This is a very nice little advertisement. ("Trailer" probably isn't the right word for something that shows off an 11 year-old game.) The ad uses a simple, effective concept: Ships in space as usual, but with real players' recorded voice comms for the audio. You get a taste of the multiplayer experience by hearing the players--and the emotion in their voices--as they played.
For obvious reasons, actual gameplay isn't used for the visuals. Tidi and spreadsheets don't sell a game. The battles are reenacted with tight, zoomed-in shots showing off the spaceships. The audio, however, is authentic, for the most part. The video begins with the caption, "All voices recorded by EVE Online players during actual gameplay". This is sort of true. Most of the audio is taken from TeamSpeak recordings captured during fleet battles. Some of it is staged, such as when you get a recording of a guy in station who's talking about how much powergrid is available for his ship fitting. The caption is technically true since the guy was "playing" the game at the time.
A lot of people are saying this is the best advert CCP has ever done for EVE, and I'm inclined to agree. What I find interesting about the ad, and the reason I'm writing a post about it, is that the video tells us what CCP thinks EVE is, or what CCP wants potential players to think EVE is. The title of the video says as much: "This is EVE."
So what is EVE? Basically, EVE is nullsec fleet battles.
One of the reasons EVE has such a notorious learning cliff is that the game is very broad. There are a lot of different things you can do in the sandbox. Even if you've been an EVE player for many years, there are likely aspects of the game you've never even dabbled in. We don't get a sense of this diversity from the advertisement. Instead, we see shot after shot after shot of nullsec fleet battles, with the occasional fleet battle in wormhole space. It's all PvP in zero-security space.
A couple caveats. For what I suppose you might say are political reasons, CCP declined to show off the so-called "griefer" side of EVE. They're not going to show players suicide ganking a freighter, or a guy freaking out after being awoxed, or someone perpetrating a scam. Needless to say, the New Order is not featured in this video. It's a shame, but an ad won't include activities that CCP employees themselves are not allowed to participate in. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.
Every other aspect of EVE, however, is fair game. So what don't they show off in the video? Anything that carebears do.
There's a minimal, token effort to show a few things other than nullsec fleet battles. For a few seconds, a guy talks about doing some manufacturing. Someone else hauls expensive cargo. But even there, he's talking about being chased by pirates, and he's in a wormhole. A miner is shown, briefly. He's not in highsec like 99% of the miner population; he's explicitly identified as a nullsec miner. (Amusingly, the video still manages to inject the miner with the self-pitying attitude we're so accustomed to seeing from the highsec variety.)
The highsec carebears are always telling us that their professions are legitimate and important. They tell us EVE isn't entirely a PvP game, that it's a PvE sandbox for those who want to play the game that way. The carebears lecture us that the vast majority of the EVE populace is in highsec, and that without miners there would be no ships. If CCP agreed with this, why is the carebear population absent from the video?
It's very revealing what CCP chose not to show. They could have shown carebears running a Level 4 mission together. They could've shown off a highsec incursion "fleet". Highsec could have been represented by a highsec mining corp sitting around a block of ice, or some people grinding Planetary Interaction, or shooting belt rats, or whatever. They could've hauled stuff around in the highsec trade hubs.
All of these activities, which sadly do consume much of the EVE population's time, are written out of the story. In their place are nullsec fleet battles and more nullsec fleet battles. And maybe a wormhole fleet battle or two, for variety.
You might say, "But James 315, the point of the ad was to highlight nullsec PvP, not to show everything in EVE." I would completely agree, if not for the token efforts that were made to show other aspects of the game. Clearly, this ad was meant to show not a part of EVE, but to put the game as a whole on display. As the title says, "This is EVE."
The video shows a vision of EVE, and that vision does not include the PvE crowd. Carebears are not a part of the EVE being advertised here. The teeming masses of highsec are pushed aside. The kinds of players being targeted by this ad are people who want to engage in PvP with a bunch of other PvP'ers, in nullsec.
So does CCP's advertisement suggest to the carebears, "You're not EVE"? Does the video tacitly admit that the PvE, carebear, highsec, single-player, isk-grinding style of "gameplay" isn't really desirable or legitimate? I invite the reader to draw his own conclusions.
But yes, it does.
Oops... Looks like CODE is now open season
ReplyDeletehttp://evenews24.com/2014/11/22/leaks-drama-between-marmite-collective-and-code/
I can't wait to see the reaction to this.
Wow...
DeleteSo I guess the honeymoon is over.
Im sure Code really care about high sec wardecs being -10 and all
DeleteLast time I was in highsec I let a Marmite kill my empty pod out of pity.
DeleteWhat's funny is that the people who use the AT talking point, only care about the Alliance Tournament insofar as it relates to CODE. We're the only reason most of them even know it exists. Yet when you point this out and ask them to thank you for introducing them to even more content, they get all huffy!
DeleteThe big part of the game IS nullsec pvp, and pvp in general. EvE is about PvP, regardless of how you play it. I have viewed quite a few trailers/adverts for the game and none really show the other aspects of the game. But that is understandable. Mining is boring as hell, which is why so many miners mine afk. Missions, incusions, and exploration aren't too bad, but they do get grindy after awhile. Then we have the PI stuff which is a passive ISK faucet. But in the end, in order to sell the game, they are going to focus on the parts of the game where there is lots of excitement. And that was the part that was showcased in the advert.
ReplyDeleteDear Mr Butthurt, nice to see a logical, reasoned and, above all, mature post from you.
DeleteNice one. o/
Who are you, and what have you done to Butthurt Miner?
DeleteAs one who dabbles in mining, pvp, fw and things EVE related - Butthurt Miner is on to something. I mine in hi-sec to pvp. A few hundred mill of ice goes a long way if one chooses ones battles wisely (and I am not that wise and get popped alot due to alcohol fueled solo roams but I love it nonetheless). Besides which I intend to impregnate CCP Karkur and have a love child with her.
DeleteI believe the fitting audio was from this video, so it was in EFT and not in-game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zAB8R-Y-TM
ReplyDeleteIf you stop at 3:19 you see our fallen hero Fighter Jets GuitarSolo. And a bunch of people talking in the help channel why bounty hunting does not work. lol
ReplyDeleteWarp To Me are incursion runners, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteYes. Warp To Me are high-sec incursion runners. The cinematic explicitly shows an incursion fleet taking on one of the HQ station sites.
Delete"So does CCP's advertisement suggest to the carebears, "You're not EVE"? Does the video tacitly admit that the PvE, carebear, highsec, single-player, isk-grinding style of "gameplay" isn't really desirable or legitimate? I invite the reader to draw his own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, it does."
You did invite to draw own conclusions, but then slam the door shut by just stating your conclusion?
Anyway, in that case CODE is not EVE either, as you so bluntly pointed out:
"Needless to say, the New Order is not featured in this video".
So, we're not part of EVE, what next? STO anyone?
Look, you can always come up with your own conclusion. James 315 probably just wrote his conclusion down so we all know what the RIGHT conclusion actually is.
DeleteYou can then compare your conclusion to the right one and maybe think a little about why you where wrong and how you should correct your opinion to prevent such mistakes in the future.
We are all here to learn.
I already stated my conclusion, it doesn't contradict James'. Does that mean it's correct?
DeleteI don't think you understand humour
DeleteI guess that because Armed Forces Recruitment adverts don't show, for instance, soldiers cleaning latrines, doing KP, polishing brass, changing jeep oil, etc., that *those* aren't part of being a soldier?
Delete"I don't think you understand humour"
DeleteOh, but I do. I come here to take my daily dosage of amusement from James' posts. I know no one can't take him seriously. Then if there was not enough in the blog post, I'll grab some New Order tears from the comment section. Keeps me going whole day.
And yet the nullsec players themselves complain of the boredom and stagnation of nullsec, and spend most of their time in highsec. What isn't shown are the vast stretches of time spent wandering around nullsec looking for a fight and not finding one. Is nullsec PvP exciting WHEN YOU ARE ACTUALLY FIGHTING? Sure....but once you take into account the other 99% of the time where you are looking for someone to shoot at, the overall picture is pretty bleak. World of Tanks wins hands down.
ReplyDeleteSo do nullsec fights make a good video? Sure, if you leave out the 99% Tidi and 3 hours between volleys? Does nullsec PvP make a good game? Surely not, and the playerbase themselves have decided to live in highsec and do highsec PvE activities, by and large.
made a few hundred mil today...who was docked up?
DeleteComments on nullsec pvp, yet stays in high sec shooting red squares
DeleteAvoids deathly boring staged battles with overwhelming odds the norm rather than the exception for a much more enjoyable and profitable PvE experience.
DeleteGetting real tired of your shit, fake Veers.
DeleteThe Veers at 10:49pm is not me. You can tell this is the case because my killboard is publicly available, so my lack of experience in nullsec is obvious to everyone and so it'd just be stupid of me to try to pretend I know what I'm talking about when it comes to nullsec. I've never been in a fight which involved more than 30ish people, and pretty much the only times I've overcome my fears and jumped into 0.0 space, it was in catch or provi, where you can get fights within 10 minutes. So repeating the tired old carebear hear-say that "there are no fights in nullsec" and "the game is about highsec" would just make me look like an idiot, and I'm not an idiot, you're all the idiots.
So to repeat, Veers@10:49 is not me. I understand that nullsec pvp is eve is all about, I just think it's better to grind isk and sperg on incursion fleet comms all day than to actually play the game.
Dear Mr Veldspar,
DeleteHaving observed your continuous sperg on this blog over the past few months I've come to 2 conclusions:
1) You love the sound of your own voice (or in this case, typing)
2) If you tried, just for 1 day, NOT to post on tihs blog, your head would explode. Your incapable of keeping your trap shut.
Question for you. How many wedgies a week do your lawyer co-workers give you?
Someone seems to be really obsessed about wedgies...
Delete@Anon 2:38pm
DeleteVeers is not a lawyer. At best he's a paralegal: the boy who delivers the mail, gets the coffee, shines the shoes, desperate to please his masters and climb the ladder, all the while waiting at table. Such a senseless waste.
It's easy to make personal attacks anonymously.
DeleteVeers, I'm in a wormhole pvp corp. 75% of our pvp comes from nullsec and we get it everyday. We don't spend vast amounts of time wandering thru nullsec, your expertise on the subject is laughable. Yes there are empty stretches we avoid and it takes skill to get the nullbears to play sometimes but it's not hard. We kill in fleet fights, miner ganks, ratters, gate camps, and capitals, hell we even bait and make isk in their anom sites. You name it and we do it and have fun.
ReplyDeleteYou stand accused of bot aspirant behavior in your repeated attempts to characterize nullsec as a dull place were nothing happens unless it's in 99% Tidi. If only you'd get out and play the game instead of hording incursion isk you might be able to speak on something with authority.
As someone in Delusions of Grandeur, I can assure you of the following:
Delete1. Anonymous 1:01 a.m. is not in our corporation.
2. We do not mine.
It maybe be boring for the 10k pilot alliances but both pre and post phobos hasn't changed the amount of pvp we get out of null. and ya i've been dropped by PL (thou it was in LS - who cares anyways?). Veers you problem is you think you are an expert on everything thou you have done nothing but fight a very predictable AI. The more time you spend in Null the more you learn where the fights can be had. for example there is a good group of pre-phobos renters in BOT. they weren't always very good, a year ago we'd stomp them or get bullballed every couple of weeks. The last several months they've really gotten better and we've lost entire fleets to them. Did i mention they are basically NS renter/miners? guess what, they don't goto HS to mine. and we don't fight in "99%" Tidi. the fights are fun win or lose.
DeleteThey are just one group. There are many more in NS that aren't part of Grrrr goons or PL hotdrops. Provi has been forever fun. NPC NS space is good also. You can even get a good fight from goons from time to time.
You are the idiot here, you know not what you speak of, you just regurgitate the HS myths a typical spoon fed player hears all the time in incursions... "you'll get ganked in lowsec", "nullsec is grrrrr goons", etc. etc. If you would just stick to praising the virtues of incursions you might become a credible source for information, otherwise you are a joke.
Yours affectionately,
Anonymous
Anon 02:58, you owe my company a new keyboard and monitor as my current items are terminally soaked in pepsi max
DeleteVeers calling people idiots. Priceless.
Deleteoh Jim, you missed the null miner talking about how much isk he is going to make from Mercoxit mining. So some miners are excluded from the realm of carebeardom? You missed the Stratios pilot who'd been doing PvE exploration. And there was an Incursion fleet.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes CODE was excluded from the trailer. I didn't see any Goons either. Proof that your fringe dwelling group is barely tolerated by CCP. Especially true after several codies received perma-bans for toxicity.
And here I was looking forward to some of that famous spin doctoring for the recent Marmite drama. Left not entertained.
Nice too see that the RL threats are now on its way down again.
ReplyDeleteFight like your life depends on it in EVE and after that grab a beer in the bar with the Code.
But don't pay if you lost a lot of ISK, then Code should buy you a beer ;)
The Code ALWAYS Wins!!!! ALWAYS!!!!
ReplyDeleteHow did it win this time?
DeleteThis way: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=387571
DeleteBest move by CCP in a long long time.
Glory to the Code, and Praise James 315!
- Dr Tyler
No, that wasn't it. CCP announced that later. It's good news anyway.
DeleteGlory to the CCP and praise CCP Falcon!
Visoion?
ReplyDeleteBullshit!
Its just a game add.
Like jimmy said, mining is depictured, ganking and griefing NOT.
So with jimmies given rules:
PvP and mining are promoted and Griefing is unwanted.
But what to expect from a band of id??s where royalmoron is the leader...
ROYALMORON!
Imagine!
The guy who failed so hard at th AT, that codies got permabanned.
What I find interesting is that here is an article which actually defends carebears and yet people still write spergy anti-code comments here. There's no pleasing you is there.
ReplyDeleteYou know how Gevlon is with grr goons? That's how these carebears are with us. We could literally be saving babies from a burning building (as opposed to what we do now, which is metaphorically saving the babies of highsec from the burning building of bot-aspirancy) and they'd still call us nasty names and gloat about the ban wave. If it weren't for my belief in the Code, I'd think them not worth saving.
DeleteAnd the majority of them would be happy about it
DeletePlease. Unreformed carebears are incapable of such human emotions as authentic joy. The experience of actual emotions, whether it be the negative ones of loss associated with opposing the Code or the positive emotions associated with mining in a Code-compliant manner, is just one of the many gifts the Code gives to carebears.
DeleteCarebears don't NEED to mine. They could be perfectly happy in T1 ships, roaming around, looking for supers doing stupid things. They could be making so much more money shooting actual people instead of shooting inanimate objects. They could be socializing with the EVE community, instead of insulting them with their insular, anti-social comments.
DeleteEVE is a game in which anti-social gameplay, such as the types that miners exhibit, is punished and rightfully so. Nobody ever has a valid excuse to mine, and the fact that the CODE exists so that they may do so is mercy far beyond what miners deserve.
Ooh! That explains why Code members lack emotions, they give them to carebears. Such a noble thing to do!
DeleteMy guess is that Code gives it's intelligence to carebears as well, since they lack that too. Those, and so many other gifts. One has only to look at Code and see all the positive things it's lacking to realize the full scale of it's generosity to carebears.
CODE economics 1 by Ming Tso: "They (carebears) could be making so much more money shooting actual people instead of shooting inanimate objects".
DeleteTeacher, teacher! I have a question!
If everyone start shooting at each other, and for that everyone makes much more money, where does that money come from?
Don't worry, Anon@4:42. The gifts we give (of humanity, intelligence, sportsmanship, ability to emote, ability to socialize, etc etc etc) are granted by The Code, and are thus limitless. Human traits are not like your "electricity" or "isk", finite quantities to be mindlessly hoarded. Imagine, if sharing the love of the Code with someone, rendered the one sharing incapable of understanding the Code! Haha, what strange ideas you money-obsessed carebears have.
DeleteNo, helping raise you up out of the depths of bot-aspirancy and teaching you to behave like sentient beings does not diminish us, both because our capacity for love and empathy is boundless, and because the heavy lifting is being done by The Code. Just read The Code, buy a permit, and live by the strictures of The Code. Before you know it, you'll feel like a real human being again!
Speaking of that, would you like to buy a mining permit? At only 10m/toon/year (and considering that only through a permit and Code-compliance could you ever possibly hope to rise up out of your carebearing ways), they're a bargain!
Surely such generous and omnipotent organization as Code can gift those permits to carebears as well, afterall, they're only 10M/toon/year.
DeleteNow now, Anon@6:03. We can't do your personal growth for you. That 10m isk, just like reading and understanding The Code, is something that you have to do for yourself. It is how you'll rise up out of your present despicable condition.
DeleteWe but show the path
to Truth and Enlightenment
now you must walk it
Yea well, thanks for your gift of emotions, I'm quite happy here in my present condition. It's warm and cozy down here, and cold and windy up there.
DeleteLike I said, you are incapable of experiencing happiness without The Code. Run a diagnostic on your "faking emotion" circuits, something's wrong with their calibration.
DeleteErmm.. you must mix me into someone else. I'm a carebear, not a bot.
DeleteCarebears are bot-aspirants. Just because you're physically carbon-based doesn't change that your playstyle marks you as a machine inside. But don't worry, The Code can help you act like a human being again.
DeleteExactly what makes a carebear equal to bot-aspirant? I think there's more bot apsirancy in Code members than in me, me having no alts and never playing afk.
DeleteDo you call people bot-aspirants just because they have not paid you that 10M and not having the permit in their bios? Wouldn't that make you greedy and not noble?
Carebears are bot-aspirants because the carebear activities (mining, missioning, belt-ratting, incursion-running) are all simplistic and predictable. It wouldn't take much work to write a script to handle any/all of these activities. To voluntarily do, over and over again, an activity which is so simple a bot could easily do it is to aspire to be a bot. In other words, to be bot-aspirant.
DeleteNo, not everyone who hasn't bought a mining permit is a bot-aspirant. But all carebears, at least those who haven't been reformed by the Code, are bot-aspirants. You might then ask what a carebear is. A carebear is a pve-centric pilot. Someone whose main activities are mining rocks, or mining red crosses...there's not much difference between the two.
Are you now telling me that afk miners are more unpredictable targets?
DeleteYes, they are. You have to hunt around for them, they'll eventually leave systems where The Code is being enforced, they might tank their ships, or try to catch you on the undock, or *snicker* even fight back. Even an AFK miner has been at his computer *sometime*, and will return to it sometime. He will (with a time delay of hours or days) respond to you and your ganking. Which is more than the pve content will ever do.
DeletePure tripe...incursion running is way too hard to script. Typical code cluelessness.
DeleteWell, in any case I find it really impolite that you call be emotionless, emotion faking, money-obsessed machine in despicable condition. Note that at least the machine part was also a RL insult, as it was referring to my play style. My character does not play, but I do.
DeleteDo you expect me buy that permit by insulting me?
I expect you to buy a permit because not only is it the moral, social course of action (in other words, not only is it the right thing to do), it is also the better economic proposition. That is the wonderful thing about what James has done here: he knew that carebears would not want to better themselves simply for the sake of bettering themselves (as there is no isk-value in doing so). So he made conditions such that it is more *profitable* to buy a permit and follow the Code. And by doing so, a carebear will, almost without their being aware of it, be molded into a better person.
DeleteI don't expect my "insults" (if you consider an accurate description of your playstyle and what it makes you insulting) to have an effect one way or the other. It'd be unprofitable to seek revenge...it'd be unprofitable to do anything except ignore them. Just like it would be unprofitable to not buy a permit. So think of the profit, anon@9:26. Do what's right for your wallet. And in doing so, also do what's right for you.
So, permit? 10m/toon/year, you'll never find a better deal.
I see making an apology is beyond you. And you dare to preach me about moral? Try to find yours first. It's probably buried deep in some highsec asteroid.
DeleteI don't think of profit that much. And wouldn't I miss lots of "emergent gameplay" and "content" if I bought the permit?
As usual for your kind, all you focus on is the purchase, and the acquisition of an item (a permit). You miss the point of it all: reading and following The Code. By being at your keyboard, chatting in local, and interacting with your fellow carebears (to sell them permits), you'll experience much more emergent gameplay than you would by afk-mining.
DeleteIt's actually you who focus on selling me that. It's you who brought it up, remember?
DeleteBut is the dream of CODE is to have highsec where people sell permits to each other? Sounds like real fun.
But I don't think I'll chat with you anymore, I find you rude. In future I'll just answer with "..." should you reply to my posts, that way you know that there's no better answer coming.
I brought up buying a permit *and becoming Code-compliant*. I understand that it is the purchase that you will have the easiest time understanding, so that's what I lead with. But it is living your life in accordance with The Code that really matters.
DeleteThe dream of all Knights and Agents is to have a highsec where everyone has a permit, everyone obeys the Code, and everyone acknowledges James as the Father and Savior of Highsec. I can see it now...it's a beautiful dream. A dream worth fighting for. Don't you agree? Hopefully even you agree that a game where everyone is at their keyboards, talking and working together for a better tomorrow, is better than the wasteland of bots and afk-miners highsec once was, and still tends toward today.
...
DeleteThe whole trailer is about the MMO Eve. Multiplayer. It is adressed to people who like to interact with other players within the game. So it will even attract new recruits for Code, because this is also multiplayer fun. It might also attract some new guys who like this nice screensaver with stars and spaceships. Ok, solid income, more carebares, more to do for Code or also for me, more fun for us all. Success!
ReplyDeleteBut indeed, I also get the message from the trailer, that CCP want's to get in some active people!
So does CCP's advertisement suggest to the carebears, "You're not EVE"?
ReplyDeleteNo. The ad is an advertisement, meaning meant to persuade, not to document. You know, to show the good stuff -- the fun stuff -- that is the reason to play EVE. That all those explosions are paid for somehow is not the point of the ad.
When you see an ad for a truck, do you think that GM is suggesting that they don't care if you have enough money to buy the truck? Of course they care; the money is the point of the ad. But they certainly do not spend lots of time showing the car in the lot out in front of your office complex. They show men having fun in it. Driving through mud. Zooming down curvy roads. Escorting a beautiful woman.
Does the video tacitly admit that the PvE, carebear, highsec, single-player, isk-grinding style of "gameplay" isn't really desirable or legitimate? I invite the reader to draw his own conclusions.
Thanks. My conclusion is that isk-grinding is not desirable but it is legitimate, exactly because grinding is necessary in order for losses to have meaning.
Veers, Veers, Veers!
ReplyDeleteJames is blind? They show an incursion being run in the main sequence. They show two clips of ratting in the end sequence. And of course they showed the guy mining. Why does it matter which sec status? They didn't show FW or high second wars either... What a dumb article heh.
ReplyDelete