With the news that Eve Online is to be re-released by Atari as a retail box, along with a major new expansion named Apocrypha, I thought it might be timely to point out some of the extra-curricula Eve Online writing I’ve been doing. Then I go on after that to rant about Eve’s principles of human interaction.
The Eve words are mostly for Eurogamer’s MMO channel, where I’ve written a series of vague guides to aspects of Eve Online, including industry, politics, combat and the meaning of the big alliance endgame. I’ve tried to author these bits of writing for people who have little familiarity with Eve, in the hope that it’ll give a bit of clearer picture of what goes on within this most forbidding of MMOs. Most recently I conjured up a nu-writerist type battle report from one of our most recent exploits in space combat.
The whole embedded reporter thing is something of an experiment for Eurogamer, and it’ll be interesting to see whether they continue with this tact in 2009. Whether they do or not, I’ve certainly enjoyed being able to write a few things that otherwise wouldn’t find they way our of our own blogging corner of the internet. Even if I ignore the recent cash benefits of being one of EG’s MMO reporters I can safely say that I’ve got more out of Eve Online than I have any other game in my life. I’ve played it on and off for something like five years now, and the possibilities it offers remain the most interesting and entertaining of any game out there. The reason for this is simple: it offers more range for human interaction than any other MMO.
It doesn’t matter one fucking jot whether the game is slow, difficult, or whether you think mining is all there is to it, the cold truth is that only CCP have been able to use the technology and the architecture behind the MMO idea to anything like its full potential. Human behaviour, thanks to the open, money-led structure of the game, is given a wide canvas for expression. CCP have done that by putting player vs player, in industry, politics, and combat, at the heart of their game. That’s the real achievement, and the one aspect of the game I am desperate to underline throughout all my writing about it. After a year of failure and awfulness in MMO, I really, really want developers and publishers to start focusing on this idea and understanding what it means, and why CCP have been a success. Even the great PvP successes, such as WAR, give us only a single mode of interaction that is derivative from their man-vs-level ladder structure. No-one dares put the person-to-person transaction at the heart. Until some other MMOs start to use the same tricks as Eve, I’m going to find it very difficult to give them my time.
Paradoxically, perhaps, I also cannot recommend anyone play Eve Online. If a magazine asks me to re-review it, as they occasionally do, I make it very clear that the game is a great achievement, a deep, brilliant game, and almost certainly not for you. The reason for this, as I’ve outlined in intricate depth elsewhere, is that Eve requires massive personal investment if you intend to reap its rewards. What is unique about this investment, however, is that the investment is not simply in time or energy – things that all kinds of games demand in droves – but in interaction with other people. Eve is, I would argue, the only MMO that has set its foundations on the interaction of its players, rather than the interaction of the player with the game.
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Right seriously. I’m gonna start playing EvE again. I’m blummin excited. I peed my pants. o/
“There are five kids between three of my corpmates (including myself). It can be done, believe me :)”
Damn, I misread this initially. I thought your corpmates were actually your own kids. Which would be a whole new level of cool.
Darkfall Online supposedly comes out the 22nd of January
RPS, pweese stop pretending it doesn’t exist. I’m no fanboi of a game that’s yet to be release and in fact I expect to be disappointed (if that’s possible). But its potentially, a very important game – I haven’t been this excited about an MMO release since, well, I haven’t been PC gaming long enough for me to end that sentence…
“proper roleplaying, I mean, like, as if you /are/ that character”
As much as I admire RP’ers I don’t think its a world I’ll ever know very well. But in EvE I was absolutely in-character. I was some big shot trader and I played the part, barterting, squeezing out every isk I could, being terribly ruthless and taking people for a ride. It was wonderful.
“you can pay EvE just to chat with people. Interesting people.”
I’ve yet to find an online game with so many interesting, apparently well-balanced, intelligent and funny people. There were some misfits, sure, but you’re certainly not compelled to deal with them. Are we allowed to be elitist in an MMO? Of course we are – we’re roleplaying.
“When its good however, its very very good, and the moments of drama are far greater than any single player or fixed MMO.”
+1 You won’t be able to find these moments in any other game (N.B. I haven’t played every other game – but I’m still definitely right).
Eve is impressive, but I think Minimally-Multiplayer Online Games are the future. Think Left4Dead meets GTA.
I’ve just entered this for the second time in order to write an article on it, and the scale once again is breathtaking. I disagree, partly, when you say it’s “probably not for you”.
EVE is like a remote island near Hawaii. It’s profoundly beautiful, those living there are well in tune with their environment. But spend more than two weeks in it in one go and you’ll most likely go insane. That’s why people holiday there. Taking a trial in EVE is something every gamer should do, because it’s the most atmospheric game ever made.
Great articles.
There is so much to talk about when you get into the intricacies of a game and it’s community that’s been criminally over looked by other journalists.
It’s like they don’t even play games for more then the 2 hours it takes to review them.
A quick question about EVE.
It seems from everything I’ve read that starting from scratch with EVE is incredibly difficult without hooking into a major faction.
Is this the case? I’d love to take a lone ship and shoot up some shit without levelling up with ‘friends’ first.
Also you mentioned that you’d like to see more of this type of small scale or rather realistically scaled mmo as you see it as a success for ccp.
But would the size of the success for ccp be considered a success for EA or Ubi?
And how would players expectations of an EA or Ubi product match their experience; given the problems that ccp have with borked mechanics and server [lag] issues?
Not to mention the inability to scale the game past the core number of players that ccp seemed to have gathered.
I think ccp’s success with EVE is a unique and unfortunately one off experience.
But I’m 4am rambling.
I’m late to the punch here, but frankly I think you’re missing the point in the first few posts when you say “aim for 100k players”. The break-even point for an MMO is somewhere around 200k-250k players, which is pretty close to what EVE sustains at any given time. CCP’s genius is that they accept RMT and take a cut, they also allow you to transfer characters between accounts, for a fee. They’ve really done a remarkable job of making a lot of money with a relatively small player base.
@Lilliput King- lookup sniggwaffe, they’re on the scrapheap challenge forums – they’re perpetually recruiting and they’re totally awesome. I don’t remember who said it, but this sums it up: “I like to think of sniggwaffe as awesome school, you do want to be awesome don’t you?”
Everything the OP said is true! Well done. One of the biggest tips for getting in to EVE is to join friends who are in a busy, organised corp. Going in alone is extremely tough and a bit boring.
Radiant. Yes, the learning curve is steep. But it´s just a matter of half an hour to get into the absolute basics of the game. Do the tutorials and hook up with some other guys. Don´t be afraid to try out things like shooting sentry guns or other stuff you find… you´ll learn quickly. ;) But behold, EVE is basicly not about shooting stuff up (not entirely). It´s about social interaction in all ascpects you can imagine. Almost everything is player driven, so interaction becomes PvP in just a matter of seconds, like being scammed over some dumb item in the market or being blown up at some border just because you didn´t know that there actually was a border. EVE has a very low threashold when it comes to frustration but there is a point when you get past it and at that point EVE becomes an addiction. I usually compare WoW to crack and Eve to very fine weed. Both gets you addicted in a way, but crack is certainly the evil stuff.
I’m with Alex. You should already know the most important part of playing Eve; how to deal with real people. The little technical details can be learned as you need them.
I would say that whether Eve is for you or not depends on what kind of person you are. From my experience, most Eve players are 30-50 year old males with technical backgrounds, families, and jobs. If you’re that kind of person, or if you enjoy hanging out with that kind of person, then I’d say Eve is for you.
I have around 30 long-term “friends” that I’ve met in Eve. They are all near my age and have roughly the same interests and experiences in life. I can log into Eve any day of the week and there will be serveral people I can talk to about nearly anything that interests me and they will share that interest. Trying to duplicate that in any non-virtual social situation would be nearly impossible. That’s what makes Eve so addictive for me. It’s not the game that’s addictive, it’s having someone that understands the things I like to talk about. We can talk about movies, books, news, work, family, bills, and much more, and we all have similar interests and experiences in those areas. Even my wife and kid get a vague glossy expression when I start talking about the science section of the newspaper at dinner. When I talk about that kind of stuff to my Eve friends, they will usually respond that they read it themselves and then be happy to talk about it further. Many of us went to the same colleges, took the same training classes, grew up with the same toys, etc.
If I only had that much in common with my wife…
Just been logged in a couple of hours this evening – just chatting with old pals and soaking in the atmosphere, refamiliarising myself with the AI – and it feels so so good.
I didn’t try out EVE (Is it EVE, Eve, or EvE? I’ve seen a lot of EvE’s in the comments here…) properly. I was not in the mood to communicate, I went through the tutorials, started reading some guides about how to spend my skill points, or whatever they are called in the game, and generally messed about in space. I didn’t speak to anyone. I tend to be an anti-social gamer after the hordes of kids on FPSs telling me how they are going to #@$* *%@! %*@ *%@!# *%@ me in the *%#@! *%@! *%#@! *%@! because I’m such a #@$! (%@ %*!$ *!$ bad *%@! player *!%@$#. I never really thought much of it, played my 14 days, and said goodbye. Never spoke to anyone. I think I missed the point. Considering grabbing another free trial. You may have convinced me. I know you didn’t mean to.