09-22-2009, 10:15 AM
I think there's a good case to be made that if a game requires leadership, then the game is not doing enough to drive gameplay.
This is most definitely true of EVE. There is literally no reason for one alliance to attack another alliance except out of boredom. It's the old Shadowbane mistake. They forgot to populate the landscape with rare, highly desirable resources that can be claimed and fought over. Lacking leadership, puggies should still understand that "this is valuable and worth fighting over" and they would do so.
A leader would enhance their organization but he wouldn't drive gameplay -- the game would drive gameplay.
Planetside and WW2O do great jobs of this. The game basically drives itself. Log in as a pug and it's fairly clear where you can attack and defend and what, in general, you can or should do. A leader helps a lot but he's not mandatory.
Even WAR does a decent job of this. Pugging it in ORvR or battlegrounds, you know basically what the objective is and what you need to do. A leader helps keep things organized but you don't need a leader to play. You open your map, you look at it and you see an objective.
In EVE, you need a leader to play. The game provides no objectives. There are a number of entertaining options but someone has to stand up and create an objective or you don't really have one.
Some would say it's "the ultimate sandbox" and I guess some people like that but I find it to be less than ideal and I think it's a huge part of why EVE has always schlepped around the bottom of the MMO pile.
This is most definitely true of EVE. There is literally no reason for one alliance to attack another alliance except out of boredom. It's the old Shadowbane mistake. They forgot to populate the landscape with rare, highly desirable resources that can be claimed and fought over. Lacking leadership, puggies should still understand that "this is valuable and worth fighting over" and they would do so.
A leader would enhance their organization but he wouldn't drive gameplay -- the game would drive gameplay.
Planetside and WW2O do great jobs of this. The game basically drives itself. Log in as a pug and it's fairly clear where you can attack and defend and what, in general, you can or should do. A leader helps a lot but he's not mandatory.
Even WAR does a decent job of this. Pugging it in ORvR or battlegrounds, you know basically what the objective is and what you need to do. A leader helps keep things organized but you don't need a leader to play. You open your map, you look at it and you see an objective.
In EVE, you need a leader to play. The game provides no objectives. There are a number of entertaining options but someone has to stand up and create an objective or you don't really have one.
Some would say it's "the ultimate sandbox" and I guess some people like that but I find it to be less than ideal and I think it's a huge part of why EVE has always schlepped around the bottom of the MMO pile.