EVE Online's Next Frontier

If you look at the graphs over at MMOGChart.com, most of the lines that aren't WoW seem to be heading downwards. The little engine that could, though, is personified by the Icelandic dynamo EVE Online. FiringSquad has an interview with CCP Senior Producer Nathan Richardsson. He discusses the popularity of EVE right now, and goes into some of the company's plans for making sure the game stays that way in the future. From the article: "This iterative process is based largely on our crazy future views of how EVE should be and a lot on player feedback. We then want to do some revolutionary stuff to the EVE universe and then evolution comes and bites us in the ass, reminding us that it's not cool to always throw new stuff in, the current game needs to be constantly maintained and evolved. In the end, we're never happy and I guess this is part of what is fuelling our continued passion for EVE."

If I didn't have a real life...

[Andrew Nagy]

I might play Eve. In fact, I think it may be what the MMORPG genre was meant to be in its fullest form. I downloaded the free trial and after a few hours of gameplay, I hadn't finished with the tutorial. The game is huge. It's not all about killing or casual violence, it's about a life. You can buy, sell, trade, build companies, overthrow other companies in bidding wars, all sorts of things. You never have to fire a shot.

Re:I apologize in advance...

[jo_ham]

Seconded. I would love to play this, but there's no Mac version.

They seem to have focussed heavily on Direct X and all that jazz for their graphics engine, so I doubt they'll even consider the Mac platform.

MMO the way it should be

[GoNINzo]

The entire reason I started playing Eve was because the lack of shards. During my time on WoW, I would run into friends IRL who would say they would be playing WoW, but unless I wanted to do the entire level grind again, I would never be able to hang out with them in game. So, if any of my friends started playing Eve, I could hook up with them and fly. It was good times. The economy, though spread across so many regions, really makes it interesting to trade.

My corp currently holds an outpost, and it's really interesting to see the idea of player run stations, where it's not any different than a normal station that people dock at. I am really looking forward to the Kali upgrades which should really expand the world.

For those who havn't tried it, remember you can try it for 14 days free, though it will only get you hooked. heh A couple people I know are now playing for 'free' by trading in game isk for time cards, which buys you time in the game.

Anyway, it's a fun game, I'm glad to see it getting the attention it deserves on slashdot. Even though I've only been playing 7ish months, I've already got the two accounts going, and I suspect i'm going to keep them going. And even though I'm head down in work currently, my characters are still leveling skills in game, so when I get done with this project, I'll finally be able to fly that hauler that can fit everything. heh

-Kismeteer in game

Re:I apologize in advance...

[Onan]

No need to apologize, it's quite relevant.

I think that good, concurrent mac versions are a lot of what have made Blizzard's games so successful. There are literally millions of people out there with modern macs; a nontrivial number of those people have some interest in gaming, and a limited number of options available to them. Being one of a small number of companies willing to cater to them has to be extremely lucrative.

I know that I've been tempted to quit WoW for another game.. but there just aren't any, so I keep paying Blizzard. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there are another million or so people in the same boat, which is more players than most games ever see. Blizzard is raking in cash from this underserved market, and I'm kind of surprised that no one else has yet figured this out and decided to get in on it.

The Big Scam

[1WingedAngel]

I was somewhat interested in the game until I read this. [circa1984.com] The bad taste in my mouth has always prevented me from picking up a copy.

EVE... Great concept, bad implementation

[Andy Dodd]

EVE had a great concept. A complex, diverse, player driven economy. A player could focus on a wide variety of professions - Mining, research and development, manufacturing, combat, NPC hunting, or more.

Unfortunately, the implementation was horrible. Within 1-2 months the economy was in the crapper. There was virtually no profit in manufacturing, research never proved to be useful as there was almost no benefit whatsoever to putting a blueprint in for more than 3-4 cycles of research. Mining was insanely profitable only if you could get into one of the corporations that dominated insecure space. Combat was boring as hell - 2-3 hours of flying, 2-3 hours of gate camping, only to finally reach 30 seconds of intense combat.

I made it as far as having a Thorax blueprint of my own, along with owning my first battleship. Then I got BORED. Even as a member of one of the largest corps in the game, there was nothing that actually interested me.

Then Tech 2 came along. It was supposed to be the savior of the economy, finally guaranteeing manufacturers unique items that might actually make a profit. Nope, one corporation who had managed to stay in the lead with mining and one of only 3-4 that managed to get in on the manufacturing boom before it crapped out bought out all the Tech 2 blueprints and made the market even more FUBAR. While I happened to be in that corporation, it was sad seeing how lopsided the game was becoming.

Throughout this, let's not forget the bugs. Frequently major functions would get broken with a patch and not get fixed for 2-3 more patches. CCP NEVER revamped their precaching system to properly avoid gatecamping load lag exploits.

Last but not least, I can't point to any one single aspect of the game mechanics to cause it, but in general they were very conducive and if anything encouraged internal corporate strife. I was horrified what was happening to my corp, which consisted almost entirely of comrades of mine from a previous game, Planetarion. As the months went on, there was more and more internal arguing and strife, in many cases by people who used to be great friends.

I got tired of seeing what was happening and quit the game. A month and a half later, Xanadu practically split in two. I wasn't surprised at all, as it had been brewing for ages, but it was horrible to see former friends so angry at each other. EVE basically destroyed one of the best groups of gaming comrades I had ever been in.

I'm back in DAoC, and while I'm in general annoyed with Mythic, at least the game mechanics don't encourage guilds tearing themselves apart.

Eve Online makes a Tale in the Desert look excitin

[Anonymous Coward]

What an incredibly boring game. Its not even real time, the best you get is sending a course adjustment every 5 seconds. The leveling system is based on time. Real world time. Seriously, the advancement system consist of "have your account for a long time", so new players are completely fucked. Even the combat is ridiculously slow, tedious and boring, and that's the most exciting part of the game.