Monday, November 14, 2011

Blog Banter 30: The Melting Pot

"With the Winter expansion possibly being named 'Crucible', it certainly is a melting pot of refinements and tweaks aimed at making the EVE experience smoother and more wholesome. If the developers suddenly found themselves some spare resources and approached you for an additional feature to include before release, what single concept would you pitch them and how would you implement it?

For bonus points, the one thing lacking from this "patchwork" of iterations is a cohesive storyline to package "The Crucible" together. How could this expansion be marketed to potential new customers?"

Nice one Stan, I'll do this one is the style of a fake Dev Blog as we've been getting so many lately.....


Hi I'm CCP FakeDevBlogger and I'm here to tell you some of the exciting things coming up in the Winter Expansion for all you faction war fans (all 21,000 of you!)

In our CEO's open letter to the community we admitted faction war needed fixing. We've listened to you, we've had a good look into what faction war is, where it is and where it's going and we hope these changes will encourage more of you to blow each other up with extreme prejudice!

NPC Navy are not going ANYWHERE!
Despite rumours to the contrary we are not removing the NPC Navy from High Security Space. To do so would lead to boring camping of each Empires trade hub and spread out the warzone over to large an area. We want to encourage people into their low-sec war zones, not out of it.
We have slightly nerfed the NPC Navy in 0.7 to 1.0 systems but you still need to take these guys into account when you go kicking up a stink in the enemies back yard!

Complex Spawning is Now 23.5/7
Rather than all faction war plexes spawning immediately after down time and thus giving a massive advantage to those who are online at that time, plexes now spawn randomly throughout the day.

Plexing Means Something!
Rather than the old bragging rights and saying "na-na-nanana we captured your system" capturing systems now means somethings. Capture a system and you'll find a yummy range of bonuses to reward you for your hard work.
  • Command Bunkers now gives minor buffs similar to a Command Ship. Whilst nowhere as good as a decent pilot in a command ship, these buffs will help those who control the system.
  • Reduced fees in conquered systems for repairs, insurance and medical clones. Well your chosen Empire would want to reward you wouldn't they.
  • Now there is a chance that a Navy Officer will spawn in a Plex towards the end if it is being captured. These have a chance of dropping Navy modules.
Cash for Faction War
We've done away with loyalty points for enemy PvP kills, now you are rewarded with cool hard cash! You'll get 75% of the basic insurance for the hull you kill with a x2 multiplier for T2 ships. Now FW isn't such an ISK sink whilst still ensuring that it is not worthwhile to kill your own alts in the enemy militia for profit.
Also we're adding bounties to FW navy rats. If you are of the opposing faction then the NPC Navy will have a corresponding bounty as per normal rats. If you are not in the opposing militia, you get nothing as per now.

FW Missions Nerfed
Yes, your average FW missioner is an alt who runs missions in a cloaky bomber all day. A large reduction in LP's for missions will now make that less rewarding. Faction War is about PvP, not about skulking around in a cloaky bomber avoiding the fight. Man up and go shoot someone!

We're Waking up the Story
Yes, the storyline we were running has gone very quiet with Tibus Heth et al. However we're dragging CCP Tony_G kicking and screaming from his DUST duties to continue the story again. To be honest he didn't kick or scream THAT much. The story will continue but we'll be paying close attention to whats happening in-game to ensure it all ties up nicely. Expect more from Tibus, the Broker and all the other players that have been household names since the Empyrean Age!

No More Faction Standings Hit for Repping a GCC/-5 Miltiia Mate
To be honest this has been a long time coming. We've finally sorted the issue where you'd take a faction standings hit for remote repairing (or offering any remote assistance to) a GCC or -5.0 security status militia mate.

So there you are, tell your friends, tell Eelis Kiy and everyone else who has dropped their account in the last year as faction war has been neglected. This expansion is going to be a massive tick list of all those things players have been asking for over the last few years. This is a expansion by the players, for the players old and hopefully new.

Faction War is back..... and it's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!



Other Banters on this...

CCP FakeDevBlogger - Faction Warfare Redesign
CCP NinjaHoneyBee - EMP Blasts, New Rigs
CCP Haberdasher - War Dec' Changes, Hi-Sec PvP
CCP Anomaly - Incursion Iterations
CCP Veskin - Ammo Revolvers
CCP Margin - Product 'Heat' Map
CCP AngryLog - Deep Space Exploration
CCP NastyCop - Zero Tolerance Policing
CCP Cheapshoes - Advanced Camera Controls

1 comment:

  1. I know dick-all about Faction Warfare, but the following caught my eye in the Cash for Faction War section: "Now FW isn't such an ISK sink."

    I think it's always a bad idea for any game economy to turn an ISK sink into an ISK faucet.

    Other than that, I have no idea what solution might work.

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