In a brief trailer, they showed two characters planning a battle. Then one walked into another room and met a friend, before those two left for their ship. It was a simple video, with a beautiful score. But what really made it interesting was when they replayed it with an initial example of the sound design they intend.
They've opted to go for foley, which is more commonly used in film. Typically, editors and artists mix in appropriate sounds for everything from a door slamming to footsteps when they edit a movie. CCP has done the same thing and it created a very realistic experience, which reminded me how much this kind of sound detail is lacking in normal games. As the woman got up from the couch, she made the sounds one would expect, for example. It's difficult to describe, but no doubt, CCP will release that video and show you themselves.
EVE Voice will also find its way into Ambulation, but initially the newly free service will only exist in the same forms it does in space. However, when I met with Vivox earlier this year they showed some advanced in voice fonts (which alter people's voices to sound more like their character), voice to text recognition, text to voice recognition and 3D directional sound. This means that one day, if CCP is amenable, players could not only hear people in relation to where they are in the room, but those who do not use voice could join the audio conversation through text and those who hate the sound altogether could follow a text transcript. Best of all, they'd all sound like the Minmatar pod pilots they are!
One of the few concessions to gameplay over reality in Ambulation is collision detection, but even here they've found a neat compromise. To ensure that players cannot block each other in, they can pass through each other, but as they do so, both characters will animate a reaction and as best they can avoid clipping through. Since there is no combat and thus no tactical reason for collision, this seems like a logical compromise.
Avoidance is just one of many ways they use animation blending in Ambulation. Unlike most games, that have a slew of silly emotes, EVE Online intends to support both a mood animation state and actions. So for example, if the character is upset, they will hold themselves that way. Everyone knows the difference between a laugh and an evil laugh, and EVE Online hopes to reflect that in this way. If a player chooses to laugh while "happy", it looks a lot different than when they're angry.
The first pass at Ambulation will be exclusively on stations, with one minor exception: Captain's Quarters. This is essentially a mobile home that players can load onto their ships as they travel around. It's a ready room and it's where they keep their stuff. Since pod-pilots are essentially nearly naked and submerged in goo as they fly, it's important they groom before they get off the ship. And make no mistake, stations have a firm "no pants, no service" policy. As such, players will have these mobile quarters where they can prepare themselves before they get off their ship. Beyond that, players should not expect to get off on random asteroids, planets or conduct space walks on the side of a Brutix. As Olafsson pointed out, they need to keep a tight focus on what they want to accomplish if they hope to actually complete the expansion in 2008.
The largest rooms in Ambulation support 65 players, and others less, based on size. Those larger rooms will be equipped with plenty of elevators that take players directly to their ships with a minimal amount of walking.
Ambulation is a working title for the as yet unnamed expansion, due out late next year.
