Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
Now that I got a chance to try Incarna and my captain's quarters, I can understand why the EVE community was so ticked off with this expansion. Really, what was the point?
To be fair, CCP did a decent job in crafting their new avatar system. The quarters look sharp (I love the giant screen TV ), and so do our avatars. As a supporter of CCPs vision of a fully realized life on and off our ships, I have to say that this is definitely a step in the right direction, even if there is room for improvement (particularly, loading times and quirky controls).
However, that is all the good I can say at the moment because this new content, while interesting as a proof of concept, is really just annoying as regular content. For example, I am really getting tired of looking at the back of my avatar's head whenever I enter a station. I understand that CCP chose that perspective so we are enticed to walk down the long hallway to our beckoning quarters, but after that initial experience, it is just plain annoying. I was hopeful that maybe if I adjusted my avatar's stance to something more pleasing, such as him looking out from his balcony to his hovering destroyer (sort of like a new take on the old spinning spaceship view), the game would remember his POV and use that every time I entered a station. Nope. Right back to staring at the back of his head. Why?!?
Then we come to the quarters themselves. Really, they are completely useless as everything you can do in the quarters is just a more labor involved process of accessing the same functions from your command console. Did anybody at CCP ask "hey, just why would our players want to go to their quarters anyway?" Apparently that question was never addressed. At least give us an arcade game we can play on our TV, sort of like "The Lost Viking" mini-game available at JoeyRay's Bar in Starcraft II. What about a poker game, for example? Something - anything! - to make the quarters less redundant.
The I saw my bunk bed and I thought: "those clever guys at CCP, I know what these quarters are really good for!". So I headed over to my bunk figuring that if nothing else, I would be able to lie down on my bed and have the game auto-log out while my character drifts off to sleep. How cool a function that would be (and metaphysical - is our 'real' life just a dream crafted by our slumbering avatars?:hmmm: Think about that for a few minutes :shock? And at least it would make the quarters somewhat relevant to the game and serve to increase the immersion just a tad more.
Nope. The bed is just for show.
It was then I broke out in a cold sweat. Not again! Not another respected dev succumbing to insanity! Jeez, first I had to endure Stardock's meltdown when they released a tech demo as a full game, and now CCP releases a tech demo as a full expansion! Has the world gone crazy?!? Has all the most respected devs succumb to some sort of lunacy?!?
Just what was the point of this expansion anyway? Sure it looks nice, but it adds NOTHING to the game whatsoever. Well, strike that: I did find one use. Whenever I have to walk away from my computer for a few minutes, I have my avatar walk over to the couch and watch TV. It makes me laugh when I come back and I see him relaxing there on the couch like he was waiting for me to finish whatever it was I was doing.
But other than that, I'm darned if I can find a use for my quarters. As soon as the new patch comes out, I'm switching them off until they have a purpose.
To be fair, CCP did a decent job in crafting their new avatar system. The quarters look sharp (I love the giant screen TV ), and so do our avatars. As a supporter of CCPs vision of a fully realized life on and off our ships, I have to say that this is definitely a step in the right direction, even if there is room for improvement (particularly, loading times and quirky controls).
However, that is all the good I can say at the moment because this new content, while interesting as a proof of concept, is really just annoying as regular content. For example, I am really getting tired of looking at the back of my avatar's head whenever I enter a station. I understand that CCP chose that perspective so we are enticed to walk down the long hallway to our beckoning quarters, but after that initial experience, it is just plain annoying. I was hopeful that maybe if I adjusted my avatar's stance to something more pleasing, such as him looking out from his balcony to his hovering destroyer (sort of like a new take on the old spinning spaceship view), the game would remember his POV and use that every time I entered a station. Nope. Right back to staring at the back of his head. Why?!?
Then we come to the quarters themselves. Really, they are completely useless as everything you can do in the quarters is just a more labor involved process of accessing the same functions from your command console. Did anybody at CCP ask "hey, just why would our players want to go to their quarters anyway?" Apparently that question was never addressed. At least give us an arcade game we can play on our TV, sort of like "The Lost Viking" mini-game available at JoeyRay's Bar in Starcraft II. What about a poker game, for example? Something - anything! - to make the quarters less redundant.
The I saw my bunk bed and I thought: "those clever guys at CCP, I know what these quarters are really good for!". So I headed over to my bunk figuring that if nothing else, I would be able to lie down on my bed and have the game auto-log out while my character drifts off to sleep. How cool a function that would be (and metaphysical - is our 'real' life just a dream crafted by our slumbering avatars?:hmmm: Think about that for a few minutes :shock? And at least it would make the quarters somewhat relevant to the game and serve to increase the immersion just a tad more.
Nope. The bed is just for show.
It was then I broke out in a cold sweat. Not again! Not another respected dev succumbing to insanity! Jeez, first I had to endure Stardock's meltdown when they released a tech demo as a full game, and now CCP releases a tech demo as a full expansion! Has the world gone crazy?!? Has all the most respected devs succumb to some sort of lunacy?!?
Just what was the point of this expansion anyway? Sure it looks nice, but it adds NOTHING to the game whatsoever. Well, strike that: I did find one use. Whenever I have to walk away from my computer for a few minutes, I have my avatar walk over to the couch and watch TV. It makes me laugh when I come back and I see him relaxing there on the couch like he was waiting for me to finish whatever it was I was doing.
But other than that, I'm darned if I can find a use for my quarters. As soon as the new patch comes out, I'm switching them off until they have a purpose.