Filling In The Backlot

Back from vacation! Woo hoo! 

One of my habits when watching TV or movies is thinking about the production of the show. Where are they filming, how are the sets laid out, etc. I particularly like trying to find clues if they are filming on location or on a backlot. Some TV series, like Supernatural, often film on location with real places filling in for places in the story, which is a cheap way to get a realistic visual feel. Others, with bigger budgets and visions like movies will use a backlot to film on.

Some backlots are nothing more than empty wilderness and others are complete sets of buildings on a street like the above image but its all fake. I like trying to figure out if an outdoor city scene is a location or a backlot in a show by looking for clues that not all is as it seems. Is the street lacking potholes and defects? Are the lamp poles too devoid of endless flyers? Are the sidewalks even and facades unblemished? 

There is an unlived look to backlot city scenes, a pristine-ness that real cities never have or cannot maintain. They're scuffed, worn, dirty, damaged, repaired, replaced, recycled. They're real. 

I have a point, really I do. 

Playing in EVE often feels like living on a backlot would be as opposed to living in a real city. There are buildings but there's nobody home; there are actors but no people. In EVE, there are stations and empires and NPC ships, but it all feels like empty buildings and actors as opposed to thriving civilizations of people.

One of the biggest contributors to this empty feeling has been the inability of NPCs to shoot each other. Such a simple thing that one would think would be easy to have in a game but in EVE's legacy code NPC ships were restricted to only target players. Thus a cluster of solar systems with empires and pirate factions constantly at each other's throats was represented solely through lore stories and videos (like the start of faction war between the empires with the Empyrean Age downtime), the occasional scripted missions ("Oh no, a ship blew up! It must have been the enemy, we need you to get revenge!"), or even more rare live events where CCP actors get dressed up in lore characters and drive the narrative.

And that's what makes the recent events between the Drifters and the Amarr Empire so interesting. Here, for the first time, we have honest to goodness NPC on NPC action (oh my!).

Imperial ships firing on Drifters and vice versa represents a turning point in the backlot of EVE Online. It is now feasible for players to get caught up in the machinations and wars of the empires as opposed to only hearing about them tangentially. Imagine, a mission assigned to you where you are a small part of a larger fleet engaging an enemy fleet, everyone but you NPCs. Or exploration sites where Navies fight against pirate forces and players can join in on one side or the other. Incursions where the empires actually try to fight off the hostile forces.

The EVE universe still feels like a backlot, but at least it feels a little more real to me now.

One Universe

From the CCP Presents Keynote we heard that CCP have a vision of not only having DUST/Legion interact with the EVE universe, and perhaps even Valkyrie doing the same eventually, but introducing the concept of a single account and logon for all three games (with a bit of enabling lore about new clone technology developed by Mordu to allow jumping from capsuleer to Duster to Valkyrie pilot).

What this means in practice is that my main character, Kirith Kodachi, could be a capsuleer fighting around a planet, and then switch games to be a Valkyrie pilot in the same battle, and then switch to be a Dust merc on the planet below fighting for a defense battery to fire upon the same opponents I was originally fighting in space.

This concept is not unique and is already being pursued by Wargaming.net, makers of the successful. World of Tanks (and less stellar World of Warplanes and upcoming World of Warships).With WoT and WoWp you already have single linked Wargaming.net account and so that I have the same name in both games, and WoWs will be the same. However, they are still a long way from any typed of linked gameplay between the games, and no word if they will ever have meaningful links for their in game economies (such as they are).

So let's turn this thought process on EVE. There is already links between EVE and DUST, albeit insignificant most of the time (but not all, see the tale of the Battle of Heydieles last December) but still their economies remain detached, I suspect for fear of rich EVE players disrupting any balance in DUST.

However, it will be a lot harder to keep the economies separate with a "One Universe" login as players in EVE will expect to be able to leverage their vast wealth in their DUST adventures and not have to start from scratch; after all, an EVE character name is more than just a screen name, it becomes an identity and has some weight attached to it. After all, as I wrote in To Be or Not To Be:

I don't have to roleplay a character fighting a war with thousands of allies against thousands of enemies in a battle to control resources and living space because I AM fighting a war with thousands of allies against thousands of enemies in a battle to control resources and living space.

In other words, being Kirith Kodachi in the EVE universe means something more than just a killboard stat and if I were to jump into DUST or Valkyrie with that character, I would expect some of the advantages I built up in EVE to assist me in some meaningful fashion. After all, can you imagine someone like The Mittani or Chribba just being basic noobs no one cares about in DUST if they were to start playing? These identities have weight and meaning in a single universe.

Of course, the trick will be balancing any connection of economies between the mutliple games such that having a pre-existing EVE capsuleer life will not grant overwhelming advantage in a DUST or Valkyrie session to the point where only EVE-born can play and compete. In the real world, countries accomplish this with taxes and local laws prohibiting undue influence of larger and more affluent economies from dominating local businesses and politics. The same can apply in a EVE to DUST/Valkyrie connection although I'm aware of the difficulties given the vast wealth of our local space communists and individual industry conglomerates.

And the connection should go both ways. A DUST-born player who becomes rich and powerful in DUST should be able to transfer that wealth into her start as a capsuleer should she become intrigued with space politics and empire building. I can picture a DUST merc making oodles of money as part of a team that fights for an EVE alliance to attack planets, and then turning around and putting that money into ISK for their first ships that they use to fight for that same alliance in space. Or maybe she will decide to settle down and build things instead.

Speaking of manufacturing, with a tighter integration I can envision DUST mercs leveraging EVE industrial corporations to mass produce the weapons and modules they need for their supply depots in their campaigns on the planets, requiring transport through enemy capsuleer infested space lanes to the system where the fighting will erupt on the ground.

In other words, a tighter integration with mobility or wealth and players in both directions between DUST and EVE can mitigate some of the dangers of EVE's wealthy playerbase and DUST's developing economy.

This is all highly speculative and any form of this kind of integration is years down the road, but it can be a very tempting goal to aim towards. Imagine, if you will, a completely integrated sci-fi universe where you can fight with blasters in a space station, dogfight in space in one man fighters, and then slip into a capital ship for an epic clash over a strategic orbital strongpoint all in one session. A universe where they are no rails, boundries, or safety nets and everything is player made and play destroyed. Where you can be everything and do anything.

That's a universe I want to play in.