Beitrag von: Aura am September 01, 2013, 09:03:51 Vormittag
First of all, I gather the five-year road-map as presented by CCP Seagull at Fanfest 2013 has now become the three-year roadmap. I suppose that's good. Shaving two years off that development objective.
I think everything about the roadmap points to new space being introduced into EVE Online. Two things bother me about this potentiality. The first, we already have so much underused space as it is. I've already discussed this, so won't go into it further. My second worry is that this new roadmap might become an excuse for CCP to ignore areas of the game that need work, nullsec in particular.
We already know that CCP is loath to work on existing game systems if they're too complex, if they require too much of a time investment. POSes are a good example. They cobbled together a few fixes to the existing codebase, but that hardly solves any of the underlying and ongoing problems. Nullsec seems to be another such area where CCP is reticent to delve**.
To be fair, they did fix Crimewatch, but that was probably a necessary evil that had to be fixed if they wanted to go forward with their future plans. Crimewatch ties in to far too many systems to be ignored. POSes and nullsec, on the other hand, are free-standing. The new exploration system ties into Crimewatch in a number of ways, but it has nothing at all to do with POSes or sovereignty mechanics. Ring mining (if that ever happens) will again hook into Crimewatch, but won't come near the POS or sovereignty code. So whereas we can give CCP some credit for fixing an old complex system like Crimewatch, they also pretty much had to if they wanted to move forward with other innovative features.
Back to the three-year roadmap. By introducing new space, it potentially gives CCP an excuse to ignore those areas of the existing game that their developers have no interest tackling. It's understandable, it's human nature. It's far more fun and exciting to create new and complex systems from scratch, rather than dive into the tedious work of fixing the mistakes of others who came before you. Why fix nullsec when you're working towards giving players all-new space to play in? Avoid renovations that are desperately needed by adding a new extension onto the house.
I'm not saying CCP will ignore nullsec, that they will continue to sidestep a needed overhaul. They may very well be working on them right now. My gut tells me that's not the case. I've seen no verbiage coming out of CCP that even suggests they have a desire to tackle nullsec, other than little "reasonable thing" type changes. CCP might surprise me. I hope they surprise me. I just don't feel confident that a surprise is coming.
I'm not sure nullsec can survive three more years of nada. With moon goo prices at rock-bottom (due to moon balancing and redistribution), there are even fewer reasons for alliances to go to war. The income that used to drive conflicts is now gone. It's been replaced with rental empires. Since when has anybody in EVE gone to war over renters? I see renters driving further complacency in nullsec, not encouraging discontent. For sure there will still be grudge wars to play out, but those have been few and far between compared to those motivated by monetary concerns.
If CCP is deadset on introducing new space in three years, so be it (even if I think it is unncessary), but they can't do so at the expense of the current game. They can't allow nullsec to stagnate for the next three years.
** pun might be intended.
Source: What Worries Me About The Three-Year Roadmap ... (http://)