EVE Online

EVE Online
Developer(s)	CCP Games
Publisher(s)	SSI (expired) CCP Games
Released	6 May 2003 6 May 2003 23 May 2003 12 June 2006
Genre	MMORPG Space simulation
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Ratings	ESRB: T (Teen)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

EVE Online is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online game set in a science fiction space setting. Players pilot a wide array of customizable ships through a universe comprising over five thousand solar systems.^[1] Most solar systems are connected to one or more other solar systems by means of jump gates. The solar systems can contain several entities including but not limited to: moons, planets, stations, asteroid belts and complexes. Players of EVE Online are able to participate in any number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, manufacturing, trade and combat (both player versus environment and player versus player). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon training skills in real time, even while not logged in to the game.^[2] It is developed and maintained by the Icelandic company CCP Games. First released in North America and Europe in May 2003, it was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive,^[3] after which CCP purchased the rights back and began to self-publish via a digital distribution scheme.^[4]

Background

The fictional background story^[5] of EVE Online explains that long ago, humankind, having used up most of Earth's resources, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. Eventually, humans expanded to most of the galaxy. Resources became contested and war broke out. One day, a natural wormhole was discovered, providing a link to another galaxy. Because the wormhole was known to be unstable, construction began on the EVE Gate, an artificial wormhole generator that would link the galaxies after the natural one closed. Dozens of colonies were seeded in the unexplored galaxy - dubbed 'New Eden' - at the other end of the wormhole. Unfortunately, when the natural wormhole eventually collapsed, it destroyed both itself and the EVE Gate. Cut off from Earth and its much-needed supplies, New Eden's colonists starved in the millions. Only five known colonies managed to return to prominence, eventually rebuilding society together. These colonies make up the five major empires in EVE: the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, the Caldari State and the Jove Empire. Players may choose from four of these races (Amarr, Gallente, Caldari, Minmatar) when creating a new character. The fifth race (Jove) is currently not playable, though CCP have said it intends to use the race within the EVE storyline.^[6]

Races

The Amarr, a group descendant from a splinter group of the United Catholic Church called the Conformists,^[7] were the first of the playable races to rediscover interstellar and faster-than-light travel.^[8] Armed with this new technology, the Amarr set about expanding their empire, enslaving several races in the process, focusing heavily on the primitive Minmatar^[9] race who had only just invented space flight for themselves.^[10] The Amarr Empire found its expansionist vigor through the Reclaiming, a crusade to bring their own ideals to the galaxy. This was swiftly ended after their confrontations with the Gallente and, most notably, the Jove. After the destruction of an Imperial Navy task force 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^[11][12] and the Caldari^[13][14] 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. The Jovians^[15] (currently a non-playable race) were, like the other races, a human colony. 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 relative shortness of their "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. Through their history there have been two previous Jove empires, located in different sectors of space than their current holdings. The Jove abandoned their last empire in the Curse region (now populated by the pirate faction, the "Angels") after their genetic experimentation resulted in the deadly "Jovian Disease," a condition that causes a depression so deep the afflicted lose all will to live. Little is known about the Jovians, except for the fact that they possess extremely advanced technology (the Jove being the source of the Caldari P.O.D. technology) and are very secretive, having severed all stargate connections to their space.

Amarr Empire insignia.

Minmatar Republic insignia.

Gallente Federation insignia.

Caldari State insignia.

Jove Directorate insignia.

Gameplay

EVE Online runs on a large supercomputing cluster known as "Tranquility," claimed to be the most powerful supercomputer in the gaming industry.^[16] Several smaller clusters are used for public and in-house testing including the public test servers "Singularity" and "Multiplicity." The servers require a daily downtime for maintenance and updates. Tranquility's downtime is scheduled between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT.^[17]

Universe

The playing environment in EVE Online consists of over five thousand star systems, almost all of which can be visited by the player.^[1] Each solar system is connected to other systems by one or more stargates, and in this way neighboring systems are organized into constellations and constellations are in turn organized into regions. In total there are 64 regions.^[1] The central regions make up most of the so-called high-security space with some low-security systems in between. Surrounding these are regions with no security, or 0.0 (zero-zero).^[18] (See section Security index system for more information). In some solar systems a player might be alone. In others more than 600 players might gather, e.g. for a fleet battle or to use a trading hub. Different systems contain different types of celestial objects, making them more or less suitable for different kinds of operations. In a typical solar system the player will find asteroid fields, stations, and moons, the latter two most often orbiting planets. Planets themselves are currently not explorable; however, players can use moons to anchor their parent corporation's structures for production and research or for moon mining. Asteroid fields can be mined for minerals. Other objects that can be found in systems are the aforementioned stargates, complexes or static dungeons for exploration. Occasonally a player may even stumble across a historic site, e.g. one where another player's Titan-class ship was destroyed and the wreck now floats in space. In addition, an area of the galaxy is occupied by the Jovian Empire, and is currently not accessible by players.

Advancement

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^[19] 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

Training within the game occurs in real time whether the user is logged in or not. The time it takes to train a skill varies depending upon an attribute known as its "rank." Low-rank skills trained to a low level may represent a few minutes of training whereas high levels of high-rank skills may represent several months of training. Since training time is directly related to a character's attributes, a player can lower the training time of skills by training "Learning" skills, as well as by using Implants to boost attributes. Due to the sheer number of skills available to characters, it is not realistic for a character to acquire perfect skills with all ships and weapons systems. As each skill level takes five times longer than the previous (a geometric progression) while the bonus it provides almost always scales linearly, a new player has the option to either acquire acceptable skills in many fields, or perfect skills in a relative few.^[20]

Economy

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, use the in-game market system for ISK-based transactions, place and accept contracts between players for assets and services or use a Loyalty Points store.^[21]The Loyalty Points systems allows one to use non-transferable Loyalty Points in combination with other assets to purchase standard items at a reduced rate or to acquire otherwise unattainable items. A large proportion of the in-game economy is player driven; Non-player character merchants supply some basic 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.^[22] 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 an 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 obtain more materials. The current Open economy is automatically balanced by introducing extra materials in underpopulated areas to encourage an even spread of players.^[23] EVE's End User Licence Agreement forbids the exchange of ISK for real currency; however there is a secure in-game system for trading "Game Time Codes" (GTC) in exchange for in game currency. In a similar way selling and buying characters for in game currency is allowed. On 27 June 2007 CCP announced that an economist had been employed^[24] to assist in the development of the economic side of the game. Dr. Guðmundsson has stated that he will be responsible for compiling quarterly economic reports for the community and providing ongoing analysis of the economic facets of EVE, along with coordinating research with other interested parties.^[25]

Combat

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, a character's combat capabilities are determined by skill levels, the ship being piloted and various hardware modules fitted into it.

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.^[26] While a large ship can equip smaller weapons designed for attacking smaller targets, this leaves them at a disadvantage versus other large ships. Drones can also be used against smaller ships, or in a support role such as providing extra shield for a gang mate or in a utility role such as electronic warfare. 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 tendency for ships to drop some of their cargo and equipment when destroyed, provides incentive for player piracy. Pirates risk being branded criminals by CONCORD 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.^[27] At the strategic level, the rich resources available in low security space reward large co-operative 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 choke points, 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 and remains so until an enemy destroys enough POSs and replaces them with its own.^[28]

Security index system

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. The lowest end of the scale is lawless space, and rules are set and enforced by player-run alliances. The highest end of the scale affords protection from sentry guns and CONCORD, the NPC 'police'.^[18]

Players committing illegal actions within "empire" systems (security status between 0.1 and 1.0) lose personal security standings with CONCORD. Loss of Security status varies depending on the crime. Showing aggression 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'.^[18] As players lose security status, their ability to enter certain levels of secured space becomes more and more limited.^[29] While breaking the law in high-security systems (that is, those with a security of 0.5 to 1.0) means certain death (surviving a CONCORD attack is considered an exploit) 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. In lawless space (0.0), CONCORD has no influence and the dynamics for player interactions change. Corporations band together into alliances in order to defend a region of space to which they claim. These alliances often fight wars for contested systems and send gangs to raid each other. Although lawless space is dangerous and difficult to defend the rewards are much higher. Asteroids contain far more valuable ore and NPC pirates in lawless space carry far higher bounties.

Warfare

While attacking another player in secure 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 (at the cost of a weekly fee), thus allowing for combat in all regions of space without the fear of standing loss or the intervention of security services.^[30] However, if the target of a corporate war elects to make the war mutual, there are no fees involved for either party.

Death

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;^[31] 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 may lose a large investment, with no possibility of indemnification. Modules, installed upgrades and cargo cannot be insured; these items may have a market value much higher than the ship itself. When a ship is destroyed, the player is ejected in a pod. This pod may be destroyed as well, if another player chooses to open fire on it. (This player death is known as "pod killing" or "podding.") In this case, the "podded" player character will die and be revived as a clone at a pre-determined cloning facility. Non-player characters will not attack a pod. Any implants installed on a player will be irrevocably lost when he or she is pod-killed. Implants cannot be insured.^[19] 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.^[19] In some cases, this represents more than a month's worth of training time. Therefore, players who value their skill points purchase upgraded clones sufficient to hold all their skill points. This is known as "keeping your clone up-to-date." Clones are single-use items; when a character dies and is resurrected via a clone, they are also awarded the basic, 900,000-point "Alpha" clone. Therefore, it is imperative that players purchase as soon as possible after death a replacement clone of a level appropriate to their character's skill points. Expanding the cloning system further, Jump Clones were added in Red Moon Rising, and enhanced in Revelations to allow advanced players to mitigate risking their cybernetic implants by using the Infomorph Psychology skill to jump into a cloned body in another station, without requiring their existing body to die to achieve this. The original body (complete with its cybernetic implants) remains stored in the original station and may be returned to via another clone jump (after a 24-hour waiting period).^[32] 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 targeting abilities.

Cost

EVE currently costs €14,95 / $14.95 / £8.00 a month (however the first monthly payment is a one time fee of €19,95 / $19.95 / £16.00) (the European cost includes VAT).^[33] 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',^[34][35] 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. However, anyone can register a new trial account on the EVE Online website, so the Buddy Program is not the only way to get one.

It is also possible to pay for a subscription though the purchase of ETCs (Eve time codes) via independent retailers for real money ^[36] or in-game using ISK (in-game currency) ^[37][38] . The latter method allows relatively advanced players to play the game without paying real money - one player may buy an ETC for real money and then has the possibility to sell it to another player, in-game, for ISK. The system is monitored by CCP through the Character and Timecode Bazaar forum. ETCs come in 30-50-90-100-180 day increments, and are treated just like normal subscriptions in every way.

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.^[23]

Development

Major content patches

Castor - December 18, 2003

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.^[39]

Exodus - November 17, 2004

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.^[40] Prior to its official release, this expansion was codenamed "Shiva."

Exodus: Cold War - June 29, 2005

Freighter class ships, such as the Caldari "Charon" 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. ^[41] This expansion also added Unicode chat support, allowing communication in Asian, Cyrillic, and Greek languages.

Exodus: Red Moon Rising - December 16, 2005

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.^[42] 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 2 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 - March 2, 2006

Bloodlines is the codename for the small content patch that enabled players to create the new character "bloodline" with an Asian appearance.^[43]

• 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.^[44]

Revelations I - November 29, 2006

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 2 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. ^{[45] [46] [47] [48]}

EVE Voice was integrated as part of Revelations content patch 1.4, it had initially been planned for release with Revelations II. EVE Voice is a Voice over IP tool integrated into the EVE Online client, the software is licensed by CCP from Vivox.^[49]

Revelations II - June 19, 2007

Revelations II is the second of three expansions, designed to show the increased tensions between the empires within the game universe.^[50] Several new features were introduced; including a mechanism for overloading modules^[51] and area of effect bombs.^[52] A number of existing features have been extended including Level 5 agents,^[53] changes to sovereignty^[54], starbases^[55] outposts,^[56] and balancing changes to the Amarr race.^[57] Revelations II also changed the way new players start the game, in addition to new optional tutorials the existing tutorial has been shortened and refined, and players now start in a private dungeon to allow new players to get used to the controls in a protective environment.^[21]

Trinity - December 5, 2007^[58]

Features include an updated graphics engine and 5 new ship classes totalling 20 new ships. The 5 classes are interdictor cruisers (Heavy Interdictors) and electronic warfare frigates (Electronic Attack Ships) as well as battleships (Black Ops, designed for covert operations and Marauders, designed for long-range deployment) and freighters (Jump Freighters).^[59] Although "Factional Warfare," a major addition to game mechanics, had been planned for Revelations it has since been announced that it will now be included in a future patch,^[60] along with Ambulation (walking in stations and Full Human Representation, announced on the EVE Online Fanfest 2007). Starting with the release of Trinity CCP offers two editions of the EVE Online client. One with regular graphics content, called Trinity 1.0 Classic, and one with updated graphics, called Trinity 1.0, also referred to as Premium.^[61] Players who run a Shader Model 3-capable graphics card can choose whether they want the Classic or Premium content. Without such a graphics card the client uses the Classic content.

Kali 4 - CCP aims to release this expansion half way throughout 2008.

Kali 4 is the code name of the next expansion after Trinity. CCP plans to include Factional Warfare and Ambulation (walking through stations and Full Human Representation) with this release.^[62]

Planned future developments

CCP have recently begun work on implementing a game feature that will allow players to exit pods and interact with other player avatars in the communal setting of the interior of a station.^[63] 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.^[64] 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 2005, 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.^[65]

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.^[66] 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.^[67] The code base between Serenity (China) and Tranquility (Iceland) is strictly in sync, so that software development is distributed to both server clusters, but 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. ^[68]

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.^[69] 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." ^[70] On September 10, 2007 CCP Games Announced that the new 'Trinity 2' graphics engine will be using DirectX 9.0.^[71] This was released on December 5, 2007. ^[72]

Mac and Linux Support

Official support for Linux and Mac platforms, using Transgaming Technologies Cedega and Cider for Linux and Mac compatibility respectively, was introduced with the Revelations 2.3 patch released on November 6 2007.^[73][74]

Technical milestones

On 9 December 2007, EVE Online achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous pilots online with 41,690 concurrent accounts logged on to the same server.^[75] As of 16 November 2007, EVE Online has 200,000 active subscriptions and 45,000 active trial accounts. ^[76] During two weekends in July 2006, a live streaming video production called EVE TV^[77][78] covered the events of the 2nd Caldari Alliance Tournament. The tournament pitted five-man teams from the top alliances against each other. EVE TV 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. EVE TV was produced and hosted primarily by DJs^[77] 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^[79] alliance emerging the winner on the final day.^[80] The first two weekends in December 2006 saw the 3rd Alliance tournament. This was once again broadcast via live streaming video by EVE TV^[78] The tournament saw 40 Alliances^[81] pitting five-man teams against each other. Once again, the Band of Brothers^[79] alliance emerged as the winner. Of particular note in this tournament, was the fielding of an Imperial Apocalypse by the Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate. The ship was destroyed in the semi-finals of the tournament. The fourth Alliance tournament in September 2007 brought several exciting upsets, with Star Fraction defeating Band of Brothers in the second round, using only tech 1 cruisers, and a relative unknown, Hun Reloaded, sweeping both the semifinals and finals to win.

Third-party applications and the EVE API Project

A large number of third-party applications have arisen to supplement a player's EVE Online experience. Some of these, such as automated applications designed to claim publicly-available contracts accidentally put up without an associated cost, will result in a ban if discovered, but many others are endorsed, tacitly or explicitly, by CCP. EVEMon—a .NET application that monitors and forecasts skill training times—is one example of an explicitly-authorized external application.^[82][83] In May, 2005, CCP announced the EVE API Project; third-party utilities such as EVEMon now interface with character data, market, and other data through an API.^[84]

Ingame items

Ships

Main article: Spaceships of EVE Online

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 the ship scale comparison chart to the right. 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 a destroyer. Moving counter-clockwise around the Caldari fleet, the next four vessels are Cruisers, a Battlecruiser, two Battleships, a Carrier, a Mothership, a Titan, a Freighter, three Industrial Ships and finally the Dreadnought. Another useful frame of reference for the scale of EVE online is to realise that the Minmatar "Rifter"-class frigate has approximately the same dimensions as a Boeing 747.^[85]

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 has distinctive behaviors and tactical uses. Each of the four playable races favors a different subcategory of these weapon types, e.g. Missile Launchers (Caldari, Minmatar and Amarr), Energy Turrets (Amarr), Hybrid Turrets (Gallente and Caldari), Projectile Turrets (Minmatar) and Drones (Gallente). Additionally, certain modules have an important effect on tactics used in combat including Warp Scramblers and Warp Disruptors (and their counterparts, Warp Core 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. Electronic warfare is an important part of EVE; electronic countermeasures modules keep an opponent from achieving a target lock or interfere with weapon systems, and can be countered using various electronic counter-countermeasures modules. 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.

Quafe

Quafe is both the name of a popular drink in EVE^[86] and the name of the corporation which produces it.^[87] On October 22, 2004, CCP made a marketing first when they launched the virtual drink for sale in the real world.^[88] 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. The real-world Quafe soft drink had a lemon-lime taste.

Elite to EVE

According to the developers EVE Online evolved from a classic computer game called Elite combined with the multi player chat and player versus player aspects of Ultima Online.^[89] Elite had four single player aspects of missions,^[90] mining, trade routes and combat with random hostile NPC's^[91] all which are aspects of the first incarnations of EVE Online.^[92] One of the original developers of Elite, David Braben, believes EVE Online is a reimplementation of the 1980's game, not its true successor.^[93]

Criticism

CCP's approach to managing the in-game economy has come under fire for allowing in-game "criminal" activity. Piracy (in the ship-to-ship sense) is part of the game, as is protection racketeering and theft. One example is the corporate heist perpetrated by the in-game assassin's guild Guiding Hand Social Club (GHSC). 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.^[94] Events of this nature are debated both inside the game world and in the media^[95]. Such dangers are an intricate part of EVE Online's virtual economy and thus are purposely not dealt with by the developers.^[96] Players are expected to make financial decisions based (among other factors) on the possibility of other players' financial malpractice, much like in real-life economics.

Developer misconduct

Since the release of EVE Online there have been allegations of developer as well as player-corporation misconduct, leading to debates and controversy within the EVE community. No such allegation had ever been proven true, until on February 9, 2007, a whistleblower revealed that an EVE Online developer nicknamed 't20' had provided his in-game alliance, Band of Brothers, with ten blueprints, giving them an advantage over competing corporations.^[97] Despite calls for termination the culprit was not fired, and is still an EVE Online developer, while the whistleblower was permanently banned from the EVE universe. Follow up allegations revealed rigging of supposedly open ended RP events, and out of game private communication between developers and the in-game alliance Band of Brothers which was used to accomplish the termination of an ingame volunteer. In response to public concerns, CCP eventually decided to set up an Internal Affairs division headed by Ari Eldon, better known in-game as Arkanon, whose responsibility is to monitor the activities of both privileged and player accounts operated by CCP staff in-game. The impartiality of this remains disputed. ^[98] Modeled on this division, CCP plans to nominate a Council of Stellar Management (CSM). According to a white paper published on November 11, 2007, the CSM will consist of nine player-elected representatives of the community.^[99][100] Members of the Council are to meet regularly with CCP staff in Iceland to relay the most pressing matters from the community and to take CCP's decisions back to the player base.

Awards

• PC Gamer Sweden: Best Online RPG 2003
• SuperPlay GULDPIXELN 2003: Online Game of the year
• 2003 Gamespy Best Graphics
• 2005 MMORPG.com Best Graphics, Best PvP, Favorite Company, and Reader's Choice Best Game
• 2006 MMORPG.com Favorite Graphics, Favorite PvE, Favorite PvP, Favorite Story, and Favorite Game
• And additional awards^[101]

See also

• CCP hf
• EON (magazine)
• EVE: The Second Genesis Collectible Card Game
• Stackless Python
• Spaceships of EVE Online

References

External links

• Official home page
• EVE Online at the Open Directory Project
• List of community sites