Sklex

JITA is Eve's primary player hub. It's the primary location for trade and short of a small army of scammers, it's pretty much the primary PvE square. Months in the planning, Burn Jita involved a group of 1500+ player who built an army of 15,000 small single purpose suicide ships. They raided JITA. The largest most popular player hub managing to control the Concord retaliation and destroy thousands of players ships in the process. They disrupted trade to the area for a couple of days and according to some manipulated the market in order to turn a tidy profit. We are talking about a situation where they would shoot and the police would zoom in and insta-pop them. And they still managed to maintain the numbers and the resources to keep the attack up for days. Even if you don't care about Eve... you gotta admit... that's pretty cool for a completely player driven event.

Eve does PvE in a special way. Even though it's safe it's really not safe. Here PvE means the game mechanics stop you from hitting each other. In Eve the Concord (aka police) stop you from hitting each other. Just like in real life where you can choose to break the law acknowledging that actions have consequences you can attack players in the High Sec areas. But as soon as you do your days are numbered. Concord come down on your like a bat outta hell. But... with the right amount of players and the right amount of logistics and resources... the players were able to prove that anything was possible.

It could be though. It could be a hugely successful and thoroughly enjoyable experience for everyone. The very significant difference with Ark is they can turn servers on an off as the demand increases or lowers. That's not how Atlas works. If they turn off servers here they are directly impacting on the experience of everyone. In Eve you can transfer game-time. Effectively real hard earned money. And pirates they can blow up your ship and take that game-time and use it or sell it or loose it again. Ever read about the guy who pulled of such a large scam that he made enough money to put a deposit down on a real house? The point being that Eve creates PvP that people enjoy reading about. It creates PvP that people want to be part of. Can Atlas or Ark make similar claims? Just because you can hit something when no one is there does not make it hard-core.

Oh and to be clear. We are not recommending Eve's design because it's a care bear roller coaster MMO. It's about as hard-core as they come... but they made it work. They made it so the different demographics of players can co-exist and in doing so were successful.

Ark is a multi-player game with significantly less cost to keep the power on. This is an MMO with significantly bloody high costs to keep running. The two are not the same thing even if they look like it on the surface. You can be sure of one thing though. The hard-core PVP players are not going to have the numbers to make it worthwhile for Grapeshot Games to maintain the servers. This game needs players and in order to do that something needs to be done to attract players and you do not attract players by appealing to the hardcore. They are the minority. It's why there are so many more 'carebear roller coaster' MMO's versus HC Sandbox MMO's. Publishers follow the $$ and the money is in the masses. Go do some research on how Eve works, open your mind to the possibilities and then come back and tell us why you think it wont work in this game. That will be a discussion worth happening. Look at the depth of the game-play available versus what Atlas actually offers. All the Eve players I've seen are frothing at the mouth with the potential here and that should say something to the Dev's given they launched with the whole "We are taking a lot of inspiration from Eve" line. How many world wars have you had in Ark? They wrote a book about the Eve ones.

Just take Eve. Analyse it. Implement what they have done in similar but acceptable ways for this setting. Everyone stands to win this way. The game will recover its numbers. PvE players will play the game. PvP players will hunt them. More PvP opportunities will be created. Just look at their numbers. This is player count over the years. This is a game that got the design right. But unlike Eve, Atlas cannot be called a spreadsheet in sea game and stands to do a lot better if they get it right.

Of course it impacts the mmo players. Development takes time and resources. Both of which should be applied to finishing the game as it was originally intended and sold.

It's not been released yet.

People are doing this.

Nope. Eve did something very right.

The thing that most people miss when discussing this sort of concept is the different types of game-play that it unlocks. Right now for example, game-play for a PvE player involves harvesting, building, levelling and perhaps some PvE combat against ghost ships and maps. The Eve design however means a heap of other types of game-play open up. Harvesting for profit Playing the market (buy low, selling high) Becoming a trade merchant (moving stock from one port to the next) Building for profit (create things to sell to the PvP players) Player run businesses (Eve players run banks, gambling dens) Eve even had players playing solely in the meta game. Gathering intel from one side and selling it to the other for example. People who have never experienced it obviously can't understand why this works. But it does. It takes the game to new heights and the reason why some of us are excited and having these conversations is we can see the foundation exists for this to work. We want this game to be incredible and believe it's possible for that to be achieved.

I disagree so much with this. Right now the game is hollow and meaningless. You see people build so they can destroy each other and then repeat the process over and over again. The game lacks long term progression that is the primary ingredient that keeps people coming back to play MMOs. I believe that the biggest failure of the game so far is they picked up an multi-player game (Ark) and expected the same formula to work in an MMO environment. People are leaving because the game is appealing only to the griefers and people who can play for endless hours at a time. Majority of people in my experience don't like the pure risk game-play we see now. In our head we do, we would all love to be able to pump the hours in and claim success but ultimately it's simply not possible for the average joe that actually has a life. Server Admins literally advertise their wipe dates in order to attract people back to the server knowing that people leave once 'Alpha' companies have begun to dominate. It's a true indication that this is not yet a MMO. With the number of servers required to maintain an official server and the associated cost you can be sure of one thing. The game does not appeal to enough players to make it financially viable to keep the lights on. This idea absolutely needs balancing in regards to resource availability to make it work though. The risk comes from the need to gather specific resources which in turn creates the PvP opportunities. Do this right, on a very large (aka official size) server and that's where it would really begin to work. The distance and time required to travel will see companies venture out into PvP waters in order to settle. Just have to look at Eve to know this is true because it's been happening for years. They will do it for the increased resources and they will stay there because its not time efficient to keep coming back into a safe port. What I'm talking about here is nothing more than trying to set the game up so that it replicates the real world environment. Areas of civilisation that had law and order. Areas that had yet to be civilised that did not.

Agree completely. This is a more robust version of a PvP game designed to make meaningful PvP occur. It's clear the Dev's never designed this as a PvE game and want to take it in a PvP direction though.

A full size server would be bloody incredible. The one I posted above was only posted at that size due to the restriction of funding. Tbh I would make the PvE zones larger with clusters of squares together. Effectively creating PvE regions in different locations across the map. Even go as far as to have different AI factions that rules them. Possibly even a high end PvE end-game where they can sign up to fight for their faction and help expand their area of control with a way for the pirates or other factions to fight back.

In a game like this there needs to be an element of Risk vs Reward. To put all the PvE together creates too much safety. The point is to avoid a situation where players can remain self sustainable in a single square. Granted I agree, the map is too small. This really needs to be done on officials to make it the best possible experience. Personally, I'm more interested in the PvE side of this equation. So no, I'm not interested in easy targets at all. I want to be chased. I want to feel the excitement of risk without the sheer destruction that comes with the current design. Trade is already occurring so I disagree with you. Do this properly and people will find themselves in greater supply of somethings and lacking in others. Thus the reason to trade is created. It's becomes more efficient to trade and safer than it does to gather the resources in some situations. Keeping in mind market places are coming. People will build in both PvE and PvP. That much is certain. Just gotta design the game in a way that it's balanced across both for different tiers of game-play.

The second picture doesn't exist. It's just my pipe dream for the direction I think this game should go. No where near the same thing though. The Freeports are level capped and become ghost towns. They need to design this game better.

Was in their video Dev Chat a week or two ago.

Never played Eve? Solo players do really well for themselves. Be it trading low and selling high across the multiple markets or accepting hauling orders and moving resources around the map. They also have the safety of High Sec where they can do as they please in next to no danger. Before you fear the unknown it's important to stop and consider if you are simply afraid of the change because change is scary or if it would be detrimental to the game. This wouldn't be detrimental to your experience given the current PvPvE design gives you dedicated PvE squares where you can do exactly as you do now. But you can also choose to explore the PvP squares should you wish. 8

You need to play Eve and understand Eve to truly understand why the PvPvE (Low Sec, High Sec) design works to not just create more PvP, but better PvP. It's a game that has had multiple world wars. Have a read. This game stands to be incredible. But it needs the foresight to know it needs to be more than it is now.

@Jatheish Can you give some feedback from the Dev perspective about the design decisions to go with raw PvP and raw PvE? You stated early in the peace you guys were taking inspiration from Eve and its incredibly clear that this game really has some serious potential to follow a similar successful pattern with the Low Sec / High Sec design. What's your thoughts on the PvPvE servers starting to appear? For those of us that have played Eve we know the formula they have works incredibly well, why not copy it?

This is honestly the answer to making a much more robust and enjoyable experience for all. The game really has potential to become one of the greatest MMO experiences on the market. But they need to make some changes that guide it in this direction. The developers have said they lack the talent and skill-set to put a descent AI into the game so PvE squares could certainly bridge that game in a quick fix way. Which seems to be how they fix things anyway... I made a few threads about it with more detail about the concept. 1. Atlas Needs Less Ark and More Eve 2. PvPvE Servers - Unofficial Servers Improving the Game Design

Since launch we have had PVE servers and PVP servers. Both are full of people complaining about the game design and how broken some key elements of the game are. Personally I believe the Dev's have been really short-sighted in their design of this game. They took their design for Ark and expanded it but forgot that they were building a MMO and therefore we lack many of the elements of an MMO that keep people coming back for more. The devs stated early that they were taking a lot of inspiration from Eve but it's clear to me that they need to take more inspiration from Eve (see post below). I personally believe that a High Security and Low Security design with an AI Faction that maintains order within the High Security squares would go a long way to significantly improving this game. The Devs however have already said that they don't have the skill set to put that into the game currently. We are starting to see something new appear within the Unofficial server community. They are PvPvE servers where some squares are PvE and others are PvP, effectively allowing people to explore all elements of the game with the available time they have. The one we are playing on currently is setup per below. We love it as it allows us to explore the PvE side when we are time poor during the week and then sail out as a group into the PvP squares on the weekend for some piracy fun. The design is not perfect though IMO as it's possible to play entirely in PvE and this is a game that should create some risk for the reward and thus the design should entice people to move through PvP squares. We got chatting about server design on our local unofficial server and I figured it was worth posting here to get the input of the greater community. Be keen to hear what people think about something similar to what is presented below. I would honestly love to see them do this with the official servers as the scale of the officials would really make this work and you could spread things out to make the experience even greater. Design Decisions PvE Squares to have carefully placed islands that do not have Gems, Crystal or Sap. This forces the PvE players to trade or leave on resource runs which in turn creates PvP opportunities. Without Gems, Crystal or Sap the PvE companies will be at a disadvantage for war preparations. No level limit on PvE Squares. Building allowed. This represents the governed islands that fall under protection of something like the British Navy. No PvE Squares next to each other. This increases opportunity for naval pvp as the pirates will quickly learn the trade routes and camp them for juicy trade ship targets. Snow and Tundra provides a challenge for PvE Companies who will need to balance the risk vs reward should they sail through those squares. This creates more PvP opportunities as it encourages the PvE Traders to spend longer on dangerous waters to avoid the deadly weather. Varied rates on squares to encourage people to play in those squares. Be it build their main bases or simply go there to gather resources, the increased rates will encourage people to move into those squares which will create PvP opportunities. Server rule (and agreement between players) that players who have their main base are inelligible to raid PvP bases. I know theres nothing you can do to stop this short of admin policing but the people who are creating main bases in PvE are more likely to be the people not interested in the raiding style of PvP. Players can police this as we are all keeping track of who lives where and who moves where. Server rule to restrict flag spam on PvE squares by limiting flags to one per person/company. They are governed islands and available to all. PvE squares provide a place for people to park their ships at night. This means ships will last longer and grow bigger. This will improve naval PvP as the quality of ships in the fights will improve. The different biomes are separated on different areas of the map. This ensures that all sorts of resources are limited in different areas of the map. The result is we will get more people needing to move between islands in order to gather or trade. Again this increases the opportunity for PvP and trade. It's not a perfect idea. The hardcore PvP crowd on our server (the ones who enjoy a jolly good offline raid) are concerned that base raiding will cease to be a thing because everyone will just build in PvE squares. My response to that is the PvP style popular in Ark is incredibly toxic and won't maintain a large enough player base to keep this game running anyway. Offline raiding is not PvP; it's players versus player made environment. I also believe that the increase rates on PvP squares will be enough to entice people out into the risky waters. Effectively this is a way of replicating a complex game design similar to Eve that embraces both PvE and PvP throughout the world but it designed in a way to create PvP opportunities. I believe this will create much more meaningful game-play which can only be a positive for the game in the long term. Thoughts?

There are servers starting to do this btw. Not at the depth I would like to see where resources are limited to specific zones. We do currently have a place to call home where we can play without fear of wipe and the go sailing on a Friday night and try find some pvp.

It already does. Just create your own server to play on. Run it locally on your machine and play that way. Would be quite boring though I'd wager. This is obviously intended to be a multi-player game.

What is your long-term vision for the game? It's a pretty big mess atm. You have PVP where people are building honeycomb bases and offline griefing each other and you have PVE where players are building superb buildings (if they can find land) but cannot experience any of the intended pvp. Any plans to try and combine these two worlds together? Please have a read of this (atlas-needs-less-ark-and-more-eve). You said you were taking inspiration from Eve but right now the only thing you have really done is provide a huge lawless sandbox that is encouraging game-play that is driving the average player away. How do you plan on bringing life and meaning to this game to ensure longevity?