Dust 514 (PS3) - Page 13

On April 11 2013 19:41 SoundProof wrote:
Just search the store for it. The search function is in the top right I believe.

Project Legion first look: shooting and looting in the Eve Online universe
Dust 514 was a PlayStation 3-only FPS set in the EVE universe. Its limitations and flaws were obvious. Now CCP are bringing a reimagined version of Dust to PC, with a greater focus on community, customisation and emergence. It’s an attempt to marry the freeform, story-generating magic of EVE to a modern multiplayer shooter. DayZ, curiously, comes to mind.

“Dust 514 and Project Legion share a common DNA, but Legion is a very different experience,” says Jean- Charles Gaudechon, executive producer. “It’s a competitive shooter that takes place in a sandbox that mixes PvP and PvE. There’s also a player-driven economy, which is really important. If you use the EVE name you have to have an economy that’s influenced by the players.

“We have a hub designed to make players feel like they’re connected... Between missions and battles you come back here and regroup, deciding what to do next: helping your corporation in battle, scavenging for gear, or whatever. It’s your springboard to the universe. It’s from here you’re going to scan New Eden, find stuff to do, and jump there. We always want you to have the feeling that you’re playing with other people.”

“Project Legion will have its own economy,” says Julien Dulioust, producer and monetisation director. “We’ll have a link at an account level, where you’ll be able to trade virtual currency, but at a game level it’ll be its own thing.”

“At least at first,” adds Gaudechon. “First we want to make Project Legion stand on its own two feet. Then, when we’re strong, we can open the door up to linking multiple economies. We’re in New Eden, and this is a CCP game, but first it needs to be awesome on its own.”
...

I know, I know...

Here's this guy coming to talk about how great Dust is...
We don't want to hear this...
We don't care...

Well you should care.
You might need to hear this.
And I'm not talking about how great Dust/Legion is but rather how great the effect would be.

- - - - - -


Compared to the other shooters, Dust/Legion offered, and has promised to offer, a many things that the rest of the industry hasn't done and doesn't seem to be attempting to offer. Dust is one of the few shooters, and games for that matter, that offers real risk that sticks with you. Sure you have Day-Z, a zombie apocalypse game where if you die, you stand a chance to lose all of your equipment, and similar games but the only thing you risk is personal gains and potentially some associates gain and not only that but although it's hard to gain your desired resources and equipment, you come back into the game essentially as a new person. In Dust, this doesn't happen. Your clone dies, but you as a character, a person, an entity, never truly died. You lost your assets, maybe a few bonds and trust(if you screwed up royally), some of your corpmates gear, if you're in an executive or office position in your corp, you've weakened your corporation, and potentially lost the respect of your colleagues or if you're CEO, the respect of your operatives and officers. Now bring on to the fact that the EVE Universe is the most publicized meta-Universe in all of gaming and your mistakes and screw ups become much more physical.

Dust is also one of the most complex and innovative FPS games I've played thanks to both the RPG aspects and the social aspects. In game, you have a few paths to take with the most beaten path being that of the lone operative. Even as a lone wolf, you still have the ability to effect the world around you. People actually grow bonds in game and you make formidable allies and enemies. You prove to one of the better snipers in the game that you're a capable friend, and you have a credible sniper in your network. You **** off one of the immortal elites by adding your cheeky insult to the injury of mass driver to the face, you could be black balled and made a target by him and his peers. You work your way into communities as a lone player, you could sell information or gain a name. All of that can be done through pure social relations as a loner.

As a corporate official or operative, you carry a name on your back and have a role to perform in and out of the battlefield. As a CEO you don't have to be the best fighter, after all that's what your squad of Aces is for, but instead you must are the physical manifestation of the image of your corporation. If you're an official you could have several jobs which include recruiter which requires you to be one of the more friendlier players, an accountant which means you'd need some understanding of dealing with money, and a planetary logistics which requires some obvious skills in handling planetary logistics and associated management. As an operative, your job depends completely on the command structure of the corporation. Some corporations focus on free-rankings, i.e. no rankings or organization just players, while others have a more rigid hierarchy that focuses on squad leaders, snipers, pilots, scouts, logistics, etc. Regardless of your role, like all players in your corporation, you're responsible for walking around with the name on your back.

Now the battlefield is what I consider one of the more interesting parts. Again, no other FPS has the same complexity and versatility(even while Dust only consists of a few maps), as well as depth in strategic culture. It blazes paths where others only lightly tread. The ability to set up a battle, a campaign, and a theatre if you have access to an alliance, or if your corps the size of an alliance, is amazing. In the COD series, you're simply just fighting against the other team in a shooting gallery. Dust requires strategy and tactics in a real competitive battle, one that resembles what's often seen in e-Sports(think Dota 2 competitions). You want to set up a blitzkrieg with tanks and LAVs that'll lead to a desperate red-line push into objective C which is prone to ambushes due to the geographic area, then by all means you're allowed to and in fact, you're encouraged to as long as you consider Murphy's Law. Now expand that strategic mindstate to taking a district through multiple battles and outwitting the enemy logistics and depleting resources, or better yet to taking a whole planet, you see why it's a much different beast than what's out there right now. Then think about how you can enhance your original strategy through intelligence, counter-intelligence, sabotage, and politics(aka Metagaming)...It's much harder to wrap your head around.

Then there's the fact the Dust/Legion is supposed to have a P2P market, gladiator like bloodsport arenas, interaction with EVE players, and other CCP tailored goodies. With these additions added on, the already diverse and deep gameplay becomes even more enchanting and immersible.

While we have honestly become pretty disengaged from Dust as we all initially were, you couldn't argue that what we have and what we could have is pushing boundaries and barriers that the gaming industry needs. The most innovative FPSes usually push innovation through gimmicks and story(which are usually not as well written as other genres). Dust actually does so through mechanics and meta-constructing. This game's scope is much larger than what most of us are used to but we sour our faces in thought that this was possibly ever going to happen. And you know what, that's sad. That's why I'm urging CCP to push. You have something here. Something that can be built upon and made better. Something that the industry and FPS genre needs, innovation. Not that we're in a slump, but if Dust was successful, we would be living in a different videogame era...

Dear DUST 514 Community,

CCP’s development team in Shanghai has been working on a prototype for a first-person shooter for PC with the goal of building a great FPS set in our sci-fi universe of New Eden (the universe in which EVE Online, DUST 514, EVE: Valkyrie, and Gunjack are set). Their experience is being utilized to build a new game from scratch using Unreal Engine 4 while harnessing all our learnings from DUST 514. This is in many ways an evolution of Project Legion, the concept we announced at EVE Fanfest 2014, but without the limitations of technical debt and development paths we quickly discovered in that effort that could never serve as a future-proof technology base for a full production game. This new project is still in an early phase of production, and we feel like we’re on the right track and plan to give an update at EVE Fanfest on April 21st as a part of the free livestream of the event. Since this new game will be different from DUST 514 (although keeping many of its great parts), we will provide tiered recognition rewards to our loyal DUST customers, details to be announced.

We are very proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished with DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 over the past three years and it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated community. We consider DUST 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that DUST 514 will be shutting down on May 30th, 2016. We therefore will not be releasing the 1.3 update as we had planned. Players will continue to be able to play for free on our servers until then, but all further PSN packs and purchases have been removed and disabled from the in-game marketplace and the PlayStation Store. Players with existing Aurum will be able to continue to purchase items from the in-game marketplace.

Thank you for being a part of DUST 514 on the PlayStation 3. We look forward to the next chapter, and hope you’ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

On the project announcement:

CCP allowed us access to the announcement plans early on. What the CPM saw in that first draft did not fill us with confidence, and we felt it would not be received positively.

But that was only the first draft. We argued with CCP, in face to face meetings as well as text, to rework and reword the blog post that would forever change Dust as we knew it.

What you just finished reading is not perfect, and there are so many more things left to be addressed that the CPM feels should be shared. But despite all that, CCP (a group of actual real live people) deserve credit for listening to the constant criticism and doing what they felt is best.

I feel that I can safely speak for the rest of CPM2 when I say that we haven’t given up, and will continue to champion what is best for this community and its future, no matter the challenges.

Thank you, Dust community. We are in this together.



On Patch 1.3:

We learned that there would be no 1.3 on January 11th. I think you will find that after this date, the CPM did its best to not promise anything concerning the patch, and we hope that no one felt mislead.

We all thought it was coming “Soon,” CCP included, but things changed. We can only hope that some of the better features of 1.3 receive the polish they deserve and become part of this new project.



Now we are on the same page:

Now you know why we couldn’t say anything. Why you didn’t see feedback threads, Dust 514 wishlists, or peaks behind the curtain.

We are sorry we couldn’t do more, but it was simply the situation we inherited. Going forward however, the shroud of complete secrecy will be lifted somewhat.