EVE Online is serious business for a serious number of players so devs CCP are treating Dust's place in their universe with care. Every war fought on Dust's battlefields will impact on the EVE universe, affecting trade, politics, and warfare throughout the space-based PC MMO.
With this power placed in the hands of console gamers, CCP are doing their best to keep the riffraff out. The first few months with the game will largely be spent in battles against AI or in skirmishes which have no effect on EVE's universe of New Eden. Later, players will form alliances and will be hired by corporations and individuals operating in EVE Online, temporarily paid to seize control of a rival faction's cities or military structures.
Each battlefield clocks in at around five kilometres with servers supporting a 'significant' number of players. Missions begin on board your faction's War Barge overlooking the planet to be assaulted and detailing your commander's load-out for the mission. Commanders provide shape and order to the battle - each faction's leader remains on board the Mobile Command Centre, a sky fortress which hovers high above the battlefield. While grunts and squad leaders engage at ground level, commanders issue orders, deploy vehicles, and place waypoints, while positioning and re-positioning the MCC to keep it safe and effective.
The ultimate objective on any map is to bring down the enemy base, and battles escalate as ground forces seize objectives, earn command points, and raise the stakes. Ground assault troops will be able to lower the carrier's shields and strike at its other defensive countermeasures to leave it open for attack, but still careful manoeuvring can keep your home base safe a little longer. Even as the game reaches its climax there's still reason to fight on and assault the enemy's outposts - attacking their artillery to buy your carrier a few more seconds; just long enough to take down the enemy's own base.
Instead of a gradual crawl up an arbitrary Achievement tree as a reward, every win or loss in Dust means something to someone who has a personal stake in the EVE universe. You'll have their gratitude; better still, you'll have their money - to be spent on new guns and equipment.
Dust is experiment layered upon experiment. It's a large-scale shooter from a first-time shooter dev which affects the balance of power in a game console-only gamers will never even play. It's a tactical game without classes, only stacks of equipment and complex customisable weapons to choose from. It's a test of how willing shooter players are to invest in a system of microtransactions to incur advantages in-game.
Toughest of all, it's a multi-player shooter without a real campaign element. Every time any developer tries that trick on a console, they fall on their face. Shadowrun, Team Fortress 2, Quake Wars, Section 8 - all solid multiplayer shooters built without real campaigns, each failing harder than the last. Only Battlefield 1943, at bargain price, has landed on its feet. With those handicaps and the fickle console community behind the wheel, it's not enough for Dust to be the cleverest shooter of the generation; it'll have to be the best shooter too.
Impressions It's unfortunately not enough for Dust to look and play as well as it should. As a pure multiplayer game, without tens of thousands of players on day one there might as well be no game at all. Picking the stupefying name of 'Dust 514' probably wasn't a good start.
Second comment of the day for me but being an Eve player I was curious did you guys actually play the game or is your preview based on the demo shown at the Eve Fanfest where the devs played it?
Seeing as they said the game would be sold as a normal game and DLC would come out adding new content as expansions, I cant figure where you found out they would have micro-transactions in the game.
And they also said at the Fanfest that it would have a single player element, honestly you lot either need to start doing your homework or hiring people who actually care about videogames, Gamesradar report more facts than you and manage to be funny, you exist to make them look good.
I agree with you there mate, CVG have been slipping in both reviews and previews.
This games looks awesome and sounds like it contains elements of my favourite online gaming experience ever....Battlefield 2142's Titan mode! Rock on!!!
If CCP get this right it will p**s all over MW2 (bored of after a week). The fact that your missions and campaigns have a real effect in the EVE universe gives a greater sense of acheivement and worth than levelling up and getting kill streaks. A FPS that delivers a true sense of progression, team work and comradre is the holy grail...and this game could acheive it.
Plz dont bring MW2 into this, they both maybe FPS but they are not the same, compare Dust to similar games like some of those that were mentioned like BF1943 Shadowrun and the upcoming MAG
i do think MAG's success/failure will have some serious effect with Dust's outcome, because you have to think that the 360 wont have a game like MAG and this could be the one, depending on how many players there will be but with the "servers supporting a 'significant' number of players" comment i believe they will be higher than 32 we usually get.
CVG is right though; every other game that readily comes to mind that has attempted this formula has failed harder than the previous one. I am interested in seeing if Dust can pull it off - it would certainly make for a refreshing change.
I feel that although other games have tried and failed, since this game is part of a bigger picture it may do better.
Especially if some of those EVE gamers have consoles they will probably invest and help to get the thing going
Although the sound of random NPC skirmishes doesn't sound to appealing as a starting point, I think if it is only a function to get people familiar with the system hen it'd be cool. Cooler if it was still MP but the stakes were only to do with NPCs
"Shadowrun, Team Fortress 2, Quake Wars, Section 8 - all solid multiplayer shooters built without real campaigns, each failing harder than the last. Only Battlefield 1943, at bargain price, has landed on its feet."
Team Fortress 2 failed? Are you f**king kidding me?
Toughest of all, it's a multi-player shooter without a real campaign element. Every time any developer tries that trick on a console, they fall on their face. Shadowrun, Team Fortress 2, Quake Wars, Section 8 - all solid multiplayer shooters built without real campaigns, each failing harder than the last
please read the whole thing and stop taking it out of context. all those games did garbage on console there's no denying that fact.
Then what about Warhawk? I don't consider that a failure, yet it's a multi-player only shooter without a campaign. He's saying that they fail every time...
and MAG seems to be fairly popular so far from what I saw and read and it's still in beta...
I might get this game depending on more reviews ______________________________ (no spam) Playstation/xbox/wii fans add me and check out my blog please http://luger992.wordpress.com
I might get this game depending on more reviews ______________________________ (no spam) Playstation/xbox/wii fans add me and check out my blog please http://luger992.wordpress.com
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