CCP Comes Out Of Left Field, Shoots Everyone In Head

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Scott Jennings| 118 Comments

CCP announces new first-person shooter console MMO that expands Eve Online

The announcement, with the trailer tagline of “one universe, one war”, came at the end of a talk about the history of CCP. It left many GDC Europe keynote attendees — perhaps expecting an announcement for World Of Darkness, CCP’s other rumored project — significantly surprised.

The trailer, with slick in-game graphics, showcased a space station and then impressive first-person shooter gameplay. Petursson said that Dust 514 is “our take on a console MMO”, and was made after the company “looked hard at what people wanted to do on consoles”.

In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can “fund mercenaries and give them goals” in the console title.

CCP’s Petursson hope that “these communities will meld over time”, expecting specific Dust 514 corporations to start with, but eventually social structures that bridge across the two. He quipped of the new game and the relationship between the two titles: “While the fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying.”

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  • dartwick

    Im fairly excited about this.

  • Njal

    Interesting.

    It seems like a good way to try to go. I hope it works out for them, but it’s not my cup of tea.

  • http://www.antipwn.com/blog/ IainC

    Opinion has so far been sharply divided in my office. I think it’s awesome while the other EvE fan in the building is ranting about how he now needs an Xbox 360 to play his game.

    I’m hoping for more information on the interface with the PC MMO before too long and how this will impact the upcoming sovereignty revamp.

  • tannenburg

    Remember, service equals citizenship!

    Would you like to know more?

  • Billzor

    What Njal said + still waiting for WoD MMO.

  • http://azaroth.org Azaroth

    Cool.

  • harl

    @dartwick That’s nice but completely lacks communication. Why?

    @IanC Based on CCPs history 360s will be cheap cheap by the time it’s out.

  • http://www.Mordiceius.com Mordiceius

    So it is like Planetside where you receive mission requests from the MMO? That sounds pretty interesting. I hope it is a bit like Planetside, I do love that game.

  • dartwick

    @harl

    I have no idea what your asking. But Im a long time EVE player and PlanetSide was probably my ll time favorite MMO(tied with DAoC.)

    This potentially will inject new dynamics into EVE and creat a fun game in its own right.

  • pharniel

    this sounds like everything planetside ever wanted to be when it grew up.

    and i loved me some planetside

    otoh we now know why the Eve TT RPG was put on indefinite hiatus…

    and like billzor i’m all grabbyhands for mah WoD MMO.
    GIMMIE!

  • Comstar

    I can’t see this working for the player run alliances in 0.0, unless the 4 million ton starship can drops rocks at will on the poor bloody infantry on the ground. Maybe they plan to make it part of Faction warfare and hence won’t effect the spaceship sandbox.

  • Raelyf

    I’m excited because, as a longtime MMO and EVE player, this promises to offer something new, interesting and innovative.
    I’m skeptical because, given CCPs record, I don’t expect it to be out anytimein the near future.
    I’m pessimistic because, given the typical MMO company record – it will be screwed up horribly and wreck the a game I love.

  • http://hgamer.blogspot.com heartless_

    Left field? Come on, we’ve known for a while now they’ve been working on something like this. Its interesting, but as expected as they come.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Found some gameplay footage.

    If plays as half as good as the presentation, this might be enough to fish me back in to EVE Online.

    But I won’t grind spreadsheets.

  • harl

    @dartwick For clarification and not flame: What I meant was your post lacked any form of content. It was impossible for any form of discussion to proceed from it until you gave a reason why.

    No one cares if you like something or not. We’re not here to judge your taste. We come in hope of discussion. Which is impossible with a “me too” post.

  • http://www.whatwouldmattdo.com Matthew

    I’m more than suitably impressed. Damn bastards, trying to make me break my no MMOs rule on the console..

  • Alex

    I’m curious to see how they coordinate these battles. My guess is that you’d stockpile clones all over the place and the hired mercenaries “activate” them wherever the battle is.

    I very much like the idea, particularly the sort meta caste system created by having the infantry be console players.

  • http://blog.weflyspitfires.com We Fly Spitfires

    I’m not hugely excited about the console FPS but I love the direction and innovation CCP are taking. It’s fantastic to see a MMO developer taking some risks and not just playing it safe.

  • Vetarnias

    I can’t say I’ve ever been particularly enthusiastic about EVE, but I’m wondering how the two will interact as they are still revolving around the same game:

    From Massively:

    Hilmar (Petursson) said, “DUST battlefields will dictate who control specific planets inside the EVE MMO. If a player contracts a DUST mercenary team to go and conquer this district of a planet. Then ultimately he will be able to control the planet, and therefore the solar system, and therefore the constellation, and the region.”

    He explained more about the interplay between EVE Online and DUST 514. Hilmar said, “You will increasingly have to fight with your fleet [in EVE Online] but you will also have to contract people who play DUST, the console MMO, which then feeds into the sovereignty control system of EVE. Then EVE feeds back into that again by funding the mercenaries, giving them goals.” Source.

    Which pretty much means, if you’re an eve player and don’t get Dust 514, you could be screwed, and it would become impossible (in practice, but not in theory) to even play EVE on an equal footing with other players without Dust. Nice way to grab cash, this.

    And it differs from the usual cash grab for MMO expansions; in WoW, for example, you don’t really need to buy WOTLK because you play the original game. Yes, you’re limited, but it does not make the initial game inaccessible. In EVE, you want to maintain your little territory, well, you need Dust. Or at least, that’s how I understand it.

  • Freakazoid

    This sounds highly ambitious and I doubt CCP will be able to make this work smoothly until long after release. It’s definitely an interesting take, though. My eye is fixated, especially if they aim for 360 and PS3.

  • http://mmomisanthrope.wordpress.com/ Dblade

    It’s not a good idea.

    EVE has absolutely zero presence as a brand outside of the rarefied world of MMO’s, and it will be competing with things like MAG and pre-existing console FPS. The only real plus this has is that it links to EVE-it’s hard to see why people would pick it up otherwise, especially if MAG or a COD comes out near the same time. It would be a bad idea even if it were self-contained, but it could be a disaster if it links to EVE in real gameplay measures, and all of 10-20k people play it on console.

  • Hoss

    Show me where on the box that it says I can’t bunnyhop and dolphin dive!

  • http://www.antipwn.com/blog/ IainC

    Vetarnias: If the DUST angle does cut as deeply into Sov mechanics as some are suggesting (and remember we’ve seen almost no firm details of that yet) then it’s going to be at the alliance rather than the single player level where DUST participation would be required. Individual players don’t hold space, alliances do.

    I really wish that you’d either actually play Eve so that you understand what you’re talking about or simply stop simply guessing at tedious length about Eve mechanics.

  • Vetarnias

    @IainC

    Oh, but I did play EVE, and my subscription (the two months that came with the box) ends in approx. 4 days. After that, I’ll leave the game for good.

    I never saw any PvP (not my thing anyway) and I never ventured outside of Empire space, but the PvE is the most tedious I’ve seen anywhere (including the notorious FedEx quests), the mining is boring, and the much-vaunted economy is a tangled mess of tiered production.

    Our small guild started playing the game together, and we saw it was pretty much a lost cause if you were a small corp, and we didn’t want to become a small cog in a larger machine. So we all decided to stop playing, and I’m the last of the group to leave.

    Also, I don’t see why you should respond so curtly, considering that I agree with what you wrote. What is CCP’s intent, assuming that Dust’s ramifications in EVE are as extensive as is suggested, if not to force all those alliances to start playing Dust just to maintain their advantage? That’s what I suggested in my previous post.

    Though I will reiterate that EVE is the most despicable game I’ve ever played, for reasons I’ve mentioned before.

  • EpicSquirt

    Now the too many Titan’s in EVE just need mountable planet destroyters to piss of the console users.

    Too bad I’ve funded the development of that console (only) game by playing EVE for years.

  • http://www.antipwn.com/blog/ IainC

    Vetarnias: Participation in DUST does not have to equal ‘forcing them to play it’ any more than participation in the market forces you to mine. You didn’t agree with me, you put out an incorrect hypothesis based on an unsound premise.

    So you played Eve and you didn’t like it, fair enough it most certainly isn’t a game for everyone, however it seems as though you have managed to miss the point entirely in many regards. There are many small corps in EvE who manage to achieve meaningful goals without becoming small cogs in a larger machine. If you can’t see how that can happen then I’d suggest that’s an issue with your vision rather than a limitation of the game. Likewise you looked at the market and saw a mess where others see complexity and opportunities at all levels. That’s fine, you don’t have to participate and if you don’t enjoy the game then that’s your prerogative however you should avoid making blanket statements when it’s clear that you don’t actually understand the systems you’re talking about.

  • Doug

    How can this be forcing you to own DUST? You pay a bunch of mouth breathing console players to fight your turf war for you. This is like saying that because I donate money to feed the hungry Sally Strouthers, I also am obligated to go work in Africa actually shoving rice into Sally Strouthers face.

    The cool factor on this is completely lost when I realize that there is no way to decimate the planetary populace with your ships weapons from space. I’d love to hire a team of mercenaries to take an objective and then show up just before payday with some friendly fire accidents.

  • Viz

    Yeah, I think that would be a very quick way to lose all your planet-based assets.

  • http://joshuameadows.com Joshua Meadows

    As someone who has struggled to get into EVE I came rainbows when I saw this yesterday. I love love love love love EVE so much; it’s every great sci-fi space sim I played when I was younger. The problem is that the game can be so excruciatingly difficult to get into and stick with if you’re any sort of casual. It’s monotonous and boring and makes the WoW grind look like a walk down the street. But I keep going back to it (even this announcement’s made me twitch about resubscribing even though I know all I’ll do is log in, look at my ship, then log back out again and cancel) constantly despite the fact that I really can’t put up with the game for very long. It’s not even hard, it just does a fantastic job of encapsulating the boringness of realistic space travel.

    I absolutely hate consoles, I only begrudgingly have an XBOX 360 because my boyfriend got one last year and it’s in the house. I’ve always preferred PCs as a gaming platform, but even still this announcement’s gotten me worked up. The EVE universe is exciting as hell, the lore astounding, and it’s always bummed me out that the MMOG was so hard to get into that I couldn’t be a part of it.

    CCP’s idea is incredibly ambitious and can fail really miserably. I’m hoping it won’t though because it’s a chance to bring the EVE world to people like me, who either have never played the MMOG or played it and just couldn’t get past the barriers with the learning curve.

  • Doug

    “I came rainbows when I saw this yesterday”

    That pretty much ends the discussion right there. This is clearly awesome.

  • wufiavelli

    I kind of see cccp pulling this off more then a world of darkness mmo. I think it will have some snaffus but should work well in the end. And i would think it would be playable as a stand alone. I have an eve account but really would prob only play this game if i had to choose one.

  • gyrus

    I just hope that if they can copyright the idea they do so? (and have done so)

    Good on them. I wish them the very best on this.

    It could go horribly wrong – but… can you by CCP shares anywhere?

  • http://joshuameadows.com Joshua Meadows

    What exactly are they to copyright? (And I think you mean patent, but I’m not sure what they’d patent either; making a video game? o_0 )

    And I’m sure, if CCP is a publicly traded company, their Icelandic stocks wouldn’t be of much use in the US.

  • Vetarnias

    “I kind of see cccp pulling this off more then a world of darkness mmo.”

    Where’s Yakov Smirnoff when you need him?

    @Gyrus

    I assume you mean patent. And despite what Joshua is saying, you wouldn’t believe the rubbish they can get patented these days.

    @IainC

    Yet that’s also the problem with EVE, I’m okay with being told that what I saw wasn’t “the real EVE”, but it starts being a problem if this charge is levelled at every new player of the game. Because to me, this pretty much summarized it.

    Recently, there was another thread on MMORPG.com on Yahtzee’s year-old review of EVE, and it was dismissed as the work of a hack without substance who just plays it for laughs. Well, I have a few concerns about Yahtzee if he’s anything like his public persona (a fedora-wearing misanthropist), and I certainly saw two major flaws in his EVE review: First, he hates MMO’s, whether it’s WoW, Conan or EVE — or even The Witcher, a single-player game that reminded him of one; second, he decided from the start to have nothing to do with player corporations. But on the whole, he is not a hack or primarily a humorist; watch his review of The Sims 3 if you believe there’s nothing underneath the breathless punditry. And about EVE, he was right on almost every point.

    I did try to see “the real EVE” (well, out of the safety of Empire, that is; I don’t particularly go after being blown up just for the fun of it), but all I could find was forum braggarts congratulating themselves on the scams they’ve pulled off, or how successfully they’ve cornered a market (which I’m sure everyone can do on a 5-million-ISK budget). All I saw was a bunch of multi-year subscribers having their fun playing an aspect of the game beyond my reach, often not even in the game world, and having an advantage gap I can’t close because of that offline training system.

    Add to this my being told that some corps won’t recruit anyone below 10 million skill points (a mere eight months, I’ve calculated, never mind that I’ve never played a single MMO that long in one subscribing stretch) and you can see why “the real EVE” appears to me as neither accessible nor desirable.

  • http://mmomisanthrope.wordpress.com/ Dblade

    I’m really surprised so many people think CCP can pull this off. I have to chalk it up to people not actually playing consoles or people who like EVE enough to let it obscure their critical sense. I am one of those “mouth breathing console users,” I started on dreamcast, and played on PS2 and 360 until my comp could run some PC ones respectably.

    Think about it-how many 360 gamers really care about Huxley? Same thing, FPS MMO, been promised a 360 port for years, no word. How many 360 users care now that they’ll never see a port of Age of Conan-another high profile promised game that failed to deliver. How many even care if champions online will be released for it?

    You can literally count the US console MMOs on one hand: Phantasy Star Online, Everquest Online Adventures, Final Fantasy XI, Phantasy Star Universe, and soon FFXIV. One is defunct, two are on life support, the most successful one is pc/console cross compatible and was a minority of console players who didn’t like the PC players at all. PC players botted, used third party tools and hacks, and generally bitched about console users every chance they got. One is to be released in the future, and the only reason I count FFXIV in this is because SE will release it just to replace FFXI. We have no idea even if SOE will bother porting free realms let alone any other future title.

    I really wonder why on earth CCP is doing this. I can’t see them taking a look and seeing demand there.

  • http://joshuameadows.com Joshua Meadows

    @Dblade,

    You definitely have a point. But all of those things you’re talking about are console ports of existing MMOGs brought off the PC, not their own specific MMOG made specifically for the console but ties in with the PC MMOG. This is extremely unique. It’s its own game, not just a console version of an existing one. Like I said, I think it can either work or go tits up, I don’t think there’s any other choice. I have hopes that it’s going to work, however, given CCP’s track record. And keep in mind that while I love EVE as a concept, I actually don’t like the game itself (aforementioned inability to play it for more than a few minutes mentioned above). But frankly EVE is such a divergence from the rest of the MMOG scene that I want something like this to work if only to give courage to the other game developers that it’s not necessary for them to recreate WoW but slap different characters on top of it any time they want to release a MMOG.

  • Gx1080

    The belief that the CCP guys can pull this off its based -mostly- in the fact that, unlike many of their counterparts in other companies, they give few signs of having their heads up to their asses.

    And its basically an Xbox game that recieve data from the EVE Online server, it is technologicaly viable (The game itself its only viable if they do it like Global Agenda and instance everything, which given the hundreds of planets in the EVE universe its a given).

    And to all the “mouthbreathing console gamers” comments, as somebody that plays both I can testify: Its just a matter of preference, they are all the same. Specially given the EVE Online playerbase.

  • Lurb

    Has CCP ever asked EVE players if they had a console and played it? If that RTS/FPS hybrid gets a significant number of the most obsessive EVE players calling the shots you can bet it won’t play like the usual each-one-for-his-life shootfest: Alliances will impose a degree of military training and tactics, mandatory drills, organized units and everything. Sounds impossible?… well that’s already how they play EVE, so it can be done.

    But I only hope it ends up being as fun to read about as the MMO is: Fleet blockades in EVE to keep heavy mecha’ from getting to some planet while the FPS troops there frantically call for them…. sweet.

  • Tremayne

    @Gyrus
    CCP might be able to patent “vertical integration of multiple virtual worlds” or some such, i.e. the idea of having two separate persistent online worlds with events in each affecting the other. Leastwise, they might well be able to in the USA – from what I understand of IP law, software methods and business processes are patentable under US law, while they aren’t on this side of the pond.

    On the other hand, there’s probably some patent troll already sitting on just such a patent and ready to drag CCP into a Texas court for a quick shake-down.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Personally, I like the idea that you can pay console players to be mercenary bands securing planetary assets for you. However, I can see it play out a few different ways:

    1. People get bored of playing Dust. It turns out to be a largely unused drag on the rest of the game where you’re not so much paying people who enjoy playing the game to decide where to play as you are paying people who hate playing the game to power level you.

    2. People prefer playing Dust over the real game. It leeches the life out of EVE Online by pulling a great deal of players out of the EVE Online universe so they can frag eachother on planets. (Unlikely: If you’re an EVE Online player, chances are your choice of weapon isn’t a gun but a spreadsheet.)

    3. A perfect symbiotic balance of fun is achieved between Dust and EVE Online, promoting the general awesomeness of both games through the diversity of the activities that each game offers.

    4. Any extreme in between.

    Will people “feel forced” to participate in Dust? I’d say it depends on the balance alone. If planetary assets emerge as completely essential to every major activity in EVE Online, then absolutely they’d feel forced. If planetary assets are barely applicable to any activity in EVE Online, they’ll not feel forced but Dust will largely collect dust. If a good balance is established, then people won’t feel at all forced but they will be incentive. This is not quite same as the fun balanced outlined above because it has more to do with how to play the games and less to with if anyone enjoys them.

  • Vetarnias

    Hmm, I made a quick trek over to the MMORPG.com website, and the “community” seems very divided over Dust. One already calls it CCP’s NGE.

    Then the EVE fanboys came to the rescue, with one of them, either being naive or dishonest (given the fanboy in question, I pick the latter), suggested with an apparent straight face that we didn’t really know if CCP’s Dust would be subscription-based. And when someone quoted the CEO’s words, which I also reprinted above, he just dismissed it anyway, again saying we don’t really know.

    But that’s the part of the deal which really seems to affect EVE players: It’s not about a sense of betrayal that CCP went for a different platform for their next project (though some might be), it’s about this game, on a different platform, with completely different mechanics, affecting the EVE Online universe. We don’t know to what extent, that’s true, but we know it does.

    The whole thing promises to be fun to watch from a safe distance, now that I’m about to leave the game; maybe a collective sneer could be heard from the SomethingAwful forum, thereby bringing Teh Internets to their knees, and maybe, just maybe, it will temper the love that people have for that game.

  • Guy

    Geldo, I feel similarly about the game balance. Will space combat affect the ground combat too much? Is yes, the ground combat might not be fun when overly unbalanced by such effects. Will ground combat be too important to the EVE Online world? If so, it might make it more work than fun. If things are perfectly balanced, it might work spectacularly. Otherwise, it might be better to make the effect (going both ways) minimal, so as to insulate the two, which would keep the FPS part light and fun. *If* they can pull of the balance regarding reward for ground victory, and don’t let it become one-sided due to space-based external factors, then it might survive a deeper integration without losing its fun side.

  • JuJutsu

    “…maybe, just maybe, it will temper the love that people have for that game.”

    You seem very desperate for others to share your disdain for the game. I know you don’t care for it (you’ve told us ad nauseum). Why should it matter to you that I enjoy the game?

  • EpicSquirt

    One day CCP will bring out EVE 2, without capital ships and without the possibility for carebears of forming a fleet of 50 to hunt 6, with a real death penalty and the game will become interesting again.

  • http://mmomisanthrope.wordpress.com/ Dblade

    Joshua:

    I think the innovation you want probably won’t be served by this, it needs to be done on the PC to have an influence. The console market doesn’t need innovation- it needs actual product designed for it, and I can’t see CCP doing that well.

    GX1080:

    So what? They have designed one game, and have zero published FPS and no console experience. The one gamed they have designed is not known for its action, and the most exciting things coming out of it are usually metagamed.

    Console gaming has a long history of developers with way much experience and back catalog than CCP fumbling when reaching outside of their genre. Namco released a FPS for original XBox, Breakdown. It died without a trace. Square Enix and Capcom both released racing games, Auto Modellista and Driving Emotion S-both tanked. It’s not easy at all for even established companies to succeed.

    Geldon:

    You forgot this one-

    5. EVE players metagame Dust.

    Imagine that. It’s really easy to see someone coming in with the intent to lose or teamkill a Dust conflict in order to effect the larger EVE world. It’s bad enough normally in Xboxlive FPS, especially since Dust will need to have achievements. But EVE’s culture is all about betrayal, piracy, and the gank. It’s hard to see Dust staying insulated or balanced for long.

  • Guy

    “without the possibility for carebears of forming a fleet of 50 to hunt 6″

    zerging is a carebear tactic now?

  • Guy

    “It’s really easy to see someone coming in with the intent to lose or teamkill a Dust conflict in order to effect the larger EVE world.”

    You don’t even have to go that far; you can simply have one team giving up quickly in order to play in another FPS instance, one where they have a chance. Because if it’s all about the EVE universe (note the “if”), then the EVE FPS players won’t be interested in just FPS gaming for its own sake, and will be min-maxing their metagame rewards similarly to organized losses in Arathi Basin in WoW.

  • Guy

    Sorry, Arathi Basin example is confusing, because it implies collusion with the enemy; not saying that will happen in Dust (though it might), but merely using it as an example of a similar sort of metagaming min-maxing as Dblade notes.

  • Blake

    Very interesting concept. I just wish it were a PC game as well as a console one. I loathe FPS games on the console, that damn dual-analog stick thing is a deal breaker for me. I need my keyboard and mouse.

  • EpicSquirt

    Guy, yeah, zerging is a carebear tactic for me and carebears are permanently inferior PvP’ers when wielding even numbers to me.

    The whole idea of coop with the two games is a bit laughable when coop within EVE is totally broken: 3 characters per account and the possibility to run up to 8 accounts on a modern gaming machine kill so much of what EVE could be.

    The sovereignty system is badly designed, I don’t understand how an expansion for a different platform is going to fix it for the EVE players. Years of shooting undefended POS into reinforced should be rewarded with something else.

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