Myself, an Italian ex-Caldari Militia pilot, a very talkative excitable French Lady, an American and a couple of suicidal Norwegians have a base... and it's protected by a raptors, a stegosaurus, two triceratops and a diplodocus!
No, these are not new ships, this is in Ark: Survival Evolved. Most of you have probably heard of the early-access title. A few probably play it. FunkyBacon from Eve Radio is certainly a fan. Basically its team-based Minecraft with fantastic graphics and dinosaurs. You start with a primitive stone pick and camp fires and level up gaining new engrams (which are crafting recipes) which advance with you. I can build metal spears and crossbows currently. In the end it will be mini-guns and RPGs under electric lights with the AC cooling our house. Its a social game and whilst you can play solo its much better in a group. You cannot learn all the engrams, there are too many. So it needs some coordination between team members. With us, our 'Italian Stallion' is concentrating on structure and tools engrams, the French lady is in charge of painting, decorating and farming (completely her decision!), I'm in charge of learning and building saddles for the dinos and Knut is in charge of getting himself eaten by various carnivores ("I go exploring!" - 1 minutes later - Tribemate Knut was killed by *insert name of dinosaur here*). So what has this all got to do with Eve. Well....
Building a base is one of the most fun things to do in Ark and in related news, over in Iceland, CCP Vbi.... Vbrit..... Vitb...... CCP the French Chap and the team are working on revamping structures in game. The plans appear to be to make structures like ships. High slots, mid slots, low slots, rigs and, similar to T3 sub systems, 'service slots'. You'll have some customisation over your 'space house' but only minor.
Eve is unlikely to have the same ability to externally customise but I would hope we can have some. Perhaps 'anchor points' on the base model that facilities can be bolted to. Add a laboratory to your outpost? It adds a white, laboratory looking cylinder to the point of your choice. Want a refinery? You choose where the rusty-industrial looking cube of a structure is bolted to your 'space house'.
I would to see more customisation inside too. Think Skyrim or Fallout 3. What if you could customise your own Captains Quarters? Add extra rooms? Want to produce boosters in your outpost, the door in the CQ accesses an actual lab! Rather than the industry interface you can actually enter the lab and program your manufacturing. Imagine the rooms that could be done for manufacturing (a ship design lab with holographic representation of your blueprints and may be a window looking into a construction hanger were the ship(s) are being built. Could even have models for part-built ship so you can slowly see your ship being constructed!
Finally could we get the same 'team' mentality when building a base in Ark? I don't think we can in Eve. In Ark we are always working together. You get wood, you get stone, you get metal, you get thatch. 'Mining' in Ark is more hands on than Eve. In Eve you can read a book, Ark you need to get ready for when the dino comes up behind to meat-mine you as you are bashing a rock for metal. A lot of the satisfaction in Ark is watching it slowly take shape due to your efforts. That bit of wall there? Thats just gone up because YOU brought a load of wood back and the guy with the wood wall engram crafted it and placed it. Its strangly satisfying. I mean when I first started in Eve I took place in corp mining ops and have built an outpost, but in Ark its just better.
Building structures in Ark will always be more fun than in Eve because of the way the games work. However, I think there are a few ideas CCP could take from this very popular game and similar titles.
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