Just a few numbers to reflect the operation of that engine are stored, a standard graphic is used, and the engine can then be moved into the drydock. Other players will attach it to the drive system of the ship.
Naturally, that drive system had to be constructed in advance. As were the other engines. And all other major components of the ship. Assembly tasks have great potential to occupy scores of players as they converge on accomplishing a single large task.
This sort of a system would completely change the game experience of EVE Online, so it's impractical for that game as it exists today. Ship turnover in that game is very high, and new ships are manufactured at a furious rate. If this were introduced there, it would have to be reserved for specific types of ships that are used for special purposes.
One of my favorite game design ideas is to have an entire game revolve around the construction of a massive device that is composed of assemblies of assemblies of assemblies. Just a massive beast. Fighters would find bits of the machine in the hands of enemies. Explorers would find them lying about in obscure places. Traders would negotiate for pieces in deals. Crafters would assemble some components from scratch. How they all fit together is to be figured out collectively by the players. But when a piece fits, you know it fits.
When the machine is powered up and turned on, the game changes in some significant way. This might be the means of opening the next section of content, or adding whole new systems to the game. For example, the machine might transport characters to a new gaming environment (a la the movie Contact), or it might create spaceships for the players to now begin doing in space what they used to do on the surface of their planet. It could even introduce a magic, psionic or superhero system to the game. Anything is possible.
MMORPG.com writes:
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