Today, MMORPG.com's News Manager Keith Cross lets us in on what was being said at this year's EVE Fan Fest about Ambulation. For those of you who might not be aware, EVE's Ambulation project will see players able to move around outside of their ships for this first time in the game's history.

 

Back when I was in my teens, some of my favorite games were space combat games such as the Wing Commander series. Of that series I was particularly fond of Privateer, a game set in the Wing Commander universe, but instead of playing a military pilot you are cast in the roll of a space vagabond, going from system to system looking for work as a cargo hauler, a bounty hunter, or a pirate, or whatever else pays the bills. What I

loved about the game was that you could fly around to any system that you pleased. The universe was as open as the gameplay. It was fun. But I’ve always said that the mark of a truly great game is to be able to play a game, and love it, and yet still be able to sit there and come up with a hundred ways to make this game better. When I was playing Privateer I would be in the middle of a particularly hairy dogfight and wish I had some friends on my wing. Or I’d blast a pirate to space dust without breaking a sweat, and wish that there was a real person behind the controls, not just the predictable AI. The point is, back then my ideal of the perfect game was a space fighter game with a big open universe, where I could play in the style of my choosing, and I could play cooperatively or competitively with real people. Some years later, CCP gave us all of that and more when they created EVE.

 

Read it all here.

Excellent article. I am also really looking forward to ambulation!

So do we all

Personaly i cant wait. Its the only thing i was realy mising in Eve :)

They were initially talking about a February/March release, but I think it will be more like a June/July timeframe.

good article

  Dam,I drooled.Gotta clean the keyboard.

lol grifin me too man me too, aww man im so looking forward to this.

In-freaking-credible. I can't wait to see how well the procedural animation system works out; it looks killer in Spore, in a more realistic setting, well, bye bye goofy running animations (humans in WoW, anyone?)

Kudos CCP, even if it is a summer launch, well, it'll be worth it.

Paired with the previous EVE article, I think this shows that EVE is one of the few games with DEV's that make the right choices, instead of turning a large part of their own population against them. They had issues of course, but most of the drama comes from players with a grudge :P

I'm looking forward to this, as being able to party was the only thing that I missed from other games.

I'd be surprised if they put as much into ambulation as they're hoping.. all those face and clothing customizations sound great, but imagine the lag of downloading all those minute details while you're on a busy station!  I'm sure there'll be an LOD, but I wouldn't like to see how the game holds out when you walk into a bar in Jita..

Originally posted by Ozmodan

They were initially talking about a February/March release, but I think it will be more like a June/July timeframe.

Originally posted by spatuluk

I'm looking forward to this, as being able to party was the only thing that I missed from other games.

I'd be surprised if they put as much into ambulation as they're hoping.. all those face and clothing customizations sound great, but imagine the lag of downloading all those minute details while you're on a busy station!  I'm sure there'll be an LOD, but I wouldn't like to see how the game holds out when you walk into a bar in Jita..

Imagine all the freightes full of beer kegs to hold up the demand.

I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to Ambulation until now but I could have sworn I heard the devs discussed the possibility of letting players round around inside their ships as well. Does anyone know about this or is my brain making stuff up?

I play eve and I'm all for ambulation. The problem is they have trouble with lag as it is.  Just guessing here but I'm guessing that instituting ambulation is going to be a challenging technical issue from a hardware perspective. Jita is a pain the ass as is, how will it be with ambulation? Regardless I hope they can pull it off.

Originally posted by Walakea

I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to Ambulation until now but I could have sworn I heard the devs discussed the possibility of letting players round around inside their ships as well. Does anyone know about this or is my brain making stuff up?

You will have officer quaters inside your ship, you will be able to store your items, cloths etc inside ;)

Originally posted by Khebeln

Originally posted by Walakea

I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to Ambulation until now but I could have sworn I heard the devs discussed the possibility of letting players round around inside their ships as well. Does anyone know about this or is my brain making stuff up?

You will have officer quaters inside your ship, you will be able to store your items, cloths etc inside ;)

Thanks :)

Originally posted by Mark701

I play eve and I'm all for ambulation. The problem is they have trouble with lag as it is.  Just guessing here but I'm guessing that instituting ambulation is going to be a challenging technical issue from a hardware perspective. Jita is a pain the ass as is, how will it be with ambulation? Regardless I hope they can pull it off.

Actually it'll take load off systems like jita because the ambulation content will be on different servers. So it should actually speed up jita somewhat as 90% of the people in that system are station jockeys anyways.

Actually I thought they were toying with allowing  you to walk on your bridge.  Likely only while in port though, if you're not in your pod while undocked well ...

Originally posted by Walakea

 

Originally posted by Khebeln

Originally posted by Walakea

I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to Ambulation until now but I could have sworn I heard the devs discussed the possibility of letting players round around inside their ships as well. Does anyone know about this or is my brain making stuff up?

You will have officer quaters inside your ship, you will be able to store your items, cloths etc inside ;)

Ah, I assumed they meant walk around the ship and have your own quarters. Well that's still cool.

 

Thanks :)

Well as for now its hard to say about details like that, but if you ask me i doubt that ccp will leave nice things like more detail ship walking. It might not be available right away but it will be available in time :)

Originally posted by Flute

Actually I thought they were toying with allowing  you to walk on your bridge.  Likely only while in port though, if you're not in your pod while undocked well ...

Also some points that are confirmed concerning ambulation.

- Its on a seperate server so as not to lag space based EvE.

- It is confirmed for 2008 as most of it is done now apparently its mainly just the textures that need finalising.

- Yes i can open my Bar - Casino in jita [YAYYYY]

- Yes weare getting a ships cabin that we can tool out with funiture and alternate clothing etc.

- And yes im hoping for other rooms in my ship as well.