The Evolution of MMOGs - Eve Online 84
Gamasutra is running an article about the Massively Multiplayer Game Eve Online. Information from senior producer Nathan Richardsson gives a look into the development of the largest concurrent MMO on the market. From the article: "Power to the players. Nothing compares to a player that is enabled to affect the universe. We create tools for players to create content. For example, a massive alliance of corporations - our versions of guilds - with real, legendary players, leading them, controlling large areas of space and building up infrastructure is truly awesome content. We can never create that, but we can create the environment and tools enabling to happen. We're also very iterative in our work and keep continuous feedback cycles on the features we do, then regularly improve them based on that feedback. The community is an incredible source for how to improve the game and what they do within the game gives us constant inspiration for what we should implement next. Being so open-ended means the players do what they want and we try to keep up and add support and tools to take emerging behavior further. Embrace and evolve are the keywords here."
Re:Not as good as they would have you believe (Score:3, Interesting)
EVE is quite an interesting game (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, it's not for everyone, and it has a steep learning curve. However, that hasn't detered away their playerbase, and while it doesn't grow at exponential rates, it's stable and growning enough for them to afford the resouces to provide a new free expansion every six months. EVE is CCP's only game. They have no other priorities than EVE, and it's their job to make sure it's a great game...not necissarily one that appeals to the masses, but a great game nontheless.
Stunningly Beautiful -- Incredibly Boring (Score:3, Interesting)
Simply put: EVE is boring. Its a slog. It requires an enormous amount of time to mine resources and travel between points. There is nothing approaching the immediacy of an instanced dungeon. (Yes, they try. No, it doesn't work.)
Some of the problems are fundamental. Like: "Space is boring". Ultimately space is just a big vacuum. To the developer's credit, they've made it look stunningly beautiful, but after drooling on your keyboard for the first couple hours you'll realize you're in a matter-poor environment. There aren't trees or rocks to hide behind, mountains to get a better view from, stairs to escape up, etc. The occasional floating asteroid doesn't offer much respite from the monotony of, well... nothingness.
EVE's other problems are more game oriented: The game is mind-numbingly impersonal at first. Despite a few training missions, which teach the player about the interface more than the gameplay there is little in the way of indoctrinating new players into the EVE universe. You feel like a punk. You are a punk. Don't like it? Play for another year. Don't know what to do? Consult another player. (They'll tell you to spend more time
The game cries out for a starter-universe. But more than that, the game cries out for more interaction. In a nutshell, "telling" your ship to dock, is not nearly as much fun as "docking" manually. "Telling" your ship to fire on another ship, isn't nearly as much fun as "Trying to hit" another ship. Granted, the game is not a videogame requiring hand-eye coordination. But in the absence of physical matter and with only scant human beings sighted here and there, an element of competitive gameplay or two might be nice for early players.
EVE has focused far too much on player retention and not enough on player acquisition.
If anything, EVE has paved the way for someone to write the next great space-based MMORPG. Its what Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot are to World of Warcraft: the predecessor that vividly paints examples of "what not to do".
And primarily "what not to do" is annoy early players.