CCP, with the Crucible update, is now refocusing on the ”more classical aspects” of EVE Online such as spaceships, and what features the community are clamouring for most.
The reason Incarna came about was because CCP admits EVE Online’s very nature is rather abstract, and ”being a spaceship isn’t appealing to a lot of people,” reasoned Gylfason.
“People want to be a person, someone they can identify with and get into character with.” The Incarna update saw the addition of the Captain’s Quarters where much more detailed player avatars could exit their ships and explore a confined space. Also included was an item store selling expensive aesthetic gear. Leaked CCP emails fanned the flames.
The EVE Online community was essentially enraged that the studio was considering micro-transactions, and a huge collection of users logged in and attacked space stations in protest. The player run Council of Stellar Management openly dressed down the developer, basically saying they’d lost sight of their fans.
Senior producer Gylfason admits they were ”too focused on introducing the new technologies into EVE in terms of avatar gameplay, introducing massive new expansions with avatars, with new art and things.” It was done in a bid to weaken the barrier to attracting new players to the space MMO. These new features were something ”that the core community weren’t really excited for but had potential new markets.”
He describes the real problem as being no actual gameplay was behind the new impressive technology. ”…we didn’t really do any gameplay around it, it was just “here are some characters, you can walk around and that’s it. That’s all you can do, you can walk around inside a small room,” he said.
“Sure it’s a good step to being able to be a person and being able to see your person, but it’s a more important step for that person to be able to do something rather than just walk around. And I think that’s where we ultimately failed.”
This week’s Crucible update for EVE Online adds new spaceships and even addresses problems brought about by the new Captain’s Quarters. “In the months leading up to Incarna, we failed to properly acknowledge the sentiment of the community and I think that’s a lesson we’ve learned extremely hard,” said Gylfason.
Do you subscribe to CCP’s EVE Online, video gamer? Was Incarna a setback for you?
