New Dust...

I'm no forum warrior nor am I at the cutting edge of the tinfoil haberdashery for what the old Dust 514 community needs/wants. I'm really, really not a spreadsheet gamer, I've never calculated blast radius etc. etc. But I have enjoyed blasting faces accumulating stuffz and getting scores. So my overall enthusiasm for the Eve universe has me interested in what the Eve FPS mark 2 will be.

The best way to see what the new game is going to be like is to look back a few years to the last fanfest presentation that famously became the red wedding. It left 99% of the dust community in shock in a very WTF moment. It also left players in no doubt that Dust 514 was dead and the new game was the way forward.

It's been three years since that presentation and a year since they poked their heads up to show a demo at fanfest 2016. CCP still hasn't given anything other than vague dev one liners. I find it hard if they were trying to keep any further disappointment from the community as it's been so long since solid information. But they are the masters of silence and doing their own thing regardless of the world spinning. In some ways they have their heads in the sand. They work away on a project based on an idea that can be outpaced. As CCP's work on World of Darkness shows they do persist with what they got. So I think that more can be gleaned from what was shown then than anything else in the realm of tin foil forum warriors.

Besides the 2014 keynote video there were also these two of interest:

Learning from Dust 514 - player progression

 Legion Graphics

So if all that was worked on and there has been years of progress since, is there any real point to me waffling on here, maybe not but a guy has to look at what was said and have a bit of hope for the future of the new game.... right....?

In considering the new game it's not just the likes of Overwatch it has to contend with but I'd like to point to a level of competition with games in it's own genere (broadly speaking futuristic/sci-fi based content). There is no way there can be any competition with Overwatch.
For me at the moment the three games that the new shooter will have to contend with are:

Planetside 2 (link)
Warframe (link)
&
Ghost in the Shell: First Assault (link)

Those three games alone are a lot of competition to see and work against for an upcoming FPS. To gain players from others they gave to offer the same but better. Can CCP do that in an FPS?


Looking back at Eve three years ago and seeing the changes and development I can only hope that the new FPS has also been brought forward just as much. I'm sure there is a cool new unique angle the game will take to make people flock to it....


They had so much to talk about in 2014.Talking about it is so much better:

Fanfest 2014 - More Sand in the Box for DUST 514

Nobody has said anything of how much of the 2014 footage is still relevant.

The 2014 keynote says that they have a vision of the sandbox FPS game under four pillars:
- Balanced competitive shooter
- Experience emergent behaviours (players going off script - PVE
- Player trading
- Immersion in the Universe of New Eden

It's a pity that the early feedback they got made them turtle up and instead of taking it on the chin and moving forward with explanation and enlightenment they went dark.

When considering the new FPS it is hard to not fight the battles of the past. Considering old game map design and game mechanics and saying all the old shoulda, coulda and woulda phrases.
There is no idea what CCP are really doing unless there is a leak of information or they actually say something meaningful. The 2014's red wedding peeved the community by saying way to much about the games replacement as well as the move away from the platform.

Can they really compete and be successful?
Will they give a damn about the old Dust players?

I would say there is only going to be a token offer for your troubles in being a fan of the old game going into the new. Never mind any old assets and accumulated effort (SP/ISK/Aurum). As for the mystery code that got me to play Dust 514 in the first place. Dont' get me started on the Mystery code, you wouldn't like me if I waffle about the mystery code... Yes CCP have given me doubts or rather "trust issues" in the past. So if you havnt' guessed it by now take my commentary with an ocean of sea salt in that regard.

What I would give to have a near complete transfer of assets/isk/aurum & be rewarded for previous effort or at least their new game equivalent/conversion. I don't see that ever happening but I do see "a" recognition of being a previous 514 player. Something that really isn't of value in or out of the new game. The more I think about it the more pessimistic I tend to get so I'll leave it there. Maybe there will be a unique forum something or other I'll never use/see. <insert satirical cheer here>

I think and hope the newer game will be a radically different beast to the Dust 514 already experienced. With luck it will have great game mechanics that CCP can hang any veneer and style on. Without a good base it'a ll going in the quicksand. CCP's FPS team in China are a good group I'm not putting them down in any way. But CCP overall does have a tendency to jump on an idea bandwagon and float off with that fancy idea(s). Those idea's of fancy are usually blatantly obvious from the communities perspective. The mix of a small team with limited resources makes sticking to a dedicated and correct plan from the start a real necessity. In other words they need to figure out a good game mechanic system from the code up and a way to implement it to a point where it's future proofed to keep players playing features longterm. Then stick to their guns(yes that was an fps gun pun, hardy-har-har).

Around this time last year, Fanfest 2016 gave some visual enlightenment. That brought out hope and a greater need to ask many, many questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLGdp9lp2Kw