The folks from CCP joined us on Sunday for a developer chat. Here are the complete logs of that chat for your reading pleasure.

MMORPG_Taera: Greetings and welcome to MMORPG.com's Live Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I'm your host, MMORPG.com's community manager Laura Taera Genender. Joining us today is the EVE Online dev team!

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MMORPG_Taera: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time,and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded.

MMORPG_Taera: To submit your question, please /msg MMORPGBot yourquestionhere. If your question was deleted, it's probably because someone else asked the same thing first :)

MMORPG_Taera: This room will be moderated during the chat; if you want to talk during the chat, feel free to visit #eve-online

MMORPG_Taera: Now it's time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!

Greyscale: Hi, I'm Greyscale and I'm a Game Designer on EVE Online. I also dabble in storyline stuff, and I've been heading up the Factional Warfare project for the last few months

Ginger: Hello, im CCP Ginger. Head of the Ginger Breeding Program. Im the current Volunteer manager but I also work alot in Storyline with TonyG and I used to be a game designer for Factional Warfare so I also help out Greyscale with that. Im basically the Ginger sidekick :)

t0nyG: Heyo, I'm t0nyG, Lead Writer for EVE Online. I basically do what the redheads here tell me to do, and get myself into trouble with the game design department from time to time.

Wrangler: Hi, I'm Wrangler and I'm the Community Manager for EVE Online, I manage.. the community.. mainly..

MMORPG_Taera: allseeingI asks, Will Assault Ships be rebalanced in a near future, and if yes - in what way?

Greyscale: Yes, definitely. I know they're high up on the balance team's list of issues, but they're not happy currently with the range of options they have available on that front

Greyscale: When we have the ability to properly differentiate them from other ship classes and give them a viable and unique role they'll definitely get revised, but I don't have any info on exactly when that'll be

MMORPG_Taera: bombishman asks, What changes have been made to FW based on player feedback from the test on SISI?

Read it all here.

Geez why no interface questions?  I mean come on why does a great game like this continue to have the cluzziest interface in the business.  Cascading menus are fine for doing word processing, but atrociously clumsy when it comes to playing a game.  All commands should be assignable to a keystroke, not just a select few. 

I have encouraged friends to play this game and that is the first thing they note about the game.  Sometimes developers can be blind about important things.

This new factional warfare is going to cause problems for the industrialists.  I know my corp is definitely planning to join up and the 3 other industrialist's and I all told them we were leaving if they did.  None of us have decent pvp skills, and we will be prey for the other factions just like all the others in the corp.

if you are an industrialist, you might find yourself better off in an industrialist corp.

was nice and is going to kick ass!

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I know my corp is definitely planning to join up and the 3 other industrialist's and I all told them we were leaving if they did.  None of us have decent pvp skills, and we will be prey for the other factions just like all the others in the corp.

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I suggest you re-reading the information available about factional warfare, so you can see why you will have nothing to worry about in highsec.

I suggest YOU re-re-read the info, as that is explicitly untrue; FW will function EXACTLY like a wardec between the militia corps. That means Amarr vs Minmatar in high sec!

Oh yeah, once your corp joins in this, entering the other factions territory is going to be extremely dangerous.  You will be just a blinking red ship to everyone in the opposing faction plus they have beefed up the faction police significantly. 

No more negative status ships tanking the faction police, they will own you now.  If you are at -10 now, you can kiss visiting high sec bye now, it will be no longer possible with this new patch.

Originally posted by lionexx

was nice and is going to kick ass!

just like level 5, 6, & 7missions!

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Originally posted by Lallante
I suggest YOU re-re-read the info, as that is explicitly untrue; FW will function EXACTLY like a wardec between the militia corps. That means Amarr vs Minmatar in high sec!

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Please get your facts straight.
It is currently not possible to fight in enemy highsec without an organized fleet with at least three, better four logistics or remote repping battleships. Faction Navy has been pimped considerably.

Actually, you will be safer in highsec than before..

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Geez why no interface questions?  I mean come on why does a great game like this continue to have the cluzziest interface in the business.  Cascading menus are fine for doing word processing, but atrociously clumsy when it comes to playing a game.  All commands should be assignable to a keystroke, not just a select few. 

I have encouraged friends to play this game and that is the first thing they note about the game.  Sometimes developers can be blind about important things.

This new factional warfare is going to cause problems for the industrialists.  I know my corp is definitely planning to join up and the 3 other industrialist's and I all told them we were leaving if they did.  None of us have decent pvp skills, and we will be prey for the other factions just like all the others in the corp.

Odd. The GUI is the best I've ever encountered in gaming, bar none, both functionally and aesthetically.

"Odd. The GUI is the best I've ever encountered in gaming, bar none, both functionally and aesthetically."

Right, using cascading menus in the middle of a fight is a great gui, doh, not hardly.  Anyone finding cascading menus as state of the art is really behind the times, time for you to get out of the 90's.

The fix is easy, allow any command to be assigned to a key, but they are worried about macro programs which is kind of funny because there are a several different macro programs out there using their silly menus anyways.

Sorry their GUI is still in the dark ages of MMO's, even old UO had a better GUI.

Originally posted by damian7

 

Originally posted by lionexx

was nice and is going to kick ass!

 

just like level 5, 6, & 7missions!

 

No one has to become part of this its entirely Voluntary. You join in like you do if your using a agent you just find the faction agent and he gives you faction missions. If your currently not running a faction mission you wont be affected by the faction system so an Amarr player can freely enter and fly around Mimitar space as long as he is not running any faction missions.

This has been stated many times its a shame so many people don't do there research.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"Odd. The GUI is the best I've ever encountered in gaming, bar none, both functionally and aesthetically."

Right, using cascading menus in the middle of a fight is a great gui, doh, not hardly.  Anyone finding cascading menus as state of the art is really behind the times, time for you to get out of the 90's.

The fix is easy, allow any command to be assigned to a key, but they are worried about macro programs which is kind of funny because there are a several different macro programs out there using their silly menus anyways.

Sorry their GUI is still in the dark ages of MMO's, even old UO had a better GUI.

And to warp just click on a object and press the warp to button.

Nope no drop down menues here.

Originally posted by HYPERI0N

 

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"Odd. The GUI is the best I've ever encountered in gaming, bar none, both functionally and aesthetically."

Right, using cascading menus in the middle of a fight is a great gui, doh, not hardly.  Anyone finding cascading menus as state of the art is really behind the times, time for you to get out of the 90's.

The fix is easy, allow any command to be assigned to a key, but they are worried about macro programs which is kind of funny because there are a several different macro programs out there using their silly menus anyways.

Sorry their GUI is still in the dark ages of MMO's, even old UO had a better GUI.

Its strange really ive never used the cascading menues in PvP before. Lets see graphical buttons on bottom of screen for activating modules and guns. click to move and speed slider near damage bars.

 

And to warp just click on a object and press the warp to button.

 

Nope no drop down menues here.

Right...  There are drop down (contextual) menus and they are very important and very user unfriendly at the same time, add to that the UI bugs with drone command channels for example and the extreme impractical use of space within the UI. Eve has the worst UI of all mmorpgs hands down.

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Originally posted by DrAtomic
Eve has the worst UI of all mmorpgs hands down.

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I've played alot of MMOs and I like Eve's UI.  What I find funny is the majority of MMO's out have almost THE EXACT SAME UI.  Health bar up top, row of buttons on the bottom, chat on the side...  /shrug  Not saying that is a bad thing just funny that someone would claim that Eve's is the worst when all the others are exactly alike....

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Geez why no interface questions?  I mean come on why does a great game like this continue to have the cluzziest interface in the business.  Cascading menus are fine for doing word processing, but atrociously clumsy when it comes to playing a game.  All commands should be assignable to a keystroke, not just a select few. 

I have encouraged friends to play this game and that is the first thing they note about the game.  Sometimes developers can be blind about important things.

This new factional warfare is going to cause problems for the industrialists.  I know my corp is definitely planning to join up and the 3 other industrialist's and I all told them we were leaving if they did.  None of us have decent pvp skills, and we will be prey for the other factions just like all the others in the corp.

What do you want then? changed shields to health, armor to mana, combat/mining icons on bottom screen?

I like CCP for making something different then the allknown standard mmorpg UI. At least they make something unique and it works.

Sry forgot i was posting on mmorpg.com. Fine the Eve UI is great, the best there is and threads like these don't exist:

http://www.eve-search.com/thread/777784

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=783206

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=783218

Nor does eve search give 1335 hits on "fix ui", nor did the devs come out and admit the ui is a mess, nor did the devs even asked a proffessional ui designer to apply for a job ... etc...

Eve UI is the best of all mmorpgs hands down...