Eve Blog Banter - Ambulation

Welcome to the first instalment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from PsycheDiver: Ambulation: What are your hopes for your avatar and new functionality of stations?

Ambulation promises to be a huge leap forward for Eve in terms of immersion To actually see your avatars walking and interacting will finally make them more real, and allow players to get into personality more.

Hopes for the Avatar:
- Many options for how the avatar looks in terms of hair styles, clothes, body heights and shapes. One huge complaint I have with Eve now is that a lot of character portraits look a lot alike, expecially in the Achura line. More variation, more uniqueness.

- Reasonable body shapes. I don't need 17 year olds creating avatars with unrealistic bust sizes thank you very much. Variation is one thing, DDDD is another.

- No tongue-in-cheek movements like /dance. My MMO is a gritty uncaring universe where millions die every day due to war and hardship. I highly doubt pod pilots would "do the robot" in the station concourse. Maybe dancing in a dance club / bar would be ok, as long as its setting-appropriate.

Hopes for Station Functionality:
- Front offices that are more interactive than current station office blurbs that point to websites.

- Bars to hang out in and chat with other pilots.

- In game gambling, both solo and with other players. Poker works well. :)

- Clothes shops to change your appearance.

- Apartments that can decorated and stored with trophies, or unique items earned or bought on your travels.

- Many different station styles for the interiors, not just four (one for each faction).

- Large spacious stations, make them feel huge inside.

- Lots of interactable NPCs.

Hopes for the Future:
- Eventually I want to see more ambulation environments beyond stations. Planets, cities, derelict stations.

- Ambulation PvE combat: missions to derelict stations where you go on board to find a missing data packet and NPC pirates try to rush you with hand weapons and such. Get that down pat and it leads to...

- Ambulation PvP combat: Not large scale wars, but just a few pilots fighting others in derelict stations where the long arm of the law does not reach. You get killed, you show up back in your new clone, your ship docked and abandoned at the delerict station waiting for you to return or someone else to board and take command.

- Ambulation wars: Well, if the captain is going running around derelict stations, the crew should go to! They would act like companion drones and accompany the pilot on his ambulated sorties. There could be different qualities of crew from plain old crewman to security staff to mercenaries to full blow Marines. Maybe some have better weapons or different weapons and armour, etc. They could be a new commodity to be traded on the market, maybe have training levels to reflect their abilities from experience.

- Ambulation Station Control: Once you have pod pilots leading soldiers in combat against other pod pilots in derelict stations, you are right there at combat in outposts and player controlled NPC stations for control of such assets. This leads to the possibility of special boarding ships for attacking stations, new tactics and gameplay, an improved method for gaining control of stations rather than POS wars, and just a hellva lot of fun.

- Ambulation planetary wars: Well, if you fight wars in conquerable stations, time to up the ante and gain control of entire planets through combat. We'll need some planetary landing craft, orbital bombardment weapons, atmospheric fighters, tanks, bases, APCs... and we should be fighting over something, right? We'll need to be able to install Planetary mining operaitons, factories, secret labs, training facilities, etc.

Other Blog Banter Posts on the same topic:

• CrazyKinux's Musing: Exotic Dancers, Corporate Meetings & more
  
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Ambulation - what I hope to see

Semper EVE: Ambulation and Me
• Roc's Ramblings: Blog Banter #1 - Ambulation
The Ralpha Dogs: Ambulation/Walking in Stations: A "Second Life" for EVE?
• Drunk in Space: Look at how much weight he put on…
  
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche: Ambulation and Her
  
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - Ambulation
I am Keith Neilson: Going For A Stroll Through EVE
Life in Low Sec: Ambulation Fantasies
• Shahirs Journey: Hopes for Ambulation
  
A Mule in EVE: Ambulation
• Protosolus: EVE: Gawking in Stations
• One Man, One Ship: Ambulation
• Achernar: Avatars in a spaceships game
  
• The Shard: Ambulation
• Mad Rant: Saturday Night Fever
• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: Walking Around…
• Ombeve: Ambulation
• A Merry Life and a Short One: Ambulation

Update: Fixed PsycheDiver's url, added Mad Rant.
Update2: Fixed more URLs, added I May Find Peace Within the Emptiness...
Update3: Added Ombeve
Update4: Added A Merry Life