EVE Online's $1,000,000 Battle Bust and What it Means for Dual Universe

[Takao 97]

"Size" is the physical dimension of an object, in this case a ship.

It make no sense to call a ship "Large" only because it is able to to jump between solar systems or is able to use a star gate.

If two ships, regardles of their space travel capabilites, are the same size, then they are the same size.

If one of them is larger compared to other ship of it's type, then it's a large ship (compared to other ships of it's type).

A large atmospheric battleship may be small compared to a large space battleship, because you might be able to build bigger in space, but it still makes zero sense to call all ships that are not capable of leaving the atmosphere of their planet (on their own) "small".

[MookMcMook 68]

On 01/02/2018 at 4:34 PM, Tsyolin said:

I originally submitted this post to /r/DualUniverse (which you should totally check out if you frequent reddit) but considering this forum gets more attention I figured it would be best to post it here as well.

 

So if you're a fan of MMOs or Sci-Fi games in general you probably noticed a post on /r/gaming about a possible $1,000,000 battle that was gonna go down in EVE Online. It blew up and even made national news in Canada. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7sa25p/after_15_years_eve_online_is_having_its_first/

 

Now for those who followed the event (or if you were like me you were there personally), while it was intriguing to watch and talk about it was clear that overall it was a pretty big bust.

Just to comment on another aspect of this interesting topic and questions posed by the OP which has not been explored in this thread so far:-

 

One of the noteworthy things about EVE battles apart from large numbers, TiDi and server technology issues is as above REAL MONEY COST (as above).

 

If the cost of these large battles is always "costly" it will reduce the frequency of them (apart from performance issues also). What I'm hoping with DU is that it's not so much a real cost problem for large battles although that will likely be linked to the economic output, but the logistics (large crews mobilized) and the strategy (distances are going to significantly break up the map) between opposing large fleets. And this is one area of the "battle front" where planetside all sorts of other strategies might be going on.

 

I think a very high real money cost would naturally reduce the frequency of large battles for these reasons instead of the above interesting and exciting reasons of logistics and strategy. And oc boomeranging back to the OP's original concern: We hope to experience strong (enough) performance in the first place as a given.

[Lethys 2916]

The only reason such large battles are accounted for in RL money are Plex - because it sounds better for media if 1 Million Dollars are destroyed (everyone knows how much that is). No one would say "wow, that's a lot" if they write "55 trillion isk destroyed".

It'll happen in DU too - 1 DAC = 18€ = x quanta.

 

Because there's no pve in Du, such battles won't happen that often (at all?) Because it's harder to generate quanta

[Shadow 168]

20 hours ago, Lethys said:

Because there's no pve in Du, such battles won't happen that often (at all?) Because it's harder to generate quanta

No PvE ? What about mining ? It still generates goods "for free" (no redistribution).

Saying that we will see less combat in DU because there is no pirate to kill for a bounty looks a bit anticipated: it greatly depends on ships price too (and I mean, time to extract raw materials, refine them and build the ship, not the currency price).

 

Regards,

Shadow

[Windmiller_Rick 1]

Well, if DU has a successful launch, I don't doubt that its player base will quickly match that of EVE or even WoW - I believe this because DU will be (and I believe already have been) covered in media as "The new space Minecraft!" and a lot of people who have played MC will more than likely be interested in DU. And as shuch DU will have a much larger player base than EVE because it has a wider appeal; the threshold of getting into DU (being free 30 first days and all) is much lower than EVE, who's interface is just too daunting for the average gamer.

 

So, if we're to presume that DU some day in the future reach the same amount of players as WoW, which an internet graph told me peaked at around 12.5 million players. Now with that many players, I wouldn't count out the possibility of a 6000 ship battle occuring, cause even though most players might not be interested in fighting, theres still a few million wanting to fight, + their orgs might conscript them (and maybe willingly so if their homes are threatened/ "it would be cool to try it out this one time") to fight. Or perhaps orgs hire many mercenary orgs to fight with them.

And another thing to take into account is that even though there can be 200+ crewed ships, is that these battleships/titans require alot more effort and time to make than smaller 50 crew cruisers, so the question begs; quantity or quality?

 

Of course this hypothetical playerbase might be overly optimistic, but IF it were to be this many players, NQ better have the server capacity to handle it.

[MookMcMook 68]

22 minutes ago, Rick Windmiller said:

Well, if DU has a successful launch, I don't doubt that its player base will quickly match that of EVE or even WoW - I believe this because DU will be (and I believe already have been) covered in media as "The new space Minecraft!" and a lot of people who have played MC will more than likely be interested in DU. And as shuch DU will have a much larger player base than EVE because it has a wider appeal; the threshold of getting into DU (being free 30 first days and all) is much lower than EVE, who's interface is just too daunting for the average gamer.

 

 

 

Of course this hypothetical playerbase might be overly optimistic, but IF it were to be this many players, NQ better have the server capacity to handle it.

That's the higher end of positive projections. Lower end: It's too empty, too hardcore etc. Probably somewhere in the middle.

 

As for the last point, the irony of there not being enough space in DU.

[Lethys 2916]

22 hours ago, Shadow said:

No PvE ? What about mining ? It still generates goods "for free" (no redistribution).

Saying that we will see less combat in DU because there is no pirate to kill for a bounty looks a bit anticipated: it greatly depends on ships price too (and I mean, time to extract raw materials, refine them and build the ship, not the currency price).

 

Regards,

Shadow

Pve as in eve. Missions, rats, npcs. Thought that was clear

[Dorlas 21]

On 2/10/2018 at 12:23 PM, MookMcMook said:

VERY large orgs are going to dominate this game and the rewards will be terrific: Entire Solar Systems for example!

Not sure about the last part. I read somewhere that Alioth has about 40k square kilometers of surface area. Let´s say water makes half of the surface. We then have 20k square kilometers of surface...that is area of Slovenia, pretty moderately populated country with 2 million inhabitants.

I simply don´t see a way for any organization to claim entire solar systems and then colonize (or even protect) them effectively. Maybe one planet, after years of development and conquest of other orgs out there. In the end, we may end up with situation similar to The Expanse: Few big factions per solar system, with bunch of small ones fighting for scraps in places those huge organizations don´t bother to control (or maybe working for those big orgs to be left at peace).

[MookMcMook 68]

1 hour ago, Dorlas said:

Not sure about the last part. I read somewhere that Alioth has about 40k square kilometers of surface area. Let´s say water makes half of the surface. We then have 20k square kilometers of surface...that is area of Slovenia, pretty moderately populated country with 2 million inhabitants.

I simply don´t see a way for any organization to claim entire solar systems and then colonize (or even protect) them effectively. Maybe one planet, after years of development and conquest of other orgs out there. In the end, we may end up with situation similar to The Expanse: Few big factions per solar system, with bunch of small ones fighting for scraps in places those huge organizations don´t bother to control (or maybe working for those big orgs to be left at peace).

Hehe, true, a little hyperbole "terror-ific" there. But also a conversation starter as well.

 

Then and again, with resource type and availability, maybe different planets with different resources being the network that counts most to get those resources to markets, as opposed to an entire planet being somewhat surplus to requirement? You're right, the scales are HUGE and won't necessarily make sense to try to contain or control without profit.

 

If there is plenty of resources (due to abundance from such HUGE supply in such a HUGE solar system), and different markets used by different orgs, then conflict might end up being very low key to begin with? Perhaps things will only heat up when rarer types of resources are required thereby increasing competition and value?

 

 

[Dorlas 21]

12 hours ago, Rick Windmiller said:

So, if we're to presume that DU some day in the future reach the same amount of players as WoW, which an internet graph told me peaked at around 12.5 million players.

It won´t. WoW has always been extremely casual-friendly MMORPG which also came out at the time when everyone and their mom was into high fantasy and brought in the golden age of MMORPGs. That age is now long gone and even if DU could somehow cater to such a big audience as WoW did, it would never get so many players simply because the gaming population has moved on.

Of course, DU will be for much smaller audience, pretty much like EVE Online. That smaller audience can still number in hundreds of thousands of players, but it certainly won´t be millions.

 

44 minutes ago, MookMcMook said:

Then and again, with resource type and availability, maybe different planets with different resources being the network that counts most to get those resources to markets, as opposed to an entire planet being somewhat surplus to requirement?

Well, this could bring something else: Planets that are deliberately sparsely populated.

Factions will need major bases of operations. Places where ships are constructed, headquarters of government, army, navy, housing for citizens and so on. These places will require tons of players to take care of, so naturally more and more citizens of that organization will flock to that city.

Now let´s say there will be resource on another planet in the system that this faction needs. They will build mining outposts there and start mining the resource. Most of the planet will be unused, but the faction certainly won´t like if some small organization starts building on that planet and draining its resources. So they may destroy them simply to keep that planet for themselves to use in the future.

If we magnify this and put two or three organizations into that solar system, we can end up with all of solar system divided between them, while only three planets are actually inhabited, with others being claimed and used for various purposes...or just left unused as sort of buffer zone.

 

Of course, this can change and we may end up seeing organizations that are spread out throughout dozens of planets, with smaller settlements on each of them, with every organization controlling only a portion of each planet (although how could security even work in such organization is beyond me). But I really see DU being similar to The Expanse as the most plausible option, simply because it is far easier to have one planet as "Earth" and then have multiple colonies in the same system, while also preventing anyone with the exception of other major factions in the system to do anything (or maybe even union between those factions, where they can be in state of cold war, but when someone from the outside universe dares to do anything in their system, they band together and kick their butts).

[Zamarus 358]

1 hour ago, Dorlas said:

Well, this could bring something else: Planets that are deliberately sparsely populated.

Factions will need major bases of operations. Places where ships are constructed, headquarters of government, army, navy, housing for citizens and so on. These places will require tons of players to take care of, so naturally more and more citizens of that organization will flock to that city.

Now let´s say there will be resource on another planet in the system that this faction needs. They will build mining outposts there and start mining the resource. Most of the planet will be unused, but the faction certainly won´t like if some small organization starts building on that planet and draining its resources. So they may destroy them simply to keep that planet for themselves to use in the future.

If we magnify this and put two or three organizations into that solar system, we can end up with all of solar system divided between them, while only three planets are actually inhabited, with others being claimed and used for various purposes...or just left unused as sort of buffer zone.

 

Of course, this can change and we may end up seeing organizations that are spread out throughout dozens of planets, with smaller settlements on each of them, with every organization controlling only a portion of each planet (although how could security even work in such organization is beyond me). But I really see DU being similar to The Expanse as the most plausible option, simply because it is far easier to have one planet as "Earth" and then have multiple colonies in the same system, while also preventing anyone with the exception of other major factions in the system to do anything (or maybe even union between those factions, where they can be in state of cold war, but when someone from the outside universe dares to do anything in their system, they band together and kick their butts).

I've thought these exact same things. And for all you know some people could already be planning divides like that ;^)

[NanoDot 539]

On 10/02/2018 at 5:22 PM, Lethys said:

....

 

Because there's no pve in Du, such battles won't happen that often (at all?) Because it's harder to generate quanta

We don't yet know the time-cost of producing things in DU, and that factor will have a significant effect on the kind of game play that DU will have.

 

At this stage, it sounds to me like things will be a lot slower in DU than in EVE. EVE's design facilitates a high level of combat. There's large-scale mining in EVE, there's automated mining (moons) and there's automated "planetary industry". The huge money faucet of PVE means that many players can afford to replace losses relatively easily, without being "forced" to mine for hours. A combat player in EVE can spend all their time fighting, whether it be PVP or PVE or a mix of the two.

 

There's also a lot more risk in DU. EVE has hundreds of NPC stations scattered throughout empire space, each of which can safely store all the possessions of an infinite number of players indefinitely. That's simply not possible in DU, because things like ships occupy physical space in the game world, whether you're using them or not.

 

Take a 3-month break from playing DU and you'll login to a character with an inventory full of blueprints, the physical assets (and the resources used to construct them) will all be gone. The only resources you'll have will be whatever was in your personal inventory when you logged-off last, and that space will be limited. In EVE you just resume play wherever you left off last, whether it was yesterday or a year ago. All your assets in all NPC stations will still be there and ready for immediate use.

[Takao 97]

12 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

Take a 3-month break from playing DU and you'll login to a character with an inventory full of blueprints, the physical assets (and the resources used to construct them) will all be gone.

After you logged out your ship will despawn after a while, as far as I know.

Furthermore, if you log out while in a safe zone, your ship is safe.

[Lethys 2916]

13 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

We don't yet know the time-cost of producing things in DU, and that factor will have a significant effect on the kind of game play that DU will have.

 

At this stage, it sounds to me like things will be a lot slower in DU than in EVE. EVE's design facilitates a high level of combat. There's large-scale mining in EVE, there's automated mining (moons) and there's automated "planetary industry". The huge money faucet of PVE means that many players can afford to replace losses relatively easily, without being "forced" to mine for hours. A combat player in EVE can spend all their time fighting, whether it be PVP or PVE or a mix of the two.

 

There's also a lot more risk in DU. EVE has hundreds of NPC stations scattered throughout empire space, each of which can safely store all the possessions of an infinite number of players indefinitely. That's simply not possible in DU, because things like ships occupy physical space in the game world, whether you're using them or not.

 

Take a 3-month break from playing DU and you'll login to a character with an inventory full of blueprints, the physical assets (and the resources used to construct them) will all be gone. The only resources you'll have will be whatever was in your personal inventory when you logged-off last, and that space will be limited. In EVE you just resume play wherever you left off last, whether it was yesterday or a year ago. All your assets in all NPC stations will still be there and ready for immediate use.

yup, that's the point. DU != EVE and in DU you don't have the kind of faucets as in eve (as I already said too). It's a safe bet to say that time-cost value will be much higher in DU due to mechanics in place

[ShioriStein 105]

1 hour ago, Takao said:

After you logged out your ship will despawn after a while, as far as I know.

Furthermore, if you log out while in a safe zone, your ship is safe.

I didnt know that our ship can despawn ? Can you give me some source about it. If it true it will make a lot of different in my plan.

 

Well no you are not. In safe zone but with "de-own" system i dont think it perfect safe. Or "de-own" system only target static construct ?

[MookMcMook 68]

8 minutes ago, ShioriStein said:

I didnt know that our ship can despawn ? Can you give me some source about it. If it true it will make a lot of different in my plan.

 

Well no you are not. In safe zone but with "de-own" system i dont think it perfect safe. Or "de-own" system only target static construct ?

Seems to me, an option (the riskiest one) "you can go for the camouflage option and hope none scan your ship successfully" (assuming you're out in deep space flying your own ship). Being small, in large area, hiding under a rock (even), engines and power off, camo-tech up... seems reasonable risk for risk-takers... [RISKIEST]

 

Secondly, if out in deep space, maybe a large spaceship with dozens of crew, then if one crew logs out, others are still attending to the current and future fate of the ship, so no biggie? [NORMAL RISK]

 

Of course safe bases for docking are safe to despawn or park (not sure which it actually is here??) (given it's got a bubble timer). [ZERO RISK]

 

All this seems reasonable?

[Takao 97]

 

Quote

Q: How do you intend to handle persistence when it comes to a player and his ship? 

Will both remain in the universe when you log out or will you essentially vanish?

 

The player avatar will disappear after a few minutes. The constructs however remain, so the ship is still there. It can however be protected be either being in the Safe Zone, or simply with a protection bubble, and possibly also an invisibility cloak that you can power to make it disappear when offline.

 

Ok, it seems I was wrong about despawning or they changed their mind in the meantime in postet it somewhere?

There were several discussions about this topic.

 

Quote

Well no you are not. In safe zone but with "de-own" system i dont think it perfect safe. Or "de-own" system only target static construct ?

It only targets static constructs, because otherwise you would not be „safe“ in a safe zone.

[Shadow 168]

I've asked JC about what happens to ships when someone disconnects.

There are plans, but nothing written in stone yet (I've highlighted some problems myself ).

Ship may disappear or not depending on situation, but nobody knows for sure at the moment (not even NQ).

 

Regards,

Shadow

[ShioriStein 105]

5 minutes ago, Takao said:

It only targets static constructs, because otherwise you would not be „safe“ in a safe zone.

Tks for information, is this what they confirm ? Because if ship not de-own many of people will dock/park their ship or maybe entire org fleet at safezone and take all space. I do hope the "de-own" system also apply for the dynamic like ship, Garage owner will have job to do :))

 

 

7 minutes ago, Takao said:

Ok, it seems I was wrong about despawning or they changed their mind in the meantime in postet it somewhere?

Umu if ship can despawn i think it will broke the game when you only need to hide enough of time and boom your ship is despawn.

 

2 minutes ago, Shadow said:

Ship may disappear or not depending on situation, but nobody knows for sure at the moment (not even NQ).

Okay thanks for this even new information. But i hope it will not despawn. The feeling of rage when you are hunt down someone and they just despawn before you can even shot their ship.

[Shadow 168]

7 minutes ago, ShioriStein said:

Okay thanks for this even new information. But i hope it will not despawn. The feeling of rage when you are hunt down someone and they just despawn before you can even shot their ship.

I've pointed out this problem. They have solutions ;).

 

Regards,

Shadow

[ShioriStein 105]

6 minutes ago, Shadow said:

I've pointed out this problem. They have solutions ;).

 Very nice. I hope their solution will work and balance.

I hope their way to solve this "hard problem" will create even more freedom and emergent gameplay. Love to be a banker and a Garage owner. The feeling of crowd station where even you dont need to go there but you have to park your ship there to protect it while there isnt anywhere is safe ( not count safezone , like far far away from safezone ).

I love to see the crowd station, ship park and people everywhere. This is why i love DU, i can have my hope in here that the crowd i see not AI, souless AI in any game i have see. A real station, real crowd, i hope to see that real.

[Takao 97]

14 minutes ago, ShioriStein said:

Tks for information, is this what they confirm ? Because if ship not de-own many of people will dock/park their ship or maybe entire org fleet at safezone and take all space. I do hope the "de-own" system also apply for the dynamic like ship, Garage owner will have job to do :))

If you have already claim a tile in the safe zone, you can’t loose it by force. That means once a tile is claimed it would be safe to „store“ your ship there because you can’t block access to the tile.

The thing is, that storing your ship on someone else’s tile has the risk, that your ship might get buried, because it will not float while you are offline, so the player can remove the material beneath it and build a construct above it.

[ShioriStein 105]

1 minute ago, Takao said:

If you have already claim a tile in the safe zone, you can’t loose it by force. That means once a tile is claimed it would be safe to „store“ your ship there because you can’t block access to the tile.

Cant loose by force but lost due the "de-own" system. Because if the title dont de-own how people can salvage the construct which build in there right ? 
Also the TU to claim it will be very expensive and one man army cant get it ( or you can buy it with RL money ).

 

3 minutes ago, Takao said:

The thing is, that storing your ship on someone else’s tile has the risk, that your ship might get buried, because it will not float while you are offline, so the player can remove the material beneath it and build a construct above it.

If it is a Garage then the trustworthy - not trustworthy system will come in handy ( this system not something Dev will make, i just give the tile system so it can be easily understand ), i will store my ship at someone who can trust if i off for a long time. 

Lucky Dev also have confirm about mechanic which will give you ability to make giant door ( like a garage door ) so i think Garage will be much handy. Beside i cant park my ship at a space station for too long, the owner will sure not happy when a ship park too long without any fee, even with fee you will make them lost somewhat potential customer who cant go in their space station because of FULL. So Garage is best choice.

[Tsyolin 4]

On 2/10/2018 at 10:15 AM, MookMcMook said:

I think a very high real money cost would naturally reduce the frequency of large battles for these reasons instead of the above interesting and exciting reasons of logistics and strategy. And oc boomeranging back to the OP's original concern: We hope to experience strong (enough) performance in the first place as a given.

Just going to interject here quickly and say that I think it's important that everything have some sort of value, obviously we're not really talking about hundreds of dollars worth of stuff necessarily, but everything having some sort of value means that there is some weight behind it. Flying a ship that I built or sunk a lot of resources into getting, with the risk of losing it, makes it that much more interesting. And that's sort of a dangerous tipping point to deal with in terms of market stability. If a resource or ship becomes effectively worthless it takes away a level of depth that was there before.

[MookMcMook 68]

1 minute ago, Tsyolin said:

Just going to interject here quickly and say that I think it's important that everything have some sort of value, obviously we're not really talking about hundreds of dollars worth of stuff necessarily, but everything having some sort of value means that there is some weight behind it. Flying a ship that I built or sunk a lot of resources into getting, with the risk of losing it, makes it that much more interesting. And that's sort of a dangerous tipping point to deal with in terms of market stability. If a resource or ship becomes effectively worthless it takes away a level of depth that was there before.

Yes, agree with this. The main enquiry I was making is that Real Value should not be major issue: (Then just compare bank accounts and call it victory or loss), but also the logistics via distance and gates and the organization (crew of larger ships demonstrating greater oganizational ability and hence superiority reflecting this in-game performance).

 

PvP should be "expensive" and that demand fuelling Building et al.