EVE Online - Empyrean Age Dev Chat Log: Page Two

MMORPG_Taera: [how]mashie asks, When will Fanfest 2008 be announced including travel packages?

Wrangler: We're currently working on finalizing the Fanfest dates and the Icelandair travel packages, once that is done we'll announce it so keep an eye on the news. :)

MMORPG_Taera: mairon asks, Any plans on removing the -25% ROF bonus from the destroyers, making them a more feared by frigate vessels? Nowadays a punisher or almost any other frig with a plate can kill a destroyer...

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Greyscale: We have a fair number of sites in FW that are limited to T1 frigates and destroyers only, and to be honest right now our biggest worry is that a group of destroyers seems to shred frigates so fast that they're basically obsolete in those areas

Greyscale: In the wider picture destroyers do still seem to be somewhat sub-par, and they're something that will no doubt get looked at in the future

Greyscale: But against T1 frigates in particular, we're not currently seeing the destroyers as underpowered. More research will be done if we re-evaluate them of course :)

MMORPG_Taera: [smash]taxtro asks, Hey, will Concord get down in the battles as well? Since the 2nd Teaser kinda shows that Concord might go to war afterall

Greyscale: CONCORD declines to comment at this time

Greyscale: I can't say any more or Tony will maim me :)

MMORPG_Taera: joestarbreaker asks, What was the latest teaser video foreshadowing? The end of Concord?

t0nyG: I'd be more concerned about that Minmatar fleet than CONCORD.

MMORPG_Taera: schultze asks, is it possible to take part in FW if you have a very negative Security Status say -10 ?

Ginger: Factions wont deny you joining up based on your security status, so yes you can join the faction militias. However you negative security status will continue affect you as per normal.

MMORPG_Taera: cyphr_sonic asks, will there be any form of sovergtity on an empire scale in FW? owuld it be possible for one empire to be copmpletely crushed?

Greyscale: There's a new property a system can have, occupancy. Sovereignty defines who owns the system according to CONCORD's big fat database of everything. Occupancy defines who's actually in military control

Greyscale: In the initial release, certain areas of lowsec space between the Empires are up for grabs, and occupancy can and will change depending on player actions

Greyscale: Initially at least this won't spill outside of defined theatres of war so no one empire is going to be wiped off the map

Greyscale: This could change in future though :)

MMORPG_Taera: mench asks, Will FW be balanced if it becomes to one sided?

Greyscale: There are various subtle mechanisms at play that serve to make it easy to flip a few systems over to your empire's control but significantly harder to dominate whole swathes of space. This applies even when teh numbers on each side are out of balance; the more space you hold, the more pilots you need to defend it, so it should self-balance to a good degree

Greyscale: If things do become completely one-sided, then we'll look at the options for strengthening these mechanics. However, we won't be doing resets and we're keeping away from hard limits and artificial constraints wherever possible, as we feel these aren't in keeping with the ethos of the game

MMORPG_Taera: black00 asks, What opportunties are there for solo players (not in corps/alliances) in Empyrean Age?

Ginger: Well in regards to joining factional warfare, solo players can join the Militia NPC corp which functions as a standard nNPC corp but is at war with the enemy militia as per the rest of the corporations in the militia.

Ginger: In this way solo players can fully participate in factional warfare but still be protected by the rules of NPC corps that stop griefing and the like.

Ginger: We hope that in this way, players will socialize with like minded players who enjoy blowing things up and form their own corporations, as we believe EVE is a game that is much more enjoyable in groups.

MMORPG_Taera: marius1701 asks, What is being done in regards to lag?

Greyscale: Ah, the lag question :)

Greyscale: We are, of course, working on it, but we're also coming to realise that saying we're working on it doesn't help and talking about future solutions tends to be unproductive. There are things being done, and when we have concrete results to share you can be sure that we'll let everyone know

Greyscale: There is for example a fix coming in EA which should reduce issues that have been cropping up in lowsec combat

Greyscale: But otherwise, all I can say is it's a priority, it's being worked on and hopefully we'll be able to give you all the results as soon as possible

MMORPG_Taera: thurisazprizma asks, Will you change so that it's possible to stack used faction/T2 crystals? Currently it's a pain to manage them, and it's pain to quickly switch as they tend to 'jam', and you've got to reload.

Greyscale: Actually stacking them is, I'm told, non-trivial, as they can't be stacked without discarding the data on how much damage they've taken. We're exploring alternate solutions though, like a more streamlined way of switching them out. This isn't scheduled for any particular release though, so don't expect it in EA :)

MMORPG_Taera: ramek asks, can one be pod'ed like in real" PVP, when joining up for some FW fun?"

Ginger: The wars in Factional Warfare work with the same basic rules as standard wars, so yes, you can pod members of the militia's you are at war with.

Ginger: i.e. it is real PVP

MMORPG_Taera: richard asks, My corp mates have been wondering about the safety of our Industrial High sec assets during Factional warfare. Will they be war targets in high sec. Or only in the contested areas?

Ginger: The wars between Militia's apply, as per normal wars, everywhere. So your high security assests may be at risk.

Ginger: However you are backed up in High security space by the powerful faction navies, which now have been boosted to pack a significant punch.

Ginger: So they can be targets, just not easy targets at all.

MMORPG_Taera: jj_mch asks, Will we have any new ships in the release?

Greyscale: Yes :) Firstly, we've got the four new faction cruisers. We've added Tier 1 faction cruisers - the Osprey, Scythe and Exequeror - for the Caldari Minmatar and Gallente respectively

Greyscale: Then we've added a Navy-issue Omen for the Amarr as their existing cruiser was Tier 1 already, and it packs a seriously nasty punch

Greyscale: Secondly, the Amarr have been short a T1 frigate since forever, which we've now rectified. The Magnate will be an astrometics ship, and the T2 Anathema variant now uses the same model, which is incredibly sexy in black

MMORPG_Taera: zionner asks, Once EA has been released, will the fights to take control of enemy systems be announced by the devs, and then continued like an in-game event, or will it by up to the players to deside where and when to attack?

Greyscale: The fights for system control are entirely player-driven - you guys pick your own targets and organize your own strikes :) We're planning to have some additional CCP-provided support on top of that, by way of news articles and so on, but the reins are firmly in the players' hands here

MMORPG_Taera: ginger555 asks, Do you see FW reducing the amount of players in 0.0 Alliances, or in fact increase 0.1 - 0.4 Alliances ?

t0nyG: How dare he take Ginger's name

Greyscale: We hope not! Realistically, we expect a fair few people to want to have a go at it initially, but once the novelty's worn off we really hope that it doesn't have a long-term impact. The 0 Alliance sandbox is one of the jewels in EVE's crown.

MMORPG_Taera: wells asks, Are you planning on fixing/improving the issues with the Bounty System?

Greyscale: Crime and Punishment as a whole - the bounty system, smuggling, customs, contraband, kill rights and so on - is something that we have plans to revisit as soon as we find a good development slot for it. It needs an overhaul, and we have plans in the works to do that, but no specific details or timeframes yet :)

MMORPG_Taera: stitcher asks, what prompted the decision to use hard" standings to determine whether people could sign up, rather than the modified standing given by Connections?"

Greyscale: A combination of things led to this decision. We already knew we wanted the rankings system to use pre-skills values as the things the skills do shouldn't affect what rank you achieve - it didn't make sense IC or mechanically. The signup is partly an extension of this, and partly to ensure that skills like diplomacy didn't make it easy to sign up by just trashing your standing

Greyscale: On top of that, the thresholds are pretty low (0.5 faction standing), so it shouldn't be a big challenge

MMORPG_Taera: schorsch_76 asks, You know, in Eve everything is about the ISK. More ISK = More power. How can people who participe in FW regain their money if their ships got constantly blown up? Regardless if they got blown up by random pirates" or the faction enemy."

Greyscale: Through the normal money-making routes, through running missions, through stockpiling dogtags and using them directly or selling them on, through looting and salvaging player wrecks and so on and so forth.

Greyscale: If you're dying constantly and not being very successful at the same time then that's probably going to put you out of pocket, although given the viability of T1 cruisers and destroyers in particularly it's not going to add up to much for most players.

Greyscale: That said, it doesn't give you completely free or completely consequence-free PvP as that would be extremely un-EVE - not only does it not fit the ethos, it also would detract from the quality of the fights you're having, as if there's nothing at risk the fight tends to be much less exciting

Greyscale: All in all, there are ways to make money and ways to lose money and it's up to the players how to balance those things. We'll keep an eye on it and, as mentioned in reply to a previous question, we may be upping the rewards in future, but for now it's down to player ingenuity :)

MMORPG_Taera: Ankhesentapemkah asks, In the news of 5/24, it was said that Empyrian Age testers that participated had a chance of receiving rewards, when will the results of the tests be made public and the rewards announced?

Greyscale: Results of the actual test probably won't be made public as they're internal data for the most part. The outcome in terms of player rewards and so on - I'm not certain what the status is there, but I'll try and follow it up with Tanis and see what's going on :)

MMORPG_Taera: kimsand asks, To a carebear, EVE is primarily a game of destruction... What takes me 10 hours or more to create, takes someone 5 minutes to destroy, will there be taken some steps in the future to make some REAL safe zones, where GoonJihad will not be able to get in and have their fun on my behalf... im feeling a little like the cannon fodder ccp needs to feed the pvp'ers

Greyscale: Absolutely safe zones aren't currently on our to-do list; there's a very lengthy conceptual reason why they're a bad idea, and a much shorter explanation that it's just not EVE. That said, we do feel that the current balance is out of line and we are working on changes to various mechanisms in this area which will redress this balance

Greyscale: Before anyone jumps to conclusions, what we're mainly looking at is small, common-sense adjustments to tune down the randomized griefing and opportunistic free lunch attacks without removing the ability to make premeditated strikes and so on. There's a balance to be struck that's close to what we have currently, but not exactly the same

MMORPG_Taera: dmgkkkk asks, Are there plans to turn TonyG's Empyrean Age novel into a movie series similar to Clear Skies by john rourke?

t0nyG: Not that I'm aware of, but suffice to say that I'd be amazed if it were. Seeing this stuff come to life is just an amazing experience. I don't really have the words for it.

MMORPG_Taera: zaepho asks, Are there any extensions to the API currently under active development?

Greyscale: We're getting a bunch of war-related stuff exposed shortly after the EA launch, and further developments are in the pipe I believe. Keep an eye on the Tech forum - I think our new API dev has been posting there but I can't spell his name :S

Greyscale: CCP Elerhino - there we go

MMORPG_Taera: guest2888 asks, Thanks for all your work so far! what actions/changes are intended? to prevent eve becoming cap wars?

Greyscale: If you're talking about capital ships, then as mentioned earlier we have a whole raft of changes being tuned right now, but we're not ready to talk about them just yet, sorry :)

MMORPG_Taera: sofia asks, Do you plan on having any more ingame events in the style of the AURORA of old? Currently all the major events have been scripted, and it would be nice to get some capsuleer intervention.

Ginger: There are certain issues with having in game events in the style we used to roll out in Aurora which we would have to address before reintroducing them. One of the major issues with them though was that only a very small percentage of the player base could interact with an event at any one time.

Ginger: We have made some forrays into different types of events that players can get involved in on a more massive scale, such as the defiants and saracens in the bleak lands, which use dungeons as a tool for storyline events.

Ginger: I do personally take the view, however, that factional warfare is a huge global event with a epic storyline that players can get involved truly immersed and involved in.

Ginger: In regards to Aurora type events though : We are certainly thinking about it and toying with the idea, but there are no plans at this time to re-release Aurora events.

MMORPG_Taera: [bh]kharnubis asks, Does actual battling other players in an enemy faction, at a controlbunker, give any victory points? If not, why not?

Greyscale: At the actual control bunker, no - by that point, you're past the point where you're just scoring points. In general though, there aren't much in the way of extra rewards for shooting other players. We were toying with the idea of having players drop dogtags and so on, but it's extremely hard to make that sort of thing worth doing without also making it trivially exploitable

MMORPG_Taera: splutty|zombie asks, What is going to happen with inter-faction standing relations, such as Caldari with Mordu's. Will my Empire faction warfare have influence in my pirate factions?

Greyscale: Mechanically, nothing's changing in the initial release and the non-Empire factions aren't directly involved. You'll still get derived standings as a result of faction standing changes, of course. Down the line, more things may pop out of the woodwork, both in terms of opening up access to other factions and in terms of the political landscape of New Eden reacting to world events

MMORPG_Taera: sarrilai asks, After the incident in Yulai involving the Republic Fleet and Thukker Tribe warships (more specificly, the Naglfar-class Dreadnaughts jumping into 1 sec space), is the ability to cyno Cap ships into high-sec going to become available? Or was that striclty for the purpose of rattling a few cages in the storyline?"

Ginger: CONCORD is still trying to figure out how those dreadnaughts got into high sec, let alone a CONCORD secured system.

Ginger: However, its safe to assume that the factions do not release all their tech or secrets to the capsuleers so who knows what they have?

Ginger: However there are definetly no plans to allow capsuleers the ability to create Cyno fields in high sec at this time.

MMORPG_Taera: zombu2 asks, will you guys release the jove space in a certain ammount of time since it is waiting to be populated

t0nyG: The Joves will likely have a much more visible role in EVE someday, but now isn't the time.

MMORPG_Taera: tallanvor asks, Any plans in the near future to expand the destroyer class ship with perhaps another tier or two of ships, perhaps even another T2 class as well? They are a fun class of ship and would be nice to have a bit more variety with them.

Greyscale: Near future, no, but the destroyer line is pretty underrepresented right now and we'd all like to see more of them at some point. The first thing that's likely to pop up is a second set of T2 destroyers, we're just trying to find out exactly where they'd fit in to the current lineup. I can tell you now though that a Coercer with a Carthum skin looks awesome

MMORPG_Taera: snakebloke asks, On SISI faction standings can be lost quite quickly say by destroying drones and wrecks from players in the same militia as yourself, as a carrier pilot this means i could lose standings very quickly, are those standing losses going to be kept in the final release of Empyrean Age?

Greyscale: Yes, these are going to be in in the final release - they're there to stop you griefing your fellow militia pilots, and due to the way the drone and wreck systems work, they carry across tho those too. The only thing I can suggest is that you be extremely careful with smartbombs, and think carefully before deploying capital ships

Greyscale: Personally I'm expecting FW to become something of a capital ship graveyard, but we'll see how that pans out :)

MMORPG_Taera: [32AIN]Rvaldez5987 asks, this may seem like an off the wall question, but at fanfest 2005, there was a working protoype of a ship flying around inside a planets atmosphere. What ever happened with that project?

t0nyG: All of us have had that image planted in our imagination for just as long as you. We’re going to get there someday—it’s a vision we we’re working towards with more passion than I can really describe.

t0nyG: To some extent, I would argue that it plays into everything we're doing currently, about trying to make EVE the most immersive game experience out there.

t0nyG: Just keep your eyes on this space. We're going to get there someday.

MMORPG_Taera: MMORPG_Vanduriel asks, With the fish tank being built, will we see a photo of CCP Sharkbait in it?

Ginger: lols

Greyscale: I can't promise anything except that I will lobby my hardest to make sure that this happens

t0nyG: Dear Lord I

Greyscale: It would be a great injustice if it didn't

t0nyG: really didn't need that visual

Ginger: Im betting their will be

Ginger: and he will be naked

Greyscale: Thanks for sharing

Ginger: No worries, im starting a betting pool up

Greyscale: I mean, I guess we could try and reproduce that Nirvana cover...

Greyscale: And then threaten to show it to people unless they gave us money

t0nyG: Nevermind

Greyscale: Hmm...

Ginger: Oh dude

t0nyG: no, seriously

Ginger: even I dont want that image

Ginger: we might have to be generous tho

Ginger: dont want to embarass the chap

Greyscale: ...

Greyscale: Anyway, on that note...

t0nyG: Cheers, everyone!

MMORPG_Taera: This concludes the MMORPG.com EVE Dev Chat - the longest dev chat in MMORPG.com history! Thank you Greyscale, Ginger, Wrangler, and t0nyG for your wonderful time and expertise! Thank you Coldfront for hosting us! And thank you everyone for joining us! Logs will be posted on MMORPG.com asap, as well as a followup article later this week. Chat, fin!