EVE Online

EVE Online is a persistent world multiplayer online game set in space. It is developed by CCP Games and was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive, after which CCP purchased the rights back and began a digital distribution scheme. Players are spaceship pilots in craft of varied style and purpose.

Background

EVE online's background page

The fictional background story for EVE Online explains that long ago, mankind had used up almost all of the Earth's resources, and had started colonizing the rest of the Milky Way to sustain itself. Eventually, there was no more room left in the galaxy, and war broke out. However, one day, a 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 galaxy. Soon, colonists passed through the wormhole to colonize this virgin galaxy. Two stargates (the EVE gates) were built at either end of the wormhole, so that when it closed (it would not be open forever), there would still be a way to access the new galaxy. Unfortunately, after the wormhole closed, a cataclysmic disaster hit the EVE gates, cutting off the new galaxy from the Milky Way and throwing the colonists back into the Stone Age. Five distinct colonies survived, and would eventually rebuild society. These make up the five major empires in EVE, and players may choose from four of these when creating a new character.

The Amarr, a group descendent from a Catholic 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, including the Minmatar, who had only just invented space flight for themselves.

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 and the sabotage of the Gallente sub-aquatic city of Nouvelle Rouvenor on Caldari Prime which killed millions. These acts sparked the Caldari-Gallente war. During this time, the Gallente Federal Navy unleashed a campaign of orbital bombardment against Caldari prime. 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. The war continued for several decades until the Gallente came into contact with the Amarr, and finally brokered a peace deal. Meanwhile, the Caldari had encountered the Jovians, and benefited greatly from the older race's advanced technology.

The Jovians themselves had been a human colony, or group of colonies located in a distant region 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 mould 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 programmes, causing massive information loss. The Jovian’s genetic experiments began to spiral wildly out of control, irrevocably damaging the race, creating a multitude of bizarre afflictions unique among all the races of humanity. Although vastly intelligent, the Jovians are also physically atrophied, most of their bodies being small and vestigial. They are completely sterile, and reproduce abiogenetically through cloning and similar practices such as genetic infusion and artificial in vitro gestation. 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. The Jovians have since renounced genetic tampering, though have continued their genetic research in earnest, hoping to discover ways to cure themselves and continue with their experimentations.

When the Amarr encountered the Jovians, their first response was to attack and to attempt to subjugate them. The Battle of Vak'Aioth was a humiliating defeat for the Imperial navy, as a single Jovian mothership massacred their proud fleet, destroying even the formidable "Apocalypse"-class battleships with a single shot. Seizing their moment, many of the Minmatar slaves used the consternation this caused within the Empire as an opportunity to rebel, successfully earning their freedom and establishing their own sovereign domain and founding the Minmatar Republic.

The Minmatar are the underdog race in the EVE world, their territory is relatively small, and the majority of Minmatar are either still enslaved by the Amarr, or else make up a significant portion of the population of the Gallente Federation. The Amarrians hold the greatest territory (controlling 40% of occupied space), and view themselves as the most powerful of the factions. The Gallente are the only true democracy in New Eden as well as being mostly responsible for intergalactic media and entertainment, while the Caldari are the smallest of the main factions, but continue to ride high in interstellar politics thanks to their superior technology and strong economy.

Gameplay

Players can engage in tasks involving mining, fighting, completing missions, and transportation of cargo in the EVE universe.

Since its release, EVE Online has claimed awards for its graphics, gameplay, company, and PvP EVE is played entirely on one large server cluster named Tranquility, however a Chinese shard is expected to launch soon May 29th, 2006, EVE Online achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous avatars online with 26,534 concurrent accounts logged on to the same server ^*." target="_blank" > As of April 2006, Eve Online has over 117,000 subscribers [http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=317.

The servers have a scheduled daily downtime between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT.

Advancement

EVE Online is different from MMOGs such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest II because the player's character does not gain experience points by 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. The time required to train a skill is determined by the player's attributes and how many "skill points" a certain skill requires. This allows all players to advance their characters' skills at a roughly equal (but not fixed) rate, regardless of the amount of time spent playing. The skill training system is connected with 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. Another distinguishing feature of this advancement system is that there is no upper limit for a player character: New skills are added to the game faster than a player can exhaust the existing ones. Skills are divided into fifteen groups: Corporation Management, Drones, Electronics, Engineering, Gunnery, Industry, Leadership, Learning, Mechanic, Missiles, Navigation, Science, Social, Spaceship Command and Trade. New players will start with a small number of core skills (depending on choices made during the character selection process) and need to buy skillbooks in order to acquire new skills. Each skill has a different multiplier, or "rank", that determines how long each subsequent level takes to train and has different prerequesite skills.

Economy

There is a single currency unit in EVE Online, the Inter Stellar Kredit (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 most basic equipment, materials and trade goods, as well as expensive advanced technology ships and weapons. However, players can research the ability to build items ranging from basic ammunition to cutting-edge capital ship hulls, and manufacture them for personal use or for sale in a player-driven escrow marketplace. 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; therefore highly resembling real-life markets.

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. One instance is worth noting where an independent industrial corporation was attacked by a military alliance to prevent it from delivering a prototype capital ship to their enemies, a demonstration of the level of interaction between the in-game economy and politics.

Combat

While it is perfectly possible to remain in high security star systems and engage in non-combat activities like manufacturing and commerce, even a merchant or miner is likely to engage in combat, as the rewards in the highest security areas are not as lucrative as those in lower security areas. The less secure areas, however, bear a greater threat of being attacked by both other players and various hostile NPCs.

Combat in EVE is a mixture of both tactical intelligence and spontaneous decision-making. While every race has certain tendencies for different battle tactics (Caldari like to utilize missiles for long-range engagements while Gallente prefer heavy blasters and automated drones 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 occurance.

EVE's combat system allows ships of all sizes to be viable 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 like disrupting the engines of enemies (reducing mobility or chance to escape) and jamming enemy sensors.

The open PvP combat system and the fact that destroyed ships frequently "drop" some of their cargo and equipment provides incentive for player piracy. Pirates frequently work in small groups, summoning each other when they find unguarded targets. In turn, pirates risk being branded criminals by CONCORD (the equivalent of the United Nations or 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.

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 stations (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 "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 POSes 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

EVE features an open PvP system where every player can attack any other player without warning everywhere in the game 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. 0.1 to 0.4 have absolutely no protection by CONCORD (NPC law enforcement) but offer a somethat limited protection by sentry guns at stargates and stations. 0.5 to 0.8 have increasing amounts of sentry gun cover as well as NPC security patrols. 0.9 and 1.0 systems are considered extremely secure, with constant security patrols at every major point and heavy CONCORD presence. Any time 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. It is worth noting that while breaking the law in high-security systems usually means 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 turn the aggressor into space debris.

Death

The costs of recovery from defeat or death in EVE are carefully engineered to have meaning to the player whenever possible, resulting in much harsher consequences than what is considered usual in MMORPG genre. If the player's ship is destroyed, there is no way to reclaim it directly; the ship itself and any installed equipment will be permanently gone (although it is possible to salvage some pieces of hardware from the floating debris). The player is ejected in a lifepod in case of hull breach, but this pod can also be shot down by nearby enemies, in which case the player character will die and revive in a clone. According to the quality of the cloning, the character may lose a significant portion of his/her skill points, and in the worst of cases (when the player has not upgraded it's clone past the basic one) a full level of the highest skill the player has can be completely lost (in some cases this can mean more than a month worth of training), so players should always ensure they are covered with a clone of sufficient quality to prevent this loss. Furthermore, ships can also be insured but even the best insurance policy cannot hope to recover the full costs of more advanced ship designs and equipment. Finally, expensive cybernetic implants that boost attributes or skill levels do not transfer to the clone of a dead pilot. Currently, no one can recover implants from the corpses of those "pod-killed"; slain during the destruction of the escape pod. Dying is handled in a very hardcore fashion in EVE Online, and the game's design relies on these traits to maintain an active economy that thrives on the consistent demand for items that are not attainable through means other than manufacturing or very difficult to attain through other means.

Cost

EVE currently costs €14.95 / $14.95 a month (the European cost is higher as VAT is included). However, 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 a bit more than online payment, though the large subscription discount still applies.

CCP purchased distribution rights back from Simon & Schuster in 2003, and now distributes the game client via free digital download.

Free 14-day trials for EVE Online are available at: EVE Online Official Website

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) 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.

Major Content Patches

Gemini

Gemini was not actually a content patch, but is included here for the sake of completeness. When EVE Online was released, the base was codenamed Gemini, version 1.00.0000.

Castor

Castor was the first major addition focused on refining current functions along with adding Tech Level 2. With its release, EVE players saw conquerable stations in 0.0 security systems, the introduction of the agent system, the introduction of research agents, and many other features released between the launch of Castor and its follower, Exodus.

Exodus

Exodus was released on 24 November 2004 and added new content such as player owned starbases, multi-level "deadspace" scenarios, new environments, a new alliance system (which included formal alliance formation), new ships, better handling of conflicts, new market functionality, user interface improvements, and an updated in-game web browser. Starbases now counted towards "Sovereignty," the ability to own a system in-game. Prior to its official release, this expansion was codenamed "Shiva".

Cold War Edition

Cold War Edition added larger structures and ships, new environments, more user interface changes and new agent functionality. Newly added "COSMOS" constellations contain new in-space agents with story-driven missions and unique rewards. The content patch also contained an extensive new tutorial sequence and a storyline background introduction. The Cold War Edition was released in July 2005.

Red Moon Rising

Red Moon Rising contained much of the content slated to be in 'Kali'. Red Moon Rising was split off in order to maintain a more regular patch schedule. It included many code optimizations and updates to combat, research, and manufacturing. Red Moon Rising added new Tech 2 ships and rebalanced the existing Tech Level 1 ships. Added to the ship classes were Recon Cruisers (cruiser class ships designed to cloak and/or operate in support roles), Command Cruisers (battlecruiser class ships that grant bonuses to leadership), and Interdictors (destroyer class ships that can stop warp activation). Mining and manufacturing players have new items, implants, and ships to use. Carrier, Mothership, and Titan ship classes were added. Some of these ships utilize extra-large drones (or 'Fighters') as their primary weapons systems, and have many abilities focused at supporting fleets of lesser ships. Titans additionally have special abilities such as wormhole generators and super weapons. Finally, NPC ships have received a significant overhaul, with new abilities and new ships. Red Moon Rising or 'RMR' was released on December 14 2005.

Blood

Blood is the codename for the small content patch that added one new bloodline to each race. The Achura, citizens of the Caldari State and expert scientists; the Jin-Mei, members of the Gallente Federation renowned for their legendary leadership traits; the Khanid of the Amarr Empire, the primary fighter-warriors of their culture; and the Vherokior of the Minmatar Republic, the established manufacturers and engineers of the tribes.

This patch included additional code optimizations and bug fixes, and was released on 2 March 2006.

Kali

Kali is the codename for the fifth content patch. With it comes new Factional Warfare and Combat Organization such as introducing Medals, Ranks, Titles and Certifications which are to be awarded to players, corporations, alliances, and factions. Factional Warfare allows a pilot to declare allegiance to a side in the inter-factional conflict in the EVE universe. A contract system and combat boosters will be implemented, as well as the arrival of Tier-3 Battleships and Tier-2 Battlecruisers. The Red Moon Rising content patch was a split of the Kali patch and contained the first half of included many features originally slated for Kali. CCP has announced that the release of Kali will take the form of several content patches, with the first expansion being released sometime during September 2006, the second in December of that year, and the final expansion in April of 2007. Kali is also to include fully integrated and tiered voice support for the client designed by Vivox. Although full details have not been announced at this time, developers at CCP have stated that the new voice system will allow for simple and effective communication within corporations and gangs, even as far as allowing gang leaders to mute the whole channel to communicate within it or even listen to multiple channels.

Developer Blog about Kali - Must be a registered player to view.

Serenity and the Chinese EVE-Online

As discussed in the recent dev blog with LeKjart, Serenity is the nickname given to a recently-announced EVE-Online partnership with Optic Communications to bring EVE-Online to the Chinese mainstream. Serenity is taking its first baby steps, and has been in closed alpha testing on a small cluster for a month now, with about 3,000 players chosen from an initial pool of 50,000. The Chinese EVE web site is up and already some events have been, and are being, held. At the end of March, several CCP Devs went to China to participate in PR activities in preparation for Launch of EVE China by the end of summer, 2006.

Following the alpha, Serenity will go into closed beta running on the brand new hardware that Optic has invested in to run the game. If that goes smoothly, it will go into open beta just before the launch itself, scheduled for some time this summer. The code base between Serenity and Tranquility will be strictly in synch, so that any new development will be distributed to all players. The main new addition that had to be done was converting the whole of EVE-Online to Unicode, as well as putting in place a whole new back-end system to enable localization of each and every aspect of the game's content and UI.

The developer blog can be seen here (NOTE: You must be a registered player to view)

It has been confirmed that the open-beta test will start in June of 2006, and prices are believed to be around 3.5USD for a CD-key promo package (includes a CD-key card, DVD client, player guide, and postcard), with an 8.00USD monthly fee after that. The game has gone through an extremely severe examination by China's authorities in order to prevent Chinese players from coming in contact with anything that might violate Chinese policy and related laws. This is believed to have resulted in a shrinking of the game's content, as Chinese law requires that all "drug dealing, political, or religious content" must be removed or changed. It's expected that many of these elements have been saved however, by appearing in a different form.

Ships

Ships in the EVE universe are organised into a variety of different classes, varying from minute frigates to titans hundreds of times larger.

The enormous scale of some of the newer vessels in the EVE universe can been seen in this image: ^*.* Using the Caldari fleet as an example, the small 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. Comparisons to real world structures can be seen then the far bottom left hand corner.

Weapons

Weapons in EVE are divided into four categories - turrets, missiles, combat drones and smartbombs. Each category requires a different set of skills in order to use effectively, and have distinctive behaviours. 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. Other options include electronic warfare (EW) modules that keep an opponent from achieving target locks or interfere with weapon functions, as well as the countermeasures to prevent such tampering.

Graphics Engine and Windows Vista

On March 14th, 2006, the EVE-Online development team announced that they would be upgrading the graphics engine of EVE-Online to a DirectX 10 / Vista graphics platform. As a five-year-old engine, the 'Trinity' engine that EVE-Online currently runs on is nearing the end of its lifespan. However, there is no requirement that players upgrade to the new Vista compatible client, and an enhanced version of the existing DX9 compatible client will continue to function. The current version (Eve Classic) is likely to continue to be the preferred version for performance and stability unless Vista becomes the industry standard.

The official developer blog about this issue (NOTE: You must be a registered player to view)

Milestones

On March 13th 2006 at 20:48 a new PCU milestone was reached when 25,665 EVE Players were logged in at the same time. This record follows a highly successful hardware upgrade of CCP's server cluster in London.

On June 14th 2006, a new Chinese server, Serenity, quickly seized the PCU World Record as more than 33,000 concurrent users logged in on the second day of service.

External links

Official

Third party

BattleClinic: EVE support site, ship loadouts, fan forums, EVE resources
EvE Cast: Podcasted show about EVE
EVEnews: Major EVE-Online fan site
EVE Extra: Eve news site and tools
EVE-Files.com: unofficial hosting for EVE related files
EveGeek.com: Info and calculations for numerous things related to EVE
EVE-Offline.Net: EVE Fan site
EVE-Pirate.com: Stories and articles from pirates in eve, first and main piracy related community-site (blog influenced).
EVE Radio: A radio station by and for the players
EVE-Search.com: unofficial EVE forums search engine
EVE Underground Radio: A player radio station
EVEWiki: The eve online wiki
Eve-Zone.net: A resource for comparing the specs of different ships.
Warp Drive Active: Comic Strip
EVE Downtime: A program to alert you when EVE ONLINE is back up and other server information.

Non-English

EVE China official: The official website of EVE-online in Chinese, Optic.co are setting up a new world in China under licence by CCP Games.
EVE Online Nederland: Dutch languaged EVE Community.
EVE-Benelux: Dutch languaged EVE Community.
EVE-Centrala: Polish EVE Fan site
EVE-Online Hungary: Hungarian EVE Fan site
EVE-ONLINE France: French languaged EVE Community.
EVE-BR: Brazilian EVE Fan site
EVE-UNIEVERSO: Italian EVE Comunity called Unieverso.
EVE-ESP: Spanish EVE Community

Awards

Game Archive and Review sites

Articles &; Stories

All about EVE (PDF): A personal account of Jim Rossignol's experiences in EVE, written in the New Games Journalism style. Originally published in PC Gamer UK.
Trust Me: Article discussing trust in gameworld economies, contrasting EVE Online with Second Life and using the example of the 'Interstellar Starbase Syndicate' venture ^*.
Reviews List: A list of the most important EVE-Online reviews from release up to now.
The Great Scam: A compelling (fictional) story of a player's rise and fall in the world of Eve.