I don't role-play in MMOs but I do like a role-playing atmosphere. I like interacting with and running around environments that make the virtual world I inhabit more realistic. In the relatively small amount of collective time that I've spent in EVE Online, the majority of the structures I've seen are the space stations, inside of which you don't exist as a character. You're just a faceless bodiless being interacting game’s extensive user interface to manage inventory, conduct commerce, manage skill training, configure & repair ships and carry out industry activities. As a player who enjoys kicking about as a character, EVE requires that immersion to take place in your head, as if you were reading a book. For that reason, I really enjoy running across physical environments in the game.
When a mission sends me into an area that has more than just red flashing bad guys, I like to hang around after I've blown them all to bits. I admit to being fascinated by the idea of man colonizing deep space and how those environments might look. What will a large scale space station look like? How different are the residential areas from industrial? Will it really be the dark monotone metallic vision rendered in many of the current sci-fi movies? Or will the ergonomic philosophies step in and provide more organic appearances for the emotional comfort of its inhabitants? Who knows but I’d love to live to see it.
My curiosity related to the possibilities causes me to linger in the very few structural environments I find in EVE Online. I’d like to see the player built structures once I make the leap to low security space. I can’t wait for real space stations when ambulation comes. The immediate improvement in immersion will be huge for EVE Online. The possibilities and ways in which the robust player economy will be impact by these additions are equally exciting. I can’t wait to see what the players do. Unlike other games I’ve played with PVP, in EO players of opposing factions can speak to one another. Reading local chat after a fight is nothing if not interesting – smack talk, whining, boasting, threats and lots of profanity. What will the chat be like when they can at least see each other as an avatar in a space station?
I've been in a fleet pinned down in a space station where you're watching the names of players in the visitors list and reading local chat to tell when the coast is clear. The enemy is lurking right there, in and around you. Yet their presence is nothing more than a name when you're when outside of your ship. Ambulation will introduce physical contact but (not combat) and face-to-face confrontations. I smell player drama and a whole lot of station crashes. Until "real" station interiors and player bodies arrive, I enjoy puttering around the physical structures that I find out in noob-space.
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