Eve Online’s communications blackout explained

https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/12/20692205/eve-online-nullsec-blackout-chat

by Tomte • 7 years ago

108 40 7 years ago

brianwawok• 7 years ago

Very cool. It was always a bit too safe to be able to see chat go up by 20 and know a 20 ship fleet had entered the zone.

deepsun• 7 years ago

One of the best games I ever played (or wasted my time on). Taught me a lot about leadership.

namibj• 7 years ago

I was fortunate to learn a lot about organizational failure in my teenage years from it. Saves me from blindly trusting higher-ups as I'd otherwise have done.

I can recommend a bit of the game to learn politics, because it's relatively cheap to do that in the game (vs. in normal life, where it quickly affects your bottom line).

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

I've always loved games that mixed UI with game mechanics.

When I was a kid there was a game called Pathways Into Darkness. If you unequipped your watch the time disappeared from the UI. If you unequipped your flashlight it got dark. But there was never a reason to do these things. It just added flavor.

Aside from the real practical effects of this change in Eve, I think it lends itself to this idea that your UI isn't some out of body experience. It's what your ship is capable of.

reificator• 7 years ago

There was a period where Ubisoft was putting in a lot of effort in their games (Splinter Cell/Assassin's Creed are what I know) to justify every little piece of UI in-game. And not only that, they'd let you disable bit-by-bit to have the experience you wanted[0].

I don't know if they're still doing this. I haven't played an Assasin's Creed game since they made it an RPG in... Syndicate I think? And Splinter Cell, well... Maybe in 2023 or so if/when they release a new one.

[0] https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/StanislavCostiuc/20160303/26...

duskwuff• 7 years ago

When I was a kid there was a game called Pathways Into Darkness.

Still playable on modern computers: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pathways-into-darkness/id61723...

Causality12• 7 years ago

I quit EVE after it became "legal" to buy subscription passes and sell them for in-game currency. That's significant because it lets you put a dollar amount on everything you do. It destroys the fun of non-PVP activities when what you're doing changes from "just three more hours of mission running slash mining and I can replace my battleship" to "I'm working for $1.78 an hour." At that point you realize you may as well just buy back your losses every time you get blown up.

I’m a fan of no local in null, especially if they add observatories/sensor networks structures

Of course he is. The Mittani is completely dedicated to large-scale PVP. Replacing Local with sensor structures is fantastic for alliances who can put a structure or an alt account sentry on every gate in their territory. Never mind how heavily it favors large established organizations and punishes smaller newer corporations.

y4mi2• 7 years ago

I quit EVE after it became "legal" to buy subscription passes and sell them for in-game currency.

I was a very active world of Warcraft player up until wrath of the lich King. At the time I was leveling my alts blacksmithing by traveling around the world and mining minerals just to increase some arbitrary numbers on my skills and professions panel.

Then I thought to myself: I keep hearing about people using bots for that: let's try this!

So I set it up... After it ran for a few hours I came back with a full inventory of minerals and for the first time in my life realized what I've been doing for the last years... Exactly nothing.

I deleted the game a few weeks later, couldn't find the energy in myself to keep raiding.

I sometimes get back to it for a month or three. But it just cannot keep me interested any longer.

I think there are a lot of reasons to actually lose the touch with MMO games and suddenly you realized that the time spent isn't actually achieving anything... For you, it might've been the game time tokens, but I'm sure you would've realized it in some other way if they didn't do that.

I actually think that these tokens help players that just want to play a little without wasting their entire lives away quite a bit.

For example the last time I played world of Warcraft I did some mythic+ runs... I just bought a token and could buy all the required consumables for the whole three month I played.

I wouldn't have had the patience to get these the normal way and as such would never have been able to experienced any higher dungeons.

chii2• 7 years ago

suddenly you realized that the time spent isn't actually achieving anything

then you've missed the whole point of an MMO game - you're meant to make meaningful human connections, and find online friends who may even outlast the game.

EVE is one of those games that almost require such friend-making for it to be fun (playing PvE in EVE is boring, unlike WOW).

Noumenon72• 7 years ago

There are a lot of games like that -- I wrote a permutation program that pretty much solved Alphabears, whereupon it wasn't fun any more.

Now I just make sure not to look up any tips or hints for games, because discovering them for myself is the fun I'm looking to have.

wolco• 7 years ago

It invalidates unknown space a bit. There should be a middle option like you can see a player but not the ships.

jeremyjh• 7 years ago

Does local chat tell you ship types now? When I played (2006-2009) you would only see the players in the system, you would have to be in scanner range to see ship types, and only if you opened the scanner. I think the new system sounds great; wormholes existed in my time but I never used them I played strictly in nullsec. The changes would actually make it harder to gank ratters and miners though. Because most nullsec systems are unpopulated at any given time when you are looking for targets you would fly from system to system and only stop and investigate when there were people in local. So yes, the miners can't see when a ganker enters local but the gankers can't see when targets are present either. If you want to hide out and rat in a relatively low-quality system probably no one would ever find you.

MrMorden• 7 years ago

No; local is just character names. Ship classes are visible on D-scan (except cloaked or combat recon) or combat probes.

CrazyStat• 7 years ago

No, local chat still just shows you names.

There are ways to target yourv search for miners and ratters, using info from the in game map or websites using the API. See e.g. [1] which shows how many rats babe been killed in an hour time period in each system. These kinds of tools were probably less common in your day.

[1] https://eveeye.com/?m=Delve&o=tag_none,con_none,etag_sig,sec...

HenryBemis• 7 years ago

From the game's website:

As previously announced, local chat in all nullsec space is currently in delayed mode.

This means that it will behave as local chat in wormhole space, with pilots only appearing in the local population listing should they choose to post messages.

The duration of this blackout is undetermined, and we’ll be monitoring what effect this has on the cluster.

EvanAnderson• 7 years ago

The Unthinking Depths have bubbled up into The Beyond.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep#Setting

kpU8efre7r• 7 years ago

Good.

It always seemed boring that you could get valuable Intel by closely monitoring a chat window.

chimen• 7 years ago

Cool game but I can't play it any more. So much wasted time doing nothing. It's worse than a second job.

antihero• 7 years ago

It is literally job. I know a bunch of people in finance that say playing eve as teenagers really taught them how to graft and optimise though, so I guess it's like training for actual jobs in a way.

marak830• 7 years ago

As a large alliance fc I learnt a lot about effective communication. I truly believe that has helped me in my life and careers, especially in ones where I feel not as capable on a knowledge level but have been promoted due to senior members quitting.

chii2• 7 years ago

eve is not a job - it's a life. you work a second job to afford to live it!

VLM3• 7 years ago

Their financial model is selling subscriptions, so they have a vested interest in turning the game into an extreme grind.

Elite Dangerous sells a single upfront payment with there's no subscription which has its own weird effects, they have to budget each $X sale will result in Y hours of use before boredom sets in.

I wish there were a viable in between business model such that things are neither boring to get you to quit nor boring to keep you grinding forever. AFAIK no one has tried an ownership financialized space sim. Buy and improve and rent and sell space stations and ships using real microbitcoins or similar.

JWLong• 7 years ago

And yet the majority of players wind up only logging in when they feel they need to.

The lack of (required) grinding for XP makes the game a lot more relaxed than most other MMOs.

njharman• 7 years ago

The ideal subscription customer never logs in and next comsumes resourses.

Grind is not the optimal subscription model. It exists only cause its easy to keep gamers engaged with grind.

Justsignedup• 7 years ago

Ironically enough the game is NOT grindy AT ALL. Well sorry let me rephrase.

The game has no grinding requirements. You can log in, ask someone for 20mil isk, you'll get it trust me. Then basically set a training regiment for the next 6 or so months, you might need to log in once a week to set the next week's training and log out. And suddenly be able to play a high-level game. If you have a friend in nullsec with good farming, grab an appropraite ship, go in, boom boom boom, money. Way less grindy than playing say WoW.

Even better. after those 6 months if you trained your way to a org doctrine, you basically go on, ask the org to please give you a ship, they will, at no cost. And then you have fun. Most orgs make their money from mining moon rocks, so they have fucktons of cash to give away for ships here and there.

Having said that, the times when there's action in the game, its like 3 hrs of hunting for 5 minutes of pew pew. Very uneventful. It is more of a game about making jokes and stories with friends.

sshagent• 7 years ago

I really hope this ends up permanent, may will dust off my accounts if so. Don't think I'd like anyone currently playing mind you.

VLM3• 7 years ago

As a meta-point the "fog of war" applied to communications seems blindingly obvious and as an Elite Dangerous player (mobius PvE only) I always wondered why E:D never had that obvious gameplay mechanic; seems the article implies EveO probably copyright/trademark/trade secreted that obvious idea so no other game can have it.

That sucks. Nothing impedes technological and economic progress quite like IP laws.

gammagoblin• 7 years ago

seems the article implies EveO probably copyright/trademark/trade secreted that obvious idea so no other game can have it.
That sucks. Nothing impedes technological and economic progress quite like IP laws.

What the fuck are you talking about? Where does it imply anywhere even close?

I'd definitely agree that IP laws impede technological progress, but you're leaping to ridiculous conclusions.

axilmar• 7 years ago

I wanted to do something similar to Darkfall, i.e. players would only be able to chat with those in their vicinity.

I'd also add a voice volume so as that in order to whisper, you'd have to come real close to someone and keep your voice down.

Global/area chat and channels simply ruin some aspects of MMORPGs.

Eve Online’s communications blackout explained

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