Since 2008, CCP Games has been showing brief flashes of it's upcoming MMOFPS, Dust 514. For those unfamiliar, CCP Games is the developer behind the MMO EVE Online, one of the most ridiculously in depth games around. EVE Online was first released in 2003, and through a lot of hard work, CCP has been able to keep the game around through the past decade or so. Dust 514 will be only the second game ever developed by the Iceland based company. That in and of itself is noteworthy. However, Dust 514 is on the precipice of doing something groundbreaking. You see, Dust 514 is set in the EVE universe. The battles you fight in the game will be waged on the same planets that you can find in EVE Online.
That's only the half of it though.
The events that occur in Dust 514 will have direct and far reaching consequences to the players of EVE Online. Control over planets can be determined from the battles waged in Dust 514. The players in the game are treated as mercenaries, though nothing as of now is stopping you from fighting for your corporation or alliance if you play EVE Online. This opens up the possibility of alliances or corporations putting out a call for help if they think they are about to lose a planet. The groups that control worlds through Dust 514 can even build infrastructures on the planets they, or their corporations, control though it isn't really clear what purpose this will serve yet.
The first brilliant thing about this is that you don't have to be an EVE Online player, to play Dust 514 and vice versa. The second, and much more impressive, is that the players of these two different games will essentially be able to coexist, despite not playing the same game. For the first time ever, two radically different games players can have an effect on each others experience. The relationship between these two games and their players could set the stage for a radically different approach to bringing players together. It goes beyond just multiplayer between two different gaming platforms. It bridges two entirely different genres of gaming, which is arguably a much bigger challenge.
One of the biggest problems facing player connectivity is the fact that we don't all play the same games and systems. A few games have tangled the idea of bridging the players of one game on multiple systems, but none have done so with a whole lot of success, and given the way the big three console developers handle business with each other I doubt that we'll be seeing any real solid games with such a feature for a while. A few games have started toying with social networks which can introduce you to other players and services like Call of Duty ELITE and Battlelog offer lots of extra features for the people subscribed to their services. The problem with the game-specific social networks is that they are more or less devoted to a single game franchise. Breaking down the walls surrounding certain parts of the gaming community so that it's players can share an experience is a bold move towards creating a game world where players can all experience the same world from radically different perspectives and situations. I myself, am not a big MMO person. Never have been. I just don't like them and the way they are presented to me and the way some of them feels more like a chore than something to be enjoyed. One of my friends loves MMOs. He plays at least three of them at any one given time. While he doesn't have a dislike for first person shooters. they are defiantly not his favourite genre. The relationship between EVE Online and Dust 514 offers the opportunity for two players with different likes and dislikes to share the same world.
But it's deeper than that.
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| In response to the obvious question: How could I not? |
It might take years to nail down exactly how this could work, I mean the mechanics behind this sort of thing are just now being explored as possibilities. However, Dust 514 may very well be the revolutionary first title to explore the idea of bringing players together, even if they aren't playing the same game.
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It's been awhile since my last post. The real world catches up to you fast when your not paying attention to it. That said, I'm going to be taking a bit of a different approach to things here over the next month or so. We'll see how that goes (as usual.)
As always, please share this as much as possible, keep reading, and thanks for reading.
Until next time.
Idea Came From Here: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/transgaming
Image References:
#1. http://download.gamezone.com/uploads/image/data/1010573/Dust-514-concept-art-characters.jpg
#2. http://canv.as/ugc/processed/b3f647e34b467e29597997f025ad8d59b9869f3c.jpeg
Thats some good writing you did here :)
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