I was playing EVE last night and something about the way the ships fly started to bug me. They always reorient so that "down" is along the plane of orbit in the system. This is completely arbitrary. There is no reason in game reason to do this. (Also there are 2 possible "down" directions for any solar system using the convention of the game.) I guess the developers do it as people's instincts demand an up and down. Though this removes the possibility of pulling a Top Gun like maneuver, which is a shame.
A related issue in game is the camera has points it cant cross at the North and South poles of the ship. This is far more annoying if I am buzzing enemy ships from above or below I can smoothly keep the camera trained on them. I am not too familiar with the coding of games, but this seems like an artificial restriction and I wish it was removed.
I'm not too familiar with EVE, but the camera restriction you're talking about is indeed an artificial restriction. There are games out there, (Freelancer) that have a wonderful 360 degree camera system like you described. I also don't know if EVE operates on a single plane, but if so, that could be the reason for the limitation.
ReplyDeleteEVE is a space ship game and movement is fully 3D. I am not talking about just 360 rotation like around a circle. I am talking about being able to go from any point on a sphere to any other using the shortest arc path. The problem with EVE is any path that passes through the North or South poles of the sphere is artificially stopped.
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