EVE Evolved: Why EVE Online will be around for a long time.
by Brendan Drain 
Dec 14th 2008 at 5:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Culture, Expansions, MMO industry, Patches, Professions, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, EVE Evolved
Getting in on the ground floor:
Five years down the line from EVE day one, it's easy for new players or those that want to sign up to feel like they've missed the boat and can't achieve what the older players have. In the same way that my friend introduced me to EVE, it's my turn to try and convince people that they can still get in on the ground floor of something new and immense. With two major expansions coming soon, including the revolutionary "Walking in Stations" expansion, I firmly believe that right now could be the best time in five years to get in on the ground floor of the incredible on-going journey that is EVE Online.
In this article, I discuss the reasons why EVE will continue to endure for the foreseeable future and how getting involved now could be just as good as getting involved from day one.
Life cycle of an MMO:
The standard MMO life cycle shows a sharp increase in players at launch and an erratic rise for a time based on the game's popularity. This is the phase World of Warcraft is still in and it is eventually followed by player numbers slowly dropping over time as the game begins to lose appeal. Periodic expansions pull in some money and draw in new subscribers to top the player numbers up but a game's player numbers will still typically drop over time or hold relatively steady. EVE Online's life so far has shown a completely different growth strategy seen in very few other MMOs, among them Dofus, Tibia and Runescape.
EVE's subscriber numbers have steadily increased since launch, rising from a tiny subscriber base of 30,000 at the start of 2004 to over 250,000 players now in late 2008. This growth strategy is the result of the evolutionary development strategy used by the game's developers CCP. Updates to the game are released to all players for free, including two major expansions per year. As a result, the game world is constantly undergoing change and interesting new game mechanics mean players always have something new to do. This encourages the game to grow organically, accruing new subscribers over time and holding on to them.
Death of an MMO:
As players of Tabula Rasa recently discovered, an MMO failing that you've invested a lot of time and effort into is a massive disappointment. Players are now more aware than ever that they should be choosing a game based on its future potential. Although the death of any MMO is so far a very rare occurrence, people still avoid those that have a high chance of failing in the future.
In this respect, EVE Online is a rock. For five years running, CCP have proven that they are on the bleeding edge of game development and the company's success with EVE is not a fluke. Additionally, even though the company's head office is based in Iceland, CCP have managed to remain insulated from the economic crisis the country is facing as almost all of their income and costs are in US dollars and Euros. If any MMO is going to fail in the foreseeable future, it sure as heck isn't EVE Online!
Continue to part 2, where I discuss why joining EVE now could be just as good as joining it five years ago.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Graill said on 5:53PM 12-14-2008
Chickenpox are still around............thats not a good thing either.
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halfcaptain said on 7:53PM 12-14-2008
If you hated monopoly as much as you hate Eve, would you go around to kids' houses to flip their boards and tear up the deed cards? I'm almost starting to respect your dedication to hating Eve. These days, most people that love to hate are so non-committal. Good for you!
fester said on 6:43PM 12-14-2008
The "Walking in Stations" expansion is revolutionary? Are you kidding me? We've been waiting for that piece of vaporware for YEARS. And it's not even going to address the biggest problems with EVE, including such things like a terrible UI and epic lag. No, the only reason EVE is still around is that they occupy a niche market that no one else has bothered to compete with. The first company to step up and create a compelling sci-fi mmo will be the death knell for EVE Online.
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Brendan Drain said on 7:36PM 12-14-2008
Yes, walking in stations will be revolutionary. For a game that has been conducted entirely in space with little more than a portrait and a name to identify your character, how can a complete first person game element NOT be revolutionary?
And to counter your second point, EVE has in fact had its fair share of competition. Earth & Beyond was their first big rival, which was shut down. Star Wars Galaxies was the next big one, which EVE has been happily outcompeting since mid 2006. There are a number of smaller games in the space-based sci-fi niche like vendetta online. The advertised gameplay similarities between EVE and PoTBS also makes it a competitior. Let's also not forget that Star Trek Online is coming.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with EVE's subscriber growth when STO is released but I don't predict anything major happening. EVE is very firmly on top of its niche not through lack of competition but through quality of development.
halfcaptain said on 7:48PM 12-14-2008
Of course it's revolutionary, dude. Having a client that can handle the scale and effects of space in addition to smaller, fps-type environments is ambitious. I actually can't recall any game that's managed come close to pulling a project of this scale off. For that matter, I don't know of any mmos that have the sheer size of Eve. So yes, it is revolutionary. I'm glad you asked.
Terrible UI? compared to what? The same goddamn UI that every fantasy mmo uses? If I loaded up Eve that first day and saw a feebly disguised WoW UI, I'm not sure I'd still be playing. Eve's user interface is at times confusing, but it's fully customizable, and complexity of it's UI is pretty much inevitable considering the amount of information a player is supposed to parse. Eve's UI gives anyone with a brain the tools to better understand and manipulate the mmo to their advantage.
As for 'epic lag,' I'm going to get a little sheepish. Fleet battles can look like powerpoint presentations, but things look like they've improved. CCP has taken the lag complaints to heart, and every build in recent memory has made some significant changes to improve the situation. This means that CCP has, in the last year, addressed the lag issue with an array of changes both client-side and server-side, including upgrading the servers themselves, and making some surprisingly pragmatic decisions with regard to high traffic areas in the universe. I'm not going to lie, lag still exists, but you'd be an ignorant dick if you expect perfect framerates and lightning fast connectivity in a fleet battle with 250 ships.
As for the niche-market comment, I'm tempted to chalk that up to you being one of the aforementioned ignorant dicks, but I'll call it a difference in taste. I don't know why you've got such a hate-on for Eve, but if you don't think it's compelling, you either haven't played it (or haven't played it long enough to understand what you were doing), or it's just not your thing. When a few hundred thousand people have clearly demonstrated that they like Eve, and many more have demonstrated that they're willing to read and write about pretty often, I think calling it a 'niche-market' that isn't at all compelling is a moot point.
FarSpace said on 7:04PM 12-14-2008
Well, yes, The owners are the developers with EVE, so it's not going down easy if ever.
EVE is their child of sorts, biggest part of their life.
And the way CCP & EVE is made and able to be a huge family is just one other good things of many that makes EVE here to stay.
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Ingrod said on 3:27PM 12-20-2008
Not only a compelling sci-fi space MMO, also a compelling sandbox MMO, a compelling MMO with real territorial control by guilds, a MMO with a compelling and strong in-game economy, a compeling MMO with a skill based progression system without classes or levels, etc...
In next expansions they will do the necessary revamp of UI.
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Lateris said on 11:22PM 12-14-2008
I like the UI. It blows the typical MMO away. I am looking forward to walking in stations. But I do look forward to a ground ground game and atmospheric flight. In fact I can see Eve evolving pass anything we have played now that avatars are coming with the scope of the next 5 years, this applies on the sci fi level and the lore of Eve. An example would be planetary tera forming. The colonization of worlds.All based within a avatar based virtual world. All on one cluster. In fact I can why many Pre CU SWG players left and joned Eve Online.
Eve will need to adventure towards a ground game to compete in a market where there are not really any good sci fi options by fulfilling all the options that we all have been asking for since E&B was closed down, in order to stay competitive. I think they know this. ;) ;)
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Verit said on 4:52AM 12-15-2008
I'm actually thinking of canceling my account. To be honest I can't figure the game out...
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Chris said on 12:04PM 12-15-2008
Yeah, I just can't get into the cut-throat aspect of the game. I've tried a half-dozen times over the years and inevitably cancel after a couple of months. To me, the _gameplay_ is as exciting as a spreadsheet and logging on just to select a new skill to train is hardly justification for continuing to subscribe.
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Then Gabe said on 1:03PM 12-15-2008
Yeah, I'll have to agree with you there. I've checked EVE out a few times, but the dog-eat-dog world just isn't my thing. Still, I wish it well for those who enjoy it.
Zap said on 7:14AM 1-04-2009
I played Eve-Online since the beginning. It was the first game I ever beta tested and over the years I've watched it develop and expand. For a long time it was 'MY' game, my hobby, and an important part of my life.
I quit 3 months ago.
As vast and complicated as Eve is I realized it had been a long time since I'd actually had any fun. There is plenty to do in the game. PvP is the most intense experience I've ever had in a game since there is a real impact when you lose your ship, you feel the financial cost. You can play the markets, buying and selling. Build spacestations, structures. My favourite role was as a ship builder. But all this takes work. Lots and lots of work. You can spend hours watching your freighter haul materials from one system to another. That's literally all you do whether you're an industrialist, pirate, mission runner....Sit and watch your ship travel through space for hours and hours.
The Zero Punctuation review of Eve Online summed up the game best. "It's like a second job that you pay for." And while the review missed out alot of the good points of Eve, a second boring job is essentially what the game is.
Add to this the wide range of balance issues, a community that seems to be made up mostly of forum trolls and a development team that ultimately don't care what their customers think, I decided to move on.
Oh, and the walking in stations thing. Most current players have no interest in this as it's completely unconnected to the core of the game. It's just something the Devs are developing in an attempt to provide wider appeal for the game. It's really nothing more than a gimmick. It's a pity these resources weren't spent improving the actually gameplay that's already there.
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steve said on 1:29PM 1-21-2009
well earth and beyond had the frist walk in stations
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