Of course, with every game I play, there are always some features or some improvements that I want. EVE Online is no exception. Here are my current EVE Online wishes.
A Little More Mission Variety
When I heard there was a level IV version of “Worlds Collide,” I just about screamed. Are you seriously telling me that when I get to level II missions, they are just going to be up-gunned versions of the level I missions? OMFG, how many times do I have to run that damn mission?
Part of the reason I have been enjoying EVE Online as much this time around has been the new introduction missions, the 10 part events that has you doing a variety of different things. I would like to see some more strings of missions like that. Maybe even missions that send me on epic journeys across space, to visit places that are more than, say, five jumps from Jita. (Anything that gets me away from Jita is probably good.)
Of course, I am sure that there is a good percentage of players who are in active corps in 0.0 space who would not want CCP spending time on missions when they could be working on the PvP aspects of the game. All I can say is that the long term health of the game depends on new people joining in. Something that makes the game more engaging to new players can only help that along.
Coherence in Terminology
You may have already seen my past rants about warping vs. jumping and the dreaded hanger opening incident. This is a general follow up on the small naming inconsistencies in game. All of them seem insignificant once you have gotten used to them, but they make the UI Nazi in me scream with rage. (UI Nazi was one of my past jobs. Now I work in enterprise software. If you ever deal with enterprise software, you know that UI is way down the list of things that people care about.) Just the other day I was pondering the fact that to add somebody to your “Buddies” which you find under the “People & Places” button, you right click on them and select “add to address book.” WTF?
Re-Ordering of Targets
I am going to guess that you can do this, but I have not yet figured it out, so maybe somebody will come along and educate me.
Once in a while, I find myself with four or five targets locked, and I realize that I really need to kill the third guy in line. Right now, the only way I know how to do this is unlock the first two targets so that number three becomes number one. Is EVE missing a feature, or have I just not figured it out yet?
[Addendum: After I wrote this, I went back and figured it out. Par for the course, merely complaining about something makes it appear. When you have multiple locked targets, you can just click on the icon at the top of your window for the target you want to attack. I’ll leave this wish in just in case I am not the only complete noob who couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t in the tutorial!]
Custom Ship Skins
Yes, I am stealing CrazyKinux’s idea, but just because somebody else thought it up doesn’t mean I cannot wish for it myself.
I will repeat what I wrote elsewhere: I would gladly trade an avatar walking around a space station for the ability to customize the look of my ship. We spend most of our time in game with that ship in view. I have to see my frigate for hours on end. I want it to at least look a little bit different than every other frigate of the same class. Charge me ISK for the paint job. Make certain modifications available via loyalty points or whatever. Just let me be somebody a little different.
Skill Training Queue
Didn’t CCP promise this with Revelations already? Did I miss it somewhere? Does it come bundled with EVE Voice? I’ll pay the fee, just give it to me.
Right now I have about a half a dozen skills I want to train that will take between 1 and 4 hours each. To get all of these trained, I have to baby sit my character all day long. I would be happy with a 48 hour queue. Just let me set up training for the next two days, and don’t let me go beyond the skill that spills over the 48th hour. Or 24 hours even. Just help me out here.
So what else should I be wishing for?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I just wish the Eve universe – the planets, stars, and nebulae, were more than just a theatrical backdop. It’s a nicely painted backdrop, but as thin as they could get away with and it not be empty space. I’d love to actually orbit a planet! “Standard orbit by two, Mr Sulu!”
All the other MMOs have put effort into their environments. EVE is just and animated spreadsheet at the moment. Time for some effort. CCP have hired an economist – to help with the market – they should hire an astronomer! Put in gravity and such.
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True enough. The EVE universe is quite beautiful, but you are right in that you do not get to do much with it. It is just starships, space stations, and asteroids, none of which end up looking very distinctive after a bit of time in the game.
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Custom ship skins have been talked about between players in the forums a lot over the years. While a lot of people would love to be able to customise their ships you would get people that would end up colouring their ship all one colour. So instead of having an intricately designed ship with seams, rivets and whatnot, you might end up seeing a big ship-shaped chunk of blue flying past you.
Also, thinking realistically, the larger ships would take weeks to paint. If done by drones the time might be cut down but it’s still a huge ship. If you take a look at the comparison chart (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Eve_chart.jpg) and take a look at the Brutix, it’s about as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall.
Trust me, I would love to have customisable ships, I really would. But unfortunately I can’t see it working.
@ Henry: At the moment, CCP are looking at being able to add planetary interaction.
If you look at the Drawing Board section (http://myeve.eve-online.com/updates/plannedfeat.asp) about half way down the page you can see simple, moderate and full planetary interaction.
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Well, GW, there is no accounting for taste. One need only look at people walking by at the local mall to confirm that. But since the ship you see the most is your own, I’m fine with somebody being content looking at a solid blue raven for all their days.
Besides, I don’t think painting is really the right term. Tinting would probably be better. All your seams and rivets would still be visible, but would now be blue, similar to the way you can color armor in EQ or LOTRO. You might allow corporate logos and varieties in patterns, but none of that would kill the immersion nor destroy frame rates.
As for the time it takes paint, come now. In a game where we have dispensed with the known laws of physics, where I can learn all there is to know about small hybrid turrets or standard missiles in a few days without ever sitting down in a classroom, the idea that Earl Schieb could paint your Titan in a day for $49.95 isn’t much of a stretch at all.
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I can’t disagree with any of your wishes. More mission variety would be nice. Gotta say, though, I got in a bit of a scrape the other night with a pilot who’s at war with my corporation, and those 5 minutes of 1-on-1 PvP combat were more fun than any mission I’ve run so far :) There’s definitely room for improvement on the missions and mission variety, but I think you’re right, the focus of the game isn’t PvE.
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A well though of list, with which I can only but agree. I just hope some dev from CCP will pass by this blog and take notice.
If that so happens, can he, or she, also please a look at my list. =)
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Eve is about politics and claimed ownership of space.
The majority of pilots in the game are in 0.0 fighting political battles for space ownership.
The largest problem with eve is it’s inability to cope with the load created by these fights. Unless this fixed people will begin to leave, then you mission runners can get priority.
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Now, tinting I wouldn’t mind. And in regards to the time thing, I personally wouldn’t mind if it happened within a day or so but I’m just thinking about the average EVE user (i.e. the ones I see in the forums). These are the kinds of people that will argue for years about whether ships have a crew and believe it or not, they have been..
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“How many clones can dance on the capsule of an Ibis?” sort of debates?
I will certainly grant that performance and stability come ahead of features Mr. Wuss.
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Haha I wouldn’t be surprised. About a year or so ago, I stumbled across a thread in the forums which had about 10 people discussing the physics of EVE and comparing it to the real world. Asking (and answering) questions like, how much fuel would it take to successfully put some of the ship classes into warp, how fast they would need to go, etc. I can’t remember exactly what they were saying but I just remember a hell of a lot of equations being thrown around.
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Well, that is one of the challenges with hard science fiction based games. A bunch of over educated players will eventually start trying to figure out the physics of the game and how it maps to reality.
I think that was the essence of Potshot’s article on Fantasy vs. SciFi.
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Boarding Ships, Flying alone
I thought that Eve would be a little better in the sense that you could train crew, arm them with weapons and train them up, also have fighter pilots aboard and have them specifically trained to destroy ships instead of drones.. and instead of just you on your ship. Also it would be better if during battle you could dock up to the guy and have his guys attack your boarding party…. this would make the game 5 times more exciting than just shooting lasers at each other… Having crews and boarding parties would make this extremely popular.
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Another thing is that you won’t die from debries,,,And for me that’s realy unreallistic.
Dim
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You can check another one off your list: Skill Training Queue
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