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EVE Evolved: Ghost Sites and PvE goals
PvE in most MMOs revolves around killing hordes of NPCs for currency, XP, tokens, or loot, and EVE Online is no exception. Players can hunt for rare pirate ships in nullsec asteroid belts, farm Sansha incursions for ISK and loyalty points, or team up against Sleeper ships in dangerous wormhole space, but most prefer the safe and steady income of mission-running. Missions are essentially repeatable quests that can be spawned on request, providing an endless stream of bad guys to blow up in the comfort of high-security space. Completing a mission will earn you some ISK and a few hundred or thousand loyalty points, but most of the ISK in mission-running comes from the bounties on the NPCs spawned in the mission sites. Similar deadspace sites with better loot are also distributed randomly throughout the galaxy and can be tracked down using scanner probes. But what would happen if the NPCs in these sites were a dangerous and unexpected interference that could get you killed, rather than space piñatas ready to explode in a shower of ISK? This is a question CCP plans to test with the Rubicon expansion's upcoming Ghost Sites feature, which promises to introduce a whole new form of high-risk, high-reward PvE. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at EVE's upcoming ghost sites and explain why I think its goal-oriented approach to PvE should be adopted in other areas of the game.
The Daily Grind: Leveling up in real life
The other day, we asked our readers whether they take their time leveling or if they make a mad dash to the level cap. We had a variety of responses, with some people fitting into one of the two polar opposites and others placing themselves somewhere in the middle. One reader, Accordance, made a comment that brought up another aspect of the discussion: "I think it would be worthwhile to discuss how we play games as a reflection of how we live our day-to-day lives outside of games." While it may seem like a no-brainer that the goal-oriented career-focused person in real life would also be tearing through achievements in a game, we have a feeling that this may not always be the case. Perhaps the fast pace of your professional life leads you to want to take things slower and relax when playing an MMO? On the other hand you might have someone with a steady and undemanding job, happy with their station in life, who comes home from work and gets satisfaction from blazing through their MMO goals. So where do you fit? Does your leveling/playstyle in general match your real-life attitude towards goals?[Thanks, Accordance!]
The Daily Grind: How important is goal-oriented PvP?
At its most basic, PvP in an MMO is just the ability - under set conditions - to punch your fellow players in the face. In a game world where open competition is the rule, PvP doesn't necessarily have to go beyond that. Give players the option to fight one another, and they will make their own story and set their own goals, or so the theory runs. Case in point: Eve Online, the sandbox in space.But history has shown that goalless PvP can often fall flat on its face. When City of Heroes first introduced its Arenas, they didn't bring in the expected levels of player interest, mainly because there was no point to the fights. Without flags to capture, banks to rob or any other sort of goal to reach, the combat seemed aimless. Age of Conan has suffered from similar problems, though the PvP there is much more open. One way in which both these MMOs have tackled the aimlessness of PvP is to add 'minigames', in the context of which fighting has a point.Should developers try to ensure that PvP has goals? Do minigames help, or do they just abstract the action away from the rest of the game world? Should players on PvP servers simply be given open PvP, and left to set their own goals?
