[POLL] PvE, PvP, PvAll - What is the playstyle you want in ED?

[Tiwaz]

ED also has a different business model from Eve Online, which is subscription based, while ED is going to be single purchase.

There are many, many people who won't touch MMO's because they're not interested in paying monthly subscription, but who would be willing to give ED a chance.

I would also argue Elite has more in common with first person shooters than with Eve Online.

Why aren't we looking at sales figures for, say, Halo or Mass Effect? Why are we singularly concentrating on Eve?

As said, because it is closest to what ED has to offer. Mass Effect was story driven single player game. Is ED that?

And yes, ED has different earning method. But it means it needs even more customers than Eve, which has some guaranteed income every month.

Selling game once means you have to sell a LOT of them to keep covering costs. Smaller your target audience is, harder that is to achieve. That is why for ED PvE-group is so essential, it gives huge amount of new buyers compared to PvP-only.

 

[Ende]

Why aren't we looking at sales figures for, say, Halo or Mass Effect? Why are we singularly concentrating on Eve?

I also asked this question... he doesnt respond withh anything which makes sense.

The fact is that FD know their target audience and ill bet my house they havent used Tiwaz's narrowminded view that their only PvP audience r the 360k subbed to Eve.

Im a player who plays all aspects of every game i ever play, Tiwaz would label me as a PvPer, i label myself as an experienced gamer. Ive never played Eve. Ive never made any reference to Eve because ive never played Eve. i dont claim to know the Eve playerbase, i listen and take on board what all of the experienced players of Eve r saying on here...

I am someone who will have my settings to full PvP in ED yet i am not one of those 360k PvPers which Tiwaz thinks are the only PvPers available to ED.

Blah blah blah. And how many you can with any reliability claim to be coming there?

stupid question... nobody can.

That also goes also for your 360k PvPers u claim are the ONLY PvPers available to ED.

Why your buddies did not join kickstarter for ED if they are so eager?

how do u know they didnt pledge on Kickstarter?

How do u know all of the people who pledged dont play FPS games?

Hell, why they are not chipping in now?

How do u know they havent contributed to this forum? Or to this thread?

Why should every person who pledged on kickstarter even read these forums?

Where are your facts? Fantasies of millions of Cod players lining up for Eve are not facts.

I said every person who is waiting for ED are coming from all over the gaming spectrum... do u dispute that fact?

 

[DigitalDuck]

You're both arguing semantics here...

It doesn't really matter how much of Eve's audience flocks to ED, or whether that's the sole extent of the audience. I agree with Ende here that I imagine there'll be a lot of people coming in from elsewhere, unrelated to Eve.

But that's not really the discussion here. Absolute player numbers are almost entirely unimportant. The question is, will more players be brought to the game if an open PvE group is added?

I certainly think so.

 

[Captain N]

As said, because it is closest to what ED has to offer. Mass Effect was story driven single player game. Is ED that?

It was also a twitch-based shooter with RPG elements and an online multiplayer mode.

ED is that.

And yes, ED has different earning method. But it means it needs even more customers than Eve, which has some guaranteed income every month.
Selling game once means you have to sell a LOT of them to keep covering costs. Smaller your target audience is, harder that is to achieve. That is why for ED PvE-group is so essential, it gives huge amount of new buyers compared to PvP-only.

ED also has smaller running costs because they don't need as powerful servers. It's not an MMO.

 

[JeffRyan]

EVE: Sandbox MMO spaceship game inspired heavily by elite.

ED: Sandbox spaceship game inspired heavily by Elite. With MMO thingies.

This is why /I/ am comparing the two.

ED has the advantage of not having monthly subs and is being designed to function as a stand-alone.

But I understand why the two games are being so heavily compared.

 

[jabokai]

I somehow doubt law enforcement or fines can have any place in a game where you shoot at someone's internet space pixels, that one would be laughed out of court. I assume it will be stated in the TOS that all ingame items are property of Frontier etc....

Ha ha, I meant IN-GAME law enforcement and fines, etc, in that post!

 

[Mzr]

Ha ha, I meant IN-GAME law enforcement and fines, etc, in that post!

lol no problem, I have seen crazy people in the past on eve related forums threatening legal action cos their space ship got blasted, glad no one here was suggesting that

I'm still confused about what tivaz is trying to say about the plex system in eve though.

Have played the game, and quote I provided is directly from eveonline.com.

Tell me, who does CCP buy it's PLEX-cards from?'

YOU CAN BUY PLEX FROM CCP! Each PLEX bought with isk from CCP is one where no money is given to CCP. What I am stating are numbers given by CCP itself, 360k subscriptions and rest are various "play for free" test accounts etc who are not paying subscription.

I think tivaz is seriously confused about how the plex system works. Each plex bought with isk results in no money for CCP, seriously? you think CCP are really that dumb?

ok, I'll go through what happens again :

A player who is short of in-game currency, ie ISK, may purchase a Game Time Code (GTC) through the eve website using his credit card details. I think its €30, not sure.

With this GTC, he may then either apply the game time (2 months worth) to one of his own accounts, or convert it into 2 x PLEX (which becomes an item in his inventory in the game).

Now these plex are worth 1 months additional game time each and may be sold to other players in the game via contract, or sold the markets there - for ingame isk currency.

Basically, the plex system allows for those with less free time to play the game to (effectively) buy isk through sale of the PLEX, while those with more free time to grind (and maybe less RL cash) to pay for their game time without spending any real money.


The point I'm trying to make is that the people buying plex on the markets ingame may not be paying real cash to CCP, but those selling the plex to these players are effectively paying extra money to CCP for those players to continue playing.

So those 40,000 people playing via plex are worth just as much to CCP as the other 360,000. Thats what I'm trying to say.

Actually, 2 monts of game time via the standard subscription via CC is probably slightly cheaper than buying GTC, so CCP make a little more from these transactions.

 

[JeffRyan]

Yeah MZR this is something I discussed before. It's why destruction in an earlier thread: here

And a large part of this culture is because of the PLEX system. Why War is Good and that part of the game is heavily encouraged by CCP, via wardec, factional warfare, nullsec every system which allows the destruction of ships eventually leads to people funneling money into CCP and why Mittani's 'rage against CCP' rampages ultimately make CCP happy. Destruction is totally great for CCP. Because with a lot of that destruction many many players fund their own losses by falling back on buying PLEX from CCP.

 

[Dusty]

As said, because it is closest to what ED has to offer. Mass Effect was story driven single player game. Is ED that?

And yes, ED has different earning method. But it means it needs even more customers than Eve, which has some guaranteed income every month.

Selling game once means you have to sell a LOT of them to keep covering costs. Smaller your target audience is, harder that is to achieve. That is why for ED PvE-group is so essential, it gives huge amount of new buyers compared to PvP-only.

That would be generally be correct unless there was a cash shop to by credits etc which "might" be the case

 

[Mzr]

Yeah MZR this is something I discussed before. It's why destruction in an earlier thread: here

And a large part of this culture is because of the PLEX system. Why War is Good and that part of the game is heavily encouraged by CCP, via wardec, factional warfare, nullsec every system which allows the destruction of ships eventually leads to people funneling money into CCP and why Mittani's 'rage against CCP' rampages ultimately make CCP happy. Destruction is totally great for CCP. Because with a lot of that destruction many many players fund their own losses by falling back on buying PLEX from CCP.

Jeff, I don't think lots of ships blowing up is bad in itself, it ensures a good market in that particular game. The problem is, there's too little ship destruction where the bulk of the action should be taking place - ie. 0.0, while these same alliances that are responsible for a static, unchanging boring 0.0 at present are currently pumping a lot of their resources (funded by monopoly of moon-mined materials in nullsec) into 'Burn Jita' ie. massed suicide attacks on freighter ships at the empire trade hubs.

I left eve permanently about 5 months ago, the domination of the game by an 'old boys club' cartel, leading a massive impersonal monolithic block just held no appeal for me. I'm hoping ED will be constructed in such a way as to favour and focus more on the small gang/small corporation structure, where you actually will know the people you're flying with, and not hundreds/thousands of players you'll never speak to. Should be interesting also to see if boting will be a problem with this game when it launches.

I'll have to content myself with some other eagerly anticipated games between now and then, such as Rome2TW though

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Hilarious considering that you are the one who does not know what he is talking about.
PvP-fools wanting to make ED into another Eve Online apparently do not grasp that it is dead end.

My way ED has PvP environment and PvE environment both of which bring in cash. Your way it is dead game within a year of launch because it has no viability when trying to compete with SC and Eve for space MMO niche.

Actually no. to repeat; several of the mainstream MMO's have either changed to PvP - PvE cross server availability, or set it up from the start.

Why? because population numbers is the lifeblood of any game. Eve's sandbox for all its other flaws is the second longest running MMO in history (behind Ultima - the one that started it all) because of that sandbox AND IT'S STILL GROWING - Eve has more numbers now than at any point in the past decade - no other MMO has that boast. It gives everyone the freedom to choose as they will; what they will do; when they will do it, and to whom.

And that freedom includes carebears, I know dozens of people like my self who got to a stage of confidence in Eve whereby we started to think.. there's more to the game than this... lets see whats out there, and started to dabble on the fringes of PvEvP. If the game structure doesn't allow this and firmly segregates everyone - even the hardcore PvPer's will get bored for lack of targets or the same targets; over and over and over and over and there's only so much PvE you can do before that too gets old - same sh*t different system.

I don't WANT ED to become like EvE, there's many parts of that game that truly disgust me, however the evidence that it's a model that has long term potential is undeniable, during a time where other MMO's are having server population issues and having to take steps accordingly.

Yes, I know ED is not an MMO, but the PvE or PvPvE question is the same:

Do we allow them to mix or not and what are the implications for both?

This is a question Frontier must answer and at some point, they will, and you'll just have to accept it or not.

(and for the record; just as I've said many people don't play EvE because of all that ganking crap - many more continue to join and play as they have learned the ways to avoid it and continued long and happy carebear lives.)

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Considering that you are unable to even get your argument straight, railing about how there cannot be PvE environment and then suddenly claiming that you have all along trying to say you that you wanted them split up.
First try to make rational and consistent argument before coming up with ad hominem attacks.


Made to reflect Eve Online universe with PvP everywhere but few safe zones, yes.



That is same people Eve Online could claim as their "potential market". Except massive amount of people do not care about space MMO. That just took out massive chunk of people.
Next limitation will be those who do not want PvP. Another huge chunk.
When you peel off layers of people who are not interested, you have 400k people who are the market. PvE universe would change this.



WOW HAS SEPARATE SERVERS FOR PVE PEOPLE! THAT IS WHY IT HAS MUCH WIDER AUDIENCE!


And you say they all just love PvP... False. As it has been explained to you, massive part of games do not want PvP. That is why WoW PvE servers have higher population in whole than PvP servers. You do not find single "low" population server in Wow PvE. You have quite a few "low" population servers on PvP side. Clearly tells which side brings in the dough there.



Blah blah blah. And how many you can with any reliability claim to be coming there? Why your buddies did not join kickstarter for ED if they are so eager?
Hell, why they are not chipping in now? I think the PayPal route is still open!

You claim they will come and are eager, yet they have not put their money where their mouth is.


Well, present your facts. I have presented FACTS. Facts that tell us that we KNOW there to be 360k subsciptions for Eve online, closest existing thing for ED.

Do you have any reliable number for CoD players planning to come to ED? No? Then how can you claim they are in any way significant in numbers?

What makes you think they will stick to the game and pour money in it?
You can't.

I have based my estimate on FACTS which can be seen, population of different style of servers, amount of people we KNOW to be paying to play space MMO.

Where are your facts? Fantasies of millions of Cod players lining up for Eve are not facts.

Ok here we go.... *makes coffee and a sarnie first*

*girds loins*

You have forgotten something fundamental young padawn: WoW has a very healthy population on EACH PvE SERVER of arena and battleground players; that's PvP action - Rift; the same, GW2; the same, Lotro; Age of Conan - ALL OF THEM THE SAME. This definitively proves PvE players like to dabble in PvP, and a lot more often than just a few times and without the restriction of having to move to another server first. To not mention that is to distort the truth to suit your statements; not cool.

Eve Online is not the closest thing to ED - where have you been the last decade?

The X universe series - err how many are there.. 4 or 5 now? with another on its way
The Freelancer private servers still running
The Independance War I & II private servers PLUS the total conversion stuff like "Torn Stars" mod (still being updated up to April 2012)
Battlestar Galactica online
The Freespace 2 servers still running - plus conversion mods active
The Evochron series - still very active with a recent new expansion and with seamless planetary interaction like Frontier
Wing Commander Arena (of the same series) - active PvP
Darkstar one and a xbox 360 updated version
The open source version of Hardwar plus a few private servers of the original game still going and that game is 15 years old.
Taikodom

And that was just off the top of my head that I've personally played, am playing, or have considered. All of those are the "children" of Elite's facets. Several of those don't have the trading component, but still have the pilot's seat perspective of space combat that ED will have.

And finally, a quick google reveals a total of 29 spacesim games under production not including ED.

Do I think that "400k total playerbase" you mentioned are in all of those games ? no. Do I think if it were possible to count all the numbers of all those people in the various games I listed and put them into some freaky venn diagram it would still reveal a core of just 400k players feeding ALL OF THEM? Again, no.

Most people only have time to play one or two games properly at any one time and a game like Eve or ED or SC; to make any sort of headway in a reasonable timeframe will probably exclude the other spacesims available.

I'd hazard a guess that while the potential market is all those described by Ende, the real market of spacesim fans that might be persuaded to play ED is still several millions at least.

I still stand by what I say (and what Ende coincidentally backed up), if you go the route of "PvE only" OR "PvP only" flags, servers or other system with no overlap or ability to explore the other sort without a safety net of being able to bolt back to safety (for PvE'ers) when you want to; you will automatically exclude a massive portion of the middle people of both types; those that want PvE 90% + PvP 10% - and vice versa.

I guarantee you there are more of those middle people than the hardcore's of either types combined.

THOSE my friend are facts.

 

[JeffRyan]

<snip>
Eve Online is not the closest thing to ED - where have you been the last decade?

The X universe series - err how many are there.. 4 or 5 now? with another on its way
The Freelancer private servers still running
The Independance War I & II private servers PLUS the total conversion stuff like "Torn Stars" mod (still being updated up to April 2012)
Battlestar Galactica online
The Freespace 2 servers still running - plus conversion mods active
The Evochron series - still very active with a recent new expansion and with seamless planetary interaction like Frontier
Wing Commander Arena (of the same series) - active PvP
Darkstar one and a xbox 360 updated version
The open source version of Hardwar plus a few private servers of the original game still going and that game is 15 years old.
Taikodom
<snip>
I still stand by what I say (and what Ende coincidentally backed up), if you go the route of "PvE only" OR "PvP only" flags, servers or other system with no overlap or ability to explore the other sort without a safety net of being able to bolt back to safety (for PvE'ers) when you want to; you will automatically exclude a massive portion of the middle people of both types; those that want PvE 90% + PvP 10% - and vice versa.

I guarantee you there are more of those middle people than the hardcore's of either types combined.

THOSE my friend are facts.

Those of us who maintain EVE as a comparison mean a comparison with ED not Elite. The big diff here is that ED is a large-scale release with a real MMO element (though that seems to be a side of the game the Frontier team approach but back away from in a way I'm not clear about, it seems to be becoming a stand-alone game with MMO elements....) And in that sense EVE /is/ the closest comparison and EVE has done very very well for itself. It's the most ED-like MMO out-there, the big lack being that first person control of your ship. But the sandbox universe IS ED-like.

My leaving EVE has nothing to do with my concerns with the game (lack of emotional connection mainly) and everything to do with my RL situation changing (wife and baby on the way) so my negativity about EVE is being taken out of context (by myself) because I'm only discussing my problems with the game not what I love about it.

About your second point I totally agree.

 

[Mzr]

Ok here we go.... *makes coffee and a sarnie first*

*girds loins*

You have forgotten something fundamental young padawn: WoW has a very healthy population on EACH PvE SERVER of arena and battleground players; that's PvP action - Rift; the same, GW2; the same, Lotro; Age of Conan - ALL OF THEM THE SAME. This definitively proves PvE players like to dabble in PvP, and a lot more often than just a few times and without the restriction of having to move to another server first. To not mention that is to distort the truth to suit your statements; not cool.

Eve Online is not the closest thing to ED - where have you been the last decade?

The X universe series - err how many are there.. 4 or 5 now? with another on its way
The Freelancer private servers still running
The Independance War I & II private servers PLUS the total conversion stuff like "Torn Stars" mod (still being updated up to April 2012)
Battlestar Galactica online
The Freespace 2 servers still running - plus conversion mods active
The Evochron series - still very active with a recent new expansion and with seamless planetary interaction like Frontier
Wing Commander Arena (of the same series) - active PvP
Darkstar one and a xbox 360 updated version
The open source version of Hardwar plus a few private servers of the original game still going and that game is 15 years old.
Taikodom

And that was just off the top of my head that I've personally played, am playing, or have considered. All of those are the "children" of Elite's facets. Several of those don't have the trading component, but still have the pilot's seat perspective of space combat that ED will have.

And finally, a quick google reveals a total of 29 spacesim games under production not including ED.

Do I think that "400k total playerbase" you mentioned are in all of those games ? no. Do I think if it were possible to count all the numbers of all those people in the various games I listed and put them into some freaky venn diagram it would still reveal a core of just 400k players feeding ALL OF THEM? Again, no.

Most people only have time to play one or two games properly at any one time and a game like Eve or ED or SC; to make any sort of headway in a reasonable timeframe will probably exclude the other spacesims available.

I'd hazard a guess that while the potential market is all those described by Ende, the real market of spacesim fans that might be persuaded to play ED is still several millions at least.

I still stand by what I say (and what Ende coincidentally backed up), if you go the route of "PvE only" OR "PvP only" flags, servers or other system with no overlap or ability to explore the other sort without a safety net of being able to bolt back to safety (for PvE'ers) when you want to; you will automatically exclude a massive portion of the middle people of both types; those that want PvE 90% + PvP 10% - and vice versa.

I guarantee you there are more of those middle people than the hardcore's of either types combined.

THOSE my friend are facts.

Well said, Rafe, and going by the poll here, it may be only a small sample, but a significant majority want a good mix of pve and pvp, without all the segregations and sharding of the playerbase. I hope FD take note of what the majority want (including for their own jobs sake )

 

[DigitalDuck]

Well said, Rafe, and going by the poll here, it may be only a small sample, but a significant majority want a good mix of pve and pvp, without all the segregations and sharding of the playerbase. I hope FD take note of what the majority want (including for their own jobs sake )

No.

The poll shows a significant majority want to be able to play both against other players and against the environment. It says absolutely nothing about segregation at all.

The comments clearly show that those who want PvP and those who don't, actually WANT to be separated. Except for those few who don't think PvP-off players should be allowed in the game at all.

 

[Allen Stroud]

In my experience discussion forum polls are not generally indicative of any representation of a playerbase, unless specifically tasked (like a focus group). If this feature was something you wanted Frontier to consider, why not lobby directly? They can put it to the DDF, or even canvas the Kickstarter backer group using a survey.

Thanks for contributing to this Rafe, some very cogent arguments there.

 

[Captain N]

Those of us who maintain EVE as a comparison mean a comparison with ED not Elite. The big diff here is that ED is a large-scale release with a real MMO element (though that seems to be a side of the game the Frontier team approach but back away from in a way I'm not clear about, it seems to be becoming a stand-alone game with MMO elements....) And in that sense EVE /is/ the closest comparison and EVE has done very very well for itself. It's the most ED-like MMO out-there, the big lack being that first person control of your ship. But the sandbox universe IS ED-like.

I have a feeling ED is going to be considerably less MMO-like than you think. It may even be disappointing to some, especially those who expect something resembling Eve.

Consider these more or less confirmed aspects we know about the multiplayer in ED.

• Player interaction is session-based. Each session can only have max 32 players. A matchmaking server decides who is matched with who. Heavily fudged hyperspace fast travel between points of interest is used to mask transitions and create an illusion of random encounters in deep space. There is no big free flight universe with hundreds of players moving about in massive fleets and interacting with each other like Eve.
  
  
• Economy is mostly NPC-run, with gameplay focusing on hauling cargo between systems, buying low and selling high, like the old Elite. No player-run industry or crafting like Eve.
  
  
• Players can go private or solo and avoid running into random encounters with strangers.
  
  
• There is no heavy, high maintenance central server synchronising gameplay between clients. The server only handles matchmaking and synching the economy while everything else is handled by a p2p network of clients.

As such it's closer to something you would find in a game like Freelancer or Evochron or even your average multiplayer FPS than Eve Online, especially from a technological standpoint (which affects upkeep costs and thus enables the subscriptionless model).

Yes, there is an attempt to mask the p2p matchmaking system and create the illusion of a huge, massively multiplayer universe but it's mostly smoke and mirrors. The true focus is clearly on small groups playing together. The social aspect of the game is very light compared to a true MMO. I don't think solo players will even miss out on all that much.

I think it's quite likely that hardcore Eve fans will just find Elite a socially shallow action game and too simple for their tastes. It's all right, though. There are also a large number of people who found Eve slow, obtuse and boring. I'm one of those people.

 

[Mzr]

I have a feeling ED is going to be considerably less MMO-like than you think. It may even be disappointing to some, especially those who expect something resembling Eve.

Consider these more or less confirmed aspects we know about the multiplayer in ED.

• Player interaction is session-based. Each session can only have max 32 players. A matchmaking server decides who is matched with who. Heavily fudged hyperspace fast travel between points of interest is used to mask transitions and create an illusion of random encounters in deep space. There is no big free flight universe with hundreds of players moving about in massive fleets and interacting with each other like Eve.
  
  
• Economy is mostly NPC-run, with gameplay focusing on hauling cargo between systems, buying low and selling high, like the old Elite. No player-run industry or crafting like Eve.
  
  
• Players can go private or solo and avoid running into random encounters with strangers.
  
  
• There is no heavy, high maintenance central server synchronising gameplay between clients. The server only handles matchmaking and synching the economy while everything else is handled by a p2p network of clients.

As such it's closer to something you would find in a game like Freelancer or Evochron or even your average multiplayer FPS than Eve Online, especially from a technological standpoint (which affects upkeep costs and thus enables the subscriptionless model).

Yes, there is an attempt to mask the p2p matchmaking system and create the illusion of a huge, massively multiplayer universe but it's mostly smoke and mirrors. The true focus is clearly on small groups playing together. The social aspect of the game is very light compared to a true MMO. I don't think solo players will even miss out on all that much.

I think it's quite likely that hardcore Eve fans will just find Elite a socially shallow action game and too simple for their tastes. It's all right, though. There are also a large number of people who found Eve slow, obtuse and boring. I'm one of those people.

hmmm NPC based market, no player crafting or industry/science options, and most likely encounter no other players during a gaming session. If that IS the case, I'm glad I didn't put a penny into the kickstarter fund then.

Personally I was hoping for a single persistent universe sandbox based around the human player, without all the timesinks and gameplay flaws that made eve a big steaming heap

Well I guess at least I can still look forward to the next game in the total war series...

 

[JeffRyan]

I have a feeling ED is going to be considerably less MMO-like than you think. It may even be disappointing to some, especially those who expect something resembling Eve.

I think it's clear from my own post that I also have my doubts about how MMO-like it's going to be.

 

[Captain N]

and most likely encounter no other players during a gaming session.

There will be mechanisms to make this happen but you won't see more than 32 players at once max.