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"It was good enough for me as a child!"

"Notice: Your special edition issuance is available to you. The 'Impact' jacket features pitch black nanofiber-laced harness locks in seamless connections on the front. Any capsuleer wearing this jacket is ready for a fight."
Wilhelm reread the notice again. The instructions showed a man, neatly dressed out in a rich orange jacket with white gloves. On the couch of his captains quarters there was a tangle of black plates with mottled green fabric. He picked up the mess and again tried to slide one of his arms into it. The buckles caught and green fabric wrinkles around his wrist. Determined, he pulled it over his head and gagged as a plate pressed into his nose. The pants were no better. He assumed they were pants. He had managed to get both knee pads on but the rest was a tangle of cloth and codpiece. How the belt attached he didn't know. it was currently decorating the other side of the room where he had thrown it in frustration. It had been a while since he had been out of the pod bt he was sure he remembered how to get dressed. The shirt he had peeled out of had come off just as he remembered. This... this fashion however... it was something else...

I could not resist after I read Wilhelm's post full of 'I don't know why I have this' but to capture it. I chuckled to many times. But, as he outlined his attempts to figure out how to dress his avatar and noted that the first thing he did was Google for help, I sighed. I didn't sigh because he used Google. I sighed because dressing his avatar required a search. And he is not the only one. The first time I tried to put something on that was new I to had to Google. That is how I learned that clothing must be on the hangar floor. Then you scroll to the left instead of the right and you find your non-standard duds.

Nothing tells you that little feature. You learn it through trial and error or by Google. I'm a terrible trial and error person. I have to use the Minecraft Wiki for crafting because I never figure out crafting recipes on my own. I'm horrid at that and Eve is full of things that you just have to figure out.

Double clicking in space, I am looking at you.

I started to ponder if it is all side effects of Eve's haphazard start and tendency to focus on the big, flashy future over the immediate needs of things. Whatever it is, it crops up constantly and it has to be remembered that we still lack basic things.

I'm reminded of every time I argue about the map. Sure, we have dotlan. Sure, we have other resources. At the end of the day the game should have basic tools within the game client. A map is a basic tool. And then, even as I wrote I realized that I was not sure if we had a command list. This led me down a rabbit hole late at night to find out that Eve has a full set of slash commands that were proposed back in 2008 by the CSM. Eve Uni has a section on them as well.

We discuss what we think new players need and what a New Player Experience should be. Yet, I stumble upon simple frustration points often enough that I think we need to smooth out the rough features. It is like we have a very nice house but we never got around to putting something on top of the dirt floor because it serves, its been turned hard as rock from time, and we're used to it. Its a nice, quirk that has always been there. Why change it?

"I wonder if the March boots were made in March or are for Marching. I was hoping for more casual wear." Having failed in his attempt to turn the strips of cloth and plates of leather into something that covered more than a continuous handspan of his body, Wilhelm had opted for something more familiar. It took him a while to find his closet. It seemed that the station refurbishment had gone ultra modern and removed any visible doors. He had accidentally activated a proximity sensor when he was trying to use the mirror to detangle the jacket. Maybe there had been simple, encoded instructions on the design. Now groomed and dressed, he updated his personal log:

"So I'm thinking I ought hire someone to round up all that clothing I have left strewn about space and put it together in a nice little wardrobe that has an actual door that doesn't give me a black eye becuase its spring loaded. That thing still hurts. I feel like wearing my Quafe T-Shirt when I am out in Immensea. It just works there. I don’t want to worry that I might have left it behind in Deklein or Jita or Amarr."

Note: This post is 100% teasing Wilhelm with the story that I wrapped my thoughts up in. That is his fault and I calmly pass the fault onto him thanks to his rampage on twitter. I take no blame or responsibility. Like a gremlin, I should not blog after midnight for things happen.

Comments

  1. Since we have been getting rid of game play that is just 'bad' and using recently created code to make it work, when are we getting rid of -10 pirates from being in highsec without getting immediately podded for not using Tags-for-Sec? The one sided nature of highsec PvP is also a stumbling block for new players; links, neutral logi, budget for suicide ganking. I am in no way asking for increased safety, I am asking fo CCP to use the code they put that was put in because there were so many complaints about not being able to easily access highsec space without doing "The Plan". Being able to fly -10 in 0.7 space and higher should have a law enforcement and/or military response, as you are the worst of the worst in a civilized society i.e Public Enemy #1. No docking in 0.7 space or higher, or your ship intermediately destroyed when in space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'Allowing' -10s to fly through high-sec is not bad gameplay.

      A non-consensual world PVP game can be tough on its newbies but that is simply the nature of the beast and not a problem to be solved. As far as I'm concerned, if newbies fit and fly well they are unlikely to be suicide ganked. This is also the perfect example of a proposal packaged as a change to help newbies but which would benefit veteran players just as much. How much would you benefit from this change?

      "I am in no way asking for increased safety" Then what is the purpose of the change?

      The idea behind your proposal is obviously to curb suicide ganking but you would restrict the freedom of movement of low-sec pirates in the process. I often take shortcuts through high-sec and I suspect that Sugar sets up high-sec market orders on her main. Why does this need to be prevented?

      I don't understand why we need this change.

      Delete
    2. @Anonymous February 10, 2015 at 11:54 PM

      Oh . . . my . . . God . . .

      I have, on occasion, willfully misinterpreted Sugar’s posts in an attempt to get at something the post brings up but when doing so I, at least, had the decency to 1) sign post what I was doing and 2) kept it relevant to Sugar’s original post. Sadly, your hijack does neither of these. Accordingly, I grade it D-. Next time dispense with the “Since we have been getting rid of game play that is just 'bad'” introduction. If you’re gonna hijack, hijack. Why bother with the lame introductory excuse? Audacity would only improve your grade.

      Sugar,

      I believe you and Wilhem may have just generated one of the most delightful explorations of Eve's annoying ‘little things’ I have ever read.

      Delete
    3. First of all faction police does show up and shoot at -10.0 people in highsec, so your statement is blatantly false, there is a response and they do shoot and they will kill you if you hang around.
      The navy always shows up for people of a hostile militia, irregardless of their security status.
      CONCORD only shows up for active criminal flags, but the faction police does shows up to shoot all people below a certain security status depending on the space they're in.

      Furthermore you are aware you could just shoot these -10 people yourself right?

      I mean that's sort of the point of emergent gameplay. I've ganked at -10.0 in highsec, but I've also spend time blowing up CODE folks in highsec to keep myself occupied. There's pretty much nothing stopping you. It's not that hard to figure out where -10's are active in highsec and since once they get tackled the faction police will actually show up even if they haven't committed a crime yet you're not at much risk of losing the engagement. Basically a free kill mail and a warm fuzzy over being the 'vigilante' if you're so inclined.

      Delete
  2. EVE's issue with little things is multiple.

    Take the addiitonal clothes as an instance.

    - they span to the left of the ordinary apparel; that makes sense as westerners are used to browse from left to right
    - but, CCP strikes! The first item displayed in each cathegory, IIRC, is the first item from the ordinary list, not the absolute-first-item. That's a poorly made interface. Strike 1!
    - then, with that poorly made interface, a player must figure that he needs to browse to the left, against what every westerner is used to do. A poor inferface leads to a poor usability. Strike 2!
    - so you have a poorly made interface working in a unintutive way... and that is not written anywhere. Strike 3!

    So we have what could be a nice feature, implemented through a bad interface, which leads to unintuitive behavior and it all is left undocumented for ~reasons~.

    I know that CCP is working on the "main" interface, but I wonder how many little features are poorly presented, are not intuitive to learn, and have been left completely undocumented since Day 1.

    And WHY they are like that, coming with what is supposed to be a finished product, developed by a competent company with skilled personnel and a careful and professional direction...

    ReplyDelete
  3. A CSM member read my post, so full wardrobe functionality in Scylla confirmed! And hats!

    Actually, Google was about my fifth option. I did stare at the clothing in my hangar, getting info on it, clicking on it, and dragging it various places in a game attempt to try and put on my pants. Of course, I have the same problems some mornings when the alarm clock feels like it went off way too early.

    Slash commands? The game has slash commands? Can I play EVE like a MUD?

    There is definitely a "/get Ibis" post in this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I feel like CCP sometimes just simply does not do the testing required for certain features to be implemented. I honestly think they need to look at their testing structure and try to identify any problems because surely someone had to notice how awkward it was to actually put on the clothing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As a man whose girlfriend (also plays the game) has spent all sorts of aurum on clothing and decided that all our toons should be properly dressed for Christmas and New Years, You made my day.

    ReplyDelete

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