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The fictional background story for EVE Online explains that long ago, humankind, having used up most of the Earth's resources, had started colonizing the rest of the Milky Way to sustain itself. Eventually, humans had expanded to most of the galaxy, resources became contested and war broke out. However, one day, a stable natural wormhole was discovered. The first people to pass through this wormhole found themselves in an uncharted system, which they named New Eden, in a completely foreign universe. Soon, colonists passed through the wormhole to colonize this new universe. Unfortunately, after several years the EVE wormhole collapsed completely destroying the wormhole and the star system of New Eden, wherein most of the government of the new galaxy had been based. With the wormhole closed, the colonists were completely cut off from their previous homes and much needed supplies. Thus the colonies were thrown into a technological Dark Age. Only five known colonies would ever return to any kind of prominence again, and they would eventually rebuild society together. These make up the five major empires in EVE: the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, the Caldari State and the Jovian Empire. Players may choose from four of these races (Amarr, Gallente, Caldari, Minmatar) when creating a new character. The fifth race (Jove) are not currently playable, though CCP have said they intend to use the race within the EVE storyline.
The Amarr, a group descendant from a fundamentalist group called the Conformists, were the first of the playable races to rediscover interstellar and faster-than-light travel. Armed with this new technology, they set about expanding their empire, enslaving several races in the process, focusing heavily on the primitive Minmatar race who had only just invented space flight for themselves. The Amarr Empire found its expansionist vigor through the Reclaiming, a crusade to bring their vaunted ideals to the galaxy. This was swiftly ended after their confrontations with the Gallente and, most notably, the Jove. After the destruction of the Imperial Navy in conflict with a single Jovian mothership, the Minmatar rebelled against their masters and broke off to form their own faction in the EVE universe. The Minmatar are the downtrodden of the galaxy, holding the least number of star systems while much of their populace are still enslaved in the Amarr Empire or refugee members of the Gallente Federation.
The Gallente and the Caldari homeworlds were situated in the same star system. The Gallente homeworld was originally settled by French colonists from Tau Ceti, while the planet that would later become Caldari Prime was purchased by a mega-corporation, which began to terraform it. However, the process was incomplete at the time of the gate collapse, and Caldari Prime remained environmentally inhospitable for millennia, delaying the rise of advanced society. The Gallente, with a more hospitable homeworld, restored a working civilization some hundred years before the Caldari, building the first democratic republic of the new era. However, the Caldari were able to reverse-engineer the terraforming equipment, giving their technology a substantial boost.
With their ideological differences, the Gallente and the Caldari proved incapable of co-habiting the same star system, and the increasing friction between the two races culminated in the blockade of the Caldari homeworld which led to the sabotage of the Gallente sub-aquatic city of Nouvelle Rouvenor on Caldari Prime by Caldari extremists killing millions. These acts sparked the Caldari-Gallente war. The Gallente Federal Navy unleashed a campaign of orbital bombardment against Caldari Prime in retaliation. The Caldari, however, were able to hold off and distract the Gallente with their superior technology and great determination and sacrifice, allowing for Caldari Prime to be evacuated to distant colonies where the Caldari State currently resides. The war continued for several decades until the Gallente came into contact with the Amarr, and finally brokered a peace deal in fear of a two front war. Meanwhile, the Caldari had encountered the Jovians, and benefited greatly from the older race's advanced technology.
The Jovians (currently a non-playable race) themselves had been a human colony, or group of colonies located in the Curse region, far from the EVE Gate. After the collapse of the gate and the crumbling of interstellar trade and travel-ways, the Jovians were able to revive their civilization almost immediately, losing very little time and very little information thanks to the shortness of their relative Dark Age. For years they expanded outward and explored their sector of space as the other races still huddled, overcrowded in their isolated home systems. Eventually, the Jovians turned to wide-spread genetic engineering in order to mold themselves into a people more suited to deep space life and long range interstellar exploration. However, for some reason lost to history, a disaster occurred in their genetic research programs, causing massive information loss. The Jovians' genetic experiments began to spiral wildly out of control, irrevocably damaging the race. The worst of their afflictions is a dreaded psychopathy, colloquially known as the "Jovian Disease", which inflicts an abject depression on the victim, who loses the will to live and generally expires within a short time of the onset of symptoms. In an attempt to escape the disease, the Jovians fled their home systems in three motherships, leaving the infected behind to die. However, even this last-ditch attempt to escape the sickness failed, and the Jovian Disease still cripples the Jove race. The Jovians have since renounced genetic tampering, though they have continued their genetic research in earnest, hoping to discover ways to cure themselves and continue their experimentations with much greater caution.
Players can engage in many activities in the EVE universe including mining, fighting, manufacturing, researching, completing missions, trade, piracy, transportation of cargo and space exploration.
Since its release, EVE Online has claimed awards for its graphics & gameplay. EVE runs on what is claimed to be the most powerful supercomputer in the gaming industry. On January 14, 2007, EVE Online achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous pilots online with 34,420 concurrent accounts logged on to the same server. As of October 2006, EVE Online has over 155,000 active subscriptions and approximately 20,000 active trial accounts.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
The servers have a scheduled daily downtime between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT.
There is a test server cluster called Singularity where players may get a first look at new content, as well as help the developers test changes.
Advancement
A Gallente-constructed "Catalyst"-class Destroyer leaving an Amarr space station.
EVE Online is different from MMOGs such as World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and EverQuest II because the player characters do not gain experience points through actions or by completing tasks. Instead, the player learns skills by training a specific skill over time, a passive process that occurs in real world time so that the learning process will continue even if the player is not logged in. As a result, new players are generally unable to gain more skillpoints than existing players who continue to train but this is reduced somewhat by a diminishing returns policy for training higher skill levels. Each skill has 5 steps, or levels and the time required to train a skill to a particular level is determined by the player's attributes and how many skill points a certain skill requires, determined by a skills rank. The skill training system is connected with five attributes: Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Willpower and Memory. Each skill has a primary and secondary attribute, thus the higher these attributes, the faster skills that use them are trained. There are also skills and implants that can increase attributes.
All players start with a small number of core skills (depending on choices made during the character creation process) and need to buy skill books in order to acquire new skills. Each skill has a different multiplier, or "rank", that determines how long each subsequent level takes to train. For example, the basic skills, with low ranks, may take the player 10 minutes to train to the first level, while high-ranking skills like Capital Ships take months to train to the highest level. Each skill may have pre-requisites - a requirement that other skills must be trained to a specific level before it can be trained.
Training Time
As the training regimen within the game occurs in real time, if a player has not planned ahead, he or she may soon find that they have neglected an area of skills required to continue on the quest to attain wealth and status. Third-party utilities such as EVEMon can assist in creating a schedule or plan to optimize training time.
This can be trivial for low level and low rank skills; however, the scale and duration of skill training time is rather long compared to other games, and without some planning and guidance it can be rather daunting for the newcomers to come to grips with the style of play.
For example, the Spaceship Command skill is a Rank 1 skill, and new players are granted level 1 of this right away. Gaining level 2 would require the player to train the skill for less than an hour. However, to train this to level 4 can take over 24 hours of real time, and to attain level 5 would require approximately one week of training time dedicated to it.
Since training time is directly related to a character's attributes, a player can lower the training time of skills by training the "Learning" skill as well as skills that increase the players starting attributes.
Specialization
The nature of the training times makes for a very specialized exchange of skills, with some people choosing to be combat pilots, some choosing industry, and others academic or scientific progress in the skills.
This specialisation leads to a high level of interaction required between players, but it also appears to lead to a tiering of players, from beginners (with less than 5 million skill points, or approximately 3 months of training/played time), to normal players (those with around 12 million skill points) and those who are veterans with further training.
This tiering often decides what kind of work a character will be carrying out, and especially controls where it is done.
However, such is the open ended nature of the game that if a player wants to change their character's direction they can start learning the appropriate skills.
Economy
An example of EVE Online's in-game market screen.
There is a single currency unit in EVE Online, the Inter Stellar Kredit (ISK), which takes its name from the Icelandic króna, whose ISO code is ISK. Players can barter between themselves for items, or may use the extensive in-game market system for ISK-based transactions. A large proportion of the in-game economy is player driven; NPC merchants supply some basic equipment, as well as tech 1 blueprints, items and trade goods.
Players, through the use of blueprints and in-game skills, can gain the ability to build items ranging from basic ammunition to cutting-edge capital ship hulls, and manufacture them for personal use or for sale. Pricing and availability of goods varies from region to region within the EVE universe. These aspects contribute to an economic environment influenced by factors like scarcity of resources, specialization of labor and supply/demand dynamics. The economy is closely tied with the (also player driven) political aspect of the game. Player corporations (the EVE equivalent of guilds) rise and fall as they struggle for market dominance as well as territorial control.
From a technical point of view, the economy in EVE is known as a "Faucet/Drain" or open economy, that is there is no fixed amount of money or materials in the universe. CCP did attempt to implement a closed economy (that is an economy where there is a fixed amount of currency and therefore materials) early on in the game's existence; however, it proved too difficult to balance the effects of new players entering the game with the capabilities of older players able to earn more ISK or obtaining more materials. The current Open economy is automatically balanced by introducing extra materials in underpopulated areas to encourage an even spread of players.
There is a second, smaller market which does not operate under the same rules as the regular market. It is entirely player-driven and is called "Contracts". This system has replaced "Escrow" under the release of Revelations (formally known as Kali). The Contracts system allows trade between characters and use of an auction system for most items. Additionally, a contract can also be used in the standard manner: a financial or production agreement between two parties.
Combat
While it is perfectly possible to remain in high security star systems and engage in non-combat activities like manufacturing and commerce, some pilots
turn to low-security space for its high rewards. But the trade-off for the rare minerals and high bounties of low-sec space is the constant threat of ambush that lies on the other side of every gate.
Combat in EVE is a mixture of both tactical intelligence and spontaneous decision-making using a Point-and-click interface. While every race has certain tendencies for different battle tactics (Caldari ships have bonuses for utilizing missiles and sniping turrets for long-range engagements while Gallente bonuses are weighted toward automated drones and blasters at point-blank ranges; for example), a player's combat capabilities are determined by his/her skill levels, the ship being piloted and various hardware modules fitted into it. Making a good selection out of hundreds of ships and thousands of weapons/equipment for a particular situation is as important as fighting the battle itself. Due to the huge variety of possible equipment loadouts opponents can have, adaptability in tactics is essential. Fleeing to fight another day is a common occurrence.
An example of combat in EVE. The "X"s are drones.
EVE's combat system allows ships of all sizes to be useful in combat. Large ships such as battleships are typically outfitted with heavy weapons allowing them to battle other ships of their size. Such weapons however do not have the accuracy to effectively damage smaller, faster ships like frigates. While a large ship can equip smaller weapons designed for attacking smaller targets, this leaves them at a disadvantage versus other large ships. Small ships such as frigates may be unable to do significant damage to larger ships on their own, but can greatly affect the outcome of small group battles by employing tactics such as disrupting the engines of enemies (reducing mobility or chance to escape) and jamming enemy sensors or by attacking a larger ship as a pack.
The open player versus player combat system, and the fact that ships frequently "drop" some of their cargo and equipment when destroyed, provides incentive for player piracy. There are various piracy tactics, most commonly they roam space in small gangs looking for targets. In turn, pirates risk being branded criminals by CONCORD (the equivalent of the INTERPOL) and thus becoming open targets to all other players, as well as being unable to access high security systems. Players may even place a bounty on another player's head, providing work for bounty hunters, although as of November 2006, this system is still considered to be flawed, as there is no control over who claims a bounty - in the event of a bounty payout that exceeds the amount paid for a clone (the standard method of insuring a pilot), there is little to prevent an unscrupulous pirate from claiming the bounty by killing 'himself' using an alternate character. Some players also form anti-pirate corporations, seeking out pirates to destroy them in an attempt to make a given area safe for non-combat players to mine or travel in.
At the strategic level, the rich resources available in low security space reward large cooperative groups. Usually formed when several player-owned-and-operated corporations (similar to guilds, in other MMORPGs) band together, these "alliances" can vary widely in size and strength. The network of jumpgates, which allows travel between star systems, includes a multitude of chokepoints, which careful alliances can garrison to restrict access to claimed 0.0 systems. Moreover, corporations and alliances have the ability to manufacture Player-Operated Starbases (POS) that mine resources from moons in a system. Each POS requires substantial logistical support to remain in operation, but once an alliance mounts and maintains such facilities at the majority of moons in a system, it achieves the status of sovereignty. At that point, any neutral (or "conquerable") station in the system becomes the property of the successful alliance, and remains so until an enemy destroys enough alliance POSs and replaces them with its own. The conquerable stations tend to provide a wide variety of services in a single location, and so offer considerable benefits.
Security Index System
CONCORD patrolling outside a station after an illegal incident.
EVE features an open PvP system where combat between players can occur anywhere within the Eve Universe. To balance this "free aggression", EVE has implemented a "security index system". Every solar system in the EVE universe has a public security status which ranges from 0.0 to 1.0. Systems with a rating of 0.0 are completely lawless, while 0.1 to 0.4 have absolutely no protection by NPC law enforcement (but offer a somewhat limited protection by sentry guns at stargates and stations). Zones from a 0.5 to 0.8 rating have increasing amounts of sentry gun cover as well as NPC security patrols. Systems with a 0.9 or 1.0 rating are considered extremely secure, with constant security patrols at every major point and heavy CONCORD presence. Whenever a player commits an act of aggression in a system with a security rating at or above 0.5, CONCORD ships and/or stationary weapons platforms will attack and destroy the aggressor, with escaping considered an exploit. However, in any security zone, including 1.0, a player may fire on any ship that has directly committed an illegal act such as stealing from a 'jetcan' (jettisoned cargo canister) for a period of 15 minutes or an unlimited period of time for shooting at that player.
For committing illegal actions anywhere in the game, players lose personal security standings with CONCORD, the NPC 'police'. Loss of Security status varies upon the crime. Aggressive attacks will only result in a minor loss of standings, while the act of killing a ship that has not defended itself will result in a further drop in standings, and the largest loss of standings occurs with the intentional destruction of a player's 'pod' ('pod-killing'). As a player loses security status, their ability to enter certain levels of secured space becomes more and more limited. If a player's security status drops below -5.0 they receive status of an outlaw, and if the player enters any "secure" empire space in anything other than a capsule, the NPC ships of that empire will attempt to destroy the offender's ship. Furthermore, outlaws can be freely fired upon at any time by any other players without any NPC reprisal.
It is possible to gain or regain security status by destroying NPC Pirates. Destroying pirate NPCs also yields a monetary reward.
It is worth noting that while breaking the law in high-security systems means almost certain death for the offender, this does not guarantee the absolute safety of the victim: a well-planned suicide attack can still successfully destroy a ship before CONCORD and sentry guns can neutralize the aggressor. For example, the system of Jita in Caldari space is arguably known as the most dangerous "safe" system in EVE, even though it has the second highest security rating (0.9). It's one of EVE's main trade hubs and almost always the most populated system at all hours. This dubious 'honor' is partly due to suicide attacks, where pirates will scan ships passing through Jita, looking for expensive cargo. When a ship is labelled a target, pirates will destroy them to get the cargo, even though they know CONCORD will destroy their own ship. To ensure the pirate who did the work gets the cargo, an "alt" (alternate character) will often be used. The pirate's alt will be waiting near by, ready to come in and get the loot. However, with recent changes to gameplay such as the ability to warp directly into jump range of stargates, the number of suicide attacks has gone into decline. The aggression system is also not without its loopholes; players can easily bait another player (for example, a miner in this instance) into firing on them - causing an aggression countdown - after first stealing ore from the miner's jetcan, only to return minutes later in a more powerful ship and destroy the hapless miner. Another variant of this loophole exists where instead of firing on the thief, the miner moves his own ore back to his own jetcan from the thief's jetcan (which was filled by ore stolen from the miner to begin with). This also triggers an aggression countdown, allowing the thief to destroy the unaggressive miner with no repercussions.
Warfare
While attacking another player in high security space will result in a loss of security standing and the risk of the attacker losing his ship to CONCORD there is a way to conduct warfare in high security space. A corporation or alliance can declare war on another corporation/alliance, thus allowing for combat in all regions of space without the fear of standing loss or the intervention of security services.
There is a cost of waging war for the declaring side in the form of an initial cost for the side declaring the war and an ongoing cost. Due to abuse of the system by some alliances and corporations the cost of declaring a war has changed from a flat fee per war to a sliding fee that increases the cost for each war. For example if an alliance has declared war on 5 other alliances/corporations the cost of each war is 5 times the fee for 1 war.
Warfare can be used for gaining control of lower security regions of space as there is a minimum number of starbases (POS) that must be erected before that area can be claimed by a corporation or alliance, or as a method of destroying a corporations economic base by disrupting things such as mining activities, the movement of products from their production location to the area where they may be sold (sometimes across the Eve universe from the production location) or by driving newer or non-combat players out of the corporation, reducing the tax take from mission rewards.
Death
A pod floating in space after a player's ship has been destroyed.
In the event that a player's ship is destroyed, a wreck is left behind. Any cargo hold contents, ship modules, drones and ammunition that were not destroyed in the explosion can be recovered by any player, and additional components of the structure of the ship can be retrieved by a player with the correct "salvaging" modules and skills. These components can be used to build ship enhancement modules known as 'rigs'. To (partially or fully) mitigate the loss of an expensive vessel, ships can be insured against destruction. Insurance payouts are based strictly on material build costs; the market value of the ship is not taken into account. Some ships have a market value that is dozens, if not hundreds of times as much as the ship's build cost - as a result, a player who loses such a ship will lose a large investment, with no possibility of indemnification. (Modules cannot be insured; some modules may have a market value much higher than the ship itself.)
When a ship is destroyed, the player is ejected in his or her lifepod. This pod may be destroyed as well, if a player chooses to open fire on it. In this case, the player character will die and be revived in a clone at a pre-determined cloning facility. This player death is known as "podding" or "being podded". Non-player characters will not attack a pod. Any implants installed on a player will be irrevocably lost when he or she is podded. Implants cannot be insured.
Players may purchase an upgraded clone which is used in the event of pod death. The cost of a clone depends on how many skill points it can hold - the more skill points, the more expensive the clone becomes. When the player dies and is revived in his or her clone, if this clone holds a number of skill points lower than the number the player had at the time of death, then the player will lose a varying amount of skill points.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). This method offers a way for developed characters to use expensive implants for skill training or economic pursuits, while still having the option to engage in dangerous combat operations without the risk of losing them or by creating jump clones with different groups of implants that control other aspects of the game such as shield support, enhanced damage capabilities or better targetting abilities.
Cost
EVE currently costs €14,95 / $14.95 a month (the European cost includes VAT). Like other MMOGs, the cost can be reduced by paying for larger subscription intervals. Players can pay via online payment services or by mail order. The mail order costs more than online payment, though the large subscription discount still applies.
Those who are playing EVE Online can send 14-day trials to their friends via the 'Buddy Program', available from the EVE Online website. A trial account is able to perform almost all of the same functions as a full account with the exception of training certain skills (such as industrial ships), using the contract system, and transferring ISK to other players. If the buddy upgrades their trial account to a paying account, the person who sent the invitation will be entered into a monthly raffle for various prizes.
It is also possible to pay for a subscription through the in game purchase of ETC (EVE time cards) using ISK (in game currency). This system was instituted by CCP and the transactions are protected by CCP staff. This allows more advanced players able to generate the needed ISK to pay for their characters without any real money. ETCs come in 30-50-90-100-180 day increments, and are treated just like normal subscriptions in every way.
Hereis the officially maintained EVE ETC Reseller's page.
Demographics
As of October 2006 the average age of an EVE Player was 27 of which 95% male, and 5% female.
The average weekly playtime is 17 hours, or just under 2.5 hours per day.
Gemini was not actually a content patch, but is included here for the sake of completeness. When EVE Online: The Second Genesis was released, the base was codenamed Gemini, version 1.00.0000.
Castor was the first major content addition. It focused on refining current functions along with adding "Tech 2" elite components and ships. With its release, EVE players saw conquerable stations in 0.0 (deep space) security systems, the introduction of the agent mission running system, the introduction of research agents, and many other features released between the launch of Castor and its follower, Exodus.
Exodus is considered by the developers to be the first major game expansion. The expansion added multi-level "deadspace" scenarios, new environments and ships, better handling of conflicts, additional market functionality, user interface improvements, and an updated in-game web browser. A formalized method for alliances between corporations and the ability to claim sovereignty of a solar system via new "player owned starbases" was also added. Prior to its official release, this expansion was codenamed "Shiva".
The Caldari "Charon" freighter-class ships seen in this image were introduced with the Cold War Edition content patch. Cold War Edition contained an extensive new tutorial sequence and a storyline background introduction. Challenging "level 4" agent missions were added for experienced players, as well as "COSMOS" constellations where in-space agents began giving out story-driven missions and unique rewards. The freighter and dreadnaught capital ships, full-fledged player-owned "outposts", and improved NPC pirate factions brought deep space play to a new level. This expansion also added Unicode chat support, allowing communication in Asian, Cyrillic, and Greek languages.
Red Moon Rising was split off from the "Kali" expansion in order to maintain a more regular patch schedule. It included many performance optimizations and updates to combat, research, and manufacturing gameplay. The expansion continued the focus on attracting new international players as four new "bloodlines" were introduced with Asian features and a boost in starting skills. Unicode support was also expanded from the chat system to game-wide. A major focus of the expansion was revamping existing ships and adding many additional ship classes. Twenty-three new Tech II ships were added including Exhumers, Force Recon cruisers, Command ships, Interdictors, and most notably the capital ships Carrier, Mothership, and Titan. ( See Spaceships of EVE Online for descriptions )
Bloodlines is the codename for the small content patch that enabled players to create the new character "bloodline" with an Asian appearance.
Achura, citizens of the Caldari State and expert scientists
Jin-Mei, members of the Gallente Federation renowned for their legendary leadership traits
Khanid of the Amarr Empire, the primary fighter-warriors of their culture
Vherokior of the Minmatar Republic, the established manufacturers and engineers of the tribes.
Dragon
This milestone patch brought together the code base from the Chinese server (Serenity) and the main server (Tranquility), but otherwise contained little added content and only minor bug fixes. With this patch, EVE could no longer be played on Windows 95 / 98 / ME or Windows 2000 Service Pack 1.
Revelations is the second major game expansion of Eve Online. Previously known by the codename "Kali", Revelations is slated to be released in three parts. Major features of this expansion include an exploration / scan probe system, a formalized contract system, the invention replacement for the Tech II research lottery, ship customization with "rigs", and temporary "combat boosters". Existing features expanded include a "new player experience" that grants new players a large head start in capabilities, an upgraded fleet system, eight new deepspace regions, a new map that zooms from ship to galaxy seamlessly, popular new battlecruisers and battleships, and many more.
Recently EVE voice was integrated into EVE as part of Revelations content patch 1.4 , it had been due for Revelations Revelations II previously. EVE voice is a voice communication tool integrated into the EVE-Online client, the software is licensed by CCP from Vivox.
Revelations II - unreleased
Much like Exodus part 2, Revelations part 2 is expected to add agent missions of increasing difficulty, up to Level 7. These missions, tailored for experienced players of Eve, would move increasingly into more and more dangerous space. Additionally, changes to the sovereignty system, and various other new content elements are expected in this expansion.
Revelations III - unreleased
Expected in the third release are features such as Medals, Ranks, Titles and Certifications which are to be awarded to players, corporations, alliances, and factions. Factional Warfare will allow a pilot to declare allegiance to a side in the inter-factional conflict in the EVE universe. CCP expects to publish the final part of this expansion during 2007.
Planned Future Developments
CCP have recently begun work on implementing a game feature that will allow players to "Step out" of their pods and interact with other player avatars in the communal setting of the interior of a station. CCP have not yet formally speculated on a release date for this feature. In March 2007, Ten Ton Hammer released in-development game footage of this feature, videotaped at GDC 2007 with the approval of CCP's CMO, Magnus Bergsson.
The ability to enter a planet's atmosphere (planetary flight) and to interact with the surface is also mentioned as one of the future development plans. In EVE Fanfest 2006, a working prototype was demonstrated in which a Caldari "Crow" interceptor could be seen flying around over a planet surface. However CCP stated that full-scale integration of such features to the game requires an enormous effort and is only planned for post-Revelations production phases.
EVE Online in China
Beginning in March 2006, CCP and its partner Optic Communications started working to bring EVE Online to the Chinese gaming audience. Closed alpha testing was held on a small cluster for some time, with about 3,000 players chosen from an initial pool of 50,000. The Chinese open beta test began on June 13, 2006, and proved to be very popular, gaining numbers comparable to EVE Online's main server cluster.
The code base between Serenity(China) and Tranquility(Iceland) is strictly in sync, so that software development is distributed to both server clusters, however the game worlds are not connected. EVE Online fully supports Unicode and has a back-end system to enable localization of each and every aspect of the game's content and UI.
Graphics Engine and Windows Vista
On March 14, 2006, the EVE Online development team announced that they would be upgrading the graphics engine of EVE Online to a DirectX 10 / Windows Vista graphics platform. Revelations patch 1.4 had patch notes quoted as saying that the current EVE client should work in Vista "as well as it does in XP".
Linux Support
Although CCP has made no announcement about a Linux port of EVE, it may be possible to play the game through the use of a Windows compatibility layer such as Cedega or Wine. CCP does not officially support EVE under this sort of configuration, but both Transgaming, the backer of Cedega, and CCP have suggested the companies cooperate to address functionality issues post-patch for Linux users.
Technical milestones
Eve Online has passed many milestones in Peak Concurrent Users since its release.
January 12, 2004: 5,840
March 7, 2004: 7,343
April 28, 2004: 10,000
September 5, 2004: 10,744
June 14, 2006: 33,000 (Release of Eve Online China)
September 4, 2006: 30,000
December 4, 2006: 32,955
During two weekends in July 2006, a live streaming video production called EveTV covered the events of the 2nd Caldari Alliance Tournament. The tournament pitted five-man teams from the top alliances against each other. EveTV provided live in-game footage of the battles along with expert commentary. Analysis of the teams and strategies, interviews with CCP staff and behind-the-scenes specials were also aired between battles. EveTV was produced and hosted primarily by DJs from EVE-Radio (a player-run streaming radio station) with resources provided by CCP. A total of 95 matches were scheduled, with the Band of Brothers alliance emerging the winner on the final day. Recordings of the event are now available via BitTorrent and on EVE Files. Additionally, a better quality DVD is available through the EVE Online Webstore.
The first two weekends in December 2006 saw the 3rd Alliance tournament. This was once again broadcast via live streaming video by EveTV The tournament saw 40 Alliances pitting five-man teams against each other. Once again, the Band of Brothers alliance emerged as the winner. Of particular note in this tournament, was the fielding of an Imperial Apocalypse by the Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate. This ship is one of only four that were manufactured and is extremely rare. The ship was destroyed in the semi-finals of the tournament.
Ships in the EVE universe are organized into a variety of different classes, varying from minute frigates to titans thousands of times larger. Each of these types has its own advantages and disadvantages in the game. One should not simply assume that the bigger a ship is, the better. For instance, a frigate is incredibly small compared to a battleship, but many users outfit these smaller ships with equipment that impairs the abilities of the battleship. This leaves the battleship vulnerable to attack from other ships. However, some of the weapons available to the battleship could destroy that frigate in a few shots. The balance between ships is also maintained by the implementation of the signature radius. The smaller an object (ship or otherwise) is, the harder it is to target or damage, especially with the larger cruiser and battleship-sized weaponry.
The enormous scale of some of the newer vessels in the EVE universe can been seen in this ship scale comparison chart.
Using the Caldari fleet as an example, the ten smallest vessels in the top right of the chart are Frigates, along with the Shuttle and Destroyer. Moving counter-clockwise around the Caldari fleet, the next four vessels are Cruisers, while the following is a Battlecruiser. Following the Battlecruiser are the two Battleships, then the Carrier, Mothership, Titan, Freighter, three Industrials, and finally the Dreadnought. The Eiffel Tower, for comparison, can be seen in the far bottom left hand corner.
Weapons
Weapons in EVE are divided into four types: turrets, launchers, drones, and smartbombs. Each type requires a different set of skills in order to use effectively, and have distinctive behaviors and tactical uses. Each of the four playable races favor a different subcategory of these weapon types; missile launchers (Caldari), energy turrets (Amarr), hybrid turrets (Gallente and Caldari), and projectile turrets (Minmatar). Additionally, certain modules have an important effect on tactics used in combat including warp scramblers/disruptors (and their counter, warp stabilizers), webifiers, energy vampires and energy destabilizers.
Every weapon has its advantages and disadvantages. Missiles are available that do different types of damage, and many launchers can use more than one type of missile. Slower missiles, such as torpedoes, tend to do more damage to large targets. Drones follow the target, and shoot at it, causing different types of damage based on drone type. Smartbombs are area-of-effect weapons that deal damage to any target within a certain radius of the ship, available in three sizes to reflect powergrid/CPU use and net damage, and also different types that deal specific kinds of damage.
Skills and implants can enhance the effectiveness of weapons by increasing the damage of the ammunition, the effective range, tracking speed or firing rate of the weapon, reducing the effect of the targets velocity, or reducing the weapon's power or CPU usage.
Equipment
Equipment in EVE is divided into different categories;
ammunition,
deployable equipment,
drones,
electronic warfare,
electronics and sensor upgrades,
engineering equipment,
hull & armor,
propulsion,
shield,
smartbombs,
turrets & bays,
ship upgrades(rigs),
civilian modules and gang assist modules.
Within these categories are various modules (or "mods") that can be fitted to one's ship. They each offer specific advantages or serve a particular function. For example, the "Shield Booster", when activated, replenishes a certain amount of the user's ship's shield hitpoints every so-many seconds. A "Sensor Booster", when activated, decreases the user's lock time and increases his lock range. The stats of these items can vary based on whether or not the item is "named", "tech 2", or "tech 1." Named items are tech 1 modules with a small bonus to their pre-existing capabilities. Tech 2 modules are super charged tech 1 modules offering greatly increased effectiveness. However, these tech 2 items often have higher fitting requirements, higher skill requirements, and tend to be far more expensive than their tech 1 or named counterparts.
Quafe is both the name of a popular drink in EVE and the name of the corporation which produces it. On October 22, 2004, CCP made a marketing first when they launched the virtual drink for sale in the real world. CCP sold the drink from their website for $1.50 (USD) for a single bottle, or $15.10 for a multi-pack, but sales of this drink have since ceased. Quafe has a distinct lemon-lime taste.
Criticism and Controversy
EVE is sometimes criticized for being too geared towards experienced players, and being rather intimidating for new players. CCP claims that this is largely a myth, and they try to balance the gameplay for both hardcore gamers and new or more casual players.
There have also been problems with limited server capacity, especially in battles with very many participating players. Very large battles are uncommon, but there have been battles with around 1000 players involved.
CCP has also been criticized in open letters for showing favouritism to some fansites and ignoring others.
CCP's largely hands-off approach to managing the in-game economy has also come under fire for encouraging in-game "criminal" activity. Piracy (in the ship-to-ship sense) is a fact of life, as is protection racketeering and theft. The two most spectacular examples were even reported in wider media:
The first was a corporate heist perpetrated by the in-game assassin's guild Guiding Hand Social Club. The GHSC infiltrated a target corporation over the course of nearly a year before performing a virtual assassination on the target's CEO and stealing or destroying billions of credits' worth of property.
The second was the Eve Intergalactic Bank scam, in which one player encouraged others to invest in-game currency in a banking scheme before disappearing with, allegedly, 700 billion Interstellar Kredits. However, the picture the player posted to prove his claim was proved to be photoshopped. Estimates as to the real amount vary in between 50 to 100 billion.
Both events were debated heavily both inside the game world and in wider media. Many gamers thought the actions were acceptable in a game universe, and that the thefts were perfectly in-character for those who wished to play the villain.
However, others disagreed - particularly since EVE's virtual currency is regularly bought and sold (albeit in violation of the user agreement) for real-world money. Supposing the EIB scam had netted 100 billion ISK, if it had been laundered into other accounts and sold through an online auction site or currency dealership, it would have fetched a real-world price of around US$17,000.
Such incidents are usually referred to CCP's EULA policy that gamers have no legal interest in the characters they create or virtual money they make, as is common with many other games, and that such in-game actions are permissible if they do not involve actual code exploits. However, this has added fuel to the public debate over virtual property rights.
Developer Misconduct
The "t20 Incident", February, 2007
In February 2007, a player using the alias "Kugutsumen", who is known for getting hold of information through metagaming, posted allegations of developer misconduct in relation to one of the ingame alliances, Band of Brothers. Later that week, CCP admitted that they had in fact known of the wrongdoing for over 6 months and apologized for it. The incident involved t20 (one of the software developers), using his developer access to obtain valuable in-game items to benefit Band of Brothers, in which he was part of the leadership. CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson stated that any conduct of this sort would result in immediate termination, but as (unnamed) disciplinary measures had already been taken against t20, it would not be fair to subject him to double jeopardy. CCP banned Kugutsumen's accounts for posting real-life info of the developer in question and the use of possibly illegal (hacking) means to retrieve the info. Kugutsumen replied to the accusations of using hacking as means of retrieving the info; CCP's final input in the matter was that Kugutsumen caused CCP unwanted work-load (technically, a violation of the end-user license agreement) and that was enough reason to ban him. Kugutsumen has since continued to post material on his website, and there is considerable debate amongst the player base as to the appropriateness of CCP's response.
In response to this incident, CCP set up a Internal Affairs division, dedicated to monitoring the activites of CCP employees in-game, and preventing further incidents.
The Goonswarm Open Letter, May, 2007
On May 25, 2007 new allegations of developer misconduct were brought forth. These new allegations consist of three main contentions:
The infiltration of a corporation by a high-ranking CCP developer, who then elevated himself to a directorship position and resigned immediately after entering one of the corporation's stations
The results of CCP's investigation showed this was not malicious. The developer in question was repairing an error as requested.
The predetermination of in-game roleplaying events, contrary to CCP's assertion that such events are player-influenced
CCP did not investigate this issue. Instead, posting an excerpt from the supposedly-damning document, they maintained that they only rarely influence the larger in-game fiction's results and never influence which players benefit.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
"Goonswarm", an in-game alliance consisting largely of players from the SomethingAwful.com forums, and a former player named "Kugutsumen" presented these issues to the community in the form of an open letter and blog posts. After massive spamming of links to Goonswarm's open letter on the forums, including several that resurrected posts that hadn't seen replies in three or more years, the developers shut the forums down completely to halt what the Goonswarm players were calling "the threadnought". Half an hour later, the forums were restored. CCP had also created a news item and forum thread for discussion.
In the end, CCP posted a detailed response on each of the contentions, clearing their actions in each case, albeit with an admission that Sharkbait, the developer who joined the corporation in the first contention, should have contacted the affected corporation before joining it. Furthermore, CCP accused Goonswarm of intentionally timing the accusations on a Friday so as to immediately preceed the Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. and the weekend leading up to Whit Monday in Iceland, presumably intending for their timing to result in a sluggish official CCP response. Legal options, the response stated, were being "examined".
May 6, 2003
May 6, 2003
May 23, 2003
June 12, 2006
