EVE Online Answers Your Questions 249
Last week at GDC I had the privilege of sitting down to speak with a representative from CCP, the folks who maintain EVE Online. The week before, we'd asked for questions to pass on. I had the chance to put them directly to Magnus Bergsson, CMO at CCP. He very directly tackles the recent scandal involving a CCP developer, the reason why EVE's hardcore gameplay is so appealing, the balance between casual and hardcore players, and some information on the future of the game. Read on for his answers to your questions in a transcript of the interview, as well as audio live from the GDC Expo floor.
Note: This interview was recorded live on the show floor of GDC 2007, at around 2pm on March 7th. The transcript here has been edited to eliminate repeated words and 'umms', and to provide a clear reading experience. If you'd prefer, the full, unedited audio recording is available for your listening enjoyment. (reduced bitrate: 48 kbps, 32 kbps) Slashdot: So, for the record could you say who you are?
Magnus: Magnus Bergsson, the CMO at CCP.
Slashdot: Excellent. Thank you sir. The way that we got these questions, basically, was we spoke to the Slashdot community, and the way that we do interviews is we ask people what they're interested in hearing. So, most of these questions are basically directly from the readers, what they want to know. So, if they're bad questions, or you get angry, don't get angry at me. (laughs)
Magnus: I don't get angry.
Slashdot: That's good. There was that scandal thing ... (laughs) Unfortunately, I'm going to start with that one. There was that scandal thing that happened recently. Could you sort of ... explain to folks I guess, what happened, so we can hear directly from you what your take on the situation is?
Magnus: Ahh ... people need to know when the issue with this one developer happened, which was last summer, all of the management team was actually on a summer vacation. And the people in charge then they basically decided to handle it the way they handled it. And they just made a really bad decision the way they managed that whole thing. But they did the best they could, because we had never done anything, nothing like this had ever come up. And this goes so much against the CCP mentality, and the corporate culture that, in our naiveness, we never really thought that anything like that could actually happen. Because CCP is our baby, and this basically is like hurting your own baby, which you just don't do. And the person that did it, which I know really well, he doesn't understand himself, it just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, they mishandled it, absolutely, and we've stated so in our blogs. From that came a number of rules that we have now for our own employees. We have an internal affairs department that does nothing but monitor our employees, to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. But some still think that CCP as a whole is trying to help one alliance in-game. And, it's so ridiculous for anyone to think that. Why would anyone at CCP want to do something like that? So, we just mishandled it and we tried to correct it, and we I think we handled it as best we could, and that's what it basically was. We made a mistake, we'd never dealt with something like this before. It's part of growing up, getting a bigger company, we have people in shanghai, we have people in Atlanta, we now have all these rules and regulations in place that we've set for our employees, they're good. People have to realize that we're working on EVE because we have a passion for the game, we will be playing the game. It would be horrible for the community and the game if CCP employees were not playing. Because the game gets created in the hands of the players. It's critical for us to have people playing the game just to know what's going on. We actually did a survey, and we found it's an even distribution of CCP employees in the top ten alliances. And those people would never allow somebody to be working against their alliance, so ... it's a mess, in the end we came and did the right thing. People know at the company, people know that if you were to do something like that you'd basically get fired. We couldn't double judge in that case, you know, double jeopardy if you want to compare it to that. You know, and that's basically the short of it.
Slashdot: Well, thank you. Thank you for going into that. I know it's probably not something that you guys want to touch on a lot right now. Do you think with the internal affairs department set up right now, and the action you've taken against the people involved, do you folks consider this matter closed right now? I just know that some of the comments were in the area of there is still some mixed -- and since it's still so fresh in people's minds -- there's still some mixed feelings there. Do you consider this matter closed at the moment?
Magnus: That case, from our end, is closed. I mean, we've done all the investigation, we know it was only one person and not the whole company like some like to believe, and ahh there's nothing more that we feel can be done, um it was just an unfortunate case, and in the overall scheme of things it didn't affect the game in that like some people like to thing. And, in the end, we're just damn sorry and it hurts our feelings to see some of the players say some of the things about us; we love this game and we'd never do anything to hurt it, and to have people think that this is a widespread thing within CCP: that's as far from the truth as it possibly can.
Slashdot: Right, okay, so I think one of the things that people were really frustrated by with that, is I guess, the hardcore ... EVE has this reputation as a very 'tough' game, and obviously there are a lot of people who really enjoy that. Why do you think the hardcore nature of the game appeals to so many people?
Magnus: Uhhh wow, that's a big question. EVE can be very hardcore, and it can be also a very casual game. It really depends on how you play it. But most of these people who are commenting on the forums and so forth are the hardcore players, they've been with the game for many years. If you live in 0.0, it's very hardcore. It's a very you know, dog eat dog world, and I for one, I live there, I am one of those hardcore players. You know, it's just the threat the, big death penalty and the amount of strategy you have to employ and the amount of thinking you have to do, and I think it's a big big challenge, and I think these people really enjoy the challenge.
Slashdot: Yeah, um, so you in your estimation the fact that it's not more like a World of Warcraft, where death is not really a big deal, you guys see that as a definite strength for the game?
Magnus: Absolutely. The reason that people team up in corporations and then corporations team up in alliances is because there is this inherent big threat of dying and losing a lot of money. You can lose months of work in 30 seconds, and this forces people because of human nature, to band together and form relationships. I'm saving somebody's life, saving their three, four, five, six months of work, so you create very strong relationships, where you don't have an opportunity in real life to rescue your friends from death.
Slashdot: Right, hopefully.
Magnus: Yeah, hopefully, but you get to do that on a daily basis. And that's what creates these really strong feelings, the really strong relationships, that are such a big part of this game. And because it's so totally open ended, so totally different from a game like World of Warcraft, which is a really structured game experience. A great game, but it's just different. So when people have done that type of game, it's kind of a natural progression for them to step into something that's heavier and deeper, and more rewarding in the end.
Slashdot: Totally. So, another thing that came up a lot in comments were the um, the sort of backseat designers ... you mentioned the folks on the forums who have been playing this for a number of years now, and they obviously have very strong opinions on where the game should go. How do you balance making those folks happy with attracting new players, people who might be looking at the more casual aspects of the game?
Magnus: Well, we have to satisfy most people, so it's always a balancing act, sometimes we take an upgrade, and we say now we're going to focus on this part of the game because we haven't done it before. And often when you dive into one part of the game, there are a lot of associated things that come with it. So sometimes we might actually be focusing a lot on the newer players, sometimes we might be focusing a lot on the hardcore players, but we try to do our best to have our expansions so that they touch on something for everybody. But sometimes we do more for the other, we always try to do something for everybody, it's a balancing act, and there's a big group at CCP that discusses this on a daily basis. Of course, we get input from the CCP employees that are playing the game at every single level. We have empire dwellers and people living in 0.0, let's call them Carebears, I like to call them that. Everybody has their input, in the end some features get selected as the best ones, it's a long process and a difficult one.
Slashdot: Could you point out a feature that was added recently, or with the last group of features, that you thought was really good for the more casual players?
Magnus: Yeah, the new player experience, which we spent a lot of time and effort on. That was just for the new players, just to make it easier for them. We are still working on adding a lot more to that, we have a team that is just dedicated to that aspect of the game.
Slashdot: Really?
Magnus: Yeah, so we're always trying to improve that part. Because, when you get thrown into a game like EVE, which is so open-ended, and there's no hand holding you really need to ahh, help those people. Those people are going to see a lot of new things this year. There' s a lot of new things were working on helping them getting into the game and understanding it. Of course, you don't really see it - you get thrown into this world, and if you don't already have a friend that's already playing it can be a little tricky.
Slashdot: Yeah, that's interesting, because a friend of mine was recently trying out some games and she tried out your game, and she was a little offput because EVE has this reputation for being such an intimidating game, but she found the new player experience very intuitive. In fact she said it was more intuitive to her than like an EverQuest 2, which is ... well, it's directed, but in EVE it's like a step-by-step thing. So this is going to be a focus in the future, is there's going to be a team that stays on the new player experience?
Magnus: And it's been on there for a long time, this team. So we are always extremely aware of, and we're always trying to make it easier. It's not easy trying to make those first steps real easy without making them real boring. But I think the new player experience is really good, it takes people in the right direction. It shows them a lot about the game, but as with EVE in it's nature you have to bring something to the table. You have to take some action, you have to take responsibility with what you're doing, just as in real life. There's no manual for this side of the screen, so we'll do our best, there's a lot of things we're going to be doing from now on to get people in ...
Slashdot: Can you give an example?
Magnus: Ahh, for instance, just helping people in the tutorial, just pointing things out to them in the email. Ahh, staying in touch with them, that's a huge thing because right now you might skip something in the tutorial but there's nothing that really pulls you back, nothing that points 'you why don't you check this out?' So we're going to be tracking what people are doing and sending them appropriate notifications about, hey you should be trying this out.
Slashdot: Okay. I guess just to pull back and deal with, obviously Slashdot's a very technology-oriented site, and some of the questions were very much on the technology. There's been PvP wars in the past few months that in the opinion of the posters highlighted some server limitations, some hardware limitations. Are there any plans in the future to change the scale of the world at all? Perhaps move to multiple servers?
Magnus: No, we will not move to multiple servers. What we are doing right now, there is actually and has been for the last four or five months, all of the developers are focusing on one thing right now - the need for speed. In EVE you have larger battles than in any other MMO. We had the other day, not too long ago, a battle of 1000 in the same system, and we want to continue supporting that, allowing them to have these large battles, but we also want to create incentives to create smaller engagements, which in the end are more fun for the player.
Slashdot: Right. They're certainly more understandable.
Magnus: Yes, but having 1000 people combat in the same system, is a massive requirement on the servers. Today they weigh two tons, the whole cluster weighs two tons. There's still a lot of work being done, we're still implementing new optimizations for the client and the server, and the hardware it's running on, we can't get any better hardware, so we have to focus on the code, so there's a lot of effort to allow people to have these big battles.
Slashdot: Excellent. I know you're probably disinclined to give out exact details, but for the technology nerds, for the server nerds, can you give any details about what you're running the game on. You mentioned the weight, I mean what are some of your specs?
Magnus: For instance, the we don't have hard disks on our database server. Those are solid-state harddisks, which are only previously only been used for military applications, those are extremely high output, they're called RAMSANS, and that's one applications. We're now moving everything to 64 bit architecture. Everything is running on IBM hardware. IBM has been a really great partner for us to work with, so we get the latest hardware from them as soon as they can possibly deliver it. We're always updating the hardware so we invest and have invested many many millions of dollars just on the hardware side.
Slashdot: And uhh... i'm not sure this is a question you'd be all that interested in answering, but there was one gentleman who was very interested in Stackless Python, and how that's worked out for you? Do you find that it still meets the demands of the many thousands of players that are playing the game?
Magnus: Absolutely, Stackless Python because it's a stateless environment is one of the keys of why EVE is actually capable of supporting all these users. And we have been working very closely with the Python community, we had a Python convention in Iceland that CCP actually orchestrated, and we've supported the PyCon conventions. We want to see more development on that end, and there's some interesting things happening there, so we will continue using that.
Slashdot: Okay, so looking back you definitely wouldn't have done it differently?
Magnus: It's one of the best things that has happened to EVE in the beginning, was to actually select that.
Slashdot: Okay. Do you feel that way about MSSQL?
Magnus: (pause) It has actually worked really well for us. We have worked really closely with Microsoft and ahh, it has performed really well. So that was the right decision, and still is. There are no issues with the database, and no other database would be able to perform better, in our opinion. So there are no issues there. And Microsoft has been really good to work with.
Slashdot: Excellent. Um, so as I was talking about a little earlier ... White Wolf. I know a lot of people are very very interested in what you're planning. I know you can't talk a lot about plans right now because you're very much in the initial phases. First of all, can you shed some light on why you folks got together? What was the rationale there?
Magnus: White Wolf has some assets we didn't have. They are extremely good storytellers, they have a lot of expertise in physical distribution, they can create board games, they are now writing the EVE manual, the EVE strategy guide. They're going to help us getting EVE into physical distribution, into stores, Then they have this fantastic IP, which we are converting into an MMO. But, ahh, I don't have any more information on that because it's early stages. We're still designing the gameplay and everything else, but we're very committed to making that into an MMO, so that relationship has been fantastic. The team at White wolf is actually working on some aspects of EVE online. To add more storytelling missions, and so forth.
Slashdot: That's very interesting, do you know when we might see that stuff in the game?
Magnus: I don't know the release schedule for the missions and so forth, but the strategy guide and the player guide which is badly missing right now, that is an ongoing project and should be ready as soon as possible.
Slashdot: I know you really can't .. you're already in the planning stages, but I have to ask. Are there plans to use the whole World of Darkness license or, is right now thinking moving more towards one of the specific parts of the World of Darkness, moving there?
Magnus: We just don't know yet, this is exactly what we're doing right now, is thinking about how the game will play, so anything I would tell you about that right now would probably be a lie. I don't want to make a liar out of myself.
Slashdot: I appreciate you not lying (laughs).
Magnus: That's something we are working on right now, we just don't know yet.
Slashdot: Okay, ahh, I know you folks, you spoke with Brent from VirginWorlds the other day, and I know he was very impressed with some of the Avatar elements you folks are putting in the game. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Magnus: Sure. The project is called Ambulation, and what it does it will allow the pilots to step out of their spaceships and walk in the stations and in the stations you will have corporate meeting rooms, you will have services like recruitment centers in certain stations, people will be able to make and sell items like clothing. We are not going to turn that like into a first person shooter, people will not be able to shoot each other in the stations, that's a whole different game. But the gameplay in the stations, works well with what happens outside of the stations. We put a lot of work in Iceland into behavioral analysis, they have a specialized team that has been studying that for years. And our AI is going to be quite interesting, you won't see avatars going through a routine of animations when they're standing still. They're actually going to be emulated out of human nature, human behavior, so we are doing everything we can to make the avatars as human like as possible. We're going to put a lot of work into making them realistic. Hopefully we'll be something of a breakthrough in avatar development. At least, we have some ambitious goals for it.
Slashdot: Okay, alright, when you talk about gameplay on the station, does that mean there will be more than just meetings and recruitment, there will actually be gameplay elements as well?
Magnus: Yes ... we're still deciding exactly ... some of them have been determined. Until it's finalized it's better to let the designers and developers have some leeway to work with, but yeah there are definite ideas of what will be allowed in station. There will not just be you stepping out into the station and that's it, there will be something else in the stations.
Slashdot: Good deal, usually, when I do an interview in person I like to ask, is there something that you want to say to the people you're working with, the customers, is there something about EVE that you find particularly interesting that you want them to know about?
Magnus: Well, I think anybody looking for a game experience that is, let's call it smart gaming without sounding arrogant, if people are looking for something like that, I think they'll find eve quite interesting, it's a very strategic game, some people hate it but I hope more people actually love it and try it. It's the type of a game that you grow with, it's probably more of a commitment than most other MMOs right now, and it's the type of a game that leaves a lot behind. It's quite rewarding because all of the things you accomplish in the game are the results of your actions. It's more than a game in that sense. We at CCP then don't really consider ourselves so much as a game developer, we are more like a service provider. We are providing a sandbox, or a universe for these people to live in and we are very much a hands-off company on what happens in game. We don't want to be caught up in what users do , we just want to influence a little bit here and there and respond to the users.
Slashdot: Alright, great. Well, I think that pretty much covers it, so thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it.
Magnus: Thanks! Good questions!
Re:Uh, hmm, uhh, ahhhh (Score:2, Insightful)
Like grammar, such words can make it easy to tell what the person was thinking (or not thinking as the case maybe).
Which is another reason to always try and use good grammer and speling;
Management team on vacation excuse? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, what if there was a major server issue where the replacement management had 2 choices
1) Cut the capacity of players in half and queue the rest
2) Allow all players, but the performance of the game would be reduce
Well since management is on vacation, and since this "never" happened before, the replacement management thought #2 was the best option. It doesn't really matter what they pick, the community is going to be pissed. Then management gives an interview afterwords, and tries to use the excuse they were on vacation? Are you f-ing kidding me? No matter how this "cheating employee" issue was handled, a big chunk of the community will be pissed. The worst thing you can do is blame on it summer vacation.
He didnt understand? (Score:5, Insightful)
What a statement. Maybe he should take a month long holiday to "find himself". Hes certainly the one WORST affected by this scandal isnt he. The only thing that doesnt make sense is that this guy still has his job.
And zonk, please, pauses in speech do not warrant a literal "ahh" translation. English probably isn't this guys first language, or he is merely pausing to compose his thoughts.
Re:A Dangerous Assumption (Score:4, Insightful)
There are MMO players out there that *want* death to matter. You're right, they're the minority, but they're out there, games like EVE cater to them, and that minority isn't going to dissolve.
The guys who are out there in lowsec space (the most dangerous areas) every day don't *want* to play World of Starcraft. It'd bore the hell out of them.
Re:Management team on vacation excuse? (Score:4, Insightful)
And in this interview, he sets up a nice little strawman argument about how it's not CCP's official policy to unfairly favor one particular alliance/corp/group. That's not what people think or are upset about. We're concerned about individuals within CCP unfairly favoring particular groups, and CCP's (un)official policy of not giving a damn.
He then goes on and talks about how hardcore EvE is, and how 30 second events can determine the results of months of work. That being the case, why won't he understand why even a single individual at CCP cheating within the game is so damaging and frustrating.
Lack of events (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I love these things (Score:2, Insightful)
And, yes, that was a rather personal attack against you but I figure its alright because you seem perfectly justified to attack another stranger's character with absolutely no evidence. Maybe next time you could actually attend the GDC, speak with some of the developers, and possibly be able to create a more accurate rendition of the situation.
Have a wonderful day.
I quit Eve (Score:4, Insightful)
And the group that benefitted from the corrupt CCP employee got a huge advantage by this despite his denial. He is either clueless to how his game works or he is just trying to cover up (clearly the latter). The amount of in-game money these items allowed them to generate made them most powerful alliance in the game and the balance will be forever skewed because of it. The took the items away, but the damage is already done...they didn't take away the money those items generated to allow them to take over a large part of Eve. And since they only have one shard that everyone plays on, the game will be forever screwed for everyone in the game.
They didn't fire the corrupt employee, they didn't reverse all the damage he did, and I am sure things like this will happen again...they will just cover it up better.
Seriously, if you are looking for a new MMO, move on. Eve has to be one of the most boring, time sink filled game I ever played. Yes, their skill system is brilliant and removes one time sink...but with losses being so high, you have to spend tons of time grinding to make sure that you can replace what will get blown to bits. CCP is tainted and the taint has not been removed.
I hope you see this CCP. Thank god you can't delete posts here.
Re:A Dangerous Assumption (Score:2, Insightful)
Whether your not you are in a corp (or even an NPC corp) has no bearing on whether your not you can get into a cool ship or 'something'. You train up for it and buy it on your own and *pow* you're in your cool ship or 'something' as soon as you can afford to buy it and no one can stop you (as long as the ship is for sale somewhere). The game is soloable to a large extent. I've been playing for just over a year now and the only time I join gangs are when I want to do so, usually to help a newer pilot out finishing a mission, inviting newer players to join me on tougher missions so they can make some money and have fun shooting bigger npc ships, or when we gang up to go hunting in lowsec/zerosec for other players.
Sounds like you may have spent that four months waiting on someone to hold your hand and give you stuff. That won't happen unless there's some reason to do so and/or you are somewhat trusted already. You can't expect to join a corp and get access to the coffers right away because there's too many spies and corporate thieves around. You have to earn trust before you'll get handouts. So yeah, you were wasting your time.
Re:cancelling (Score:2, Insightful)
seriously though... what you are describing is the same experience you would get in DAoC if you never left Mag Mell in Hibernia... the game is 'open ended'... it is what you make of it... so if you choose to farm rocks solo in a mining barge then that is what you get.
that being said... skilling up for other ships/mods and running some different mission types should feel very different... and there is always lo-sec and no-sec... who knows what is going to happen out there from day to day?
for a start at PvP that is not in 0.0... look up Privateer Alliance and see if you can't get into one of their corps... they declare war on 0.0 alliances and then fight them in 'safe-space'... you would be a quick sell to them because you can mine... and in return you will be able to hunt war targets without having to go into the depths of lawless space to do it.
good luck!
Two things jump out at me in this interview... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Management team on vacation excuse? (Score:4, Insightful)
THEN, when one person refused to let that happen, he spent months digging information out of chat logs, web forums, etc. until he had actual hardcore evidence of the wrongdoing.
CCP then tried to shut him up.
Then the whole community got pissed off about it and made so much noise that CCP was finally forced to deal with it.
Then CCP banned the guy who found all the evidence from the game.
Nice job, guys. Way to build trust.
Yo, Zonk (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
It's a question slashdot reades want to be asked, yet you ignore it every time.
We can guess that the answer has something to do with market size, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
This one might actually get a port, why not bring it up or ask about the progess?
Re:Profits? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I quit Eve (Score:3, Insightful)
Motivation
It's unlikely that the devs will be able to track down every instance of employee cheating in the game. Sure, spawning BPOs or using GM powers to knock out POS shields will show up in logs. But there are plenty of other ways to cheat, such as providing all sorts of inside information to your alliance.
As such, CCP will need the help of the players to prevent cheating. They have to give the players a reason to reject the juicy information about new systems, new complexes or new skills. If the players know that the cost for cheating is extremely high, then they have a reason to police the CCP employees in their ranks. Especially if the penalty is waived or lessened if the non-CCP members of the alliance report the cheating to CCP.
As a side effect, it turns the cheaters themselves into some of the most hated and hunted players in the EvE universe. Which would also be a good thing.
Yes, it would suck to have the cheating of another player in your alliance destroy months of your hard work. But it sucks even more to have the cheating of another player not in your alliance destroy months of your hard work.
Written Questions/Written Answers (Score:2, Insightful)
The questions are clear, the interviewee has time to ponder the answers and then write something coherent (and sometimes also brief). I found the transcript of the audio interview very difficult to read, and believe it's of lower quality than a written interview would have been.
We know you can record sound while you're out and about. Very impressive. Now, do it the other way.
Re:cancelling (Score:2, Insightful)
Over that time, they've been enthusiastic, eager and dedicated, and have a lot of high skilled and fantatical players
Lots of people are getting hung up on them being the 'big evil cheaters' but they're really not - one BPO, yeah, it's naughty, but IMO it's hardly the end of the world. I _know_ BoB have legitimately gained a LOT of very good blueprints. There is a reason most of the alliance PvPs in HACs for example.
They're not supermen, they're just enthusiastic and focussed.