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EVE Online: Interview with Nathan Richardsson
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Today we have a huge interview with Nathan Richardsson, the Senior Producer of EVE Online. Frank Mignone unearthed a lot of information in this three page Q&A.
;) MMORPG.com: Entering an established MMORPG, particularly one as complex and in-depth as EVE online, can be an intimidating ordeal. With frequent expansion packs released, constantly adding new content and depth, how does the game work to integrate new players without overwhelming them? Nathan Richardsson: Last year we started a team to address that specifically. We were looking at usability studies, focus groups and interviews with players that were starting out and found that we could improve this aspect immensely. We now have two developers working full-time on the New Player Experience which will, in its next phase, be stretching even further into the game. We want to introduce players to more aspects of EVE and eventually play matchmaker with them and player corporations. Weve always believed that the best way to experience EVE is in player corporations. Its the best introduction and crash course you can get for EVE and any tutorial we create will never be able to fully deliver the same experience and give the accelerated advancement a player corporation gives. EVE is about the people and if you arent playing with the other people, we believe youre missing out on some essential aspects of the game. |
You can read the interview here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
wow, so they have scheduled a graphics overhaul for 2006
, and they are upgrading the whole hardware to 64 bits AMD, and the code too 
and not only that. reverse engineering, and exploration, archeology, ancient ruins, JOVEs
, and contracts, and factional warfare, and yes, in the end, planetary exploration 
just can say, keep up the good job. you are doing great
pd: i only wish i had found this game earlier
This article is WHY so many of us are still with EVE, looking to no other "game" for entertainment.
The dedication, openness and interaction with CCP itself is refreshing and meaningful.
Now back to the capsule and another interesting evening in space.
Sounds good, although I've got to admit I have some conerns about the factional warfare...
________
-nexen-
Just curious what concerns some of the people on MMORPG.COM have about these changes. While they are big changes - not to say that CCP can do no wrong, but they have an excellent track record of thinking things through and listening to criticisms - I have a lot of confidence that it will be pulled off well.
That said, most of the development focus lately has been directly related to combat, and I am wondering how much more the next expansion will alienate players that take a different path in the game.
For a 3 year old game they real need some way to boost new players to at least get a year of training under the belt early. As the game gets older and older it just becomes harder for a new guy to achieve anything in that game, in terms of R&D , PVP etc.. Thats why the real time training model stinks.
Actually, this is true. EVE has 100,000 "Active", "Paid" accounts, with an average of 20,000 people online at once at any time. While these 100,000 literally won't ever see everyone else at the same time, they are still interacting in the same persistent world, and therefore can be interacting with each other indirectly.
nice one
that is why eve will never get boring
This interview just adds more to why I play this game. From the new Faction Warfare(highly interesting, but since I am a carebear to a point and sit in 0.5 of my races space on the boarder of our hated enamy, very scary to lose my system, and agent
) The Jove relics. Well lets just say it is something I have been looking forward to for a very long, long time.
Happy happy joy joy, new toys to play with.
"Just because there are other colours to use in chat does not mean you have to use them..." - Please follow
I always liked Eve and had the funnest time playing around with it, I even reinstalled and paid for a month to see the new changes, but I am dismayed of the one change that never seems to get attention.
Resolution, game companies these days are seemingly to push for the 1024x758 and even higher. The games minimal resolution was that and it was preventing me from playing the game enjoyable.
I must admit I am in a crowd of VERY few people as I have an eye problem, but I think older people, ahem, and others who can't stand to stare at 8 point font just to get everything on the screen. I imagine the game needs a HUGE make-over as my friend was showing me, he was saying they would rather sacrifice screen space to shove a billion things on the interface than to make it neat and sizable.
I am hoping with the recent changes slated for Vista that Micrsooft will open up this can of worms further, instead of their teams hurting the case worse and worse, with their UI features they think are great, which is horrible for us with vision problems. I doubt mass-market will appeal to most, but I am part of that market I hope, and to leave us in the dust, is leaving money spent elsewhere.
I think the game looks better and better, and I hope it continues on, although I must admit I'd rather just mine safe and sound, instead of losing my ship to anything. I can't imagine wars and stuff. I rather enjoy the PVE game than anything else, at least than you don't risk the chance of losing everything because some punk kid decides your target pratice for his new hi-powered cannon.
As regards to the posts, I imagined what the person who was saying about new players entering in the game to be true. I don't care how specialize you go, and how good you are, you will never compete with someone who has been playing the game for three years and has quite a few tricks up their sleeves, and the resoucres not to care either. The intervee was talking about contacts will REALLY be important and getting your name recognized, among 100,000 that will be almost impossible, WHO even knows of MikHaven, except for one or two.
Nevertheless I wish your game and your goals a happy future. Their is soo much to be done with Eve, I may even be on the front door begging for a job someday as I finish up college. Maybe be a GOOD excuse to start playing again.
Lord General MikHaven
---==MikHaven==---
www.mikhaven.com
What will CCP/IBM do with the old Xeons? Can we have a lottery in game for the community to keep a couple of them to themselves?
That would be so nice!!!!
Excellent interview. Keep up the great work!
I have been playing Eve since Feb 2004 and for reasons like the ones mentioned is why I stay with this game. I look forward to many more years of this great game :-)
I have to disagree with you. I own a 2 year old char and will make a new one on a new account soon. The new char will be completely independent from the old one.
The reason I am doing this is that starting a new char also has a lot of advantages. It can be fun to have little money, need to build your reputation, and build up skills wisely to specialize effectively.
I am very much looking forward to my new char starting from scratch - Its a wonderful challenge.
In comparing this article to the recently posted SWG interview....
IT IS SO REFRESHING TO SEE HONEST ANSWERS FROM A MMO DEV WITH SOME SUBSTANCE.
TAKE NOTE SOE/LA
HONEST AND CARING DEVS=GROWING GAME.
Even though I don't play Eve (a large part of me wants to get sucked into it) I would like to tip my hat to CCP and their successful MMO.
Very nice veerrry nice
As for the difficulty to compete with older players when you're a starting player. It's not so strange older players have an edge. It's nothing more than logical tbh. If you as a player would've trained 3 years non-stop you wouldn't like it when somebody can drop in, and compete with you on the exact same level as you. That said though, the system isn't all too bad if you think of it: as an older player after a while you'll have run out of skills you urgently need to train. As a younger player you'll be more likely to have a loooong queue of skills you need finished rather yesterday than today. This doesn't mean you can achieve the same level of specialisation as has been mentioned in the article. It only takes a few months and some dedication to compete with one of the older players in certain areas. It's not more than correct that these other players who've invested a lot of effort and time into the game get the benefits that come with this.
<Z>
Spread the Z
Oveur ftw!
CUZ HE'S EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEME!!!!!!!!!!!!one!!!!!111
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
Great interview.
Regarding the people who have concerns about the skill system, a lot of answers are in "theoritical" sphere. Here I write some practical.
I play EVE 1 1/2 years now. (Oct 2004 started).
I never felt behind the "older-experienced" players.
This isn't level based game where higher level & bigger weapon always win.
You can be succesfull, respected and known person even if you are a miner, engineer or just a simple transport sub-contractor (making agreements between players).
Flying bigger ships doesn't make you better pilot and it's never 100% sure that you will win in any conflict.
Personaly I like the small ships and enjoy my flights and fights with the 2 race Assault Frigates I can fly. I'm heavily specialised there to deal damage and sustain damage on those ships and few people can match me 1v1 even if they use higher class ship like Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships with triple the skill points.
Another example. You can get Maller or Thorax, and any 2 month old player (with some experience how to fight players and train the proper skills asap) he can equip his ship against any frigate pilot and wipe them out in fleet battle. Even if the frigate pilot with T2 ship (AF, Ceptor) play the game for years.
New players who join the game send an eve-mail to Apoll or Aphroditi and to help you on your first steps.
I'm happy to see there are changes on the horizon but to continue to try and say that there is PVE content in this game is missleading and quite frankly is lying to potential subscribers. I'll give a couple of examples.
1) You decide to go the route of a peaceful trader and after working your way into a lucrative route and building up your assets you finally have an industrial loaded with high value commodities and are approaching the Jita system(Which is as secure a system in the game as you can get) to deliver you cargo. Little do you know you've been scanned by a suicide squad member and hes contacted his buddies at the jump gate into Jita, that a loaded Industrial ship is coming to them ripe for the picking. You come out of warp and are targeted by several player pirates who then blow your ship to pieces, Concord then blows all of them up for having performed a hostile act but another person not involved in the combat comes through and picks up all the left over items from their ships and yours as well. Now this guy might get flagged for having grabbed the stuff but hes not engaged by Concord since he hasn't perfomed a hostile act. Welcome to PVE in Eve.
2) You decide to mine Ice or Minerals and you get two or three guys to come mining with you and you're all in your Barges mining like Dwarves bringing in loads of ore sitting on an Asteroid, loading an Industrial who takes the Ore to be processed and returns to do it all over again. Needless to say this is boring in the extreme but some players get into (according to them at least) the Zen of mining. Along comes an Apocolypse(Amarr Battleship). Now these Monsters were the premiere mining platform before the Barges came into the game and can still hold thier own mining so you aren't worried and since you're also in a secure system your feeling pretty content. The Apocolypse moves to within a few kilometers of your group and activates eight smart bombs which because they are area effect weapons destroys your entire group, of course Concord once again comes in and blows up the offending Apocolypse. Now you're all looking at each other from the Clone facility wondering what the hell? Now there is little return on such an activity for the Battleship but this guy didn't care, he wasn't out to do it for any profit, he simply wanted to do it because he could.
There are multiple examples of how people can come into "secure" areas where supposed PVE content can be played without having to engage in PvP activities and you're confronted with A/H's who just want to grief their fellow players. I haven't even talked about the groups that tank gate guns in 0.4 systems and below and grief travellers, but they are out there, this being one of the most used methods for "player pirates" to extort Isk from other players. Frankly its an exploit and CCP just doesn't want to address it. You shouldn't be able to tank the armament meant to protect the area around a Jump gate which cost a government possibly trillions of Isk to place there in the first place.
Missions repetative and boring, Trading repetative and boring, Mining repetative and boring in the extreme, NPC hunting is only lucrative in 0.0 space and then your subject to every griefer in the game. I have two characters who have over thirty million skill points and one that has over 20 million, I have cancelled all my accounts and haven't been back since. CCP has failed to deliver on several promised features in the past and with this last upgrade they once again didn't deliver and that was enough for me to call it quits.
If you find this game compelling and fun, then more power to you I hope you have a good time, but for the player who is a PvE'r at heart this game should be a pass. Its a virtual certainty that you will be confronted with the griefing elements in this game, since CCP is more concerned with keeping subscriptions coming in than with following thorugh on their promises.
As it has been said in the past by many people.. Secure does not equal safe.. lets take the example of the smart bombing apoc.. now he would take a security hit from the ship kills, and an even bigger hit from the pod kills.. so the chances are that now he is at a -5 security standing since you state multipul ship and pod kills. Now what that means is he can now be shot by anyone if he is in 0.5 and above.. plus he can only travel about in .5 and above in a pod.. as CONCORD will take any other ship away in a rather forceful manner.
The same with the sucide squads.. first of all they will only be able to operate once every 15 mins... plus once they hit -5... no more secure space for them... plus if they are using recyclable alts .. they can and will be banned for exploting.
So if your going to tell "horror" stories please include the cause and effect.. also, its worth pointing out eve is a pvp game.. pretty much everything you do is a for of pvp, as your competing with other players.. to offer the cheapest ships on the market, or filling the best orders. The main thing about eve and many other MMOs is that eve has one of the most harsh death penalties that you can find in any MMO this is what makes pvp one of the most thrilling things to do. And anyone can do it, its not a case of "I'M lvl 60 with my underpants of tighness and my spork of donkey slaying." a three week old player can be just as usful as a 3 year old player and a 3 week old player can kill a 3 year old player..
Eve isn't for everyone, the same as WOW, AO, SWG, UO and so on are not for others.. for some they expect the WOW expirence, and reach max lvl by the end of the week others are seeking something else.. but once you get past the surface and discover whats under neath you will find out why people stick with eve for a very long time.
My post has nothing to do with comparisons to other games and strictly deals with the fact that CCP reports that this game is PvE friendly and it clearly is not, you point out some of the game mechanics that would preclude someone from repeatedly performing this type of activity but they do it reqardless of the supposed penalties you cite. The 14 day trial invites this type of activity and perpetuates it among the long term players who want to preserve their main account. All you have to do is visit www.eve-pirate.com where they boast of it and of the numerous other methods in vogue.
The "Horror" stories as you've labelled them are all factual, and occur with great frequency, I have a couple of years of experience to atest to that, and you can try and discredit my reporting of them but facts they remain. As to reporting the effects of these activities as I inferred they are mitigated by these trial accounts which just serve as a venue for them. So a 14 day trial account gets banned, so what they just open another one.
Yes the person flying the Apocolypse may have only done it that one time himself but increasing your security rating back to good standing just takes a little work. The fact that he was able to do it at all is the point and the fact that now that hes done it others will follow suit when they see a mining operation taking place in "secure" space.
As I stated at the end of my initial post if you like the game have at it, I just take exception to the fact that CCP says that this game has plenty for the PvE player to do, which it clearly does not.
I'm surprised you found this somehow disingenous? The fact that some "rats" exist as players shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with as much XP as you claim. Part of the appeal of Eve is that the "world" is not guaranteed "safe" ANYWHERE / EVER. If you want safety go play hmmmm, ummmmm, hmmmm, sorry I can't think of a game that is "safe" what fun would that be? Even my kids Sims die at times? Maybe a quicksave/reload feature is what your looking for? I suppose you can find that OFFLINE.
You make it sound as if you were being griefed in Empire every month or week? Honestly how often did this occur to you? I have yet to be attacked in secure space, I know it will happen, but that's the thrill of the trader's job.....you can always haul cheap trade goods and no one will attack you after the scan.....
Also I wonder about your 0.0 experience, were you in a corp? but more importantly an alliance? My alliance stakes out 0.0 territory like most alliances do, enter uninvited and good luck to you. Now if I travel outside my neighborhood I accept that risk.
I've said this before but the reason Eve appeals to me is it better than ANY game I've ever seen emulates a virtual world with a thriving economy, political objectives, battles, wars and organization, and at times near anarchy. The player can concentrate on any of those elements but will clearly be "impacted" by the other element to not be impacted would be dishonest. It's a blend of economic priorities in an occasionally hostile environment.
I would love to prove another theory that most of players would quickly embrace. That Eve has the most mature player base of any MMORPG in terms of gaming experience and age. I think the complexity of the universe appeals to people who want to play with other adults and form guilds/gangs/corporations/alliances that are not dependent on a single LvL 60 Uber Soldat.
Huh? Come again?
CCP bans every account they find macromining, trial or subscribed.
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"