Torfi interview at TenTonHammer
This man wants more grit in your sandbox.
I generally like TenTonHammer’s EVE coverage, particularly the series written by The Mittani of Goonswarm. Their interview with Torfi (EVE Senior Producer @ CCP) just gives me that much more reason. He had a lot of really interesting things to say.
First, Incarna will really matter for gameplay:
To the people that I said that you won’t have to play Incarna to be successful in EVE… not entirely true. (laughter) You can still, you know, not do it, just like you can not do industry or agent missions or not do mining, but it’s going to be an important element of gameplay.
Also, I love when he calls the planet graphics revamp “geology porn“. Then he tells us that the astronomy data revamp actually matters for this:
Ten Ton Hammer: What kind of inputs go into the procedurally generated planets? Do you calculate the distance from the star, water vapor in the atmosphere, that sort of thing?
Ólafsson: Absolutely, we use all the basic inputs: the distance from the star, the density of the planet, adjoining moons, type of star, and so on. All of these inputs go into figuring out what the planet will look like.
Music to my ears.
He also talks a little bit about the new Fleet Finder coming in Dominion. This leads to the money quote for me:
We mostly see ourselves [as] providers of setting and mechanisms.
Concise and to the point. What I love about EVE in a nutshell: CCP gives us the tools to tell our stories within some very wide constraints. I mean, I want more backstory (“Prime Fiction”) as much as just about anyone, but that really takes second stage to our own stories. And that doesn’t mean just fiction writing, either: your gameplay tells a story as much as Ciarente Roth’s Personal Files does.
Back on-topic: go read the whole interview. He also talks about null-sec sovereignty, Titans, and DUST 514.
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Date: 2009-10-14
Categories: OOC