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EVE Online's Next Frontier
If you look at the graphs over at MMOGChart.com, most of the lines that aren't WoW seem to be heading downwards. The little engine that could, though, is personified by the Icelandic dynamo EVE Online. FiringSquad has an interview with CCP Senior Producer Nathan Richardsson. He discusses the popularity of EVE right now, and goes into some of the company's plans for making sure the game stays that way in the future. From the article: "This iterative process is based largely on our crazy future views of how EVE should be and a lot on player feedback. We then want to do some revolutionary stuff to the EVE universe and then evolution comes and bites us in the ass, reminding us that it's not cool to always throw new stuff in, the current game needs to be constantly maintained and evolved. In the end, we're never happy and I guess this is part of what is fuelling our continued passion for EVE."
The Trial accounts are sort of limited. You can't train in certain skills until you have a full account.
I used to play this game, until I realised how incredibly fucking boring the game is, then I started playing WoW.
-gjr
I'm an EVE-ONLINE player. Training up HAC skills as we speak, only 8 days from time of this post for Cruiser level 5.
EVE will never be very big in America. There is a portion of the population in America who play, I myself am American. But, while the entire world loves soccer, Americans typically don't care much for the sport. Probably, the reasons why Americans don't like soccer is the very same reasons why EVE will not gain much widespread appeal in America.
Not to belittle any sportsman, let's do consider the facts of raw game mechanics:
Basketball, Baseball, NASCAR and Football... the four big American sports.
NASCAR is an exception. It is a difficult (in that the drivers are all, highly skilled, no doubt), and very dangerous sport. This is odd, why so many Americans like this sport yet they might shun X-Games. (It's my belief that X-Games is a social backlash of a small group of peoples at the dumbness of the mainstream sports to include, all the safety associated with those sports.) In NASCAR, people do die, you can become seriously injured... and though the same is possible in all other sports, as it is in everyday life for that matter, the difference is... in NASCAR, it's even PROBABLE you will face mortal danger. It's not common, infact it's even mind blowing and bewildering, to hear of a basketball player dieing on the court; it's just not a common event.
So, danger and tangible loss does not appeal to Americans. (With the exception of NASCAR and a select few alternate forms of such sport like top-fuel dragracing.) This is inline with generalized social characteristics of an American. In that, being so common for an American to refuse to be held responsible and always trying to blame someone else, even for his own self-enduced misfortune. This is very important to consider, becuase the fear of being held responsible stems from the prospect of suffering consequences and in suffering, danger and loss is implied. (Going to prison, certainly jeopardizes 'serenity' and 'sanction' and the apparent loss of 'freedom' which whether 'freedom' is infact tangible, is an entirely other discussion.)
How does this relate to EVE? In EVE, you do suffer tangible loss. If you "die" in EVE, you lose your ship and all modules you worked hard for. The components are simply.... *gone*. Now, you might have a friend loot your own "can", but things are always destroyed during ship destruction so you will never get 100% of all your fittings back even in the best scenerio. You can even lose skillpoints if you do not update your clone... this is a very big deal, moreso than losing "property" as in real life during a hostile engagement (such as getting robbed). Losing skillpoints in EVE really hurts, becuase it's takes a long time to attain them and the skillpoints govern what functionality are capable of. (Such as flying certain ships, using certain modules.)
Basketball, baseball and football are all mechanically... very simple. Afterall, a jock has to understand what to do.
"Take this ball... no not that one, this one... and run there.... no no, wrong direction... ok, stop, turn around.... ok start RUNNING. Don't stop, just run straight into the wall... SCORE!!! you are a hero!"
Americans don't like 'options', which is bizarre becuase the general population are supposed to be 'consumers'. Options, require making a choice and making a choice requires some degree of analysis which is another way of saying "thinking". Americans don't want to think... and this is apparent on so many levels, from VCRs with only three buttons, to the noticeable amount of Americans with degrees from an American college is... get this... English or maybe psychology. All of this is for the sake of simplicity... hell, no matter what interest you take... mainstream music isn't even as musically "advanced" as even 30 years ago. Compare the melodic sophistication of GreenDay with that of Jimi Hendrix, or The Beatles. We can even take this one step forward and compare most A