Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There are a number of ways Jim and I are different. For instance, I like baked beans, while Jim is a seventy-foot super-robot that devours cities for food. Another way is that he has played EVE Online for over 40 million ours, whereas I have only ever stared at videos of it and then run away to play with Lego. But CCP are looking to welcome new players, not by simplifying the game, but rather by better explaining how to get started. That’s partly via a swishy new website, which is much easier to navigate, and presented in that modern collection of rectangles that the young people love so much these days. And it’s more directly via a new video aimed at brand new players. You can see it below.

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2011 has been an excellent year for videogames, I’d say – but one videogame it has not been an excellent year for is EVE Online. The space MMO has been through the wringer in recent months: leaked internal memos, poorly-received updates, a misguided move towards microtransactions, protests, fan-angering dev blogs… More recently, devs CCP announced they would be sadly pruning their ranks, refocusing on the core EVE game and trying to win back their fans’ ardour. Part of that, it transpires, involves occasionally notorious senior producer Arnar “CCP Zulu” Gylfason handing the captain’s chair to someone else.
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The latest Eve expansion switches on today, and includes a bunch of things that should please Eve players, such as new battlercruisers, and pretties such as new nebulae, and ephemera such as new captain’s quarters, and VITAL visual tweaks such as new engine trails. The most amazing thing, however, is the concept of slowing down time to deal with big fleet fights. I’ve no idea if that will work, but it’s the cleverest solution to the lag problem I’ve seen offered so far.

Thumping great spaceship battle trailer below.
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It’s on nights like this one, when sleep is denied me, that I miss Eve Online most of all. I would have spent it hunting, leading fleets, and indulging in the stuff that makes the game so special. It’s funny, because I realise that those who have never played Eve’s PvP game will never know what I am missing out on, now, let alone what they have missed out on, always. For all the writing I’ve done on the subject, I’ve never been able to capture quite what it all means in terms of a cerebral, tactical, persistent challenge. There is nothing quite like it. That singular nature means that videos like the one below – a forty-minute tale of sophisticated, high-level combat through Eve’s wormhole space – are possible. You should watch this video, even if you do not believe you will ever play Eve, because it captures the drama, the control, and the mathematics that are integral to the PvP game.

And it makes me acutely aware of what I am missing out on. The guys making this video are hardcore PvPers, even by my standards, and it’s impossible not to admire their dedication. Perhaps I was found lacking. Thanks, Roburky.
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After a year of controversy and bellyaching, it’s good to be able to report on what Eve does best – large, interesting expansions that are full of shiny space stuff. The next one of these, which is due to arrive on the 29th of November, apparently improves and updates “three dozen features”, which sounds like an awkwardly large amount, but in fact include combat and interface tweaks, changes to the all-important starbases, as well as bringing in the most important thing for many players: New spaceships. These are the tier 3 battlecruisers – large, shooter vessels – and they have me longing for Eve once again. I do love a good battlecruiser.

More information here.

CCP have been releasing a series of videos explaining the technical side of EVE’s development of late. Certainly in need of some good PR at this point, it’s a fun look at the people behind the game, and reveals lots of new developments implemented and planned for the game. And the most recent edition includes the bonus of watching “CCP Mandrake” solve a Rubik’s Cube with frightening speed.

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Speaking to Eurogamer, CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson has explained a bit about what’s been going on with the Icelandic MMO company: “the message is that we have heard you and we are now taking action to be more aligned with the needs of Eve Online. As a company, we’ve been trying to achieve many things and it was just too much to do at the same time. Eve Online has hurt for it.” He also spoke about the layoffs, saying: “A lot of great people are leaving the company through this process, famous or otherwise. The people who are recognised members of the community get more of a spotlight but there are a lot of people leaving CCP at this juncture.”

Meanwhile, CCP’s Kristoffer Touborg has been talking to Gamespot, where he said: “I think designing a new subscription-based game is a flawed strategy, because you are basically competing with free.” He also called it a “trend”, and I would be surprised if companies didn’t find a way to bring subscriptions back. Interesting, anyway.

Bleak news from CCP:

“…we have made the decision to sharpen our focus. Sadly, this means reducing our staff. We estimate that around twenty percent of global positions will be affected by this process. These will be predominantly in our Atlanta, GA office, although select positions in our Reykjavik, Iceland office will be affected.”

More on this below.
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CCP have announced that folks who quit over recently disgruntlings can now sign up again for 30 days at $4.95. If you are a recently-lapsed player then you should have received the offer by email. Not that this in itself is interesting or enticing as such, but this is. CCP are finally talking about rebalancing capital ships to make them less overwhelming in fleet fights, less able to escape by logging off, and less versatile overall. If they’d done this a couple of years ago I might not have become a lapsed player myself. Let’s hope it has the necessary impact on the game and reduces capital ship use overall.

As keen as I am to poke CCP in their collective eye for being rubbish about Eve things, it’s true that CCP’s CEO Hilmar Pétursson is a decent chap. And it seems particularly okay of the flame-haired Icelander to post an extended apology to Eve players on the game’s site. Dwelling on recent debacles, he says: “Somewhere along the way, I began taking success for granted. As hubris set in, I became less inclined to listen to pleas for caution. Red flags raised by very smart people both at CCP and in the community went unheeded because of my stubborn refusal to allow adversity to gain purchase on our plans. Mistakes, even when they were acknowledged, often went unanalyzed, leaving the door open for them to be repeated. You have spoken, loudly and clearly, with your words and with your actions. And there were definitely moments in recent history when I wish I would have listened more and taken a different path. I was wrong and I admit it.”

He also observes that words mean little next to actions. It’ll be interesting to see just what actions the pioneering MMO studio end up making. There doesn’t seem like any easy way out.