EVE Online: Apocrypha: Wormholes and You

Szark

CCP's Whisper has written a developer diary which explains the concept behind Wormholes, and the danger and promise of uncharted space in the upcoming Apocrypha expansion for EVE Online.

"We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish." - Arthur C. Clarke

Hello. My name is Whisper and I am here to talk to you about one part of Apocrypha, the upcoming expansion for EVE Online. I head up Team Bifröst, which includes such luminaries as CCP Casqade from Quality Assurance, CCP Bella Bee from the Software group, CCP Greyscale and CCP Abathur from Game Design and CCP PrismX from...who knows what pit of contrariness he sprung from but he's under my supervision now. So together with the rest of the team we're going to deliver unto you a feature of truly galactic proportions. This being the introduction of a brand new, glittering, shiny travelling mechanic: Wormholes.

First a bit of background musing. One of the criticisms that have been levied against EVE is that space is becoming crowded and that there really is no feeling of exploration. Indeed, from the very first moment you set foot in the universe of EVE, all of you have had a map at your disposal that shows you exactly where every solar system is, how to get there and what you may expect to find. You even have a newly improved autopilot who will selflessly and mindlessly guide you to your destination. And while there are still thrills to be had, there exists at the back of many of our minds the nagging knowledge that we are not the first to venture here. That the maps have been drawn, the anchorages charted, the wild hills surveyed and the paths trodden so often they're now four-lane blacktop highways with shopping malls and 24-hour burger bars along the fringes.

Read more about EVE: Apocrypha and Wormholes.

metalhead980

This Xpac sounds better and better everyday.

Can't wait until March, thanks for the article.

Berrik.Flux

Great article.  Apocrypha should give us pod pilots alot to do while we wait for walking in stations.  The industrial aspect these new wormholes could bring is welcomed news for players like me that don't PVP on a regular basis.  At the same time, I think it's great that going through a wormhole could drop you in the middle of BoB space. 

Another great addition to an already great MMO.  Keep up the good work and fly safe!

Xennith

in one devblog ccp manage to outstrip every expansion ive seen for mmos before.

 

we've added some more quests, loot and 10 more levels. oh, and reskinned some rats.

Zyke

After reading this blog I had to check what date it was. 

 

And my question is why isn't it march yet

Khebeln

Thats exacly why i play eve, even if there is time when i go and play other mmo for a while and dont play eve for a while i still pay sub just becasue this is only mmo following the right way that mmo should be developed.

Other thing i like about Eve is how good communication is from player to dev and the other way around.

Howler54

Nice reading, really looking forward to this. A awesome add to this game, a space game must have wormholes !

Sebulkus

I haven't made comments on Eve issues in a while just because the news coming from CCP hasn't been all good in the last little while. At the least, not everyone agreed it was good. THIS move however has reaffirmed that I made the right decision sticking with the game even when I could barely afford it (emphasis on  barely).

 

I mostly play as a "safe" carebear like guy but this makes me want to grab a clone, a cruiser and fly off into unknown space with a bunch of friends. As much as nerf sticks and bad press work have occasionally given Eve's reputation a hit, announcements like this bring back praise in far larger quantities.

 

A few more moves like this and CCP will be Iceland's economic powerhouse. Can't you see it now... and entire economy driven by a videogame (which oddly enough has it's own economy.... coincidence?)

 

I guess what I mean is, great work CCP. If this turns out how you guys are suggesting it will then my fandom will continue. Great article as well. I'm done now. Off to play Eve.

Asbo

I also like Eve it is one of the more stable games which is not ork and dwarf orientated for a change, shame some of the other developers don't take a leaf from CCP.

Ngeldu5t

Originally posted by NightBandit


I also like Eve it is one of the more stable games which is not ork and dwarf orientated for a change, shame some of the other developers don't take a leaf from CCP.

Even if I don't play EvE,I always find myself reading the blogs or anything about this game for the last 4 years.And to me it seems that only CCP know how to design a true MMORPG

Kordesh

 While it's nice that it's different, lets not randomly bash entire genres as "inferior" because they're not  unique snowflakes -_-.

That being said, assuming it's not just kind of tacked on and doesn't require a quarter year of peperation and economic grinding to actually take part in it, the exploration system could very well get me to sub again as this is exactly what I wish the game had. I would very much like to run an exploration vessel decked out in probes and sensors looking for parts unknown. I am however going to play it cautious and wait to see how it pans out, because I thought the faction war was going to be everything I hoped for as well, and spent the next two months bored out of my mind grinding isk without so much as getting popped myself let alone getting the oportunity to engage another ship. Hell, almost half a year total in this game and despite owning several tacklers and a battecruiser, I've yet to be able to use any of it and my entire combat "experience " consists of getting one shotted while jumping around during grinding sessions to support any possible combat...

edit: scratch resubbing. took about all of 10minutes listening to the Eve community to put things in perspective again...

ericbelser

I have to say, despite their attempts to stress how this will be relevent to 0.0 warfare, I don't see it. That entire dev blog reads to me like this entire expansion is designed specifically to create a "frontier" which will be artificially kept clear of Sov issues and domination by big guilds so that the masses of empire hugger mission runners have an exploration system to play with - which will be primarily a PvE environment.

Sadly well I have zero faith in CCP to deliver PvE content that actually interests me. Their track record is pretty dismal. (Mission revamp, lvl 5 missions, COSMOS, exploration, FW etc)  Not that it won't work, but it will be the same endless hours of probe dropping that exploration is, same 5 npcs over and over and over that pirates all are (okay so 5 new universal badguys - yawn), same endless damsel rescuing or trinket collection like cosmos...open 500 more boxes of popcorn to find the prize!

Any possible PvP opportunities from this will really depend on things they aren't saying...

Likely WH locations, frequency, duration, detection difficulty, size limits etc.

If they are as short lived and hard to find as exploration sites are now then there will be very very little PvP generated by them - if they last for a week+ or a month or something then I can see people having time to find and fight over them but if they have the same sort of 3-5 day lifespan and are a pain to find it'll hardly ever be fought over.

As for any kind of strategic deep raiding or whatever....same deal, no fleet of throwaway ships and expendable jump clones with no supply line is going to do any real damage no matter where it gets access to and virtually no one is going to hurl a capital fleet and grade A clones down some rabbit hole without knowing they can get it back/get out.

Biggest thing I see this resulting in is a whole lot of throwaway jump clones in replacable ratting ships effectively getting to "ninja rat" without most of the risks normally associated with it....which will equal even more ISK flowing into empire based PvE'rs. Of course that will equal more happy subs and a better bottom line for CCP...but I can't help but view it as another nail in the coffin of meaningful PvP.

I'd have much rather seen an expansion focused on revamping the mechanics of Player owned Structures, Stations, Sovereignty and the massive issues with Super caps/capital blobs..but I'm not suprised CCP is leaning more towards the 75%+ of their base who don't go into and don't care about Nullsec.

Zeroxin

Your points are valid but for a pirate this is another opportunity to capitalise on the industrialists and the unprepared PvPers/missioners who decide to venture into the solar sytem they control. Simply put; a corp can control the ins and out of a system no need for sovereignty, just loads of probes and eyes everywhere. If you want to get out of a system have a jump clone(will those even work? not sure yet) .

 Really I'm not sure what you were expecting from this> free pvp all round? everyone gathering in one place to blow each other up? There's always the alliance tournament (which is crazy fun!). You should also remember that pvp comes in many forms in eve and its either a war dec or a control struggle  (that doesn't need to be a sovereignty war, my corp's alliance is currently controlling one 0.4 system and 0.3 system space right now) or a mindless pirate capitalising on the weak industrialist/missioner. You just have to pick the right corp and the right people at the right time.

JeroKanedead

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t

Originally posted by NightBandit


I also like Eve it is one of the more stable games which is not ork and dwarf orientated for a change, shame some of the other developers don't take a leaf from CCP.

Even if I don't play EvE,I always find myself reading the blogs or anything about this game for the last 4 years.And to me it seems that only CCP know how to design a true MMORPG

 

I completely agree. CCP sticks true to their subscription based models and keep pushing out large free content updates, instead of horrible Turd companies like SOE who keep screwing you from behind by either completely changing the game into an unrecognisable state or changing the whole bussiness model around and turn your P2P game into RMT one with the subscription fee on top! 

So CCP indeed deserves all the credit they can get. Sertainly one of the better companies out there at the moment. Next to Turbine that is.

Cheers

Rekindle

this is enough to bring me back....maybe.  I do have some unanswered questions which I hope get answered.....I like 00 mining, I do NOt like big alliance politics.....so the part where tehy talked about asteroid rich areas is cool, the part that confuses me is how do you handle it if there's no stations....if they say orca then im not so impressed anymore.

Some of us like playing the little fish in the big pond, leaning more towards solo play in a big universe.....hopefully this new mechanic allows us to stretch out.

I daresay this is partly due to the understanding and acceptance that there are a LOT of players in empire and npc corps who just wanna fly around for a couple hours.

JeroKanedead

Originally posted by Rekindle


this is enough to bring me back....maybe.  I do have some unanswered questions which I hope get answered.....I like 00 mining, I do NOt like big alliance politics.....so the part where tehy talked about asteroid rich areas is cool, the part that confuses me is how do you handle it if there's no stations....if they say orca then im not so impressed anymore.
Some of us like playing the little fish in the big pond, leaning more towards solo play in a big universe.....hopefully this new mechanic allows us to stretch out.
I daresay this is partly due to the understanding and acceptance that there are a LOT of players in empire and npc corps who just wanna fly around for a couple hours.

Well it all depends where these wormholes get implemented.

Is it everywhere... from 0.0 to low sec to high sec to even 1.0 ? 

Or are they only going to pop up in low sec and 0.0... or even in 0.0 alone.

If the latter is the case... well than it will answer your question real quick I guess.

Xennith

they're everywhere. if there are no stations and you want to mine, then jetcan mine and jump a hauler in to pick up your ore. keep an eye on the wormhole stability however.

dominia

My only worry is with semi-stable economic system currently, throwing so much randomness into the market may negatively affect it.

It seems like the only cost to worm holes is time. The won't be guarded by corps,and will have a much smaller chance of having pirates in them, so probably won't "worm-camped". With out any of those perceived risks, ISK will only equal time spent searching for holes then mining the ore inside before anyone notices.

And if ISK = time, how will that be any different then any other mmo?

CCP is treading a very thin line.

itchmon

my only complaint is:  no news recently about world of darkness!

 

I love eve, I love world of darkness, I want to see the game FFS 

Thaiboxermik

I have a few comments:

- You can only jump clone while docked. I doubt wormholes will have stations, so that's not an out. But I'm betting that CCP won't make wormholes harder to escape than they are to find. If it was that hard, people wouldn't do it.

- PVP vs PVE. Of course CCP is going to cater this upgrade to PVE players; they do make up most of the game. I agree with the previous poster that sov mechanics need reworking though. I spend 80% of my time in 0.0 and blob warfare gets old fast.

- Mining in Wormholes. I'd be shocked if there are stations in unexplored space. To me that means you'd better have a Rorqual or an Orca. Bummer, but neither ship is out of reach for a serious industrial corp.

- Every time CCP introduces a major new technology, there is a massive amount of isk for early adopters. This was true with Jump Freighters, T2 battleships, the Orca... and it'll be true with the T3 ships. If you're first to find the wormholes and move fast, you will reap the profits. That said, I'm going to do my best to be the first one in!

- Perhaps most importantly, Eve is the only MMO that has consistently grown for the last 4 years. When I started, it was rare to see more than 20,000 people online... ever. Now, it's rarely under 40,000 during peak times. IMHO, the game has only gotten better in the last couple years.

Baxslash

After reading over the article for the 3rd time, and, then reading what posters have thought of on the subject, I', actually looking forward to this new content.

This is truely some of CCPs finest working being placed in front of us. As for finding ways around the jumping to the new systems, maybe some of the new T3 modules will be actually jump drive enhancement systems, allowing Jump Freighters to go across more than 6 systems, or, even the possibility of getting a Mothership/Titan into the new systems so that they can become the newest of base locations and jump clone vantage points back and forth to empire/low sec/ and 0.0.

The possibilites are now becoming endless, and, in a few years, they may have the ability to add planetary landfall content.

To be honest, of late I've been sort of critical of CCP and the humdrum content that they've been pushing out, it was always geared to the pvp'r, and, rarely was anything truely added that only allowed the pve part of the game to grow, even so, with this new content, there is indeed a major push to give all aspects of players something to look forward to. 1 thing that I still find lacking is that though CCP has nerfed much of the ship content/missile content and other content, they've not found ways to bring that content back up to a balanced keel. One of the former GMs/Devs stated that in the future, should there be warranted that they'd address the issues of unbalnced ships by revamping the rigging points on ships. Unfortunately, due to the recent nerfing policies of CCP, its indeed now time to redo the rigging points on ships, after all, whats the use of having 8 possible rigging points if your not going to use them in any way possible.

 

Titans and Motherships=8 open

Carriers and Dreadnaughts=7/6 open

Battleships=5 open

Battlescruisers and Cruisers=4 open

Frigates=3 open

 

T2 Variants receive 1 less open slots

 

But, then, its just a suggestion, and, unfortunately, most Devs and GMs hate having good ideas suggested to them, after all, they beleive in the God complex hype, and, beleive that they are the only ones able to come up with ideas for a game.

mrxinstall

 

this NEW expansion sounds great & might be enough to get me back to the game after giving it up due to it being near impossible for a small corp/alliance to get anywhere in 0.0 without having to either rent space or allign with one of the mega alliances.

The idea of the Wormhole space not being able to be claimed under sov is a great idea I reckon & it may very well be what draws a lot more people out to 0.0/wormhole space. this would be a great thing in it's self.

this idea would also possibly mean pirates could start finally making them selves a better living & they could even setup a POS in wormhole space which they could then use as a staging point.

What I would like to know is, is there going to be any restrictions to ship class size in this space? I ask this because cap ships will be able to bridge in/jump in to this space otherwise which would remove the problem of the wormhole mass restriction thing.

Anyway so far this expansion doesn't sound too bad, now to see if there is any info on what else it might include

 

 

brenth

I am currently a non-player mostly because of CCPs obsession with free for all PVP but also the lack of interesting content in the universe.

I havent read all the new data on this yet but I remain cautions as most of CCPs additions to the game were all bias tword the PVPers leaving the casual players and carebears and even non-pvp corperations out in the cold.

what I expect is that it will  become just another form of 0,0 land where flying anything less than a top of the like PVP ship is suiside.

I would like nothing more than being able to take a moderatly equiped explorer ship or even a miner or hauler into this new space and be able to actually enjoy eve for the first time but i just dont see CCP doing that.

what i figure is the pvpers and pirates and major corps will somehow figure a way of excluding the casual players or  blowing them back to hisec space  to sit and wait for a real direction change or for the mass exidous when star trek online goes live.

ericbelser

Actually, you must not be reading much then...everything I have read suggests this will be a PvE paradise...yeah some minimal risk of getting caught, but not enough to be significant...the whole expansion seems geared entirely towards empire hugging pve players. They are going way out of their way to make it hard/impossible for the big alliances/hardcore types to lock up the systems.

PS I'm sorry you dislike the FFA pvp aspect of EVE - because that's really the only good part of the game. CCP can't make interesting PvE to save their lives...the game engine isn't really built for it. EVE pve is about on a par with PONG for excitement in the MMO world.

 

brenth

we can get into a big long thing about pvp  as it makes my blood boil.. but that being said,  I like mining and hauling and trading and I know that i will never be in the same league as professional PVPers nor do i want to be,,  but having my multi million isk hauler or miner or even an explorer ganked by some PVPer that has me outmatched 5:1 is not my idea of a game I want to subscribe to.

yes ive known for a long time that eves non pvp universe and missons were quite stark and boring there has been sugestions and begs for years to address this  to no avail  there are many additions or modifications I have sugested

im concerned about these new systems that if the path to them is unpredictable.  then how will anyone short of a medium corp be able to take advantage of them?  will a group of 2-3 be able to mine there? how about a soloer?  will he be able to fly a miner safely enough to ret some ore?  or will he be just so much glowing metal sparks? and as for the exploration  what good is that information if the path is unpredictable? 

will I be able to say go in there and explore around with a tech 1 cruiser or even a transport?  I dont have time to surf all the forums  so I you can sugest some links that would explain more about this new space I would definately like to see it.

ive effectivly been sitting outside the game watching it while  also keeping my eye out for star trek online since sto is likely to attract a major portion of the non-pvp players especially the disenfranchised EVE players. (carebears) that CCP hates you know this because if a mining corp gets too big  they get war declared on them forcing them to bunker in the stations for weeks at a time till the war is lifted or the corp disintagrates.

ericbelser

This one pretty much covers everything you need to know:

http://www.eve-news.net/arsenalofcharm/2009/what-you-need-to-know-about-exploration-and-then-some/

From what I have read, it sounds like as long as you have the skills to use a Marauder or even a good t2 cruiser you can probably explore to find the whs and rat successfully in the wh systems.

As for mining, I'd suspect you need a good t2 miner able to handle the sort of rats you see in 0.0....but still doable if you want to.