Originally posted by asdar If you want to see what translating it would be like start with Darkfall and change to tab targetting, then the controls and UI automatically can follow and be just like the other mainstream games but the core would be like Eve...
...but with universal banks
...and no destruction of inventory on death
...and NPC crafted gear
...and zero historical trade data or other market/contract support
...and a completely different skill advancement system
See, it wasn't so hard to evolve from Darkfall.
Is no destruction a bad thing? I like both systems, but I don't see that as a big difference in game.
NPC crafted gear is a bad thing in my opinion. Probably the best feature of Darkfall is that crafting is a vital part of the game. Just the same if you did have NPC crafters it wouldn't ruin Darkfall.
historical trade data and market/contract support isn't a defining feature of Eve in my opinion, but it's something that could be added to Darkfall without ruining the game.
Skill advancement is one area that I like Eve better, but it's not that big a stretch to have a game just like Darkfall but with some of the skill limits in Eve.
These differences you mention don't invalidate starting with Darkfall as a template and making changes, while starting with WoW would not be even possible. It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit.
Most of the features I listed are major components of the core gameplay of EVE Online. You don't seem to understand the importance of the economic gameplay of EVE and the role it plays in combat, politics and territorial control, which is why you feel you can "just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit" to achieve the same results.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by maplestoneIf I were attempting to do the translation, the core question is what assets are players putting at risk? Eve revolves around its ships. Players invest time and effort to create the ships, but every time they undock, they are risking those investments blowing up beneath them.What would be the high-fantasy equivalent? Gear? Mounts? Magical auras?
Good question. Trinity is dependent on a defined and maximized set of roles. Gear replacement doesn't work well with that, so I'm interested in some of the alternatives that people come up with for where/how both loss and attrition would translate into a trinity-based MMO
Fortresses in Darkfall serve the purpose of ships in Eve, ya? So that's one way to do it. Other aspects would depend on how close you wanted to stick with the high fantasy schtick. Air ships could take the place of space ships, and they could co-exist with fortresses, but are not exactly high fantasy.
Fortresses would be more akin to player-owned starbases (POS). Gear would be the equivalent of ships. How well do you think full loot and gear-dependent gameplay would go together?
It wouldn't, not if the gear were setup the way gear is setup in WoW. Full loot works because the items players lose are replaceable. You could do this with just gear, but it seems like large, mobile war machines that can double as housing would give players a larger money sink. It preserves the idea of cargo haulers from Eve, without needing to throw away the idea of lone warriors. It can be setup as part of a progression path as well. Players go from being on foot, then on foot in good gear to moving around in larger machines and then possibly joining an alliance with a fortress group. It can offer layers of combat. Fortress v War Machines v Armored Players v Merchants where each has strengths and weaknesses.
There would have to be advantages and disadvantages to each. Perhaps to be a focused or highly developed crafter, you must remain a foot soldier. Perhaps being a foot soldier or mounted soldier gives you the option of much more casual game play. Of course, there's no reason things would need to be that stratified either. Perhaps players could skip the armor grind, going straight for a mobile house, and use that as a base of operations for their crafting industry.
I should note that this is possibly driven by the fact that I like air ships, and have read a couple of stories about large, mobile cities roving the landscape cannibalizing smaller, slower cities. :-)
What you describe may very well be an interesting game, but it is not like any incarnation of EVE that I have ever seen or played in my 10+ years of contact with the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by asdarOriginally posted by LoktofeitOriginally posted by asdar If you want to see what translating it would be like start with Darkfall and change to tab targetting, then the controls and UI automatically can follow and be just like the other mainstream games but the core would be like Eve...
...but with universal banks ...and no destruction of inventory on death ...and NPC crafted gear ...and zero historical trade data or other market/contract support ...and a completely different skill advancement systemSee, it wasn't so hard to evolve from Darkfall. Is no destruction a bad thing? I like both systems, but I don't see that as a big difference in game.NPC crafted gear is a bad thing in my opinion. Probably the best feature of Darkfall is that crafting is a vital part of the game. Just the same if you did have NPC crafters it wouldn't ruin Darkfall.historical trade data and market/contract support isn't a defining feature of Eve in my opinion, but it's something that could be added to Darkfall without ruining the game.Skill advancement is one area that I like Eve better, but it's not that big a stretch to have a game just like Darkfall but with some of the skill limits in Eve.These differences you mention don't invalidate starting with Darkfall as a template and making changes, while starting with WoW would not be even possible. It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit.Most of the features I listed are major components of the core gameplay of EVE Online. You don't seem to understand the importance of the economic gameplay of EVE and the role it plays in combat, politics and territorial control, which is why you feel you can "just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit" to achieve the same results.
I've played Eve, and I get that you love Eve, if you'd pay attention you'd see that I like it too.
The reason I don't play Eve is because I want a real person to play and not a ship. I think it can be done or at least something close can be done. I'm not saying that anything in your list wasn't core, I'm saying that they can be adapted to a land based game.
Universal banks are easy, so is no destruction and NPC crafted gear. They would slip right into a land based game without a hiccup.
The tough two on your list is the third and fourth examples. I don't think they're impossible to translate. It would take something more complicated than just adding a market with historical data and contract support because the skill advancement is so tied to gear. It would fit a game like Planetside 2 better where you have gear and skills that are tied to them.
You and your guild go to one of 500 zones. It's fairly empty. You go to a gold mine and have your miners start mining.
Then you travel back to unload backpacks and store your ore. Then you go back and do it again!
Maybe someone attacks, maybe they don't.
But in order to make such simple gameplay complex, they'll make it so your have to read a set of encyclopedias worth of information about the metallurgy of your swords before you know which one to equip.
The reason I don't play Eve is because I want a real person to play and not a ship. I think it can be done or at least something close can be done. I'm not saying that anything in your list wasn't core, I'm saying that they can be adapted to a land based game.
Universal banks are easy, so is no destruction and NPC crafted gear. They would slip right into a land based game without a hiccup.
I never said EVE couldn't be made into a high fantasy setting, as that wasn't your argument.
"If you want to see what translating it would be like start with Darkfall and change to tab targetting, then the controls and UI automatically can follow and be just like the other mainstream games but the core would be like Eve"
"It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit."
Those were your statements. One would have to make Darkfall nothing at all like Darkfall in order to create a land-based version of EVE. It' isn't a matter of just changing targeting and controls, because the core of EVE Online is as much an economic sim as it is a combat sim. Also, that you think changes such as regional markets, destruction on death and the removal of NPC crafted equipment is something you can just 'slip right in' is further reinforcement that you really don't get how important those things are to the core gameplay of EVE.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by asdarThe reason I don't play Eve is because I want a real person to play and not a ship. I think it can be done or at least something close can be done. I'm not saying that anything in your list wasn't core, I'm saying that they can be adapted to a land based game. Universal banks are easy, so is no destruction and NPC crafted gear. They would slip right into a land based game without a hiccup.
I never said EVE couldn't be made into a high fantasy setting, as that wasn't your argument.
"If you want to see what translating it would be like start with Darkfall and change to tab targetting, then the controls and UI automatically can follow and be just like the other mainstream games but the core would be like Eve" "It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit."
Those were your statements. One would have to make Darkfall nothing at all like Darkfall in order to create a land-based version of EVE. It' isn't a matter of just changing targeting and controls, because the core of EVE Online is as much an economic sim as it is a combat sim. Also, that you think changes such as regional markets, destruction on death and the removal of NPC crafted equipment is something you can just 'slip right in' is further reinforcement that you really don't get how important those things are to the core gameplay of EVE.
I'll just disagree with you then and leave it at that. No hard feelings on this end. I do think you could leave 90% of Darkfall and make it very similar to Eve, but land based. I'd like Darkfall to have regional supply and be more of a sim, and I don't think it would ruin the game or even change the underlying feel of the game for most players. It would just add another good element to it.
The biggest obstacle in translating EVE's space-based gameplay to a planetary surface is that the resulting game would need a game world that's several orders of magnitude bigger than anything made to date.
EVE works because it has a tremendous feeling of scale. Hundreds of player groups are allowed to claim complete control over large areas of EVE. Each of EVE's 6500+ solar systems (not counting wormhole space) is a seperate (but permanent) instance, but each instance feels quite large, even though it essentially consists of a collection of small instances (moons, planets, asteroid belts, etc.) within the large instance of the solar system.
The EVE game world is so large that it's quite possible to move goods and resources from one part of the world to another to take advantage of regional price differences. Many people do that "for a living". The travel times between trade hubs is so long that most people seldom bother to make the trip just to save 5% or 10% on the price of an item.
How could that be translated into a "normal" MMO game world ?
Imagine that your clan lays claim to a piece of territory in "Medi-EVEal Online". To duplicate EVE's gameplay, your claimed territory would have to:
only be enterable through a small number of valleys, but it would be virtually impossible to completely block any of the access points, as you are not allowed to build walls or gates across these 20km-wide valleys.
be large enough that if you're at any one of the various features (mines, towns, guard towers, bunkers, etc.), all the other features in your "kingdom" will be so far away that they're only a spec on the map. The only way to tell if their are hostiles at any of these points would be by using highly specialised optical equipment which (if you were carrying it) would reduce your fighting effectiveness.
yet, even though your territory is so big that you can't even see 90% of it, you can reach most of it in a minute or two.
you would never have enough resources in your own territory to be self-sufficient, so you HAVE to trade and import stuff.
the world outside your territory is so big that it can take hours for a round-trip to a major market hub.
The game world is so large and hostile that it is highly unlikely that you will EVER see all of it.
Originally posted by SpottyGekko The biggest obstacle in translating EVE's space-based gameplay to a planetary surface is that the resulting game would need a game world that's several orders of magnitude bigger than anything made to date. EVE works because it has a tremendous feeling of scale. Hundreds of player groups are allowed to claim complete control over large areas of EVE. Each of EVE's 6500+ solar systems (not counting wormhole space) is a seperate (but permanent) instance, but each instance feels quite large, even though it essentially consists of a collection of small instances (moons, planets, asteroid belts, etc.) within the large instance of the solar system.The EVE game world is so large that it's quite possible to move goods and resources from one part of the world to another to take advantage of regional price differences. Many people do that "for a living". The travel times between trade hubs is so long that most people seldom bother to make the trip just to save 5% or 10% on the price of an item. How could that be translated into a "normal" MMO game world ? Imagine that your clan lays claim to a piece of territory in "Medi-EVEal Online". To duplicate EVE's gameplay, your claimed territory would have to: only be enterable through a small number of valleys, but it would be virtually impossible to completely block any of the access points, as you are not allowed to build walls or gates across these 20km-wide valleys. be large enough that if you're at any one of the various features (mines, towns, guard towers, bunkers, etc.), all the other features in your "kingdom" will be so far away that they're only a spec on the map. The only way to tell if their are hostiles at any of these points would be by using highly specialised optical equipment which (if you were carrying it) would reduce your fighting effectiveness. yet, even though your territory is so big that you can't even see 90% of it, you can reach most of it in a minute or two. you would never have enough resources in your own territory to be self-sufficient, so you HAVE to trade and import stuff. the world outside your territory is so big that it can take hours for a round-trip to a major market hub. The game world is so large and hostile that it is highly unlikely that you will EVER see all of it.
Good post, I don't think there is a way to make the world even come close to feeling like the scale of Eve and still have a feeling of having a full living world. Maybe with 10 years of development, but not anything close to at launch.
Still with a large world and limited fast travel the world can seem very large and I think you could limit resources in areas. The northern Mountains might be the only place to get ore, The oceans in the south the only place to get kelp for another ingredient or something else. I think you could get something close to the same feel of the game on land.
As far as claiming territory that's been done a lot. They have a message sent out if someone takes resources and the local clan rallies to fight off the poachers. It was a key element of one game's pvp. Having to carry a sensor could be done. It wouldn't be an exact parallel, but in PvP games you do defend territory, especially the islands. In land based games with limited travel you can still have a bind point that drops you in the area, then you have to travel to the location. It works well enough to seem the same.
I'm not saying that it has been done, just that it could be done so that the feeling of Eve comes to land. It's kind of the game I'm hoping for.
if you wanna "switch" eve from sci fi to fantasy, it would be about ships. surely not with avatars.
Airships and floating cities. I like it!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by asdar Originally posted by SpottyGekko The biggest obstacle in translating EVE's space-based gameplay to a planetary surface is that the resulting game would need a game world that's several orders of magnitude bigger than anything made to date. EVE works because it has a tremendous feeling of scale. Hundreds of player groups are allowed to claim complete control over large areas of EVE. Each of EVE's 6500+ solar systems (not counting wormhole space) is a seperate (but permanent) instance, but each instance feels quite large, even though it essentially consists of a collection of small instances (moons, planets, asteroid belts, etc.) within the large instance of the solar system.The EVE game world is so large that it's quite possible to move goods and resources from one part of the world to another to take advantage of regional price differences. Many people do that "for a living". The travel times between trade hubs is so long that most people seldom bother to make the trip just to save 5% or 10% on the price of an item. How could that be translated into a "normal" MMO game world ? Imagine that your clan lays claim to a piece of territory in "Medi-EVEal Online". To duplicate EVE's gameplay, your claimed territory would have to: only be enterable through a small number of valleys, but it would be virtually impossible to completely block any of the access points, as you are not allowed to build walls or gates across these 20km-wide valleys. be large enough that if you're at any one of the various features (mines, towns, guard towers, bunkers, etc.), all the other features in your "kingdom" will be so far away that they're only a spec on the map. The only way to tell if their are hostiles at any of these points would be by using highly specialised optical equipment which (if you were carrying it) would reduce your fighting effectiveness. yet, even though your territory is so big that you can't even see 90% of it, you can reach most of it in a minute or two. you would never have enough resources in your own territory to be self-sufficient, so you HAVE to trade and import stuff. the world outside your territory is so big that it can take hours for a round-trip to a major market hub. The game world is so large and hostile that it is highly unlikely that you will EVER see all of it.
Good post, I don't think there is a way to make the world even come close to feeling like the scale of Eve and still have a feeling of having a full living world. Maybe with 10 years of development, but not anything close to at launch.
Still with a large world and limited fast travel the world can seem very large and I think you could limit resources in areas. The northern Mountains might be the only place to get ore, The oceans in the south the only place to get kelp for another ingredient or something else. I think you could get something close to the same feel of the game on land.
As far as claiming territory that's been done a lot. They have a message sent out if someone takes resources and the local clan rallies to fight off the poachers. It was a key element of one game's pvp. Having to carry a sensor could be done. It wouldn't be an exact parallel, but in PvP games you do defend territory, especially the islands. In land based games with limited travel you can still have a bind point that drops you in the area, then you have to travel to the location. It works well enough to seem the same.
I'm not saying that it has been done, just that it could be done so that the feeling of Eve comes to land. It's kind of the game I'm hoping for.
The solution is to have some bigger continents and lot's of small islands. This way you can create the feeling of EvE Online very easy. Look at ArcheAge for example and how they basically divide the world into similar zones like EvEs high/low/0.0. Travelling the sea requires time and pirates will try to enter your boat and steal the cargo.
Anyways. The reason for why most gameworlds feel rather small is, that the devs and publishers are cheap *tards not willing to invest in a good server-infrastructure. Look at the EvE-cluster and compare that to any other MMO outthere. EvEs server was in the top500-list of superservers from time to time... just saying.
And how large does the world even have to be? The key here is how fast people can travel really. Take a marathon-distance for example. 42km and the fastest runners manage this distance in 2 hours. Make those 42km in square and you get about the area of New York City. Two hours to cross the whole world (coast to coast), if you're running as fast as you can, with no obsticals in your way... that's quiet large allready. If you do away with fast-travel and 300% mounts and all that, it's totally possible to create a gameworld large enough.
And as I said. Make the world into a world of islands and smaller continents, and you get the feeling of a very big world quiet easy.
The principles of EVE Online seem to match up well too. The differences are fairly obvious comparing space to fantasy.
That list of "feature highlights" for Pathfinder Online could comfortably fit the profile of Mortal Online and Darkfall as well.
But those are simply things that those games have in common with EVE. None of those games are (or will be) anything like EVE. The single most significant difference between all those games and EVE is that they all lack a large "safe zone".
One of the central pillars of EVE is the fact that it has about 25% of the game world set aside as a very "safe" area, where players can do a lot of things in a mostly non-FFA PVP space. None of the medieval "sandbox" games want to do that, which means they are automatically relegated to the ultra-niche league.
While I agree with some of the concerns about the transition from space to land, that isn't the core essence of the game. The specific details of the jump gates and the ships don't make EVE the game that it is, and even if it was, a literal translation using islands and small continents would still cover most of those bases. If you did that, than even combat wouldn't be that hard to port over, especially if you added in flying ships and floating cities, though those things aren't technically "high fantasy" in most people's books. The biggest challenge that most people seem to have with this is expecting a literal translation of every detail rather than looking at what the systems are set up to accomplish and designing a world where, even if the actual implementation is different, the overall effect is essentially the same. The more I think about it though, even if the literal translation with islands and small continents isn't absolutely necessary, it would be really fun, and a very easy way to translate the concepts into a nonspace game.
Originally posted by TheScavenger I really recommend Darkfall. Its pretty much like EVE, but Fantasy style like you are looking for. Its by the far the best MMO out right now, it is just so fun. Some bugs, but it was recently released so that is expected. But lots of people to gank and kill having a blast playing it.
How much are you getting paid to post? I mean really...cut me in.
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The principles of EVE Online seem to match up well too. The differences are fairly obvious comparing space to fantasy.
That list of "feature highlights" for Pathfinder Online could comfortably fit the profile of Mortal Online and Darkfall as well.
But those are simply things that those games have in common with EVE. None of those games are (or will be) anything like EVE. The single most significant difference between all those games and EVE is that they all lack a large "safe zone".
One of the central pillars of EVE is the fact that it has about 25% of the game world set aside as a very "safe" area, where players can do a lot of things in a mostly non-FFA PVP space. None of the medieval "sandbox" games want to do that, which means they are automatically relegated to the ultra-niche league.
I wouldnt surprised if Pathfinder Online will have more non-FFA Space. Not everything is set in stone, and we dont know everything.. but it will be a lot more punishing than in games like Darkfall or Mortal Online.
Another point is, that Pathfinder like Eve will have regional markets and will have regional resources, and withit a much deeper ingame economy, very much like Eve (also it will never be so big, at least i assume).
Also as much as i know at the moment(could be change in the future because of technical reasons) it will just have one server for all like EvE. It uses also the time based and skill based leveling like EvE.
All that is not without a reason, a lot of that is based from Ryan Scott Dancy, which worked at CCP for quit some time.
After all it follows the design pattern from EvE in a fantasy setting the most, and will be more like EvE than any other game of my knowledge(World of Darkness maybe excluded.. but we dont know that much about it up to now)
But beside of that it will offer a lot more fantasy based sandbox features (like assasination feature, city building and so on and so forth, read blog for details). But based on their development blog it offers a lot of interesting features.. but the question remains what can they really deliver. At least it is one of the top games in my watch list.
I dont know if anyone mentioned this but without gear destruction on death you cant have a working economy or a crafting system that matches EVE. Some destruction must take place and that doesnt mean castles or forts but every player must lose something in pvp and pve, not drop but destroy!
The principles of EVE Online seem to match up well too. The differences are fairly obvious comparing space to fantasy.
That list of "feature highlights" for Pathfinder Online could comfortably fit the profile of Mortal Online and Darkfall as well.
But those are simply things that those games have in common with EVE. None of those games are (or will be) anything like EVE. The single most significant difference between all those games and EVE is that they all lack a large "safe zone".
One of the central pillars of EVE is the fact that it has about 25% of the game world set aside as a very "safe" area, where players can do a lot of things in a mostly non-FFA PVP space. None of the medieval "sandbox" games want to do that, which means they are automatically relegated to the ultra-niche league.
I wouldnt surprised if Pathfinder Online will have more non-FFA Space. Not everything is set in stone, and we dont know everything.. but it will be a lot more punishing than in games like Darkfall or Mortal Online.
Another point is, that Pathfinder like Eve will have regional markets and will have regional resources, and withit a much deeper ingame economy, very much like Eve (also it will never be so big, at least i assume).
Also as much as i know at the moment(could be change in the future because of technical reasons) it will just have one server for all like EvE. It uses also the time based and skill based leveling like EvE.
All that is not without a reason, a lot of that is based from Ryan Scott Dancy, which worked at CCP for quit some time.
After all it follows the design pattern from EvE in a fantasy setting the most, and will be more like EvE than any other game of my knowledge(World of Darkness maybe excluded.. but we dont know that much about it up to now)
But beside of that it will offer a lot more fantasy based sandbox features (like assasination feature, city building and so on and so forth, read blog for details). But based on their development blog it offers a lot of interesting features.. but the question remains what can they really deliver. At least it is one of the top games in my watch list.
Why is it that every indie "sandbox" game comes with a feature list longer than the Greater London telephone directory ? It just makes them look bad when they launch with 25% of the features implemented, and only 50% of those are actually working as intended...
Pathfinder may be the one that disproves this rule. Or it may not. But I'll remain highly skeptic until I can play a demo or watch some streamed play. Until then I regard it as an interesting design, but vaporware.
Originally posted by Pala I dont know if anyone mentioned this but without gear destruction on death you cant have a working economy or a crafting system that matches EVE. Some destruction must take place and that doesnt mean castles or forts but every player must lose something in pvp and pve, not drop but destroy!
PVP is not the only way of destroying ingame items. SWG had a VERY active economy in the beginning, because it had item decay. Everything became worn with use and eventually broke, and had to be replaced.
Item decay was eventually removed from the game, because players didn't like losing their stuff ...
It's possible, but devs would be best served by taking just a couple of themes from eve rather than trying a direct translation of the game to a fantasy setting.
Require players to put something on the line in combat, whether it be small scale skirmishes or large battles for territory.
Have a player run economy.
Commit to improving the game by putting the resources you get out of it right back into it.
Originally posted by Pala I dont know if anyone mentioned this but without gear destruction on death you cant have a working economy or a crafting system that matches EVE. Some destruction must take place and that doesnt mean castles or forts but every player must lose something in pvp and pve, not drop but destroy!
PVP is not the only way of destroying ingame items. SWG had a VERY active economy in the beginning, because it had item decay. Everything became worn with use and eventually broke, and had to be replaced.
Item decay was eventually removed from the game, because players didn't like losing their stuff ...
Decay doesnt stimulate everything that Eve's crafting and economy system needs to work. So no decay would not work, pvp and pve destruction is neccessary not just pvp.
Decay helps, but by itself would not be enough to replicate Eve. For a full Eve-like economy to work, there must be flat out destruction. This obviously would not work in games that it takes you several months of playing the raiding lottery to acquire that new shiny, but it works just fine in Eve where such losses are expected, accounted for, and built into a system that allows for reasonably easy replacement while not entirely devaluing the initial loss.
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Most of the features I listed are major components of the core gameplay of EVE Online. You don't seem to understand the importance of the economic gameplay of EVE and the role it plays in combat, politics and territorial control, which is why you feel you can "just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit" to achieve the same results.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What you describe may very well be an interesting game, but it is not like any incarnation of EVE that I have ever seen or played in my 10+ years of contact with the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
See, it wasn't so hard to evolve from Darkfall. Is no destruction a bad thing? I like both systems, but I don't see that as a big difference in game. NPC crafted gear is a bad thing in my opinion. Probably the best feature of Darkfall is that crafting is a vital part of the game. Just the same if you did have NPC crafters it wouldn't ruin Darkfall. historical trade data and market/contract support isn't a defining feature of Eve in my opinion, but it's something that could be added to Darkfall without ruining the game. Skill advancement is one area that I like Eve better, but it's not that big a stretch to have a game just like Darkfall but with some of the skill limits in Eve. These differences you mention don't invalidate starting with Darkfall as a template and making changes, while starting with WoW would not be even possible. It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit.
Most of the features I listed are major components of the core gameplay of EVE Online. You don't seem to understand the importance of the economic gameplay of EVE and the role it plays in combat, politics and territorial control, which is why you feel you can "just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit" to achieve the same results.
I've played Eve, and I get that you love Eve, if you'd pay attention you'd see that I like it too.
The reason I don't play Eve is because I want a real person to play and not a ship. I think it can be done or at least something close can be done. I'm not saying that anything in your list wasn't core, I'm saying that they can be adapted to a land based game.
Universal banks are easy, so is no destruction and NPC crafted gear. They would slip right into a land based game without a hiccup.
The tough two on your list is the third and fourth examples. I don't think they're impossible to translate. It would take something more complicated than just adding a market with historical data and contract support because the skill advancement is so tied to gear. It would fit a game like Planetside 2 better where you have gear and skills that are tied to them.
Asdar
So very true.
I never said EVE couldn't be made into a high fantasy setting, as that wasn't your argument.
Those were your statements. One would have to make Darkfall nothing at all like Darkfall in order to create a land-based version of EVE. It' isn't a matter of just changing targeting and controls, because the core of EVE Online is as much an economic sim as it is a combat sim. Also, that you think changes such as regional markets, destruction on death and the removal of NPC crafted equipment is something you can just 'slip right in' is further reinforcement that you really don't get how important those things are to the core gameplay of EVE.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
totaly +1
all pre posters basically abused this thread to make an advertisment for their game.
if you wanna "switch" eve from sci fi to fantasy, it would be about ships. surely not with avatars.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
- "If you want to see what translating it would be like start with Darkfall and change to tab targetting, then the controls and UI automatically can follow and be just like the other mainstream games but the core would be like Eve" "It's possible to translate Eve to high fantasy, just take Darkfall and tweak it a bit."
Those were your statements. One would have to make Darkfall nothing at all like Darkfall in order to create a land-based version of EVE. It' isn't a matter of just changing targeting and controls, because the core of EVE Online is as much an economic sim as it is a combat sim. Also, that you think changes such as regional markets, destruction on death and the removal of NPC crafted equipment is something you can just 'slip right in' is further reinforcement that you really don't get how important those things are to the core gameplay of EVE.I'll just disagree with you then and leave it at that. No hard feelings on this end. I do think you could leave 90% of Darkfall and make it very similar to Eve, but land based. I'd like Darkfall to have regional supply and be more of a sim, and I don't think it would ruin the game or even change the underlying feel of the game for most players. It would just add another good element to it.
Asdar
??
The biggest obstacle in translating EVE's space-based gameplay to a planetary surface is that the resulting game would need a game world that's several orders of magnitude bigger than anything made to date.
EVE works because it has a tremendous feeling of scale. Hundreds of player groups are allowed to claim complete control over large areas of EVE. Each of EVE's 6500+ solar systems (not counting wormhole space) is a seperate (but permanent) instance, but each instance feels quite large, even though it essentially consists of a collection of small instances (moons, planets, asteroid belts, etc.) within the large instance of the solar system.
The EVE game world is so large that it's quite possible to move goods and resources from one part of the world to another to take advantage of regional price differences. Many people do that "for a living". The travel times between trade hubs is so long that most people seldom bother to make the trip just to save 5% or 10% on the price of an item.
How could that be translated into a "normal" MMO game world ?
Imagine that your clan lays claim to a piece of territory in "Medi-EVEal Online". To duplicate EVE's gameplay, your claimed territory would have to:
Good post, I don't think there is a way to make the world even come close to feeling like the scale of Eve and still have a feeling of having a full living world. Maybe with 10 years of development, but not anything close to at launch.
Still with a large world and limited fast travel the world can seem very large and I think you could limit resources in areas. The northern Mountains might be the only place to get ore, The oceans in the south the only place to get kelp for another ingredient or something else. I think you could get something close to the same feel of the game on land.
As far as claiming territory that's been done a lot. They have a message sent out if someone takes resources and the local clan rallies to fight off the poachers. It was a key element of one game's pvp. Having to carry a sensor could be done. It wouldn't be an exact parallel, but in PvP games you do defend territory, especially the islands. In land based games with limited travel you can still have a bind point that drops you in the area, then you have to travel to the location. It works well enough to seem the same.
I'm not saying that it has been done, just that it could be done so that the feeling of Eve comes to land. It's kind of the game I'm hoping for.
Asdar
Airships and floating cities. I like it!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Good post, I don't think there is a way to make the world even come close to feeling like the scale of Eve and still have a feeling of having a full living world. Maybe with 10 years of development, but not anything close to at launch.
Still with a large world and limited fast travel the world can seem very large and I think you could limit resources in areas. The northern Mountains might be the only place to get ore, The oceans in the south the only place to get kelp for another ingredient or something else. I think you could get something close to the same feel of the game on land.
As far as claiming territory that's been done a lot. They have a message sent out if someone takes resources and the local clan rallies to fight off the poachers. It was a key element of one game's pvp. Having to carry a sensor could be done. It wouldn't be an exact parallel, but in PvP games you do defend territory, especially the islands. In land based games with limited travel you can still have a bind point that drops you in the area, then you have to travel to the location. It works well enough to seem the same.
I'm not saying that it has been done, just that it could be done so that the feeling of Eve comes to land. It's kind of the game I'm hoping for.
The solution is to have some bigger continents and lot's of small islands. This way you can create the feeling of EvE Online very easy. Look at ArcheAge for example and how they basically divide the world into similar zones like EvEs high/low/0.0. Travelling the sea requires time and pirates will try to enter your boat and steal the cargo.
Anyways. The reason for why most gameworlds feel rather small is, that the devs and publishers are cheap *tards not willing to invest in a good server-infrastructure. Look at the EvE-cluster and compare that to any other MMO outthere. EvEs server was in the top500-list of superservers from time to time... just saying.
And how large does the world even have to be? The key here is how fast people can travel really.
Take a marathon-distance for example. 42km and the fastest runners manage this distance in 2 hours. Make those 42km in square and you get about the area of New York City.
Two hours to cross the whole world (coast to coast), if you're running as fast as you can, with no obsticals in your way... that's quiet large allready.
If you do away with fast-travel and 300% mounts and all that, it's totally possible to create a gameworld large enough.
And as I said. Make the world into a world of islands and smaller continents, and you get the feeling of a very big world quiet easy.
Don't be so unimaginary, it can all be done.
Great discussion in this thread. Pathfinder Online takes some leafs out of EVE Online's book: Pathfinder Online Forum » General Discussion
To highlight the major ones only:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
That list of "feature highlights" for Pathfinder Online could comfortably fit the profile of Mortal Online and Darkfall as well.
But those are simply things that those games have in common with EVE. None of those games are (or will be) anything like EVE. The single most significant difference between all those games and EVE is that they all lack a large "safe zone".
One of the central pillars of EVE is the fact that it has about 25% of the game world set aside as a very "safe" area, where players can do a lot of things in a mostly non-FFA PVP space. None of the medieval "sandbox" games want to do that, which means they are automatically relegated to the ultra-niche league.
While I agree with some of the concerns about the transition from space to land, that isn't the core essence of the game. The specific details of the jump gates and the ships don't make EVE the game that it is, and even if it was, a literal translation using islands and small continents would still cover most of those bases. If you did that, than even combat wouldn't be that hard to port over, especially if you added in flying ships and floating cities, though those things aren't technically "high fantasy" in most people's books. The biggest challenge that most people seem to have with this is expecting a literal translation of every detail rather than looking at what the systems are set up to accomplish and designing a world where, even if the actual implementation is different, the overall effect is essentially the same. The more I think about it though, even if the literal translation with islands and small continents isn't absolutely necessary, it would be really fun, and a very easy way to translate the concepts into a nonspace game.
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This ^
but i hope it will not take the same way as DF:UW...
I wouldnt surprised if Pathfinder Online will have more non-FFA Space. Not everything is set in stone, and we dont know everything.. but it will be a lot more punishing than in games like Darkfall or Mortal Online.
Another point is, that Pathfinder like Eve will have regional markets and will have regional resources, and withit a much deeper ingame economy, very much like Eve (also it will never be so big, at least i assume).
Also as much as i know at the moment(could be change in the future because of technical reasons) it will just have one server for all like EvE. It uses also the time based and skill based leveling like EvE.
All that is not without a reason, a lot of that is based from Ryan Scott Dancy, which worked at CCP for quit some time.
After all it follows the design pattern from EvE in a fantasy setting the most, and will be more like EvE than any other game of my knowledge(World of Darkness maybe excluded.. but we dont know that much about it up to now)
But beside of that it will offer a lot more fantasy based sandbox features (like assasination feature, city building and so on and so forth, read blog for details). But based on their development blog it offers a lot of interesting features.. but the question remains what can they really deliver. At least it is one of the top games in my watch list.
Why is it that every indie "sandbox" game comes with a feature list longer than the Greater London telephone directory ? It just makes them look bad when they launch with 25% of the features implemented, and only 50% of those are actually working as intended...
Pathfinder may be the one that disproves this rule. Or it may not. But I'll remain highly skeptic until I can play a demo or watch some streamed play. Until then I regard it as an interesting design, but vaporware.
PVP is not the only way of destroying ingame items. SWG had a VERY active economy in the beginning, because it had item decay. Everything became worn with use and eventually broke, and had to be replaced.
Item decay was eventually removed from the game, because players didn't like losing their stuff ...
It's possible, but devs would be best served by taking just a couple of themes from eve rather than trying a direct translation of the game to a fantasy setting.
Require players to put something on the line in combat, whether it be small scale skirmishes or large battles for territory.
Have a player run economy.
Commit to improving the game by putting the resources you get out of it right back into it.
Decay doesnt stimulate everything that Eve's crafting and economy system needs to work. So no decay would not work, pvp and pve destruction is neccessary not just pvp.